Game 80, Indians at Mariners
Chris Young vs. Trevor Bauer, 7:10 pm
One of my favorite things about Trevor Bauer was when he was drafted. Bauer was and is known for his unusual regimen (long toss) and engineered delivery that was patterned off of Lincecum. Teams knew how committed he was to it and that he was unlikely to change it for just any old reason. He was drafted by the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks tried to tweak his delivery. He was not happy. Sometime later, he was traded to Cleveland in three-team deal. Though there were more pieces involved, the Diamondbacks basically got back a year of a below-average reliever (Tony Sipp), a strong defensive shortstop who can only hope to have a league average wRC+ (Didi Gregorious), and a former top prospect first baseman who was subsequently waived and lost for nothing (Lars Anderson). This is at least one interesting thing about Bauer.
Another interesting thing is that Major League Baseball has been around for well over a hundred years and we still haven’t the least idea how to keep pitchers healthy. Because it’s not like they’re integral to the team or anything. Every few years some new pitcher comes along with a new thing they’re doing, a Lincecum, a Bauer, a Bundy, and sometimes they last and sometimes they don’t and sometimes we see diminishing returns as we seem to see with a lot of them. Usually they are treated with suspicion or occasionally contempt. Pitchers throw all kinds of strange ways with unusual arm angles and some stay healthy and some don’t. Sometimes a 6’1″, 180 pound guy is throwing 99 mph as a starter and others a 6’8″, 250 pound behemoth is only sitting low-90s in relief. Is this not odd to all of you, the lack of codification, the lack of guarantee?
Bauer has been better at avoiding the free pass this season, but has been giving up home runs as he has in the majors. He’s been below average overall and throws a little bit of everything.
The Condor is back in the lineup at the obvious expense of Jesus Montero. Please welcome him with quiet, respectful cawing, as is the song of his people, and reserve more enthusiastic cawing for when he actually does something positive.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Minor league news? Paxton threw a bullpen and his arm is still attached to his torso. Jabari Blash and Jamal Austin were suspended 50 games for drug of abuse violations (i.e., the after-school special variety, not the body building variety). Alex Jackson and Gareth Morgan both debuted last night, with Jackson going 2-for-4 with a triple, two runs, two RBI, a walk and two Ks, and Morgan going 1-for-3 with a run, three RBI, two walks and two Ks. Daydream if you must.
Game 79, Red Sox at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Clay Buchholz, 7:10 pm
Returning from the DL, the Mariners get a version of Clay Buchholz that has been rather poor this season. Of course, he has never been as good as everyone thought he would be. Back in the day, everyone said ace starter, top ten prospect in all of baseball, etc. This is a guy who has never had higher than a 3.5 WAR and has only exceeded 1.5 twice since 2008.
Injuries? Injuries. I’m looking at the Wikipedia page for him and seeing shoulder fatigue, torn fingernail, hamstring, esophagitis, neck strain, and most recently a hyperextended knee. When he’s healthy, he’s been all right, despite having a career K/9 of under seven, but he hasn’t been healthy often enough. This year, he’s had the highest walk and home run rates he’s had since his rookie season. I feel like I typed out something very similar for Peavy. This also happens to be a winnable game that may or may not be won and we may or may not sweep out the defending world champions. These are things that are actually happening, to the Mariners.
I was listening to the pre- and post-game content as I often do. Among the interesting pre-game content was that Endy Chavez said that one of his main reasons for being up here is to mentor James Jones in the outfield trade, defending, how to lead off, etc. James Jones was batting .277/.333/.386 when Chavez arrived. He is now batting .279/.314/.346. Whoops.
Among the interesting post-game content was that Lloyd McClendon, when asked about the work of the bullpen, emphasized that the team cannot continue to tax it in the way that it has. What was omitted, or I perhaps missed as I was paying attention unevenly, was the frequency with which it was happening, particularly in Erasmo’s starts. I mentioned that potentially dangerous meeting of his high walk rate with the Red Sox’ own high walk rate, and sure enough, we saw five walks in four and a third innings. Goldsmith, in that sly way of his, mentioned Erasmo’s scoreless streak in the context of him having allowed and stranded ~30 baserunners in ~20 innings. WHIP is a statistic of limited uses, but a 1.50 of that should not equate to a 0.00 ERA. We all knew that, though it was hard to take Erasmo out while people were talking about how he was “gaining confidence” and such as.
