Monday, December 08, 2003
LIVE FROM LAB...
Yep, I'm doing my last lab for the ol' Intro to GIS class here at Central, but what have I been more busy with the last three hours? Arb day.
Now, here comes articles from Dave Andriesen of the P-I, who was gone for a while (LaRue was gone for a while, so was Andriesen), and Bob Finnigan of the Times. Tribune article will probably come at 2:30am PT if the trends hold up like they have over the last week. Yes, I have GIS class to thank along with my horrible attention span for keeping me up at that hour of the night.
First, the Andriesen article...it says that the Mariners "surprisingly" offered arb to Pat Borders, so at least there is some dissent there (will be compared to Finnigan later).
"I don't feel great about [cutting Cameron loose]," Bavasi said. "This guy filled some pretty big shoes in 2001.
Cameron had some bigger shoes to fill in 2000...BECAUSE 2000 WAS THE FIRST YEAR AFTER GRIFFEY LEFT. Okay, so it's probably an honest mistake on Bavasi's part, but come on.
Cameron's departure makes Randy Winn the Mariners' center fielder, though that could change.
Okay...one of the things that I wish I could singlehandedly change about this offseason is how everyone thinks Randy Winn will be a sufficient centerfielder for this team. NO. He's a ZOO. I've said this many times. I posted one of the comments to a reader by the name of Sally in this post. I know Ichiro has the best arm, but you need someone to hit those gaps and run those doubles down, and his speed is better than Winn's. Of course, the perfect plan of attack for all of this would have been to (1) not have Edgar invite Raul Ibanez to his party in PR, (2) sign Vlad Guerrero (not offered arb today), and (3) sign Jose Cruz Jr (ALSO not offered arb today). They could have waited until today and they could have had a chance at this because they wouldn't have stupidly blown money on Ibanez. AND they'd satisfy the people who don't like the Mariners losing draft picks upon signing FAs, though the Mariners haven't been able to sign two of their last four #1 picks anyway, making those two picks moot. So the outfield scenario I had there was Cruz/Ichiro/Guerrero. Ichiro covers the gaps in CF and Guerrero still has the quality arm in RF. Cruz and Ichiro are Gold Glovers. Cruz would return with a Gold Glove in tow to the very place where people questioned his defense before he left in the trade to Toronto.
[EDIT 2:50am -- Further reading indicates John Mayberry Jr was the first Mariner first-round draft pick not to sign since 1989 when Scott Burrell chose UConn basketball instead of Mariners minor-league hijinks. My point, though...draft picks don't always sign, and needless to say, they aren't immediately proven and they don't always pan out.]
Rhodes was the only left-hander in the Seattle bullpen last season, and his loss could mean the Mariners are more intent on signing lefty Minnesota closer Eddie Guardado.
It damn well better mean one of two things -- either they're making a big pitch to Eddie G, or they're gonna give Madritsch and other minor-league cohorts a shot. What I don't want them to do is bring in B-level journeyman hacks to be lefty relievers. Jeremy names Terry Mulholland as a journeyman hack. I will try to name someone who is like a left-handed Jason Grimsley, just someone who sucks. Hmm... Allen Watson comes to mind... Maybe Matt White gets his second cup of coffee with the Mariners. Maybe bring Paul Assenmacher (though he did have his days...my mom called him "Paul Ass" in those days) out of retirement?
Bavasi also confirmed publicly for the first time yesterday that the Mariners were bidding on Oakland free agent shortstop Miguel Tejada, though he stopped short of saying Seattle had made a formal offer.
"We're obviously interested, without a doubt," he said. "But I think that one might work a little slowly."
By "slowly," I'm pretty sure Bavasi means that he's waiting for the other teams in the running to sign other people...for the field to dwindle down. Namely, as David Locke of KJR pointed out, Bavasi could be waiting for Anaheim to overpay $12M/yr for Bartolo Colon so they don't have money left to sign Tejada. If the Manny/Alex deal goes through and Nomar goes to LA, the Dodgers won't have moolah or even an open position to be spending on or giving to Tejada, because they'd have a shortstop. Hypothetically, he'd fall into the Mariners' lap because no one else would have money left to spend on him other than maybe Detroit, and if Migg hasn't learned from Juan Gonzalez' tenure in Detroit, then he's dumb. But we know hypotheses never work when trying to analyze Mariner management.
Now for the Finnigan article...
Given Derek Zumsteg's incessant and justified grilling of Finnigan at the USS Mariner, it makes all of us perk our ears up to these Finnigan articles.
The great contributions to this article are the Cameron quotes.
It's weird what happened. It's crazy this feeling I'm left with ... It's like your dad tells you to get the hell out of the house. 'We still love you, son ... but you can't come back.'
I wanted to be back. I tried hard to get back ... In the end, it was kind of crazy, really different than I expected, but I hold no hard feelings, only good thoughts for Seattle and the fans and my teammates. ... I mean my ex-teammates.
I'm not gonna miss the strikeouts, but I'm gonna miss that smile, that speed (that was never fully utilized even when he WAS on base...that goes for both Bob AND Lou) and that off-centered cap.
