It’s summer in Seattle and the Mariners are in the middle of another depressing season. I actually think they have the pieces to turn it around and finish near the .500 range, if their luck would ever turn. I’m also starting to think this might be one of those years where nothing goes right. Regardless, when the offense is this bad, they’re hard to watch.
So once again, I find myself paying more attention to the Mariners’ minor leaguers, the one place where the outlook for Jack Zduriencik’s Mariners is always hopeful. Betweens call-ups, promotions and the draft, a lot has happened lately.
Franklin, Zunino to Seattle
This is old news now, but there’s a little data that’s worth discussing. Franklin has been quite solid. He’s at .277/.362/.494, which would be pretty phenomenal if he could maintain it. His defense looks prettier than Dustin Ackley’s but isn’t as consistently reliable, at least to my eyes. Zunino is showing some of the expected struggles with the bat, hitting below .200 with corresponding power and on-base numbers. His power is consistently apparent, but he’s not quite squaring up the ball well enough to get it out. I don’t see anything that makes me worried for his future, although I wonder how long they’d let him struggle before they’d send him down. His defense is excellent, and I imagine it will keep him in Seattle for quite some time. While it’s far too early to say definitively, both look like line-up regulars for years to come.
Ackley, Others to Return Soon?
Since going down to Tacoma, Dustin Ackley has been hitting around .400, with OBA and Slugging % around .500. He’s done everything they could ask, including spending most of his time in the outfield. That isn’t necessarily a permanent move, but it gives him an avenue back to Seattle for this season. Rumors are he’s working on some mechanical fixes, including shortening his stride. True or not, I’d expect to see him back around the all-star break, if not sooner. Continue reading →
One year ago I asked your reaction following Prince signing in Detroit. One year later, I’m curious what your take is on Josh Hamilton signing with a division foe, for nearly $100 million less than Prince got.
This is my 5th installment in a series of posts I’ve done recapping and forecasting the Mariners Rebuilding Process, since Jack Z took over as GM. You can find the prior posts here: Years 1 and 2Year 3Year 4
Let’s recap the 5 year rebuild plan I laid out in October 2008.
THE BLUEPRINT
2009, Year 1: Shed dead weight, Begin overhauling the farm Summary:Traded Putz for Guti, Carp, Vargas, and managed to get rid of Silva, Betancourt, and Johjima, while also using 3 of first 5 picks on Ackley, Franklin, Seager. Grade: A+
2010, Year 2: Shed dead weight, Continue building the farm (and lock up Felix) Summary:Signed Griffey and Sweeney, locked up Felix and acquired Cliff Lee, then swapped him for Smoak. Could have done without the Morrow trade and of course the Figgins contract. Selected Walker, Paxton, Pryor in rounds 1, 4, 5. Grade: B-
2011, Year 3: Bring the youth up, Evaluate potential, Acquire more young talent Summary:Hired Wedge, traded for Brendan Ryan, picked up Wilhelmson at a local bar, and signed low cost vets such as Cust, Olivo, Kennedy. Fielded an even mix of youth and vets, but loads of young talent in the pipeline for the first time in forever. At the deadline traded Fister for Furbush and Wells. Hultzen chosen with #2 pick. Grade: B
2012, Year 4: continue youth movement, achieve .500 record Summary:Swapped Pineda for Montero and made some shrewd acquistions in Jaso, Iwakuma, Luetge, Millwood, Perez, then saw a young roster come up 6 games short of .500, while improving by 8 games from prior season. Picked Mike Zunino #3 overall. Grade: A
2013, Year 5: add 1-2 big pieces, contend for playoffs Summary: Thus far we’ve seen a few low cost signings in Bay, Ibanez, Bonderman, and a 1 for 1 swap of Vargas-Morales. Grade: ???
I’ve said this before, but in 4 1/2 years on the job, Bill Bavasi set this organization back 5 years, minimum. Last year I stated
“For the first time on Jack’s watch, I think the on field W/L record is important. .500 ball is a reasonable expectation this year, which would be a welcomed site for our eyes.”
Well, The M’s flirted with .500 in 2012 and showed noticeable improvement, albeit without much offense yet again. Entering year 5 the talk of laying the foundation and replenishing the system should be over, and playoff contention ought to be close. Zduriencik has said as much if you’ve heard any of his recent interviews.
