Filling 1st Base

With Ben Broussard gone, sadly, because of a worthless deal, we don't have a back-up for when Sexson folds in May or gets traded to a contender who needs potential power. I have a solution. Tony Clark.

Clark is an imposing figure, standing 6'7" and weighing in at 245 pounds. The guy is a swith-hitting power bat who has more power success from the left side of the plate. A pull, power hitter is what Seattle has always lacked in Safeco. The fact that he's a switch hitter makes him all the more appealing because once Sexson hits the wall, Clark can fill in full time, hitting against both lefties and righties. When given playing time, Clark has been a successful power bat. Every year that he's played more than 130 games, he's hit more than 30 home runs. I won't lie, the guy strikes out quite a bit, about 1/4 of the time, but not like we haven't seen that in Sexson. Honestly, he can't do worse than Sexson did last year.

With a career slugging percentage of about .500, an on-base percentage of about .350 and batting average of about .265, he's not a huge risk because he won't command Sexson like money for a 2-year deal. He's made just over 1 million in each of the last two years. With his age, 35, he won't be able to ask for much more than that, if at all. I say we take the chance after losing our back-up, Broussard.

I learned today that the Diamondbacks have pulled their two-year offer off the table because of the Chris Burke pick-up in the Jose Valverde trade.

Thoughts?

Kuroda to L.A. for $36-40?

>Update: The Dodgers have announced a press conference for noon pacific time tomorrow to announce that they have signed Hiroki Kuroda to a 3-year contract worth$35.3 million.

The newest report from the Los Angeles Daily News indicates that Hiroki Kuroda is currently working on finalizing a three year deal with the Dodgers after completing his physical earlier today. This information is pretty damning evidence of what Mariner fans have been fretting about over the last few days, especially since the report even states the hospital where Kuroda was examined; Centinela Hospital. Surprisingly, the deal is said to be worth more money than expected though still only for three years; $36-40 million, which means $12-13.3 million a year.

It's pretty amazing that Kuroda has chosen the Dodgers over the Mariners. Think about this... He is going to a place where there is really no Japanese influence in the community and no prominent Japanese players on the team. Furthermore, he apparently believes that the Dodgers have a better chance to win than the Mariners even though the Mariners won 6 more games than L.A. in 2007! In addition, we sent an envoy inlcuding Bavasi and McLaren to Japan to meet with Kuroda; something I don't believe any other team has done. All things considered, I wonder if Kuroda is just that impressed by L.A. or if our front office just really did a poor job. So what if we may have had to add another $1-2 million bucks a year! I don't think there is another team in baseball with no viable 4th or 5th starter!

By the way, here is what MLB.com says about the Dodgers: "The fifth starter will come from a group of candidates that includes Jason Schmidt and Esteban Loaiza." Wow, what an awesome dilemma to have...

Money Ball versus Our Ball

Year after year, we watch the Angels (and more extensively,) the A's rise to the top near the end.

As we all know, the A's take the money ball approach. The Angels take a lesser-rout of spending money, spending it smart, and for players with great upside.

Our Mariners FO seems to pride itself in taking a more humble approach. We don't toss around money for proven players, we much prefer giving 8 million dollars for 6 months of suckage to ones like Jeff "Not quite a dream" Weaver.

And yet, we always seem to complain about being not as good as those two other teams. We all know our FO sucks, but there is one particular thing I've thought about recently. Is our more humble, and sensitive signings logically sensible enough to create such a margin as 6 games or so late in the year?

The Oakland Athletics have Billy Beane. He's about sabermetrics, and taking older players (yet proven and respected givers to a team and clubhouse.) The Angels' GMs in recent years have spent money VERY intellegently. They pick up Vlad Guerrero, take young players that have tremendous upside, and older players (like Vlad, Garret Anderson, John Lackey, Torii Hunter) who pretty much function as destructors of a promising season for the rival Seattle Mariners.

We pick up people like Richie. We pick up Rick White. We pick up Ho. We back out of races for big arms (Dice-K, Bedard.) Those two are acceptable abdications. However, backing out of races for ones such as Johan Santana, and a solid 3-man in Kuroda, the season comes around and we're the same. Teams that win go out and get what they need. They know they have the money, that's not an issue.

Our FO is so cautious, and only willing to either build from inside (which I don't have a problem with, really,) or go out and make stupid moves. These said stupid moves are played off as "a veteran we're picking up to add depth to our baseball team, and shift us into the contender position."

In conclusion, my question, (which would be a raging debate in the comments alley), is how big an advantage of Money Ball is, over Seattle Mariners FO baseball. It may be a less personal and colder take to it, but it puts fans in the seats to go out and watch people that are exciting play. Should the Mariners start taking this approach, or are we as fans content with how our FO is controlling our decision-making personality? I know none of us like the FO at all, but is their approach currently going to pay off, and should we wait it out?

