Rainiers Game Thread
Dave · July 21, 2008 at 11:16 am · Filed Under Mariners
Tacoma has a day game against Tucson today, starting at 11:30. The not-good Joe Woerman against real prospect Matt Torra. As always, you can listen live to the great Mike Curto at tacomarainiers.com.
A few interesting Tacoma related notes:
The M’s signed Oscar Villareal to a minor league contract, and he’s in the bullpen. Not a bad free pickup.
Wladimir Balentien has homered in four straight games. I think he wants to come back to Seattle.
Ryan Feierabend rejoins the team and starts Thursday, with RR-S making his first start on Friday.
Wlad:
In his last 7 games, the man has 6 HRs, 5 BBs and 3 Ks. He SHOULD be in Seattle.
Feierabend – has the team officially said what the injury was? His rehab outings haven’t exactly gone smoothly….
Another reason to listen to today’s game: Tucson expects to use uberprospect Max Scherzer for an inning in a rehab outing.
Yay – RR-S is getting stretched out to be a potential starter.
Man, I want Curto to get a job in the majors. He’s such a great guy and very, very good at his job.
Oops, Scherzer was yesterday. Did they move that up? huh.
If Wlad comes back up with Ichiro now patrolling right field, where does Wlad play?
Left? I say yes! Put Ibanez at first and Wlad in Left. And then consider this ‘Just a start!’.
Didn’t the M’s say they sent Wlad down so he could work on playing center?
Has he been playing center for the Rainiers?
I’d like to see Ibanez stay in LF until the trading deadline so that we can maintain the pretense that he is an underrated defender. That way he can rack up a few more outfield assists and boost his trade stock.
I’d like to see Wlad’s arrival be the impetus for releasing Vidro.
In all likelyhood, the M’s won’t make any more promotions from Tacoma until after the trading stuff has been cleared up. If they move Ibanez, Wlad will come up and take his spot in LF.
re: Feierabend’s injury… if I recall correctly, Feierabend had some sort of a forearm injury.
Talking of rosters and such, anybody read Steve Kelley’s piece on Mariner roster insanity?
pwned
Meanwhile in Tacoma, Rainiers getting pwned by the long ball.
Good news! When Villareal got dropped, I thought he might be a useful pickup, and briefly hoped the Mariners would take a flier on him. As with all such hopes, however, I quickly discarded it. Nice to see them come through for once, even if this is, truly, a minor pickup.
C’mon Villareal!
Woo! Strikeout. 2 faced, 2 outs.
Heck of a debut for that Villareal dude…
6 – Yeah, Balentien’s been getting time at CF. It’s tough, because they want to keep Saunders playing there too, so the two of ’em are trading off.
Wlad played CF yesterday, Saunders on Fri., Sat. and today. Wlad’s playing a lot more LF than he did before the call-up, which is something.
Rally time, Rainiers….
So what’s going to happen w/Jamie D’Antona? Does 2003, the year he was drafted, count as a year of MiLB service time? If so, will he be a free agent after this season?
So Torra gets his first K of the game, and it’s Balentien in the 8th with the bases loaded? And that’s the last batter he faces?
The Rainiers resemble their parent team quite a bit.
OK, if there’s no one else here…
Dave – any thoughts on Mumba Rivera?
Only full season ball counts toward MiLB service time, so 2003 should not count toward his six years.
gotcha; thanks.
Why, oh, why, are they playing Wlad in CF? Are they trying to pump up his trade value? I’m pretty sure Reed is better on both sides of the ball in CF, and will be next year as well, if they don’t sign/trade/discover someone else to play there.
I couldn’t find anything to disagree with in that column.
I think the implication was that the roster is insane, not that the column was.
I’m not Dave, obviously, and it’s a while since I saw Rivera properly, but as I recall he’s a fastball slider guy who sits in the mid 90s.
Both pitches are pretty good but he can have trouble locating at times and tends to leave the slider up a bit too much.
His stuff could translate to a useful bullpen piece if he’s managed to improve his command and he can keep the ball in the park.
/wildly out of date info
Because they have no clue on recognizing player talent and even less of a clue on how to develop it…
They really think the only way to find a spot on the big club for Wlad is to put him in CF…
Do you think that’s really why they’re playing him there?
First, the M’s are a hell of a lot less settled in CF than they were in March (insert standard lament for Adam Jones here). Second, if a player is capable of playing 2 positions, why NOT have him keep practicing the more difficult defensive one? Third, do you have any data to suggest that playing CF at times hurts a player’s ability to transition to LF in the future?
I just don’t get why this is a bad thing. If he stays with the M’s, he’ll have value as a once-in-a-blue-moon CF. If he goes, he’s got more value.
Oh, and Matt – yeah, his FB touched 96 quite a few times in the outings I’ve seen. But he’ll vacillate between a quick, easy inning (like today’s) and just disaster appearances. He’s also never had the Ks to go with his velocity (except in a small AA sample). He’s old, he’s never had success, but he’s not terribly experienced and throws 96. Sort of intriguing, maybe. Just wondered if the M’s had done anything to him, mechanics wise, or if the org sees him as anything more than filler at this point.
Do we really think Wlad is capable of playing centerfield?
He’s played CF for years. I don’t see why not.
You mean – can he play CF at the MLB level? Eh, debatable. I certainly don’t have a problem with him playing CF in half his AAA games if he’s able to give the M’s another non-Bloomquist alternative in extra-inning games or against certain lefties.
Look, most scouts don’t think Mike Saunders will stay in CF either (and he’s been playing some RF in Tacoma). Should they move him off now, and never let him play there again?
Hrm. Hokay. Impression I got was that he was more than a bit weak in CF, less so in the corners….
If he’s a starting CF in the majors, that’s a huge problem.
But I’d like him to play the odd game there so he could conceivably fill in v. lefties if the starter’s hurt. And, of course, there’s the issue of trade value.
I don’t think we really disagree on his skills in CF (maybe a tiny bit, but that’s not important). I just think it’s a decent idea to give him the odd game there – hell, it may even help with his routes/recognition simply because CF gets more chances.
If we have two centerfielders on our roster (if you consider WFB a centerfielder) with no power and a rightfielder who obviously can play centerfield who also, let’s face it, has no power, and we have a MLB ready rightfielder in Tacoma who can’t play centerfield, I’m sort of wondering if there isn’t a ready solution to hand.
Or we could just DH him and release Turbo.