Note well that any given ballplayer might Sizzle three times and Fizzle four, before the spring is over.  We're just day-trading here.

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=== SIZZLER:  Eric Byrnes ===

I/O:  Baker reports that Byrnes looks peppy on the field -- diving after one gapper, starting the Cactus League in CF for the M's, stealing 3B, popping up and continuing on home after a groundball gets through, that kind of thing.

The legs look good, we hear, and that's a good thing - because - Byrnes will make the team, if at all, based on gusto, energy, spark, and ... running fast. 

Therefore Byrnes wants to show the Mariners, early, that it's the Good Byrnes they're getting for 2010.

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CRUNCH:  Field level looks different from the View Level, much less from behind the monitor.  It's good to hear that Byrnes is starting off with the RPM's at redline.

SSI is not impressed.  It's not Byrnes' desire we question.  It's whether the tendons will snap under heavy workload.  If the training methods were suspect in earlier years, that's a high risk.

........

Which isn't to say Byrnes isn't the club's best 4th OF, other than maybe Saunders.  He is.  But his running hard in ST is to be expected.

Granted, he's got a lot to prove, and one of Jason's NL scouts bet the M's in the AL West precisely because of this point:  Zduriencik has stacked the M's with hungry playas.  Growf.

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=== FIZZLER:  Michael Saunders ===

I/O:  Geoffy opines that Saunders is a goner, as good as Cheney'ed already.

The logic?  If the M's were thinking in terms of Saunders as a 4th outfielder this winter, then they wouldn't have spent so much time stuffing the roster -- bringing Langerhans back, going out and getting Eric Byrnes, Corey Patterson, etc.

Baker isn't offering a syllogism for a Philosophy 101 grade.  He's offering an intriguing field-level view, that if Saunders were in the plans, there wouldn't be such scrambling of the jets for MLB(TM) role players.

He does allow that Saunders looks good at the plate, continuing Saunders' momentum out of winter ball, where he was by far the M's best hitter (including Lopez and others).

.

CRUNCH:  This is a point that weighs heavily.  It does seem as though the Mariners could have played the winter differently, if Bradley were the #3 OF and if Saunders were the #3B/#4 outfielder for 2010.

Which doesn't mean that the competition is over.  It may mean that the job is Byrnes' to lose.

Even if that's the case, let's say that Saunders -- after the swing rebuild and the great winter -- goes to AAA.  What next?  Saunders rakes AAA, and as soon as any of these things happen:

• Bradley gets hurt
• Byrnes gets hurt or flails away in Safeco
• Saunders hits for a force-yer-hand slash line at Tacoma

Then Saunders is right on up to Safeco.  No harm no foul.

...........

Neither Geoffy nor I are burying Saunders.  :- )  In this camp, much will be decided based on competition.  But it could be the case that Saunders goes into camp as Plan B to Byrnes' Plan A.

Cheers,

Dr D