Game 129, Red Sox at Mariners
David Wells vs Gil Meche, 7:05.
David Wells famously claims to pitch while drunk. Gil Meche just pitches like he’s drunk, but we’re pretty sure he’s not.
David Wells is a strike throwing machine. Gil Meche wouldn’t even know how to turn on said machine.
David Wells has had a pretty nice career, winning a lot of games despite average stuff. Gil Meche has spent the last few years stealing the Mariners money by chronically underachieving.
Advantage: Wells
However, we have Doyle, and they don’t, so I predict the M’s win 34-6. Doyle, by the way: .400/.500/.650 in 24 plate appearances as a Mariner. He’s drawn 4 walks and has 4 extra base hits in what amounts to a weeks worth of playing time. 4 walks and 4 extra base hits was a good month for Carl Everett. Huzzah for Doyle!
Comments
317 Responses to “Game 129, Red Sox at Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Either way, I think there is a good chance at least one of them gets fired.
Who does get fired is tough to say just because it changes every other day.
Obviously any Mariner fan with common sense knows they BOTH need to go, but who actually does get canned, well, like I said, that perception seems to change every other day.
#300-Hargrove defenitely is a problem and needs to go not just because of his stupid in-game strategies, but quite frankly he just doesn’t give enough importance to the games in our own division. That’s great that the Mariners can beat the Yankees and Red Sox, but how in the world can you possibly say that games in your own division are “just another game” when it is the best way possible to gain ground?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Now Bavasi is a unique case, Bavasi is very good at building organizations from the inside as people forget about how quite a few of the 2002 “Rally Monkey induced” World Champion Angels came in during Bavasi’s term as GM. Having said that though, Bavasi is TERRIBLE in free agency.
The list of his mistakes almost is as long as “War And Peace” or Santa Claus’ “naughty and nice” list.
-“Mr. 1-year Wonder” Beltre (who actually is a decent ballplayer) signing for $13.5 million a year
-Dave Kingman, er, Richie Sexson, signing for $13 million a year and hitting .230 to show for it
-Signing Kevin Milwood, I MEAN, Jarrod Washburn for $9.5 million a year
-In 2004 signing not Pudge or Miggy, but, DUH DAH DUH DAH, Rich Aurilia and Scott Speizio
-And of course, the creme-de-la-creme, trading not for Aubrey Huff or Ken Griffey, Jr., Juan Pierre, and Carlos Delgado. Not signing Jacque Jones, but. . .Carl Everett
And of course what do the Mariners need in the offseason?
STARTING PITCHING
And how will you get the best starting pitching possible?
FREE AGENCY
So, lets see, we need starting pitching from free agency, and Bavasi is bad with free agents.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
Could that mean, I don’t know, Bavasi should not be GM?
I’d be fine if Bavasi was part of scouting, player development, etc. but not in a role where he gets control of how much money to pay free agents.
Bavasi had a chance to fix the offensive problems permanently back in the winter of 2004-2005 and even though there are enough players right now to fill out a decent offense, it’s obvious Bavasi could’ve done much better and the offense could’ve been fixed a lot sooner. And as a result, it’s almost like Beltre and Sexson are stealing money from the Mariners.
Now we’ve come to the road of permanently fixing the M’s starting pitching roles.
Bavasi hindered the development of this team once, I don’t want him to be around to do it again.
A few more series wins over playoff contenders and Mike Hargrove just might be back as Mariners’ manager next year.
Even when the Mariners win, they still lose.
Yes and no.
I just pulled this out:
This is what the 2004 Mariners under Bob Melvin did in September:
2-2 vs. Boston
4-2 vs. Anaheim
3-4 vs. Oakland
3-3 vs. Texas
So basically .500 baseball against some of the toughest teams in the league, and the M’s still fired Bob Melvin.
Now if the M’s creep back to within 5 or less games of .500 in September (in games agains the AL West, no less), then I might get a little worried that Hargrove would come back in 2007 because the front office could use the excuse that the M’s are a “young team that will mature into a team that wins the AL West and can play well against the West.”
