Kelley, good Lueke, and Gray in, Wilhelmson, Ray, bad Lueke and other fringe candidates out...even if you get a big regression to the mean for Wright (which I think is likely...sorry Doc. :) ) and even if you can't always rely on League...this bullpen isn't going to run the 4.50+ ERA that Sandy was worried about pre-season. Pauley can pitch in this league. Laffey can too when not overexposed, though I still think he's a 3.80-4.20 ERA pitcher, all things considered). League may not be perfect, but he's a good pitcher overall...for now. Kelley and good Lueke could be dominant...and Gray is a solid stopgap mediocre arm who can keep the 8 ERA guys out of the bullpen. That's how you build a championship pitching staff on the cheap. All we need now...is some hitting. Ugh.
Q. Was the Unit-Moyer-Fassero rotation better?
A. The 1997 ballclub had really terrible pitchers in the #4-5 slots, like 6.00 ERA guys. That 1997 Mariner team may have had the skinniest, tallest talent pyramid in baseball since WWII. Right now, the 2011 rotation is better than the 1997 rotation.
And are you even going to take Johnson and Moyer over Pineda and Felix, necessarily? See what I'm saying?
.
The 2001 rotation had five good pitchers -- two moderate stars and three average-good SP's. They led the league in ERA, too. But a lot of that was the 10K bullpen.
You going to trade these guys for Freddy, Moyer, Sele, Abbott and Halama/Joel? I'm not.
.
I remember some rotation from the 1980's that went like 44-for-50 in quality starts in one stretch... Matt Young, Erik Hanson, Bill Swift and two guys, or something like that.
.
Q. How about this year's Phillies?
A. Can't bet into that pot. Cole Hamels is at his best, 9 strikeouts and 1+ walks, and he's the #4.
Cliff Lee is special. Roy Halladay is an easy Hall of Famer. I'll take Philadelphia. Oswalt is his generation's Jim Palmer. But you might take Philadelphia over anybody from any year, I dunno.
.
Best rotations ever? That's a hilarious list. But George Brett wasn't the best player who ever lived, and he was useful.
.
Q. The #4-5 starters are putting on quite a show, give yer that...
A. A picture's worth 1,000 words. Vargas and Fister were matched up against Weaver and Haren? You kidding me?
Krueger was on the TV today, talking very astutely about how much Vargas and Fister have improved. The reputations of Vargas and Fister have not yet caught up to their actual abilities.
You know I was always Fister's biggest fan. But I had nooooo earthly idea that he was going to get this good.
.
Vargas and Fister may be #2-3 starters at this point. They sure have shootin' would have been for a lot of Mariner teams, including recent teams..
I'm not sure, with Vargas' new cutter/slider and his 33-33-33 game, that he isn't threatening to become the next Jamie Moyer. Doug Fister is looking like an animal. Those guys aren't hot. They are just good.
.
Q. Favorite stats right now?
A. Well, the four guys except Erikkk are on pace to be worth $80M this season by themselves. That is the WAR value that Felix, Pineda, Vargas, and Fister are earning right now. $80M between them.
Erikk gets rolling, as he has, and in June they're essentially going to be delivering $100M/year rotation performance.
Think about it. What's the M's payroll again?
........
The M's rotation FIP -- its expected ERA -- is about 3.25. Last year a starter with a FIP of 3.25 would have been the #7 starter in the league -- ahead of Greinke, Price, and Sabathia.
What would it cost you to sign a particular starter who gave you 267 innings with 222 strikeouts and 76 walks, with only 20 homers, and a FIP of about 3.25 ?
The M's have five who average that, full season.*
.
You see why SSI is banging its spoons for the M's to get it together and go for the pennant this year. Give a GM a $100M type rotation, and he'd better figure the rest out. Ask Bob Watson, who was Brian Cashman's predecessor.
This is the year that the Mariners have five starting pitchers who walk down the street against gunfire as if they were in a Clint western.
With these five pitchers, you have no excuse. You've got to go find some meh hitters, and try to win.
