by | April 4, 2010 · 7:46 pm

Y2010M! Chone Figgins

(Y2010M! stands for Your 2010 Mariners! and is a series of posts aiming to touch on every player possibly important to the Mariners’ season.)

For the better part of a decade, the Angels have dominated the AL West.  They’ve endured major personnel changes, a stream of seemingly terrible contracts, and the confusion of changing the location in their name without changing the location of the team.  They owe this dominance to a lot of great players obtained by both those terrible contracts and a steadily excellent farm system, but equally important is the identity they’ve formed as a franchise.  The common description for the Angels is “annoying”.  They do whatever is necessary to win, which means they win a lot of games they seem to have no business winning.  They usually have a couple of stars and few weak points in the line up, good to excellent pitching, and an undeterrable focus on the small things: base-running, defense, manufacturing runs.  Led by one of the best managers in baseball in Mike Scioscia, they play baseball “the right way”, which means that no matter what adversity a new season brought, they still managed to come out on top.

No player came to exemplify Angel baseball more than Chone Figgins.  He was always on base, ran like crazy, played everywhere on the diamond; he was in the middle of every rally and big play.  Vlad Guerrero was the big bat Mariner fans feared, Figgins was the one he was hitting in.

This year, Figgins is a Mariner.

It’s easy to proclaim Seattle signing Figgins to a four year contract as a changing of the guard in the AL West.  Seattle is building a team along the Angels blueprint, and LA looks weaker than at any point since they started their run of dominance.  With any luck, the Mariners will win the division and the Angels will finally succumb to injuries and age.  We’ll see.  Until the Angels don’t win, they deserve the benefit of the doubt.  It’s possible Figgins loses a step and a tick of bat speed and plays in only 100 games like 2007 and 2008 and the Angels plug the hole and keep winning.

But putting aside the metaphorical symbolism, Figgins is a huge add for the Mariners.  My uncle, a more casual Mariner fan, asked me about him this weekend, and I told him he might be the biggest offensive addition for any team in the league this year.  The reason: Figgins is always on base.  He led the league in walks (101) and was among the leaders in on-base percentage (.395), which is typically space reserved for guys with a little more power.  The biggest key to scoring more runs?  Having people on base.  Once on the bases, he runs like crazy, with 42 stolen bases last year.  2009 was a definite career year, so a downturn should be expected, but I wouldn’t expect it to be significant.  He’ll bat second behind Ichiro, a decision that has drawn attention and some criticism this spring.  Many argue that the team would score more runs with Chone drawing a walk to get on first and then Ichiro advancing him with a hit, rather than Ichiro hitting his way on and Chone then walking.  The current configuration likely will cost a few runs from instances where Figgins would be on second and an Ichiro single would drive him in, but as Dave Cameron pointed out, Figgins being on first during one of Ichiro’s infield hits would cost Ichiro the hit a lot of time, because it would be easier to get the fielder’s choice on Figgins.  We’ll just say it’s a wash and leave Ichiro to what he does best.

Hopefully the two of them will run wild whatever order they’re in, and the guys behind them will drive them in with some regularity.  Whether that happens or not, a guy who is constantly on base will be a nice change from the free swinging, low on-base guys the Mariners have had in recent year.  It’s worked for the Angels, so maybe it will work for the Mariners.

Happy Opening Day!

-Matthew

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by | April 3, 2010 · 10:56 pm

Saturday Night Notes

Just a few links and notes that I wanted to post tonight.  I will do this by using bullet points because I find bullet points useful.  (I often wonder how some things get their name.  Why table or chair?  Sometimes these names come from other languages.  But, it always cracks me up when titles are very logical.  I can picture the guy who made the first bullet point thinking, “What should I call that?”  His mind then wanders to what objects the bullet point looks like.  He thinks, “Well, that little black dot looks a lot like a bullet and it’s pointing out what I have to say.”  Leaping from his chair he (or she) exclaims, “I’ll call it a bullet point!”  I’m sorry if you read this.  Really sorry.)

