Thursday, November 13, 2003
NEW DISH FOR TODAY
First off, John Hickey of the P-I reports that the Mariners have offered Shigetoshi Hasegawa a two-year deal. Shig's agent Gregg Clifton also says that ten teams have contacted him inquiring about Hasegawa, two of which are the Phillies and Mets. I knew teams would be inquiring about Hasegawa, but I never thought ten teams would be lighting up Gregg Clifton's cell phone at this rate in pursuit of him.
The second part of the article is a bunch of hooey about Benny Looper staying with the organization, which honestly I really don't care about.
The second P-I article has Melvin and Price bitching about Jamie Moyer not being higher in the Cy Young voting, which I had thought would happen and at the same time, I agree with. The bitching, that is. I thought Moyer should have ranked higher than at least one of Tim Hudson and Pedro. Of course, as the article pointed out, there was somewhat of an ERA gap between Moyer and the pitchers ranking 2-4, but Moyer also had an ERA only 0.02 higher than that of Halladay. So I'll chalk his low rank up to a combination of ERA gap, and of course, the obligatory east coast bias and conspiracy. If the Boston writers and everyone over there can fall back on the Curse over and over again, then I can use east coast bias in some way twice a week.
Bob Finnigan of the Times says "it seems more likely Mike Cameron and Raul Ibanez are at the top of their free-agent outfield wish list."
All together now...BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
And they're offering $3-4M/yr. Cameron could sign with the Mariners and take that money, or he could walk, and I wouldn't give a damn either way. Of course, that would be way lower than the $7M he made last year, but even he's gotta know he was crap offensively and hopefully can't expect to get that kind of money from anybody. The article quotes a scout as saying "[e]ither he softened or the market softened around him" and that no one would be getting Manny money, and of course, that would never include Cameron by any stretch of the imagination.
As for bringing back Ibanez for a second cup of coffee (small last time, large this time, or in the terms of Fourbucks coffee, "tall" and "venti"), this will go one of three horribly obvious ways. The first and best one is they bring back Ibanez and he's great (like Bret Boone the second time around). The second is they bring him back and he's just okay (can't think of one right now, I'll think of one later). The third is that they bring Ibanez back and he stinks it up (John Mabry). I think Raul's more likely to be one of the last two. Call me pessimistic, but that's just what I think. With the Mariners' luck with this kind of stuff, he'll probably have something end up playing mind games with him and he'll fall 50 points off his average off the last couple years, maybe drop off by 15 bombs a year, who knows. Just got a feeling, that's all.
A feeling that would be gleefully SQUASHED if they got Vladimir Guerrero.
The second part of the article is a bunch of hooey about Benny Looper staying with the organization, which honestly I really don't care about.
The second P-I article has Melvin and Price bitching about Jamie Moyer not being higher in the Cy Young voting, which I had thought would happen and at the same time, I agree with. The bitching, that is. I thought Moyer should have ranked higher than at least one of Tim Hudson and Pedro. Of course, as the article pointed out, there was somewhat of an ERA gap between Moyer and the pitchers ranking 2-4, but Moyer also had an ERA only 0.02 higher than that of Halladay. So I'll chalk his low rank up to a combination of ERA gap, and of course, the obligatory east coast bias and conspiracy. If the Boston writers and everyone over there can fall back on the Curse over and over again, then I can use east coast bias in some way twice a week.
Bob Finnigan of the Times says "it seems more likely Mike Cameron and Raul Ibanez are at the top of their free-agent outfield wish list."
All together now...BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
And they're offering $3-4M/yr. Cameron could sign with the Mariners and take that money, or he could walk, and I wouldn't give a damn either way. Of course, that would be way lower than the $7M he made last year, but even he's gotta know he was crap offensively and hopefully can't expect to get that kind of money from anybody. The article quotes a scout as saying "[e]ither he softened or the market softened around him" and that no one would be getting Manny money, and of course, that would never include Cameron by any stretch of the imagination.
As for bringing back Ibanez for a second cup of coffee (small last time, large this time, or in the terms of Fourbucks coffee, "tall" and "venti"), this will go one of three horribly obvious ways. The first and best one is they bring back Ibanez and he's great (like Bret Boone the second time around). The second is they bring him back and he's just okay (can't think of one right now, I'll think of one later). The third is that they bring Ibanez back and he stinks it up (John Mabry). I think Raul's more likely to be one of the last two. Call me pessimistic, but that's just what I think. With the Mariners' luck with this kind of stuff, he'll probably have something end up playing mind games with him and he'll fall 50 points off his average off the last couple years, maybe drop off by 15 bombs a year, who knows. Just got a feeling, that's all.
A feeling that would be gleefully SQUASHED if they got Vladimir Guerrero.
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