If the blueprint holds form, the M’s will be adding 1-2 big pieces this offseason, and assembling a playoff capable team in 2013. This sounds great but it is nearly January and almost all the big name free agents have signed elsewhere, and the only acquisitions Seattle has made are Robert Andino, Jason Bay, Raul Ibanez, and a swap of Jason Vargas for Kendrys Morales. Not exactly blockbuster moves capable of propelling the M’s from 75 wins into contention. I suppose the big moves we hoped for are still possible if Jack can, for example, land Justin Upton and Michael Bourn, and add a veteran pitcher to round out the rotation. That would certainly be a competitive team, but is that the best route to take?
Given how the AL West is shaping up, it may be best to hang onto the prospects, add a couple decent pieces, and shoot for a respectable 80-85 wins in 2013, while waiting until next year to make the big splash. I don’t see a scenario, at this point, for the M’s to overtake Texas or Anaheim in 2013, and probably not Oakland either. So why go all in? I’m not suggesting Seattle give up any hopes they had for next year, just because the division rivals are pulling away, but I don’t want the M’s to mortgage the future to field a better team next year, but one that cannot be sustained.
Keeping a positive trajectory is crucial next year, seeing an improved offense is also important, but that’s about all we can reasonably expect in 2013. This puts real contention off until next year, and adds a year to the original 5 year blueprint, but taking the path that leads to sustained success is what is most important. We’ve seen the Washington Nationals do this, and Tampa Bay also, and with much less money. It may not be popular, given the fractured fan base, plummeting attendance, and a decade of bad baseball, but Seattle has never given a player a $100 million contract, and unless it is a Felix extension, I don’t see it happening for at least another year. And surprisingly, I’m fine with that.
It was a fairly busy sports weekend in the Seattle area, and I spent the weekend going to a few baseball games. Sandwiched in between the Rainiers on Thursday and Mariners on Saturday was one of the biggest recruiting days in Husky football history. I’ll hopefully get to that tomorrow. The Mariners don’t have much to talk about aside from Munenori Kawasaki being extremely awesome, so I’ll start off recapping the weekend by writing about how my weekend started.
On Thursday, Matthew, our cousin (and loyal blog reader) Tyler, and I made the trek down to Tacoma to see the Danny Hultzen-Jamie Moyer match-up. A trek it was. It took us two and a half hours to get from Bellevue to Tacoma but that’s beside the point, this isn’t a traffic blog, it’s a sports blog! Although, a traffic blog may be more entertaining than talking about the Mariners sometimes. Anyway, we missed one of Hultzen’s innings because of traffic but caught his other 3 innings.
The future Mariner has a hunched over windup, kind of like his shoulders are slouching. Other than that, the rest of his windup was pretty standard. His right foot starts a little bit in front of the rubber and steps to the side, more than it steps backwards. There’s a fairly normal leg kick and his arm comes a little higher than the 3/4’s slot. His follow-through is fairly normal (more on that later) as well. Here’s some video of the start. His fastball sat at about 93 and he flashed 96 twice up on the radar gun (I don’t think the radar gun was hot or anything because Moyer was about where he has been all season and even below that at times). We didn’t see much of his change-up because he didn’t seem to have a lot of control of it. Maybe it was just an off night for that pitch, as it’s usually a plus pitch for him. His slider had tons of movement, although he didn’t have plus control on that either. It was a great strikeout pitch though.
Hultzen walked 4 guys in 4 innings during the game. All of the walks came when Hultzen was pitching out of the stretch. Hultzen often switched his between a slide-step and a high leg kick when runners were on first base. Based on the video, I think he’s a little better when he’s not using the slide-step. Maybe he doesn’t have a good pick-off move (he didn’t use one, that I recall) but a good amount of lefties get away with not using a slide-step. His control was definitely a problem out of the stretch.
Another problem Hultzen seemed to have was finishing his pitches. Matthew picked up on it right away, and after watching the video I have to agree with him. In the second inning, when Danny got into some trouble, he seemed to really struggle with this. By not finishing his pitch, I mean to say that his leg and arm didn’t follow through as much as they usually do. To use the famous phrase, he was trying to “aim it and not throw it.” It was especially apparent on off-speed pitches (this gave the pitch away to some hitters) but there were a few fastballs where it seemed to be a problem as well.
All in all, Danny was good. There weren’t many hard hit balls, the issue was strictly control. He has great stuff and will succeed. He does have to work through this control issue. I don’t know if the mechanical things I mentioned are a constant problem or just an abnormality. If anyone goes to see him in Tacoma again (he’ll pitch again on Tuesday) look for what I mentioned and let us know.
