Matsui to Angels
DMZ · December 16, 2009 at 9:12 am · Filed Under Mariners
One year, $6m. It’s a nice enough pickup — Hideki will almost certainly hit well enough, and if he’s fine with DHing all the time, so be it. But it’s no Cliff Lee pickup WA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA CLIFF LEE HOLY CRAP WE TRADED FOR CLIFF LEE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Yo Anaheim! I’m really happy for you and Imma let you finish but Cliff Lee was one of the greatest pickups of all time! OF ALL TIME!
It’s Z’s world. The rest of us are just living in it.
Us Mariner fans really enjoy living in Z’s world, I gotta say. I don’t think the Angels fans are quite as enthused.
jouish with one of the best comments of all time. Nicely done.
Don’t gloat to much………we don’t want to jinx it! Still everyone should be doing the happy dance!
Looks like Vlad is out in LA…
What are the odds the Mariners make a play for him?
I would like to see it
@jouish: WIN.
If this trade goes through, I will be seriously tempted to build a Jack Z shrine. I’ve been in super happy mode for the last two days. I can’t wait for the season to begin!
LOL at jouish. That was funny.
What’s amazing is that Jack Z still has money available to spend along with all of his top prospects (plus Lopez) to use as trade bait. He may have another surprise or two up his sleeve.
The thing I like best about this signing is how it fits so nicely into the Angels’ ‘youth movement’:
Rivera, age 31
Hunter, 34
Mathews, 35
Abreu, 36
Matsui, 36
Maybe they’re looking for group discounts from AARP.
And Jack Z wasn’t picked up by some other club before last year why?
This is definitely the highest point as a M’s fan since, um. Wow, its been a while since I have been this excited during the off-season. I mean firing Bavasi and hiring Jack was great, but this is better!
Don’t look now, but someone may have flunked a physical according to Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun. Maybe we should all be holding our breaths right about now?
I wish I knew how to link to that graphic on an Angels blog with the Rally Monkey holding the sign that reads “I Hate It Here.” I haven’t since a fanbase this angry since the Royals went on that signing binge that included WFB.
Jack Z I bow down to your greatness.
Just read about the flunked physical. Uh oh…
Uh oh.. It looks like someone in the Cliff Lee/Roy Halladay trade has flunked their physical.. Its just a rumor however but that would really really be terrible..
This according to mlbtraderumors
This is all just so awesome.
I love Jack. I’m so happy that the August event corresponded with my annual trip back to the northwest and I got to listen to him and meet him and get my picture taken with him. I might just have to blow the thing up and frame it. Of course I’d need to find a way to Photoshop DMZ out of the background first. 🙂
Bob Elliott twitters
wtf????
RT @elliottbaseball We’re hearing someone involved in the trade flunked their physical.
The rumor (RUMOR) that’s trending on Twitter is that it’s Lee who flunked his physical, but there’s no-one else as credible as Bob Elliott.
Larry Stone has RT’d Bob Elliott’s tweet that he heard someone flunked their physical, but didn’t say who.
What? Even Elliott is saying it’s one of the minor leaguers.
We should probably hold off panicking until we have more information.
Lee and Halladay passed and it was a minor leaguer who failed. If I had to bet it was probably a pitcher most likely Aumont (I think he had back issues or something).
To see Lee and King Felix would be amazing.. I hope this doesnt cause the whole thing to collapse.
So who would we give them besides Aumont? Didn’t we have another first rounder who should be a starter that we’re trying to make into a reliever? (No, not Morrow).
It may not be Aumont (elbow issues not back.. my bad). It could be Kyle Drabek who had Tommy John Surgery in 2007..
who knows for sure yet
Larry stone tweets its NOT Aumont.
StoneLarry Tweets- I’m hearing it’s NOT one of the Mariners’ prospects that failed the physical, and that deal is NOT going to unravel.
Matsui is a dead-pull LH hitter. As he emphatically demonstrated in NY this past postseason, he loves a short RF porch. He may be old and a fulltime DH (when he’s not part time on the DL), but he’s going to punish the M’s more than once this coming season (already a .903 OPS in 119 PAs at Safeco). I expect he’ll be taking over that job from Rafael Palmeiro and Vlad the Mariner Impaler.
On the flip side, we’re going to get to watch Ichiro climb the wall and take a few HRs away from Godzilla. And won’t the prospects of that (in 19 games!) pump up some interest in Japan?
Let me preface this by saying I was a big fan of Vlad back when he played for Montreal, and it killed me every time the M’s played the Angels because I loved watching him hit bombs off crazy pitches he had no business swinging at, but at the same time I wanted to see him — and every other Angel — strike out in every AB against the M’s.
As one of my favorite players, I really wanted the M’s to make a play for him (in spite of the worries about his back) in ’04.
But I don’t want him now. He’s a sentimental favorite who can still swing the bat but he’s old and he can’t really play the field and he has a lot of injury issues. Sound familiar? Sure, it’s cool to have a guy like that on the bench… but the M’s already have one! You could slot him in as a fulltime DH (he doesn’t really have platoon splits, so he fits) — at least when he wasn’t on the DL — but then you’ve reduced the flexibility for rotating other guys through that spot (well, except when he’s on the DL). Unless he comes really cheap, I don’t see him in the M’s plans — and, given the roster limitations, probably not even then.
Folks, there’s a whole other thread for the “somebody flunked the physical” tweetpeats.
Can we keep this one on the Matsui/Angels topic?
Man…I must be suffering from “Battered Mariner fan” syndrome. Aside from not even considering that WE could even THINK about TRYING to get someone as good as Lee now at first hint of a wrinkle I’ve been in the depths of despair because of course it would have been OUR FAULT because this crap ALWAYS happens to US!!!! WHY! WHY! WHY!
Cue Jack Z: “Well Mr. Dingbatman it looks like our time is up. Can I count on you to show up for our next therapy session?”
Absolutely.
dingbatman: to quote something I heard somewhere — “It’s a new day, a new way.”