PI: Sexson’s gone
DMZ · July 10, 2008 at 10:45 am · Filed Under Mariners
Wasn’t in the clubhouse, locker’s cleaned, says Hickey
I have a question: why Sexson? Open-stance Sexson as Megavidro is way better than Vidro, who is the worst DH in the league and finished. Is this another example of the crazy Vidro influence field?
Dave adds: Because this city hates Sexson, and they only are unhappy with Vidro, thanks to the length of time we’ve been watching the two flail away. This was the right move, even if the timing was beyond weird.
as long as he’s gone before his option vests I don’t care about the order. Maybe the other teammates like him, who knows. I think there are other factors at work here that are keeping Vidro around a little longer than the others.
Too bad we play half our games in Safeco.
The timing is weird considering they are playing on the road (no booing from the home crowd) and face a lefty today. I wonder if something was going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about.
Correct me if I’ve counted wrong. The roster right this minute is:
DH-1
C-3
1B-0
2B-1
SS-1
3B-1
UT inf-3
OF-3
P-12
I must’ve counted wrong.
Load that plate up FULL at the after-game buffet, Vidro.. you might not have a chance to go back for seconds.
It’s not impossible that Sexson saw the writing on the wall and asked to be released, so he could look for a job elsewhere.
Who knows, really.
Everything I heard earlier in the season was that Vidro’s vesting number was in the neighborhood of 600 AB. He’s at 269 right now.
I don’t think there’s a huge cause for concern in that regard. For him to vest, he’d basically have to be the full-time DH for the rest of the year, and I just don’t see that happening.
Good luck, Richie. Please remember to send for Jose and Pepe when you get settled.
Pretty good for Richie. He gets an extended all-star break and will be eligible to sign with another team shortly thereafter.
57-
Not to mention a fat pay-check…
Who is going to play 1B? Vidro? Johjima!?
…or Cairo.
Or a move that makes sense…Ibanez
It will be Cairo, unless they make another call-up or a trade…I doubt they’d move Raul in the middle of the season…
Although with this team, you never know…
Jeff Nye,
I had the exact same initial reaction. “Crap, looks like Cairo is out new first baseman.” Really took the shine off this roster move for me.
Great so I get to see another popless bat in the line-up covering a power spot. Thats 2 (DH,1B)
OK, that’s a relief. My nightmare scenario involved the M’s trying to milk every AB they could from Vidro, and release him a few shy of the vesting number, only to discover they’d miscounted.
That may be a hyperbolic level of incompetence to imagine, but this IS the M’s we’re talking about.
I agree, I don’t care about the order as long as Vidro’s option doesn’t vest. I still would love to hear an explanation of the timing, however. Based on the other commentary we’ve heard from the FO this year, it is bound to hover somewhere between incomprehensible and hilarious.
I still don’t understand why they fiddled with Sexson’s stance but they didn’t attempt platooning him against lefties with Clement or even Reed or whatever, or even try making him a road-only starter, or something. I realize “imagination” no more applies to this bunch than “competent” does, but when you essentially have nothing to lose….
Well, one thing about this: I had a secret dread that Sexson was going to have a dead-cat bounce in the second half, put up slightly decent numbers, and agree to some cheap-but-stupid one-year deal with the M’s to “try to get his career back on track.” IOW, the Mariners might think they’d found their Jose Guillen / Frank Thomas gem-on-the-scrapheap project right in their own backyard. It was a small fear, particularly with Bavasi gone, but it worried me all the same.
Another reason might be that they think they can still get something for Vidro in the next two weeks. Not saying I agree of course, but I wouldn’t put it past the FO.
Honestly, why not release both?
“Crap, looks like Cairo is out new first baseman.†Really took the shine off this roster move for me.
But Cairo is amazing on those bunt plays. That saves, like, two runs a season!
About Fu-king time?
Maybe Bedard is next?
And maybe just maybe the blood letting continues for the rest of this lost season.
Then starting next year we start back to the road of respectability.
I gotta say I didn’t hate Richie Sexson — but the long-term dull ache of disappointment gets pretty old, too.
I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, Richie was sat down by Riggleman for a stern session about the critical importance of “stepping up” and “make-up” and “leadership” and somewhere in that big head a light-bulb went on and he just said, “F**k this. I’m done. The fans know it, I know it, hell, my mother knows it. Everybody but you knows it. Me and my $14 mil are oughta here, ’cause the only thing worse than being a washed up baseball player is being a stupid washed up baseball player.”
Of course, I lead a rich fantasy life.
Just think; in another few days we won’t have to hear anyone talk about “Richie Sexton” anymore!
If “body language” is truly the “final straw” that led to Richie’s release, that’s just pathetic. It suggests that, despite the fact that this is a lost season, they would have kept a horribly unperforming player on the team so long as he had a good attitude. When are they going to get it?
