This Is Getting Ridiculous

OK, so it's Monday evening. I turn on the television machine to see if there is anything that will serve as appropriate background noise while I go about my tasks.

I scroll down the programming guide and the listing for the MLB Network informs me that the Brewers/Mariners game is on. Now, the game was played that afternoon (I know because I saw the final score on the Yahoo MLB page), but who cares? It's baseball, and I'll watch it.  God knows I've watched older games.

So I turn my DirecTV crank to channel 213 and get ready for some baseball.  Alas, it was not to be.

Instead of a pleasurable, meaningless spring training game, I saw nothing but a blank screen -- and an on-screen message telling me that "This program is blacked out in your area."

Really, Major League Baseball?  As if the blackout restrictiosn aren't goofy enough -- now you're blacking out Brewers games that have already been played?

Perhaps Baron Budhausen is scared that we'll all stay home and watch the tape delayed game instead of hitching a lift from this guy for the roadie to Arizona:

Seattle Mariners 2008 Preview: Making Their Bedard and Sleeping In It

2007...the year that sucked/was groovy (pick one)

The 2007 Mariners won 88 games in 2007 and chased the Angels Of Several Southern California Towns throughout the summer, eventually falling six games short. That seems fairly groovy. However, the bilges were carrying more water than the captains think. Opponents outscored the Mariners last year 813-794, and while the Mariners deserve credit for posting a record better than the sum of the parts, the shiny won-lost record disguised the fact that the roster was not really that of a contending team. Emboldened by the idea that they are playoff contenders, management made a major trade this winter, sending four excellent prospects and a run in the mill reliever to Baltimore for Eric Bedard.

They can put it on the board, yes! no! maybe!

The Mariners finished exactly at league average in runs scored in 2007. Their home park, Safeco Field, depressed scoring by about 3%, but while the Mariners did score more runs on the road, they didn't score enough to be a real offensive power. Ichiro Suzuki continued to be Ichiro!, rapping out 238 hits and scoring 111 runs. But the Mariners were playing a DH who hit six homers, a first baseman who batted .205, and a middle infield combo that contributed next to nothing to the offense. Nothing was done over the winter to improve any of those areas.

CF Ichiro!
DH Jose Vidro
3B Adrian Beltre
LF Raul Ibanez
RF Brad Wilkerson
1B Richie Sexson
C Kenji Johjima
2B Jose Lopez
SS Yuniesky Betancourt

Not to be rude, but that looks about as much like a championship lineup as this looks like a real woman. OK, you got me, that was pretty rude. Putting Ichiro! on the top of this lineup is like putting a cherry on top of a bowl of manure and calling it ice cream. Vidro is 33 and comes with a well stocked injury cabinet; the minute his average falls below .300 he's worthless as a hitter. Beltre has a little power and a little speed and a .327 career on base percentage. Betancourt drew 15 walks in 155 games last year; Lopez 20 in 149. The wheels came completely off of Sexson's wagon last year; at 33 don't be expecting them to ever fit back on properly again.

Of course, the Mariners could add a huge upgrade to this shabby lineup with the stroke of a pen, by signing this obscure free agent. Team management appears to have little to no interest in such a move, apparently feeling that signing Bonds would upset Ken Rosenthal.

Pitchers, or belly itchers?

Playing in a pitcher's park, the 2007 Mariners allowed more runs than the league average. Felix Hernandez remains more the Dauphin than the King, although he remained healthy didn't step backwards. Jarrod Washburn and Miguel Batista were solid innings eaters in the rotation. Closer J.J. Putz put up numbers that are usually found in high school, allowing the ridiculous totals of 37 hits and 13 walks in 71 2/3 innings. Twelve guys who pitched for the 2007 Mariners posted ERAs above 5.00. I guess that could be classified as belly itching.

SP Eric Bedard
SP Dauphin Felix Hernandez
SP Jarrod Washburn
SP Miguel Batista
SP Carlos Silva

CL J.J. Putz
RP Brandon Morrow
RP Ryan Rowland-Smith

Bedard is an outstanding talent who improves the rotation considerably over Jeff Weaver, Horacio Ramirez, and Jason Davis. He also takes over the number one spot in the rotation, relieving some of the pressure on Hernandez. Hernandez retains all of his enormous talent and could certainly break through in 2008. The remaining three starters won't be confused with Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz, but are all capable of 200 innings of league average work, which is valuable. Putz is one of the top two or three closers in the AL. Morrow has a great fastball but absolutely no control. He does have a lot of upside as either a starter or a reliever if he does begin to throw strikes. Rowland-Smith is not the guy who fought Fu Manchu but a decent lefty specialist.

Witnesses for the defense

Besides not being much of a scoring machine, the Mariners lineup isn't much into the fielding thing either. They didn't make a lot of errors; that'll happen when you don't get to a lot of balls in the first place. The Mariners were the second least efficient team in the AL in turning batted balls into outs last year. Ichiro!, Lopez, and Beltre are above average fielders at their positions, everyone else is less so. Replacing Guillen in right with Wilkerson isn't going to do anything to turn that around. If the Mariners aren't going to play guys who can hit, they should at least find some more who can field and help out the pitching staff that way.