  • Milton Bradley left todays game with tightness in his right quad.  I was watching when this happened and it really didn’t seem too serious.  I hope it’s not because losing him for the month of April might be worse than losing Cliff Lee.
  • I couldn’t make it to the Huskies 3rd spring practice today because I was at home in Yakima.  Here’s a link to Bob Condotta’s report.  The most serious thing of note seemed to be a few minor hamstring injuries to Jordan Polk and D’Andre Goodwin.  Neither injury sound too serious but hamstring injuries can stick around sometimes. 
  • Go Butler!  The final four wasn’t/isn’t very exciting to me this year but I’d like to see Butler win for two reasons.  One being that they are Butler and a cool underdog.  The other reason being that they’re playing Duke. 
  • This coming week might be the best week of the year in sports.  Baseball starts Sunday with the Yankees and Red Sox, the Mariners open their season on Monday, the national championship is on Monday, and the Masters start on Thursday.  Not to mention Husky spring practice continues.  It’s a very good week to be a sports fan.
  • With the Mariners starting this week the blog may start to look a little different.  We plan on doing game recaps after each game.  So, combine those with the Husky practice reports and you have a good amount of posts.  I’m sure we’ll post other things besides this but expect to see lots of those.
  • Lots of good stuff leading up to the Mariners first game.  Lookout Landing has some great looks at our division rivals.  USS Mariner has this great look at the Mariners lineup.  Seattle Sports Insider also has lots of Mariner coverage leading up to opening day.  I could link Geoff Baker’s post about how he thinks the Mariners are no better than a 3rd place team right now or I could link his post about how Edgar shouldn’t be in the hall of fame or I could link one of his numerous posts about Canada or I could link his post about all of his sources telling him that the Mariners were going hard after Jason Bay even though USSMariner basically proved it wasn’t true.  I could link these but I didn’t agree with any of them and Baker drives me crazy.  I will end this rant now.

Thanks for reading, as always! Happy Easter.

Andrew

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by | April 2, 2010 · 4:13 pm

Calm Down Mariner Fans

I’m so glad March is over.  When it comes to baseball, March always feels really long but this one was particularly long.  Over the past four weeks it seems all we’ve had is bad news:  Cliff Lee got hurt, Jack Hannahan got hurt, no one in the back-end of the rotation had a great spring, the offense was pretty sucky, having Mike Sweeney on the team will single handedly ruin the Mariners playoff chances, and Milton Bradley will obviously explode and kill someone this year.  All of a sudden, the best off season in team history turned into a spring training filled with doom and gloom.  I want to tell all of you one thing, it’s going to be okay!

Here are a few reasons why:

  • The offense will not be worse than last year.  I would bet any of you a lot of money that the Mariners will score more runs this year than last.  All projections I’ve seen have Seattle scoring about 50 more runs than last year, if not more.  I’m not saying the offense will be good, I’m saying that the offense was absolutely terrible last year and the Mariners still had a winning record.  This team can still be good even with a bad offense.  (As I wrote this Chone Figgins hit a home run.  This is a minor miracle.  Seriously.)
  • I’ll keep the comparison to last year going.  Let me remind you that Ichiro was on the DL at the beginning of last year.  I think Ichiro missed a total of 8 games last year.  Over the course of those games the Mariners had a 6-2 record.  Ichiro is the Mariners best player but somehow the Mariners had a winning record when he was gone.  I hope you’re following me here.  Losing Cliff Lee for about a month will hurt.  Over that month he probably would have picked up 5 or 6 starts; instead of watching Lee we’ll be watching Doug Fister which makes this injury hurt more.  But the Mariners excelled in 8 games without their star last year, I think they can survive 5 games without Lee.  I could be wrong but I think this injury has been blown way out of proportion because there’s nothing else to talk about.
  • I admit the back end of this rotation scares me.  These guys aren’t sexy names by any means and they haven’t had the best spring training.  But, this rotation is almost identical to the one that pitched through August and September (minus a frustrating Brandon Morrow and add a frustrating Jason Vargas).  Through that time period the Mariners had a record of 33-26.  Most experts feel that if the Mariners are around .500 by the time Lee and Bedard (hopefully) come back.  As they showed last year, .500 could happen quite easilyin April.
  • Another reason that a .500 record could be easily accomplished is because of the schedule.  The Mariners playOakland (7 times), Texas (3 times), the White Sox (3), the Royals(3), the Tigers(3), and Baltimore (3)  from the start of the season until April 28th.  Those teams were a combined 456-523 last year.  During that same period the Angels play teams with a combined 491-483 last year ( including the Yankees six times and the Twins four times) and the Rangers play teams with a combined 509-464 record (including the Yankees and the Red Sox).  The schedule certainly favors the Mariners while Cliff Lee is expected to be out. 
  • April baseball can be weird.  Some bad teams start out hot and some good teams start out cold.  It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen in April and you’d much rather have injuries in your team in April than you would in September. 

