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TagsPhoto: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo
The meerkats are coming! May 1 is the date for their cute blitzkrieg on the Woodland Park Zoo.
Eight Rikki-Tikki-Tavi relatives will take over a newly renovated exhibit in the zoo's Adaptations Building. They've been away for ten years, and now they're returning to settle old scores by zooming along tunnels or poking their heads out curiously with their WIDDLE NOSES!
Now, back to hard-nosed news. Underwater? Scrambling to pay the mortgage? If only you could "strategically default," like the owner of the Columbia Tower, plus nine other office towers and buildings in Seattle and Bellevue, as reported in the Seattle Times.
With office rents plummeting due to an almost 20 percent vacancy rate in Seattle, Beacon Capital Properties says its rental income covers (after expenses) covers only 20 percent of its loan payments.
The Teamsters threw an on-again, off-again strike to protest Waste Management, Inc., raising their share of health insurance costs. You'd think garbage collection was a stable revenue stream, but I checked WMI's annual report and revenue fell about 15 percent last year. You know what didn't? Health insurance costs.
Down at City Hall, the Mayor vetoed the anti-aggressive-panhandling bill, after a 5-4 City Council vote in favor. All nine members of the Council signed on to a firmly worded letter to the Mayor, asking him to lift a hiring freeze on new police officers. McGinn, on KUOW, said the Council had passed an unbalanced budget. (Nyah, nyah.) So that's going well. Image-wise, everyone comes out wearing the same size clown shoes. In the meantime, here's SeattleCrime.com's map of where you can go to get robbed.
In other testy government-epistle news, the Sustainable 520 Coalition sent a letter to the Governor laying out the grounds for redesigning 520's replacement to carry light rail from day one. Washington's rich people have had it with the spineless legislature! If they won't pass a high-earner's income tax, they'll do it by initiative. If BNET's crystal ball isn't cracked, we're incubating a substantial increase in new jobs over the next ten years. Group Health Credit Union is changing its name to Salal Credit Union. Huh....
Only 14,528 came out last night to watch the Mariners paste the Orioles. On the bright side, that's nearly 12,000 more than Conan O'Brien drew at the 2,800-seat Paramount the 2,900-seat McCaw Hall. On the dark side, Conan didn't play to any empty seats. The M's had 32,000 of them. It was their worst-attended Safeco Field game ever.
The local sports community is confused. Why aren't people showing? "The M's ... had an incredibly productive off-season and were pre-season contenders for the AL West crown," writes ESPN 710's Mike Salk. "They are not a bad team."
Well, you've answered your own question, Mike: While diehard sports fans may care about productive off-seasons and pre-season predictions, the casual fan--the one who does most of the ticket-buying--decidedly does not.
When you're someone who follows sports closely, it's easy to forget how few of the things you care about on a daily basis--M's Sign Ramon Vazquez to a Minor League Contract!--make it into the consciousness of the average person. Just like what's news to politics diehards couldn't matter less to me. For instance: Over on Publicola, something called "O'Brien Will Vote No on Panhandling Ordinance" is marked "Exclusive!" Who? What? Ping me when someone takes a bribe....
The Florida Marlins hired Creed's Scott Stapp to compose and sing a team song. It's called "Marlins Will Soar," even though it really sounds like he's singing "Marlins Will Suck." FEEL THE POWER!
Well, isn't that...Creedy. Here in Seattle we have no official team troubadour, but we do have YouTuber ErinBev, who's written a ukeleke ode to Ryan Rowland-Smith.
Extra points for this line: "When he throws his change-ups are they to Rob Johnson's glove, or are they straight to my heart?"
My personal El Dorado is the ideal place to watch baseball. Join me on my search, won't you?
I get to Mike's Chili Parlor in the shadow of the Ballard Bridge a few minutes before first pitch. The televisions, none of which are of the HD variety, are tuned to Yankees/Red Sox. I claim a bar stool, next to a slender older fellow in work clothes and a "Ketchikan, Alaska" hat. The even slenderer and older bartender comes by. I ask: "Are you going to put the Mariner game on one of these TVs?"
"I will when it's time," he says definitively, and turns away to get my order of a bowl of chili and a beer. The bartender does not seem interested in talking. The guy next to me? Well, that's a different story.
A fun fact: When someone prefaces a sentence with "I don't mean to talk politics in a bar," you are about to hear someone talk politics in a bar. Over the course of my meal and the first few innings of Mariners, I'm treated to an expansive discourse that touches on these topics:
-- Why black athletes are better than white ones. ("Culture")
-- Global warming, its causes. (Not man)
-- How quickly a glass beer bottle left out in Antarctica will explode. (About five minutes)
-- The mounting national deficit.