They did offer arbitration to catcher Pat Borders, whom Bavasi says the "club has a special relationship with."
I'll probably just stop right here and let Zumsteg take care of this too. Okay, maybe not. Derek has a point...and Steve concurs with it, too, about the discrepancy in payroll numbers. They believe Finnigan spreads the lies and carries the Mariner flag rather than the journalistic flag so he can be on the good side of the Mariner brass. What did I put the Borders quote up there for, though? Everyone who owns half a brain knows that the reaction to only Borders being offered arb has to be at least a LITTLE BIT puzzling or something, especially when arb WASN'T offered to Cam or Rhodes. Andriesen didn't exactly go out on a limb in his quote by saying Borders was "surprisingly" offered arb, but at least he hinted at a puzzlingness better than a set of quote marks by Finnigan can.
And that brings me to one thing, which I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is December 20th, when the free agents are offered contracts, arb, or a pinkslip. Borders got his arb offer. Garcia is up on the 20th, as is Winn, who as Steve noted, could fetch $5M (WHY, OH WHY??!!).
THE TRIBUNE HAS UPDATED earlier than 2:30am...amazing. It's 1:12 right now.
This one's got LaRue's name on it.
And unfortunately, nothing at least hinting that Borders getting arb was somewhat surprising. One-for-three for the Seattle-area Mariner beat writers.
The freshest material from this article, which is mostly about the Shig contract, is...
If the season began today, Bavasi said, Randy Winn would be Seattle's center fielder. It doesn't, and Bavasi will pursue other outfielders at baseball's winter meetings later this week.
Can Winn do the job?
"I think we expect from Randy what you all expected from Mike when he followed Ken Griffey Jr. into Seattle," Bavasi said. "He's a good center fielder who only played the position last year a handful of times coming over from left field. That's tough to do."
I like the turnaround after saying Randy Winn would be the starting CF and then bluntly reminding everyone that the season doesn't begin tomorrow. And thank God for that, because I don't want Randy Winn setting foot in CF this year unless he's backing up Ichiro or a reasonable on-the-market CF (Jose Cruz wasn't offered arb), who should be playing CF. And there's NO WAY IN HELL I would expect from Winn what I saw from Cam and Junior. Winn's can't even touch those guys. Why? Speed's not quite there (though still somewhat fast) and as I keep saying here at Sports and B's, WINN HAS NO ARM. If any opposing team has a hitter gap one and there's a runner on first, you might as well call the ball dead and have that runner come around to score so no one gets hurt. The hitter would then be awarded second base.
That's it for now. I gotta power in some quick work here so I can justify my existence in the lab here this late. See y'all later...
Now, here comes articles from Dave Andriesen of the P-I, who was gone for a while (LaRue was gone for a while, so was Andriesen), and Bob Finnigan of the Times. Tribune article will probably come at 2:30am PT if the trends hold up like they have over the last week. Yes, I have GIS class to thank along with my horrible attention span for keeping me up at that hour of the night.
First, the Andriesen article...it says that the Mariners "surprisingly" offered arb to Pat Borders, so at least there is some dissent there (will be compared to Finnigan later).
"I don't feel great about [cutting Cameron loose]," Bavasi said. "This guy filled some pretty big shoes in 2001.
Cameron had some bigger shoes to fill in 2000...BECAUSE 2000 WAS THE FIRST YEAR AFTER GRIFFEY LEFT. Okay, so it's probably an honest mistake on Bavasi's part, but come on.
Cameron's departure makes Randy Winn the Mariners' center fielder, though that could change.
Okay...one of the things that I wish I could singlehandedly change about this offseason is how everyone thinks Randy Winn will be a sufficient centerfielder for this team. NO. He's a ZOO. I've said this many times. I posted one of the comments to a reader by the name of Sally in this post. I know Ichiro has the best arm, but you need someone to hit those gaps and run those doubles down, and his speed is better than Winn's. Of course, the perfect plan of attack for all of this would have been to (1) not have Edgar invite Raul Ibanez to his party in PR, (2) sign Vlad Guerrero (not offered arb today), and (3) sign Jose Cruz Jr (ALSO not offered arb today). They could have waited until today and they could have had a chance at this because they wouldn't have stupidly blown money on Ibanez. AND they'd satisfy the people who don't like the Mariners losing draft picks upon signing FAs, though the Mariners haven't been able to sign two of their last four #1 picks anyway, making those two picks moot. So the outfield scenario I had there was Cruz/Ichiro/Guerrero. Ichiro covers the gaps in CF and Guerrero still has the quality arm in RF. Cruz and Ichiro are Gold Glovers. Cruz would return with a Gold Glove in tow to the very place where people questioned his defense before he left in the trade to Toronto.
[EDIT 2:50am -- Further reading indicates John Mayberry Jr was the first Mariner first-round draft pick not to sign since 1989 when Scott Burrell chose UConn basketball instead of Mariners minor-league hijinks. My point, though...draft picks don't always sign, and needless to say, they aren't immediately proven and they don't always pan out.]