I believe the Mariners are a better team than last years team that went 85-77.  I know, that team overachieved based on numbers but what those numbers don’t say is that the Mariners are built for close games.  There may have been a little bit of luck with the 1-run game record last year but I think it has just as much to do with the defense than it does with luck. 

So, don’t panic.  Sure, it was a March to forget for the Mariners but it’s not as bad as everyones making it seem.  Writers don’t have anything good to write about during spring training so problems are magnified.  But March is over and real baseball is about to begin.  Despite the problems this spring, it very well could be a summer to remember in Seattle.

Andrew

(If the Mariners come out and are truly awful you can blame me.  If that happens we should try to forget that this post ever happened.)

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by | April 1, 2010 · 10:53 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/1/10

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to the practice report sooner because I drove home to Yakima right after practice concluded.  It was another chilly day at Montlake today but the place was hoppin’!  There were softball and baseball games going on, those combined with the open practice made for a fun environment of about 3,000 people.  The team practiced without pads again today so it’s a little hard to get a read on who had a good day and who had a bad day.  They will get into pads and start tackling next week.

Sark seemed a little more animated today than he did on Tuesday (not that he wasn’t animated on Tuesday, just more so today).  He was getting after players when mistakes happened and shouting praise after good plays.  This coaching staff is extremely fun to watch; they’re almost as entertaining as watching the players sometimes.  If the team is lacking energy the coaching staff brings it.  I spent quite a bit of time watching the secondary coach, Demetrice Martin, and the running back coach, Joel Thomas.  These are two guys who move around as much as their players do.  Martin sticks up for his defensive backs and it’s easy to see that the players really enjoy him.

One of the stories of spring practice is the backup quarterback position battle.  The backup probably won’t be decided until Fall but it’d be nice if one or both of these guys had an amazing spring.  They both struggled at times today.  Montana threw some very good passes in the scrimmage session but during drills he threw 3 interceptions in a row.  Price is inconsistent and I don’t know if his arm will ever be something we can count on.  If the season started tomorrow I’d be worried.  Fortunately, it doesn’t and we have two of the best quarterback coaches in the country (Sark and Nuss) and one of the best quarterbacks in the country for these guys to learn from.  They are both trying to learn at every point; they are interacting with Locker in every opportunity they can and I saw both of them talking to Tui many times.  (Speaking of Tui, the quarterbacks were going through the routes and progressions with Nussmeier early in the practice and throwing the passes to Marques.  It was pretty cool to see.)

As if Locker wasn’t already a great leader, it’s obvious that he’s making even more of an effort this year.  It’s hard to explain just how much he interacts with the guys while trying to make himself better but it’s impressive to see.  I’m going to devote one of these practices to just watching him and will do a post on that. 