-- The recent mayoral election in Ketchikan.
-- The likelihood that Mariners LF Eric Byrnes will hit a ball to center. (Very, because he's Norwegian.)
After I've finished my chili and my Rainier, I decamp. Thanks, Mike's Chili Parlor. Time to rate you! (1-10)...
More exciting than Mariner baseball
Baseball is supposed to bring fathers and sons together, and it certainly did yesterday for the father and son sitting one row in front of me. It brought them together in a united effort to ignore the fiasco unfolding before them and instead play video games on their iPhones.
We weren't out of inning six before son, a pre-teen in a stylish windbreaker, busted out Cube Runner. Dad, who bore a passing resemblance to Phil on Modern Family, got next turn. By the eighth they'd moved on to what looked like Centipede.
I stupidly kept my eyes fixed on the field, where the Mariners put forth the lamest opening day offensive effort in team history. Two hits! Two! Yes, the Mariners had been two-hit before in a home opener, but that was by Pedro Martinez in his prime. A's starter Justin Duchscherer is a talented pitcher, but vintage Pedro he's not.
For sheer awfulness, the only home opener comparison is 1992, when the M's bullpen blew a five-run lead in a portentous 12-10 loss.
Starting pitcher in that game 18 years ago was Randy Johnson. The Big Unit who appeared a few hundred yards to the south yesterday at Safeco to throw out the first pitch. Johnson made his entrance from centerfield, walking toward the mound enveloped by a sustained standing ovation. His pitch, to longtime battery mate Dan Wilson, was an indisputable strike. Wilson and Johnson met and shook hands after the pitch; they were soon joined by fellow Mariner legends Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner, and Ken Griffey Jr. for a '95 Mariners photo-op....
We've come a long way, baby. I can remember when the Mariners' opening day musical guest was Kenny G, and the first pitch honoree was Morganna, the Kissing Bandit.
Today's Mariners opening day festivities, which begin at 3 p.m. at Safeco Field, will feature Death Cab for Cutie; the local boys will sing two unannounced "classic baseball" songs. Randy Johnson, the best pitcher in team history, will throw out the first pitch. And Ichiro will get his Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards. If you aren't going to be at Safeco, you can watch the event live on the M's website.
Death Cab practicing their Opening Day set (@therealmariners via Twitter)
Also new to fans this year: A renovated menu, including more options for vegans, gluten-haters, foodies, and the frugal. For example: A Dungeness crab sandwich served on garlic artisan French bread from Essential Baking Company. (That's at the "Sound Seafood" stand in section 248.) A new stand called "The Natural," in section 132, will feature vegetarian, vegan, and organic foods. Like fresh fruit! What a revelation! As someone who'll hit probably 25 M's games this year, I'm delighted, as I would prefer not to end the summer weighing 275. Another improvement: a new LED scoreboard in left field.
Parking is always a nightmare on opening day; when you combine a near-sellout crowd with the normal commuter crowd, it gets gross. Happily there are some traffic improvements. The new Royal Brougham way overpass opens today (map in pdf), it provides direct access to the Qwest Field parking lot, and will also put cars, bikes and pedestrians over the train tracks. Other good news: There are now two turn lanes from 1st Avenue S. onto Edgar Martinez Way and the entrance to the Safeco Field lot. Bad news: The northbound I-5 exit onto 4th Avenue S. won't be open until later this month.
Oh! And there will be a baseball game played! Game time is 3:40. The M's Ryan Rowland-Smith and the A's Justin Duchscherer will pitch, the same matchup as we had last Wednesday in Oakland. Neither pitched well, nor did they figure in the decision, a 6-5 A's win. Let's go Hyphen!
Mike Sweeney and Jack Zduriencik
A few months into my post-college life, I made a desperate call to my mom. I'd committed some mistakes at my entry-level job, and was worried that I might get fired--which, obviously, at 21, would've been the end of my life. Her advice was wonderful: "Seth, it usually comes down to whether they like you or not. If they like you, they're not going to fire you."
You know who I like? Mariners DH Mike Sweeney. The five-time All-Star embraced his bench role with the M's last year, becoming the unofficial captain of what he dubbed the "L. Ben Show." (Sound it out.)
Along with Ken Griffey Jr., Sweeney was credited with turning a poisonous M's clubhouse into a much happier, and much more victorious, space. What Sweeney didn't do is hit particularly well. Still, Sweeney's back with the team this year, much enraging the unsentimental portion of the Mariner fan base.
