Comments on: Another One

By: SABR Matt

SABR Matt — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:31:55 +0000

You should be watching the Mariners game on MLB.TV, not the Yankees game. Boo.

Last night’s Ms game was a treat to watch.

Mike Sweeney “Todd” and Russell “a cool wind echoes in the” Branyan are swinging some great bats for the Ms this spring…”YO! ADRIAN!” Beltre looks better this spring than he has at any point in his Mariner career. Shawn Kelly (no Bermanism for him yet) is already ready already. Dude should be pitching for the Mariners in April…not having to wait til August. Phillippe Aumont has a filthy breaking ball…but not one damned clue where the ball is going once out of his hand…needs a little seasoning. Josh Fields will be a Mariner before September…he’s another Morrow.

Carlos Triunfel reminds me of YuBet with his approach at the plate. (In case you missed it…that’s not a good comparison) Jeff Clement still can’t hit a breaking ball if his life depends on it…got tied up on inside sliders twice for big Ks. Griffey looks old and crappy…had his bat broken twice on inside fastballs he’d have pulled hard as a kid. I really like Gutierrez’ approach at the plate. He’s very patient…but unfortunately, his judgment isn’t so good…he has Cameron disease. Takes too many strikes and gets called out looking when he should be defending the plate.

By: Luisam911

Luisam911 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:49:26 +0000

They should get Brett Tomko, hes doing good with the yankees and has like 1 .59 era. Hes a non roster and if if he doesn’t make the yankees team he might opt out, since hes a non roster invitee. Im watching too much mlb.tv

By: SABR Matt

SABR Matt — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:09:38 +0000

We have good run prevention, Slurve? You sure about that?

Seems to me we have a good rotation if Bedard and Morrow can stay healthy (which I personally don’t believe they can…not all year anyway), good outfield defense if Gutierrez hits enough to stay in the line-up and Griffey stays far….far away from left field at all time (neither of which seems all that likely to me), mediocre infield defense (Lopez is all over-bulked now and Branyan is not exactly a defensive wizard…nor should we expect miracles from Betancourt), a pair of TERRIBLE defensive catchers, and one of the most uncertain bullpens in the game today.

That doesn’t seem like “good run prevention”…that seems like a unit with the outside POTENTIAL to be good at preventing runs but with just as much potential to be just as bad as they were last year.

By: Slurve

Slurve — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:08:17 +0000

We have good run prevention and an average offense with upside in some positions.

By: Dustin Shires

Dustin Shires — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:54:51 +0000

But not even I can be optimistic about the offense.

Don’t need to score 10 runs a game to win, just prevent the other team from doing so…

By: ppl

ppl — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:54:08 +0000

What we have is an organization coming off five years of mismanagement, that wasn’t going to spend a lot on free agents, and was in the bottom five in the MLB in OBA, Runs scored, Home runs and WHIP. They also were among the worst in allowing walks and even Felix contributed to that (80 walks) and have posted losing seasons four of the last five years. They were 15 games behind the third place team (a rival for worst offense) and 18 games behind a second place team that was below .500 and 21 games out of first. It is so easy to be optimistic about improvement when I look at all that. So I like the Z’s pen additions and I don’t care about Washburn and Silva, they are on the team, I accept that reality. But not even I can be optimistic about the offense.

By: SABR Matt

SABR Matt — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:05:57 +0000

Again…it is not yet demonstrably true that we have a surplus of useful relief pitchers. Canonize Zduriencik for making it look easy to build a good bullpen whne some of the questionable arms actually work out. Until then…we have spaghetti and it’s heading for the wall at roughly 94 mph but there’s no guarantee it will stick or even that it will hit an 18 inch square on that wall more often than once in a blue moon.

What we have in this organization is not bullpen depth…it is two dozen warm bodies with live arms.

By: ppl

ppl — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:02:35 +0000

Where was Jack Zduriemcik in 1998? He is making it look so easy to stockpile useful relievers without wasting money or trading off genuine talent to get it. He has shown you can not only have a surplus, but that you don’t have to go bottom-fishing to do it. Some of these guys will be cut loose at soon, but there will still be a surplus of MLB ready guys around in Tacoma to fill the one position “Quad A” players get their chance to shine in, while up and coming talents have more time to develop. I like it. It is also nice to see that since the M’s were so bad last year they are so well-postioned to snap up people off of the waiver wire, Z seems to be doing much better at taking advantage of that than Bavasi did in 2005 & 2006.