Wednesday, November 19, 2003
RAUL FOLLOW-UP
Raul Ibanez is a Seattle Mariner for the second time.
From the P-I article (Hickey)...
- "sources close to the club" are cited as confirmation
- articles brings up thought of moving Winn to CF, eliciting my gag reflex
- apparently Mike Cameron called Blow-Mel last week to tell him he wanted to come back, which I hadn't heard yet
From the Times article (Finnigan)...
- source said it'll be 3 yrs, $13M
- asserts that letting Ibanez go in the first place was "one of the Mariners' most glaring mistakes of recent years"
- apparently some Mariners basically ganged up on him at an Edgar shindig in Puerto Rico and told him they'd like him back in Seattle
- Winn in CF also brought up here (gag), but return of Cameron also brought up, in which case your 4th outfielder named Randy Winn would be making $4.5-5M off the bench.
Initial thoughts about this... No real surprise here. We Mariners fans dream and expect more and get the same old middle-of-the-road crap. On that note, we welcome Raul Ibanez back to the Safe. And if anyone is stupid enough to think that letting Ibanez go was one of the Mariners' most glaring mistakes of recent memory -- the reason they let him go is because HE SUCKED!! Plain and simple, the guy sucked, and he had no place (especially with how bad he was sucking) to fit in as a Mariner. So what do you do if a guy sucks? You let him go, unless you have his huge contract and can't move it. Another thought...why can't a bunch of Mariners go to a Vlad Guerrero party and try to get him to come to Seattle? Why can't this happen? Last thought...there's no way I want Randy Winn sitting on the bench and making $4.5M at the same time. No friggin way. I liked his work here in Seattle for the most part, but if it comes to that, cut him loose.
Oh, another thing. I remember distinctly that Ibanez came through the Mariners minor league system as a catcher. Chalk that one up to another LONG list of guys that could have caught for the Mariners over the past decade that hit way WAY better (at least eventually) than Dan Wilson. Maybe the whole outfield switch confounded Ibanez because he sucked ass when he was up with the Mariners, who knows. But too much has been done to keep Dan Wilson behind the plate in Seattle, much to the detriment of any offense coming from the catcher position since the trade of yore that brought Dan Wilson and Bobby Ayala to Seattle.
And some bonus thoughts about the infield...if they get Tejada or Matsui (which better be one of the next moves, because it's horribly apparent Vlad's not coming) and move Guillen to third, great. For me, anything that gets Willie Bloomquist less playing time is a good thing. So I hate South Kitsap. Sue me. If I had enough time to search back into the USS Mariner archives, I know I could find one of those three guys using Bloom's minor-league stats to prove that he could never hit well, even in the minors. I'm also pretty sure that Todd Linden of Central Kitsap has more walk-off hits in 18 games with the Giants than the Bloomer has had in his tenure with the Mariners. And yes, Linden has at least one and I think I'm correct in guessing Bloom has zip.
Okay, that's it for tonight. Probably a better bet now than yesterday that Vlad isn't coming to Seattle. Sadness indeed. Let's just hope Raul's second stint with Seattle is as good as Bret Boone's second stint has been.
From the P-I article (Hickey)...
- "sources close to the club" are cited as confirmation
- articles brings up thought of moving Winn to CF, eliciting my gag reflex
- apparently Mike Cameron called Blow-Mel last week to tell him he wanted to come back, which I hadn't heard yet
From the Times article (Finnigan)...
- source said it'll be 3 yrs, $13M
- asserts that letting Ibanez go in the first place was "one of the Mariners' most glaring mistakes of recent years"
- apparently some Mariners basically ganged up on him at an Edgar shindig in Puerto Rico and told him they'd like him back in Seattle
- Winn in CF also brought up here (gag), but return of Cameron also brought up, in which case your 4th outfielder named Randy Winn would be making $4.5-5M off the bench.
Initial thoughts about this... No real surprise here. We Mariners fans dream and expect more and get the same old middle-of-the-road crap. On that note, we welcome Raul Ibanez back to the Safe. And if anyone is stupid enough to think that letting Ibanez go was one of the Mariners' most glaring mistakes of recent memory -- the reason they let him go is because HE SUCKED!! Plain and simple, the guy sucked, and he had no place (especially with how bad he was sucking) to fit in as a Mariner. So what do you do if a guy sucks? You let him go, unless you have his huge contract and can't move it. Another thought...why can't a bunch of Mariners go to a Vlad Guerrero party and try to get him to come to Seattle? Why can't this happen? Last thought...there's no way I want Randy Winn sitting on the bench and making $4.5M at the same time. No friggin way. I liked his work here in Seattle for the most part, but if it comes to that, cut him loose.
Oh, another thing. I remember distinctly that Ibanez came through the Mariners minor league system as a catcher. Chalk that one up to another LONG list of guys that could have caught for the Mariners over the past decade that hit way WAY better (at least eventually) than Dan Wilson. Maybe the whole outfield switch confounded Ibanez because he sucked ass when he was up with the Mariners, who knows. But too much has been done to keep Dan Wilson behind the plate in Seattle, much to the detriment of any offense coming from the catcher position since the trade of yore that brought Dan Wilson and Bobby Ayala to Seattle.
And some bonus thoughts about the infield...if they get Tejada or Matsui (which better be one of the next moves, because it's horribly apparent Vlad's not coming) and move Guillen to third, great. For me, anything that gets Willie Bloomquist less playing time is a good thing. So I hate South Kitsap. Sue me. If I had enough time to search back into the USS Mariner archives, I know I could find one of those three guys using Bloom's minor-league stats to prove that he could never hit well, even in the minors. I'm also pretty sure that Todd Linden of Central Kitsap has more walk-off hits in 18 games with the Giants than the Bloomer has had in his tenure with the Mariners. And yes, Linden has at least one and I think I'm correct in guessing Bloom has zip.
Okay, that's it for tonight. Probably a better bet now than yesterday that Vlad isn't coming to Seattle. Sadness indeed. Let's just hope Raul's second stint with Seattle is as good as Bret Boone's second stint has been.
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