Spring training madness!
Setting aside for a second that Hargrove and the front office are doing things like putting old, never-hit infielders on the active roster for no reason, there’s going to be baseball on! Woooo! The M’s again flout the rule that they’re supposed to take at least two recognizable regular players and one guy on top of that they can point to and claim is a recognizable regular player, putting only Vidro in the early game.
Mariners at San Francisco! 7:15! FSN! In San Francisco!!! Fun note: the Giants are charging $90/seat for premium field club seats to this game. Really. And they’re available.
I was so excited I accidentally queued this up to run yesterday at this time, to briefly hilarious results.
For your game thread discussion: if the M’s spend $110 million and only (as seems to be the consensus prediction) win 73 games, what other teams since the start of free agency will have spent so much so poorly? And I’m not looking for cheap teams who sucked – I’m trying to think of massive spending done to so little effect. Right off the bat, a couple candidates: the 1999-2000 Cubs and Orioles teams.
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Dude. Get a job. You’re mixing up days now. Well, I suppose you could be posting really, really early in great anticipation of a superbly meaningless game…
All those Dodger teams under “The Sheriff.” Mo’ money spent on useless players then ever before.
Is it Washburninator’s time to go?
Since you’re a spelling stickler: flout, not flount.
Fixed.
From the Associated Press wire today ….
The Braves are trying to destroy Rafael Soriano:
And the Mets embrace Sele-ective perception:
DMZ, do the Rangers of the A-Rod and Chan Ho Park era meet your qualifications?
The Orioles usually pour big bucks down the rathole every season.
Speaking of the Rangers … is this legal? To put a pitcher on the disabled list who isn’t actually actively disabled?
The Orioles were the first team that came to my mind when the high payroll/low output question came to mind.
I was wondering about that, too. The Cubs were initially talking about doing that with Mark Prior, too. Can you put someone on the DL instead of sending him to the minors, despite having zero injuries?
Anyone have an explanation?
The 1995 Toronto Blue Jays had the highest payroll in baseball (49.8 Mil) and finished 56-88, tied for the worst record in the majors.
You can’t put a player on the DL for nothing. But it’s not hard to beat that threshold when you’ve got your own doctor on payroll, being paid to come up with reasons to put someone on the DL.
Years back, I believe the NBA and/or NFL cracked down on the use of injured reserve lists as a place to stash a player a team didn’t want to play — yet — but also didn’t want to lose. They forced the teams to better substantiate the injuries.
In the NBA in particular, the falsified injuries were becoming an open joke.
2003 Mets had the second highest payroll in baseball (117 Mil) and went 66-95. The A-Rod era Rangers are pretty awful, too. 2002 was probably their worst output, 105 million dollars, third highest in baseball, for a 72-win, last-place team.
Yeah, baseball’s a long way from getting there. I can only remember one incident where they went after a team – also Texas – for trying that, and at the time I believe Hicks and Selig were feuding.
Oh, the 2003 Mets! The Worst Team Money Could Buy! Of course!
#14
Those years of the NBA should be known as the “plantar fasciitis” era.
Yeah, that Mets team was awful; I think I supressed memory of baseball that bad for that much money; 17 mil for Mo Vaughn and 12 mil for Jeremy Burnitz were particularly egregious, as were 8 mil a piece for Robbie Alomar and Al Leiter.
Didn’t the Os at least have Albert Belle on the roster, both sucking up money and being ‘too hurt’ to play?
All our money is on the field, and we still suck.
Oh, the 2003 Mets! The Worst Team Money Could Buy! Of course!
So should the Tampa Bay Devil Rays be given plaudits for sucking more efficiently?
Huh? You know what I meant.
Maybe the Dodgers could qualify, too, during one of their Darren Dreifort years …
I’m going to shoot myself and then cut off my nads if I see that Double Play Twins commercial again.
Hargrove looks like a James Bond villain with that goatee.
He looks positively evil.
Looks like?
“Do you expect me to play?”