I’ve got a few more thoughts on Nick Franklin, Triunfel, and Peguero after the jump. Continue reading →
The Mariners are winning 2-0 right now, but they’ve done little else lately to make me want to write about them, at least at the big league level. So, here’s a post about a whole bunch of other stuff! By the way, did anyone make it to the Sonics rally? None of us could make it, and I’m really regretting it. It sounds like it was incredible. If you were there, please put your thoughts in the comments. Would love to hear a first hand account. On to the news!
Mariners Draft
The Mariners have signed the majority of the draft picks they are likely to sign. Of their top 11 picks, only two are unsigned. One is Mike Zunino, the third pick overall. He’s currently playing in the college world series and will likely sign immediately after it’s finished. The other is 8th round 1B Nick Halamandaris (I think I spelled that right). He’s likely to not sign and go to college at this point.
If you read any of our posts or any thing else about the draft, you’ve probably heard about the new bonus pools to which teams have to adhere. Simply, each pick through round ten has a value attached to it, and teams have the sum total of their pick values to spread around to those guys. This led to some strategic drafting, with some teams taking guys they knew they could sign for cheap who aren’t as talented, so that they would have more money for other guys. The Mariners went the opposite way and took a lot of the better players that other teams were passing on. Right now, the Mariners are also way over their budget right now. That should be rectified when Zunino signs, because it’s expected he’ll sign for quite a bit under slot value.
It’s been interesting to watch their signing and draft strategy, but it’s not really important that you know any of that if you don’t care. All that’s important is that the Mariners don’t spend more than 5% over their bonus pool, because then they start losing picks. I would be absolutely shocked if they do that. If you hear anyone panicking about this, just disregard them and realize that the Mariners know what they’re doing. They can’t play baseball, but they can definitely handle a budget!
By the way, lots of the draft picks are playing in Everett, if you’re in the area. Zunino should be higher up, depending on when he signs, but the Aquasox have an interesting roster this year.
The Minors
I’ll keep this short, but Danny Hultzen is essentially the most dominating pitcher for his level in all of organized baseball at the moment. The other day he struggled a bit and still threw a shutout. He’s starting his league all-star game and will likely go to Tacoma, if not Seattle, immediately after. Nick Franklin is also having a pretty ridiculous year and could be at shortstop in Tacoma before long. Taijuan Walker and James Paxton, the rest of the Big Three, are struggling and injured respectively, but it’s nothing to be too concerned about. Not a lot of other pressing news at the moment.
Husky Recruiting
Husky football received a huge commitment today from Cali WR Darrell Daniels. He’s 6’3″ 210 and the best WR on the west coast, according to Scout.com. They have him as the 5th best WR in the country and 35th player overall, and he’ll be a 5-star guy when they update their rankings. This is a huge pickup. He’s similar to Kasen in size and prestige, but looks a little faster on his tape. It’s a long way to signing day, but if Sark can hang onto him, he should be an immediate contributor in 2013.
Daniels was visiting this weekend with a few other top prospects, including DE Joe Mathis. I’ve seen speculation that they could have another commitment or two before long, so we’ll keep you posted. The Huskies now have 8 commits, and it’s shaping up to be one of their best classes in a while. They added a 4-star QB, Troy Williams, last week, who is often compared to Keith Price, but more advanced coming out of high school. Half of the group is from in-state, which is good, although the top two uncommitted guys, LBs Myles Jack and Danny Mattingly, from Bellevue and Spokane respectively, could be tough to land. Still, the Huskies are in on a lot of big time guys from California as well and shouldn’t have any problem filling what’s expected to be a smaller class with elite talent.
Last week, I took a look at Tacoma’s top performers and prospects. I mostly came away disappointed. Since then, Carlos Triunfel has continued hitting and Andrew Carraway had a good start but otherwise not a lot changed. In this post, I won’t be very disappointed. Jackson was heralded as the Mariners’ most talented farm team and the most talented minor league team in all of baseball by many. They haven’t disappointed much. They haven’t just blown people away (mostly because of their offense) but they do sport a 23-17 record (as of Wednesday, May 16th).
Since the beginning of the season, Andrew Carraway (SP) and Stephen Pryor (RP) have moved up to Tacoma. I covered them in my post about the Rainiers but they’ve been pretty awesome. Chih-Hsien Chiang has also moved up to Tacoma since the beginning of the season, mostly due to injuries and not awesomeness. Steven Proscia (3B) started out in High Desert as a guy to keep an eye on and he’s made his way up to Jackson. He obviously excelled at High Desert but has struggled through his first few at-bats in AA. He’s someone to keep an eye on though. Otherwise, the other guys I highlighted in my seasoning opening post are still in Jackson. Again, if there’s any questions about players (or anything else, leave them in the comments). All stats are updated through Wednesday, lets start with position players (and go by position).