I emphasize all of t his because last night, Taijuan Walker threw a complete game shutout with 107 pitches. He had twelve groundballs to only three flies and a 8/1 K/BB with four hits allowed. If the Mariners were looking for a “statement” game, that was it. He’ll have his struggles, tax the bullpen himself now and then, and may even be not-so-amazing next time out on account of throwing so many pitches in the shutout. He should still be up to make the start next time the rotation turns around. I would be surprised if he weren’t.
The first step in this process (note: I wrote the above at around 2 pm, and the rest is tacked on at 4 pm) has been Erasmo’s demotion to Tacoma in order to get an extra relief arm in Brandon Maurer. Reports in Tacoma have had Maurer in the mid-to-high-90s and using his slider to great effect. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t be talking about him as a relief candidate, but in an ideal world we also probably wouldn’t have the dozens and dozens of arm surgeries for pitchers this year and it would be harder to break through as such. We have needs in the bullpen and other arms who have handled starting better, so Maurer is in the ‘pen for now. I’d expect his tenure to last only as long as it takes us to get to that rotation slot again, barring weirdness. Baseball is so weird.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
RF Stefen Romero
The Weirdness Has Already Happened
On a podcast earlier this season, Matthew briefly lamented the fact that the Mariners seldom blow other teams out. It’s not much of a complaint, and it’s true because the Mariners haven’t been a great team*, but there is nothing quite like an easy, comfortable win. On consecutive nights now, the Mariners have dismantled the Red Sox. They’ve outscored the defending champions 20-5. The first of two starting lineups had Endy Chavez leading off, and Willie Bloomquist at DH. The second had Endy Chavez leading off, John Buck at DH, and Erasmo Ramirez on the mound. If you don’t understand, don’t worry, because nobody does.
* great teams blow other teams out
Go ahead and pick your favorite WTF statistic. There are a few to choose from. A selection:
- The Mariners are 5-1 when Willie Bloomquist starts at first base or DH.
- The Mariners are 12-5 when Endy Chavez starts.
- The Mariners are 14-7 when Cole Gillespie starts.
- Chris Young has allowed fewer runs per nine innings than Max Scherzer, Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, and Jon Lester, among so many others.
What’s not a total shock is that the Mariners are in third place. What’s more of a shock is that they’re sitting on six more wins than losses, and they have a game lead on the Orioles for the second wild-card slot. They have baseball’s second-highest run differential, which seems absolutely insane, and according to the FanGraphs playoff odds, the Mariners are securely in fifth in the AL, where five teams get to play extra. The Mariners project to finish a little above average, and that’s all you need to be these days to live at least another nine innings.
A decade ago, that run-differential statistic would’ve been more exciting. These days, we know better; run differential matters, but it matters less than other things you can do. The Mariners haven’t actually played like baseball’s second-best team, and to get a little more advanced, you can look instead at wOBA differential, which is simply wOBA produced less wOBA allowed. By that metric, the Mariners come out fifth in the AL at present, behind the A’s, Angels, Tigers, and Blue Jays. That’s not unexpected. They’re still ahead of the Orioles, and Indians, and Royals, and Yankees. Actually, right behind the Mariners are the Rays, who have baseball’s very worst record. That’s the Rays’ misfortune, but the Rays’ misfortune isn’t our problem.
An important point to recognize: the Mariners’ record probably isn’t an accurate reflection of the Mariners’ performance. On paper, they should be a few games worse, which I don’t think many would disagree with.
An important point to recognize: that’s all in the books, though. The weirdness that’s taken place never has to be given back. The Mariners will forever have gone 12-5 in Endy Chavez’s first 17 starts. A lot of people are growing increasingly familiar with the concept of regression to the mean, but that doesn’t get to apply retroactively, so it’s not like you should go around expecting a team-wide slump to even everything out. That’s not reality, that’s the gambler’s fallacy, and so what matters most now is taking advantage of the win/loss foundation the team has already set.
