=== And How Much Traffic Does YOUR Blog Get, Dept. ===
John Sickels with his ‘preliminary’ top 20 for the Mariners. Great read. Always one of the winter’s most anticipated articles.
The first thing I ever remember reading in a Bill James player handbook: “If you live in Minneapolis, you’re going to know more about the Twins players than I do. My job is to tell you about the players in other cities.”
There isn’t a way in the world we know more about Orioles minor leaguers than Justynius who lives in Baltimore – and we almost certainly don’t know more about O’s minor leaguers than Sickels, either.
So no need to measure our own awesomeness by challenging Sickels to cut haids on M’s prospects. Nobody outside the M’s organization knows more about M’s minor leaguers than, say, Jay or Gordon. If you want to know what The Truth is about a young Mariners spect, ask them. Or me, naturally :- )
That said, Sickels has the #24 sports blog in the world, saleable for a $1/4MM according to this site. A couple of ukemi off of Sensei Sickels:
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I/O: Matt Tuiasosopo outside the top 20.
CRUNCH: Great to hear that the Seattle Mariners have 20 prospects better than Tui. Really going to enjoy that impending 135-win season.
I would like to know if Sickels -- whom we admire -- ever saw Tui, and if so, how one sees Matt Tuiasosopo and assesses him as no prospect.
That's not a snide remark. It's a technical question. That would be much like watching Ichiro at Orix and declaring that he can’t play in the majors – hey, man. Ye know not what ye dis'.
Like Charlie Sheen told Ferris' sister, it's just an opinion. :shrug: ... if you can see a linebacker like Tui stick his nose into a slider, pull the trigger with that snake-tongue bat and crush it into the RC gap, and NOT visualize possibilities at age 26, then you have a real blind spot somewhere. No offense, brother.
Anyway. Tui was the #26 Mariner last year out of ST -- Don Wakamatsu's opinion is that Tui is one of the 20 best (position) Mariners, not one of the M's 20 best non-Mariners.
And Wok has access, we're told. He isn't watching Tui from video reels. ::BZZZZT:: next contestant.
We're not really talking about Sickels here. We're smack-talking the entry-test that is Matt Tuiasosopo. A lot of people don't see him.
Relax. Tui is a blue-chipper. That's a good thing.
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I/O: Gabriel Noriega higher than Triunfel, higher than Pineda or Halman, higher than everybody.
CRUNCH: So, Sickels sees the lanky, switch-hitting 18-year-old SS as the next Triunfel, as it were.
I don't know a thing about Noriega. Considering that he's the age of a high school senior, I doubt youse do either. :- ) It's nice to hear national guys putting Noriega at the fringes of the top 100.
Good to hear that we have another Triunfel. :blinks:
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I/O: Mike Carp ranked 19th.
CRUNCH: If the M’s have 17 different prospects better than Mike Carp and Greg Halman, they need a B team.
They don't, of course. Have 17 guys better than those two. Mike Carp already is a fringe major league player. Greg Halman was Baseball America's #1, absolute One, last year.
Ranking Halman 18 and Carp 19 is a statement that you hate their negatives, that you predict their negatives will predominate. That's fine. It doesn't mean you literally think that the M's have 17 guys more talented, we presume.
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I/O: Kurt Cobain All Apologies Dept.
CRUNCH: Easy, and contemptible, to edit somebody's else's hard work with a rough hand. Hey, we pitched Minor League Ball first thing. It's like bluffing a poker pot and then playing mousehole-tight the rest of the way. You gotta keep your lurkers on edge. :- )
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