or, Jon took about a week off and is getting himself caught up and keeping the archives up to date.

Cliff Lee suspended, hurt

Lee was suspended for five regular season games for throwing near the head of Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder.

Lee said the pitches got away from him, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he was indeed sending a message.  Lee and Snyder got into it on an earlier play where Lee tripped over Snyder, then the on deck hitter.  Lee threw one under Snyder’s chin followed shortly by one over his head (video here), resulting in Snyder taking a few steps towards the mound, benches clearing and Lee being ejected.

The suspension sparked some outrage around the internet.  It’s Spring Training, Snyder wasn’t actually hit, no punches were thrown; why mess up Seattle’s rotation?

But that has quickly become the least of the Mariners’ worries as Lee has come up with a strained lower right abdominal muscle.  To make matters worse, the injury is said to have occurred on the play where Lee tripped over Snyder.

This is bad news.  Lee has a history with similar injuries, and they have kept him out of the lineup for a lot of days and lingered enough to hinder him on days he did pitch. Lee received a platelet rich injection and sat out for about a week, but still felt some discomfort while trying to play catch yesterday.

There is still an outside chance that Lee is ready to go for the start of the season, or at least when his suspension is over, though abdominal strains tend to linger and there is a good chance he starts the season on the DL.

That means Seattle has to replace one of the best pitchers in baseball with the runner up in the fifth starter competition.  Fantastic.  That competition has been narrowed down to Jason Vargas and Doug Fister, so if Lee is not around early in the year it looks like both guys will be with the ballclub come Opening Day (although Shawn Kelley could be viewed as a possible dark horse, I suppose).  Some fans are calling even more now for a Jarrod Washburn signing, but it’s important to remember that he wouldn’t be ready to go for the start of the season anyway if he were to sign this late.

Furthermore, not having an innings eater like Lee in the rotation may require Seattle to go with a 12-man pitching staff until they get things sorted out, mucking up the bench situation.  Also note that Lee can’t carry out his suspension while on the DL, so the team will probably activate him a few days before he’s actually ready, limiting their roster flexibility.

Milton Bradley’s ejections

Bradley was ejected in back to back games last week.  The first one was terribly unnecessary, and while he got more of his money’s worth for the second one, it probably wouldn’t have warranted an ejection for any other player.

It’s clear that umpires have less patience with Bradley than with other players due to his reputation.  This isn’t a new trend necessarily, but it’s the first taste of it for us Seattle Mariners fans.  Making it worse is that he was tossed by AAA umpires, who might be understandbly quicker on the trigger.  Bradley is not going to be able to bite his tongue all season, so hopefully big league umps will have more patience.  He is going to get more than his fair share of ejections though, warranted or not.

Planning for this may mean carrying both Ryan Langerhans and Eric Byrnes, which was probably the plan anyway.  That said, the pitching staff shakeup could make carrying both difficult.

Chone Figgins and Jose Lopez will remain at new positions

There isn’t much more to say about this at this point, and even if that’s the case I will be bringing it up again when I get to each player in the 40-man series, but it looks like the experiment has been deemed a success by the team.

When we first heard about it the thought was that they were just exploring their options.  Shortly after it became quite clear that this wasn’t just checking to see if they could maximize versatility, but a move that the club wanted to work, meaning there was more margin for error.

Lopez hasn’t been smooth but has been progressing.  He will probably look worse than he is considering that he’s following Adrian Beltre at the position.  Figgins has looked solid at second.  He will probably look a lot better than he is considering that he’s following Lopez.

I’m okay with it at this point.  It’ll be interesting to see these two on a regular basis once the season starts.

When it’s all said and done, it’s temporary anyway with Dustin Ackley gunning for that second base job.

Adam Moore unofficially makes the team

Josh Bard was brought in to give the Mariner catchers some experience, but he has thoroughly unimpressed and it is becoming quite clear that the team is all set to go with the young tandem of Moore and Rob Johnson.

