Mailbag: Hargrove says Foppert’s ‘in the mix’
Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get with MLB.com’s Mariners Mailbag.
Mixed in with an assortment of questions best described as “random,” this one contains a brief remark from Mike Hargrove about how Jesse Foppert will get a shot to crack the rotation.
While the Mariners starting rotation appears to be set with Jamie Moyer, Joel Pineiro, Jarrod Washburn, Gil Meche and Felix Hernandez, manager Mike Hargrove said recently that Foppert has a chance to impress the team in March.
“He’s coming to Spring Training,” Hargrove said. “We will see. I think that given the state of our starting rotation at the end of the year last year, going into Spring Training, everybody is in the mix.”
Sure, this is manager-speak, and it’s important not to put too much stock in it. If Foppert’s healthy and gets a chance, though, I’m really excited to see what the prize acquisition of the Randy Winn trade can do.
[An important sidenote: can we agree that Jesse Foppert’s nickname should be “Fopp?” It’s unique, it fits, and it even has a local connection due to Soundgarden’s cover of the Ohio Players nugget.
Of course, we all know he will end up being called “Foppie,” but let’s beat on, boats against the current, anyhow.]
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31 Responses to “Mailbag: Hargrove says Foppert’s ‘in the mix’”
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It’s more likely his nickname will be “Flopp”
I kind of like Rock Foppster.
Also, as a transplanted Giants fan who remembers when Foppert was supposed to be the best pitching prospect in baseball, I’m really excited to see him get a shot this spring, and am very hopeful that he can boot Meche out of the rotation.
Blitzkrieg Fopp. Too bad pitchers don’t have theme songs the way hitters do when they come to the plate.
Let me drop a link to Dave’s trade analysis from last year, which contains his breakdown of Foppert.
So, Foppert is the only one vying with Meche for that spot in the rotation? Who else could? Nagoette? Where’s Livingston’s stock gone to? I assume Jeff Harris is the AAA insurance in case of a starter injury.
Hargrove has also said Nageotte will get a shot to try for the starter’s job
Don’t forget Dave Burba, Kevin Appier, Chris Bosio, and Brian Holman
Personally I prefer “The Fopp”, but “Fopp” is better than “Foppie”.
well, with The King and The Fop, sounds like we have the beginnings of a royal court…. so, who’s the jester?
I don’t know about Fop. I’m more of a Dapper Dan man.
Re 9:
The jester – any fan masochistic enough to cheer for the Mariners. ZING!
Yeah, see, I meant realistic possibilities for the rotation that wouldn’t cause me to throw my computer out the nearest window. Having a laptop can be so hazardous.
discussed as in ‘is he any good’? or discussed as in ‘availability to the M’s’?
FWIW, Bavasi said they wouldn’t mind Weaver if he came in cheap, but that he would have to decide whether he was willing to take a paycut. At this point Anaheim has the advantages of being SoCal, employing his little bro, and being willing to pay him something:
“The Angels continue to work on persuading pitcher Jeff Weaver to accept a short-term contract offer, but the team’s patience isn’t unlimited. Manager Mike Scioscia made a recruitment call to Weaver recently, but Scioscia said it is important that Weaver be in camp when the rest of the pitchers start working out Thursday. That means Weaver likely will have to decide by Wednesday whether he wants to take the Angels’ offer of a one- or two-year contract, likely in the $9million-per-year range.”
Rock Foppster. Nice. Here comes a bikini whale!
I’d like to replace any two of Meche, Pineiro, and Washburn with Fopper and Livingston, if only because they have at least a hint of upside.
Hell yeah, An obscure Soundgarden reference!
It’s about damn time Meche earned his spot in the rotation. A move to the pen would be nice…
I love the Mariners mailbag; Jim Street once sent me an e-mail of apology once when I pointed out that the 95 season was only 145 games long.
Side note: What are the odds Randy Winn continues to go bananas?
I don’t know (though I’ve also received an apology from Jim Street). I wish our mailbag responses were more snarky. Like this one from the Mets’ site:
#9–I like your observation. With a first name of Jesse and a last name of Foppert, he could be either The Jester or The Fop, or both.
16 – if by ‘go bananas’ you mean repeat his line with the giants of .360/.390/680, i’d say the odds are somewhere between no-chance-in-hell and zero.
It should be pointed out that Doug Miller wrote this weeks mailbag.
My nickname vote goes for pert plus.
Jesse “the body” Foppert
F – Fu##ed up
O – Old
P – Pitcher
Floppy
JFop
Fopster
Fopmeister
Messy Jesse
El Fop
Fop on Pop
The Fopper
Cap’n
13
If I remember right, Seattle was one of the places Weaver didn’t want to go to.
