MLB.com takes different approach to covering team
Okay, okay, if I put this in a post, will everyone stop trying to hijack threads and emailing us?
The money quote:
“I’m astonished to tell you the truth when I look up and I see Vidro’s average is what it is, because I feel like every time he goes up there I’m very confident that he’s going to give us a good at-bat,” Riggleman said. “And for the at-bats that he has, he’s knocked in quite a few runs … he’s been fairly effective in the way we want to use him.
Generally speaking, I try not to post links to MLB.com inanity or Kelley’s occasional forays into baseball commentary (or inaccuracies in beat writer stories) — we’ve really gotten away from that since Finnigan took his leave. MLB.com is to baseball coverage what the game broadcasts are to the team — it’s a PR arm to promote the product. I just accept it at that. But for whatever reason, everyone loves this story, soo… have at it.
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Hey, Baltimore will be in town the beginning of next month. Adam Jones will roam the outfield, Sherrill will close us down. Vidro in our lineup will still look stupid. We can contrast the fortunes of us against them, the last team we made a major trade with.
Like Yuni fleeing Cuba, I wonder if any Mariner tries to jump on the Baltimore bus before it leaves behind this mess…
Ugh. I guess at least Riggleman doesn’t say these kinds of things while getting all squinty eyed.
“I’m just kind of using it just to try to have some contact in that spot, and maybe be able to move some runners and hit and run and that kind of stuff, get some at-bats for some guys”
Is it just me, or does this just drip with “I have no idea what I can say”? Kind of…try to…maybe be able…that kind of stuff…and how in the heck does this approach help to “get some at-bats for some guys”??
He isn’t looking for our DH to H and he’s “fine with it the way it is.”
He’s “…astonished to…see Vidro’s average…because I feel like every time he goes up there I’m very confident that he’s going to give us a good at-bat.” Why?? Haven’t you been paying attention? Because Vidro can remember which end of the bat to hold?
Ugh. All the more reason I had FSNW removed from my dish…
How can Riggleman actually think that? Is he just BSing to cover management and/or to avoid throwing Turbo under the bus (that’s Wash’s job)?
My mind has been blown.
I mean, we’ve seen and heard some weird things this year, but this just is plain bizarre. Granted that Riggleman has forgotten more than I will ever know about baseball…
…but in my totally naive and uninformed opinion if I were an AL manager I would expect whoever is my DH to hit, and to hopefully be able to go from base to base faster than a rollicking glacier. He doesn’t have to know which hand to put a fielder’s glove on…he can sit in the dugout and eat more sunflower seeds during the other team’s half of the inning. But he does need to be able to hit and move a little bit.
Vidro hasn’t shown he can do either of these this year. And Riggleman is okay with that? Granted that we have a boatload of people who are having their offensive troubles, but it seems like almost ANYONE currently on the squad would be a better fit for DH than Vidro.
Putting a decent together for this team is impossible. Not enough decent players.
BTW – thanks for the Vidro option update.
I find it hilarious that any of you are taking Riggleman’s word at face value.
This team has nothing to play for other than the #1 draft pick in 2009, and you get by losing more games than anyone else. This team is fielding a lineup and rotation that’s pretty bad, with bad players in key roles.
Connect the dots, and beware of what anyone managing the team says to the media. Riggleman knows he doesn’t have a job with this team after the season is over, and it’s likely his on-field marching orders have little to do with fielding the best team possible.
I thought you guys might enjoy reading a couple of “pro” and “con” comments from two Yankee fans on Yankee beat writer Peter Abraham’s blog, regarding Washburn (con) and Vidro (pro…yes, I said pro!!!):
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Peter Abraham says that the Yankee brain trust is meeting in Tampa today to decide what moves they still need to make before the no-waiver trade deadline in another week. They ARE a bit smarter than the M’s brain trust, but with Hank Steinbrenner making some of these baseball decisions, maybe they WILL take both Washburn and Vidro off the M’s hands for the paltry price of Kei Igawa and a B prospect who’s probably closer to being the washout Vidro is than a diamond in the rough.
This team has nothing to play for other than the #1 draft pick in 2009, and you get by losing more games than anyone else.
I sure wouldn’t hang all MY organization’s hopes on getting a #1 draft pick in a particular year, even if Strasburg is the Second Coming of Jesus, and thus tanking any useful opportunity to improve my team before 2009, and if my GM told me this was what I was playing for, were I an owner, I’d be firing that GM so fast it would make their head spin.
Teams like the Orioles and Pirates have been collecting high draft spots for a long, long time while still being bad. High draft position is NO guarantee of success, especially without an organizational framework for building those draft picks into finished products at the player and team level, and tanking games while giving a half-assed effort and collecting money is not a message you want to send your young players and minor leaguers- or your fans. So I don’t buy this is deliberate tanking- Armstrong remembers the 1980’s.