“No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to waste away on the bench!”
Is AT&T Park the third name already for the San Francisco stadium?
He’s not evil, he’s just a moron.
Not unlike many prominent Americans I can think of.
Willie Bloomquist = Nick-Nack
I’m really hoping the M’s pound the stuffing out of Zito and at least for a week or so make people stop wishing he’d signed here.
I didn’t even realize the game was on tonight. Thank the lord that my workplace’s “mini-me” repulsed me enough to suffer the rush hour commute.
32, can you add that nickname to his Wikipedia page?
Who was the player who was on the disabled list with a bad knee and when the reporters asked him which knee was injured he said, “I don’t know, they haven’t told me yet”
Ugh..thank god for MLB.TV.
FSN in here in Oregon, even though the guide said Mariners they went to a Blazers game. Hate the NBA, and more so the Blazers.
Is either Ellison or Linden in the Giants’ starting lineup? That would justify my turning on the newsroom TV.
“If something were to happen – and I hope not…”
can be rephrased as
“If something terrible were to happen, such as his knees being broken in a freak accident – not that I am saying such a thing would happen and I would be very saddened if it did happen…”
24 pitches from an opposing ace of the staff. Is this for real? No runs, but I like it.
Blowers is speaking aas if Ordonez and Burke haven’t made the club yet.
Also, Rey Ordonez *looks* like he can still play SS. Ya know, it would be positively stupid to bring him north if he couldn’t play there, but now that I know that he can, well it’s all sunshine and lollipops. Bravo, Mariner brain trust! I’m glad we side stepped that land-mine.
Ah man, I f***ed up the link again. There should be a tutorial or a comment preview or something that would help me save face.
Blowers needs to be smacked. Do the M’s have another catcher with them besides Joh? I mean, Rivera was shipped off to West Tenn for crying out loud. Maybe someone should fill him in.
Dave really seems interested in the size of Barry’s knob.
That’s Our Washburn! (TM)
Hargrove has stated that they’re taking ‘two catchers to Seattle’, but has been unwilling to say that Burke is the second one. I suppose some kind of trade or waiver pickup is a possibility. That’s what Blowers is referring to.
Ah. Washburn. I see he is sucking monkey nuts tonight. Everybody is teeing off on his away crap. Maybe he should try going inside a bit.
That Pedro Feliz has some kind of job security, I tell you what.
Ahhh.
And it looks as though Washburn is in mid-season form already….
I heart Ichiro.
The Chan Ho Park / A-Rod Rangers probably have the all-time futility per dollar record. From 2001 – 2003, they spent just over 300,000,000 and they only got 73, 72, and 71 wins.
they are being very careful in all media to not say that anyone has officially made the team if they are not on the 40-man, yet… there was a brief conversation with Burke & Neihaus pre-game where Jamie said he wasn’t counting his chickens as he has gotten so close before, but he was feeling a little more confident.
watching Ichiro! race across right field, Guillen was saying that he & Ichiro! had already discussed who got what, and that Ichiro! had told him that if he said ‘I got it’, that Jose should get out of the way, and Jose has assured him that he would.
“2002 was probably their worst output, 105 million dollars, third highest in baseball, for a 72-win, last-place team”
Ah, the days when $105M was *real* money…
btw, how are we keeping track of all the Joses?
FJ (First Jose), AJ (Angry Jose) and PJ (ProfessionalHitting Jose)?
If Barry Zito was smoking dope, could you refer to him as Baked Zito?
After an inning and a half I’m tempted to get all negative about Washburn relative to Zito, notwithstanding the substantial cost differential. Then I rememer: Zito gets to pitch against the Mariners. No telling how good Washburn might look if he had that shot.
You know, I hate to be politically incorrect and all that, but that is the gayest piece of frickin’ TV I have seen in a long, long time…
You couldn’t beat that if you had Barbra Streisand singing “It’s Raining Men” backed by Liberace and Elton John.
#57 No, Celine Dion covering AC/DC is by far the worst.
