Relatively final cuts
Though I wonder if it’s quite as they said. According to the broadcast, Baek, RRS make the staff, Morse, Jimerson get to be bench players. Which makes the bench five deep:
C-R Burke, WFB-R Bloomquist, UT-R Cairo, PH-R Morse, OF-R Jimerson
Norton goes to the minors.
Leaving six to go the bullpen, except then… how?
RP-R Putz leaves you with five. To take the broadcast at its word, two more in RP-R Baek, RP-L Rowland-Smith to leave you with three. RP-R Dickey gets you to two, probably RP-R Lowe, RP-L O’Flaherty. O’Flaherty’s a lefty, so he gets that, Lowe’s been good. So I think Green eats it.
Interesting stuff, though — the speculation only yesterday was that Jimerson wasn’t going to make it and Baek would be dropped from the bullpen even if they went with 13 pitchers. It’s been an interesting set of decisions.
Dave adds: read this. Pretty much sums it up. Jimerson might actually play less than Jason Ellison did last year, if that’s even possible.
Update: The Seattle Times reported that the M’s managed to get Dickey to Tacoma by
1) bribing the Twins to get his rights
2) waiving him and having none of the other teams take him
I’m really surprised by this. I would have bet that Dickey would be on the Opening Day roster, for one, and that if he wasn’t, they certainly wouldn’t have managed to sneak him down to the minors like this.
Morse/Wilkerson platoon in right. Interesting.
Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid
Sounds like Dickey didn’t make the club?
Apparently, we offered a minor league catcher and get to keep Dickey, he’s going to Tacoma. So Green is safely in.
Y’know, this’d be a lot easier if they’d just cut Cairo.
So they’re going to keep Morse for their RH OF, but then keep Jimerson, who offers nothing over Norton, who does?
And the platoon is god awful. Ibanez, Ichiro, Morse OF.
I bleepin’ hate this team.
But Cairo already predicted he’d make the club, thus it had to happen.
I have to think that Dickey’s down in Tacoma only until Baek is traded. Right?
Why not carry Reed instead of Jimerson to get at least one LHB on the bench?
Rotoworld is reporting that the Ms traded C J. Fernandez to the Twins for the rights to Dickey, which allows them to send Dickey to AAA.
http://www.rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/player_main.aspx?sport=MLB&id=3252
There are 26 on the official roster.
http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/team/roster_active.jsp?c_id=sea
I am guessing that Anderson Garcia is the odd man out.
According to Stone, on Baker’s blog for the day, Dickey went through waivers and no one bit. I’m surprised, but I’m glad he’s still around.
Well at least we know now C.J Fernandez will won day OPS .800 for another team as we wonder why the hell we didn’t keep the guy.
Platoon Wilkerson? UGH! Platoon Ibanez makes way more sense. Ibanez career OPS VS LHP, .708. Wilkerson, .819. Add to that Raul’s terrible defence (Not that Morse would be much better) c’mon Mac!
It must be that McLaren is totally serious about not wanting to burn Bloomquist as a pinch-runner too early, because he kept both Cairo and Jimerson around. In fact, he must figure all his substitutions are going to be pinch-runners instead of pinch-hitters, considering that he kept no lefthanded bats.
[randomly capitalised words. Why?]
re: [randomly capitalised words. Why?]
Not knowing what Jake N was trying to say, I can only guess, but it would seem randomly capitalized words (or randomly done anything else for that matter) is a fine testament to the opening day roster.
I mean, ordinarily, you’d expect the words of sentence to be in some particular order and convey some particular sense when read together. Important words would be present, useless ones edited out, and the rest used in appropriate roles to produce a viable, one could say winning, sentence.
believe Mariners don’t such things But obviously always in sfndix roster as shows.
It takes some real talent to construct a roster that has a five man bench in which not one of the bench players hits left-handed. That is astonishing.
But at least there is an OF (Jimerson) on the bench. I always figure that the M’s would go with four reserves who hit righty and played the infield. Yes, Morse is a corner IF who the M’s play in the OF, much like they did with Broussard.
Jimerson? Morse? Cairo? Really?
This bench is AWFUL.
Opps, #18 should read “whom the M’s play in the OF.” I apologize for the grammatical inconvenience.
Now if the M’s would only apologize for Cairo.
Quick, somebody cover Cairo in cheese sauce and bacon and leave him in Vidro’s locker!
So can Jimerson play defense? Can he cover CF?
Cairo was simply too important as a mentor to Betancourt and Lopez (heavy sarcasm).
I am thrilled to see Morse platoon.
Re: # 23
Cairo was simply too important as a mentor to Betancourt and Lopez (heavy sarcasm).
A long time ago, a roster spot was used for a midget.
Later it was used for a track star.
Now it’s being used for a counselor.
Most teams use it for a baseball player.
Jimerson may be a short timer, as Bavasi loves to use the waiver wire at the end of spring training to pick up players who are out of options.
I remember back when McLaren was a bench coach, how Niehaus and others affiliated with the M’s would go on and on about how they were baffled that McLaren had never been offered a manager position by other teams. I used to feel bad for the guy, figuring he was just unlucky or being overlooked. Now, I have a much different view. It must have been quite interesting to be a fly on a wall during interviews Mac had with other teams. Probably didn’t take them long to realize what the Mariner brass still hasn’t . . .
the only thing I could think of with Jimerson was they were dazzled by the fact he is faster than anyone on the team not named Ichiro.
Is this a worse bench than last year’s?
Is there a good reason to keep Jimerson instead of Reed? I’m no fan of Reed, but this surprises me.
Jimerson is out of options. Reed is not. Problem solved.
I’m really surprised by this. I would have bet that Dickey would be on the Opening Day roster, for one, and that if he wasn’t, they certainly wouldn’t have managed to sneak him down to the minors like this.
Yep, credit where credit’s due. We might be baffled by their roster desires, but getting Dickey to Tacoma was kind of impressive.
If Dickey was left-handed, maybe it would’ve been an accomplishment to bump him down to Tacoma.
While I understand the fondness for Dickey because of his endearing repertoire, he’s only been just good enough to keep hanging around in his 11 year minor league career. He’s basically been a replacement level arm as a major leaguer.
The Ms didn’t sneak Dickey to the minors. It would’ve been more surprising if the Twins took him back IMHO.
No, I disagree. The M’s took him in the Rule 5 draft, so clearly they thought he had more value then that, and he looked good in spring training. Knuckleballers are notoriously durable, and there are a lot of clubs with question-mark-ridden rotations who could use someone who could pitch decently in long relief frequently.
Plus, if you’re Texas, you could claim him just to screw with the M’s, who’d already paid off the Twins. And it’s not like Texas couldn’t use the depth.
Terry,
Dickey has only been throwing the knuckler for 2-3 years, before that he was a power pitcher with chronic arm problems because of a missing ligament. You can throw out the stats before that, it was a different pitcher, the only thing that’s the same is the name and birthdate.
Just looking at the last three years really doesn’t change the conclusion.
Huh? How DOESN’T it?
How DO they support a different conclusion?
He’a an over-thirty AAA pitcher with a history of arm problems and uninspiring peripherals (sure its the PCL but it’s not like Nashville and Oklahoma are launching pads) who has cleared waivers twice in the last year. It’s not a shocker.