.
You say, you don't think about Vargas and Fister as though they were Hamels and Oswalt. Well, sure. But reputations or not, Jason Vargas and Doug Fister are going toe-to-toe with anybody. They're giving you the performances you need.
Hey, fellow bloggers, I realize that the preseason script was for the M's to lose. But wake up and smell the K/BB ratio. The script has changed. Pineda, Erikkk and co. changed it.
The AL better hope for an injury to one a these dudes. Is 'cause this rotation is a juggernaut.
.
Q. Think that the Committee has correctly assessed their on-field situation?
A. It's a funny thing. If Nintendo had a chance to exploit the market by changing one thing -- let's say a motion sensor -- it would consider that part of its strategic job.
Or if they had a video game that had one thing wrong with it, something that ruined its appeal to the teen demographic, they'd fix the one thing wrong, wouldn't they?
Here you've got Nintendo guys who are shipping a fancy product with one easily-identifiable fatal flaw (no RBI man). Why is it so unimportant to fix flaws in a baseball product?
.......
The suits have done a great job of holding the ballplayers accountable for doing the very best they can do.
At what point does a Chris Larson walk into the boardroom and say, "Wow, who knew we were going to have this pitching staff on our hands? Here's my proposal for adding a bat. We could create some excitement here, like 1995."
At what point is the owner of a company as accountable as his grunts are?
BABVA,
Jeff
Comments
It would be expensive, but Carlos Beltran, Andre Ethier, and Matt Kemp are all having good seasons for clubs with money problems and could probably be got. Nate McClouth has had trouble in Atlanta and is mediocre in Center for them on his good days, so maybe he could be got for as cheap as just Michael Saunders.
Hi Dr. Detecto,
If I emailed you a word file with a figure in it would you be willing to post it?
Kelly
Just FWIW, I can understand Sandy's assertion that the team has 67-win talent...but in this case, I don't think I believe that...if the entire offense+defense were exactly the replacement level...then perhaps we'd have 67 win talent...but the rotation and a few of the releivers, by themselves are probably +20 wins on replacement. King Felix is +6 wins every year, Pineda might be +6 wins his own self. Vargas and Fister look like +3 win pitchers, League is another +1.5, Bedard, if healthy, is +3 wins...and if he falters, we have other pitchers who are above the replacement level who can take his rotation spot.
So no...I don't think we're a 67 win team as currently constructed.
I would also observe that, perhaps other than Texas, all of the teams in the AL west have major flaws. Oakland doesn't hit any better than we do and their rotation is not as deep, especially with Braden now on the DL. Anaheim has two top-line pitchers and three below average ones IMHO...I think the league has booked Pin-Air-O and I'm not a big believer in Ervin Santana...and behind their pitching is an offense that is also flawed...they've got THREE slap-happy infielders hitting way WAAAYY above their norms right now and it's mostly BABIP luck (Izturis especially)...and their outfield is old and not that effective...even once they get Morales back, I still don't think their offense is more than a few OPS+ points better than ours.
Texas is just injury-riddled right now...when they get healthy, they are a handful...that I'll admit...but I think we can compete with Texas if we win when we play them. And that's in the hands of our starting pitching.
When you consider that this team isn't driving the ball much, it's kind of amazing to me that this is still the case...but according to B-Ref the Mariners have seen 6349 pitches and throw 6012. I went and looked up the same hustle board for the other three AL West teams: TEX: 6332 seen / 6462 thrown OAK: 6379 seen / 6303 thrown LAA: 6743 seen / 6787 thrown Despite the Mariners' anemic offense, they're battling harder and grinding at bats better than their opposition and their pitching staff is more efficient than anyone else in the AL (they're first in the AL in pitches per game)
The Mariners are second in the AL West in PythagenMatt W%. Though seasonal pythag is right in line with their W%, PythagenMatt sits at .503 for the Ms (Rangers are .545, Angels at .460 and the As are at .465). If you look game by game, Seattle lost a bunch of 1-run games in a cluster there with League struggling, which didn't hurt PythagenMatt (PythagenPat) much...but the run differential is largely caused by four blowout games early in the season before our rotation got rolling fully (1-9 and 1-7 against Oakland, 3-12 against Cleveland while they were red hot and 0-7 against KC). Take those four games out and we have a run differential of 144 RS / 135 RA.