Wrote USS Mariner's Dave Cameron after the M's chose to keep Sweeney over defensive whiz Ryan Langerhans: "There’s no nice way to say this--the team is now actively making themselves worse to keep Mike Sweeney’s personality around. Langerhans is a better hitter, a better fielder, a better runner, and a guy who can actually serve a useful purpose on this team. ... Go away, Mike Sweeney. If you want to hang out with the guys, accept a coaching job."...
He'd fit right in on this team
"Speed never slumps," the old saying goes. But bats do, and you can't win many baseball games with your legs--though it looks like the 2010 Mariners are going to try.
In their opening-game win over Oakland, the M's had three stolen bases, two by new second baseman Chone Figgins. Figgins also forced three Oakland errors with his speed.
In yesterday's extra-inning loss, the M's speed got them their only run of the night. After lashing a double, Franklin Gutierrez' bluffs off second base suckered Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden into a balk. Gutierrez then scored on a wild pitch.
The dark lining to this silver cloud is that the Mariners can be made to look pitiful at the plate. Oakland's Braden, who averaged about four strikeouts per start last season, struck out 10 Mariners last night. And these were not strikeouts of the blow-you-away variety.
Nine of the K's came on Braden's slllloooowwww change, which ranges from 71-74 mph. Not sure I've ever seen that many major leaguers strike out on a pitch so slow.
"He was throwing it for a strike, keeping it down," said Figgins, who struck out twice. "You do it on both sides of the plate like he was, and it makes it awfully tough to hit."
Dave Cameron of USS Mariner had a different take: "The M’s decided to abandon their make-the-pitcher-work approach and chased every pitch he threw. [...] That looked more like bad hitting than great pitching to me."
Jack Wilson has been especially pitiful at the plate; impatient and ineffective. In eight hitless at bats, Wilson has seen just 23 pitches. If the M's keep him in the lineup for his glove, Wilson has a chance to have the worst offensive year ever for an M's shortstop, which is saying something for a team that once employed Mario Mendoza.
The M's try to find their hitting stroke tonight against two-time All-Star Justin Duchscherer, who missed last season with an elbow injury and a bout with depression.
You can buy that 1981 Topps Mario Mendoza card for $.10 on CheckOutMyCards.com
The centerfield wall at the Mariners' spring training stadium is a joke. No, really, it literally is a joke. Prankster Ken Griffey Jr. had the wall covered with a 60x30 foot photo of him jostling notoriously gruff coach Roger Hansen. See? (via @theRealmariners)
Impressive, huh? The joke being that no-nonsense Hansen, the M's catching coordinator and Griffey's minor-league roommate, isn't one to let another man embrace him. Now, proof positive that Hansen's a big softie. Hansen got his revenge by calling Griffey's mom to complain.
Other hilarity highlights from spring: Milton Bradley leaving a box of "Just for Men" hair coloring in graying Griffey's locker. Ryan Rowland-Smith interviewing teammates after an ESPN The Magazine photo shoot (video!). A "Mariners Idol" singing competition, with Ichiro and Griffey serving as judges. (Three minor leaguers won by singing in grass skirts and coconut tops.)
Yesterday, the Mariners played a game of "backwards baseball." Right-handed hitters had to bat lefty, and vice versa, and players ran the bases clockwise. Ha!...
The Kingdome looms over the guided missile cruiser USS LEAHY (CG-16), arriving in port during the Seattle Sea Fair 1982. (Photo by PH1 HAROLD J. GERWIEN)
I wrote the following article on the Kingdome's death just under 10 years ago. Since this is the anniversary of the building's implosion, I thought this was a good time to re-present it and remember the Dome in the days after its extinction but before it became a very dim memory:
I didn’t see the Kingdome’s end. I didn’t see the Kingdome’s beginning. I did, though, grow more and more familiar with it throughout the '90s, first as an occasional visitor, then as a Seattle resident.
It always seemed out of place in Seattle’s skyline: the lean skyscrapers glistening off the water and dockside piers and shipping facilities giving way to a plump, squat mushroom bulging above rows of SoDo warehouses. What was that concrete behemoth doing adjacent to the brick and stone of Pioneer Square?
But watching Mariner games (I never saw anything else in the Dome, save one high school basketball title game) was pretty enjoyable. The controlled climate assured you that the weather wouldn’t intrude on the game, while the dome and carpeted field gave the event a sort of domestic, suburban feeling—like nothing too dramatic or traumatizing would happen.
Usually that was the case: There’s only one game I remember at all vividly. (I missed the big comeback run in 1995, only to later start up a website chronicling those games.) The last time I was in the Kingdome, in the summer of 1998, the Mariners played a 15 or 16-inning game, filled with extra-inning near-defeats for both sides, until the Mariners lost it....
