Upon seeing this post, I was hit with a rush of various thoughts and emotions:

The first and foremost of which is appreciation. As I’ve begun my collegiate career, I have not had nearly the time I would like to follow my beloved M’s and your blog has literally been my only connection to M’s baseball.

Next, of course, is congratulations on what you’ve accomplished. It’s fun to think back to the Mariner Nation days and relive some of the excitement that I experienced when I ran that blog and of course, onto the days of following and writing for BBT. I know exactly how it feels at that point when you realize that you just don’t have the time/energy/passion to continue a blog. What you’ve built here is a community and a classroom. Your insights have been superb and your dedication has been unparalleled in the M’s community. You’re writing style, grammar, diction, etc. has improved to the point where I wouldn’t be able to differentiate your posts from those of the big-name bloggers and journalists.

Of course, I would love to see this site continue. Although I couldn’t make a committment to start writing again, I hope and believe that you’ve attracted the best and brightest of the M’s community to continue intelligent discussion.

You’ve built something powerful, long live BBT/PBNW!

I’m alright with the deal. As Dave has pointed out, Figgins’ versatility it gives Seattle some options going forward. In fact, this should have been a move that more of us predicted given Zduriencik’s obvious love for players that can move around the diamond. If Beltre accepts arbitration for some reason or a trade for a 3B comes up, Figgins can move to LF or 2B without hurting the defense (although 3B is definitely his best position right now).

The 4th year is a little scary, but the hope is that we’ll get enough value out of him the first couple years that we’re willing to overpay the last couple of years, and that Zduriencik won’t add any more risky contracts that spill over into 2013.

I’m also curious about the lineup structure. I don’t particularly like Ichiro and Figgins going 1-2. I wonder how many singles followed by a fielder’s choice we’d see starting off the games. I think I saw somewhere in the SABR-crowd that ideally one would hit 1st and the other 6th, but that seems pretty unlikely as well. Figgins at leadoff and Ichiro at 3rd is intriguing. In all likelihood they’ll be 1-2, however. Meh.

I’d be very interested in continuing the blog with you playing as active a part as you can manage.

Could you please email me and let me know what information you’d like.

Have been following the mariners’ every game for a lot of years, all over the world. It’d be great to help (and if needed run) a blog.

Am very familiar with wordpress and hosting and the mariners and seattle.

And that, my friend, is why I will do anything I can to help this blog survive. As a high school student, I don’t have much time on my hands (especially when our spring season rolls around) but I certainly spend more time following the Seattle Mariners than I do on homework. Thus, it would not be much of a burden to write one or two pieces a week to help keep the blog alive. Of course, I like you, am not a statistician, or a scout, or a journalist. But what I can do is write coherent sentences updating the community on Mariners news. So I would like to offer my services, if they could be of any help, to keep what might truly be the experience of Seattle Mariners baseball alive for others. However, for this blog to keep its integrity and to maintain a regular flow of Mariners news, I certainly could never do it alone.

So I beg, oh how I beg Jon, please help us keep the blog alive. You could write once a week, or once every other week, or once in a blue moon! Certainly there are others out there that feel the same way. And hopefully, there are others out there who are willing to sacrifice some of their time to maintain the blog formerly known as Bleeding Blue and Teal. Indeed, with a handful of devout M’s fans, we could certainly keep the Mariners blogosphere entertained (or perhaps fooled) for a while. So please Jon, please do consider sticking around in some manner.

For some reason, I feel as though there are at least 25 others who feel the same way.

PM me over at The MC. I’ve got an idea…

Lonnie

I’ll miss visiting the sight, and reading your post.