Farm aid

The Bedard trade cost the Mariners one of the game's very best prospects (Adam Jones), an outstanding pitching prospect (Chris Tillman) and two other decent young arms. Catcher Jeff Clement is a lefthanded power bat who is ready to be a regular major league catcher now, but is blocked by one of the Mariners' better players in Johjima. The Mariners will try to find a spot for his bat somehow; they need it. Rightfielder Wladimir Balentien is a slugger with 40 homer potential who could snag the rightfield job out from under Wilkerson with a hot spring. Warning: use of this young player may lead to excessive strikeouts. Robert Rohrbaugh is a lefthanded starter who will likely get the first call if the rotation needs a bailout; he can fill a major league rotation spot but has no star potential. There are some very fine prospects at the lower levels of the system as well.

Watch out for that tree!

The warning comes a bit late for Richie Sexson, whose career as an effective hitter pretty much came to a crashing halt last year. Sexson starting dismally and actually got worse, putting up a .205-.288-.371 line over the second half. The Mariners owe him $14 million this year, the last year of a four-year contract, so they're probably stuck with him. Ibanez is 36 and isn't exactly Ted Williams at the plate; once he slips he'll slip badly. Batista is 37 and while he's been a league average pitcher over the last four years, he hasn't been anything more than that, either.

I can make a hat, or a broach...

Although they obtained an outstanding power arm, the Bedard trade was a mistake. The Mariners simply were not as good in 2007 as management thought, and do not have the talent to overcome the Angels for the AL West title or any of the better teams in the East or Central for a wild card berth. At best, this is an 85 win team, and they may not even reach that unless they pull some offense out of a hat, or their sleeve, or somewhere. This will be a disappointing season in Seattle.

A Bird in the Hand

A while ago, Jim mentioned the tedium of the ongoing Johan Santana saga. I will suggest that the endless speculation over where Erik Bedard will spend 2008 is rapidly approaching that level.

The latest bit of non-news from the AP says "Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail has been actively seeking to trade Bedard for prospects. He appears close to working out a deal with the Mariners, but insisted Monday that a trade was not necessarily imminent. "

In other words...nothing to report.

But that's the way it goes, as we slog through the last few weeks of winter. Training camps open in about two weeks, and I can hardly wait. Then maybe we'll have something to write about.

Off-Center

The Sporting News’ Stan McNeal was looking for an easy way to kill 650 words last week, so he mailed in a column about which potential free agent you would want roaming center field for your team: Ichiro Suzuki, Andruw Jones, or Torii Hunter?

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this sort of thing. Like I said, it’s an easy way to fill column inches. And, as an added bonus, you can give some props to one of your favorites. What is wrong is when you have to stretch the bounds of logic to make your point.

McNeal’s fave out of this trio is Hunter. Some of his reasoning is a bit fuzzy, even for a rag like The Sporting News (such as McNeal’s preference for Torii even though Ichiro is halfway to a Hall of Fame career, or his assertion that Hunter’s athletic-but-31-year-old body figure to “make him an elite player for many years”). But this was the bit that made me laugh out loud:

What Hunter lacks in OBP, he makes up for in the clubhouse. Because I don't work for the A's or some other stathead organization, Hunter's leadership is my differentiating factor. This stat matters, too: The Twins have reached the postseason four of the past five years. Hunter's professionalism has had something to do with that.

"He's just got that thing that not very many people have. He's special," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire says.

So what do you prefer? Reaching base or reaching out to teammates? Running up pitch counts or running into walls? Walking or winning? One longtime talent evaluator who likes all three center fielders acknowledges, "You're going to win more championships with Torii."

Championships is a choice I'd take every day.

Long-time readers will know that I scoff at the notion of clubhouse chemistry. Maybe it’s because I don’t work for the punditocracy or some other toolhead organization.

[Just for the record, I feel compelled to point out that the A’s have reached the post season five of the last seven years. So perhaps reaching base and running up pitch counts have some merit, too.]

Snarkiness aside, I was floored that this flimsy bit of logic is really the best McNeal can come up with in support of Hunter. How do we know Hunter is a great clubhouse leader? The Twins have played in four of the last five Octobers. Oh, and his manager and some unnamed scout say he is. What more do you need?

And that’s one of the reasons why these “favorite toy” fluff pieces are ultimately silly. Unless you’re comparing one guy who’s obviously better than the rest (i.e., which center fielder would you rather have – Joe DiMaggio, Bob Dernier, or Chet Lemon?), it all comes down to your preference. And, as they say, there’s no accounting for taste.

But at the end of the day, you can’t just say, “I like Torii Hunter better than Jones or Ichiro, just because he’s a leader and stuff.” You’d have to crank that up to a 48 point font to fill a page.

The other reason these are silly – perhaps I’m just naïve, but I think the correct answer to the Ichiro, Jones, or Hunter question is really option (d): it depends.

As every pundit who’s milked a column out of a post-mortem of the 2007 Chicago Cubs have told you, you just can’t throw twenty-five guys together and expect to make a team out of them. [Although Hunter’s legendary leadership skills would help in that respect…]

My choice would depend on the make up of the rest of the roster. I lean toward Ichiro at about a sixty degree angle, because I like future Hall of Famers who get on base. But if I have a glaring need for a leadoff hitter, my lean becomes more of a topple.

If my lineup is such that my center fielder only has to be the sixth- or seventh-best hitter, then I might go with Hunter. How can anyone have a meaningful discussion of this sort of personnel decision in a vacuum?

Is This Baseball or Iron Chef?

Offering what is to date the season's most awesome sound bite, Ichiro described his frame of mind before facing Red Sox uber-import Daisuke Matsuzaka:

I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul. I plan to face him with the zeal of a challenger.

I'm pretty sure I heard Masayo Waki say the same thing before the classic Strawberry Dessert Battle. The only way Ichiro's comment can get any more awesome is if Chairman Kaga threw out the first pitch.