Joe Posnanski, the best sportswriter in America, tweeted thus recently: "Felipe Lopez, not yet 30, hit .310/.383/.427, signed for $2 mil? Jason Kendall, not yet 52, hit .241/.331/.305 sign 2yr/$6 mil? Confused."
Posnanski might be equally confused to learn that the Mariners made no serious attempt to replace starting catcher Rob Johnson, who hit an abysmal .213/.289/.326 last year--and had surgery on both hips in the off-season.
Kendall is old and doesn't hit, Johnson is young and doesn't hit. Why do the two have jobs? Because they play the immeasurably important position of catcher.
The catcher is not the most important player in a baseball game. But he is the caddy, coach, and confidante of the most important player in a baseball game, the pitcher. In 2009, the Mariners were 25-9 when ace Felix Hernandez pitched. A .735 winning percentage. That would be 119 wins over a 162-game season. In other words, when Felix Hernandez pitches, the Mariners are the best team in baseball history.
Now listen to what Hernandez says about Johnson: "We just seem to think alike. Every time he calls for a certain pitch, I am thinking the same thing." Do you know what having Johnson behind the plate must mean for Hernandez' confidence? What a like-minded partner like Johnson does to increase Hernandez' chances of success?...
The Mariners played an intrasquad game yesterday, and, courtesy of the Times' tireless Geoff Baker, we get a peek at actual baseball being played. Huzzah!
And tomorrow--yes! tomorrow!--you'll be able to listen to Hall-of-Famer Dave Niehaus again, as ESPN 710 broadcasts the first M's spring game of the year, vs. San Francisco, at 12:05 p.m. Seattle time. (Full broadcast schedule here.)
Thus, it is time for my annual tradition of sharing this wonderful ode to spring training by light verse superstar Ogden Nash. Take it away, Ogden!
All winter long, yes, every day,
I throw the sporting page away,
I turn my faithful radio off
And grimly settle down to scoff,
Since contests that as sport I list,
In wintertime do not exist.
If Mr. Gallup me is polling
He will not tally a vote for bowling;
Despite our brief Olympic radiance,
Hockey belongs to the Canadians;
But chiefly am I unbeguiled
By Dr. Naismith's monster child,
Basketball is not a sport,
Not even as a last resort --
A game indulged in by giraffes
And only good for scornful laughs,
All whistle-blowings and palaverages
And scores that read like Dow Jones averages.
Only Harlem's unique Globetrotters,
As comic as seals and slick as otters,
Find its pretensions are grotesque
And treat it purely as burlesque.
But hark! A hint from softer climes
Of past and future golden times!
In Phoenix and St. Petersburg
The rookie generates the erg,
And Vero Beach and Sarasota
Of embryo Ruths can boast their quota.
The airwaves now begin to tingle
As grapefruit knights in tourney mingle;
Again the happiness pills I know
Of sporting page and radio.
Home is the exile, home is the rover,
The storm of basketballs is over;
I sail serenely into harbor
With Phil Rizzuto and Red Barber.
Ljungberg: "The longest ever." Preseason! We're talking about preseason!
In all the Olympics excitement, you may have missed that spring training is underway. Both the Sounders and the Mariners have been preparing for their upcoming seasons--the Sounders at a tournament in Spain, the Mariners at their spring training hub northwest of Phoenix.
Both training seasons are much longer than they need to be--something Freddie Ljungberg complained about in a blog post for ESPN.com titled "The longest preseason training ever."
"We have been running our asses off," according to Ljungberg, who expressed concern that the long training schedule could be detrimental to his fitness. Ljungberg points out when he played for Arsenal, one of the top clubs in the world, training was half as long than the Sounders' is. Well, Fred, the Sounders have a lot more work to do.
Big question is, will they get to do it? Major League Soccer and its players' union are overdue to sign a collective bargaining agreement, and negotiations are not going well. "They're not even humoring us," says Kansas City Wizard Jimmy Conrad, whose invocation of the Weaken Resolve spell at the last bargaining session had no appreciable effect. (D&D reference! Yes!) There's a Thursday deadline to get a deal done--and a work stoppage is looking like a possibility.
The Sounders split two games in Spain, losing 3-0 to defending Norwegian champs Rosenborg FC on Thursday, but beating Staebek IF, another top Norwegian team, 2-0 on Sunday. Fredy Montero and Roger Levesque scored the goals, both assisted by Ljungberg.