I don't expect there to be frequent blowouts going forward...this pitching staff is way too consistent for that at this point.
I agree, we could make a decent run at the West with ANY sort of offense. Our starting pitching 1-5 is ridiculous so far and only seems to be getting better, especially if Bedard can keep it up.
But as a GM, how much do you try to chase that title knowing the severe weaknesses of your team? Our bullpen is scotch-taped together. Our lineup is full of underperforming (or inept) hitters. Our DH has an ISO of .067 and is 3rd on the team in extra base hits (!!), right behind silver medalist Chone Figgins and his .084 ISO.
We have Justin Smoak, and...uh...Ichiro is an average bat right now, but not for his position. Kennedy is the only other plus hitter at his position, and he won't be at 2B as soon as Ackley comes up (and let's not talk about his inevitable future regression, since this is his highest OPS+ since 2002).
We are last in the AL in batting average and next-to-last in OBP, SLG and OPS. The OPS+ of our worst 5 starters go 67, 61, 59, 54, 46. Those guys were in the lineup pretty much EVERY day.
Swapping Ryan and Wilson for L-Rod and Kennedy helps the offense, but not a ton. It gets those two positions from "abysmal" to "not a sucking chest wound." Sliding Kennedy to third when Ackley gets here might help some as well...but with a minimum of 2.5 years left on Chone's contract when do you want to kick him to the curb?
We have one bat on this team. One. Kennedy as a utility man would be of great use, but we need him to hit like this for 500 ABs. Ichiro will get better, but if he's gonna have a down year he won't get a ton better. Can't tell yet - Ichiro cannot be judged by his first 4 weeks so we still need to see if he'll crank up the volume as we get into June.
But Smoak, Ichiro and Kennedy does not make the backbone of a team. Would I call up Josh Bard, who is probably 20 OPS+ points better than either of the guys on the roster at catcher right now? Sure.
Is adding Bard and Ackley enough to justify trading farm pieces for a short-term solution in LF or wherever in order to try to chase a pennant?
Our offense is deformed. If it was a little bent and just needed some straightening, that'd be one thing. That's not it. We need massive help at DH, 3B, 2B, SS, LF, CF and C.
If 2B is Ackley and C is Bard, that leaves L-Rod as the SS, Kennedy as the utility man, and 4 more holes. Unless F-Gut comes back with his gut fully repaired, his strength back and his 2009 form intact, CF's not gonna get a plus bat this year.
If we could climb to 8th or so in the league with the offense, we could have a shot at a pennant with this team. A league average offense is 3/4 of a run per game above where we are. Last year we were 1 and 1/4 runs below average, so congrats to us! We've made up half a run so far - all of it with a guy named Smoak.
If I was Jack I would be pissed off that my payroll has been cut by 30-whatever % in 3 years and I can't afford the hitters I need to make this work. And then I'd look at Figgins and the contract I gave him and I'd punch myself in the face a few times for good measure.
The "cheap" committee gave him a bunch of money to go get the shortstop to patch a hole (Wilson) and allowed him to take on even more money on a worthless pitcher to make that deal happen (Snell) and let him trade a sunk hole (Silva) for a more expensive sunk hole (Bradley) and give a leadoff hitter 9 mil a year for 4-5 years in order to not lead off for us (and watched him turn into the worst 3B in the league)...
We can rag on the committee and their penny-pinching ways all we want, but even with a drop in payroll they gave their CFer an extended contract and then saw him come down with the plague. They paid Felix, and at least that's working out.
I might be frustrated that the Mariners are "cheap" but there has been some flex money in the budget. We've just wasted it.
