.

GROK 1

Scott Servais first brought up the idea of Jean Segura 1, Mitch Haniger 2.  This was a delightful suggestion.  Shortly after, SABRMatt first brought up the idea of a freakish runs total for Mitch Haniger.  He is at 19 runs scored in 20 games, and Khris Davis has the next-best American League total at 14.

Haniger is fast.  His OBP is .430 because he is sneaking up on people in front of our vaunted MOTO and because his fish rate is 19%.  Remember we used to not be able to decide whether Michael Saunders was a Runs guy or an OBP guy?  This is kinda like that, except good.

His WAR is at 1.4, by the way, in 1/8 of the season.  Can you imagine if this guy actually did rack up like 8 WAR.  (Also James Paxton has 1.3 WAR in 4 starts, so a projected 11 or so WAR.  The funny thing is that it's hard to imagine him pitching differently in the forthcoming 7 eighths of his season.  The other funny thing is that no other Mariner pitcher has more than 0.3 WAR; Felix and his half-hearted Paxton hugs are at 0.1.)

.

GROK 2

Boomstick has already rebounded to our #3 position player, behind Fred Lynn and Jim Rice, at 0.5 WAR and a .270/.385/.470 slash line.  Remember we used to grumble about whether he had finally hit the outlier wall?  A week or two ago.  Release heavy sigh.

.

GROK 3

Servais is talking about Edwin Diaz to tie games in the 8th -- not because (1) Climate Change Modelling and BJOL insist that this superior Closer Deployment would win more games, but because (2) Diaz needs the work.  It aggravates Dr. D that Servais should need to pointedly disavow an attempt to win more games, but that is exactly what he had to do.

In the short run, we would have a better Mariners team, and the sportswriters couldn't complain about a strategy they're not used to.  So that's kewl.

.

GROK 4 - From the Sakura Leonydas thread

Mo' Dawg didn't care for the April train wreck in CF:  There was a predictable train wreck here. Maybe not of this magnitude, I suppose, but at least the odds were quite high for a derailment.  Dyson is at .575 overall, right now, BTW.  Do we tolerate that for the next 60 games, until mid-summer?  We sort of have to now.

Agreed on the worries about Dyson vs LHP's.  The sooner we get Heredia platooning, the better I'll like it.  Platoons, according to Earl, don't have to be strictly by LHP/RHP.  You can put Dyson out there when you have a fly ball starter in a big park, for example.  Also the sooner we get another OF in place of that 17th reliever, the better.  Gamel and Motter, right?

...

KingCorran sez,  The A's Spanish commentators were blabbing all over the place yesterday about how much talent Martin has, and there are a number of teams hurting for a CF right now (Pirates, anyone?). He'll find a home, and I'm refusing to be surprised if there's enough of a line that we bring in something else shiny.

Like a AA pitcher with an 89 fastball and a nice K/BB ratio in the low minors.  Billy Beane North?

We'll let it slide that Corran is monitoring U.N. communications on Mariner Globalism.

...

Rain sez, "To continue on this trek, does anyone see a legitimate role for Valencia any more?"

Slap me silly.  The guy has 50 at-bats?  This is what we've come to.  Dr. D likes Win Now mentality as much as anybody, but this is chuckle territory.  After a quarter century of Howard and Chuck there is NO SUCH THING as too much urgency for me.  Growf.  It was a QUARTER CENTURY guys.  I'm all for one year of "win or I'll shoot this dog."

...

MisterJonez sez,  "It always boggles me that netizens (present company *GENUINELY* excluded here) will take public statements as de facto TRUTH and then build entire arguments around them being 100% representative of the speaker's thoughts.  And if there happens to be some sort of apparent conflict/incongruity between those statements and potentially laudable 'contingencies' then said netizens *generally* wrinkle their noses and point emphatically to the public statements"

In Fortune 500 as in politics.  One man's Flip Flop is another man's flexibility, agility, and negotiation.  Whether we are talking Obama, Trump, Mulally, Dipoto, or a chess grandmaster, I want the plan reassessed after EVERY opponent reply.  It NEVER bothers Dr. D to see a strategist tacking against the wind, unless of course you run into incoherency.  

Dipoto ain't that.  He wants layering, athleticism, and churn.  He believes he can identify talent better than other people can.  He's going to iterate his roster moves as many times as possible until his superior judgment tells.

