I recently had a chance to talk sports, working in sports, and even a little Arod with 710 ESPN Seattle’s Liz Mathews. Liz is “The Professor” John Clayton’s producer on The John Clayton show on 710 ESPN Seattle, an avid Seattle Seahawk fan, and she practices law. Liz was nice enough to take the time to answer every question I had for her, and did a great job in doing so.
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With the MLB playoffs set to begin, there is a subtle difference in the air compared to start of any other postseason. In the NHL, fans can potentially look forward to a great Canadians/Bruins series that is not only exciting, but has a historical kick to it. Likewise basketball fans always have the chance to see if the Suns can finally get past the Spurs and football fans love seeing the rivalry of the Eagles Vs the City of Philadelphia when the Eagles so much as get tackled for a loss.
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Two bits of news from former Seattle players, one surprising, but the other one, not so much.
Easy one first: the Yankees designated Richie Sexson for assignment yesterday, in a roster shakeup that included demoting starting center fielder Melky Cabrera. Sexson had hit .250 in 28 at-bats, with a grand slam and six RBis. Ever the all-or-nothing guy, Sexson had one or two big hits, and a whole lot of hits and weak groundouts. Yankees GM Brian Cashman was gracious about Sexson, saying he was an everyday player, not a bunch guy, and that was the problem.
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To add to yesterday's post, neither Ibanez nor Washburn was dealt after they were claimed on waivers. According to the Post-Intelligencer, the Twins put in claims on both, and their waiver number was higher for Jarrod, while the Tigers claim was highest for Ibanez.
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According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, teams have claimed both Jarrod Washburn and Raul Ibanez, contradicting earlier reports I'd heard that Washburn had passed through waivers. This happened on Tuesday, meaning that Seattle has until today to work out a trade with the claiming team or simply allow the players to be claimed. If the Mariners pull them back from waivers, it means that if Seattle tries to waive them again, it's irrevocable, and the claiming team can simply take the players (and their salaries) without compensation to Seattle.
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Even if it ended badly for the Mariners, and for Willie Bloomquist in particular, last night's game against first-place Tampa Bay showed that the Mariners still have some fight in them. Though they blew a four-run lead on errors by Jose Lopez and failed to drive home a run in what should have been an easy game-winning situation, Seattle provided some excitement and refused to give up, even with an utterly depleted bench that had them giving up the DH in order to have enough position players. And we got another glimpse of the Mariners' future, at least on the mound.
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The Mariners announced today that Jarrod Washburn has cleared waivers, meaning he can now be freely traded to whatever team wants to take on his massive salary. There's no real surprise here, as it's doubtful any other team would want to take on his bloated $9.85M salary. So the failure of Seattle to deal him before the deadline isn't so awful, except that his value seemed to have peaked at that point for a couple of reasons: (1) he'd pitched really well to that point (4 ER in 19.2 IP in the three starts before the deadline, (2) his value diminishes with each day that passes, since that means less time he can spend with a contending team (e.g., the Yanks) starved for starters, which leads to (3) the team in question being more likely to go in another direction.
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Well, someone in the front office has been reading my blog (as well as those of other Mariners fans), since Seattle's housecleaning continues with the long-awaited designation of Jose Vidro for assignment. This gives the Ms 10 days to trade, release, or assign Vidro to the minors. Since they have no plans to bring him back up, it's doubtful they'd put him in Tacoma (and even more doubtful that he'd accept the assignment). It's even more doubtful that any team would take him on, at least at his current salary, anyway.
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In last night's game, we got to see why Raul Ibanez is a valuable commodity, even to a flailing team like the Mariners, and beyond even the good-but-not-great numbers he puts up. During the seventh inning, when Ibanez had a chance to take a swipe at history, with his team already ahead three runs in a game amid season that's lost virtually any meaning, he put his team first.
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A few trades of note for Mariners fans--the ones made, the ones not made, and the ones made by other teams. Here are the Top 3 Seattle Deadline Stories:
1. Rhodes is now a Marlin. This was the guy everyone figured the Mariners would deal, and it came through. It makes complete sense, as the Mariners don't need Rhodes down the stretch, for a handful of lefty specialist innings, while the Marlins do. In return, Seattle gets Gaby Hernandez, a once-well-regarded starter who's scuffled at Albuquerque (where every pitcher scuffles), and he'll get a fresh start with Tacoma and the Mariners. He's nobody special, but Rhodes is an aging lefty in a one-year deal, so Lee Pelekoudas got who he could. Nice job, Lee.