Jack has wasted it. And as much as I love his eye for minor-league talent, it's that wasteful spending that is killing us. When the committee says "The last time we gave you 10 million a year to spend you dropped it on the worst 3rd baseman in the league, so why should we expand the budget and let you do it again?" what is Jack's response gonna be?
He picked a catcher who is a horrible fit for the park, a shortstop who has crumbled and died right there in the hole, another one who is being beaten boldly about the head and shoulders by the paper bag he can't hit his way out of, a 3B who has fought with managers, cried about his demotion and is brutal at the plate, a head-case who has had to be dismissed from the team on multiple occasions, a DH who can't hit even one HR, right after the disaster of Griffey and Sweeney...
Are you really giving him money for the bat of his choice to fix the lineup he built? Every one of the sinkholes here is his. This is no longer Bavasi's mess. Yes, the budget restrictions are mostly a result of Bavasi, but with Bradley now gone, whatever is left is Zduriencik's choice for the position.
Maybe not his first choice, thanks to a budget problem, but it's now his team.
His hand-picked 3B, his FA DH and C, both his trades at SS...
We need offensive help. With some, we could make quite an interesting run.
But Ackley's gonna have to come up and turn into Smoak 2.0 and Guti is gonna need to channel 2005 Carlos Beltran if we plan to do that this year. I don't see the committee looking at the budget, and the results spent on that budget, and opting to throw good money after bad.
I just don't.
~G
a) Figgins is hitting a lot better since his bad start...in his last 28 days, he's hitting .280...the OBP isn't there, but he's ot a sucking chest wound. If he hits for an 85 OPS+ and plays solid D at third...that's fine for now. L-Rod isn't a long-term answer at short I don't think, but if he can hit 80 and play average defense...that's fine too. I think you'll see Guti hit 90 or so this year...with stretches where he's much better and stretches where he's much worse, depending on how he feels...but time will tell. I also think LF is going to be less painful than we might currently be fearing...but if not...that's an easy position to trade for (and it probably won't cost us much in players or dollars to get a decent LFer in here for the short term). Our DH isn't a slugger...but he's not a black hole either... We need 7 players who combine to average a 100 OPS+. Smoak, Ichiro, Figgins, Gutierrez, Ackley, Cust...that's 60 guys who will combine for 100. I don't see how it's that hard to move the two black holes to something more like a 70 OPS+ and get the last remaining bat we'd need to post a team-wide 94 or 95 OPS+ and take a run at 85-89 wins. I think Zduriencik owes it to himself, to the fans, and to his committee to try to make something positive come of this outstanding pitching.
Right on, Right on (hey, I remember the 60's), G!
This is Z's team and his "signature" MLB signings have been atrocious. 'Nuff said.
However, this team can improve without trades and $ expended.
Bring up Carp and DH him fulltime, put Ackley in the lineup tomorrow and bat him 2nd, play Kennedy as a near fulltime 3B, keep playing with Peguero and M. Wilson (one will be something decent).....Those are moves that almost certainly will improve the offense. At (essentially) no cost!
Guti will improve the team becasue he can't be a bad (on a historic level) a Saunders. I don't expect much from Guti's bat, but even .240-.300-.400 would me a major improvement.
So...If I can improve a team that has a chance to compete with such improvement, at no cost and without losing future talent, then I'm all over that!
If Z moves up Ackley and Carp in the next few days....then he's done exactly the right thing for this team.
It seems so simple yet he continues to bet on Cust and Wilson and Figgins.
Swapping those guys out is an admission of previous error. I hope Z will do just that.
G, you saved me from a long post. Said it all, as usual.
I think you're point about Jack Z wasting opportunities when he WAS given the go ahead to spend a little is right on. However, the problem he has faced every time, in my opinion, is being given just enough money to fail, not enough to succeed. He was allowed to stretch a little, but a little further stretching (not a lot) would have opened him up to opportunities that would have had a higher chance of success. As it was, he had to choose among poor options and hope for a break. Now, maybe he's just a lesser GM when it comes to that particular aspect of his job. That's entirely possible. Few are geniuses at EVERYTHING.