Thank you and finally. Good luck Richie.
Finally the FIFTY-FOUR MILLION DOLLAR SINKHOLE is gone. Praise the lord.
He was done as a hitter last year. However, I do have some good memories:
Richie Sexson leaves, tied with Ken Phelps for 9th in all time Mariner homers (105).
Sexson is 6th all time in Mariner Slugging Percentage (behind Boone, and ahead of Tino, Raul, Alvin, and Beltre).
Sexson is 10th in all time Mariner OPS, two points behind Ichiro.
He is third in offensive win %. Fourth in at bats per home run.
Thanks Paul B for putting his contribution in perspective. Greg
6-4-3: Until he goes to either Milwaukee or Arizona and helps them to win a World Championship by coming in as a left-handed bat off the bench.
Dave/DMZ: How much longer until Vidro’s option for next year is vested?
I don’t see how releasing the better player can ever be the right move.
To me the fact that Sexson was released isn’t really newsworthy….Riggelman’s official reason for why they did it on the other hand……
My God, I watch them now for the same reason someone might poke a bloated carcass with a sharp stick…..morbid curiosity.
I’m as frustrated with Sexson’s performance as the next guy, but aside from being cathartic, what does this accomplish?
The $7M for the second half is a fixed cost. We aren’t opening up 1B to let a prospect (or even a pseduo prospect) like Clement or LaHair. We’re replacing Sexson with worse hitters in Vidro and Cairo. Small sample size caveats apply, but Sexson was pretty good against lefties and decent on the road, away from the physical and psychological problems with Safeco. Could we not keep Sexson as a platoon 1B/DH? Is it just “not cool” to take a veteran making $14M and make him a bench warmer?
While I have to say best of luck to Richie, I’ll also admit that watching him the past year-and-a-half was a bit like watching Jimmy Smits’ final six episodes on NYPD Blue — i.e. you knew what the hell was gonna happen to him as he slowly faded away, but you couldn’t stop watching anyway.
Because there’s still food available at the concession stands…he hasn’t gotten around to them yet.
I definitely turned on Sexson for his sucktastic performance, but I never really said or heard personal attacks against him at least. I don’t care about his personality or his media relationship, nor do I care that he’s from Washington or about any other non-baseball appeal he might have had. I hope he appreciates that the booing here was a fraction of what it would have been if he had been playing for a different team in a different city, where old ladies would rather scream at you for your golden sombrero than knit and cheer politely for WFB.
I don’t feel bad because he made a lot of money he didn’t altogether earn with his performance, which was excruciating to watch as a fan. The lion’s share of the blame goes to the people who probably could have moved him for something more than once before last season, but instead let him keep trotting out there looking worse and worse until he had no trade value left at all, which to me is reminiscent of what they did with Pineiro.
And now, since this is at best makes us suck a little less and at worst makes us even a little crappier, I can focus my ire on Turbo’s sucktastic lack of value and Willie’s AAAA skill set. Hopefully the taking out of the garbage until we get down to some kind of useful, non-rotten frame to build on.
RE: Richie
As someone who has employed up to 250 people, I learned a long time ago that employer decisions are hard for others to understand. Why this guy? Why now?
Well, as Jeff Nye points out: why does that matter? We all agreed Richie needed to go. So did management. So, be happy.
Some reasons for NOW:
1. Lee took a phone call from a GM who said : ‘You know, we could use Richie, but only off waivers.’
Act of class/kindness by the M’s. A favor to be remembered perhaps.
2.Richie became torqued off enough to become a problem. This is hinted at. ‘Play me or trade me!’…’Well, neither of those is really an option, how about this!’.
3.Hard-nosed performance based management. OK, quit laughing. Really. Maybe this is the start.
skipj
This makes for some unintentionally funny reading. You know, the way broken limbs can be funny.
Final line for Sexson (with the M’s), 2008:
.218 / .315 / .381
Well, yeah, technically two out of the three are better. And it’s not like they signed him to be a slugger or anything.
And, as Meatloaf once said, “two out of three ain’t bad.” 🙂
From the P-I:
“Having him sitting in the bullpen didn’t help his case any,” Riggleman said Thursday. “The question is, ‘Why did he go down there?’ It’s happened before with other guys, and usually it’s just a playful thing. But you have to wonder, didn’t he want to be on the bench with us?”
I rooted for Richie til the end, and I hope that he catches on with another team and does well. I never thought his performance was due to a lack of effort.
Regarding his attitude “problems”, I can’t help but wonder how the average player would feel when told that he would be platooning with a LH who is batting .215 with no power. So, he would get many less AB’s, and bat 6th or so in the lineup, while the .215 platoon-partner with no power gets to bat cleanup. If it were me, I’d probably say “what a crock”.
What a crock….