Tag Archives: Eric Chavez

by | December 7, 2010 · 9:29 pm

M’s Quiet at the MLB Winter Meetings

Let me first say that I am a sucker for the annual MLB winter meetings. I love the rumors, love the trades, and the possibility of hearing the Mariners connected to a big name, like Cliff Lee last year. I follow it all on twitter, and I don’t miss a single tweet from the gurus. The winter meetings bring excitement into my life, a lot like the NFL draft. You can make your own judgments of me, but I love this stuff. So now that you see where I’m coming from, as a Mariners fan, you can understand my disappointment with this years’ winter meetings so far. I didn’t expect the M’s to be big players, unlike last year, but Jack typically makes a splash, and I have not heard anything noteworthy. I mean seriously, here’s the few M’s related tweets I’ve seen.

“AL West foes A’s & Mariners seem to be going head to head on at least 2 free agents, RHP Dennys Reyes, a reliever, and C Gregg Zaun.” – John Hickey

“Sources tell me Mariners are targeting Luis Valbuena for need at second.” -Shannon Drayer

“Sources: Strong multi-year interest for FA RHP Kevin Gregg. Offers from RedSox, Pirates, Nationals. Orioles, Mariners also in mix.” -Ken Rosenthal

“Jorge Cantu generating interest in San Diego, Seattle, Arizona.” -Tim Brown

“Rays and Mariners showing interest in free agent LHP Mark Hendrickson.” -Jon Morosi

“Mariners liked Rich Harden as a free agent last off-season — and they are interested now, too.” -Jon Morosi

“The Seattle Mariners have checked in on Eric Chavez as a possible low-risk 1B-3B-DH option if he’s healthy.” -Jerry Crasnick

On the excitement meter, these rate has major duds. I’m glad we aren’t signing guys like Jayson Werth for 7 years and $126 million, but I need something Jack! Last year, the M’s attempted to re-build and compete for the playoffs at the same time; a tricky task to say the least, and it obviously didn’t pan out. I think this year, given the strength of the Rangers and Angels, and the fact that we had the worst record in the AL last year, a major youth movement makes the most sense. Sure, Seattle could conceivably offer a package of Smoak, Pineda, etc. for a pitcher like Zach Greinke, and also sign Carlos Pena or another bat, and put together a pretty competitive team next year. But would that even be enough to challenge in the AL West? Perhaps, but it is probably best to hold onto our blue chips prospects rather than mortgage the future, and make a run in 2012.

I understand the logic, but it’s boring and frustrating. I want the M’s to be good…like NOW. Unfortunately, the waiting must continue. Maybe we will make a couple minor splashes in days to come, but the biggest moves are probably a year away.

-Dan

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by | April 8, 2010 · 2:16 pm

Game Recap – 4/7/2010

Well that sucked.

Seriously, that was hard to watch. The quick summary is Hyphen missed his spots a few times tonight, our offense was mediocre, and Oakland clawed back from 3 separate deficits to earn its second walk off victory in as many nights.

Baseball is a tough sport to follow for 162 games. We are attempting to do it here on this blog, and already I’m thinking this will take years off my life. In the NFL you play 16 regular season games, so losing a tough one can only happen once a week. Not the case in baseball, where there’s a game almost daily. This is good when trying to get past a tough loss like this one, but the point is, we have to pace ourselves as fans. It really is a marathon season.

That being said, these April games seem a little more important than usual because the last thing this team needs is to be 10 games below .500 when it finally gets healthy in June. Not a good sign when we can’t win with our 2 and 3 starter either, considering our 4 and 5 aren’t very promising.

This afternoon the M’s have a shot at salvaging a split in this opening series. It would be nice to walk away with a split, and pretty bad to lose 3 in a row to this team. I really don’t think Oakland is good, but you have to give credit to a team that makes the most of its hits, and capitalizes on its opportunities. I doubt this timely hitting can sustain the A’s all year, but for a few nights it has been their winning recipe.

Hero: Milton Bradley. I don’t care that some think he should have caught Suzuki’s game winner, the bottom line is Milton hit a 2 run dinger, his first hit as a Mariner, and when you hit home runs for this team, there’s a good chance it’s enough to earn our stud performer. He also had 2 nice catches in the field.

Goat: Rob Johnson. 0-3, 3 K’s, 1 passed ball, at least another 3 drops.

Some bullets:

  • Every time I watch a Mark Ellis at bat, he singles to right field.
  • For the second year in a row, the M’s have had back to back 1 run losses in games 2 and 3. Last year, Minnesota gave us the painful losses thanks to some Brandon Morrow implosions.
  • I don’t understand carrying Eric Byrnes, Ryan Langerhans, and Mike Sweeney. One of them should go.
  • The attendance for game 2 was 18,000. The night before it was 10,000. I can hardly blame Oakland fans though, considering the stadium is a dump and across the bridge is AT&T Park, which is a gem.
  • I thought Mark Lowe pitched well tonight. That slider he threw to strike out whoever it was flat out stank! (as Dave Niehaus would say)
  • Eric Chavez looks like Orlando Bloom.

    -Dan

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