For what’s it worth, here’s what PECOTA has to say:
Jesse Foppert: 6.07 ERA, 8% breakout
Felix King: 3.27 ERA, 15% breakout
Jeff Harris: 4.94 ERA, 5% breakout
Bobby Livingston: 4.87 ERA, 13% breakout
Gil Meche: 4.88 ERA, 21% breakout
Jamie Moyer: 5.08 ERA, 13% breakout
Clint Nageotte: 5.00 ERA, 25% breakout
Joel Pineiro: 4.44 ERA, 15% breakout
Rafael Soriano: 3.51 ERA, 15% breakout
Jarrod Washburn: 4.34 ERA, 4% breakout
Felix and Washburn are projected as almost all starting, Nageotte and Soriano almost all relieving, and everyone else in the middle. PECOTA probably didn’t take into account better medicine in regards to Foppert and Nageotte (and Soriano).
Just because I’m curious, here’s how baseball’s #1 staff compares in a little less favorable ballpark:
Joe Blanton: 4.32 ERA, 8% breakout
Juan Cruz: 4.07 ERA, 19% breakout
Justin Duchscherer: 3.87 ERA, 18% breakout
Rich Harden: 3.53 ERA, 18% breakout
Danny Haren: 3.93 ERA, 27% breakout
Joe Kennedy: 4.50 ERA, 30% breakout
Esteban Loaiza: 4.27 ERA, 13% breakout
Dan Meyer: 5.24 ERA, 9% breakout
Kirk Saarloos: 4.70 ERA, 13% breakout
Barry Zito: 4.07 ERA, 11% breakout
I just noticed the login is case sensitive.
Anyway, isn’t a “Fop” considered to be a less then manly man, generally the early term for calling someone gay without actually wanting to acknowledge that they were gay?
#27 – not exactly, just a vain person or a “dandy”. It takes a bit of extrapolation to get to “gay”.
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/fop
On second thought, as long as no one busts out “J-Fopp,” I can put up with pretty much any other nickname. Although “Foppie” conjures up a kind of muppet-like creature, so I’m drawing the line there.
It would be awesome if by ‘in the mix’ Hargrove meant that Foppert was working on a whole album of new stadium anthems with popular turntable masters like Q-bert and Kid Koala and other dudes.
Barring injury, I see Foppert starting in Tacoma. Hopefully, that is the way that it plays out.
Despite the pretty serious lack of blue-chip startings in the M’s farm system, they will have some interesting guys in the upper levels of the system. In the TNT today, there is a little blurb about how well Travis Blackley’s rehab has been going, and that he threw 50 pitches in a bullpen session the other day. Who knows how accurate that report is, but it is promising.
While they may lack elite prospects, the M’s make up for it in depth. They have a lot of guys who could emerge as options midway through the season.
As it stands now, Foppert, Bobby Livingston, Yorman Bazardo, Clint Nageotte, Ryan Feierabend, and Marcos Carvajal should be spread out between AAA and AA. If Blackley is as healthy as that report suggests, he could end up in Tacoma. Jeff Harris and Kevin Appier could figure in there somewhere as well. The M’s are also rumored to be considering moving Cesar Jimenez and Emiliano Fruto to the starting rotation.
That is a lot of arms. I hope that the M’s do keep all of these guys as starters. The team is very likely to be promoting a few pitchers by mid-season. If they don’t contend (which is likely), we could see Meche released or traded. Pineiro is also a good bet to be traded. Moyer isn’t likely to be back with the club in 2007, so they will also be looking for someone to take his place in the rotation.
It will be interesting to see what they do with all these guys. If the club does go ahead and shift Fruto, Carvajal, and Nageotte to starting, the upper levels of the organization could look something like this:
Tacoma: Foppert, Nageotte, Livingston, Bazardo, Blackley with Harris as the 6th starter/long reliever
San Antonio: Carvajal, Fruto, Jimenez, Feierabend, and Tom Oldham. That would leave little room for Jason Mackintosh, Chad Fillinger, and Brandon Moorehead.
Surely, a few of these guys are going to go down with injury, and a few will stick in the bullpen. However, by actually listing all these guys, the M’s do have a good group of arms in the upper levels of their system. In particular, Foppert, Nageotte, Livingston, and Bazardo could all be ready for a promotion early. Having Blackley get back on track would be great for the organization, as he had the best stuff out of our glut of crafty lefty types. Plus, guys like Carvajal and Fruto are interesting pitchers with good arms. Both are guys that are worth keeping an eye on.
That is a lot of depth. The bad thing about pitching prospects is that they are unpredictable and far more prone to major injuries. The good thing about pitchers is that they are unpredictable, and mediocre prospects can come from nowhere and emerge as good major league performers. The nice thing about the M’s current situation is that they have a big group of guys. I would be suprised if three or four of these guys do really well this upcoming season, and that one or two of them make an impact on the big league club. Attrition is always a problem, but it seems to me like the M’s have a better pool of talent now than they did in the past.
There might not be as many top-rated prospects, but there are more sleepers. As most M’s fans know, a lot of times sleepers (like Bobby Madritsch) can end up being better players than the top prospects (like Nageotte and Blackley).
Q-bert? That little guy who jumps around on cubes?
Am I the only one who LOVES that we have a guy in the minors named Feierabend? Now all we need is Popper and Kuhn.