This isn’t rocking any boats. This is all simple, obvious stuff, but while you’re free to await the other shoe dropping, understand what that would look like. There’s no reason to expect that to be a massive collapse. It would look a lot more like .500 baseball, and if the Mariners finish .500, they’ll finish 84-78. That’s close enough to be interesting into September, and now you look around and see reasons to think the team could play more sustainably well.
I mean, Brad Miller is showing signs, right? Erasmo Ramirez is a disaster either waiting to happen or in the process of happening, but Taijuan Walker just spun a shutout in triple-A. Michael Saunders is almost back to replace Endy Chavez, and Saunders doesn’t look like he’s missed a step. Logan Morrison has reduced the importance of getting back a normal Justin Smoak, and I don’t think Corey Hart is as bad as his early-season statistics. It’s possible to be both cynical about the organization and excited by the rest-of-season outlook. Apparently the Mariners are looking at making deadline additions. Even if 2014 is a save-the-job season for the front office, it’s not like we’re in position to choose the circumstances under which we get a decent Mariners team. What we all want is competitive baseball, and while we’d prefer competitive baseball under the sort of leadership we thought we had in 2009, the present situation is better than other, recent situations. The position the Mariners are in now is a position where they’re probably going to be some kind of compelling for at least most of the regular season.
The Mariners’ disadvantage is that they share a division with maybe the two best teams in the league. So they’re looking almost strictly wild card, and that means a potential one-and-done, and that feels less than totally satisfying. But a potential one-and-done, half the time, is also a one-and-on, and while you can say what you will about the true intentions behind wild-card expansion, again, it’s not like we don’t get to benefit. If the idea is to increase interest and drum up profits, they can drum up profits because they’re successfully increasing interest. It’s fun to give a shit, and right now we get to give all the shit we like.
It’s kind of weird that the Mariners have this many wins. They’re guaranteed to finish with at least that many wins. What’s done is done, and the future could have a lot less Bloomquist, Chavez, and Gillespie. The future’s only 84 games. You don’t have to understand why what’s happened has happened. Just recognize that it could be a hell of a lot worse.
Game 78, Red Sox at Mariners
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Jake Peavy, 7:10 pm
That was some game last night, right?
This one will feature two guys who have not been what their respective teams expected them to be, though in Peavy’s case it’s more impactful. By whatever metric you care to look at, Peavy has not been good. His home run/fly ball percentage is the worst that it’s been since his sophomore season back in 2003 and his walks and K rates are in the same camp. He’s also lost a mile off his heater relative to last year, which is weird, because he’s using it more and hasn’t busted out the cutter nearly as often, if the pitch types are to be believed. Peavy has never been a pitcher with great stuff, so any loss of it is something that you can see the effects of. When, in addition to that, he doesn’t have good command, then things get rather bad for him. The Mariners have also hit him well in the past, when he was good and with the Padres or the White Sox. This looks like a winnable game for the Mariners which means that we could either win or lose the game.
A lot of lip service was played to the most recent start by Erasmo being the best. It is technically accurate in that he went six innings without a run and the last three starts have spanned scoreless 15.2 innings. But then this most recent outing against the Padres was the first in which he had more strikeouts than walks. By one. The Red Sox have the fourth best walk rate in the MLB. This could get aggravating in a hurry. Fortunately for Erasmo, the Red Sox rank 24th in isolated slugging as a team ahead of the Padres, Yankees, Rays, Mets, Cardinals, and Royals. Okay, some of those names seem like they belong there.
Some of us will likely be paying attention to the Taijuan Walker start in Tacoma tonight, just to figure out if he’s getting any closer. Others will be paying attention to it because Michael Saunders is hitting .529/.556/.941 (!) through his first four games there and our offense plainly looks a lot better with Condor in the lineup. One other consideration I would have is the whole Justin Smoak thing, beyond the fact that he’s been taking away at-bats from the previously red-hot Ji-Man Choi, which irks me. Smoak has been batting .217/.296/.391 down in Tacoma so far. The walks and power (sort of?) have been there, but he’s still striking out a bit and hits aren’t falling in for him regularly. Now that Logan Morrison is looking like he could be a solid lineup contributor, the question is what you do with first base once Smoak is ready. Play Smoak at first and keep with the defensive gains, leaving Morrison to DH, or play Morrison at first, take a hit on defense, and try to find an actual hitter to use at designated hitter instead of oh look here’s another lineup:
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
DH John Buck
D.J. Peterson, who was promoted to Jackson last night, and Gabriel Guerrero, who was not, have been named to the Futures Game. I will have stuff to say about both of them in the future myself, but NOT NOW.
