Cactus League Game 19, Rockies at Mariners
This one is on the TV, so it seems like the right idea to throw this up even if I don’t have much commentary or news.
SS Figgins
2B Kawasaki
DH Ichiro
1B Carp
CF Wells
3B Seager
LF Peguero
RF Wilson
C Jaso
P Noesi
NO MONTERO FOR YOU! YOU’LL GET YOUR CARLOS PEGUERO AT-BATS AND LIKE THEM! Oh wait, Montero looks like he’s on the bench. I don’t know, maybe? He’s been “not feeling well” the past few days or something. I hope it’s not desert fever.
The Times has most of the content for today. Jerry Brewer wrote about Vinnie Catricala. Larry Stone asked a Japanese baseball expert what we should expect in Ichiro’s return. Bob Condotta talked to Carl Willis about pitching. That’s what I’ve got to tide you over for the next forty-five minutes or so.
Cactus League Game 18, Mariners at White Sox
Going into yesterday’s split-squad doubleheader, the Athletics and the Mariners were 1-2 in the Cactus League standings, though I doubt that anyone came away pleased with last night’s clash of the titans, our great preview of the season opener. I mean, the Mariners didn’t even send in a good lineup and pretty much rolled over. Sure, the Athletics won, but would they have had we bothered to play at full strength? It’s almost as if no one takes these games seriously.
Today, the Mariners made seven cuts, optioning OF Trayvon Robinson and re-assigning LHPs Sean Henn and Oliver Perez and RHPs Matt Fox, Aaron Heilman, Josh Kinney, and Jeff Marquez. At the beginning of spring training, someone made a Sporcle quiz of all the players invited to the Mariners spring training camp this year. If I had taken that quiz this morning, without any knowledge of the cuts, I would have gotten Heilman, Robinson, and maybe Perez off that group, since Oliver Perez has been the butt of a few jokes over the years (while still making more money than you ever will see in your lifetime, some clever person would be apt to remind you). Meanwhile, Peguero gets closer and closer to making the team…
Here’s a lineup for today’s game, which you can use to cheat on that quiz if you need to. Freebies!
2B Ackley
CF Saunders
C Olivo
1B Smoak
3B Liddi
LF Peguero
DH Catricala
RF Wilson
SS Brad Miller
P Beavan
That’s what’s going up against Jake Peavy. Yup. This game will be on the radio as the ongoing Manning saga is enough to consume all of our attention on weekdays, but not on weekends.
Today’s news includes a Mike Wilson feature in the Tacoma News Tribune, more talk from the Times about John Jaso playing first base if you didn’t get enough of that yesterday, and Larry Stone informs us over Twitter that the Red Sox have cut Carlos Silva.
Have at you, when the time is right.
Cactus League Game 16/17, Split Squad Day!
So we’re running a day-night not-doubleheader today and the first game starts in a few. This will a Gameday affair as, more than anything else, spring training is about tantalizing. It’s about thinking that guys could work it out because of relevant training or dietary changes and it’s about having the pitcher/hitter you want to see or hear not be on the TV or radio broadcast because you can’t be trusted with that kind of joy just yet. We’ll have to be eased in slowly.
at Brewers, 1 pm
2B Ackley
SS Kawasaki
C Montero
1B Smoak
3B Liddi
CF Saunders
LF Robinson
RF Daniel Carroll
DH Morla
P FELIX
So what happens instead? What happens if you don’t get that thing that you wanted? This is what happens. This is what you get.
at Oakland, 7 pm (RADIO)
CF Figgins
SS Rodriguez
RF Ichiro
LF Carp
DH Wells
3B Seager
1B Jaso
C Sucre
SS Noriega
P Iwakuma
Here’s something that caught my eye in the futility of spring training stats the other day. Guess the third baseman!
A: 28 AB, 5 R, 8 H, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 7/0 K/BB, .286/.286/.500
B: 18 AB, 7 R, 7 H, 4 2B, 4 RBI, 3/3 K/BB, .389/.522/.611
Player A is Seager! Player B is Liddi! Wacky, huh? Liddi has also come to spring training claiming to have a new approach, which may be a good thing since in the winter leagues, he was terrible. Whether or not this change amounts to anything is up to a larger sample to decide.
Cactus League Game 15, Giants at Mariners
TV again! Tonight, the Mariners are set to unveil their series of 2012 commercials to a broadcast audience, but you’ve likely already seen them because you’re using the internet, you lucky dog, you!
