Game 136, Indians at Mariners
Dave · September 4, 2010 at 3:00 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Talbot vs Pauley, 7:10 pm.
Last year’s USSM event at Safeco featured Ian Snell, and after he was horrible, the major league debut of Doug Fister. This year, we get Pauley. Perhaps next year, I’ll demand that they make it a Felix night whether its his turn or not.
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126 Responses to “Game 136, Indians at Mariners”
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Okay, Figgy, no stupid baserunning this time please.
But, but…remember how Omar had that bad knee and was supposedly washed-up already four years ago?
I dunno… Omar seemed to be having fun with the White Sox when they visited this year. He may enjoy mentoring “the next Omar”.
BRANYAN & FIGGINS!!
Ugh. “Lopez… gets the runner over”.
In other words, Lopez grounded out for the fourth time today.
C’mon Kotchman, hit the ball in the air for once.
Wow…three runs!!!
That’s a virtual bonanza of offensive support for Felix!
I’m kind of hoping they don’t get a fourth run. I don’t trust Brown – if it’s not a save situation, he won’t bring in Aardsma, and I bet he won’t bring in League either. Given who’s “fresh” out there, I’m really worried he’ll bring in White.
He he, from my lips to God’s ears this time.
Sometimes, though, Aardsma needs all the runs he can get…case in point, Friday night’s Mesa-esque “adventure.”
And today, of course, we get the Jekyll side of DA rather than the Hyde side…no complaints here, though!
I do remember that. The mysterious knee injury that “undid” the trade that never should have occurred in the first place (Carlos Guillen for Omar) … only to be followed by making a much worse trade after the first one was nullified.
I hope Jack Wilson retires. In his defense though, he provides an equal amount of production whether he is here or not.
I know 100 is just a number… and I know some people really want the M’s to tank so we have a shot at Rendon… but as a fan, I’m glad we’re likely not going to lose 100 games this year.
And, of course, Carlos Guillen got a chance to play in a World Series while M’s fans got to enjoy 40 games worth of Ramon Santiago and several seasons of increasingly diminished skills from Yuni…
Believe Big, indeed!
On a related note, the sponsor of Yuni’s page on B-R notes that, according to one scout, he’s considered “a serious dark horse in the AL MVP race.”
Wow…somebody must be smoking a strong substance out there.
OPS of .712 (OBP is .286), wOBA IS .308, UZR IS -9.8… yeah, I’m seeing the value.
Who sponsors that page – Willie Bloomquist?
Oh, and I dissed Lopez yesterday for his ~ 52% swing rate… Yuni’s at 55.4% this year. He’s in Sweeney territory, but without the pedigree.
And at least Mike Sweeney did have a couple of decent seasons earlier in his career…whereas Yuni…
Exactly. Whatever people like me said about Sweeney during his Mariner’s tenure – until he got hurt (2005-2006ish), his approach served him well.
Or, say, guys like Ichiro and Vlad. They swing at everything, too; but they actually manage to HIT it much of the time. 🙂
(BTW it’s fun to find ways to mention Ichiro and Guerrero in the same context)
I think one reason why you don’t quite see the power numbers from Ichiro that you potentially could is that opposing pitchers often intentionally try to spot the ball away from him rather than throwing it right into his wheelhouse. And I’ve never seen another hitter in my lifetime who’s been able to dig out as many infield hits (off of non-strikes or borderline strikes) as he can, largely thanks to his incredible speed.
That said, the Yunis and J-Los of the world should never be trying to emulate the Ichiros and Vladdys. While it’s nice to have positive role models, a little bit of patience at the plate goes a long ways in this game — especially since most guys aren’t Ichiro or Vladdy when it comes to making contact.
I remember some of the absurdly-out-of-the-strike-zone pitches Vlad hit for homers against the Mariners, back when he was still an Angel. Sometimes it seemed like the only way to get him to miss was to throw it into the back-end of the other batters box – and even then he might manage to get to it.
Question.
If we decline Lopez’ option, which, I think, we got a *wink wink” of on Saturday, can we, and do we, offer arbitration to him?
Lopez probably wants a long-term deal, so he would want to go to the market, and he knows that even on a one year deal somewhere else he can create a market for himself in a better-fit ballpark. So I think that it would be a fairly safe bet that he rejects the arby and we might get a pick out of it, if we can offer him arbitration to begin with. Any ideas?
No. Don’t do it. No. Absolutely not. No, no, no, no.
Jose Lopez is not Adrian Beltre.
It seems to be pretty well established that there’s no market for Jose Lopez – there wasn’t even one last winter after a significantly better season than the one he’s had this year.
If the Mariners offered him arbitration, he’d almost certainly take it. I imagine the M’s aren’t that dumb.
You trying to blow it, Willmore?
That brings up something that is actually a sticky point I wanted to raise with someone here on USSMariner–whoever said that it was all a matter of “declining Jose Lopez’s option for 2011” to get him off the team and make him a free agent wasn’t quite correct.
As correctly surmised on another site, even once Lopez’s option is declined, he still won’t have the required amount of MLB service time at the end of 2010 to be a free agent. Instead, he’ll be arbitration-eligible. No, not free agent arbitration, as Wilmore is probably referring to, but arbitration for players with between 3 and 6 years of MLB service time(plus Super Twos). Lopez will have more than 5 years but less than the needed 6 years for free agency at the end of 2010, unfortunately.
So, if Lopez is still on the roster at the end of the season, the M’s will have to do 2 things:
a. Decline Jose Lopez’s 2011 option by whatever deadline there is for such decisions(late November, possibly?)
b. Non-tender him a contract for 2011(the deadline for that is usually around December 11th or 12th.)
to get rid of him. After that, he’ll be a free agent, true, but the non-tendered free agents never bring any compensation.
Just an FYI. 🙂
I’d argue that simply not having Jose Lopez on your team qualifies as “compensation”. 😀