Game 77, Red Sox at Mariners
Felix Hernandez vs. John Lackey, 7:10 pm
Happy Felix Day? Like last time out, we want an easy win and end up with a pitcher’s duel. John Lackey has accumulated 2.7 WAR so far this year according to Fangraphs. Among his high marks in WAR since 2008, you have 3.9, 3.5, and 3.2 last year. The odds seem reasonable that this year he’ll live up to being the guy the Red Sox thought they were getting when they signed him away from the Angels. Strangely, the stats aren’t too far off from what he’s been throughout his career. His strikeout rate isn’t much higher, it’s just that his walks and home runs have been a little bit lower than they have been in other years recently. Pitch counters tell us that he’s throwing the fastball more than any year since 2003 and that he’s phased the curve and change out. He doesn’t show much in the way of splits, but are we playing the lefty lineup again? Yes. Yes we are.
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
DH Willie Bloomquist
Boom Boom accounted for much of our hitter WPA yesterday. I don’t like it but it is what it is. The Mariners victory helped push them to 40 wins and they presently have the 3rd-best run differential in the AL. And the AL West. Do not look at the Oakland A’s run differential unless you are fully prepared to be depressed and confused.
Minor league news? D.J. Peterson and Dylan Unsworth were both Cal League Players of the Week. Alex Jackson has also officially signed. That was your minor league news.
Go ‘Ners. Do baseball.
Game 76, Mariners at Royals
Roenis Elias vs. Yordano Ventura, 11:10 am
For the second time this year, we’re going up against noted flamethrower Yordano Ventura. Last time we faced him, it was May 10th in Safeco and we basically waited him out and hit what he missed with, as he walked four and gave up two home runs which collectively helped draw three runs for us. It was one of his worse outings and I don’t know that we get so lucky this time out, except that he’s a pitcher of some volatility. That said, his splits, be they home or away, left or right, really don’t show that much of an advantage beyond the expected, so we gain no points for heavily platooning as we are wont to do. I might be tempted to send out a less experienced right-handed bat just to show said bat what it’s like to face that kind of velocity, but I don’t think that’s a method aligned with winning games as such.
Speaking of volatility, Mariners? We recently failed to score enough runs to beat the Padres, who can’t score runs but have a good pitching staff, and then went on to win two in a row against the Royals, who have at least a decent pitching staff but can score runs. I remember talking with the fellows prior to the season and the conclusion we all seemed to come to independently and then agree upon was that this year’s team would be around or over .500 but erratic. The losing steak was not surprising, nor the rebound after it. I would say that the results of these past four games, while still agonizing from a Felix perspective, are also not wholly surprising either. Not all .500-ish teams appear to be made alike.
What I can say about the team, as presently structured, is that it possesses a few high-end talents who can be relied on somewhat consistently (all talents slump now and then), Felix and Iwakuma for the pitching staff, Cano and Seager for the hitting. Sometimes things sync up to where those high-end talents are performing with the other occasional talents and we win games. Sometimes those talents alone are enough to keep us afloat, and sometimes not. In other instances, the stars struggle and we’re sometimes on the winning side and sometimes not, depending on how the supporting players are during that time. I don’t know that any of us phrased it particularly as such coming into the year, but it seems to make sense, in that way that is largely spitballing and not too reliant on data (to be fair, I wouldn’t know what to cite).