Rhodes was the only left-hander in the Seattle bullpen last season, and his loss could mean the Mariners are more intent on signing lefty Minnesota closer Eddie Guardado.
It damn well better mean one of two things -- either they're making a big pitch to Eddie G, or they're gonna give Madritsch and other minor-league cohorts a shot. What I don't want them to do is bring in B-level journeyman hacks to be lefty relievers. Jeremy names Terry Mulholland as a journeyman hack. I will try to name someone who is like a left-handed Jason Grimsley, just someone who sucks. Hmm... Allen Watson comes to mind... Maybe Matt White gets his second cup of coffee with the Mariners. Maybe bring Paul Assenmacher (though he did have his days...my mom called him "Paul Ass" in those days) out of retirement?
Bavasi also confirmed publicly for the first time yesterday that the Mariners were bidding on Oakland free agent shortstop Miguel Tejada, though he stopped short of saying Seattle had made a formal offer.
"We're obviously interested, without a doubt," he said. "But I think that one might work a little slowly."
By "slowly," I'm pretty sure Bavasi means that he's waiting for the other teams in the running to sign other people...for the field to dwindle down. Namely, as David Locke of KJR pointed out, Bavasi could be waiting for Anaheim to overpay $12M/yr for Bartolo Colon so they don't have money left to sign Tejada. If the Manny/Alex deal goes through and Nomar goes to LA, the Dodgers won't have moolah or even an open position to be spending on or giving to Tejada, because they'd have a shortstop. Hypothetically, he'd fall into the Mariners' lap because no one else would have money left to spend on him other than maybe Detroit, and if Migg hasn't learned from Juan Gonzalez' tenure in Detroit, then he's dumb. But we know hypotheses never work when trying to analyze Mariner management.
Now for the Finnigan article...
Given Derek Zumsteg's incessant and justified grilling of Finnigan at the USS Mariner, it makes all of us perk our ears up to these Finnigan articles.
The great contributions to this article are the Cameron quotes.
It's weird what happened. It's crazy this feeling I'm left with ... It's like your dad tells you to get the hell out of the house. 'We still love you, son ... but you can't come back.'
I wanted to be back. I tried hard to get back ... In the end, it was kind of crazy, really different than I expected, but I hold no hard feelings, only good thoughts for Seattle and the fans and my teammates. ... I mean my ex-teammates.
I'm not gonna miss the strikeouts, but I'm gonna miss that smile, that speed (that was never fully utilized even when he WAS on base...that goes for both Bob AND Lou) and that off-centered cap.
They did offer arbitration to catcher Pat Borders, whom Bavasi says the "club has a special relationship with."
I'll probably just stop right here and let Zumsteg take care of this too. Okay, maybe not. Derek has a point...and Steve concurs with it, too, about the discrepancy in payroll numbers. They believe Finnigan spreads the lies and carries the Mariner flag rather than the journalistic flag so he can be on the good side of the Mariner brass. What did I put the Borders quote up there for, though? Everyone who owns half a brain knows that the reaction to only Borders being offered arb has to be at least a LITTLE BIT puzzling or something, especially when arb WASN'T offered to Cam or Rhodes. Andriesen didn't exactly go out on a limb in his quote by saying Borders was "surprisingly" offered arb, but at least he hinted at a puzzlingness better than a set of quote marks by Finnigan can.
And that brings me to one thing, which I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is December 20th, when the free agents are offered contracts, arb, or a pinkslip. Borders got his arb offer. Garcia is up on the 20th, as is Winn, who as Steve noted, could fetch $5M (WHY, OH WHY??!!).
THE TRIBUNE HAS UPDATED earlier than 2:30am...amazing. It's 1:12 right now.
This one's got LaRue's name on it.
And unfortunately, nothing at least hinting that Borders getting arb was somewhat surprising. One-for-three for the Seattle-area Mariner beat writers.
The freshest material from this article, which is mostly about the Shig contract, is...
If the season began today, Bavasi said, Randy Winn would be Seattle's center fielder. It doesn't, and Bavasi will pursue other outfielders at baseball's winter meetings later this week.
Can Winn do the job?
"I think we expect from Randy what you all expected from Mike when he followed Ken Griffey Jr. into Seattle," Bavasi said. "He's a good center fielder who only played the position last year a handful of times coming over from left field. That's tough to do."
I like the turnaround after saying Randy Winn would be the starting CF and then bluntly reminding everyone that the season doesn't begin tomorrow. And thank God for that, because I don't want Randy Winn setting foot in CF this year unless he's backing up Ichiro or a reasonable on-the-market CF (Jose Cruz wasn't offered arb), who should be playing CF. And there's NO WAY IN HELL I would expect from Winn what I saw from Cam and Junior. Winn's can't even touch those guys. Why? Speed's not quite there (though still somewhat fast) and as I keep saying here at Sports and B's, WINN HAS NO ARM. If any opposing team has a hitter gap one and there's a runner on first, you might as well call the ball dead and have that runner come around to score so no one gets hurt. The hitter would then be awarded second base.
That's it for now. I gotta power in some quick work here so I can justify my existence in the lab here this late. See y'all later...
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