Sunday, March 05, 2006
huzzah!! it is spring training time again, which means we are talking mariners. in perhaps the best news of the day, gil meche got hurt. another strained oblique muscle. shades of rapheal soriano. why is this good you ask? because we have two major league ready starters who have a great chance at being better than him, but who don't have a spot in the rotation. also, i think meche is better suited for the bullpen at this point. even he knows it. last year he had a few stints out of the bullpen (some of his best pitching performances all year, incidentally) and he raved about the experience. it sounded to me that he wanted to be in the bullpen by the end of last season because his arm simply can't handle a full season as a starter.
my post at the beginning of the offseason had a few guys fighting for the 5th spot in the rotation, including meche, jesse foppert and clint nageotte. at this point(admittedly only two weeks in), foppert seems to be the front runner due to meche's injury, despite nageotte's history with the team. another candidate is luis gonzales, a rule 5 guy we picked up from the rockies for yorvit torrealba. not necessarily because he is the best guy for the job, but because if we want to keep him he has to be on the major league roster. otherwise, we have to offer him back to the team he was drafted from in the rule 5 draft (the dodgers). he is young, throws hard, is left handed, and tore things up last year in relief for the rockies. it would be nice if we could keep him, but i doubt he will break camp with the team.
and now for my favorite part of any mariners post, the 25 man roster
lineup
1. ichiro rf lh
2. johjima c rh
3. ibanez lf lh
4. sexson 1b rh
5. beltre 3b rh
6. everett dh sh
7. lopez 2b rh
8. reed cf lh
9. betancourt ss rh
bench
lawton of lh
rivera c rh
morse in/of rh
bloomquist in/of rh
i really wanted to put petagine on the bench to have a legit lefty power bat, but it just don't see it happening. honestly, i'd rather have him dhing than everett, but no way that is going to happen. he'll hit 30 homers in tacoma, and hopefully make it up as soon as some one gets hurt and bloomers or morse slips into a temporary starting role
rotation
1. moyer lh
2. piniero rh
3. washburn lh
4. foppert rh
5. hernandez rh
felix is by far the best pitcher on the team, but is at number 5 because he is only going to get about 160 innings during the regular season this year, and for good reason. did i mention he is still a teenager? starting 06, i'll bet he'll be the opening day starter.
bullpen
1. guardado cl
2. soriano rh setup
3. sherril lh setup
4. mateo rh long
5. putz rh long
6. nageotte rh long
7. thorton lh long
thorton shouldn't be there. we keep him around because he is out of options, and everyone still thinks he is the second coming of randy johnson. also in the hunt for a spot in the pen are marcos carvajal and luis gonzales. i'd say gonzales has the best shot of the two due to his lefthandedness, but i am afraid that that will knock sherril out of the pen instead of thorton, which would be a terrible.
when meche and doyle get back from their injuries, i bet they will be back up with the team, although i have no idea who's place they are going to take. best case scenario, we trade carl everett or matt lawton to make a place for chris snelling (until he gets hurt again. the two prime suspects in the pen to be moved to make room for meche are julio mateo and matt thorton. i like mateo, but he is a replaceable part, and his contract makes him much more moveable than meche.
the offseason could have been worse, i guess, but not by much. at least we have some depth, sort of. we seem to have a lot of 34 yr old left handed outfielders who are similarly mediocre that should all be dhing, but would make a terrible dh. so, we'll have at least one of them screwing things up in the field, while the another one is overpaid to hit .270 with 20 homers. i would give one of my fingers to have brad wilkerson in the 2 hole right now and carl everett off the team...
then there is jarrod washburn, the 37.5 million dollar man. i hope safeco does good things for him, and that his forearm doesn't explode into a bloody mess of tendons during the next 4 years. maybe he'll turn into the next jamie moyer and pitch until he is 44. that would be great. my biggest fear is that they slot him as the number 2 starter, taking his turn right after jamie moyer. that will give us 2 crafty soft tossing lefties in a row again. i call it the john halama effect. the first of the two will do alright, but the second will get teed off on because the other team had 9 innings the night before to get adjusted. granted, washburn is a better pitcher than halama, but it is just stupid in my opinion. we don't need to give the other team an instant advantage every 5 days just to stroke the new guy's ego. if you have two pitchers with similar stuff, it just makes sense to split them up so they don't have to pitch back to back.
