Tug claimed by Kansas City
DMZ · February 19, 2009 at 12:45 pm · Filed Under Mariners
In an ideal world, he’d play part-time, be absolutely adored by the fanbase, who constantly criticize starter Willie Bloomquist and suggest that Tug would be better if only given the chance to play Willie’s position every day.
Ok seriously what’s with Kansas City and ex-Mariners? Meche, HoRam, Miguel Olivo, Guillen, Bloomquist, and now Tuglet?
Stuff rolls downhill?
LOL, I agree, lailaihei — who says the M’s are “obscure” because we are in the Pacific Northwest? We’re so popular we have 2 other teams!! One is the “Midwest” M’s – they rock a different shade of blue, and have a funny “KC” on their hats/unis. The other is “Mariners East” — they rock out in red, won the World Series last year, and a “P” on their hats/unis!
They want to emulate the M’s proven record of — ooooooooooooooh right
I think I heard something about the Mariners making the ALCS once!
If that isn’t worth emulating, I don’t know what is!
Hey, you never know, Bloomie and the Tugster might turn into the Royals’ best keystone combo since Freddie Patek and Frank White. 🙂
Come now, Jeff…the M’s have made the ALCS all of three times!
Well, Z is a sabernerd. And he’s not a true Mariner fan. Therefore the players he’s giving up must be good. That’s how KC is going to get back into contention!
The only M’s games I get to see in person, with rare exception, are in Kansas City. So I guess I’ll see some familiar faces on the Royals roster when they play.
My wife was born in KC and we’ll be making the drive there from Denver this summer. I plan on catching the MariRoy’s games while we’re there.
Curses, another setback in the Battle For Grass Creek.
I’m actually disappointed in Mr. Moore. I (and much of the sabermetric community it seemed) had such high hopes for him when he was hired. Hopefully, everything works out for he and the Royals.
Galaxie – I think the ship sailed when he gave a huge contract to Gil Meche.
I hate to use cliches, but gosh, it’s sad what a shadow of their former selves the Royals have become over the years.
That contract looked pretty terrible (IMHO) when Meche signed it, but now…well, he’s been worth twice what the Royals have paid him the last 2 seasons. Check out his fangraphs page.
It’s more like Guillen’s contract and the lower level deals that make you go, ‘whatWHAT!?’.
The Gil Meche contract has actually been one of Moore’s few good moves; Fangraphs has him worth much more than he’s getting paid.
The rest of his resume, on the other hand, is cringe-worthy. Rob Neyer summed it up best after the WFB signing (paraphrased): “Of course, this is what foolish teams do–they complain about not being able to afford good players after they spend all their money on not-so-good players.”
Damn, galaxie beat me to it.
Ha, Benne owes me a Coke.
Uhhh, KC has made a lot of stupid moves, but this certainly isn’t one of them.
Hulett’s Oliver and CHONE projections average out to a .320 wOBA, which is a far sight better than Yuni’s and (obviously) Bloomquist’s.
I mentioned to Dave that Tug seems like a tweener between freely available talent and a prospect. He’s clearly not a prospect, let’s be clear, but he’s waaaaay better than the group Dave identified on Fangraphs as freely available. Yes, dock him for defense, but the Royals got a player who’s wOBA would put at only 5 runs worse than average offense over 600 PAs. And they got him for free.
That’s what a smart team does, so I’m having real trouble putting this together with the WFB 2-year contract.
marc-
I don’t think picking up Tug is a terrible idea in and of itself. What some of us are arguing is that Moore’s moves, taken as a whole, smack of pissing away dollars for mediocrity. Tug is cheap, whatever. But Farnsworth @ 2/$9M? Mahay @ 2/$8M? Trading for Jacobs? Just seems like a lot of questionable moves.
Oh, you’re not getting an argument on that, galaxieboi.
Taken as a whole, this offseason’s been a disaster for them. I can only hope that we’re able to pry Billy Butler away from them at some point. He may not have a guaranteed job in AAA at this point (Ka’aihue, Jacobs, Gload, Shealy). Moore is for 1Bs what Bowden seems to be for corner OFs.
Still, I thought some of the comments gave the impression that Hulett was Bloomquistian or worse, which he’s not.
Moore is for 1Bs what Bowden seems to be for corner OFs.
A distinction without a difference, other than that Moore knows what position these guys should be playing.
Anyone else think this whole Ex-Mariner to KC thing getting a little creepy?
Guillen’s contract plus this entire off-season pretty much puts Royals fans in the “I wish Bill Bavasi was our GM” category.
And that’s a sad category.
So if a player disappears when he’s signed by Seattle, what does it mean when a player released by Seattle is picked up by Kansas City, which may be the only team with less of a national following than the M’s? To paraphrase Leo Durocher, is Kansas City still in the league?
Not any creepier than the Ex-Mariner to Philly thing.
So how long do you think it will be before Kansas City begins making trades with (and getting fleeced by) our “natural rivals,” the San Diego Padres?
At least with Gillick, it was vaguely understandable that he’d go out and acquire guys he’d already acquired once before.
Starting to feel a bit like “Single White Female”.
Somehow, I get a vague feeling once Mike Morse doesn’t make our team in 2009, he’ll be getting a lot of at-bats with the Royals.
At three different positions, defensively atrocious at all of them.
Yeah, that’s just the Gillick thing. It must have been weird for Toronto fans to look at the 2000-2001 Mariners. Olerud was good, but Pat Borders? And Ed Sprague?
I guess we know where Bedard’s going next year.
And he’ll probably wind up being a 20-game winner on about a 78-win team there.
And he’ll bat .400 in Spring Training, making Royals fans think they’ve got a fantastic steal. For a couple of weeks, anyway.