But as of now, he’s gone at the end of the year.
Okay, we can clean the clocks of the Red Sox and Yankeees, but we can’t beat anyone in our division. Maybe the AL West is not the weak division everybody thought.
#296. Beating the Yanks and Sox at home is nice and all, when you’ve just tanked the season on the road trip like that… it should not change the perception of your performance.
Indeed. In honor of the Red Sox presence this series, let me invoke the name of Grady Little, who Mike-Hargroved his way through the 2003 season.
But the straw that broke the camel’s back was that infamous ALCS game against the Yanks where he let Pedro pitch beyond the 7th inning with the score 5-2 Sox and with a rested bullpen. The Yanks tied the game. Then Aaron F’ing Boone hit the HR that put the Yanks in the World Series and sent the Red Sox home.
The Red Sox canned Grady Little too late, after the 2003 season.
Memo to Bavasi: Hargrove has already Grady-Littled August.
Losing to a team with a lower slugging percentage is like losing an arm wrestling match with your grandma.
Obviously any Mariner fan with common sense knows they BOTH need to go
Obviously, this is NOT the case. It’s your opinion only.
Moreover, it assumes that free agent signings are so important that all other areas pale into comparison. I question this, given that this is an area where a GM has the least amount of control, though it is the most visible (And this is granting that your judgement of his signings is correct, which I would not).
Obviously any Mariner fan with common sense knows they BOTH need to go
so, Dave and Derek have no common sense? They’d love to hear that.
If you surveyed the readers of this board, I think you’d find around 50% want to keep Bavasi, +/- 10%. OTOH, around 10% want to keep Hargove, +/- 10%.
I’m not even going to try and address all these points because they’ve been done 12,384,781,885,093 times before on this blog THIS YEAR. But:
-â€Mr. 1-year Wonder†Beltre (who actually is a decent ballplayer) signing for $13.5 million a year
Beltre 2006: .268/.331/.450 (.781) ($12.9M)
Chavez 2006: .243/.353/.415 (.768) ($9.5M)
A-Rod 2006: .280/.381/.495 (.876) ($25.7M)
Blalock 2006: .286/.344/.436 (.780) ($3.05M)
I would argue that Beltre, right now, is the second best 3B in the league. Chavez has been in an extended slump all year, though no one has been talking about it because he didn’t spend the first month of the year with a .518 OPS. Blalock looks to be Belte’s analogue this year, but that’s what he’s been hitting all year, and his numbers against LHP are so atrocious Texas has been platooning him — and trying to get him dealt. A-Rod is A-Rod, though, even in a down year.
You factor in Beltre’s glove and his recovery from the spring slump, and he’s the second best 3B in the league — entering the prime of his career. $13M doesn’t seem that over-the-top.
-Dave Kingman, er, Richie Sexson, signing for $13 million a year and hitting .230 to show for it
I don’t think anyone is denying that he’s a bust, but a year ago it was all about how everyone was wrong about Sexson with the 40 HRs and look at how wrong the statheads were.
-In 2004 signing not Pudge
Pudge 2006 OPS: .763
Johjima 2006 OPS: .783
Sexson 2006 OPS: .765
Assuming Pudge is splitting time between C and 1B (as he is in Detroit), tell me how he’d be better right now than Joh + Sex. Because he’s not. He’s an old catcher.
or Miggy
Uh, don’t you remember Ordonez having a major, major injury in 2003 and the real questions about whether he was even going to play again? Or Detroit’s trap-door clause that allowed them to walk away from the deal at any time? Would you spend $16.2M on him? That’s what they’re paying him this year.
, but, DUH DAH DUH DAH, Rich Aurilia and Scott Speizio
Look, Aurilia was a good player in San Fran. He did have a fluke season, but he was still a pretty nice shortstop. No one expected him to tank. Speizio is less excusable, but again, no one expected his career to go in the toilet so quickly.