So, who had a good day today?  As I already mentioned it’s somewhat hard to tell without full contact but here are a few guys I came away impressed with:

  • Anthony Boyles.  Again.  I’m trying to not get too excited about him but it’s already getting difficult.  There were several times where I thought, “Wow, I need to text the fellow good guys to tell them how great Boyles looks.”  I’m not the only one who’s noticing either.  Jermaine Kearse, Devin Aguilar, and Jake Locker seem to be taking notice.  Boyles enjoys a little friendly trash talking after he or his fellow cornerbacks make a play.  Kearse doesn’t seem to enjoy that too much so after Boyles dominated for a while Kearse decided he would only go against A.B.  (that’s what the players call him, I figure the Good Guys might as well too.)  Kearse had his way a few times but Boyles held his own.  By my count, between drills and little scrimmages, Boyles had 3 pass breakups and an interception.  He got beat once by Kearse and heard about that from Locker and Kearse.  When he has those two talking trash to him about a completion I think that shows that he’s becoming a playmaker in the secondary.  (If you make it to a practice watch Boyles and Vonzell McDowell, they’re hilarious when they get going and extremely entertaining.)
  • Semisi Tokolahi.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to pronounce this guys name.  Tokolahi is a defensive tackle and it’s really hard to judge lineman when they aren’t blocking with all their effort.  Despite this Tokolahi has impressed the coaches enough to rotate with the other 1st defensive tackles (Alameda Ta’amu and Cameron Elisara).  Today he had a pass deflection and got in the backfield a few times.  He’s a big strong guy who could do a good job plugging up the middle of the defense.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tokolahi play himself into some playing time.
  • Jermaine Kearse.  Just get used to seeing his name on these lists.
  • Jake Locker.  Same as Kearse.
  • The entire secondary.  I already singled out Boyles for his good play but this entire secondary was pretty impressive today.  Especially during drills.  I really think we’ll see a lot more man-to-man defense this year.
  • Jesse Callier.  I forgot to mention him on Tuesday.  Him and Cooper are the two new freshmen running backs and both look like they could be Polk’s backup. 

Nothing really anything bad to report.  Sure there were some inconsistencies in the backup quarterbacks, a few dropped passes, a fumble or two, and some mixed up assignments but it’s the second day of spring practice and those problems are normal.

Cody Bruns appears to be the holder for the team.  The kicking was pretty bad today but I’m going to blame that on the wind and some bad holds.  I don’t think we need to worry about Erik Folk.

The punt-returners today were Deontae Cooper, Jesse Callier, Devin Aguilar, Jordan Polk and Johri Fogerson (I may have missed someone here).  My early money is on Cooper but I think any of these guys would be just fine returning kicks and/or punts.

One last practice note is that 2011 recruit WR Kasen Williams and 2012 recruit OL Zach Banner were at practice today.  Banner was standing on the field most of the day and is huge.  He was bigger than some of the Husky offensive lineman.  Williams was a little harder to find and wasn’t as involved in watching the practice as Banner was.  Williams is considered one of the best receiver recruits in the country and Banner is a lineman that the Huskies would love to get.

Well, that’s about it for today.  I write more words than I think I will on these.  As Dan noted earlier, this is our 100th post!  It’s a little bit of a shame that the 100th post is this lame but I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading.  This blog has been so much fun for me and I’m fairly sure the other Good Guys agree.  We look forward to keep writing to whatever audience is out there and we’re honored that you choose to read posts that we write.  As our friends over on Montlake Madness say, thanks for coming!

Andrew

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by | April 1, 2010 · 2:26 pm

Random Day Dreaming Thoughts…

  • Has it ever occurred to anyone that only in baseball do managers wear uniforms just like the players? In football, the coach dresses comfortably like the fans and in basketball and hockey, the coach wears a suit like a top executive. Imagine if coaches in football, basketball and hockey all wore the team’s uniform, similar to in baseball. Makes for a funny image in my mind.
  • Jake Locker could be a New England Patriot next year. Here’s how-
    When the Raiders acquired Richard Seymour from the Pats last year, they gave up their 1st round pick in 2011. Considering the Raiders could be awful this year, and possibly even the worst team, it’s likely New England will have a top 5 pick next year, which is of course a rarity for a good team like the Patriots. To add to the intrigue, Tom Brady’s contract runs up after the 2010 season, and while it is likely the team will re-sign or franchise him, another Brady injury could add some uncertainty. Even if Brady is extended, he will be 33 after this year, so the Pats may be looking ahead and who knows, Jake Locker could be their target with a top 3 pick.