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
DH Robinson Cano
1B Logan Morrison
3B Kyle Seager
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
2B Willie Bloomquist
Some of you probably got the word yesterday that Raul Ibanez was released by the Angels. You could make remarks in an attempt to be clever about “oh he would be one of our better hitters” except haha no. Raul has been worth a 53 wRC+ this year and that’s been worse than every non-Almonte hitter we’ve had. Yes, worse even than Endy Chavez. So while it would be very Mariners to sign Raul for one final tour so that he can retire as a Mariner, the results aren’t there to support it and I don’t think we’re that dumb. He would only just be inside the top ten on our team in dingers and we all know how we value those. Fun fact: he also has three stolen bases. How?
Game 75, Mariners at Royals
Chris Young vs. Jason Vargas, 11:10 am
The press is celebrating the early game because it allows them to locate and ingest more barbecue. You could be celebrating it because it allows you to go outside to either barbecue or not. You should hike or something. Hiking is good exercise.
Today’s pitching match-up features two somewhat familiar quantities and if you were guessing that I might be stalling because I didn’t have anything to say about it, yeah. Jason Vargas on the mound for the Royals doesn’t mean much to those of us who have paid attention to some hundred odd starts of him from 2009 to 2012. This year is similar to last year in every aspect save that his strand rate has been about 4% higher, balls aren’t dropping in for him as much (- thirty points on BABIP), and he’s dropped half a walk per nine innings. Otherwise, he’s been Jason Vargas. Competent, kind of boring, sallow-looking. That he’s left-handed means we get to see things like John Buck, Cole Gillespie, Jesus Montero, and Stefen Romero, if you’re at all into seeing those things.
CF James Jones
LF Cole Gillespie
2B Robinson Cano
1B Logan Morrison
C John Buck
3B Kyle Seager
RF Stefen Romero
DH Jesus Montero
SS Rad Miller
Larry Stone points out that Miller is hitting .297/.352/.484 over his last ten, so that would be cool if he’s now figuring it out. It would be different from the kind of situation we’re accustomed to with Smoak and Ackley. I would prefer something different.
I would attempt to provide more content, but then I’d miss the start time. Your minor league probables: Carraway (Tacoma), Victor Sanchez (Jackson), Jochi Ogando (High Desert), Campbell (Clinton), Noel de la Cruz (Everett), and TBDs for everyone else. Nine games in action today. I do not miss having to spend my evening writing about all of them.
Game 74, Mariners at Royals
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. James Shields, 5:10 pm
Perhaps, disenchanted with the perpetual tightrope walk that is Erasmo Ramirez starts, you were wondering about the availability of one Taijuan Walker. To which, I must regrettably point out that in yesterday’s outing, young Mr. Walker gave up six earned in five innings, boosted by two dingers, though the K/BB was acceptable at 4/1.
We knock the Royals for the silliness of the “Trust the Process” cult, which few seem to buy into, but this year it appears to be paying dividends for them (bear in mind that Dayton Moore has been at the helm of the Royals for far longer than Jack Zduriencik has been in charge of the Mariners). They gave up Wil Myers, but James Shields has been worth more and the team leads the division ahead of the Tigers. But when your team’s hopes seem to hinge on Sabean-ing your way into contention now and then… well, I certainly feel my misgivings about rooting for these Mariners even when they’re good and I like baseball a lot more than I do other sports. By the way, the Moore and Sabean remarks are for those of you who think that it’s a given that Zduriencik is on a hot seat. It’s the same process that permits one to continue starting an over-the-hill hitter because he hit a dinger recently enough to remember it, so perhaps the problem is not so much the GM.
Shields has slightly reverse splits for his career, but this year has been slightly worse against left-handers, whom he’s always walked a bit more. ‘Kuma is ‘Kuma, whether you’re in the camp that calls him The Bear or you’re in the camp that tries to call him The Machine (note: cyborg bears are not a resolution to this or any other problem). He’s been pretty good against the Royals, but Shields isn’t so bad himself.
Tonight’s minor league news opens with me complaining that the Rainiers have two days in a row prioritized Justin Smoak and Xavier Nady over Ji-man Choi. Matt Palmer is on the mound for them tonight. In Jackson, Steve Landazuri makes only his second start since April, and back in April he looked like one of the better next-wave pitching prospects we might have. And Julio Morban has been activated from the DL. Will wonders never cease? Unsworth is going for High Desert, Huijer is pitching for a Clinton game in progress, Cleto tries to stop the skid against Tri-City, and Littell, an interesting late-rounder from last year, goes for Pulaski. We also have Arizona opening the season, which will mean first looks at Jackson, Morgan, Muhammad, and Gorgas, along with summer leaguers and rehab stints for various players we’ve been wondering about. Huzzah.