How To Lose the Division

How To Lose the Division to the A’s
By Lil’ Billy Ba-broken-vasi

I went on a vacation with my parents last weekend. I traded baseball cards with my brother the whole way there. It was a lot of fun.
He wanted Johan Santana for a few prospects. I said no, because you never know when you would want to trade them away for someone like Ho.
Then my friend from school called my mom’s cell phone. He's really good at collecting, and he wanted to know if I wanted a baseball card of a new guy from Japan that he says was average-to-above average. I offered him, like, 33 kagillion dollars for the card, and I'd come visit with my best friend John. He said he'd think about it, then hung up.
When we got to the hotel, I immediately ran in and started playing my PSP. Wait, first, I'm gonna tell you about John.
... MY FRIEND JOHN IS NICE!! He makes me smile, laugh, and when we have sleepovers, he even tells me secrets about him!!! We have pillowfights, we pick on lil' Mikey Hargrove (who we kicked out of our fort last year because he didn't like lil' Ichiro,) and we cry at the end of Forrest Gump in eachothers' arms. Right, Ichiro, that reminds me, he nearly left our fort last year, but then when lil' Mikey left, he got all better now. It scared us so bad, I decided that we needed a veteran friend like Ricky White. He drew bright red all over his chin during Nap time some time ago, which coincidentally happened when he started going to our kindergarten! WOW!!! It was so funny, I nearly went and renewed my friendship with lil' Chris Reitsma, who I kicked out last year after he betrayed me by throwing easy pitches to the other teams during recess >:(

Edgar Martinez and The Hall

It’s the off season and I got around to thinking about Edgar Martinez out of sheer boredom and the more I look at his numbers the more I think he has got to make it into the Hall of Fame when he comes up for election in 2009. The voting is based on “The player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.” and if you apply these to Edgar’s career there is no reason I can see that should exclude him from the hall.

If we start with playing ability it is evident that he was a great ballplayer. He hit for a career line of .312/.418/.515 and a 147 OPS+. Consider the job of a hitter, what is the most important thing you can do? That would be getting on base and not making an out allowing you to score runs. Taking a look at career OBP numbers Edgar ranks 22nd all-time, that’s right only 21 men were better than him at getting on base. And if you want to take a look at just right handed batters Edgar is 5th, fifth! Only behind Hornsby, Foxx, Helton, Frank Thomas, and Pujols. The first two are in the hall and the last 3 are probably on their way there. Looking at his OPS+(OPS adjusted for both park and league factors.) he is 46th all time, tied with the likes of Willie McCovey, Alex Rodriguez, Mike Schmidt, and Willie Stargell. That is a bunch of pretty good hitters right there, three Hall of Famers and a guy that is obviously going to be. Edgar didn’t play defense all that much, he played 70% of his games at DH, and all of the Hall of Famers I quoted are better than him because of it. But fielding is only one component of being a good ballplayer, just because somebody didn’t play defense does not mean they were not great and Edgar is proof. Look at Paul Molitor, he played more games at DH than any other position and he is in the hall, and if Molitor is there Edgar deserves to be there too.

Now onto the second component, his integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team he played on. Much less important than his playing ability but still a criteria for hall induction Edgar shines here as well. Its 1995 and the M’s are 13 games back of the Angels in the West, and what did Edgar decide to do? He only hit for a line of .398/.560/.786 when things were looking their worst and getting this team on its comeback trail, which was and still is the most improbable comeback in the history of baseball. Then, in the ALDS, Edgar hit’s the most famous double named simply “The Double” for no name could accurately describe the emotion and importance of the moment. In this season which may have saved Mariner baseball as we see it today Edgar’s star burned as bright as anybody’s. His character is also a shining star in the Seattle area. He has made contributions of time, money, and other resources to the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. Just this year Edgar was elected into a sports hall of fame because of his generous contributions to the community, on June 20, 2007 he was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame in Boise, Idaho.

People may believe that his Humanitarian work means nothing, but even if they do his playing career spoke for itself as one of the most brilliant hitting careers the league has seen and he deservedly belongs in Cooperstown, New York along with the other legends of baseball lore.

Bavasi's Uphill Battle

So a lot of people out there think that GM Bavasi has no plan. Incorrect. He has a plan, it is just an uphill battle (hence the title).

Plan A - Johan Santana
Obviously, the best on the planet. Any team would be drooling just to have him on their roster, let alone IN THE TRADE RUMORS. This isn't going to be an easy trade though. Santana has a "no-trade" clause and would most likely wave the Mariners as a suitor because if he goes to the West Coast, he wants to be on a 1st place team. Now, no offense Mr. Santana, but with you in our rotation, I would gamble to say we would be pretty dang close to getting 1st. Santana also has another drawback, and that is his pricetag. I haven't heard anything recently on the new asking price, but it won't be easy to compensate for him. He comes with a new salary also. Here's what I don't understand: If we get the trade through, we have the money to pay the salary. Our owners have pretty dang deep pockets, since we are owned by Nintendo.