Radio only in Vancouver/Portland. We get the Blazers on FSN. Bummer.
What about “Dancing Queen”?
Does AC/DC now officially qualify as “smooth jazz”?
At least it has entertainment value.
I wonder if Dave Sims will autograph my copy of Cerebus.
Y’know, the M’s blow, but I can look forward to hot fishing action on FSN! Hoook! HOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!
This is Spring Training MADNESS!!!
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.
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THIS IS SAN FRANCISCOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I have to watch the Jail Blazers. Stupid FSN
Celine Dion covering Celine Dion is bad enough.
Or Jarrod Washburn singing: “You Hit My Fly Balls Long” ….
Ichiro = Odd Job
Or Jarrod Washburn singing: “You Hit My Fly Balls Long” ….
I hear Ryan Franklin does an awesome cover of that.
Separated at birth?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e2/Drax.jpg/200px-Drax.jpg
Tickets still available for Opening Day… wow. That’s gotta scare them.
I’m supposed to be going with a friend to opening day, but now I’m not even sure I want to go. Even work would be more appealing.
Bob Guccione is an umpire? Wow.
Thou shalt have no other gods before Ichiro.
I wish Washburn would do what he did to Bonds to more batters.
Ichiro in center and Felix pitching is enough for me to go to opeing day, if I was out there. I will just have to settle for Nationals/Orioles tomorrow and hopefully watch Doyle play.
#62 I guess Celine covering decent music sort of has a cancelling effect. Unlike Celine covering Michale Bolton, which has the potential to cause the universe to implode.
I just checked on Ticketmaster and there still are singles at least in section 137. Yeah it’s the back of the section, but this is right behind home plate.
Going to be a long season.
I propose a USS Mariner contest: Name the last five starting pitchers for the Mariners at season’s end.
Who would you pick?
Huh. I know I was able to get seats in 335, right by home plate only a day before. Weird.
78: Felix
Washburn
Ramirez
Morrow
Feierabend
Batista to the bullpen.
#78 Hernandez, Washburn, Ramirez, Batista and Bloomquist (master of the grit ball)
beltre played that perfectly
In this age of lowered expectations, I’m rooting for a month of false hope like we got last year. That’s something good, right?
The Nats have barely sold 30K for Opening Day.
Yeah, Washington is a baseball town for sure.
I say there’s no way Ramierz survives the season in the rotation.
a) he sucks;
and b) he’s injury-probe.
Ramirez
prone
Preaching to the choir here…I watched him suck it up as a Brave.
78:
Felix
Wasburn
Bautista
Weaver
Feierabend
HoRam to pen or surgery.
Morrow in pen all year.
Well, I just bought an opening day ticket. What the hell. I could get run over by a bus.. At least I won’t have to watch Washburn cough up runs like a hosiery model in a room full of cats..
At least Tom Boswell has to shut up in his eternal quest to steal a team.
They pixellated Moyer’s uni in the All-Star commercials?
Wow, they’re cheap.
#85 Probably shouldn’t use the probe if it causes injury.
#84 Nats won’t sell out home opener because:
1) DC is not a baseball town.
2) The stadium sucks.
3) Traffic in and out of stadium is awful.
4) They have the worst starting 5 in the ML this year.
5) Bullet proof vest night isn’t until April 27th.
BOOM BOOM!!
Well the team might be going nowhere, but I just got to hear Bloomquist praise. Maybe I should buy season tickets!
Insta-poll: Omar Vizquel, Hall of Famer? Yes or no?
People used to say the same thing about Seattle. Maybe it has something to do with having an aimless crappy team that plays in a craphole.
Omar? NFW
Good Lord no. I can’t recall one season where he was one of the top three shortstops in his league. You could argue that Jay Bell was a better player in his prime.
Any team with Jason frickin’ Simontacchi in their 3-spot deserves to be destroyed.
Really? Long-running good-defense rep, will probably wind up with 2,600 hits or so … not that I’d vote for him. But you’d think he’d get a fair amount of support from writers who are enamored of the aforementioned virtues.