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In what is largely perceived as his final start in a Mariners' uniform, Jarrod Washburn threw his longest and best start of the year, logging 8 innings of one-run ball, giving up just four hits and walking two against two strikeouts. His only blemish was a solo homer to John McDonald, the Toronto shortstop's first of the year.
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As the July 31 deadline approaches, one of the most likely trade candidates mentioned in Seattle-New York trade rumors has been Jarrod Washburn. The Ms would love to shed his massively overpaid salary, while the Yanks need a starter who can eat innings, even if he does it in mediocre, Jarrod-esque fashion. That Wishy-Washburn has been good of late (since a May 21 2IP, 9ER meltdown, he's only given up more than 2 ER in two of his ten starts) makes him seem all the more attractive to the pinstripes.
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The AP is reporting the obvious, that Jose Vidro will lose time to the recently promoted Bryan LaHair at the DH spot, making me wonder (for the eleventy-millionth time) why he’s using up a roster spot at all. A backup DH? That’s about as useful as a left-handed monkey wrench, and about as valuable, too.
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As I expected, Richie Sexson was signed by the one team in major league baseball who signs every single castoff, just in case he might turn it around in pinstripes: the Yankees. The temptation of that short porch in Yankee Stadium right field, combined with Sexson’s power potential, was too tempting to the team that claimed Jose Canseco off waivers in 2000, just to be sure he didn’t go to a division rival.
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One of the All-Star Break traditions: Reassessing our predictions from the first half of the season. Some of mine have changed, some have stayed the same—and some were just damn wrong. Living in the West, I will take the contrarian position and roll from west to east in my choices.
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For my loyal readers, sorry for the hiatus, as I was out of town at a trade show.
So much to cover from while I was gone, including the two big NL Central pitcher trades (you might be surprised as to which one I think will have the bigger impact) and Tampa Bay suddenly falling into the tank (are Rays fans scared yet?). But I want to start with something near and dear to Mariners fans, especially those on this blog.
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Don’t look now, but the Mariners have suddenly won two series in a row, sparked by Jeff Clement’s two-dinger performance last night. They’ve got a huge hike just to get back to respectability and avoid the specter of being the first team with a $100M+ payroll to lose 100 games—hey, I’d take $1M to lose a game, wouldn’t you? —but the signs are there. Some of them, anyway.
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Apropos of yesterday’s blog about what a last-place team should be doing, let’s look at the Toronto Blue Jays, in a similar situation as the Mariners, if not nearly as dire. In last place in one of baseball’s toughest divisions, the 38-43 Jays canned manager John Gibbons on June 20, replacing him with veteran Cito Gaston.
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I'm going to deliberately provoke the ire of my easily ire-provokable friend/reader Drano by using horse racing once again as a blog segue (blogue? Have I created a word here?) For those who aren't privy to our emails--which is anyone outside of the NSA, I suppose--Drano doesn't like that I've mentioned a failed Triple Crown in horse racing while utterly failing to mention the victory of his team in the exciting Stanley Cup that happened a few weeks back. His team . . . the Stanley Cup . . . darned if I can't remember the name of his team or the sport he follows so avidly . . . but anyway, on to horse racing and baseball . . .
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Well, if there was ever a reason to just hang up the cleats and call it a season, it happened to the Ms today and last night. After a brilliant performance where he hit the first HR by a Mariners pitcher, and the first grand slam for an AL pitcher since Steve Dunning of Cleveland in 1971 (that was before the DH was introduced).
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The Yankees and Red Sox are rivals in many ways—traditional and league rivals for years, they now regularly battle for free agents, as they might do with Indians trade bait C.C. Sabathia. And now both teams have some pretty crazy pitchers in their minor league systems, both of whom have a good shot at making the bigs in the next few years.