I am calling out Bavasi right now, to get off the couch and hardcore pursue Santana. Santana is a once in a decade, heck, maybe two decade pitcher. Just the fact that our team has been mentioned isn't enough. We need to land him. He is a safer bet than Bedard.

Plan B - Erik Bedard
Bedard is the most risky bet. Bedard's asking price is immense since his contract doesn't end until the end of 2009. He is a fan favorite in Baltimore. I mean, how could he not be on a terrible team, but that is keeping him closer to the organization. He is going to come with a risk also. He's not produced the numbers that Santana has put out.

Also, and this is another thing I don't understand, he will cost more than Santana. Don't ask me how that is possible, but it is. They are asking for Jones, Morrow, Sherrill and/or Balentien. This would be the dumbest thing ever. Trading Jones and Balentien in the same deal, let alone the same off-season shouldn't even be considered, and the Mariners should pull away from that now. No way is a not-so-much-proven pitcher worth that. He's also going to get a lot of money with his next new contract (FA after '10), so we would have to be able to resign him.

Safer bet = Santana
More reward for the risk = Santana
Better pitcher = Santana
Easier to coax into the Mariners organization = Santana

This shouldn't be a hard decision for Bavasi. He should put all his efforts and thoughts into Johan Santana, and fall back on Bedard only as a back-up plan.

Why Clement, Jones and Morrow are Tradeable

People are putting a price on winning. "We are trading away too much and his contract is too heavy to afford." That is all I've heard.

I can't believe you people are willing to just give up on the best pitcher on the planet. Simple as that. We cannot win with our rotation. Jones is still a work in progress, and I still don't see him becoming a full-fledged superstar, Morrow is another HUGE work in progress and Clement is stuck in a spot where his playing time will be limited. I'll summarize my point once again.

Morrow - Morrow does not have what it takes to be a starter, yet. It will take time. He pitched 3, 4 innings max in a game this year, and he started to get hit hard later it seemed. He was totally inconsistent throughout the year. If we push him to start, he's going to get shelled early and often. All he is, is a pitcher who throws hard. Worst, he's right handed. A right handed guy who can only throw his fastball is worthless in the rotation. If we move him to the bullpen, he won't be as effective. He could, in theory be a dominant closer in the future. He only needs to throw his fastball, change-up and occasional breaking ball. He has the making of a DOMINANT closer. Problem? We have Putz. We don't need Morrow.

Clement - He is stuck. He won't get much playing time. Johjima is going to be the starting catcher. His CS% was the highest among regular, full time catchers and he is a gold glove caliber catcher. You could argue that he should have won it this year. Clement won't get time at DH since we have the ever-consistent Vidro at DH anchoring the line-up with a .300 average all year. He can't be moved to first since we are stuck with that lard 1st baseman Sexson. As of now, Sexson isn't being put out on the market, so for now, 1st base is his. So Clement will see sporatic playing time between catching Johjima in the days off, assuming Burke is still with the team. He won't get time at 1st because we still have Broussard who needs more playing time, and will get it when Sexson has his days off. DH won't be Clements because we have Ibanez and Vidro as the top two cantidates starting in the DH slot, most likely in a platoon.

Jones - I'm stuck here. I want to see him live out his potential and his hype, but he just isn't impressive. His career average, as of the last game of the season, is only a mere .230. That is nothing, at all. He has 3 home runes and only 12 RBIs in 73 games. 32 hits in a total of 73 games. He is just not impressive. He has also made 5 errors in his 73 games. That is about 12 or 13 errors a year, in a 162 game season. That is pathetic.

We don't need this. There is nothing that jumps out at me saying, "Hey, Bavasi, don't trade our future!" We could use Johan, who is still 28, a lot more than we can use our undeveloped and unfulfilled "future" and hype.

Pursuit of Johan Santana

Introduction:
So as we should all know, the Mariners are still in the running for landing Johan Santana. Now, let's get past the obvious, it is going to cost some serious money. However, let's think about this. The Mariners are in desperate need of an upgrade in their rotation, and what better way to start than by getting the best pitcher on the planet?

Numbers:
Santana is a winner. In his 4 full seasons as a starter Santana is 70-32, with an average ERA in those 4 season that is an astounding 2.89. Those are unheard of. Let's delve further into the stats. His total strikeouts in that 4 year run total 983, compared to just 198 walks. People, that is almost a 5 K/BB ratio. For a power pitcher, that is rediculous. We haven't seen numbers like those since Pedro Martinez's run with the Boston Red Sox. His years there, he was Cy Young. Johan Santana has won 2 of the last 4 Cy Young Awards. In the crunch, he is even better. In the last 4 season he has a Post-All Star record of 36-14. Coincidence: The Mariners fold in the 2nd half every team our name has a playoff lable on it!

