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EQUALLY well!  I just knew I'd been slacking.

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A few weeks ago, Ryan Divish put up an interesting article on first basemen past, present and future.  There were some lines between which the presumptuous Denizen might read.  Detect-O-Vision translations may bear little resemblance to anything Divish actually said, but ... hey.  Scott Adams says we have gone from "fake news" to "imaginary news."  One notch past that is me.  So:

1)  The M's never believed in Dae-ho Lee last year.  They were left with a choice of evils; Jesus Montero got everybody excited with his 40-lb. weight loss but then let himself go again and was lazy in ST.

The M's didn't believe a Korean doughboy could hit MLB(TM) fastballs and even when he hit a walk-off against a 99 fastball, they wrote it off to cleverly stalking fastballs and then starting the bat too early.  So, bias confirmed, the right hand half of the 1B platoon was sad.

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2)  Adam Lind was kinda fatter than they expected, started slow, responded by hacking mindlessly, and though he too got some hits was never the "dependable" bat they wanted.

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3)  So, yeah, Dae-ho Lind might have "technically" combined for 34 homers and 107 RBI out of the bottom of the lineup, but hey.  If you know baseball you know it was a train wreck.

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4)  Dipoto looks for 500+ at-bats from Danny Valencia this year.  Say what?  That would leave about thirty games for Dan Vogelbach.  But, it's news.  We report you decide.

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5)  The M's have been clear with Vogelbach that he can't be a -25 runs defender at first base.  They want him to defend himself over there (as Lee of course wound up doing, despite skepticism) because 'Bach has done everything you can do in the minors and at some point you "have to" give him a chance.  Translation:  a good close-up look at Vogelbach's defense sent us screaming into the night.  We sure we wanted to deal Mike Montgomery for this guy?

Supposedly 'Bach has been working hard.  As Bach would tell 'Bach, a really good effort at it, is --- > all that stands between 'Bach and being the greatest first baseman in the history of the game.

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6)  No, we're not down on the M's brass.  But any time a club makes a Big Grab in the trade market, and then second-guesses itself, SSI is going to gripe.

Dan Vogelbach is deserving of more than 200 at-bats' worth of chances as a Mariner.  One thing we can tell you:  you don't throw a AAA player in there for 100 American League at-bats in the hope that he will hit ten homers and talk you into it.  That don't work for Dr. D, as it don't work for anybody who attempts it.

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7)  D.J. Petersen is the emergency plan at 1B.  Ah.  ... see point 6.

Cheers,

Jeff