2B Seager
CF Wells
LF Carp
3B Catricala
LF Peguero
C Olivo
RF Wilson
DH Sucre
SS Rodriguez
P Erasmo Ramirez
We won’t get to see New Saunders again, which is a shame. Kawasaki, who had a home run and a single in the B game, is also absent, as is Montero, who doubled earlier this morning. But we do get some additional looks at Catricala and Wells (Peguero too, if that’s your thing) along with our first peeks at Seager and Carp. The big thing to pay attention to will be Erasmo, who seems to have worked his way into the discussion as either a starter or long man in the bullpen.
In additional positive news, Moore and Guti are both making progress coming back from their respective injuries. Hooray!
Saunders New Swing
Yesterday, Jeff Sullivan wrote about Michael Saunders three doubles to left or left center. Then, last night, Saunders did this.
Spring Training performances are still worthless, but this isn’t really a performance thing – this is Saunders doing a thing he just couldn’t do before. This doesn’t mean he can do it in the regular season against pitchers who aren’t just getting their work in, but the old Michael Saunders was unable to go the other way with any kind of authority. Last night, he almost hit one out to left center by staying back on a 95 MPH fastball.
At this point, I’d say it’s pretty likely that Saunders plays the lion’s share of center field the first few weeks of the season. He won’t play out there every day, but it’s probably in the team’s best interests to see if he can keep doing this in the regular season. Even if there’s no obvious roster spot for him when Guti returns, having a potentially useful Michael Saunders around would give the team options, and this is a team that needs production from guys who can play the outfield.
Don’t go overboard with what this means, as lots of guys have looked great in March and reverted to pumpkins in April. But opposite field power from Michael Saunders? That’s new, and that’s encouraging.
Cactus League Game 14, Royals at Mariners
The Mariners are hosting the Royals tonight out in Peoria in the spring’s first televised game, so you can tune in to watch a pretty representative Mariners line-up play at 7:05. I’m still down here in Arizona and will be headed up to Peoria to watch the game in person, and will be live blogging the events here. Well, to a degree, anyway – no one needs constant updates on Kevin Fox’s results on the mound.
The line-up for tonight:
2B – Ackley
DH – Wells
RF – Ichiro
1B – Smoak
LF – Peguero
C – Olivo
CF – Saunders
3B – Catricala
SS – Ryan
SP – Millwood
Cactus League Game 13 – Mariners at Brewers
The Brewers face both the A’s and M’s today, but it’s clear which team they see as the bigger threat. Milwaukee ace Zach Greinke starts today against the M’s, while someone named Michael Fiers faces the Athletics. As flattering as that is, today’s game is still somewhat disappointing as it marks the last game before Root sports gets some TV cameras down to Arizona and starts televising these things.
It seems like everyone in the M’s press corps wrote about Erasmo Ramirez over the past day or two, and he’ll get the start on Thursday in a televised game against the Giants.
Speaking of TV, the M’s unveiled the 2012 ads that you’ll see over and over on M’s broadcasts. For those that love these things, do you love this year’s crop more than last year’s, or more than whatever sort of baseline you apply in these situations? Is there a replacement-level ad (OK, there probably is, that crappy one with Pokey Reese in the faux-infomercial year)? An average ad?
(Forgot the link to the ads…sorry, here they are.)
Today’s line-up:
1: Ackley (2b)
2: Wells (RF)
3: Carp (LF)
4: Smoak (1b)
5: Montero (C)
6: Peguero (DH)
7: Seager (3b)
8: Saunders (CF)
9: Kawasaki (SS)
SP: Hector Noesi
Go M’s
Cactus League Game 12, Rangers at Mariners
This is another game that won’t be on radio or TV. That’s the bad news. The good news is that games will be broadcast on Wednesday and Thursday at 7 pm, giving us a bit of a fix, and then the following Sunday’s game will also be on TV at 1 pm. Be apprised.
For a lineup, we have this:
CF Figgins
SS Ryan
RF Ichiro
DH Montero
LF Carp
C Olivo
1B Liddi
3B Catricala
2B Kawasaki
P Beavan
I’m not really all that enthusiastic about that, so instead what I’m going to do here is use the post as an outlet for neat news stories that have come out over the past day or so. Geoff Baker had the most detailed story I’ve yet seen on who Erasmo Ramirez is and where he came from, which talks about how he had to go to El Salvador and train there before he was noticed by the scouts (little known fact). This goes along with the Shannon Drayer piece that Marc posted yesterday. Right now, there’s talk that Erasmo could break with the M’s to start the season. This has led to a few comparisons popping up now and then so I’ll address that even if the two aren’t really comparable in build.
A: 122.1 IP, 16.4 K%, 9.5 BB%
B: 110.1 IP, 16.8 K%, 5.6%
A is Doug Fister in his second year in West Tenn (curiously, his first year was better in some respects). B is Erasmo in Jackson last year. Fister had a another full year of time in the minor leagues that, at which point his walks dropped to 3.6%. That’s one of the reasons I don’t especially like the comp. But both are right-handed strike-throwers that don’t walk dudes, so it keeps coming up. I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to Erasmo breaking with the team, but his secondary offerings still need some work and he’s right on the threshold of the strikeout comfort zone. We’ll see.
