Helloooooo in here ...
:- )
.
Mornin' denizens. The Shout Box under this post can serve as the "Lobby" Shout Box for a week or ten days. Designs for a basic "landing" page / Shout Box are in the hopper.
Gratuitous baseball snippet, which absolutely saber-justifies the stub beyond all dispute: Dae-Ho Lee is hitting .400 with walks and power the last two weeks. If you're time-warping from March 2016 to Sept. 2016 and asking, "how did it turn out?", so far you have got:
1) He hits righties very well, for the same reason Nelson Cruz does. But this also means he's not a .600 SLG tailored weapon vs. LHP.
2) As of early Sept. his OPS+ turned out to be 111, which, pretty solid for a first couples of go's around the league (290 AB's)...
3) But it was a scoreboard-changing 111. He has had 14 HR and 49 RBI in that half-season's at-bats.
4) After an early rampage, the league adjusted, and ... he adjusted back. The specific stats are .394/.459/.515 the last two weeks, and that's with the book written and published on him.
5) There's something to be said for being fun and likeable. Next season I'm hoping for a Lee-'Bach jobshare going in to March. Dae-Ho Lee did not turn out to be the '16 Mariners' problem, not by a long shot. We're guessing Jerry DiPoto would prefer we look at the 32 pitchers through the Safeco turnstiles.
.......
Was surprised to see that the M's are still only about -4 back, with a 6% chance at qualifying. As of this a.m., an eight-game winning streak would not be pointless.
Baseball material to arrive during the afternoon Friday. Vot next?!
Muchas gracias,
Jeff
Helloooooo in here ...
:- )
If I understand how it works correclty, the AL East very well could capture both Wild Card spots and therefore three of the five AL playoff slots. Not only that, but the Yankees are making a serious bid to make it four out the top six teams in the AL.
YTD stats for top AL first basemen:
R/HR/RBI/AVG
Cabrera 77/31/87/315
Encarnacion 86/37/112/267
C. Davis 89/35/78/229
Hanley 70/21/90/283
Abreu 57/23/88/298
Lee/Lind 76/34/106/246
Gotta tip my hat to Dipoto--he got Chris Davis for pennies on the dollar.
That's interesting, diderot. The combo of Lind and Lee looked terrible most of the last two months until recently, when both stepped it up big time.
Just looked at Lind's BBRef page, and he's on pace for the best full season of Isolated Power in his career. In terms of Average and OBP, he's had two poor seasons like this one, 2007 and 2010. Part of me wonders if the Mariners' home run frenzy this season contributed to him swinging more for the fences than he normally would.
i believe that stat shows they have had a hundred or so more at bats than the others so the cumula stats might not quite indicate they've been on par with Davis.
Lind/Lee 662
Cabrera 584
Encarnacion 599
Davis 567
Hanley 532
Abreau 598
So reduce their counting stats by ~10%? The numbers still surprised me.
Where would this club be without the Bear?
The only bad of the best case scenario is a lot more Cruz in the OF. If Lee and 'Bach are everyday bats, as they seem they should be. Then you want guys in left and center who can both cover ground to carry his lesser range and that seems at least potentially covered already. Aoki doesn't fit into that but he should have some trade value if nothing else.
SS might be a concern since Marte keeps having extended slumps. There's O'Malley as an option though he's slumping right now. At least he's had an extended streak of good offense this year. I like June 1st through August 22nd, 56 games, 154 PA of .272/.353/.397 a .750 OPS. Sure, I'm picking fruit from a branch with .347 BABIP (.314 career), but it looks ripe enough to me. Only 8 ML SS with 150+ PA and an OPS over .750. I'd be pretty happy with .680.
What's he worth out there in the cold cruel world fo the market? $4Mx2 with a club option to buy him out of the 2nd? Is it $5M/ Hey, he'll be 35 next June. He has 290 total MLB chances under his ample belt.
If he's a $4M man next year, 2/3 of a Steve Majors...then why wouldn't we gobble him up? Man, he's worth $4M in marketing in South Korea, likely.
I can't imagine that he's gong to have ot of takers at $6-$7M. That's Seth Smith stuff, with a lifetime of bashing MLB RHP behind him.
He's found ahome in Seattle and we've found our Happy Warrior.
If Charles Barkley was the Round Mound of Rebound can we make Lee the Round Mound of Pound?
Or the Seoul Man?
Or Kimchi Lee?
Whatever, but the price will be reasonable so bring him back.
Lee's walkup music should be "Soul Man" by Sam and Dave, with the different spelling and reference to the capital of South Korea understood.
Very Cool, Daddy! I thought of suggesting the very same tune earlier today. You and I: Twin sons of different mothers!
Sort of!!
"....I'm a Soul Man...."
An odd factoid: In the entire National League apart from the division leaders there are only three teams over .500. Six teams total out of fifteen.