If you can’t listen live at 950 KJR, you can catch the live stream at 950kjr.com or the podcast on Groz’s webpage at:

http://www.950kjr.com/pages/thegrozpage.html

FT

I’ve always been an anti-fan of Sleeper’s columns; I’m a professional writer and I *know* I can write better than he can. Oftentimes, it’s his content but mostly his tone grates. Glad to see others aren’t impressed.

Yes, He’s been allowing a very low number of hits, home runs, walks etc. But even last year you was unbelievably good with the “three true outcomes.” A 40% drop isn’t huge when you start out with a tiny number to begin with. I would agree his current hot streak will be nearly impossible to maintain over a full season, let alone multiple seasons, but he doesn’t seem like a massively changed pitcher to me…just a guy who has figured things out and hit the relief pitcher groove. And that’s something we should be used to in Seattle (see Sasaki, Nelson, Rhodes, et al).

1: Tino/Nellie/Mecir>Yanks
Davis/Hitchcock>M’s
(Also, arguably the worst trade
in M’s history)

2: Bill Risley>Jays
Edwin Hurtado>M’s

Apparently, Woody Woodpecker (in all his INFINITE wisdom) had forgotten how valuable Nellie and Risley had been to the M’s during the run of ‘95 when they were basically going lights-out in the 6th through 8th innings — so much so, in fact, that he deemed trading both of them (along with Mecir, another set-up prospect who had also had some value at that time) for a broken-down starter prospect who never amounted to anything (Hurtado) and a five-inning-wonder with a bad attitude (Hitchcock) to be justifiable. (Note: Not to mention, a blue-chip 1B — Tino — who actually WON games for Yanks with his production for an absolute hack 3B — Davis — who LOST games for the M’s with his ineptitude, but I’ll save that rant for another post!) The vacuum left in the set-up role, in turn, resulted in the next series of bad moves in ‘97:

1: Jose Cruz, Jr.>Jays
Timlin/Spoljaric>M’s

2: Varitek/Lowe>Red Sox
Slocumb>M’s

Out of these three, Timlin was probably the best while in a Mariner uniform…yet, I still seem to recall him crapping his pants a few times in hold/save situations down the stretch in ‘97. He did have a fairly decent year as the closer in ‘98 — when there WAS anything to save, that is — but then couldn’t wait to bolt town the minute his contact was up. Spoljaric I was never impressed with, either, and Slocumb was just plain HORRIBLE the whole time he was here. Out of the guys we dumped: one did become a journeyman (Cruz), though Lowe went on to become a 20-game winner and Varitek an All-Star catcher. The latter two, of course, also wound up with WS rings in ‘04 for the Red Sox.

Hmmm…would’ve been nice if they could have gotten those WS rings here, though. Thanks again for the memories, Woody!
>:(

If this has been posted already, I missed it scrolling through the thread (and apologize for the redundancy), but for those who missed the interview this afternoon, it’s been archived on the KJR website, and you can listen to it there (Groz’s page).

Great job, Dave.

Dave, you interview was fantastic.

And I’ve never listened to “Griz” before, so I can’t comment on his usual stuff, but today he:

1. Gave you a really great intro.

2. Was very appreciative and treated you very respectfully. That doesn’t, as we know, always happen on sports radio.

So, Dave, fantastic job. I would listen to the DC Hour.

And, Groz, if you’re reading this, I thought you were great, too. And handled all of that intelligently and enthusiastically. So good on you, too.

http://www.kjram.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=groz.xml