But in my opinion the larger issue, the cause behind that problem, is the repeated symptom with Mariners management to go only so far and always stop a buck short of success.
Cust and figgins ARE black holes.
Cust is hitting .226 and hasn't hit the ball out all year. For a DH (or is it DW?)...that's a black hole.
Figgins has hit .280 over the last 28 days...but only .231 over the last 14. He's equally atrocious from either side of the plate.
He's on pace to hit less than .250 (and that's assuming he hits WAY better the rest of the year than he has shown) without a homer, 24-26 doubles and without a stellar glove. Would Mangini do any worse?
Respectfully, Moe
Yes, in theory, if all the guys we've got can do what you want, then we might be okay. But can they?
When Smoak slumps, we're done. He IS the offense. He's not gonna OPS+ 160 all year in his first full year in the bigs. Pujols did, while being several years younger than Smoak, but I can't see Justin keeping this up. He's gonna come down. If he finishes at 130, 135 I'll be happy, but that's a 20+ point come-down from where he is.
Cust? once somebody starts throwing him stuff in the middle of the plate knowing he can only hit one-sackers, two in the right wind, then I expect his OBP to plummet, which is the ONLY thing keeping him near 100 right now. Cust's OPS is .657. Carl Everett's was .658 when he DHed for us. The 20 point difference n their OPS+ is that Carl's was mostly slugging while Cust's is mostly OBP. Unless we manage to load the bases a lot more, Cust is not gonna push runs across the plate.
Guti...let's see if he can stay in the lineup first before we pencil him in for 90, and his backup isn't at 50.
I'm an Ackley believer, but he's also an assimilator - he comes up, looks bad, learns and then dominates. He's still gotta get up here and look bad for a month.
If I say the rest of the way we get Smoak at 130, Ichiro at 110, Figgins 80, Guti+backup at 80, Ackley at 95, and Cust at 80, that gives us 95 for the group. That means we need the other 3 slots to also net out to 95, or some SERIOUS bench contributions.
I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying this group doesn't look like the group to pull that off. Jack doesn't believe so either, which is why Wilson, Ryan, Kennedy, Cust, Bradley, et al were all one-year guys with no long-term commitments.
We're not going to war with this team, we're stopgapping with it while we wait for Smoak and Ackley to arrive.
Thankfully Smoak arrived already. Ackley might have arrived by year-end. And maybe we should gear up for war knowing that at least the 5 guys in the rotation are prepared for one.
But I think it's a longshot that we sharpen the spears and charge the hill, mostly because we have too many guys using toothpicks for weapons in this 2011 lineup.
Unless we get the deadline version of Cliff Lee for the lineup, I guess. I'm not AGAINST going for it, but I'm against trading the resources we need to move long-term with this team for a three-month trade for a long-shot to take the pennant.
Longer term? Maybe. Do you cough up the farm for a year and a half of Andre Ethier? His agent is not Boras, so maybe you can extend him and slap a 130 OPS+ patch on that LF problem we have.
If it's a long-term solution that will ALSO let us go to war this year, I can see us doing it. But not trading pieces just for 3 months of a 2012 FA.
~G
Baltimore currently sits at 94 ... so let's look at what a 94 vs 83 OPS+ team compare:
POS - Baltimore ---- Seattle ------ (OPS+ difference)
CA --- .788 - 124 --- .508 - 47 --- (-77)
1B --- .630 - 64 ----- .893 - 130 -- +66
2B --- .592 - 72 ----- .699 - 102 -- +30
SS --- .690 - 80 ----- .498 - 49 --- (-31)
LF --- .624 - 79 ----- .575 - 65 --- (-14)
CF --- .801 - 115 --- .551 - 49 --- (-66)
RF --- .657 - 69 ----- .698 - 82 -- +13
DH --- .765 - 105 --- .652 - 78 -- (-27)
BALT : .690 - 94 ...... .625 - 83 -- (-11)
In order to reach a 95 OPS+, the *ENTIRE TEAM* must average an increase in OPS of 65 points. Or, half the team must increase their OPS by 130 points.
