Game 151, Mariners at Blue Jays
Dave · September 22, 2010 at 1:46 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Pauley vs Drabek, 4:07 pm.
Let’s just get right to the line-up, because, well, you’ll see.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
LOPEZ, 3B
Smoak, 1B
Carp, DH
Bard, C
Langerhans, LF
Saunders, CF
Woodward, SS
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71 Responses to “Game 151, Mariners at Blue Jays”
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There is no rational, or credible argument for Lopezs’ overall body of work.
Actually, mikethomas22, I’ll say something serious and positive about the guy.
Jose Lopez surprised me with his defensive play after making the move to third. While I understand the problems with defensive metrics based on a single season’s data – he has looked pretty good over there, in terms of his defensive performance.
Man oh man, I can’t say I look forward to seeing the sequel to the Adrian Beltre movie next year.
Jose Lopez going to the Jays and turning into Jose Bautista.
Which doesn’t mean I think we should keep Lopie by the way. We’re just not meant for each other.
It can’t just be Safeco. I wish some savvy guy could analyze the reason why everybody was hitting so well in 2001 (and 2002, maybe 2003).
And basically after that, all the hitters newly brought here (or raised to the big leagues) struggled with their hitting except for Ibanez.
I have an inkling that it was that evil freak Cirillo bringing his contagious uptight underperforming curse which only Ichiro managed to be impervious to, but probably someone out there can find a more sane reason.
Dave you should start putting Lopez’s name in bold every day.
That was when we still had the likes of Edgar Martinez and John Olerud on the team, actual solid players, pre-Cirillo, pre-Spiezio, pre-Vidro et al…
I think if anything, we can attribute the downfall of the team to losing a certain manager, not signing any certain player. Note that I’m not going to get into any Gillick discussions.
It has been said by some commenters on this site that Gillick was ultimately a negative for the M’s because he ignored or raped the farm system for the sake of immediate results. I’m not so sure I agree. His run of success here was unprecedented and hasn’t been repeated since he left. He went to Philadelphia and had success there, and his successor (Ruben Amaro, Jr.) has continued to have success. If he had sacrificed the future for the present while at Philadelphia, one would expect the team to now be unsuccessful, which simply is not the case.
I don’t know what to make of Lopez. He’s an average defender and he was a solid hitter the last two years. I don’t know why he’s been so bad this year. I certainly don’t think we should bring him back. Wherever he ends up next year, I would say he has about a 50% chance of being a 2 win player again. The point I was trying to make was just that when a guy hits three homers in a game, maybe he shouldn’t be attacked that game.
A loss would have been nice with the Pirates winning again. Just another reason to loathe Lopez.
Even in a lost season I still like to see wins (although I only “saw” this game on ESPN’s Gamecast).
Oh? So, your position is that the Mariner farm system was productive under his management? I’m not so sure that can be defended, empirically….
No, my position is that I don’t think Gillick was ultimately a negative for the M’s overall.
For myself, I’m not trying to praise Gillick at all. I’m just grasping for straws, wondering if there may be anything that was done different on the training level perhaps. Mental exercises, drills, or maybe the problem is that now we have too much mental or psychological mumbo jumbo.
Or maybe now there’s too much coaching, too much taking pitches emphasis (for batters like Lopez unfortunately not inclined to do so) and most of these guys as top athletes are not the brightest sticks in the bag and they get lost, freeze up at the plate, try to do too much, etc.
Or then again maybe there’s not enough coaching on a certain aspect.
I have no idea but I just wonder what the heck the funk with the offense is, and if maybe there is something (a quick fix which might help even a bit) other than just a matter of talent.
After all, Beltre and Sexson were top tier FA talent in terms of salary and we know how that turned out from just the offensive side.
I’m not claiming that the GM then was great (that’s just a matter of of player talent and it’s not juts that) but just that new players seemed to work out well on the hitting aspect in those years, and now too many newly acquired or newly promoted players seem to underperform much more than they should.
If this could be analyzed by someone really smart and there is any small aspect (of training? coaching? some aspect/trait of the players? or maybe too much coaching?) which makes it better than I wish they would implement it.
How come we have yet to see Cortes? There have been plenty of “low pressure situations” since he has arrived. What is the deal?
Well, you really can’t do that by citing his behavior elsewhere, you know….
I can see the announcement now.
Z is sitting awkwardly on the podium while Lincoln and Armstrong smile slyly in the back.
Z comes up to the microphone and says:
“We are excited to announce that we have signed Jose Lopez to a 5-year, $30 million extension.”
That was some call!
I hate it when stupid decisions get rewarded and reinforced. The result of this game reminds me of when my boss blows our company’s budget on unnecessary crap, neglecting the things that actually matter, then gets a bonus for keeping his branch under budget. Reinforcing bad choices just makes the rebuilding process take longer…
Not that I’ve never been guilty of this; but you have to be very careful with sweeping generalizations. Beltre and Sexson were/are very different cases. Remember, Sexson didn’t just suck here until the Mariners released him; he subsequently was picked up by New York and sucked there for a short while before being cut loose by them as well.
The issues Beltre had seem to be related to a fairly well documented effect Safeco has on similar hitters; but also don’t forget he was not at 100% for parts of the last two seasons, what with the bone spurs, crushed testicles, and the like.
Ew, I cringed right after typing that…
Also, be careful not to start viewing 2010 in isolation (something I’m definitely guilty of sometimes). And if you somehow think 2010 is part of some long continuum, then you’d better figure out how to explain 2009 for example.
There was a lot of cheering in Castle Rock last night when my man Jose Lopez had a career night.
Not only did he sparkle on offense he made a boatload good plays at third base also. Way to go Jose!
Let the power of LOPEZ compel you!! I for one welcome our new .230 hitting overlords.
He has swung at and missed over a thousand sliders off the plate. I think that almost ZEN!!
ESPN has a really cool article ranking the Mariners this year as the worst offense of all time. Out of the top ten worst of all time since the advent of the DH. Even worse than the worst NL teams that have pitchers batting.
That’s a pretty interesting level of fail I’m not sure can be explained as part of any strategy. If is wasn’t for Felix, we’d also have the worst record. FELIX is awesome. I be he’d even hit at DH better than the clowns we have now. Think about how mentally tough he is to continue to kill it on this horrible team. Same goes for Ichiro.
Of COURSE Lopez had that game.