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Game 115, Mariners at White Sox
Weaver vs Danks, 11:05 am.
Jones starts. Yay.
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Twittah
Weaver has had great games before this year, but I think this was his most impressive. I do realize that it is a weak team, but he looked a lot better than Batista did.
292 – Have you ever listened to BoSox announcer? Pretty bad too.
well, that was very nice– and in about 2 hours, as well– especially with Santana tomorrow
Good to get in and get out of the heat with a short game, give the boys time to rest.
Atta boy Jeff. Nice job.
I must have some sort of mental problem because I’m more upset about the Indians loss than I am excited about an out-of-the-blue Weaver CG shutout.
Way to go Weaver throwing like he’s a #1 starter.
8 K’s 5 hit shutout? WTF?!?!
It’s the lowest his ERA has been since last year.
His brother has thrown 4 innings of scoreless ball so far. (my attempt to jinx him)
Dear Man in the Weaver costume –
Thank you for coming out to the ballpark today. You don’t have to tell us who you are if you prefer to be anonymous. But we would greatly appreciate it if you can come out to the park again in five days.
Thank you,
Zvazda
Weaver pitched a shut-out, Sexson hit a home-run…
can I celebrate now?
Any word on Baek’s status? When healthy, shouldn’t he be considered to start over Ramirez? Certainly has more upside than Wells or Trachsel — at least in terms of control.
Wow, the Weaver Brothers so far today:
14 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 8 H, 0 BB, 12 K, 0 HR
Under 6! Under 6!
There’s a standard tree for who should catch any flyball. Technically, it applies in -ALL- situations, although practically its pretty straightforward.
Order:
Center Fielder
Corner Outfielder
Middle Infielder
Catcher
Corner Infielder
Pitcher
What that means is, in theory, Jones should have been able call off Beltre/Betancourt and catch the ball. For some reason or another, that didn’t happen. It seems like this a very typical rookie failing; additionally, we know Betancourt doesn’t speak English; I don’t know if Jones speaks Spanish, so he may or may not have been able to clearly call off Betancourt.
Give Jones more times with those guys, and that play will sort itself out.
Think Yuni’s been snatching balls from Ibanez all season, and Raul’s been letting him. Not surprising that there’s a mix-up with a new fielder (and one who’s a lot more mobile).
On a completely unrelated note, with the win today, Seattle now has the 4th best record in all of baseball.
I have a question. Why the consistent negative reactions by most everyone on hear against Raul when you is killing the ball lately. I would not have started him either given that he was going against a lefty but people still seem to be slammin his hitting and not just McLaren strategy. Where you guys this hard on his hitting last year? Coult it be possible that he has turned it around and could finish the year with 20 homers and 100 rbi’s, which by my count is not so bad?
You think he’s going to hit 9 more home runs when it’s taken him 110 games to get 11? I don’t think anyone is killing Ibanez per se, but I do think they are killing his playing left field. I think the general consensus is to move him to DH and bench Vidro.
318: Then you have to face the argument that Vidro has been on fire since the All Star break. Well, singles wise at least.
Fantantic game and I all I’m going to ask is where has THIS Jeff Weaver been hiding til now?
Solid offensive and D to help seal the deal and not to mention the whole nine including Weaver picking each up to uphold the shutout.
Today’s game is even more evidence that Jones should be in LF more and Ibanez in a DH/4thOFer duty.
Jones was very very solid in LF with the glove and caught several flyballs I furmly believe Ibanez would have missed.
I also say Jones would have caught that popup in the 9th had at least Betancourt back off and let Jones get under it.
Ibanez has to realize his days as a everyday LFer are over and he needs to adjust to being a DH,a 4thOFer/1stB backup,and LHB off the bench.
“Ibanez has to realize his days as a everyday LFer are over and he needs to adjust to being a DH,a 4thOFer/1stB backup,and LHB off the bench.”
Well, they should be over, but in reality he can look forward to being our starting left fielder until at least the end of the year in my opinion.
Looking ahead to September, the M’s will need to have a 4-5 wildcard lead or at least be tied with LAA to begin the month. Why you ask, well look at the September schedules for the contending teams (BOS, LAA, DET, NYY, SEA, CLE) What it boils down to is that the Red Sox and Yankees get to beat up on the East, while somehow the scheduling gurus probably figured SEA would be a cream puff team for the other contenders, instead Seattle has to play 4 of the 5 contending teams, ouch. Sorry for the casual fans who think this website is always pessimistic, but reality says that we have been in a playoff push for at least a month or more now, and every time we lost a game when AJ was in the minors or BB was on the pine, or HoRam was breathing, you just chalked that up to “you can’t win them all,” but you know ’95 can always happen again and we can get a miracle, since that is what it will take to overcome the LAA, cause beating out the Yankees and Red Sox doesn’t look likely. Below is the breakdown against contending teams.