As for the national media’s attention to our pitching prospects, Ken Rosenthal had a comprehensive article on the three that brought in a lot of quotes from Zduriencik, Willis, and Miguel Olivo, who has been catching all of these guys. It also brings in an interesting point that I had forgotten about: Zduriencik was the Mets farm director back when Generation K was coming up. On the whole, I would characterize it as cautiously positive about the plan as it stands, though I’m of the opinion that we also really need to develop some hitting internally in order to carry this through.
The last piece I have to share is one on the main site where Carl Willis talks about the bond between Walker, Paxton, and Hultzen. The Paxton/Walker relationship had been talked about a bit last year when both were in Clinton, and Hultzen seems to have slipped into that pretty easily. Now they’re talking about not wanting to split the group up so, I don’t know, maybe all of them end up in Jackson? It would be pretty ambitious to slot Walker there and have him skip over advanced-A entirely, but given the conundrums that High Desert presents us with, it may end up as the better option.
So, baseball?
Cactus League Game 11: Mariners at Giants
Yesterday’s impressive win against the Diamonbacks behind the pitching performance of the M’s big three big four pitching prospects opened a lot of eyes nationally. Erasmo Ramirez transformation from undersized/underpowered righty to a prospect (almost) in the class of the three pitchers who followed him last night is nothing short of remarkable – Shannon Drayer’s got a great story on him here.
Yesterday’s split squad games featured a legitimate M’s line-up in the A game and the exciting pitchers in the B game. Today, we get the best of both worlds with a good line-up and, well, Felix. The M’s made 15 cuts this morning, but they haven’t made the list official as of yet as they were waiting for some player to arrive after he had a flat tire this morning. That should get the number of players in MLB camp down to 47.
The Lineup for today’s game at 1:05:
1: Ackley (2B)
2: Rodriguez (SS)
3: Seager (3B)
4: Smoak (1B)
5: Peguero (RF)
6: Catricala (DH)
7: Saunders (CF)
8: Jaso (C)
9: Robinson (LF)
SP: King Felix
Behind Hernandez, the M’s will get a look at Steve Delabar, Tom Wilhelmsen, Cesar Jimenez, Lucas Luetge, Forrest Snow, Shawn Kelley and Oliver Perez.
Go M’s.
Cactus League Game 9/10, Split Squad Day!
Split squad day! Among my most favorite of days! The first game is going to be vs. the Dodgers at the usual time which, tomorrow with Daylight Savings Time, will become unusual. Then game two will be off the radio and a 6:10 in the evening and we will again combat those loathsome Snakes.
How about some lineup action?
vs. Dodgers
SS Figgins
2B Ackley
RF Ichiro
1B Smoak
3B Seager
C Olivo
CF Saunders
DH Wells
LF Chiang
P Iwakuma
That’s pretty much a lineup. The bench will feature Jaso, Miller, Triunfel, JABARI BLASH, Liddi, Sucre, deJesus, Hicks, and Trayvon. I would guess that the bullpen will not see Roenis Elias or Jonathan Arias, though both are listed, instead favouring Furbush, League, Robles, Ruffin, Heilman, and Marquez. But who knows?
This is a second lineup:
2B Kawasaki
SS Ryan
1B Carp
C Montero
3B Catricala
RF Wilson
DH Jimenez
LF Chavez
CF Ford
P Erasmo Ramirez
The bench here consists of Peguero, Alfredo Morales, Francisco Martinez, Noriega, Baron, Quiroz, Luis Rodriguez, Franklin, and Henriquez. Why does squad B need three backup catchers? I don’t know. I just don’t know. Their pitching staff features Hultzen, Walker, Paxton, Fox, Henn, and Medina in backup capacities. Those of you who have Gameday Audio will be able to listen in on the Arizona portion of the broadcast. Those of us without will weep.
The news from camp today is that Wilhelmsen and Kelley might end up in late relief roles with veterans faltering. Both certainly have the stuff to manage it. I know we went on a sudden reliever splurge at the end of the offseason, but the early returns on that were not especially good and the investment in relative terms, not particularly high. Jim Bowden apparently thinks our rebuilding plan positions us to be the next Rays, which means that our pitching is so interesting that it diverted his attention away from athletic outfielders. The TNT says Peguero is trying to curb the strikeouts. Keep pushing that boulder, kid. And today is the first day of full minor league workouts! They will be working hard even though they will not get to go to Japan, or any place other than the leagues that they are intended to go to.