Five Questions at THT

Dave · March 13, 2007 at 7:26 am · Filed Under Mariners 

As part of The Hardball Times season preview series, they asked me to write and answer five questions about the team heading into 2007. Head on over and check it out.

Comments

23 Responses to “Five Questions at THT”

  1. zzyzx on March 13th, 2007 7:53 am

    I’m not so sure about your conclusion. If it’s anything like last year, it could easily be a boring summer for the M’s.

  2. Manzanillos Cup on March 13th, 2007 8:18 am

    Great job Dave. It’s good to hear that you’re still a loyal subject of the King.

  3. Rain Delay on March 13th, 2007 8:56 am

    Good Stuff Dave.

  4. Evan on March 13th, 2007 9:00 am

    I liked the conclusion. There are enough broken pieces here to warrant some measure of hope for at least a month further into the season than last year. Sure, Richie and Beltre could start slow, and Guillen and Vidro might still suck, but they could all come around come June, and then the team gets a lot better.

  5. terry on March 13th, 2007 9:22 am

    Win shares above bench? My jaw is still hurting… where can I send the doctor’s bill? 🙂

    Concerning the critique…great job…. I think there is hope in there.

  6. Dave on March 13th, 2007 9:25 am

    WSAB isn’t my favorite tool, but its a THT stat, and I was writing a THT article, so there you go. It’s good enough to get the point across, and it wasn’t an in depth analytical piece.

  7. Johnny Slick on March 13th, 2007 9:48 am

    I’m not sure that you heard, Dave, but King Felix lost quite a bit of weight!!!!

  8. Nintendo Marios on March 13th, 2007 9:51 am

    Great summation of a wild off season. Nice balance between understanding the FO’s goals and critiquing why the FO would try to accomplish those goals. “Crossroads” is the right mental image.

    5 – I reacted the same way. I literally doubled-checked for Dave’s byline after reading those two words. Good on you Dave for matching the stat to the audience.

  9. shirts on March 13th, 2007 9:55 am

    So Dave, after reading the answer to question, I’m not exactly sure what you think of the team’s off-season. Care to clear that up?

  10. shirts on March 13th, 2007 9:59 am

    I killed it. That was supposed to be:

    So Dave, after reading the answer to the first question, I’m not exactly sure what you think of the team’s off-season. Care to clear that up?

  11. PositivePaul on March 13th, 2007 10:29 am

    Yeah. It would be no surprise to see the M’s bring in Steve Trout. And, for that matter, Rich Amaral.

    Rich Amaral.

    (Okay, so you brought up “Steve Trout” — I had to retaliate for the stinging sensation with which his mention bespattered my eyes by bringing up Rich Amaral)

  12. Dave on March 13th, 2007 10:49 am

    So Dave, after reading the answer to the first question, I’m not exactly sure what you think of the team’s off-season. Care to clear that up?

    It sucked.

  13. ndevale on March 13th, 2007 11:12 am

    So do the people in the front office cross the street to avoid coming in contact with you? Or inquire about taking out contracts in N Carolina? I can’t say that I have seen, from my distant perspective, much of an effort by Bavasi to defend his ‘approach’, other than muttering something about the market.

  14. B_Con on March 13th, 2007 11:29 am

    85-90 wins? Sure, if EVERYTHING goes right that might happen, but you could say the same about every team other than the Kansas City Gilgamesh’s.

  15. Johan Garpenlov on March 13th, 2007 11:32 am

    If the injured guys hook themselves up to a juvenation machine, Felix lives up to his nickname and the team stays relatively healthy, this is probably an 85- to 90-win team that could contend in a division that has no obvious frontrunner.

    Yeah, seems like he covered the EVERYTHING part in the article.

  16. Dave on March 13th, 2007 11:35 am

    So do the people in the front office cross the street to avoid coming in contact with you?

    No. Despite some seasons of frustration, overall, the organization has been pretty nice to us, even when we call them incompetent.

    I can’t say that I have seen, from my distant perspective, much of an effort by Bavasi to defend his ‘approach’, other than muttering something about the market.

    From what I understand, he answered all the questions he was asked at FanFest and the get together down in Peoria with his usual honesty.

    Bavasi knows that we didn’t like the moves he made this winter. I’m not sure he likes all the moves he made this winter. But, he’s been willing to discuss his methods and his thinking with us both publically and privately.

    We’ve said it a lot around here, but I’ll say it again – as a person, Bill Bavasi gets a thumbs up from us. He’s a good guy who is honestly doing his best. Unfortunately, we just wish his best was better.

  17. PositivePaul on March 13th, 2007 12:01 pm

    Bavasi knows that we didn’t like the moves he made this winter. I’m not sure he likes all the moves he made this winter. But, he’s been willing to discuss his methods and his thinking with us both publically and privately.

    …to the point that he’s able and willing to articulate his methods and thinking. Certainly he’s very straight and personable with anyone who approaches him. He also seems to be very honest and open about things for the most part. That’s one of the reasons I really, really, really like him.

    The biggest problem that I see is that his methods and thinking aren’t very clear even in his own mind. As you mentioned in your THT article, the part of his ‘plan’ that seems to be very sound is that he’s gone out and gotten pitchers (in Ramirez, Batista, and Reitsma) who are groundballers, if they’re nothing else. Pairing that up with the IF defense the Mariners currently have is certainly a decent approach. But I’m not sure how much of that is his plan and how much of that came about by accident — especially since I see Bavasi as very much a reactive/improvisational dude that when everything hasn’t (as Palpatine put it) “proceeded exactly as I’ve foreseen” he panics and does thing completely irrationally. A good GM would devise a plan that takes into account things completely blowing into and beyond worse-case scenario. This, apparently, seems to be Bavasi’s weakness.

    But, yeah, as far as baseball FO types go, I can’t imagine there being a better one with armchair-GM type fans than Bavasi. He’s an incredibly decent human being, and a fantastic individual. With the M’s track record of hanging onto guys like that, it’s no surprise that they have the GM equivalent of Greg Dobbs — an outstanding fellow who pretty much can’t hang with the big boys.

  18. terry on March 13th, 2007 12:13 pm

    But, yeah, as far as baseball FO types go, I can’t imagine there being a better one with armchair-GM type fans than Bavasi. He’s an incredibly decent human being, and a fantastic individual. With the M’s track record of hanging onto guys like that, it’s no surprise that they have the GM equivalent of Greg Dobbs — an outstanding fellow who pretty much can’t hang with the big boys.

    Does Bavasi cuss? I ask because after reading Moneyball it seems to me that Billy Beane cusses ALOT.

  19. Evan on March 13th, 2007 1:05 pm

    If I recall, that was Billy’s only real complaint about Moneyball. It made him sound considerablly more profane than he is.

  20. terry on March 13th, 2007 1:40 pm

    BTW, I like THT approach to commentary….5 questions etc.. Jeff did an outstanding job with the Seattle write up in THT 2007 preview too-I loved the breakdown organized into categories….

  21. Johnny Slick on March 13th, 2007 7:52 pm

    If I recall, that was Billy’s only real complaint about Moneyball. It made him sound considerablly more profane than he is.

    This is how we got mother-f’ing Enron!!!!

  22. bigred on March 13th, 2007 9:53 pm

    Here’s my conclusion.

    We’re going to win the division. Win the ALDS. Win the ALCS. Win the World Series.

    It’s gonna happen. M2K7

    Big Red

  23. David* on March 13th, 2007 11:56 pm

    Good read

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