actually, i take that back. my biggest fear is that jose lopez gets jobbed by the management and doesn't get the starting 2b position that he deserves. he has deserved a spot on the team out of spring training for two years in a row but has been sent to tacoma, and now all you hear about in the paper is fernando vina this, fernando vina that. fernando vina is 38 and hasn't really played since 2003. even then, he didn't play very well. why would you even think about giving him the job over lopez? because you are the mariners, and you are idiots. this is the type of thinking that is going to drop our record under .500 again if we aren't careful.
my post at the beginning of the offseason had a few guys fighting for the 5th spot in the rotation, including meche, jesse foppert and clint nageotte. at this point(admittedly only two weeks in), foppert seems to be the front runner due to meche's injury, despite nageotte's history with the team. another candidate is luis gonzales, a rule 5 guy we picked up from the rockies for yorvit torrealba. not necessarily because he is the best guy for the job, but because if we want to keep him he has to be on the major league roster. otherwise, we have to offer him back to the team he was drafted from in the rule 5 draft (the dodgers). he is young, throws hard, is left handed, and tore things up last year in relief for the rockies. it would be nice if we could keep him, but i doubt he will break camp with the team.
and now for my favorite part of any mariners post, the 25 man roster
lineup
1. ichiro rf lh
2. johjima c rh
3. ibanez lf lh
4. sexson 1b rh
5. beltre 3b rh
6. everett dh sh
7. lopez 2b rh
8. reed cf lh
9. betancourt ss rh
bench
lawton of lh
rivera c rh
morse in/of rh
bloomquist in/of rh
i really wanted to put petagine on the bench to have a legit lefty power bat, but it just don't see it happening. honestly, i'd rather have him dhing than everett, but no way that is going to happen. he'll hit 30 homers in tacoma, and hopefully make it up as soon as some one gets hurt and bloomers or morse slips into a temporary starting role
rotation
1. moyer lh
2. piniero rh
3. washburn lh
4. foppert rh
5. hernandez rh
felix is by far the best pitcher on the team, but is at number 5 because he is only going to get about 160 innings during the regular season this year, and for good reason. did i mention he is still a teenager? starting 06, i'll bet he'll be the opening day starter.
bullpen
1. guardado cl
2. soriano rh setup
3. sherril lh setup
4. mateo rh long
5. putz rh long
6. nageotte rh long
7. thorton lh long
thorton shouldn't be there. we keep him around because he is out of options, and everyone still thinks he is the second coming of randy johnson. also in the hunt for a spot in the pen are marcos carvajal and luis gonzales. i'd say gonzales has the best shot of the two due to his lefthandedness, but i am afraid that that will knock sherril out of the pen instead of thorton, which would be a terrible.
when meche and doyle get back from their injuries, i bet they will be back up with the team, although i have no idea who's place they are going to take. best case scenario, we trade carl everett or matt lawton to make a place for chris snelling (until he gets hurt again. the two prime suspects in the pen to be moved to make room for meche are julio mateo and matt thorton. i like mateo, but he is a replaceable part, and his contract makes him much more moveable than meche.
the offseason could have been worse, i guess, but not by much. at least we have some depth, sort of. we seem to have a lot of 34 yr old left handed outfielders who are similarly mediocre that should all be dhing, but would make a terrible dh. so, we'll have at least one of them screwing things up in the field, while the another one is overpaid to hit .270 with 20 homers. i would give one of my fingers to have brad wilkerson in the 2 hole right now and carl everett off the team...
then there is jarrod washburn, the 37.5 million dollar man. i hope safeco does good things for him, and that his forearm doesn't explode into a bloody mess of tendons during the next 4 years. maybe he'll turn into the next jamie moyer and pitch until he is 44. that would be great. my biggest fear is that they slot him as the number 2 starter, taking his turn right after jamie moyer. that will give us 2 crafty soft tossing lefties in a row again. i call it the john halama effect. the first of the two will do alright, but the second will get teed off on because the other team had 9 innings the night before to get adjusted. granted, washburn is a better pitcher than halama, but it is just stupid in my opinion. we don't need to give the other team an instant advantage every 5 days just to stroke the new guy's ego. if you have two pitchers with similar stuff, it just makes sense to split them up so they don't have to pitch back to back.
actually, i take that back. my biggest fear is that jose lopez gets jobbed by the management and doesn't get the starting 2b position that he deserves. he has deserved a spot on the team out of spring training for two years in a row but has been sent to tacoma, and now all you hear about in the paper is fernando vina this, fernando vina that. fernando vina is 38 and hasn't really played since 2003. even then, he didn't play very well. why would you even think about giving him the job over lopez? because you are the mariners, and you are idiots. this is the type of thinking that is going to drop our record under .500 again if we aren't careful.