SEA
14 (Cle home, Det away, LAA away, NYY away)
CLE
11 (Sea away, Det home, LAA away)
LAA
8 (Sea home, Cle home)
NYY
6 (Bos away, Sea home)
DET
6 (Cle away, Sea home)
BOS
3 (NYY home)
314 – I am pretty sure Betancourt has had time to pick up the english phrases “I got it” and/or “mine.” I just don’t believe language is that much a barrier except in the pitcher/catcher/coach setting. It seems to me more likely that Betancourt got used to a much less mobile Ibanez.
As I just heard Peter Gammons say on ESPN Detroit now has 14 consecutive games against Cleveland and Detroit. It’ll be interesting to see where the Tigers are in two weeks.
I asked the question a few threads ago and somebody at Fox.com found their Sunday story line. How are the M’s winning? “When the game is tight, Seattle shines. The bullpen, anchored by J.J. Putz, is ridiculous, and the hitters transform in close-and-late situations.” http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7110738
Not breaking news but puts the M’s in contexts that make sense.
ryans
Are you by any chance studying business at Villanova?
Your grasp of spelling and grammar reminds me of someone who was posing hereabouts until a few days ago.
324–You mean Cleveland and NY.
Doh. Yes I do/did.
It’s a virtual lock that Bavasi’s job is safe. This is perhaps the most job security he has had since maybe his first year on the job. Will we see smart moves this off season or more of the desperation type moves that have characterized his last few seasons?
That said, what is the fate of McLaren? Is he clearly interim or is he auditioning for the permanent job? He’s auditioning for some managerial job so maybe it doesn’t matter for the rest of this season-he’s not going to go out on a limb. I’m having nightmare visions of Hargrove v2.0 sitting on the bench next season.
It’s a virtual lock that Bavasi’s job is safe.
Why? Sure the team looks good overall, but there are still 40 games left to go.
Clearly they’re willing in spite of Bavasi not because of him. There’s no way to look at Bavasi’s off-season and not call it a disaster. Weaver and Ramirez have had some nice games but both are over 5.50 ERA and I’d venture HoRam is the worst starting pitcher in the AL, Reitsma has been more valuable when on the DL than on the roster, and Ibanez was horrible for 4 months. Vidro seems OK to the casual observer though anyone with a clue has to question a less than 400 SLG from a designated hitter. He also chose NOT to move Sexson even when offered a living, breathing major league player in return. Batista is the only move that’s worked well.
Sadly McLaren will likely be judged by wins and losses and how far this team goes not his actual decision making. Fortunately the Mariners are 16-14 since he took over. They’ve “made up” ground in the Wild Card because Cleveland and Detroit have been under .500.
330 – don’t forget Guillen too. He has worked well for us.
316: With Arizona losing, it looks to me like the M’s have the *3rd* best record (though they’re actually in a virtual tie with NYY and Arizona).
Still. Wow. Who woulda thought?
330, 331,
The funny thing is that the strategy Bavasi had almost makes sense if you take out the player names involved:
1) Weaver = undervalued starter, 1 yr contract (if terrible regardless).
2) Guillen = undervalued player, injury concerns, good gamble.
3) Soriano –> Ramirez = Trading reliever for starter, who Bavasi presumably (if incorrectly) thought was good and/or undervalued. Groundballer (even if that doesn’t really matter when you’re as terrible as HoRam).
4) Snelling + Fruto –> Vidro = former star, potential to be undervalued and ready to bounce back (at least in Bavasi’s mind). Was in a horrible park for hitters (as he is now).
If Bavasi had sat down with the USS Mariner faithful in November and said:
“Look, here’s the offseason plan… I’m going to try to gamble on 1 year deals to sign an extra outfielder and starter that may have more left in the tank than people realize. It might be a little too much money, but it’s low risk because it’s only one year, and we have guys in the minors who can step in if they falter anyway. And I really think we need to turn a member of bullpen into a starter, because they’re so much more valuable than relievers. It’s a team strength, and we can find arms in our organization who can replace people that already have a major league reputation. [blah blah blah, something about needing a DH that we wouldn’t have agreed with because Ibanez should have been our DH, which we all knew already].”
Honestly, until you realize that the starter is HoRam, that sounds great. I was skeptical about Weaver, but I honestly don’t dread his starts anymore, despite the fact that he actually had one of the worst Aprils of all time (I think). The ways he screwed this up really only amount to:
1) Undervaluing defense in LF and/or caving to organizational demands to name Ibanez as starting LFer.