Intangibles:
Safeco Field would be the perfect fit for Santana. Safeco Field favors the left handed pitcher, well, even pitchers in general. However, the left hander is dominant in Safeco. Johan, is a dominant left handed pitcher. Love? Next, and maybe less of Santana and more of his catcher, but in his 4 years as starter, Santana has allowed 20 stolen bases, and 22 men have been caught stealing. Yes, over 50% of base runners have been caught during his full time starting tenure. One less man on base is one less runner and one less potential run. Next, Santana is a workhorse. In those 4 years as the starter in Minnesota, Santana has logged 912.1 innings, or 228 innings per year. That averages out at about 7 innings per game, also. The sooner we can get the ball from Santana to Putz, the better chance we have at winning.

The Price:
It is reported that he is seeking 5 years and $126 million. Yeah, I won't lie, that is a lot of money. However, let us think about this. The numbers have already shown you what he can do. Here is the real question: How badly to the Mariners want to win and what is the price of winning? To me, the price of winning is $126 million. Yes, Johan Santana is worth every penny. He has been the most dominant pitcher in the last 4 years, and you can argue 5 (he began starting about half way through 2003, but didn't hold onto a full time spot until 2004.) Santana is a once in a decade, one in a career (front office career) type offer.

The price isn't limited to money. The Twins have outlined that they would like Adam Jones, Brandon Morrow and Jeff Clement. To some people, this may seem like too much to trade away. I however, say it is would be worth it. Let's look at this: None of them are nowhere as proven in the MLB as Santana.

Adam Jones has struggled in his two stints with the big club, and struggled mightily. He has been extremely unsuccessful at the plate, showing little discipline, and has struggled to use his power. In the field, I don't know what is going on. He's supposed to be great, but he's been making routine plays seem like highlight reel catches. He has been compared to the greatest Mariner ever, Ken Griffey Jr. That is setting him up for failure. Not to mention, Torri Hunter just left the Twins, so center is wide open for Adam Jones to take over.

Brandon Morrow has seen time, has been demoted, promoted, and anything in between. He has struggled with his control, and is about as streaky as they come. I don't know what they would do with Morrow, meaning, I don't know if they would keep him in the bullpen or convert him to the starting rotation, but either way, they gain an electric arm.

Jeff Clement has never really rubbed me right until his September callup. When McLaren went nuts with playing the Rainiers against the MLB I thought he was stupid. I saw Clement's numbers [in AAA] and thought he would die. He proved me wrong. I saw both of his home runs at Safeco, and he looked extremely impressive. With the possibility of Joe Mauer being moved to an every day spot to save his knees, Clement would fit in perfect in Minnesota.

Outside Sources:
Buster Olney (of ESPN) posted a blog (Insider: Free, recently made "unfree") saying that a Santana trade seems impossible. The impossible factor was the money. Nobody is sure whether or not the Twins will be able to resign Santana. If resigned then traded, that will save money. (IE - Carlos Zambrano, who could command more money than Santana.) If not resigned by Santana, that is where it gets insanely disgusting. He could run up the table more. His $126 million was his Twins counter-offer. On an open market, he's free game.

Larry Larue (of The Tacoma News Tribune) posted a article on the money aspect of free agency and trades. He referenced Santana and the money he commanded. He said, "The Mariners and a half-dozen other teams still have interest in trading for Santana, but each of them took a large gulp after hearing that figure. Now, to obtain Santana it will take a package of ready-for-prime-time talent – and $126 million." The Mariners fit every checkmark. First, we have been mentioned in the running. Second, we have ready-for-prime time talent. All three guys have seen time in the MLB. Finally, the money. Okay, don't get me wrong, it will cost us. But, is there a price on winning? We are owned by Nintendo, so, if we are ever short on money, we can take a loan from the only gaming system currently making money. Coincidence? I only hope.

Finale:
Now, here is what I really mean. I want Johan Santana. I want somebody to teach Felix how to pitch, and a Johan/Felix 1-2 punch would be a top-of-the-line rotation. I am in love with the guy on the mound. He is putting on one of the most dominant runs in baseball in the last 30 years. He has been lights out and consistent, about as good as it comes.

My Summary
I want Johan Santana.

Another Opinion; (An Opposition To Johan):
Fellow learned blogger, Jon:
http://theseattlemariners.blogspot.com/2007/11/cost-of-johan-santana.html

Sources:
Johan Santana stats:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=4280
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/splits?playerId=4280

Tacoma News Tribune:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/mariners/story/212490.html

Miscellaneous:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=3121887

McLaren and Bavasi Coming Back for 2008

Well if you haven't already heard it was announced before last night's win that McLaren and Bavasi will be back to give it another go in 2008. I agree with bringing Bavasi back. As much as the entire Mariner Nation has criticized some of the bad decisions he has made, he has made enough good decisions to put a winning team on the field this year. Let's face it, no Mariner fan who follows the team closely expected this team to have 85 wins heading into the final series of the year. Yeah, we're not going to make the playoffs but we've improved our record for the third straight season under Bavasi and have a solid core of players coming back next year that should keep us in the playoff hunt again. While Bavasi hasn't made all the right decisions, he's certainly done well enough to earn himself another year to try and put a team on the field that will make the playoffs.

