Seattle Sports Insider

Pesky Rodent Angels 1 ....

Q. How much is LeBlanc's deal FOR, anyway?!

A. Thanks to Jonezie for getting a front-page piece up right away. He's so happy with the deal he's typing in tears and he thinks it's worth $32M. So we'll assume he speaks for most of the SSI community in the general spirit.

;- ) just joshin' kiddies

It is hard as Oklahoma dirt to figure out what the deal IS worth. According to this report, it's $2.0M next year, with the other reports of "$2.75M guaranteed" explained by the buyout in 2019.

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....... M's 4

PLAYOFFS

How sweeeet it is...

WC	W-L	GB
NYY	55-28
Sea	55-31
Orcs	47-39 ?!	-8.0
Rays	43-42	-11.5
Rodent Angels	43-43	-12.0

True, the rodent Angels may be only -8 runs to us in run differential, but the Mainframe is confidently telling me that our +24 RD will helium up towards +100 by the end of the season.

Q. Did Nelson Cruz get all of that homer or what?

A. Or what. Blowers thought he "missed" it, getting it out on the end. I think he did. While we're on the definition of cool, we take it you saw the sleeveless-shirt game. You think Bobby Wagner has guns that size or no?

Well, they said M's 4 Angels 1. But actually 7-1: Segura had an HR go one foot foul with a man on, and Healy had one go about a yard or so foul.

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Mariners extend Wade LeBlanc for FOUR MORE YEARS?!

Wow, that was unexpected. MLBTR has the scoop, and the story is up on mlb.com/mariners as well, so it's official: Wade LeBlanc just signed a no-risk (for either himself or the team) four year extension with the club which in may respects mirrors low-risk/high-reward NFL contracts. I don't know what Doc's take is on all this, but I'll give you a quick breakdown of the

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A Ron Fairly Urban Myth, Relived Before Our Eyes

Ron Fairly told the story about 50 times on the M's network. His '60's Dodgers teams would trot out for the first with Sandy Koufax on the mound, ready to battle for the lead because once they had it, there was no way he was losing it.

So ..... about the 2nd inning, the Dodgers would grovel a run and then somebody would go tell Sandy, "OK, THERE's your LEAD!" with the semi-tongue-in-cheek idea that, why's it harder to hold a 4-3 lead than a 1-0 lead. :- /

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Marc-O redux, and the M's 6-4 Win

Bat571 sez,

....

Do I get to gloat? I only heard later about the 4-year run in the Colorado State Championships, but when the kid was at Gonzaga, he was confident and mature. Came across as very cerebral, as with Moyer, but with a MUCH better FB.

Now, down the road, he can pop that FB at 93 once in a while, but his other stuff continues to sharpen. He probably needs to soften up his change-up a bit, and get some drift to it, and he might be doing something to tip it, in particular. But the kid has MLB(tm) moxie in spades, yet is, like Paxton and Haniger, a genuinely NICE kid.

The M's future goes way beyond Felix and Cano. I just hope Ladner, BC, helps young Paxton decide to stay in the NW, rather than go where Boros may take him.

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Making the Shout Box Great Again!?

... as Mojo once put it. It looks like the Shout Box is back to where it used to be: one Box on the front page which follows you through articles. Just hit the keyboard picture and an entry box shows up.

For Dr. D's part he'll be paying special attention to comments there, as far as replying and interacting. In fact at Klat we prefer Shouts to comments in the CMS threads ... so everything we said about throwing potatoes into the hobo pot, please apply it to the Shout Box first.

I think that's what most of you mooks preferred anyway, wasn't it? :- )

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Is MIN-MAXING Optimal?

For many years denizens of this blog and others, including myself, have insisted that the optimal way to build a MLB team is to acquire a bunch of high-salary elite players and then fill in the rest of the roster with cheap veterans and young team-controlled prospects ("Stars and Scrubs"). This is supposed to provide a high degree of flexibility and upside compared to loading up on solid mid-range veterans ("25 Honda Civics"). It has also been assumed that the savvier teams in the league aggressively pursue this strategy.

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Marc-O, Early Innings

BEST BET

Somewhere about the 7th inning, Brandon Maurer showed up at Safeco. Wearing cleats. Dr. D can honestly say this is the only Best Bet he's ever regretted. Now and again he wonders what happened to Maurer, without looking it up, of course -- that could threaten to make Dr. D a "smart mark" or "smark" for the people who sell baseball. They like him just as he is, a pure "mark."

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Marc-O, Later Innings

THIRD INNING

'member these are MY impressions get yer own.

Hunter Dozier took a paintball just outside. Dr. D started worrying a bit about "nibbling." Nibbling occurs when you are afraid, or at least tentative, about throwing a pitch inside the strike zone.

Dozer took another ball and then a mighty hack at an unhittable Marco Gonzales curve ball. He got the best possible outcome: he topped it. To Kyle Seager. Which gives you as much chance of reaching base as if you're a contemporary major leaguer bunting the shift.

Alcides Escobar was detonated on 5 ruthless pitches, paintball for 0-1, swing thru a perfectttttt changeup 0-2, hold up on a couple tease pitches, and then fan on a jam pitch. Dr. D stopped worrying entirely about nibbling or anything else.

Some Feeb saw 91 fastball 0-1, 78 hook 1-1, 78 hook swing and miss 1-2, 84 change foul tip, routine fly to Span on a cutter above the hands.

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... Orioles 2

There was a guy who pitched for the 2001 M's, Paul Abbott, a sort-of novelty to the league with a great change, a pretty good game, and a great team behind him. He went 17-4, 4.25. I always thought of Abby as the iconic player for that team, a #4 SP good enough to roll over the meatballs at will, but who could get shelled by the good teams. Right? There's Mike Leake in a nutshell.

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