.

GROK 5, SUBURBS GUY

Also known as K and Phoenix, sez:  

Mitch the Man has already scored 19 runs and driven in 16 RBI and April isn't even over. He's also only 26. Thus, he joins the following ROTO SUPER STUDS who have racked up those counting stats in the MLB "month" of MAR/APR since 2010 at age-26 or younger.

2010: Kemp/Longoria/Braun
2011: Kemp
2012: ---
2013: Upton
2014: Trout/Goldschmidt/Stanton/Rendon
2015: ---
2016: Arenado/Machado/Betts/Story
2017: Harper/Haniger

Just 15 qualifying player seasons opened the year this way. Not a lot of flukes there, either. And the italicized names scored exactly 19 runs in MAR/APR, so with his next run scored Maniger will join the exclusive 20/16 club whose members are Kemp/Longoria/J-Up/Trout/Goldy/Arenado/Machado/Harper and Our. Man. Mitch.

----
BTW, I've previously gone by "K" and "Phoenix guy" in these forums, but KLAT ate my passwords, so I'm now on with a user name reflecting my twitter handle (follow me at @TheSuburbsGuy).

Your pic looks like Mo' Dawg's?! Or am I spacing out?  In any case way to hit the ground running, amigo.  

:: taps chin:  19 R and 16 RBI in April, as a young player.  A long list of stars, including all of the biggest ones in the game.  (Matt Kemp's 2011 was one of the 3 best "all-around" seasons ever played, along with 1976 Joe Morgan and one other guy like that, per a recent BJOL discussion.)  On the other hand R and RBI are more rotisserie stats than anything.  On the other other hand, it ain't like Haniger ain't really been playing that good.

And the 19/16 cutoff is edited in our favor, BUT April isn't close to over, so it's really not.

VERY COOL STAT.

.

GROK 6, ICHIRO vs HANIGER

We didn't know that hypotheticals were admissible, but Mojo sez,  "[hushed tones] Q: If you were guaranteed a Haniger .290, .400, .500 for the entire year of 2017, would you trade Haniger for 2000 Ichiro straight up with a guarantee of Ichiro's whole never injured never sick four hits a day HOF career?  To put it another way, is Mitch Haniger Mickey Mantle as opposed to your standard first ballot hall of famer, or is he going to get booked and cool down?"

We're going to lay aside the aesthetics here of "modern-day samurai slays gaijin baseball players."  How would that work out?

If Mitch Haniger were truly going to post an OBP of .400 then he would be, in effect, a fast Edgar Martinez playing a gold glove right field.  You would be talking about comparing two inner-circle HOF'ers with him and Ichiro.

Ichiro's bases gained and bases lost added up to a metronome-like 5.0 WAR times 10 years.  Here you would have a single Haniger season at 7, 8 WAR, a diamond-hard set of hitting skills going forward, and his future stretching out in front of him.  I'd like to hear Denizens' answer to Mojician's hypothetical.

The point, of course, is that maybe we've been blessed with another generational crowd attraction.

.

GROK 7

Here is a Yardbarker article asking, "Is Baseball's Most Improved Hitter ... Taylor Motter?"  It has the best author possible.  Well, not including Denizens, of course.

The author suggests Brian Dozier as a reasonable outcome for Motter.  Say Whaaa?  Dr. D has been laughing off Motter's career as too good to be true.  But much more of this shtick ....

.

LYNN AND RICE 1975

In 1974, the Red Sox had a .500'ish team but then in 1975 they had two rookie outfielders who finished #1 and #3 in the MVP voting.  Not Rookie of the Year voting; MVP voting.  Think about that, if you ever had two ROOKIES sweep the MVP and go on to the Hall of Fame.

You go back and look at it now and you realize Jim Rice probably wasn't as good as he looked in Fenway; he was 3 WAR or something.  But Fred Lynn hit like Edgar's best year, playing a graceful, timeless center field inside the postcard that is Fenway.

Those two guys were Americana for me that year, like Koufax-Drysdale were for TJM and DaddyO.  The very thought of Haniger and Motter doing anything similar sends tingles down my leg, Chris.

And you got Paxton.  And Diaz.  And a lot of dynamic subplots.  Hey, man, all we need is a winning streak and who knows what the board would become here.

BABVA,

Dr D

.