George Kirby, RHP

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The M's first-round pick this year was George Kirby, a 6-3 205# RHP who fanned 107 men against 6 walks (yes, six) in 88 innings for NCAA Elon.  Talk about your Billy Beane poster boys, what?  Let's getcha a few links on the lad.

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At this link rat cheer you can review a video of the young man tossing 92-98 MPH fastballs.  Yes, we say "tossed" because he's got an extreme starter's rhythm.  If Edwin Diaz "max effort" be one end of the dial, this is the far other end.  He's got a loose backstroke, a smooth throughstroke with miles of clearance, and watch how lightly he lands on his front foot.  Back in the day they'd have called him good for 150 pitches.

It makes sense that he'd have a Gil Meche throwing motion, in view of the command it must take to run a 17:1 control ratio in college.  Here is a USA Baseball article on him with lots of quotes from his manager and pitching coach.  Here's his pitching coach on the 17:1 shtick:

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Trade Primers

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Jim Moore says flatly that Edwin Encarnacion "won't be here next month" and others wonder, can you take him as the M's All-Star rep if that's the case?  If not, he recommends the "lovable lug" Daniel Vogelbach for the game.  That certainly would blow a fresh gust of hype into the "folk hero" status that the beat writers see for him.  Dr. D isn't much into folk heroes like Bucky Git R Done Jacobsen, but he is into DH's who hit .260/.400/.550.

'Bach hasn't slowed down as the season grinds by with the swift excitement of a glacier at high noon.  He was 4-for-5 with a HR and BB on Wednesday and is hitting .295/.410/.455 over the last 14 days, with a 9:10 EYE.  Included have been some nice zingers to LF against the shift and some rocket balls off the fence and barely foul, so the league is utterly failing to adjust its way out of his clutches.

I hadn't realized that his 17 homers had him #5 in the league, had you?  For the year 'Bach is on a pace for 43 homers and 105 BB per 155 games.  Dr. D continues to struggle to come up with the realistic comps for the lad, but he lightly fancies Paul Konerko DH as one of them.  Of course if he keeps up this 44 HR, 100 BB shtick it would be more like Jim Thome ... I'll settle for Konerko but take the Thome, savvy.

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Trade Primers, the Sequel

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At this SSI link you can find both part 1 of our noodlings on July 31, and the links to the MyNorthwest articles that index the players for us.  Happy times for all.  Even happier if the M's powerflush half their roster and find they need Jake Fraley to fill in a vacancy in the OF.

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DEE GORDON

Being "shopped" earnestly by the M's.  Stecker points out that he's still only 31, is a long-time 9-year vet, and with the Mariners has added position versatility to his gold gloves at 2B.  On the other hand, teams will want "proof" that his wrist is sound before giving up hard cash, goods and services for him.

Lots of teams still value speed, even if only at a single spot in the batting order.  Speed is not an uninhabitable sector of MLB Earth's lineup card; it's merely devalued if you've got 30 homers available at the given #9 lineup slot.  Nobody except the Twins, and come to think of it Mariners, have 30 homers x 9 lineup slots.

Dr. D maintains that other teams will see Seattle, and T-Mobile Park, as a place where many batters slag off Adrian Beltre style, only to recover form when they leave for easier contexts.  Very easy for me to imagine an NL team seeing the pre-Seattle Gordon as the player it is trading for.  For the 3rd consecutive player (EE, Leake) Dr. D will take the "over" as to what a Mariner could be worth to the right buyer.

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Mariners Deep in Sell Mode

SonicBOOM sez,

How great to visit the site this afternoon, and find all you guys joining in and commenting like it was... 2017? And, like the M's were in a pennant race?! Now, our excitement is all about competing in 2020, or 2021.  But the good (corollary) news is, we have some milb players to get excited about. 

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ChicagoMariner sez,

So I woke up this morning, read this article (SSI IS always my first stop), checked the Ms score (sigh), and then the mariner minors twitter feed. Kelenik 2 for 5 with a double...

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We hope the M's read James

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At BJOL they talk a lot about walks being underappreciated -- before Rickey and the Abstracts especially, but even to this day they can be less appreciated than they should be.  For example, it's not well locked in that OBP players "stack" better in a lineup than SLG players do.  After you adjust for everything, including the Lichtmann-type "OBP = 1.3 SLG" adjustments, players 3, 4 and 5 raise the number to 1.4, 1.5, 1.6 etc.  That's not understood as well as other skills on offense.

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Why the SSI reader watches C, DH and SS

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PLAYER DEVELOPMENT

When a team's about to get good, you can always* see the first wave of young stars coming.  Before the winning starts.  Remember 2011 and Earl Thomas was flying sideline-to-sideline, going crazy on Seahawk enemies?  That 2011 team, which was 7-9, had Thomas and Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman and Doug Baldwin and Marshawn Lynch and K.J. Wright and Chris Clemons ...

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