Wow, did you see that?
DMZ · July 21, 2008 at 9:48 pm · Filed Under Mariners
I’m not sure you could ask more of a starting pitcher than to go up against that Red Sox offense and come away having only given up two runs. What an example for the rest of the rotation to live up to in this season. “We can challenge these guys and do well,” Washburn’s performance says.
All in all, another demonstration that Washburn is the foundation of this rotation and we’re lucky to have him. I hope that this performance helps prove that if he’s going to be traded, he should demand a high price indeed. This is exactly the kind of gutty start you’d want in a playoff contending rotation.
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I think the Orioles lost a pretty good lefty starter this past offseason. They’ve got a young kid playing center field who looks interesting. I wonder if he’d be available for a top-notch guy like Wash?
I sense sarcasm…
However, he has been very consistent this year.. on a very bad team. He is a very solid #3 starter in the major leagues…
Is sarcasm the flavor of the day? Mmm… It tastes… bitter.
8 career postseason games.
.77 ERA in the LCS.
2 World Series starts.
I am sensing some Sarcasm in here.
Shhhhhhhh
I hereby create a new word in commemoration of The Bus’ start: grutty.
A combination of both gritty AND gutty!
I get it that you don’t like Washburn very much. Fine. But, he’s pitched decently for the past 6 weeks and there are a lot of folks on the roster who have performed worse.
What good would it do to build up Vidro, Cairo, Silva, Batista or any of the other untradeable players on their roster?
Washburn really is the best kept secret in all of baseball, and he very well could be the next Jamie Moyer. He’ll only improve with age. Contending teams would be foolish not to compete over his services.
Interesting commments from Riggleman after the game about the M’s not being selective and how hard it is to “change the hitters.” Actually, that’s exactly what we need to do….CHANGE the hitters and get different ones.
LOL. Money.
I think you’re missing the point of today’s two posts, Don.
The Yankees could use Washburn, Ibanez and Johjima. Seriously.
What is a realistic estimate of the kind of prospects we could get for Washburn?
Also, this “click to edit thing” is really cool. I’m impressed.
I wouldn’t be surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time I missed the point!
If the point is that Washburn has pitched well enough to be a value in the trade market, then I agree with it.
At least Washburn has kept himself healthy this year. I was looking this afternoon at our starters, and I’m pretty amazed at the number of times our starters have left a game because of injury this year. Most of the time, the injury has occurred after they got hammered. Silva has left at least 3 times early this year due to injury, Batista 2 or 3 times, Bedard hasn’t been right all year. I’m beginning to wonder what kind of conditioning the M’s require of their starters in spring training. It seems as if only Hernandez and Washburn left spring training healthy and prepared…although it was kinda hard to tell about Washburn for the first several starts….
It would pain me if we only got, say, two near-MLB ready prospects for Washburn.
But this will be a tough trade market, so we might have to settle for that.
You guys keep going on and on about Washburn… He is AWESOME. But lets not forget Batista. Like Madonna, it looks as though he has re invented himself since his last start! One inning against the RED SOX with no runs and a strike out. I’m sure the front office phones are ringing off the hook with offers!
What? Batista’s terrible. Washburn’s where it’s at. Jeff’s right: it’ll be tough for us if we can only get two good prospects for Washburn.
Washburn is an elite playoff pitcher and a great guy in the club house. You can’t put a price on the type of chemistry the brings to a team. Dr. Bus you are awesome.
You can bet the Sox were paying attention. That Gagne trade worked out so well last year, they must be on the hunt for another gritty veteran pitcher to ensure another title!
How can Batista NOT draw huge interest? He’s a proven starter AND closer! You know who else has done both? Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz! The M’s are sitting on an absolutely top-of-the-line pitching marvel!
Let’s not forget that Washburn was the Opening Day Starter(tm) for a team the season they won the World Series. He was also tabbed as the Game 1 starter in that same World Series. It’s not every day that a team can add a Proven Ace(tm) who sports a world championship ring.
Well, Batista could be a consolation prize for whoever loses out in the Washburn sweepstakes, maybe.
Or maybe Silva! He is, pound-for-pound, one of the best pitchers in all of MLB.
Matt, I couldn’t agree more. Smoltz and Batista in the same sentence. Brilliant. I think we can sell this! Should we hire Jim Street to do the article?
Uhhh, Washburn is soooo 3 hours ago… It’s Batista I tell you. Batista!
It would be a shame if our FO read this and thought, my God, we’d be stupid to trade him! Ohh..unless they’re already thinking that. There’s your worst case.
Did you know that Washburn knows the cure for cancer? He won’t tell you unless you are a playoff contending team interested in a trade with the Mariners. Washburn/Batista in ‘08 get them while they last!!
If you call in the next 15 minutes we’ll even throw in a Johjima and a Vidro.
I think when you talk about Jarrod, you talk about these “serviceable frames” he’s given his team — that language alone shows the subtleness of his serviceability and clutchability. Too bad his offense didn’t back up that clutch language with big hits to really highlight those, uh, frames.
