Oh, Ichiro, sometimes I feel like we don’t deserve you
When I pulled these stats, Ichiro! had scored 19 times… and batted in 16 runs, which says something. A couple of things.
Anyway, I was curious, so I looked up players in similar problems. Here’s the stranded leaderboard:
Ramon Hernandez, 62 times on base, not counting FC, and scored 12 runs, 19% scoring
Brian Giles, 57 times on, 12 runs
Ty Wigginton, 41-9
Casey Kotchman, 68-15
Yadier Molina, 63-14
Jose Guillen, 58-13
Ichiro! 84-19
and while we’re here…
Kevin Kouzmanoff, 56-13
Yuniesky Betancourt, 49-12
That’s… interesting company. One of these things is not like the others.
Ramon Hernandez is totally immobile, bats 6/7 mostly
Brian Giles is totally immobile, bats 1/3 (!)
Ty Wigginton is totally immobile, bats 5/6
Casey Kotchman is totally immobile, bats 2,4,6/7
Yadier Molina is totally immobile, bats 5/6 (hee hee hee)
Jose Guillen is totally immobile, bats 4th
Ichiro! is a fast, smart baserunner and leads off
Game 52, Orioles at Mariners
Hill vs Washburn, 7:10 pm.
So, as you probably know, the Orioles have this center fielder who is having a pretty good season. Unless he falls apart in June, there’s a pretty decent chance that Adam Jones will make his first All-Star team this summer at the ripe old age of 23. He’s one of the core pieces of the Orioles rebuilding process, and if the M’s wanted to get him back, they probably couldn’t, even if they offered up the entire farm system and the deed to Mt. Rainier. He’s that valuable. And, but for some really terrible decision making, he could have been ours.
But you know what? I’m happy for Adam Jones, but I’ve moved on. The people responsible for making the worst trade in franchise history got fired, and the team brought in the front office we’ve always wanted. The people who publicly supported the deal have basically all issued mea culpas, and the most prominent of them has become a supporter of the value of defense. The folks who were oh so wrong about that move have either lost their jobs or learned their lesson.
So, to everyone who wants to use Jones’ return as an opportunity to rub it in and play “I told you so”, please don’t. There’s no point. The deal is done and the lessons have been learned. Let’s all just be happy for Adam that he’s on his way to a terrific major league career, root for Zduriencik to fleece some other GM when we move Bedard this summer, and stop acting like there are still battle lines being drawn here.
Besides, if you really want to judge the trade by the results since it went down (not that you should), then you might want to consider that the Bedard deal was basically the final nail in the coffin of the Bavasi era. It sucks that it took a soul crusher of a trade to provide the impetus for the necessary organizational changes, but it did, and those changes took place.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m happier as a Mariner fan with Jack Zduriencik and my GM and Franklin Gutierrez as my center fielder than I would be with Bill Bavasi as my GM and Adam Jones as my center fielder. Trying to pretend there’s a mythical world where we could have had both is not going to do anyone any good. I’ll root for Jones to play well, but not when he’s playing the Mariners. Tonight, I hope Jarrod Washburn makes him look stupid.
You’re Welcome
On May 15th, I wrote the Should The M’s Trade Ichiro? piece. Since I hit publish, he’s 31 for 71 with nine extra base hits, for a nifty .437/.467/.648 line.
He’s now been worth +1.8 wins in 43 games, which is about a +6.5 win pace for a whole season.
Coming tomorrow, a “should the team trade Rob Johnson?” post. I expect similar results, Rob.
Minor League Wrap (5/25-31/09)
The top three catchers in the system are all still hitting well, which is good for whenever we get that situation figured out, though I should warn those of you anticipating Moore’s arrival that he has a pretty bad passed ball problem. I don’t have much to work with this week, so I ended up writing about three-quarters of a page on Liddi because it seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s partially to provide a soft letdown for the bad news that follows.
To the jump!
Read more