Second base has some questions coming into the season, but the long term outlook is maybe the most promising on the team.
Second Base
Under Contract
Chone Figgins- Listing him here is mostly a formality, because it would be a shock if he’s playing second regularly in 2011, at least in Seattle. I would imagine he’ll be the subject of trade talks, and if he’s back, it’ll likely be at third base, so I’ll talk more about him when I get to that post. Continue reading
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You got worried when you saw that title, didn’t you? Well, don’t worry, I was just kidding! I feel like I should write something on the worst season in Mariner history, but I don’t want to, and I’m sure you don’t want to read it, so what’s the point? If you really want to read something, all of the local blogs and papers have something up. For instance, over at the Times, the two Mariner headlines I saw were Larry Stone’s “2010 will be remembered as worst ever for Mariners” and Geoff Baker’s blog post “Talent and Character: 2010 Mariners were devoid of both”. Good times!
I did like what Dave Cameron had to say over at USS Mariner when he pointed out that, while 2011 probably won’t bring a championship (or even the playoffs), it can still be entertaining. There’s a lot of room to move up the enjoyment scale after this season, and there’s no reason the 2011 M’s can’t jump their entertainment factor significantly. I want winning baseball as much as anyone else, but if I’m thinking about going to a game on a random weeknight, a few exciting plays and a line up with some crazy guys rate pretty high on my list. Just give me someone interesting to watch!
The 2011 Mariners aren’t going to win every game. But, if they can score 4 or 5 runs most of the time, it might feel like they win every game. And for that, we can thank the 2010 Seattle Mariners. Believe Big!
-Matthew
As you’ve probably heard by now, Felix will not take the mound in the Mariners’ season finale on Sunday. After having one of the best seasons, as a pitcher, in Mariner history management has decided to shut him down a start early because of the amount of innings he’s already thrown this season. I have two thoughts on this and I’ll keep it short.
My first thought is that our management gets it. They see that downside of Felix making this final start outweighs the upside. They get that Felix is more important to next season and the future than he is right now. They understand that they have the best young pitcher in baseball and they are willing to lose a game in this lost season to decrease the chance that their best player gets hurt. Would Felix have gotten hurt if he started? No, probably not. He was just as likely to get hurt last start against Texas as he would be this one, but still it’s not worth risking your ace. You might think that this is common sense but I wonder if our prior GM’s would have got this.
On the other hand, I think it’s a shame. Obviously, Felix wants to go out there and pitch one more game. I think he’s earned the right to do that. The King has just put up the two best consecutive years of pitching in organizational history, and if he wants to go out there, gosh, dang it, he should go out there. Something tells me we’d see the best Felix possible on Sunday. Our ace pitches his best when he’s on a big stage, unfortunately, the M’s are never on a big stage because they suck. But Sunday, Felix would have been amped. When Felix is amped it’s scary for the opponents. I would have gone to the game on Sunday if Hernandez had been pitching just to give him a standing ovation, now I’ll probably just watch an inning or two from Matthew’s couch. That’s the kind of pitcher Felix is. The kind where you plan your schedule around seeing. That’s the downside of him not pitching Sunday.
So, we’ll see you in February, Felix, when you report to Spring Training. Then I’ll see you in April on opening day when you accept your Cy Young in front of 45,000 people at Safeco who don’t appreciate you enough. I hope you get a standing ovation sometime on Sunday, somehow. You deserve that. I’ll be sure to give you a proper thank you sometime soon on here but, for now, this will do. See you in a couple months, King.
The Mariners just lost a game on a strikeout. A strikeout by a Ranger batter against a Mariner pitcher. Has this ever happened before in history? Wow.
-Matthew
The Mariners have 4 games left in one of the most dismal seasons in history, and no one is sad to see it go. I haven’t watched more than an a couple innings of a game in weeks. The outlook for 2011 isn’t much better, to be honest. Barring an unexpected and significant payroll increase, there’s not much room in the budget for big-ticket additions. Even if there were, it’s not a great free agent class.
Still, the Mariners need to, and will, make serious changes to the roster. Some of this will just be with playing their younger players more, but there will certainly be some moves and fresh faces as well. In an effort to get ready for the offseason, I’m going to walk through each position and see what the Mariners have, for both 2011 and the future, and what they’ll be losing. I’m not going to touch on who they might add yet. That will come later in the offseason, if at all. Frankly, there are very few people sufficiently smart and well-connected to project those kind of moves more than a few days out. Consider this series of posts something of a triage: which positions are in the worst shape going into next year, and which might be okay. It’d be too depressing to start with catcher, so we’ll look at the first basemen after the jump! Continue reading
As you may have noticed, the blog has switched to football mode in the last couple weeks. This was a combination of the Mariners sucking and football being a breath of fresh air. There hasn’t been anything really exciting as far as the Mariners go lately but here’s what little news there is:
That’s about all I can think of. If you have any Mariner questions let me know in the comments and I’ll try to address them.
Andrew
So Felix Hernandez goes 8 innings, gives up 2 hits, one run, a HR to league leader Jose Bautista. No shame in that. Problem is the Mariners continue their epic fail of a season and score exactly zero runs for Felix, yet again. I have never heard of a pitcher who gets less support from his teammates. The man continually goes out there week after week, throws quality game after quality game, never complains except when they pull him early, and plays with fire and intensity. Felix is my hero.
Will he win the Cy Young? He will. I guarantee it. The sympathy vote. Enough national writers know about how terrible the Mariners offense is, today was a prime example. If Felix plays for the Yankess he has 23 wins right now, maybe more, and is literally the king of NYC. It’s impressive how he can get himself up for games that mean nothing and considering the Mariners have been playing meaningless games since April, it’s amazing. Statistically it’s an easy choice, the win-loss record that may be his downfall, but pitchers have almost no control over that. Every category he has control over he is dominating.
Could Seattle be home to a Cy Young winner with a sub .500 record, and an NFL division winner with the same? Could happen. Only in Seattle.
-Joe
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