Michael Pineda is, at LL and everywhere else, now pencilled in as part of the 2011 Safeco shtick. 

When LL says "true ace potential" they use the phrase as baseball uses it.  Baseball's phrase (not LL's phrase) is a constant peeve of mine.  :- )

In the 1970's, when I learned baseball, an "ace" was the guy who started on Opening Day.  Every good team had one or two, maybe three.  When your 15-18 game winner (in the 1970's now) was scheduled the next day, hey, you had one of your aces going.

Lately we have literally heard GM's say that there are three, or two, or zero, "true aces" in the game of baseball.

.................

/rant Anyway.  So Pineda is now viewed as a pitcher who could, feasibly, win a Cy Young.  SSI would just like to point out that this could, feasibly, be next year.

Ya, I know.  I've seen Pineda.  One night he's hitting the low-away corner at 97; another night he's getting the ball up.  But one of these days -- perhaps tomorrow -- he's going to be hitting his spots every night.

..................

If you're thinking about his needing to prove himself in March?  Don't.  Pineda W-I-L-L outpitch everybody in camp except Felix and maybe Bedard.

It's done.  Pineda will outthrow everybody; that's just who he is.  The question is what the M's want to do after he stars in camp.

.

Cortes, Lueke, Varvaro, Robles are going to be coming to camp trying to outpitch each other...

Dan Cortes, it's possible, was just overexcited in 2010.  We ripped him to tatters, for the shrill and chaotic delivery on his fastball in 2010, but noted that on his breaking pitches his delivery is fine.

It suddenly occurs that maybe once the nerves settle, the FB delivery will smooth towards the slider delivery in 2011?

We're at Ground Zero on Target Pollyanna now, but .... it is true that Cortes was amp'ed up when he got here.

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Josh Lueke has been, to Geoff's chagrin and to Jeff & Jeff's delight, played UP by Jack Zduriencik this offseason.

Asked what his plans are for the bullpen, Zduriencik this month has been naming Lueke among the reasons he's not under pressure to acquire short men for 2011.

I guess when the Mariners fired that one exec, they closed the issue.  Now Chuck can go back to his women's interest groups with a proud scalp that says, yes, they care.  If so, all's well that ends well (for the M's W/L total, if not for the scapegoat exec).

Quick, now:  in 2010, Lueke had 63 innings and struck out how many hitters? (Answer below signoff.)

............

So here's Mark Lowe v2.0, this one without a crumbling elbow bone.

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Mauricio Robles is our next-best starter after Felix and Pineda and so, of course, we're talking about how Aumont- and Morrow-like he'd be in the pen...

9.8 lefty strikeouts per game in 2010.  You can see how tempting it would be to line you up an Arthur Rhodes for 2011.

Not sure whether there would be any delay in Robles putting up an Arthur Rhodes season in the bullpen.  (Arthur could be wild, too, but with his twin Stukka pitches, it didn't matter.)

Talk about instant gratification, long-term loss.  But at least they'd be signing up for a serious 2011...

.

Erik Bedard wasn't mentioned in the article.

Quick fact:  Bedard has a lifetime strikeout rate of 8.8; if he'd thrown 1,000 innings he would rank #6 in baseball.  And all the guys ahead of him are Trevor Hoffman.

Bedard, over his career, has struck out many more men per game --- > than have Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, or CC Sabathia. 

And Bedard's BB/game, the last year he was healthy, was 2.8.  That was 10.9 strikeouts and 2.8 walks.

Some LL guy projected Bedard's 2011 WAR as "between 0 and 10."  Since we're counting on 0, we're looking pretty good here.

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Cheerio,

Dr D

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* Lueke had 94 strikeouts in 63 innings last year.  With 15 walks.

13.4 strikeouts, 2.1 walks, 0.3 homers and 6.9 hits per nine.  They couldn't make contact.