I’d be fine if Bavasi was part of scouting, player development, etc. but not in a role where he gets control of how much money to pay free agents.
Well, guess what — if you want him running this club with Fontaine, it’s GM or nothing. Every GM has weaknesses. In Bavasi’s case, it’s his inability to determine the correct cost for a player. It’s actually very difficult to do that, honestly. Every team in this league has overpaid free agents, because that’s the problem with MLB free agency — it keeps players underpaid when they’re young and doesn’t grant them real free agency until they’re usually past their year 27 peaks, so players (and their agents) want to make up for the lost income. But if you accept that Bavasi is terrible with free agents and that IT’S NOT YOUR MONEY he is throwing away, you can look at the fact that with Fontaine he can build a good farm system. And yet again I have to remind everyone that WE HAD NOTHING IN THE SYSTEM IN THE WINTER OF 2003. NOTHING.
Stoneman is getting it done in Orange County because he’s maintaining the Bavasi-Fontaine system and working with a rich owner to secure free agent talent. It’s not that he doesn’t overpay, it’s just the fact he can get Vlad masks things like the Jeff Weaver signing.
I’ll say it again: If you think Bavasi is terrible, Cam Bonifay is tanned, rested, and ready to prove you very, very, very wrong. Bonifay destroyed Pittsburgh to the point that they may not sniff the playoffs again this decade — and he’s been out of the GM office for five years.
I don’t think anyone is denying that he’s a bust, but a year ago it was all about how everyone was wrong about Sexson with the 40 HRs and look at how wrong the statheads were.
Actually, I don’t think we can tell he’s a bust. He certainly wasn’t last year. This year may be a down year–players do that, you know—but if he rebounds next year, then this signing is not a bust.
There’s a case to be made for firing Bavasi, but not with these arguments.
Re #308 — Miggy, not Mags — he meant Tejada. (Who also has his problems — personally, I’d rather have Betancourt.)
Re #308 — Miggy, not Mags — he meant Tejada.
Aaah. I thought he was on a Detroit kick.
Still, didn’t the M’s offer 4/40 or 4/44 to Tejada? Angelos just outbid them. I’d rather have Beltre than Tejada.
#311– If you go back & read the Baltimore papers, their Tejada timeline has the Os open up the bidding just before the winter meetings, with 3y/27M. At the meetings the Os, Mariners & Tigers all propose 5 year deals (the Mariners at either 45M or 54M, depending on who you read). The Tigers then bump their offer up to 6/66M or 69M and the O’s come back with 6/72M.
#298
I’m sorry, but the Red Sox are destined to have every call go against them until their fans stop being the most unbearable assholes in baseball. Any karma built up over 86 years of suffering was instantly thrown away in November 2004 when every meathead in the country with a barbwire tattoo around their bicep went out and bought a Red Sox hat and started talking in a Boston accent. Wicked retahded, indeed.
#313: Thanks for that nugget from one of the Best Fans in Baseball(tm).
302: I don’t think you have to be nervous about Hargrove’s future. I don’t think there is any way the front office can decide to keep him, unless a miracle occurs and the M’s make the playoffs (I don’t think anyone is still holding out hope for a postseason berth). His in-game management of the roster is pathetic.
Is it possible to have a Red Sox thread without someone — I suppose it might be the same aomeone — complaining about the Red Sox fans being supposedly the biggest assholes in baseball? I mean, I haven’t forgotten since the last dozen times you said it.
I don’t think you have to be nervous about Hargrove’s future. I don’t think there is any way the front office can decide to keep him, unless a miracle occurs and the M’s make the playoffs (I don’t think anyone is still holding out hope for a postseason berth). His in-game management of the roster is pathetic.
Hm. I think Bavasi realizes and most of the knowledgeable fans. However, I’m not convinced some of the other folks in the front office realize this; they are pretty wedded to baseball conventional wisdom, and I don’t know if they know enough to realize when to chuck “conventional” wisdom.