Return of return of Doyle
Many people noted yesterday that the Phillies DFA’d Chris Snelling’s when they brought Jayson Werth off the DL. Which is Greg-Norton-style ungrateful, given that he’d been hitting like crazy. In, uh, his 4 at-bats.
Snelling’s 27 now, his career delayed and savaged by injuries, and in the last year he’s been signed, traded, traded, optioned, claimed, released and probably folded, spindled, and mutilated flying from team to team. Not surprisingly, I have a couple of arguments for why the M’s should put in their bid.
1. He’s Snelling. He’s awesome.
2. Everyone in baseball (nearly) agrees that Snelling can hit but can’t stay healthy. This was the argument for acquiring Vidro not that long ago, and that held up okay. This requires the M’s to either DH him and spot-start him in the outfield, or use him in a bench role. Either way, it helps: the M’s need offense any way they can get it, and Wlad’s not helping, and they need defense in an even worse way, and Snelling is, at least, an upgrade over Raul in left. And he’s free and if he works out, you try and find a spot for him next year somehow.
And 3 is all about chemistry.
If you think part of the M’s problem is that they don’t have a winning attitude, or their clubhouse is fractured, or whatever your theory might be, Snelling helps. You can go back through his minor league career and see what people said about him, but it’s crazy — he’s been a huge clubhouse leader. If you want a full-effort player who’s all about the competition and can’t wait for his next at-bat, who starts brawls heckling from the dugout, here you go. His managers love him, even if sometimes they’re annoyed by him.
So maybe he’ll help the team cohesion. And if he doesn’t, what do they lose?
Wait, 4: The M’s could really use someone who does awesome interviews.
d’oh!
One question that I don’t think has been covered…why would ANY free-agent, even the beloved Doyle, want to sign with Seattle? I’m sure he knows what’s going on here…unless there is a new FO in the near future, it’s going to be hard to get any quality FA signings, unless there is a boat load of money thrown at them, which we know is a terrible way to build the team…
This has never been MORE true than this year. The front-office instability and the lack of competitiveness are piled on top of geographic challenges (long trips, grand total of 15 minutes of sunshine in the month of June).
But we’re still a great landing for those post-prime players looking for a payday in an environment where they will continue to play in spite of their accelerated decline in productivity. 😉
Doyle’s been assigned to Lehigh Valley. Think the Mariners, even in their condition, wouldn’t be his choice?
I have a feeling that not only will we NOT get Snelling back, but we’re going to trade WLAD and Clement as well…I would be all for Snelling coming back as the 4th outfielder/DH although I don’t have a man crush on him like most here do…mine is for ICHIRO!…
Don’t mess with Doyle.
So if Doyle has his choice between Seattle and Lehigh what does he choose? Better question who would win a 7 game series between Lehigh Valley and Seattle?
I figure Felix throws 2 no hitters and Bedard and Silva get bombed in their two games a piece, we never get to Felix for game 7 the fighting IronPigs win the series in 6 games, with Former Mariners Snelling, Travis Blackley, and T.J. Bohn leading the way…
As an aside I do hope we have the ability to beat a AAA baseball team, and a piss-poor AAA baseball team.
Wow. Talk about the USSM having a man crush on a player. What happened to to all of your Saber whatever? I’m extremely disappointed that you’ve abandoned all that makes the USSM the greatest baseball blog on the planet in favor of emotion. Would Doyle become the new “ignitor”?
Wow. Talk about the USSM having a man crush on a player. What happened to to all of your Saber whatever? I’m extremely disappointed that you’ve abandoned all that makes the USSM the greatest baseball blog on the planet in favor of emotion. Would Doyle become the new “ignitor�
My mother always told me that if all I had to say was ‘[expletive] jimbob’, I shouldn’t say anything at all.
So I’m not going to say anything.
My mom never told me to say that, but I don’t want to offend Graham’s mom, so…
Seriously, the whole paragraph there is called out with “if you believe…” and then talks about that. I don’t know if you want a larger, neon-red blinking qualifier there or what, but…
This is why we can’t have nice things. 🙁
I think we can say whatever we want if we have admitted man-crushes…It’s fine…At the Dodgers/Cubs game last night (NL ball is boring as hell) every time Fukudome came up to the plate, I said, in a VERY pro-Cubbie section, “He’s alright, but he’s no ICHIRO!”
Needless to say, I wasn’t the most popular guy there, and the only one in an Ms hat and Felix jersey…
The guy next to me was a HUGE Marmol fan (nver heard of the guy) and when he came in to relieve Marquis, the dude was going on and on…
We all love who we love…you just can’t explain it sometimes…
[ot, we know about it, there will probably be a post soon]
bakomariner, Were you sitting in section 33? I think I saw you as everyone was getting up to leave. Not often you see someone in Dodger Stadium sporting the navy blue and “northwest green.”
Well, it IS an irrational man-crush….but it’s tempered by some realism….
I see “injury history” as akin to the stock market; past results are not necessarily a predictor of future performance.
I often think of Paul Molitor in this regard. He broke in at 21 but played in 150 or more games just twice through his age 30 season. He did it six times after 30, and probably would have had eight had it not been for the strike-shortened seasons in 1994-95. He was mostly a DH after 34 but still played a handful of games at 1b every year.
Doyle is no Molitor, but fear of injury isn’t a great reason not to consider signing him. (Doyle, though Molitor would probably be an improvement as well…)
DMZ would get to proudly wear his Snelling jersey again, and half of the so-called local baseball fans wouldn’t be asking him “Who the heck is Snelling?”
Molitor didn’t do much for the Mariners as a hitting coach…
(but then again, that was the year the M’s started getting old…and some of them are still hanging around!)
Um…5.) He’s Australian