Now, as far a bringing McLaren back, I gotta wholeheartedly disagree with this move. Yes, McLaren was put in a tough situation when Hargrove "retired" suddenly in the middle of the season. He even kept us in realistic contention through August. You really can't complain about a 40-41 record from a first time manager who took over unexpectedly. However, you can complain about how McLaren has repeatedly proven over the last 81 games that he lacks the ability to make competent decisions in critical game situations. I think Jeff over at Lookout Landing may have put it best when he said that managers rarely get fired for the decisions they make from the dugout, instead it's when they can't run the clubhouse when they get the boot most often. McLaren keeps the clubhouse and Ichiro happy, which is about as good as it seems to get in the Mariner's eyes.

While I understand why McLaren is getting a chance to come back, that isn't going to stop me from complaining about why it is a bad move. McLaren is a 56 year old rookie manager and I think he has shown why he has never gotten a shot to run the show until now. He simply cannot do the little things that keeps a team in contention by helping them win ballgames in critical situations.

He fails to take advantage of lefty vs. righty situations by pinch-hitting late in games claiming that he "doesn't buy too much into whole lefty vs. righty thing". However, on the otherside of the ball he repeatedly takes advantage of lefty vs. lefty (and vice versa) matchups by making far too many bullpen moves. You simply don't need to change pitchers every other batter to match up lefty vs lefty and righty vs. righty at all times. It'll wear your bullpen down, and it certainly wore the Mariner's bullpen out (our starting pitching is partly to blame for this but if McLaren didn't use 7 pitchers every game our great bullpen wouldn't look so ragged right now).

McLaren also seems to be a HUGE believer in toeing the line when it comes to toying with team chemistry. He seems to think our veterans have no backbone at all to stand upon and fails to toy with lineups because of this. Rather than putting the lineup that matches up the best and gives us the best chance to win McLaren would run out the same lineup game after game after game so our "chemistry" wasn't affected. This hurt us for two reasons. The first being that he stuck with Richie Sexson entirely too long this season. Richie was doing terrible, yet, as a veteran, McLaren marched him out there everyday in hopes that he would snap out of it, all the while Broussard sat on the bench rotting away after repeatedly proving he could perform this year.

The second reason this hurt us is because McLaren failed to take advantage of all the young players, including Adam Jones, who came up in late in the season. It was questionable bringing all these guys up, and most of them probably won't have a regular spot on the Mariner roster anytime soon, but if anything they weren't going to do any worse than the regulars during our late season struggles.

First of all Adam Jones could've been worked into the lineup atleast 4 to 5 days a week without drastically cutting into anyone's playing time. It's called giving guys regular rests and most teams do it. There is no reason why Ibanez and Guillen couldn't have gotten a rest about once a week to give Jones a chance to play. Work in DHing Ibanez twice a week (with Vidro starting at 2B one of the games and resting the other) and you get 4 starts a week for Jones and all the veterans should be fresh and happy. The situation with Adam Jones just wasn't as hard as McLaren made it seem. Most of the last two months was wasted for AJ and his great season at AAA seemed to go by the wayside. By the way, take note of the above scenario for next year McLaren, it'll do wonders if you are faced with the same situation for AN ENTIRE YEAR.

Second of all we haven't realistically been in the playoff race for the last two weeks, and playing the young guys more isn't going to hurt anything (not even the team chemistry, if the vets can't deal with the young guys playing late in the season than they shouldn't be on a major league roster). If playing the young guys more would have done anything it would have gave them a chance to showcase their talents to other teams for potential trades. Let's face it, a majority of the young guys who are up with the big club right now don't fit into the big picture too well and the best value they are to the Mariners is as trade bait. If players like Jeff Clement, Jeremy Reed, Wladimir Balentien and Mike Morse would've got a little more time on the field late in the season they may have become more attractive to a team who might be willing to send us a quality starting pitcher. I'm not saying play all of them every day but three of them every game for the last three weeks of the season would've utilized them much better and might've brought better value for these players in any potential trades this offseason.

I'm a big believer that any person can learn and become better at things with time. Hopefully McLaren has learned alot in his 84 games this year as a MLB manager and will take what he has learned into next year. If he does, he might not be as bad a manager as I percieve him at this moment. However, if he doesn't learn from the mistakes that he has made this season, I may die of blunt force trauma to the head by the All-Star break from banging my head repeatedly into the wall watching McLaren make decisions on-par with those that a volunteer little league manager would make.

