Q5. There will be some turnover of players over the course of the next few years, but there will remain a core who will remember the issues that they had with Ichiro. Is it in the teams best interest to move Ichiro and perhaps remove a potential thorn from their side?I think that, within a year, most of the players who have had the biggest issues with Ichiro will be gone. [Washburn & Co. - Dr D]
Just for fun, from the Jumanji-fied word of the Jen-Man :- )
=== Do-ability Dept. ===
This is as do-able as acquiring Dunn by itself is. In terms of acquiring both players, that is, with roster configuration problemos aside. If you win the bidding for Dunn, there's no big reason you can't talk ownership into popping for a year or two of Griffey. Chuck Armstrong would go to bat on that one, we know that much.
.
See this article, the first of five, for an SSI series on Griffey. - Dr D
..................
Q. Do you see the Heyman report as 'intel,' or as a reporter trying to put 2 + 2 together?
Q. Who is Craig Wright?
A. Wright is a sabermetrician who has been employed by MLB franchises, including the Mariners, for >20 years.
Wright goes back far enough that he was fighting for Mike Piazza's advancement through the Dodger minor leagues, and Wright was one of the driving forces that pushed the Dodgers past the "tipping point" to actually give the unorthodox young Piazza a shot behind the plate.
Q. And Wright's battle with the Dodgers, over Mike Piazza, means ... WHAT to me?
A. Reading through the lengthy, detailed article, you're absolutely stunned by the parallels to Jeff Clement. You could virtually stick Clement's name in there, for 70% of the occurrences of Piazza's name, and it would apply word-for-word.
Wright's analysis underlines the point that there is way, WAYYY too much bias against catchers who don't look pretty behind the plate.
.
Another outstanding article at LL, which demonstrates again that Felix has much better results with offspeed pitches than with his fastball. In this one, Matthew discusses the tendency Felix developed to see his FB locate to the inside on RH hitters, or away from LH.
In early 2006, Felix decimated the Red Sox with an incredible swerving fastball that tailed away from LH hitters about a foot or so. This movement was produced by a screwball-type pitching motion in which Felix snapped his hand over the ball, leaving the thumb pointing at the ground.
The Red Sox were helpless. And we will cheerfully admit that, if Felix could throw that particular fastball, then all of these other conversations would be over. It doesn't matter if you're sitting on a 97 mph pitch that moves like a slider.
=== Dr's Prescription Dept. ===
Obviously Felix could tire out his Pronator Teres again -- IF he started snapping them off to produce the tailing action he got in early 2007.
Matthew's charts at LL suggest, to me, that he was getting a little more of this tailing action in 2008. Obviously, if Felix could find a happy medium here -- if he could find a way to snap his hand over the ball at release that did not over-fatigue his forearm -- that would fix everything.
=== Hope Makes a Good Breakfast, But A Poor Supper Dept. ===
Dr. D's glass is half full, and he's not pouring it over the blog-o-sphere's head. :- ) We're pleased to see that this winter, most sites seem less willing to give up on the M's in 2009, coming off 101 losses, than they were in 2008.
My glass would be half empty if this were Pittsburgh or KC. It ain't. It's a city with a verrrrrrrrrry rich baseball team in residence.
Sandy has made the case against that: that, Atlanta-style, the M's should wait for their blue-chippers to actually show the goods, and then push all in the season following. That is a perfectly valid way to look at it, and I would even agree that the 2009 M's shouldn't push ALL in.
But can they move towards the chance to win, if it doesn't capsize future years? Sure.
..............
