Doyle Doyle Doyle, Lowe faces surgery, Rivera faces fitness
Lowe needs more surgery Baker. Geoff also finds out what Edgar’s going to talk about. In the “Edgar arrives” post, he points to Larry Stone’s story on Snelling (“Now a National, Snelling still seeking the right fit“) which is awesome:
VIERA, Fla. — As he prepared for the great unknown that awaited him in his post-Mariners life with the Washington Nationals, Chris Snelling fleetingly pondered a way to make an indelible first impression.
“I actually thought about coming here and acting like Steve Irwin, putting on the Australian accent real thick,” he said, smiling in the Nationals clubhouse among 60 or so teammates who still remain largely strangers.
“You know, act like I didn’t know what I was doing. Hitting a ground ball in batting practice and running to third.”
It’s a detailed piece by Stone, where he goes through what’s happened so far, including how he found out he’d been traded (which doesn’t reflect well on the M’s), and his feelings about his former organization. Stone also touches on the problem with trying to win playing time with the Nationals – they’ve said their starting OF looks pretty set (LF Ryan Church, CF Nook Logan, RF Austin Kearns) and Alex Escobar will take the 4th OF role if he’s healthy.
There’s also a shout to some website, which is awesome.
“Doyle”, as all Snelling aficionados are well aware, is his code name on the Web site USSMariner.com, designated after his middle name and designed to ward off his bad injury karma.
Snelling is aware, and appreciates, that he had a following of Mariners fans convinced the organization didn’t fully recognize his abilities.
“People are constantly telling me this,” he said. “I think it’s funny. I’m grateful that people obviously care. That’s always good.”
Baker also writes about Rivera’s conditioning problems last year. Includes awesome Bloomquist leadership quotes.
“When you’re not in there on a consistent basis, pitches that you’re used to hitting all of a sudden you’re missing,” Bloomquist said. “Why? I don’t want to say it’s because a guy’s not working. But you do have to work that much harder to stay sharp on those sort of things.”
How would Willie know that? His batting average when he started consistently at any position was no better than his off-the-bench super-utility hitting.
In the PI, the most frightening Hargrove story from spring training so far: “M’s search for No. 3 hitter; Vidro most likely candidate”
“Right now, Jose Vidro would probably be the front-runner to bat third,” Pentland said. “He has a lot of the attributes you like there. He’s going to hit for average. He’s going to walk some and have a decent on-base percentage, and he’s not going to strike out much.
“He makes a lot of contact, really drives the ball a lot.”
Vidro seems to be different from other Seattle regulars in that he has learned to coax walks out of pitchers.
Although he hasn’t hit .300 in any of the past three years, he’s had three of his four best years in on-base percentage the past three seasons.
Vidro’s career BB/PA is .084. A good eye would be 10%. Or more. He cleared that bar in 1998, 2003, and 2004.
His last three years, adjusted (I’m using BP’s set here)
2004: .288/.363/.450
2005: .279/.346/.438
2006: .297/.357/.403
Vidro’s best projection set was Bill James’ .296/.363/.440.
AL average #3 hitter last year: .281/.356/.467. If Vidro is healthy, doesn’t age at all, and puts up the best line of his last few years, the M’s would have an average #3 hitter. Who wouldn’t pay $12m and two quality prospects for that?
Also, from the notebook, you get “M’s work to fix basepath blunders“. I… I don’t even really want to quote from this article. It’s painful. But Vidro, who has no legs, is going to make them a lot better.
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He didn’t even get a chance to whip out “stats-drunk computer nerd”. Ayalafan, we hardly knew ye.
I’ll bet he’s talking trash about us on sports talk radio right this minute.
I would normally bet he’s writing us an angry email and vowing never to buy my book, except that I don’t think he’s going to be able to figure out our email without seeing the site.
I’ll miss him like I miss Jeff Cirillo.
You’re my kind of admin, DMZ.