Tuesday, November 18, 2003
MATSUI AT MIDNIGHT
Both Mariner-related articles from the Times and P-I today have something to do Kazuo Matsui's decision to make himself available to Major League teams.
Let's see real quick if I can get the good parts of the Finnigan article...
- says the Mariners were tired of Kazuo's mulling over the decision
- says Mariners don't like bidding contests; inevitable for Matsui
- article definitely gives the impression that Matsui in a Mariner uniform is definitely not a lock
- unnamed baseball executive believes Mariners just aren't tipping their hand and are after Matsui
From the Hickey article...
- speculation of getting Matsui and moving Guillen to third
- projected that his 33 homers would turn into 15 for Seattle (OUCH)
- unfortunately tried to spin a possible Raul Ibanez signing as a good thing
- SOMEONE in the Mariner front office KNOWS what the hell is going on!! Read on...
More than one member of the Seattle front office likes the thought of going after Tejada, even though he'll probably cost more than Matsui.
"Tejada is a known quantity," one Mariners insider said. "If you sign him, you know what he can do. There's no adjustment for him. Matsui has a tremendous upside, but there is going to be a period of adjustment."
- Hickey does some quick math at the end of the article. I thought Cirillo made a million more than $5.72M, but what made me sick was the assertion that somehow Freddy Garcia could add $2M onto the $6.875M he made last year...BASED ON WHAT?!!?!
- Hickey leaves $33M to mess with free agents and stuff
My conclusion on just the articles themselves is that Hickey brought his stuff today and Finnigan, well, just less content this time. At least he's no Darrin Beene of the Tribune. Yuck. I remember he wrote some brass-friendly articles last year and I hated him then. Then the GM meetings came around and Jeremy realized that the guy reporting for the Tribune about these GM meetings wasn't named Larry LaRue. That's quite a discrepancy in legitimacy and journalistic talent right there.
The number one thought in my mind after these articles is that if the Mariners know better (they've shown otherwise many times), there's no way they let themselves fan on both Tejada AND Matsui. If they don't get either of those guys, Vlad Guerrero better be wearing teal, navy blue, and silver with number 27 on his back and they can redo the Freddy Garcia "You're Gonna Make It After All" promo with Vlad instead. Vlad doing hopscotch. You bet. Or Vlad bashing one 700 feet and saying "you got to hit 'em where they ain't."
Oh man, now I want to tear apart last year's Mariner commercials. John Mabry hit better while hitting pepper in the Hawaiian shirt commercial than he did all year. In the same commercial, Joel Pineiro tells Freddy he has a nice shirt. Freddy should say, "thanks. It's gonna cost us at the deadline."
Okay, so the train of thought careened off the track at only one commercial. Damn. Got a big airphoto test to study for that's in about 17 hours...
Let's see real quick if I can get the good parts of the Finnigan article...
- says the Mariners were tired of Kazuo's mulling over the decision
- says Mariners don't like bidding contests; inevitable for Matsui
- article definitely gives the impression that Matsui in a Mariner uniform is definitely not a lock
- unnamed baseball executive believes Mariners just aren't tipping their hand and are after Matsui
From the Hickey article...
- speculation of getting Matsui and moving Guillen to third
- projected that his 33 homers would turn into 15 for Seattle (OUCH)
- unfortunately tried to spin a possible Raul Ibanez signing as a good thing
- SOMEONE in the Mariner front office KNOWS what the hell is going on!! Read on...
More than one member of the Seattle front office likes the thought of going after Tejada, even though he'll probably cost more than Matsui.
"Tejada is a known quantity," one Mariners insider said. "If you sign him, you know what he can do. There's no adjustment for him. Matsui has a tremendous upside, but there is going to be a period of adjustment."
- Hickey does some quick math at the end of the article. I thought Cirillo made a million more than $5.72M, but what made me sick was the assertion that somehow Freddy Garcia could add $2M onto the $6.875M he made last year...BASED ON WHAT?!!?!
- Hickey leaves $33M to mess with free agents and stuff
My conclusion on just the articles themselves is that Hickey brought his stuff today and Finnigan, well, just less content this time. At least he's no Darrin Beene of the Tribune. Yuck. I remember he wrote some brass-friendly articles last year and I hated him then. Then the GM meetings came around and Jeremy realized that the guy reporting for the Tribune about these GM meetings wasn't named Larry LaRue. That's quite a discrepancy in legitimacy and journalistic talent right there.
The number one thought in my mind after these articles is that if the Mariners know better (they've shown otherwise many times), there's no way they let themselves fan on both Tejada AND Matsui. If they don't get either of those guys, Vlad Guerrero better be wearing teal, navy blue, and silver with number 27 on his back and they can redo the Freddy Garcia "You're Gonna Make It After All" promo with Vlad instead. Vlad doing hopscotch. You bet. Or Vlad bashing one 700 feet and saying "you got to hit 'em where they ain't."
Oh man, now I want to tear apart last year's Mariner commercials. John Mabry hit better while hitting pepper in the Hawaiian shirt commercial than he did all year. In the same commercial, Joel Pineiro tells Freddy he has a nice shirt. Freddy should say, "thanks. It's gonna cost us at the deadline."
Okay, so the train of thought careened off the track at only one commercial. Damn. Got a big airphoto test to study for that's in about 17 hours...
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