Rich is currently on the 7-day DL but he should be back soon (it is only the seven-day DL). Poythress hasn’t hit many home runs but he’s tied for the team lead in doubles. Maybe he misses High Desert? He’s a right-handed hitter and his OPS is over .500 points higher against left-handed pitching (although, small sample sizes). His lone home run and 4 of his 10 doubles have come against left-handed pitching even though he’s only faced them 28 times compared to 84 at-bats against right-handers. Obviously, his K/BB ratio is very good right now. Keep that up, Rich! Poythress had a great year in High Desert in 2010 but hasn’t done much in Jackson last year or this year. The lefty-righty splits are interesting and could make him an interesting option as a platoon bat going forward.
Nick Franklin (SS) – .318/.373/.467, 2 HR, 10 2B’s, 14 RBI’s, 16/10 K/BB, .840 OPS.
Through the top three levels of the Mariners system there’s one position that is having a great amount of success hitting – shortstop. That’s weird, now if only they could play defense. Franklin is probably the best position player prospect in the Mariners system and he hasn’t disappointed thus far. He’s hitting for a good average, a few more walks and homers would be nice but I won’t complain with these results. He’s still only 21 and could see Tacoma by seasons end. The one stat that is a bit scary… 7 errors. This is a common theme among the systems shortstops. Franklin has been dealing with a small, nagging foot injury. That’s annoying but it’s not serious.
Francisco Martinez (3B, CF?) – .245/.317/.311, 0 HR, 8 2B’s, 1 3B, 9 RBI’s, 34/16 K/BB, .629 OPS, 14 SB.
Francisco hasn’t really hit. Well, that’s not fair. He’s done okay, just not very well. He’s got 9 extra base hits which is 5th on the team. Plus, he’s 14 of 16 in stolen bases. The organization loves his speed and has been messing around with the idea of him playing center field. Go for it! We have terrible outfield prospects, do it! Anyway, Martinez strikes out a ton, which is bad. He’s always had a gaudy amount of strikeouts and this year has been no different. If he could raise his contact rate, I’d be very interested in what Martinez could be. For now, he just seems like a really fast guy.
These are Proscia’s combined numbers between High Desert and Jackson. He’s had 24 at-bats since being called up to Jackson and only 4 hits. 3 of those hits have been home runs though. That’s pretty neat. You know what’s not neat? Strikeouts. Maybe our minor league team has been watching our major league team too much. Proscia definitely has power and can get some extra base hits but he swings and misses too much. If he could cut that down just a bit he could become a really interesting prospect like a few other third base prospects in the system. Who would have thought the M’s most interesting position player prospects would be at SS and 3B. Have the Mariners had a good shortstop since Carlos Guillen? Have they ever had a good third baseman not named Beltre? Sorry Steve, this paragraph was supposed to be about you. I forgot. Strike out less and hit more!
Chavez has been hurt for the past few weeks but otherwise he’s been about what we expected. He strikes out a lot but otherwise has put average numbers. He’s another guy who had a great year at High Desert in 2010 but still hasn’t put it together in Jackson.
Joseph Dunigan (OF) – .303/.357/.568, 7 HR’s, 10 2B’s, 2 3B’s, 21 RBI’s, 38/9 K/BB, .925 OPS, 6 SB.
Power! Strikeouts…. Power! I wouldn’t have guessed before the season that Dunigan would be the M’s outfield prospect who’s having the best season. He’s 26, in AA, and was pretty crappy last year. But, he has 19 extra base hits. Double that and you have his strikeouts. The strikeouts are the only thing that keep me from taking Dunigan very seriously. He’s always had decent power, a bad average and a lot of strikeouts. The average has improved but will it stay that way. With 38 of his 133 at-bats ending in K’s I would guess no, but hopefully I’m wrong. Thus far, he may be the biggest surprise of the season. You go, Joe! By the way, Dunigan has 19 extra base hits and only 21 RBI’s. Is this normal? It seems like that’s a lack of RBI’s or maybe I’m way off.