8th Inning: Tacoma @ NYY

Alright so the game got out of hand tonight, and with two innings to go, down by 10, John McLaren surrendered to the Yankees and sent up 6, yes SIX, September callup players to pinch hit back to back to back to back to back to back in the eighth inning (Reed, Clement, Jones, Jimerson, Balentien, Green) and has now used Mike Morse in the 9th as the seventh consecutive pinch-hitter. Not to mention that Rob Johnson is now listed as the catcher and Willie Bloomquist came in to play short. And thats just the madness that transpired with regards to the lineup. As far as pitching goes, Ramirez started and he was followed by O'Flaherty, Morrow, Rowland-Smith, Parrish, and White. Thats 3 of the 5 lefties in the pen and 5 of the 11 available relievers.

In these first two games the Yankees broadcasters have pointed out that the Mariners have a 35 man roster right now and they made a good point in saying that clubs normally don't callup that many players because they just get in the way and can disrupt chemistry. But of course our management has no sense of team chemistry, they've proven that to us. Now I understand that we've have been losing, but I have to agree completely with those guys on that one. This is the most bizarre and absurd things I've ever seen in my life... aside from squirrels climbing foul poles, go figure. I will try to not extend this part of my rant, but let me say that I am completely dumbfounded and critical of this September Mega Roster of Fat that we've sewn onto our already crippling body. This metaphorical "Mariner Man" now has man-boobs that appeared quick enough to make Pamela Anderson jealous.

But anyways back to the game. What bugged the living hell out of me tonight was using all of these roster fillers or stuffers or whatever you want to call the army of raw druid re-enforcements that were recruited for battle (no offense to the callups, but they are young and raw, and we are in a playoff race). When we are in a damn playoff race and we are playing the team that we most need to beat, I want to see my starters playing out there the entire nine innings. I don't care if we are down by 10, 20, 50, or 100 runs (which the Baltimore Orioles have shown us is a real possibility), I want to see us battle for the entire game with the best we've got. Five runs in two innings is not an impossible task. I really don't know what the deal is, but it's like John McLaren just had Christmas in September and ripped his new toys out of the boxes ASAP and had to play with them all. These players are now packed like sardines in a can. How are our veterans supposed to take these guy's under their wings and teach them how to fly when the plane is going down and all hands are in the cockpit trying to keep this baby in the air?
It's lunacy.

Note: It's sad when your top batter according to Yahoo was 1 for 1 with 2 rbi (Balentien)

Another Note: We used 18 position players and 6 pitchers in this game... that's gotta be some kind of record(s). I mean thats like All-Star Game stuff right there.

Decision Making Tonight (9th inning)

To sum it up, I have supported McLaren since he took over for 'Grover. I have stuck by some of the bonehead moves he has put forth. I have backed him up on some controversial stuff as well. However, today, I was screaming at the TV, punching anything in my way and pacing across my living room floor at his 9th inning decision making.

The Situation:

Vidro is at 2nd and Guillen at 1st. Raul Ibanez is at the plate with a left-handed pitcher on the mound. That situation alone should have said, "OK, Broussard and Ichiro: Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who gets to pinch-hit!" The pinch-hitter never came out of the dugout. Maybe they tied? Raul hits a slow grounder to Kinsler at 2nd, and a double play seemed at hand. However, thanks to a hard, hard slide by Guillen at 2nd Ibanez was able to make it to first, via no throw. OK. Runners at the corners, both insanely slow, 1 out. Beltre is up. Pinch-runner! OH CRAP IT'S NOT ICHIRO! In that situation, you need to put in your wheels. Ichiro is obviously the man. He's been caught stealing only twice this year in something rediculous like 38 attempts. If you want to stay out of the double play, you put Ichiro in. Betancourt comes in, first pitch double play game over Mariners lose! Mariners...lose?

Yes, McLaren, I hate to say it but you cost us today. Sure Beltre aided by 2 errors that led to all 5 runs scoring and swung at a bad pitch to end the game, but come on, use your freaking head! You got the best contact hitter in the MLB on your bench in Ichiro. OK, so don't use him as a hitter and use him as a pinch-runner. That's good enough right? WRONG. McLaren doesn't even pinch run him to keep us in the game.

I don't care if it was his day off or not, I really don't. If we're serious about being in the playoffs, we have to have a manager that wants us to get there. We should be beating teams like the Rangers, and not because our manager fails to see the obvious.

Why are the M's winning?