Hall of Wrongly Deemed Inferior to Ramon Santiago.
Jamie Burke, gun for hire.
Umm… that was great and all, but… I’m not sure he didn’t get that arm in.
I don’t even think The Powers That Be are thick enough to conclude that Omar = Ozzie.
Simontacci started for Italy in the WBC last year.
yeah, thats a AAAA rotation for you.
Umm… that was great and all, but… I’m not sure he didn’t get that arm in.
TiVo says he didn’t.
Yeah, well, safe or out, he still probably is better defensively than Joh. That was a darn good throw nevertheless…
Oh, and I apologize for comment #1. I thought I had an excuse to get out of watching Sonjaya (or however the heck ya spell it) on Idol last night…
#98– Rizzsy prob. thinks he should be. and ig I hear a 40 year old called Little O one more time…..
G is for Gookie, that’s good enough for me…
Gookie, Gookie, Gookie, Gookie starts with ‘G’!
it makes me wonder if there are any other active players from team Italy in the majors or minors.
i forget where/if team piazza played for in the wbc.
Personally, I don’t think Omar deserves to be in the Hall, but I could see how sportswriters could vote for him. I mean, what’s the difference between Omar and Ozzie Smith? Backflips?
Brian Wilson on the mound, HEY A BEACH BOYS REFERENCE HA HA HA!!!!
Apparently, he has one pitch, or else that’s an awfully fast changeup.
Gookie has had one lucky spring.
marinerschas2 – The M’s have a good minor league player (Alex Liddi) that is from Italy.
Hooray for the Italians!
I went back & looked and it seems to be pretty standard for this time of the season for the Ms — even coming off the 116 win season there were still singles for the opener. Last year 2 days before, they had 1500 still available; wonder what the number is this year?
ah, look, Randy Winn and Justin Leone
and crap, Armando Benitez, too.
I suddenly was reminded of Jim Parque, and so took a look at his spring training blog
Asterisk that double. Benitez was pitching.
I had an epiphany earlier in the evening after hearing for the 12 billionth time how Willie B has always “done everything that has been asked of him, and more.”
They need to ask him to hit!!! It’s that simple! He has done everything they’ve asked him to do for all these years. But nobody ever asked him to hit!
I know. Brilliant.
you are a genius. I think I owe you two beers now.
You write to Hargrove and suggest he ask Willie to hit – and we’ll call it even on the beers.
I’m really glad I didn’t go to this game. Garlic fries aside the schedule said split squad so I didn’t want to waste my money in the proposition that I would see a starting lineup with the likes of sure to be cast offs such as Rey Ordonez, oh wait….
I had an epiphany earlier in the evening after hearing for the 12 billionth time how Willie B has always “done everything that has been asked of him, and more.”
They need to ask him to hit!!! It’s that simple! He has done everything they’ve asked him to do for all these years. But nobody ever asked him to hit!
I think you’re on to something. It was 2002 when Willie hit .455 as a September call-up. That was the last season with Lou as the manager. Of course Lou would ask the kid to hit, that’s all Lou ever really asks of anybody (well, he asks pitchers to throw strikes, but he’d probably forgive them if they could hit).
BoMel and Grover just forgot to ask.
By Marginal Dollars per Marginal Win over league average, the 1995-1999 Blue Jays have to rank up there.
Jay Bell? LOL
Has a 110 Million dollar team ever had 4 NRI players make the final cut for opening day?
I’m late to the discussion because I had to bowl last night, but how about the 1999 or 2005 LA Dodgers? In 1999 they were 77-85 and in 2005 they had, I think, the 3rd highest payroll in baseball and went 71-91.
How about the ‘89–93 Yankees? I don’t know what their budgets were, but they had to be Yankee-sized, and they finished 74-87, 67-95, 71-91, and 76-86.
I’m going to wait and see how the 2007 Cubs pan out, and out, and out, and out, before choosing one.