2) Thinking HoRam might actually be kind of good.
3) Maybe failing to recognize that Soriano could have been converted to a starter.
For how agonizing I found those decisions at the time (and since, for the most part), it’s strange to take a step back and see how almost-logical they were. His bullpen construction has been smart and extremely effective. Our illustrious authors here are always saying that Bavasi’s Achilles heel is being unable to appropriately evaluate major league talent, and I think that’s really been borne out. Apart from thinking that HoRam could actually start in the American League, Ibanez could still play ML-level LF, and Vidro could actually hit enough to be an everyday DH, he’s been basically perfect. Those are huge flaws of course, but I think it’s interesting.
I don’t think you’re way off base, but I think his evaluation of HoRam is such a huge mistake that it’s inexcusable. You also left out the fact that it was easily demonstrable that a player who would perform as well or better than Vidro was available for essentially nothing. We gave up far too much for what he’s giving the team.
We essentially threw away one guy known to be a knockout reliever, one potentially good relief arm and a potential DH / OF for stuff that was easily had for free. That’s terrible and worthy of being shown the door.
While HoRam and Vidro have sucked, let’s not lose sight of the fact that:
1)Fruto has yet to see the majors this year
2) Soriano has started the second half poorly after being worked heavily
3) Doyle has been on the 60 day DL since May after putting up some fairly so-so numbers
All of those things were within the range of foreseeable circumstances in the off season.
Again, it still doesn’t excuse the Vidro extension or the insane sticking with HoRam but as darrylzero notes there was perhaps some method to the madness in terms of who we gave up and why,
I agree. HoRam needs to be demoted. Whether minors or bull pen. He is like this year’s Joel Pinerio (and am i glad we got rid of him).
Jeff Weaver is starting to look pretty good, fulfilling the 8 million they are throwing at him. (4-4 if you take away the starts before hitting the dl.)
Its good Vidro hits for average, but not in DH position. If Raul started the year as DH then he probably wouldn’t of have had as bad of a year, considering playing outfield causes more wear and tear to the body than DH.
335 is right, so far the guys we have traded away haven’t been playing to their potential either.
It seemed like Bavasi was signing proven veterans with histories of injuries or just sucking. Its like casting a movie full of washups and hoping that they become stars again. Fortunately Batista and Guillen have worked out, and Jeff Weaver isn’t so horrible since coming off the DL, that probably saved Bavasi’s behind.
Boy, we sure have never discussed the Vidro trade before.
337
You are correct! This is THE first time that I’ve ever seen Bavasi’s offseason moves rehashed on this blog.
The M’s have the third-best record in MLB. Yet they’re fighting for their lives in spite of themselves with an underqualified manager at the helm. It’s going to be an agonizing yet totally awesome seven weeks.
337 “Boy, we sure have never discussed the Vidro trade before.”
And surely, with 4+ months down the road and Bavasi’s job performance under review and the potential for his being back next year, it’s not unreasonable to review how things have gone so far with all the participants.
Gee, Doyle isn’t an MVP candidate, Soriano isn’t holding up well and Fruto can’t be seen with a telescope. I haven’t seen those developments see major discussion here at all.
Actually, the fact that there was freely available talent out there, that we wouldn’t have needed to give up ANY players to obtain, that could reasonably be expected to outperform Vidro and HoRam HAS been discussed on this site in great detail.
Snelling, Fruto, and Soriano still have upside to various degrees that we didn’t need to give up to get the level of performance we’ve gotten out of Vidro and HoRam.
They were both bad trades at the time, and they’re still bad trades.
Yeah, sorry to start all that again. I got a little tipsy and it all seemed interesting for a second. Anyway, I don’t disagree about the indefensible-ness of it, I was just interested that the effort (the extremely flawed effort) was kinda sorta in the direction we might have wanted in each case. We’d obviously be better without making those trades, I’m not disputing that.
Guys, McLaren and Bavasi are SYMPTOMS of what we complain about, not causes.
That mentality we complain about? It permeates the organization, top, bottom and middle. Wanna get rid of it? Well you gotta get rid of a majority of the organization…
(And the really stupid thing is that their approach DOES work…but it’s neither the most efficient or most optimal approach….and you’ll never get the most you can out of the personnel and conditions you have. THAT’S why a lot of people around here are dissatisfied–it’s like using Mo Morris for running back when you have a healthy Shaun Alexander on the bench).
Jay Buhner should bust into the clubhouse and remind the Mariners of what he said back in ’95, “When you start thinking about a wild card, you’re selling yourself short. That’s setting your sights too low.”
If the Angels lost a few more games and the Mariners won at the same time…and if they could keep a lead through September…
Who’d thunk, ‘way back in April?