Drowning in Opening Day coverage
ObBookPlug: The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball got a really positive review in the LA Times (registration).
Lots, lots, lots of Opening Day coverage. KUOW has yesterday’s epic Art Thiel-Larry Stone-Me Weekday online. Listen to me sick, dehydrated, on an hour’s sleep, try to keep up with my favorite Seattle print columnists.
PI
Art Thiel
Miller
Hickey’s game recap
More on the local boys!
A whole article on the Crosby error
Notebook: Johjima, Hernandez get along
Times
Baker and again
Larry Stone on Sexson
Bishop on the Crosby error
Kelley wrote something, too
If you missed it, the Kitsap Sun ran a huge, front-page covering article on the Bloomquist/Ellison reunion: “Now, Two Wolves in Seattle Clothing” featuring many pictures and running, by my guess, about 80,000 words.
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32 Responses to “Drowning in Opening Day coverage”
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re: Kitsap Sun-
does that mean that the Mariners are sheep?
No link to Kelley? I am shocked!
Re: Notebook: Johjima, Hernandez get along. Maybe I’m being too harsh here but Johjima looked like crap behind the plate yesterday. It was obvious that he was being overpowered by Hernandez yesterday — not a good sign when your catcher can’t handle the stuff your number one starter is bringing. Hernandez might need his own catcher this season.
He wasn’t being overpowered – he was stabbing at the ball. It’s a fixable flaw in his technique. It is frustrating to watch, though.
I’ve often wondered if that was why Rivera was up all of last year, having gotten accustomed to Felix’s stuff in AAA.
I have this thought in the back of my head. Get a good defensive catcher for Hernandez and late game situations, and use Johjima more as a DH. I don’t think Vidro is going to be that great of a DH.
I would just like to mention that Felix was so dominating for my fantasy team yesterday that he actually went back in time to Sunday and removed three earned runs from my other ace, Chris Carpenter. Don’t ask me how this happened.
and as Joh spent all spring working on throwing out runners, they obviously didn’t spend time workong on the stab/catch.
Nice interview.
I found humorous the part where no one names names in regards to the jackasses of the Mariners management 😛
Ok, I hate Steve Kelley as much as the next guy, but I eat up anything written about Felix, so I gave it a shot this morning. Is it just me, or does Felix not have a splitter — to which Kelley refers to over and over again. Did he develop a new pitch? Could Kelley be referring to The King’s two-seam sinker? His curveball? His change-up? Maybe I’m smoking something, but I didn’t know he even had a splitter.
If he doesn’t, somebody needs to alert Kelley immediately, as he’s making an idiot of himself again…
I got to meet Derek yesterday, and he gave my copy of The Cheater’s Guide a great sig.
In case you missed it, Nook Logan of the Nationals got hurt. Doyle is likely to get the starts until Logan comes back, unless the Nationals call up Kory Casto. Doyle won’t get a better shot at 2+ weeks of playing time than this.
Kelley confused Felix’s change-up with a split-finger fastball. Instead of ripping on the guy for not knowing the repertoire of the best pitcher the franchise has ever developed, I’ll instead point out that when your change-up even presents the possibility of being confused with a split-finger fastball, that’s a pretty sick pitch.
He may have just grabbed it from the generic AP article, as most sites last night discussed his ‘splitter’ in their review of the game. That said, a local writer really should have a better idea of Felix’s pitches than whoever writes the AP story.
Joh not only “stabs”, he drops stuff right down the middle. The teach for not “stabbing” involves moving or swaying your body towards the ball and centering it up. When no ones on, his butt is so low, that he has to extend or “stab” and he has no strength in the movement. Its something all college catchers do correctly, let alone a mlb catcher. The dh idea expressed earlier has merit.
When no one is on, a dropped pitch almost never matters. Besides the passed ball, there wasn’t one play where Joh’s stabbing had a materially adverse effect on the team.
It’s far more frustrating than it is harmful. It’s one of those things, like a batter striking out, that you just have to learn isn’t that big of a deal, especially when compared to the huge advantage of his offensive production compared to a normal catcher.
Are you guys serious? I was amazed at how many “stabs” resulted in dropped balls too, most staying in front, (as well as a ball that sailed over Joh’s head to advance a runner), but what is your solution, really?