I think Riggleman is playing the Vidros and Cairos because that’s what you do with the roster you’re handed, when you’re a traditional manager with a roster of “proven veterans”… and Pelekoudas hasn’t been given the A-OK to dump them for the Balentiens, for whatever reason, outside of a couple of limited cases (Sexson). Remember, this is still an organization full of ridiculous veteran entitlement, where players (Raul, Vidro, Batista, Silva) are allowed to play injured and suck. We shouldn’t expect that just because Bavasi and McLaren were fired that everything was fixed overnight. The organization is still largely using the same people to evaluate talent and plan rosters they were a few weeks ago.
I think that response is a lazy default to typical pessimistic derision, e_c, and while I’m sure some pessimistic derision is generally justified, I’m not so sure that the decision to play bad players in bad positions is as simple as, “The manager sincerely believes this is the best lineup he can field because he isn’t a smart person.”
I wish people’s weren’t so lazy when thinking about this team. It makes the discussions tiresome when each one turns into the same song and dance of, Oh it’s because they’re so stupid. Then why even discuss it at all? How it that at all constructive?
It’s pretty clear by any statistical measure or long-term observational criteria that the players in question are bad. These lineup decisions don’t even make sense for the dumbest of managers with the biggest bias towards veterans, and there is not a GM alive, interim, permanent or otherwise, this side of Ed Wade who would put up with a manager playing bad players this way is his goal was to win as many games as possible, when the recent extended results have repeatedly shown this way doesn’t work. There has to be a reason unrelated to fielding the most competitive team possible.
Pessimistic derision is an easy, lazy answer. Think a little bit.
While I won’t go so far as to call it “lazy”, Gomez hits the nail on the head; we all know this organization hasn’t historically done very smart things, but what’s the point in bringing that up again and again every time we talk about how the team might get better?
It’s an easy trap to fall into (and don’t get me wrong, I’m as frustrated with this team as a lot of you are), but the first thing that has to happen before this team can improve is to get smarter, so could we maybe take that as a given from now on and talk about what could happen if they WERE smarter?
Lazy may be a strong term for what it is, sure.
And pardon the typos. I do proofread these comments some before I post them, but yikes. I counted three in that last comment.
People, do you think it’s coincidence Riggleman wound up in the M’s organization?
Water seeks its own level, so to speak. That is to say, Riggs was blessed to have a brain that’s in synch with Mariners’ thinking.
That’s been pretty obvious to me…
…which makes it hard for me to speculate presuming if they WERE smarter. This just doesn’t seem like a competent sports organization (and they’re not firing on all cylinders on top of that).
gwangung, don’t get me wrong; I understand exactly why people feel that way.
I guess I just don’t think there’s much in the way of productive conversation that can be had if you’re starting from the assumption that the organization is dumb and will never stop being dumb.
If the solution to this offseason ends up being to throw a ton of money at Mark Teixeira (which I’m personally terrified of), I’ll gnash my teeth along with everyone else; but until then, I’d rather put on my rose-colored glasses and imagine what a smart(er) org could do to turn the team around.
Apparently it’s just me but the headline on this article at the Mariners’ site is really the frosting on the cake:
Perhaps the young intern was yearning deeply for ‘doodoo’ and just had to settle.
56. I really, really don’t think the Mariners are proactively playing for the worst record in the league to get the top draft pick. Organizations just don’t think that way. Even teams like the Rays who have acknowledged in recent years that it’s not their time by avoiding spending money to try to scratch their way towards mediocrity don’t go out and actively bat inferior hitters to pad loss totals.
The Mariners are an especially unlikely team to employ this strategy. A losing record effects immediate ticket sales far more than a potential #1 panning out and becoming an ace in the next 4 years will. The Mariners aren’t going to purposefully undercut their revenue stream for the next few seasons for a better chance at landing a great college pitcher. No way.
Are you absolutely certain, JH? The team has the worst record in the AL, and there’s virtually no hope of climbing from where they are. There wasn’t any hope a month or two ago and there isn’t now, nor will there be the rest of the season.
How are ticket sales already not negatively impacted, and just how much extra marginal damage can be done to said ticket sales from just fielding a far-from-optimal team to improve your chances at the #1 pick (while obviously insisting to the media that you’re trying to win)?
It’s not as infeasible or foolish as you state it is. With some PR/media subtlety, it’s actually pretty easy to pull off.
Yes, I’m pretty damn certain that the amateur scouting department has no say on how the manager sets his lineups.
Yes, I’m pretty damn certain that the amateur scouting department has no say in how the manager sets his lineups, and that the manager isn’t fielding teams with the express intent of losing.