A couple of news items are coming in today, two significant ones. They don’t have anything to do with each other, aside from both being good news, in my opinion. But, since I don’t have a ton to say about either of them and it’s a Friday night, I’ll clump them in to the same post.
- The University of Washington announced today that Coach Sarkisian has signed a 5-year extension. His contract now has him at U-Dub though the 2015 season. This move wasn’t a surprise and was mainly a reward for Sark turning a no-win program to Holiday Bowl champs in two seasons. He has received a raise. Hopefully this is just the first of Sark’s extensions at UW. As of right now, I think we all want him to be here for a long time. (Side note: This news got me thinking about the last Husky football coach to receive an extension. Clearly Ty (although he was frightfully close at one point) and Gilby didn’t receive extensions. Neuheisel signed an extension in 2002 that was supposed to keep him here through 2008 and had a 5-year option through 2013. He was then fired in 2003. That one didn’t work out.)
- The other bit of news coming in today has to do with one of the Mariners’ rivals, the Angels. Today they traded Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera to the Blue Jays for Vernon Wells. As a Mariner fan, I love this deal. Vernon Wells had a pretty good year last year but has a monster contract that he is not worth, in my opinion. His contract has him making $86 million over the next 4 years. The Angels off-season have had a terrible off-season, which is good news for us folks up here in Seattle. They missed out on Carl Crawford, didn’t add any of the main pitching targets on the market, and missed out on Adrian Beltre. Today, Vernon Wells became the highest paid player in Angel history. I hope that sentence made you laugh. This might also hurt the Angels next off-season when Pujols and Fielder could potentially be on the market and money will be important. It’s still unclear if Toronto is sending any money to the Angels.
So, a happy Friday it is! I’ll be back in a while with a recap of the Husky victory last night, that I attended. Until then, thanks for reading!
Andrew
andrewlong7
dpscansen
Joe Loughery
Matthew
The Good Guys Sports Blog 
I LOVE the Wells deal. LOVE IT. Even though the Jays are sending $5m to LAA (just read that), that will only cover one and a half months of his contract. Wells is tremendously overrated. I always like Juan Rivera, he played well against the Ms, as well as Napoli. Toronto got better in this deal, two starters for one over paid left fielder. The Angels set themselves back a few years on this one, especially financially which is music to my ears!
SI_JonHeyman:
“angels took $75 mil they offered beltre & spent $70 of it by trading napoli/rivera for v. wells & $5 mill. 86 to go for wells, minus 11 for napoli/rivera”
This is already being called one of the worst trades EVER. Even if the money were even, this deal would favor Toronto. Think about this…instead of having Adrian Beltre, Juan Rivera and Mike Napoli, for the same money, the Angels have Vernon Wells, and that’s it. Wells is a big name, kinda, but unless Toronto is including a time machine in the deal, the Angels just got fleeced! Wells is 32, and over the past 4 years, he’s averaged 20 HR and 78 RBI, with a .270 BA. Remember, Toronto is a hitter’s park. The odds that he matches those numbers in Anaheim, at ages 32-35, are slim. This guy will get 20+ million/year for 4 more years. Toronto would have sent Wells for a bag of balls, but instead they get 2 nice players in return. Well done Alex Anthopoulos, well done. I could go on and on about this deal, there are just a million layers, and they all make Anaheim look ridiculous. I think the Angels got desperate to make a big splash, and lost all common sense. Fine by me!
Ok I just can’t stop. This trade is too hilarious. I love what Dave Cameron says over at Fangraphs…
“By acquiring the $86 million that Vernon Wells has left on his contract while shipping out Juan Rivera ($5.25 million) and Mike Napoli (~$5.8 million or so), the Angels essentially agreed to add $75 million to their books over the next four years. Just for fun, let’s take a look at what they could have bought with $75 million this winter.
Power Hitters.
Adam Dunn ($56 million) and John Buck ($18 million) would have given them a lefty thumper to use as an OF/DH type and allowed them to replace Napoli with another catcher who could hit the ball over the wall. Sure, they would have had to play Bobby Abreu in the field for one more year, but the difference between Dunn’s bat and Wells’ bat would have compensated for the difference, and they wouldn’t have had to start Jeff Mathis at catcher.
Detroit’s off-season
The Tigers acquired Victor Martinez ($50 million), Joaquin Benoit ($16.5 million) and Brad Penny ($3 million) for $5 million less than the Jays just paid to “upgrade” to Vernon Wells.
An entirely new starting rotation
Jorge de la Rosa ($21.5 million), Jake Westbrook ($16.5 million), Carl Pavano ($16.5 million), Hiroki Kuroda ($12 million), and Javier Vazquez ($7 million) signed for a grand total of $73.5 million this winter. This isn’t quite as fair, since it’s almost all 2011 money rather than being spread out over the next four years, but still, the total dollar figure for Vernon Wells is about the same as buying five of the best free agent starting pitchers available this winter.”
HAHAHHAHAHAHAH YOU SUCK ANGELS!!!!!!!