We get to the pitchers after the jump. It’s all good news after the jump (well, mostly). Continue reading →
One of my favorite things to read during the baseball season is Baseball America’s weekly Prospect Hot Sheet. It’s published every Friday (here’s yesterday’s) and there’s an accompanying mid-day online chat with one of BA’s writers. You might have to be a subscriber to participate in the chat, I’m really not sure, but it’s fun to read through later.
The Hot Sheet isn’t a weekly reranking of the best prospects in baseball, as the introduction points out. It’s just a ranking of which guys had the best week in the minors, with the selection skewed heavily towards guys who are actual prospects. You won’t see many guys in their late 20’s, except maybe in the “Man Among Boys” category.
Yesterday’s Hot Sheet was the fourth of the year. The first two contained Mariners prospects, the last two haven’t. Going by memory, Danny Hultzen, Taijuan Walker and Brad Miller have all made appearances, and I think Nick Franklin might have snuck into the “Team Photo”.
There’s nothing too revelatory in this post. I just wanted to pass along the link. The Hot Sheet and chat is a good way to get to know prospects throughout baseball and keep up on who’s having a good year.
Talking quickly about the Mariners minors, all the talk has been about Double-A Jackson, which BA called the most talented team in the minors. Continue reading →
Have you ever thought about the confusion that most come with farmers who follow minor league baseball closely. They might ask, “What’s going on down on the farm today?” How does the farmers confused son answer? It could be, “The cows are milked, the chickens are laying eggs, and the sheep dog is having a good time.” He could also say, “James Paxton looked awfully good in his debut and Nick Franklin has started the season on fire.” Both answers are correct, assuming the farmer has kept his farm in good health, but the father’s probably only looking for one answer. Man, that would get confusing. Of course you haven’t thought about that. No one has because that’s stupid. Well, maybe the select farmers who follow baseball make a good wise crack about it sometimes.
There's our boys!
The Mariners farm has been making a good amount of noise in the last year. How’s that for a transition? Say what you want to about Jack Z, but he has truly brought the farm system to one of the highest levels it’s ever been at in organizational history. Yes, that doesn’t mean definite success but that’s one of the reasons why Matthew, me and many others are big fans of his.
The minor league teams opened the season Thursday and I thought I’d give you a quick rundown of players you might be interested and where they’re at. I’ll just go team-by-team through the system with the players I find the most interesting. I will skip over some players because, either, I don’t find them interesting or I just simply miss them on accident. Leave any player questions in the comments and I’ll get to them. Also, Jay Yencich from USS Mariner has written a preview for each team that will be much more detailed than my rundown so I’ll link it by the team name for all those hardcore fans like the farmer in the first paragraph (ha! You thought I couldn’t tie that back in).
Triple-A teams often don’t have top prospects in them, at least for long. It’s thought that AAA teams store all the depth for the big-league club and that includes many AAAA players (what I mean by that is players who have mastered triple-A but can’t quite cut it in the majors for the long haul). No offense, Mike Wilson. That holds mostly true this year. The Mariners double-A team may have more talent on it, but Tacoma still has some very interesting names. Here are the names that intrigue me the most in Tacoma.
Players to watch:
Maurico Robles and Forrest Snow (SP) – Tacoma’s starting rotation leaves a bit to be desired but these are the two most interesting prospects here. Robles is a lefty who has a low-90’s fastball. If he’s going to make the majors, it’ll be as a reliever. I’m not sure why he isn’t in the bullpen already. He struggles with control. Forrest Snow is a UW alum and stands a bit more of a chance to get into the M’s rotation at some point. He’s basically skipping the double-A level. He doesn’t have the best stuff (good change-up but everything else is about average) but could be a decent back of the rotation starter. Anthony Vasquez is in Tacoma too but he should never start a game for the M’s again. Please.
Charlie Furbush – You know about him. He’s a lefty and was with the Mariners most of the 2nd half last year. He is in the bullpen but he could make a spot start here and there. He has decent stuff and sometimes it’s even pretty good. If he keeps the home runs down he’ll find his way up soon.
Chance Ruffin – Tacoma’s strength is their bullpen. Ruffin is a righty with a mid-90’s fastball and good slider. He was with the M’s at the end of last year and will be again, I imagine.
Shawn Kelley – Another good righty in the bullpen. He lost a little velocity from Tommy John surgery and maybe they sent him down to try to get it back? I don’t know, but he’s probably better than some of the guys in the Seattle bullpen.