Throughout the year I've constantly heard doubts about how the Mariner's have managed to play this well throughout this year. People have said that we are "playing above our heads" and that we will "fade". Well it's 3/4 of the way through the season now and the Mariners still haven't "faded" and a lot of people still seem to think that the Mariner's aren't really this good. A lot has been made of the formulas that show that the Mariner's are indeed outperforming what the stats point to as their probable record at this point in the season. According to The Hardball Times the Mariners should currently be 65-60 instead of 72-53, pointing out that we have currently won 7 more games than expected. Well anybody who has read some of my posts on the myspace groups will know what I think of stats as a predictor of what will actually happen at any given point in time. Personally I believe that baseball has too many subjective human factors that affect it's play to be able to try and predict what will happen on any give day through stats that try and break the game down objectively. However, in this case I will offer you some stats that support points as to why the Mariners may be "playing above their heads".

The first one I am going to talk about is simple and any moron can calculate it and that is the fact that our entire lineup has the ability to drive in runs. This is very simple to see by the fact that our entire starting lineup now has over 50 RBIs. This is the first time this has happened in Mariner history and I'm willing to ponder a guess that this isn't all too common in MLB history (I welcome people to prove that wrong since that is just an extrapolation I made myself with common sense). Here is the Mariner's normal lineup and their current RBI totals:

Ichiro Suzuki 53 RBI
Jose Vidro 51 RBI
Jose Guillen 79 RBI
Raul Ibanez 83 RBI
Adrian Beltre 75 RBI
Richie Sexson 62 RBI
Kenji Johjima 51 RBI
Jose Lopez 52 RBI
Yuniesky Betancourt 51 RBI

Now say what you want about these stats but I'm going to give you my opinion as to what it means. Simply the fact that our entire lineup has over 50 RBIs points to the fact that anybody in our lineup can produce runs and that over the course of the season any time one of our big boppers, who are supposed to produce throughout the season, has been in a slump they have been picked up by the rest of the guys in our lineup. Couple this with the fact that no matter who is up late in a game they are very capable of knocking in critical runs and you get a winning team that could be playing better than their stats point to.

The second thing I'm going to talk about is a combination of things and isn't quite as simple but they are all offense related. Now, anybody who has watched the M's on a regular basis this year will know that they are aggressive at the plate and don't draw many walks. In fact the M's are last in the AL in walks by quite a margin. However, their aggressiveness has had other benefits. They are second in batting average at .288, which isn't a very telling stat. However, I will point to two other stats that could point to how the M's offense has kept them playing well and winning at a rate greater than expected. The first is that they are third in the AL in BA with RISP at .286 which essentially says that with their aggressiveness at the plate they are getting hits when it is needed to score runs. The second is that they are tied for second in the AL in BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) at .312. This is a very telling stat because we already know that the Mariners are aggressive at the plate and put the ball in play. However, this stat tells us that this aggressiveness is paying off because when they hit the ball in play they are getting hits at a more than acceptable rate. So their aggressiveness is not going for naught because they are batting at a high clip when they use it to put the ball in play. So essentially despite a lack of implied plate discipline for the Mariners they are using this aggressiveness to fuel their offense to be among the tops in the AL. They have production throughout their lineup and these stats could very well be reason's why. Aggressiveness is good as long as it doesn't come back and blow up in your face and that has yet to happen with the Mariners. So far their aggressiveness has produced an offense that is scoring a lot of runs and is helping them to continue to win games despite predictions of an impending "regression to the mean".

I offer these things on the offensive side of the ball along with an improved starting rotation, amazing young bullpen and very good defense as things that will support this offense on the way and lead to W's that the stats otherwise wouldn't have brought out. I welcome your opinions...Tell me I'm a god who is the smartest guy on earth. Tell me I'm an idiot who doesn't know what I'm talking about. However, this is what I've extrapolated from basic stats as to why this team is doing so well this year even when people still can't seem to accept it.

M's Trade for Scrub

The highly coveted John Parrish is now ours, for the low-low price of Sebastien Boucher. Now, Boucher was nothing to write home about (think TJ Bohn, but with more speed), but to just throw him to the Orioles for a goddawful 29 year old reliever is just downright idiotic.

Our bullpen is fine. Seriously, what weakness did it have to make this trade necessary? Hard-throwing, dominant closer? Check. Devastating LOOGY? Check. Hard-throwing righty set-up guy? Check. Groundball-inducing, strikeout set-up guy? Check. Secondary LOOGY? Check. Long relief/mop up duty reliever? Check.

I guess I shouldn't get so riled up over this since it's not going to be a make-or-break move, and it affords the team the ability to send Mark Lowe down to get the amount of work he needs in order to get back to where he needs to be. But, dammit, it just doesn't make much sense. The way this team so easily gives up talent in order to bring in "veteran leadership" or to "build team chemistry" is just so utterly baffling, so completely forehead-smacking stupid.

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Phil, I'm glad you got to this one before I did, but I'll just add my two cents.

So I was sitting at Camden Yards tonight for the final game of the series, and before the game I saw that John Parrish was shaking the hands of the Orioles relievers while wearing a Seattle uniform. I first thought was that this was some kind of awful joke, but then reality sunk in. John Parrish was a Mariner. Very awkward moment there seeing a guy switch clubhouses like that, had to be weird for Parrish.