  • Is it safe to say the Mariners have the best hitter, AND the top 2 pitchers in the AL West? Ichiro, Felix, and Lee might be the top 3 players in the division. A healthy Bedard could contend for 3rd best pitcher too.
  • In other Mariners topics, does anyone find it odd that Chone Figgins came to Seattle as a great lead off hitting 3rd baseman, and now he is 2nd in the order and playing 2nd base? Obviously Ichiro is tough to beat out for the lead off spot, but in a year where production from the 3 hole could be difficult to come by, I think the team should have seriously considered Ichiro in that spot. Wouldn’t be the first time that discussion has come up though.
  • Finally, what’s to make of the Huskies wearing all Gold jerseys in their home opener just to draw attention to Jake Locker and his Heisman trophy campaign. Sounds odd to me…

    (Ok April fools on that last one)

    Although speaking of jerseys, I would love to see UW bust out black unis at some point this year!

    PS- Our next post will be our 100th by the Good Guys!

    -Dan

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    by | March 31, 2010 · 3:22 pm

    How Bad Was Bavasi? vs. How Good Is Zduriencik?

    Aside from playing sports for a living, I have always thought being a general manger would be the next greatest job in the world. I know it would be difficult, and I am not qualified, but as a Mariners fan from 2003-2008, watching helplessly as Bill Bavasi made bad move after bad move, I wondered if I could have done a better job. The trades, signings, and draft picks made by a GM are typically the measuring stick for how good or bad a job he has done. There are many more duties, but ultimately, it comes down to the outcome of the transactions. For Bavasi, his tenure will be remembered for horrible free agent signings where time and time again he threw large money to veterans will little upside, and of course, some bad trades as well. But beyond the Bedard trade and the Carlos Silva type of signings, what else did Bavasi do for 6 years as Mariners GM? Surely he must have made some good moves, but the bad ones are what we remember, right? Yesterday I set out on a mission to analyze the Bill Bavasi era move by move–because I had the day off, the weather was horrific, and baseball storylines are hard to come by right now! Anyways, I compared his tenure to what Jack Zduriencik has done thus far. The results are even uglier than I thought.

    Trades

    Breaking down Bavasi’s 47 trades on my grading scale, I see 2 definitely good trades, 7 definitely bad ones, and 38 rather insignificant moves. Just how bad were Bavasi’s 7 worst trades? Consider this. If you combined all 7 trades, the Mariners gave up Carlos Guillen, Yorvit Torrealba, Matt Thornton, Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-Soo Choo, Shawn Nottingham, Rafael Soriano, Adam Jones, George Sherrill, Tony Butler, Kameron Mickolio, and Chris Tillman, in exchange for Ramon Santiago, Juan Gonzalez (not the one you’re thinking of), Marcos Carvajal, Joe Borchard, Eduardo Perez, Ben Broussard, Horacio Ramirez, and Erik Bedard. WOW!

    Jack Z on the other hand has made 17 trades thus far, none of which can be conclusively graded bad, and 6 that I would already call definite good moves. This includes the Bradley for Silva swap, and I realize Bradley has yet to play a regular season game for the M’s. But the fact is Zduriencik was able to unload an overweight, underachieving pitcher for a potential clean-up hitter in Milton Bradley. Even if Bradley never amounts any success in Seattle, it is already a good move, in my mind, based on the fact that Silva was definitely never going to have success here. Again, combining Jack’s 6 definitely good trades, the Mariners gave up J.J. Putz, Sean Green, Luis Valbuena, Jeremy Reed, Fabian Williamson, Yuniesky Betancourt, Justin Souza, Jarrod Washburn, and Carlos Silva, in exchange for Franklin Gutierrez, Endy Chavez, Ezequiel Carrera, Maikel Cleto, Aaron Heilman, Mike Carp, Jason Vargas, David Aardsma, Derrick Saito, Daniel Cortes, Jack Hannahan, Mauricio Robles, Luke French, and Milton Bradley. That’s quite a haul! Essentially we received our starting centerfielder, utility infielder, 5th starter, clean-up hitter, closer, and a ton of minor league talent for next to nothing.