Note also that the current team is missing 2 players (Bradley 95 and Langerhans 94) that were above the team average. So, the current OPS and OPS+ of the team *OVER* state the current talent on the roster. If Gutierrez comes back and posts a 95 OPS+, then he effectively replaces the offensive output of the cut players, which actually makes the current 83 OPS+ accurate of the true current talent on the team.
It has been argued that Kennedy ABs will improve the performance, if he is allowed to take away PAs from Figgins. Figgins has an OPS of .572 and .575 in April and May. Kennedy, after a hot April, has hit .601 in May. Kennedy is 35, posted a 79 OPS+ last season, and has a career OPS+ of 88. Kennedy's current high (103) OPS+ is driven almost exclusively by a spike in his slugging, as he has 4 HRs in only 104 PAs. He had a grand total of 3 last season (389 PAs).
The club is currently on pace for 69 wins. Assuming competing in 2011 requires 89 wins, then the club has to make up 20 wins ... but in only 3/4 of a season.
Per bbref, the Ms are currently at +6.9 WAR for pitchers +1.0 for hitters.
Assuming the pitching remains as good ... that's +28 wins (rounding up to 7) for pitching.
That's 4 wins for the regulars.
That's 28 + 4 = 32 wins = 72 wins.
To reach 89 wins would require 17 addition WAR. That would require replacing three of the black holes with ... (using 2010 final tallies) Evan Longoria (7.4), Josh Hamilton (6.5) and AROD (3.0). How far away is this team away from 89 wins ... assuming the pitching stays just as good? Replace Figgins, Saunders and Ryan with Longoria, Hamilton and AROD. That gets you to 89 wins ... (except for the fact 1/4 of the season is already over ... so, that still only gets you to about 85 or 86 wins).
He's not my kind of player for DH...and he's not going to hold up over the long haul, but in the absolute sense...he's producing enough to justify his place on the current roster. And Figgins...well...I agree that he needs to get hotter and stay hotter...no doubt about that. I still think Cust can serve a purpose if you can acquire a couple of bats to surround him with to make his walks valuable.
We don't have to replace three losers with three all-stars Sandy...we have to replace one loser with one all-star and then replace five other losers with five mediocre players who can at least hit their way out of a paper bag. And we have three of those five replacements AVAILABLE NOW. :) (Carp, Ackley, L-Rod replacing Ryan, Wilson and LF-disaster)...add Gutierrez replacing Saunders...and I think we'd only need to trade outside the org for one big bat...and one average bat.
We have a lot of interest prospects in the system that we probably don't need, G. I think making a couple of judicious trades to acquire pieces that help 2011 does two things:
1) Gives the team credibility...even if we don't charge hard after the AL West, we should be pushing to be as good as we can be without blowing up the future because we are going to need to make the case to free agents and prospects that we're in the fight and serious about winning. Failing to make that case may have cost us free agent contracts in the past, certainly causes us to have to offer more than market value to attract players on occasion, and also corrodes the clubhouse and makes us play like losers...which damages the development of a winning organization like rust damages the undercarriage of a car.
2) Makes the season entertaining enough to create a buzz for 2012 attendence.
This year matters too...we should be trying to capitalize on the pitching staff while we have it. Just my 0.02
LROD hit .176/.222/.324 (.546) over the last 28 days.
For the month of May:
Ryan .572 -- LROD -- .462
LROD does NOT remove the black hole at SS.
Gutierrez doesn't replace Saunders. He replaces Bradley/Langerhans
Saunders is still playing LF -- (or Peguero/Wilson) -- who have yet to prove that they can hit their way out of a wet paper sack.
And Ackley replaces the mostly successful (.699 OPS) 2B tandem ... giving him the steepest grade to beat.
