New York Times Article on the Mariners

I saw an item in tomorrow's NY Times on the hometown nine and thought I'd pass on some things for general consumption. The article's by Tyler Kepner, who I believe was the P-I's Mariners beat writer some years back. He focuses on the upside: the headline's "Optimistic Mariners Ready for Run at Angels."

A quote from Milton Bradley: “Any time I’ve had a problem anywhere, it’s because I’ve been disrespected. And I will not be disrespected by anyone.”

It seems to me the problem is that Bradley's personality simply doesn't go with his profession: ballplayers are routine targets of "disrespect" for thousands of people each night, along with reporters, columnists, bloggers, etc. If he was an accountant or a mechanic or a farmer, there wouldn't be too many people around for him to feel disrespected by. Instead he's out there standing before thousands, and tens of thousands watching him on tv.

Anyway, Kepner adds: "After their first game Wednesday, an 8-7 loss in 10 innings to the San Francisco Giants, Wakamatsu was delighted that his team drew nine walks, stole two bases and moved up on a wild pitch. The Mariners saw 33 pitches in the first inning off the Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum, and Jose Lopez slapped a hit-and-run single with Bradley running from first.

“To me, it’s scoring as many runs as we can, whatever that number is,” Wakamatsu said. “As simplistic as that is, that’s our approach. I can’t come out and say, ‘We need to hit 200 home runs this year.’ That’s something I really don’t have any control over. What we can do is be aggressive.”

Kepner closes with this: "Griffey, 40, was carried off the field with Suzuki after the final game of last season. The Mariners had lost 101 games the year before, and the fans stood and roared in appreciation for the turnaround.

"The scene has stayed with Zduriencik, who still marvels at the fans’ enthusiasm for a team that had finished in third place. He gave them more to like this winter, and knows what that means.

“Now, there’s a big challenge,” Zduriencik said, “because people are expecting a lot of great things from us.”

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I found the article this morning

well, morning for ME is evening for y'all. But the quotes I found interesting were the following:

“You’re not going to see us hitting homers out of the park right and left,” said their new No. 3 hitter, Milton Bradley, whose career high in homers is 22. “But when you’ve got that kind of speed at the top of the order, you’re going to get more runs when you have guys behind them hitting balls in the gap. I was on a team in ’06, the A’s, that hit into the most double plays in the league and had the lowest batting average, and we went to the A.L.C.S. So offense isn’t necessarily what you need. You need pitching and defense.”

“Whenever I’m back, I’m back,” Bedard said. “Coming back from shoulder, I don’t know. We’ll have to see. You try not to change, but you can only do so much.”

“Two years ago, I played, and I was good,” Bradley said. “I go to Chicago, not good. I’ve been good my whole career. So, obviously, it was something with Chicago, not me.”

He added: “Just no communication. I never hit more than 22 homers in my career, and all of a sudden I get to Chicago and they expect me to hit 30. It doesn’t make sense. History tells you I’m not going to hit that many. Just a lot of things that try to make me a player I’m not.”

“We made the [trade for Bradley] because we were looking for someone to hit in the middle of our lineup,” said Mariners General Manager Jack Zduriencik, who acquired Bradley for pitcher Carlos Silva. “Milton fit that spot. We like what goes on here. We have a lot of faith and trust in Don. He allows players to be who they are, and that’s all we want Milton to do: come here and be a productive player for us, and have fun. That’s the environment we want to create.”

The Bedard quote doesn't inspire confidence, but I'm not jumping off the local bridge about it. He's always curt in interviews, even when he's trying to be team-first. The Bradley quotes really, REALLY caught my eye, and in conjunction with JackZ talking about Don allowing players to be who they are were really telling to me, I'm even more hopeful to see if M.B. can pop an .850+ OPS for us.

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