Cesar Jimenez -Cesar is a lefty specialist and there’s usually a place on big-league clubs for players like this eventually. He has gotten a little worse with his control and overall numbers the last couple of years. Still, he’s worth keeping an eye on. All four of these guys aren’t far from making the Mariners and I bet some of them will be up before the end of the month even.
Vinnie Catricala (3B) – Position players! Vinnie is probably the best, actual prospect on Tacoma. He can hit really well. Vinnie made a push for the 3rd base job in the spring but lost out. That’s probably good since he’s hardly played in AA, and has not played at all in AAA. He has improved his strikeout numbers last year and hopefully will do so again this year. He needs to improve his defense too. The guy can hit and will find a place on the M’s soon if he can find a true position.
Carlos Triunfel (2B, SS) – Triunfel will probably play shortstop for Tacoma most of the time. He used to be the prized prospect in the system but a broken leg kind of unhinged him and he hasn’t really regained his top status since. His hitting numbers went down and his defense at shortstop is questionable. He’s still pretty young and had a large improvement last year so maybe there’s still hope for him.
Carlos Peguero (LF) – Maybe I shouldn’t put him in here because if you follow what I write you know that I’m not a fan of his at all. He swings and misses way too much, sucks at defense, and has no plate discipline. That being said, he hits the ball a country mile and has started off the year on fire.
Trayvon Robinson (CF) – Trayvon strikes out too much but he hits for some power and has a good amount of speed (although his stolen bases have gone down a lot for some reason). If he could up his contact rate, he’d be a really interesting player that would be fighting to the top of the centerfield pile. Lets hope for some development.
That’s it for Tacoma, and I’m already over 1000 words. Check out the most talented team in the minors after the jump! I’m not kidding, extremely talented!
Almost. It’s almost game time. On the weirdest opening morning ever, Andrew and I are hanging out, watching the underrated classic Orange County, with The Sandlot on deck. I hope the Mariners never have another 3 AM opening game, but it’s kind of like the Alamo Bowl was: not particularly pleasant, but pretty fun and well worth the memory.
So, what to expect from these Mariners? The playoffs aren’t impossible, but they’re pretty unlikely. It would take almost everyone developing like you would dream, Ichiro and other veterans having huge comeback years, and probably a lot of luck on top of it. Stranger things have happened, but I’m not betting on it. Call 81 wins the more reasonable goal. Even that might be wishful thinking, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
This will really be a season about watching for signs of hope for the future. Ideally this year would provide a couple of guys who can be counted on as future franchise cornerstones, a veteran or two taking a step forward, and the emergence of new prospects to replace those who are now or will shortly be in the big leagues.
More specifically, here’s a few things I’d love to see:
Justin Smoak hitting the ball (and staying healthy). The future Mariners offense looks much better now than it did a year ago, but it still has questions. Ackley and Montero are reasonably sure things given their inexperience, but few others fit that description. If Smoak can consistently flash his talent, he becomes a third middle of the order guy and makes the offense much easier to build.
Ichiro bouncing back. I love Ichiro. I hope he goes back to his pre-2011 level and gets a contract extension and reaches 3,000 hits in Seattle. Don’t know if it’ll happen, but I’m hoping.
One of the outfielders emerging from the pile. The most likely bet here is that Mike Carp solidifies himself as a viable outfielder who can hit, but I’m personally hoping Michael Saunders can do something. Casper Wells, Trayvon Robinson, Franklin Gutierrez: any of you can take this opportunity to do something.
I’d really love for Chone Figgins to not be on the team in August. That would mean they’ve either bit the bullet and released him, or he’s played well enough to be traded. I’m good with either. Sorry, Chone, but I’m just tired of watching you.
It’ll be great when/if the trifecta of Danny Hultzen, James Paxton and Taijuan Walker make their debuts, but I’ll be watching before that to see if Hector Noesi, Blake Beavan or Erasmo Ramirez can make an impression. Pitchers flame out and get hurt, so banking on three prospects is always risky. The Mariners need to develop some depth.
It’s been a long time since we’ve had one of those bullpens of death like the 2001 team or the Padres always seem to have. I don’t expect this year’s team to change that, but I would love to see a few young relievers emerge to move them in that direction.
So that’s mostly it. A few of those things happen, the M’s score a few more runs, and we get some good memories, and I’ll be fairly satisfied with this year. Not saying I wouldn’t love a surprise run for that 2nd wild card spot, but if I’m trying to be realistic, there are worse things than a young team with lots to prove. Like a team of Miguel Batista, Carlos Silva and Jose Vidro. That is not a fun team. This can be so much better than that.
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