I can testify to how poor of a pitcher Parrish is, I've watched him for a few years with the Orioles since they are my hometeam. Basically what I've watching is him get blasted for multi-run innings. In fact he had a terrible performance just the other week against Boston, cost the O's the game. Other than this move not making sense because he sucks, it also doesn't make any sense at all to bring in a FOURTH, yes a FOURTH, left-handed reliever (Sherrill, O'Flaherty, Rowland-Smith, and now John Parish-able Food Item). Wait until you guys see him pitch, just wait.

A Glance at Richie Sexson

Richie Sexson's struggles have been well documented, by both the team and fans. He's been moved around in the lineup. He's logged 88, 231, 25, and 12 plate appearances batting 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th respectively, while being the subject of boos and the occasional article in the papers. However, most remain optimistic because Sexson is historically a second-half hitter. In his career, Sexson has an .806 OPS (87 tOPS+) before the break, and a .939 OPS (117 tOPS+) after the break. Let's look at his first half/second half OPS over his career:

2006: .706/1.012
2005: .865/.962
2004: Injury shortened year
2003: .889/.980
2002: .882/.847
2001: .792/.995
2000: .753/961
1999: .790/.850

2007 (so far): .712/.649

2002 was the only full year of his career in which he had a higher OPS in the first half. Weather is probably the most likely explanation for this huge disparity in his numbers. Of the four teams he has played for (Cleveland, Milwaukee, Arizona, and Seattle), three play in what one could call "cold climates."

The real question this year is will Sexson follow his normal trend and have a strong second half? Perhaps something lies in the statistics more given to luck (BABIP) or his tendencies as a hitter (GB%, BB%, LD%, HR/FB) that will tell us what to expect in the second half, as opposed to the traditional statistics:

BABIP -
Career: .299
2007: .209

That's a huge, huge difference. Normally, I would say he's due for some regression, meaning more of his batted balls that are going for outs will begin falling for hits. However, let's keep digging before pronouncing Sexson's struggles this year as bad luck.

GB% -
Career: 44.4%
2007: 49.2% (19th highest in the league, among Luis Castillo, Michael Young, Derek Jeter, and Ichiro in the top 20)

Now we're getting somewhere. He's hitting a lot more balls on the ground this year. Generally, speedy slap hitters (Ichiro, Lofton, Pierre) are the heavy groundball hitters, because they have the speed to leg out infield hits and make infielders rush their throws. It's no secret that Sexson moves about as fast as the Empire State Building on a good day. He simply doesn't have the tools to succeed while hitting the ball on the ground. This could be a big reason why his batting average of balls in play is so low.

LD% -
Career: 19.0%
2007: 13.8%

A player simply can't survive in the major leagues with only 14% of his hits going for line drives. Line drives are the surest form for scoring runs as each line drive is "worth" roughly 0.4 runs (outfield fly balls are "worth" the second most at about .05 runs, and groundballs are "worth" -0.1 runs...this can be largely attributed to the higher likelihood of double plays). To give you a sense of how terrible a 13.8% line drive rate is, Sexson ranks 171st out of 177 qualified major leaguers (ahead of only Gerald Laird, Ray Durham, Chris Young, Aubrey Huff, Casey Kotchman, and Brian Schneider). So our $14M per year first baseman is in the same company as two backup catchers, an over-the-hill second baseman, an overrated young outfielder, a one-hit-wonder third baseman, and an injured young first baseman. That's some good company.

HR/FB -
Career: 22.8%
2007: 16.9%

Not only is Sexson hitting the ball on the ground more often and hitting weak flyballs, as his LD% tells us, but fewer of his flyballs are leaving the yard. This is a nightmare, because if his flyballs aren't going for homers anymore and he's not hitting the ball hard anywhere else, we've got the recipe for a piss-poor hitter with little hope for recovery.

When looking at component stats, regression to the mean is largely dependent on whether or not the player is still major league quality hitter. When looking at the numbers presented here, it looks more and more likely that Sexson is done being a productive player. He's either hiding an injury, or Safeco is becoming too much for him to overcome and he's trying to change his plate approach. His first year in a Mariners uniform was very successful, especially when you account for the park he plays half his games in. However, he's two years older now and is reaching the significant decline phase of his career. Safeco notoriously feasts on right-handed power hitters, and it looks as if it has claimed another victim in Richie Sexson. I'm not discounting him completely, as a change of scenery would probably do him well. However, his declining bat, and absolutely abysmal play in the field makes him a giant blackhole on the team. He is being paid as one of the elite players in the game. While he was never worth what he was being paid, the past two years have been especially bad. Too many people point out Beltre's contract as the albatross on the team, but really Sexson should be taking way more heat than he has been.

Will he continue to hit under .200 for the rest of the year? Probably not. Will he be worth $14M this year? Absolutely not.