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You know that desperate feeling you get, when you are ransacking all the cupboards looking for painkillers, then cough syrup, then aerosol cans, and have to settle for ... well, no, you don't know that feeling. You're a Seattle Sports Insider denizen, not a feature writer at thedailykos. But Dr. D kind of knows the feeling, analogously, because he just scoured the entire blogosphere for linkage. Unless the esteemed Denizen wants an article about how Scott Servais is looking forward to sitting down and getting to know Jean Segura, we got nothin'.
You and I, amigo, have a quota of 10 scintillating M's conversations per week, this in a January week which would be doing well to sustain one per week. Mariners.org, Lookout Landing, Bob Dutton's Twitter feed, even pulling out all the stops and going to the P-I chat board, if they're all talking Huskies football ... well. We're being a little unfair. Ryan Divish is still being held accountable for a regular stipend of M's reporting.
So: consider it completely amazing that Dr. D found some spam sandwiches in the cupboard to serve.
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ZIP-LOCK BAGS OF WAR
On Dec. 28th, the ZIPS projection came out and there was a cool takeaway: the 2017 Mariners are average or better at every single position. On paper. The eminently cool Carson Cistulli, in some ways my fave Fangraphs writer, sez
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Batters
Here’s the very easiest way to determine if a club is likely to possess at least an average collection of field players: determine if all the field players in question receive a forecast of two wins or better. Where the Seattle Mariners are concerned, that’s more or less the case.
The hypothetical right-field platoon of Seth Smith (410 PA, 1.4 zWAR) and Guillermo Heredia (523, 0.9) might represent a weak spot — as might a platoon of Dan Vogelbach (508, 1.0) and Danny Valencia (419, 1.4) at first. In both instances, however, there’s at least a path to competence. Beyond that, basically every other position in the starting lineup — including a left field occupied by the recently acquired Mitch Haniger (517, 1.9) — is average or better. Nor does this account for the nearly elite contributions of Robinson Cano (644, 4.2) and Kyle Seager (653, 4.8).
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So the trade at shortstop was big. As is the collection of our poor man's version of Ackley-Smoak-Montero, that being Haniger-Gamel-'Bach. And don't forget to tingle about the projected contribution of Danny Valencia, whose 2015-16 slash line is fully the equal of Kole Calhoun's. ...wait ...
Good job raising that floor, JeDi. Somebody email the Astros to capitulate right now and save themselves the pain.
Enjoy,
Jeff