    Signings

    Now, as if the trades weren’t bad enough, the signings are where things really unraveled for Bavasi. Overpriced veterans with little upside were Bill’s obsession, for some odd reason. And he made a habit of accruing them. Things started nicely with the Raul Ibanez pick-up and extensions for Randy Winn and Ichiro. But then came Scott Spiezio ($9M), Rich Aurilia ($3.5M), Richie Sexson ($50M), Pokey Reese ($1.2M), Jarrod Washburn ($37.5M), Carl Everett ($3M), Miguel Batista ($25M), Jeff Weaver ($8.3M), Yuniesky Betancourt ($13.75M), Carlos Silva ($48M), Brad Wilkerson ($3M), and Kenji Johjima’s extension ($24M)–though Kenji’s extension was probably not Bavasi’s decision. That’s more than $225 million for 12 players who amounted zero all star appearances. Of these 12 disaster signings 7 were cut, 2 traded, 2 played out the full contract (yeah for Batista and Washburn!) and zero are Mariners today. In fact, of the 23 most notable signings of the Bavasi era, I would argue that only once did Bavasi have a successful free agent acquisition, meaning a player who was not already on the Mariners. That’s Jose Guillen. Thanks Jose for salvaging a small part of the Bavasi era.
    Note: One could also argue Adrian Beltre was a successful signing, and while I would tend to agree, his injuries and general lack of power make it tough to definitively call the Beltre signing good.

    Again, I find it beneficial and uplifting to look at Jack Zduriencik’s body of work, and so here is a summary of his signings thus far. Of the 8 most notable signings, 1 was a definite success (Branyan), and none appear to be bad moves thus far. Better yet, the largest contract Jack has given to a free agent is to Chone Figgins, for the reasonable price of $36 million. Jack has also done well to lock up arguably the three most important players for the future in Ackley, Gutierrez and Felix Hernandez.

    Draft Picks

      Finally, the draft picks are where we can find a glimmer of talent in the Bavasi era. Of course, draft picks have a lot to do with talent evaluators and scouts, so who knows how much credit Bavasi deserves. But nevertheless, under Bavasi’s watch, the M’s drafted promising players in Mark Lowe (5th round), Michael Saunders (11th round), Chris Tillman (2nd round), Adam Moore (6th round), Doug Fister (7th round), Tyson Gillies (25th round), Shawn Kelly (13th round), and Josh Fields (1st round). Of course, all of this is overshadowed by the biggest draft mistake, which of course is taking Brandon Morrow over Tim Lincecum. Tough to penalize Bavasi too much for this though because every year team’s pick someone over a guy who ends up being an all star. Still, it’s hard to imagine what could have been with Tim here.

      Jack’s draft is hardly conclusive. Ackley, Franklin and Baron are the 3 most notable picks of the Zduriencik tenure, none of whom are conclusively good or bad picks quite yet.

      There you have it! As they say, the numbers don’t lie. Unfortunately for Bill Bavasi, 2 good trades, 1 or 2 nice free agent pick-ups and some solid draft picks aren’t enough, or even close, to qualify as a good tenure. Despite the shrewd Sean Green and Sean White acquisitions, Bavasi’s history leading the M’s will be marred forever by short sighted signings, lopsided trades, and a boatload of cash spent on little return in player performance. We will forever associate Bill Bavasi with Carlos Guillen, Horacio Ramirez, Scott Speizio, Carl Everett, Richie Sexson, Brad Wilkerson, Carlos Silva, Miguel Batista, Jeff Weaver, Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-Soo Choo, Rafael Soriano, and of course, Adam Jones, Chris Tillman and Erik Bedard. But the page has turned, and our trust is in Jack Z now. The bad contracts are unloaded, new talent is on board, and the future is bright for Mariners baseball. It’s good to be a fan again.

      Special thanks to Brendan Bianowicz and MLBTradeRumors.com for gathering the bulk of this information.

      -Dan

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    by | March 30, 2010 · 9:41 pm

    Clarence Trent, Football Player

    Just a quick note.  As Andrew mentioned, Clarence Trent, a freshman forward on the basketball team, is on the football roster this spring.  It sounds like it was his idea and both sets of coaches were all for it.  He’s playing defensive end and took part in the first practice today.  See Andrew’s practice report for a few more notes.

