I’m also really happy for Jeremy Reed — I never felt like he got a full, fair shot in Seattle and think that he’s moving to a role and league that will better suit him.

He most certainly got a full and fair shot. He was a regular from Opening Day 2005 til he got injured in 2006, except that he was proving in 2006 he couldn’t hit lefties with a rake. His power numbers never improved and he was a simply awful base stealer (his lifetime percentage is 51%, which is “don’t even think of running” territory). His closest comp both by age and lifetime is the immortal Jermaine Allensworth, who was out of the league after his age 27 season. Jeremy Reed’s problem is that he didn’t produce, not that he didn’t get a chance.

I’m also really happy for Jeremy Reed — I never felt like he got a full, fair shot in Seattle and think that he’s moving to a role and league that will better suit him.

Not to mention it’s lazy “journalism” — we know why JJ suddenly improved over previous seasons: he picked up / perfected the splitter from Everyday Eddy.

Fields has nothing to do with nothing. If Zduriencik signs him, it will be at his price, not Fields’, and we won’t be counting on him anywhere above AA, given that he has 0 pro innings and hasn’t pitched since the CWS. My guess is that Z/W have talked with Peterson, and that their thinking lines up with Dave’s best-case scenario: they’ll try to make Heilman the closer. If he junks the slider and just goes with the fastball/change, he should do well in that role.

I don’t know, I heard that Fields was the closest to being MLB ready of the early draft picks. If that’s the case I could see him in the M’s bullpen sooner rather than later.

But, yeah, I don’t think Fields figured at all into the Z’s thinking when he decided to trade Putz. He certainly isn’t counting on Fields to be the team’s closer next year.

one of Billy Beane’s tenets was to trade closers before they self-destructed. In some ways, we might have been a year too late.

Last winter, I favored trading Putz in a package to get a decent SP.

As for this factoring into the Fields signing, I fear that Boras will use this as leverage in his client’s favor. Even if Josh isn’t ready to step in ASAP, the M’s need a closer.

I’m not that worried about finding arms for the bullpen next year. What I really don’t want to see is Morrow taken out of the rotation.

If it is healthy, the rotation is going to be solid… even more so now that the OF defense will be lights out… Z is moving the M’s in the right direction.