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The dominoes continue to fall in Seattle, as John McLaren was handed his walking papers yesterday, three days after GM Bavasi tried on his own pink slip. In some ways, this was handled better than the Mets’ embarrassing and insulting firing of Willie Randolph. At least McLaren wasn’t dangled for weeks before a midnight assassination, and there were suitably kind words for McLaren upon his dismissal, with new GM Lee Pelekoudas obviously distressed about having to fire his longtime friend and colleague.
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Along with the rest of the Mariner community on this site (and Seattle fans across the NW) I've been howling for the head of Bill Bavasi, and that chorus of angry villagers only became more raucous as the Ms have stumbled to the worst record in baseball this season, and the siege on Castle Frankenstein had begun. Miraculously, Mariner management saw the light (or perhaps the flickering torches) and fired Bavasi yesterday, a move that began joyous celebrations across the tri-state area.
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Though they don't seem as devastating as the Soriano/Pujols loss I wrote about yesterday, two key players have gone down on two other teams today. Cleveland put Victor Martinez on the DL, while Seattle placed its once-reliable closer JJ Putz back on the DL, both with elbow injuries. And unlike Soriano's freak fracture, there were hints at undiagnosed problems with both Martinez and Putz.
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To Junior, it must have felt like giving birth after a long and complex labor. Hitting his 600th home run last night was probably the most overpredicted and overdue statistical milepost in baseball history. We've been waiting for this to happen for at least ten years, ever since he put up back-to-back 56 homer seasons for Seattle in '97 and '98. When that season wrapped up, he had 350 career longballs at age 28, becoming the fastest player in history to hit that many, a feat he repeated when he cracked his 400th.
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Well, it was all over ESPN last night, and the Seattle bloggers and sportswriters are buzzing about it: the normally cool-headed John McLaren lost his temper in yesterday's news conference. His Mariners are 18 games below .500 in spite of a $120M payroll, and they play like a team of Little Leaguers, or at least overpaid Little Leaguers who are just waiting for their candy bar and Gatorade at the end of the game. McLaren railed about how tired he was of losing, how tired his players are of playing hard but getting nothing for their efforts, and of how something was going to have to change--and soon.
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Facing the second batter in last night's game against the Giants, Randy Johnson tied Roger Clemens at #2 on the all-time strikeouts list. With the third batter, he gained sole possession of the second spot, a place he should hold for a very, very long time.
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With the strangehold that FOX has on Saturday afternoon baseball (see my earlier rant on this), I get the distinct pleasure today of watching the 23-31 Tigers muddle around the diamond with the 20-35 Mariners, a matchup with all the excitement of watching two toddlers tussle in the sandbox over a broken Tonka truck. I'm sure this looked like a good game during the preseason FOX schedule-making, but now it's barely enough to hold my interest.
Continue reading "Weak Saturday Baseball: Mariners vs. Tigers"
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It's been difficult to blog about the Ms this season, as I hate to add my voice (and bad-fan juju) to all the naysayers out there bemoaning Seattle's poor start (if one can call nearly two months of 14-games-under-.500, 11.5-games-out-of-first baseball a "start"). I'm not ready to write their season off just yet, nor am I calling for the head of John McLaren, but they have had me worried, scouring the dank bottomland of the weak AL East like a scrawny catfish on his last . . . er, fins.
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One of the talked-about items in two of my fave teams (Reds and Mariners) is the possible return of Griffey to the place where he got his start. Seattle's been scouting him, and there's a bit of a buzz, but it's not much more than idle talk at this point, but it's an interesting feel-good possibility that could help out both teams. Let's look at the pros and cons and possible stumbling blocks:
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Living in Portland, I've adopted the Mariners as my team. They're generally fun to root for, play at a good park, and succeed just enough for fans to feel like This Year Might Be The Year. But is it?
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Seattle Mariners
Will this be Felix Hernandez’ breakout season?
Seattle ended up a surprise contender last season despite a pitching staff that ranked 10th in the American League in both ERA and strikeouts. To fix that, they went out and traded for Erik Bedard who could team with Felix Hernandez to be the best front end of a rotation in the entire Major Leagues this season. This is all contingent upon Hernandez taking the next step in his development as a pitcher.
Continue reading "MLB 2008 Season Preview: American League West"
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