    It’s pretty unlikely that Trent ever has an impact on the football team, or is even on the roster when they start play in the fall.  But with most of the other defensive ends out, he’ll get every chance to show whether he has any future in football beyond this spring.  He’ll get lots of coaching and practice time, and he certainly has the body and athleticism to make it happen.  No one seems sure that he’s ever played football before, though, and jumping into the Pac-10 isn’t easy.

    If he is playing come fall, there are some interesting implications.  As pointed out by the Percy Allen and others, any scholarship athlete who plays football has to be on a football scholarship, regardless of which sport originally gave them the scholarship.  So if he’s playing football, he’ll be on scholarship with the football team, which will open up another spot on the basketball team.  Not a big deal for the football program, which has 85 scholarships to work with and generally has a lot of turnover year to year.  It’s a huge deal for the basketball team, however, which has just 13 scholarships.  Trent’s scholarship could then go to an extra recruit this year or next.  Essentially, it would mean an extra player, who, honestly, would probably have more promise as a basketball player than Trent. 

    This will probably be a distant memory by this time next year, but something to think about.  Best case scenario, it could be a move that helps both programs in multiple ways.

    -Matthew

    Andrew’s note:  I’m jumping on at the end of this post because I didn’t think my thoughts were worth it’s own post.  I read somewhere that the last time Trent played football was his sophomore year.  As I noted earlier, Trent looked a little lost in practice today.  It was impressive to see how the coaches didn’t leave him in the dark.  They could spend their time with players who could have an immediate impact but they didn’t, they treated Trent as a very valuable asset to the team.  I wouldn’t write Trent off, he is a freak athlete. He has just as much speed of any of the ends and looks very strong.  He’ll need to put on quite a bit of weight but, who knows, this might just work. 

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    by | March 30, 2010 · 7:23 pm

    Huskies Practice Report – 3/30/10

    The first spring practice of the year was held at Husky Stadium today on a windy, cold spring day.   It was fun walking up to the stadium; the baseball team was starting a game, the softball team was practicing (I only hope Danielle Lawrie saw me and fell in love at first sight) and there were a couple hundred people watching practice.  There was a good amount of energy in the air and the players seemed happy to be on the field.  The team wasn’t in pads yet and won’t be until next week.

    I remember coming to the first spring practice last year and being blown away by the amount of energy the coaches brought.  Today was no different.  On numerous occasions I watched coaches sprint 20 or 30 yards to a player to either tell them what they did wrong or to give them praise for a good play.  I was also impressed by the amount of time the staff puts into one-on-one  coaching.  From Jake Locker to Clarence Trent, the coaches give a good amount of effort to get their point across to each player in one way or another.

    I was watching the quarterbacks for a good share of the time today and it was about what I expected.  Jake Locker looked good, Keith Price and Nick Montana had some good moments but also had some shaky moments.  The wind gusts blowing off the lake often affected their deep passes.  My first impression of Nick Montana is that he has a good arm but is very skinny.  He threw some very good balls and will improve as he becomes more comfortable with the speed of practice.  Keith Price is an amazing athlete and if he ever develops into a good passer he could become quite the threat at quarterback.  Right now he reminds me of Dennis Dixon in his first few years at Oregon.

    Alvin Logan was the starting strongside linebacker, as expected.  He rushed off the edge many times and looked very quick doing it.   The news of the day was Clarence Trent (UW basketball player) walking on to the football team as a defensive end.  Nick Holt coached him up numerous times and although Trent looked lost at times, he seems to have some raw talent.  For whatever it’s worth, he’s the tallest player on the defense and probably the team.

    Greg Christine appears to be the backup center behind Drew Shaeffer.  I thought this was interesting at first because he was a starting guard last year but the more I think about it the more it makes sense.  Who else do the Huskies have to put there?  Christine seems like the best option as a backup and it’s good to have him understand both spots. 

    A few more notes after the jump on players who had a good day.  Continue reading →

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