Furthermore, based on some comments by manager Don Wakamatsu it doesn’t sound like there will be a typical starter-sub relationship between the two.  He talked about having the two catch in 3, 4, 5 game stretches, or mixing and matching.  Point being, the arrangement is fluid.

Good news.

Moore is the best catcher available to the Mariners at this point, so him being on the team is a nice little boost to the ballclub.  That he’s not going to be catching five or six games per week every week isn’t a huge concern either.  Unlike other positions where you want your young players getting as many reps as possible, catcher is more like the quarterback position in football.  A guy can learn a lot from observation, and Moore will certainly learn plenty on his off days stationed next to Don Wakamatsu. Even if he was a once a week backup it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, especially at his age.

But that Moore should be able to string together a few starts in a row is a good thing, and also opens the door for him to squeeze Johnson into a more typical backup role.

More on Moore and Johnson in the next two 40-man pieces.

Jack Hannahan

Conor hit on this below, but Hannahan has not done well with his groin injury from early in camp and may have to start the season on the DL.  Given that Jack Wilson cannot be counted on to play every day and that the organization is very thin at shortstop behind Jack Wilson, this is not the best of situations.  Matt Tuiasosopo (poor defender, unreliable but potentially good hitter), Josh Wilson (decent defender, terrible hitter, looks like he’s 12) and Chris Woodward (dependably meh) make up the teams internal options to replace Hannahan.  None of these guys are head and shoulders above the others, so the choice may not matter either way.  Tui being on the 40-man helps him out, but will Wak want his defense out there?

Another option would be to bring in someone else as a placeholder.  Dave at USSM has suggested trading for Jayson Nix, Augie Ojeda or Kevin Frandsen, and any would make a fine addition.  Frandsen is especially appealing because there is some upside there and he has a minor league option.

A few more quick bullets:

• The Mariners acquired class-A infielder Edgar Trejo from the Milwaukee Brewers for cash and/or a PTBNL or something.  I don’t know anything about him and won’t attempt to know anything about him at this point, but Zduriencik and his crew know the Brewers system as well as anyone, so if he thinks this kid has potential I’ll have to believe him.
• Ichiro made an incredible catch the other day.  Seriously, savor it.  The combination of ground covered, degree of difficulty and Ichiro-ness make that one of the best catches you’ll ever see in right field.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many defensive gems during Spring Training before, especially from guys who aren’t in danger of losing their positions (Figgins and Byrnes have contributed, among others).
• Erik Bedard‘s first bullpen was canceled.  The training staff is simply trying to pump the brakes a bit.  Bedard has progressed so quickly that they’re pinching themselves and don’t want to push him too hard.
• Casey Kotchman hitting third looks like it’s going to happen to start the season.  We’ve hit on this a few posts back.  There is some concern, but given the middle of the order options… whatever.
• Doug Fister was hit in the forearm by a line drive.  Doctors say he’ll live.  This is only notable because when I was listening to the broadcast a few days back I thought they said that Brandon League caught a line drive to the face.  I have no idea how may brain took the sounds coming from the TV and turned them into that, but needless to say I was horrified.  League did get cut by his sunglasses while diving for a ball in PFP, but I think we take that at this point.
• Shawn Kelley is recommitting to his changeup.  This can only be seen as a good thing, whether he takes it with him to short relief, long relief or the rotation.  He has gotten good results in small samples this spring.
• Mike Sweeney is still around and it sounds like some members of the coaching staff really want him.  Where he fit on the team even before injuries started mucking things up was a tough call, and now that there seems to be one less bench spot I don’t see how it happens.  It would almost certainly mean bye-bye Ryan Garko, which just seems… dumb.

Missing anything?  It’s amazing how much content is produced by the blogosphere and beat in a week’s time.  I couldn’t possibly read everything.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.  Expect 40-man profiles and Rob Johnson and Adam Moore later this week/weekend, and some talk about filling out the roster in light of some of these new developments.