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
DH Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
LF Dustin Ackley
C Mike Zunino
SS Rad Miller
3B Willie Boom Boom
Game 73, Mariners at Padres
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Jesse Hahn, 3:40 pm
I don’t really want to talk about last night’s game any more than the rest of you might. The excitement that I gain from the Mariners being over .500 and still competitive this late is too often negated by their inability to get Felix his wins.
I didn’t expect to be writing about Erasmo Ramirez still, after all these starts by Walker in Tacoma, but perhaps the Padres writers in the rival bizarro version of our universe didn’t expect to be writing about Hahn either, being their guy who vaulted from double-A to the majors. Hahn is one of an increasing number of drafted players who had TJ before or just after turning pro. He’s got the two varieties of fastball, which can touch in the mid-to-high 90s if he puts all he has into it, and he’s got a curve and a change-up as well. He gets to face off against our lefty-heavy lineup plus John Buck as the designated Erasmo catcher.
Hahn is not a pitcher for whom we have a lot of data at the moment (9.2 innings in the majors thus far), but in his time here we’ve seen groundballs, Ks, and also walks and dingers. FIP basically hates him. In the minor leagues he was extremely not-dinger-prone, had an easier time hitting his spots, and didn’t strike out so many. My knee-jerk reaction from seeing the Mariners face unknown pitchers for some years now is to throw a hooded robe on and go wandering about muttering “doom” and other punchy Anglo-Saxon-derived monosyllabics.
Today in the minor leagues, we have possible Erasmo replacement Taijuan Walker starting again. No, I don’t have a Charlie Furbush replacement to talk about (Luetge isn’t worth the exchange, I think). Tyler Olson goes in Jackson, Scott DeCecco is in High Desert, some TBD in Clinton, Blake Holovach in Everett, and now Pulaski is opening up their season. I don’t have a lot to say about them as the roster typically has high-end summer league prospects and everyone else who was drafted in the later rounds, so it’s not a roster one ever has a good gauge on, before or sometimes after. Most of these games are now in session after the all-star breaks of the respective leagues, so this is as good a time as any to mention that Austin Wilson, who was hitting .300/.380/.527 at the time, was not selected to his league’s team which is some real BS. He should at least be in the Cal League soon.
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C John Buck
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
RHP Erasmo Ramirez
Go ‘Ners.
Game 72, Mariners at Padres
Felix Hernandez vs. Andrew Cashner, 7:10 pm
After the last Felix outing and how it ended, a lot of us would prefer an easier outing so that we can just get Felix a win because oh god, we’re sorry, we’re so sorry. This is not such an outing. The sentimental aspect of the Tony Gwynn tribute is a factor, certainly, but then the M’s also get to face Andrew Cashner. Cashner is worth less than half what Felix is worth in WAR, but he’s had a fine year, adding roughly a K per inning over last year and halving his home run rate. His fastball has been as good as it’s ever been, but he’s been throwing the change-up less often and has twice the isolated slugging against lefties as he’s had against righties. Take a guess at what the lineup looks like? Do not proceed until you finish guessing.
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Brad Miller
RHP Felix Hernandez
Maybe Felix taught himself to bat left-handed since the last time we saw him hit. Who knows? He probably didn’t.
Moving on to minor league news, there’s this:
No. 6 overall pick Alex Jackson agrees to terms w/@Mariners. Trying to pin down exact $ (north of $4 mil). Pick value = $3,575,900 @MLBDraft
— Jim Callis (@jimcallisMLB) June 18, 2014
Since he signed well before the deadline, I would expect him to be in Everett later this year, though reports are that he’s heading to Peoria, which starts up Friday. There’s also other stuff, like Smoak starting his rehab tonight for Tacoma, and Hart and Saunders joining later in the week. I’m opposed to any scenario that might take away at-bats from Ji-man Choi though. They’d better not.