I like Burke fine, but the guy has less than 60 real major league games as a catcher under his belt, and none since the 2004 season. What else do you propose? Bring Clement up now? Have Rivera return to last year’s “glory?”
I believe the team needs to spend a little more time working on Joh’s stabbing tendancies and we go with what we got for now. If your proposal isn’t to trade Johjima for somebody else with better skills, I am not sure what we’d do now that would improve our immediate situation, the M’s aren’t going to steal away a gold glover (are are we?). Joh’s a smart guy who will catch on.
I really doubt that Joh’s defensive problems justify moving him to DH. As a catcher, he’s one of our few lineup strengths offensively; as a DH he’d be merely ordinary (albeit a likely upgrade on Vidro), and we’d almost certainly take a big offensive hit at catcher.
DMZ – loved your alchemy comment in the KUOW interview. Good stuff.
it has always cracked me up how Kendall (among others) just doesn’t even worry about things he isn’t going to get to, so you will often see balls flying between his legs towards the backstop, as he moves not a muscle.
My annoyance with Johjima’s defense is that he doesn’t seem to get on top of a ball in the dirt, so it will either ricochet away from him when it hits his chest protector, or it’s the wild stabbing thing.
I certainly don’t want to get rid of him or replace his .800 OPS bat in the lineup with a Rene Rivera type scrub with better defensive fundamentals, but at times I wonder whether in 2008 he should DH’ing most games with Clement catching. He’d certainly be a better DH than the $9M groundout machine they’re running out there now.
If you’re looking for defense, Clement isn’t your answer either.
If anything, you’d call up Rob Johnson if you want a defensive upgrade (but not much bat).
Here’s a USS Mariner poll/contest idea:
What will be the M’s first roster move of the season?
My vote: Chris Reitsma to the DL, Jon Huber called up.
Well, I felt like a DMZ hog at the Tavern yesterday. It was nice to finally meet ya — and Mrs. DMZ, too, even!!! But, yeah, I mean, gosh. You know DMZ had to have been under the weather when he refused beer. I’m quite surprised that didn’t make national headlines or something.
I promise I won’t photoshop the headshot I now have of ya onto Bloomquist. I can’t, promise, though, that it won’t end up on someone else 🙂
Well, either that or he’s pregnant.
Here is what I found amusing about the South Kitsap article:
While it is true that the odds were not great…if you scroll down to the bottom of the article that you see the other two South Kitsap players are Aaron Sele and Todd Linden. Who does Todd Linden play for…the same team Jason Ellison used to play for, so I guess it would’ve happened regardless right?
25. As I stated elsewhere, Paul, I have a feeling that Stella Artois is the biological father.
Jose Lopez to DL; Oswaldo Navarro recalled; Willie Bloomquist finally given his first opportunity to play everyday (or is it his fifth?).
28. Before realizing you were just replying to Jim’s hypothetical question, Grizz, your post scared the bejeesus out of me for a few moments.
26,
Re-read the article. Sele and Linden aren’t SK grads. Sele is a NK grad and Linden is a CK grad.
Baker’s “notbook” article (the second link) bestows upon us this wonderful phrase:
The “Willie Factor”… the Willie Factor. This is clearly a major advance in Mariner jargon, and in baseball theory generally. The Willie Factor, presumably expressed in units of grit, is clearly the long-sought unobservable quantity that constitutes intangibles. Quantum physics has Planck’s Constant, baseball has the Willie Factor. “His Willie Factor isn’t quite where we’d like to see it,” says the coach, “But if he finds a little more grit he’ll be fine. Of course, it would be even better if he just learned to hit.” Or: “The team isn’t scoring runs, or winning games, but their Willie Factor is high, so I’m optimistic.” Or, “That was a heck of a play. His Willie Factor was really obvious there, just hanging out for all to see. Of course, it would have been better if he’d actually got the runner out, but still, what a Willie” or “If his Willie Factor was any grittier, well, he just might spontaneously combust…”
Are we sure he wasn’t just “eating club sandwiches” with Morrow (sheesh, the euphemisms people come up with in Vegas — what do you call two strippers and a whole lot of Stoli? A Gentleman’s Club Sandwich).