Oh, and I was at the game, and even the multitude of Boston fans were lost to the subtleties of his pitching…with the yawning and talk beyond the game at hand.
He pitched a great game tonight, no question about it.
It was just the lack of run support that killed him!
Though Washburn has been absolutely freakin’ awesome since he made that mechanical adjustment, Batista has also been part of a championship team. In fact, Batista and Washburn won the World Series in back-to-back years. Everybody knows you can throw those regular season stats out the window in October when playoff experience becomes all the more important. Any team that considers themselves a contender needs to have guys like these who know what it takes to win the big games.
Absolutely no question about it. No question at all. There’s just no question.
Okay, let’s not get delusional about Batista. The Mariners have closers coming out of their ears right now. So Batista’s ability to start and close at some point in the past isn’t that valuable to them.
What would really be useful to a contending team is to have somebody who’s flexible enough to start and relieve simultaneously. Which is why they’re so lucky to have Washburn, who’s added that to his repertoire this year. (See, he’s always looking to find an edge and improve his skills for the benefit of the team.) Not only did he pick up his first career save, on several other occasions he’s gone to the bullpen on days between starts so he could be available if the manager needed him.
This is the kind of skill that makes all the difference when you get to the playoffs. Say you already have three good starters, and you want to ride them as far as you can. Having a fourth starter with the flexibility to start and relieve lets you use him whichever way you want. You can have it all: keep your rotation on normal rest, while also improving your bullpen options, no need to carry a 7th or 8th reliever who’s the worst guy on your staff anyway, you can have a really strong bench instead. And if this guy’s your #4 but he would be a #2 on some other teams, gravy. It’s these qualities that make guys like Washburn the real glue of a club built for success in the postseason.
See, Mike gets it. Washburn for Contention 08: “Act now before your competition does!”
Madonna is starting now?
Hey Mike, I believe I’ve seen similar posts on other teams’ blogs in the past. Now we know where Bavasi got his info on the way to building such an aMazing team. I hope that the Mariners don’t get too drastic and trade/give away Washburn, Silva and Batista. I’d cry if that happened.
AND DON’T MISS OUT OUT OUR TOP YOUNG PITCHING PROSPECT WITH A LOT OF VETERAN LEADERSHIP:
MIGUEL ——-
I’m thinking minimum Wash is worth a starting AAA outfield prospect and a starting AAA pitcher. Plus maybe someone like a young David Ortiz.
There’s a reason Washburn earned the nickname ‘The Bus’. It’s because when he starts, we know the feelings in the bus back to the hotel will likely be jubilant! Because we likely won! Note that for the purposes of this nickname, we whimsically pretend the players all take the bus back to the hotel after the game. Even home games.
I hear we have a professional hitter on the roster, too, who has proven his ability to hit in the cleanup spot, and who can help protect the better hitters in the lineup.
That, and he has a killer recipe for spinach dip.
Funny thing is once we trade Washburn, he’s going to go 8-0 with a sub-2.00 ERA for a contender.
EDIT: Sorry. My first time hitting the link. It won’t happen again.
I will never understand why teams foolishly hang onto unproven pitching prospects when they could have a guy like Washburn. We’d keep him, of course, if we didn’t think his talents were wasted on a non-playoff contender. To see one of our most beloved players move on and succeed would make us all truly happy.
Make it happen somebody! Let this man go to a winner!
I think we are all forgetting the award-winning* literature that Batista writes. What team wouldn’t want a Renaissance Man on the pitching staff, inspiring productions of Shakespeare On The Field (”Birnam Wood comes to the Third Base Line!”)
Silva is quite a chef, I’ve heard. Venezuelan food is good shit.
Not only is Jarrod Washburn a gritty playoff-tested veteran, he makes an angry beaver face that scares the bejeebus out of opposing players.
Trading Washburn would be like gutting the soul of this team from a chemistry standpoint-especially given his ability to articulately interact with the press and his willingness to listen to coaching and do everything within his power to adopt tweaks to his mechanics in an effort to improve. The intangibles he possesses are unmeasurable in value.
He’s a proven winner when on a playoff caliber team. He’ll keep you in the game by giving your defense a chance to make outs. And he’s a lefty.
No question about it, if you put a defense behind him and score him some runs, he’s going to win a lot of ballgames, he keeps you in the ballgame, he’s a competitor and a proven winner that the clubhouse looks to as a leader, both on and off the field.
The most impressive stat Derek mentioned is the “97-0 in gams where he was awarded a win.” That’s 100%. Talk about consistency.
But don’t forget, possilby-contending teams who may be reading this, Washburn’s piled up the record he has this year while throwing most of the time to a catcher who is notoriously difficult to pitch to. I mean, he’d probably be averaging an extra K a game if Kenji could frame a pitch.
If she’s available, she’d be an improvmenet on Batista, but then I suppose we’d have to hire Tom Hanks as the manager. Then again, he’d probably be an improvem….
