Game 98, Mariners at Blue Jays
Wade Miley vs. JA Happ, 10:07am
The M’s go for a road sweep of a very good team – a wild card rival – and most M’s fans will be watching something else. Griffey’s induction into the Hall of Fame kicks off a little while after this game starts.
To be honest, while I love the museum aspect of the Hall, I never really understood the intensity of the debates about it. Like any group of humans, I think the BBWAA makes some, uh, questionable decisions from time to time, and it seems self-defeating to let their judgments about, say, Edgar ruin your day. We all know what Edgar did, what he meant, just as we know Juan Gonzalez was in no sense the most valuable player in 1996.
Today, though, I think I understand. We get to celebrate someone who put the M’s on the map, who dominated the game and the culture, and who looked like the most complete CF since Mays. We all get to stop and remember how transcendent he was, and why we couldn’t take our eyes off of him.
And we can check in on this game too, I guess:
1: Aoki, LF
2: Iannetta, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Lee, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Zunino, C
8: Martin, CF
9: Sardiñas, SS
Congratulations, Junior.
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7 Responses to “Game 98, Mariners at Blue Jays”
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So, how do we evaluate the Saunders-Happ trade when Toronto ended up with both players?
Seriously, the way they dealt with Saunders was one of the clearest signs that something was wrong with the Zduriencik front office.
It’s great that Junior is going into the Hall of Fame today, but I don’t really have much interest in watching his (or anyone else’s) induction speech.
I love the history of baseball, but the HOF itself has never seemed particularly compelling to me. If I were in the vicinity of the HOF for some other reason, I would probably plan on going… but I’m not really into reliquary, plus it’s hard to get past all the silliness that is the HOF decision-making process itself.
Of course having chosen to watch the game, I’m staring at a team who hasn’t done much of anything today and finds itself down 0-2 in the 8th inning. Oh well…
1 hit…. Man Toronto really fleeced us on the Saunders – Happ deal, at least that’s the way it looks right now. Awesome effort today guys!
On the other hand, we ended up with both Martin and Wilhelmsen, although that’s really not as good.
The hall is divisive only because its a huge sports talk radio talking point and our 24/7 social media coverage of sports loves debating every nuance of the MLB HOF.. which also dovetails into PEDs, the other favorite talking head time-filler.
I don’t blame Jack Z’s people for Condor. Condor never even remotely stayed healthy, and was essentialy Leonys Martin with less glove when he *was* healthy. He’s having a good year, and god bless him.. But Trumbo is also already at 30 HRs and people would have coronary episodes if we tried to pretend the Mariners were insane to let Trumbo go.
It’d also be just as hard to justify losing out on JA Happ, who was a servicable 5th starter and nothing more. I’d leave it to marc to do the full diagnostics, but Happ appears to be having a ‘solid’ season that Blue Jay run support has turned into this generations version of the late 80s Storm Davis in Oakland.
Just like the classic Montero-Pineda trade, winning and losing is all relative. You could argue the Mariners won the Montero trade in that they treated and viewed Montero as a bonus and never had to rely on him for output (and thank god for that), wheras the Yankees had peciled in Pineda as a front-end starter… and Pineda’s injuries and PED shenanigans have given the Yankees 21 wins and a 4+ ERA over 59 starts and 5 seasons.
Clearly that trade did more damage to the Yankees, even though both sides lost. Just how the Blue Jays ‘victory’ with Saunders will be quickly forgotten if they sign him long term and he missed the equivalent of 3 of the next 6 years like his career arc would suggest. Its all relative. I cannot fault the Mariners for not getting more value out of a light hitting outfielder who lived in the trainer’s room. Or for not getting great returns for Happ.. Who found something in Pittsburgh and Toronto he didnt in Seattle: run support.
Yes, Saunders has an injury history, but just 2 years ago, in a half a season, he was the Mariners’ 3rd best position player.
Yes, this is another eff-up from the M’s front office. Has there been a worse organization in the history of baseball???