As I said, I think he replaces a black hole...I think he hits better than Ryan (perhaps a 70-75 OPS+) but it's still a bad spot in the order. Most of the bad hitting from L-Rod has been bad luck on BABIP...he controls the strikezone pretty well and from what I've seen watching the games, he's hitting the ball fairly hard mcuh more often than Ryan does. Gutierrez is going to take 90% of Saunders' ABs, IMHO. Saunders is going to start twice a week...so yes...Gutierrez DOES replace Saunders. Bradley/Langerhans are being replaced by Peguero/Wilson and eventually Carp.
I'll be happy with a Bedard trade that nets a useful piece of the 2012 club (preferably a LF). Plug one offensive hole there, play out the string and go into the off season with cash and a big red bullseye on a competent DH.
I'm with G and Sandy - this team is too flawed today. But plug one hole with Ackley, one hole via trade and one or two with (hopefully) decent FA signings and we will be in business.
The real question is: if we post it, do we get two more, like the heads of a hydra?
Off to Paris for conference (good work if you can find it), but I will get it to you in a week.
Thanks,
Kelly
We're assuming that our guys completely suck. I don't necessarily buy it. If all it takes to achieve a 95 OPS is to produce like Bradley or Langerhans did, then I have full confidence that Figgins, Guti, Olivo, and Generic Left Fielder will do so, whether we exchange or leave what we have there. All three names above have averaged about that if you look at what they've done the last 3-4 seasons.
DH will rise above 100, to make up for our SS (If Cust doesn't, Carp/Wilson will). Limonta would hit at least .290 this season if given the opportunity (although I suspect his glove must be atrocious). Ichiro will rise above it, as always. We're not asking anybody here to do anything they have not proven capable of doing in their past.
We're so spooked by 2010, we've built this hill into Mount Rainier in our minds.
What have you seen from the Mariners in the last 7 years that would make you believe that?
Figgins fell off a cliff. Olivo's been over this cliff before too. Guti might not be able to stay in the lineup for a week, let alone contribute. If we believed in Wilson or Carp they would have been up to start the year and Cust would never have been signed. They've had years to make an impression and have made such a bad one that we won't let them hit in Tacoma's MOTO let alone ours.
Limonta is lazy and we hate him, because he spent half a decade in AA regardless of his production so he's not in anyone's version of a plan.
We actually are asking a lot of people to do things they've never done before. None of the minor leaguers have ever been successful in the bigs before. Figgins has never been successful for us.
And those who have been previously successful? Cust is past the point of his success as a power hitter - it's gone, and not coming back. Needing Ichiro to win another batting title at his age in order for us to compete is asking too much. I expect him to play forever like Omar Vizquel, but that doesn't mean he can carry more than his share. Olivo was atrocious here before, succeeded in Coors Field (like Cirillo) and now is back and looking just like the lost hitter that left us.
I'm not spooked by 2010. I'm spooked by having seen what aging, marginal and/or mentally weak players look like in the past and seeing the same signs in many of these hitters.
Maybe enough of them can change their stripes for us to make a go of it.
Not holding my breath. We need reinforcements, for this year and the ones beyond. Ichiro cannot carry this (or any) offense with his skillset and these hitters aren't gonna ALL climb up to decent just because we think they should.
They aren't capable.
~G
Which is something close to .660 OPS, then all these guys can provide it. If you're talking about the future Mariner lineup, then yeah, it's not these guys.
Figgins produced 84 last season. It's actually quite a typical season for him. It's just that every other season he adds another 20-30 to that. Cust did 128 just last season. Yeah, he's dropping. But 100? He can do that. Wilson and Carp can hit 95 or more as well. Were talking AAAA, which is just a tad below average, if not average.
I'm not suggesting Ichiro needs to win a batting title. Just give us .375 OBP. Maybe even .370.
The '65 Dodgers won 97 and a World Series with An 89 OPS+. The '59 Chisox won a pennant with an OPS+ of 91. Our pitching is comparable if not superior to these. The '68 Cards won a pennant with a 94.
Rather by the fact that LRod looks like he can hit.