In all seriousness Don, there’s nothing wrong with Washburn that a $2.5 / year salary wouldn’t fix.
Wash also excels in the commercials, an undervalued asset.
as his manager said, “He really did a good job. Wash has given us a chance to win the ballgame just about every time out there and he did it again tonight. When he leaves, it’s 2-0, and when you’ve only given up a couple of runs to Boston, you’ve probably done a pretty good job.”
I realize losing Washburn will hurt us significantly, but I think we owe it to him as a favor for his years of faithful and valiant service to send him someplace where he has a chance to win the Series; I just hope some team makes a good enough offer to convince our notoriously miserly owners to set him free.
In all seriousness, what do you think are the odds he gets dealt?
He can do it across platforms, too. He does a promo for Everett Aquasox baseball, too. You can’t imagine how many fans of the 1990 Boise Hawks tune in to KRKO 1380 solely as a result of his work.
“We can challenge these guys and do well” when i saw that while reading the article my mouth dropped and to quote an at the drive-in lyric i was “dripping with drool from the nerves of this sentence”.
For MLB08 The Show fans, I had DirtExtinguish pitching to Johjima last night, while pitching the ball goes nowhere near where Joh setup several times, and always up in the zone when it should’ve been outside, so result is a few homers given up, so by top of 6th I pulled the M’s savior out of the game.
Talking about food, we could throw in the recipe for Baggie Eggs (TM).
The New York Times, October 1, 2002
Yankees vs. Angels
The Angels’ ace left-hander, Jarrod Washburn, is not an especially hard thrower. But he is widely admired for his guts, constantly challenging hitters with fastballs and spotting the pitch with remarkable precision. His fastball has life, he is tough to pick up and he gets hitters to chase balls out of the strike zone.
Washburn’s gleaming smile lights up the locker room, like some kind of neon chipmunk.
Washburn’s fantastic hygiene creates an island of cleanliness (and we all know what that is next to) that disinfects all who approach.
Washburn’s lovely singing voice has been compared to bells made of precious metal, brightening the locker room after even the dreariest loss; his teammates especially prize his renditions of old Carpenters songs.
Washburn spends the offseason assembling home brewing kits for beer-deprived youngsters in the developing world.
Washburn often lifts the spirits of his teammates by reciting the collected works of William Butler Yeats from the mound during his windup.
Washburn’s hidden talents include scrapbooking, macrame, and creating jean jacket appliqués that Jose Vidro has called “bitchin”
Most of the time, the injury has occurred after they got hammered.
Yes, this is what is known as a “fig leaf” injury, or the “I just pulled my I-dont-wanna-be-out-here-no-more tendon.” Silva’s recent outing was classic: a lower-back problem. Yes, extreme lower back. As in, he just got his ass kicked.
Madonna is starting now?
Should make those upcoming games against the Yankees interesting.
Washburn is helping to balance Wisconsin’s challenged ecosystem by enlarging and then thinning the White Tail deer population.
And talk about your poise, presence, and leadership; when your team is in a tough, pressure-packed situation is there anyone you would rather have on your side than Jack Bauer?
hahaha
These are the kinds of hidden advantages that I’ve been bringing up! Do you think that it is a coincident that Seattle hasn’t suffered a major terrorist attack since the Mariners signed “Washburn”?
Imagine what would happen if some other team took him away!
Buster Onley is saying the Yankees are “taking a serious look at Seattle lefty Jarrod Washburn.”
*crossing fingers*
please be true, please be true….
I don’t the think Yankees have, or are likely to offer, anything the M’s want.
Maybe true.
joser, when did that ever keep the Yankees from fleecing the Mariners?
[OK, once. Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps).
Buster Olney ALSO said:
See? A perfect example of fleecing. And $13-14 million isn’t a lot of money to the Yankees. In another section of the blog I found the above, they’re talking about Jorge Posada’s contract not being much of an impediment to finding another frontline catcher if his shoulder prevents him from ever catching again.
Someone else on that blog is saying that the Yankees will try to get the Mariners to pay part of Washburn’s salary in the trade, too, based on whoever the “secondary prospect” is.
Yeah, that kind of deal sounds like Bavasi is still in charge.
Totally idiotic. Kei Igawa has cost the Yankees about the same as Washburn has the Mariners (if you count the posting fee). At least Washburn hasn’t been a total bust from the get-go; Igawa has been from his first month in a Yankee uniform.
I will be a LOT less than thrilled if this Buster Olney rumor has legs.
I saw a mention of this rumor on sportscenter and immediately burst out laughing and thought of the thread last night.
The guy at the espn desk asked Buck Showalter about the rumor and Showalter said that he thought Washburn would be a good fit. He said that Washburn had a lot of moxie (No mention of his holdings of any other discontinued soft drinks) and would fit right in with the yankees.
63:
Actually Moxie can still be found in Maine, and also in Boston if you know where to look. And there’s Galco’s, a small store in northeast Los Angeles which specailizes in stocking obscure soft drinks from all over the country and world, and they’ve got Moxie (and moxie).
Ouch!