The Mariners aren't yet playing games, or really doing much of anything, to the eternal dismay of the reporters in town to cover them. Said reporters had a difficult enough time finding material for stories in the pre-blog days; now, with both column inches and pixels to fill, they are desperate. How desperate? Tacoma News-Tribune writer Larry LaRue (the best writer among our local baseball scribes, in my view) posted a story about a new hitting drill the Mariners are doing. The Times' Geoff Baker, who has the best nose for news, could only come up with "Jack Hannahan catches bullpen session." Yeah....
In the most shocking and yet outstanding news Mariner fans have received maybe ever, star pitcher Felix Hernandez has agreed to a five-year contract. Hernandez could've left the Mariners to sign with another team after the 2011 season, and would've have been possibly the most sought after free agent in baseball history. Now the M's have locked him up through the middle of Sarah Palin's first presidential term.
Why is Hernandez so sought after? The same reason Mariner fans will have silly grins on their faces all morning. Felix Hernandez is one of the best pitchers in baseball, and he's only 23 years old--an age at which some of the all-time greats were still struggling to break into baseball.
Randy Johnson didn't have a single major league win at 23. Bob Gibson had 3. Sandy Koufax, despite having logged five major leagues seasons by age 23, had just 28 wins. Felix Hernandez already has 58.
With his high-90s fastball and knee-buckling curve, Hernandez can be nearly unhittable. And given the current state of medical science, and the fact that fireballing pitchers now seem to be able to pitch into their mid-40s, Hernandez would seem to have an outside shot at equaling Roger Clemens' modern day record of 354 wins (for pitchers in the era of five-man rotations).
The Mariners and general manager Jack Zduriencik (who I could kiss right now) have locked up at least five more seasons of this excellence. I'm shocked that they managed it....
The following article was written last May, in response to Randy Johnson coming to Seattle one last time on the 22nd of that month, and posted to my site about the 1995 Mariners. Since we’ve just heard about his retirement, I thought I should reprint it here as an acknowledgment of his central position in Mariners’ history.
Randy Johnson's start at Safeco Field last Friday night for San Francisco was probably his last in Seattle. I got to the game early, hoping for a Felix Hernandez bobblehead (which didn't happen), but also to see Johnson warm up before the game. I figured it was the last chance I'd have, and a lot of others figured the same way: the crowd was five or six deep all along the Giants' bullpen.
We didn't get to see the bid for 300 wins that was supposed to make Friday's game uniquely compelling, but standing in the crowd pressed up against the pen, waiting for the Big Unit to make his appearance, that didn't really seem to matter. Most everybody was there because of what Johnson had done in Seattle, not because the cumulative digits with Houston, Arizona, etc., had turned over enough times to put him within grasp of the 300-victory club.
This wasn't the playoffs or a crucial late-season game, but the excitement around the bullpen was at that sort of level as Johnson first tossed the ball in the outfield, then slid open the gate and made his way into the pen. Really meaningful Mariner games have been scarce ever since 2001, but Randy was going to give us one even if he got ejected in the first inning.
No matter what happened in the game, this would be our last chance to see him up close, so it's no wonder the stairs leading down to the bullpen were jammed, you saw cameras everywhere, and we craned our necks through the crowd to get a better glimpse. Not even the dour and usually efficient Safeco ushers were able to really manage this crowd.
As Randy threw, one guy who looked a bit like Jay Buhner kept yelling "Randeeee!," hoping for a wave or glance from Johnson; he didn't give it. We've all heard about the Big Unit's game face, but I'd never seen it up close. Separated by a few rows of people, what comes across most clearly is what he doesn't do: look over at us or the field, or up at the sky, or into the stands, or say anything, sniff the air, take care of an itch, motion at anything other than the catcher.
It's just him, the ball, the pitching motion, and a catcher's glove. The "Randeeee!" guy said as much to me when I admitted that yes, I wanted the Unit to win and leave Seattle with a bang. I think we were all hoping for at least a 10-strikeout game, and with luck, a no-hitter. The Mariners could make up the loss sometime later: getting a game closer to .500 in late May just wasn't as important as Randy Johnson coming back and delivering something memorable for his audience....
For a few years in the mid-1990s, Randy Johnson had the power to make 60,000 Seattleites stand in unison. In the last few weeks of the magical 1995 Mariners season, fans began standing whenever strikeout master Johnson reached two strikes on a batter. The tradition continued through the next three seasons of Johnson's Mariner career, which ended prematurely when he was traded in 1998.
Twelve years after Johnson left the Mariners, he's leaving baseball. The most dominant #51 to wear an M's uniform (sorry Ichiro) announced his retirement this afternoon on a conference call with reporters.
The hard-throwing lefty, who even all-stars were afraid to face, came to the Mariners in another mid-season trade, a trade that was wildly unpopular at the time. "This is the saddest day in Mariner history," third baseman Jim Presley told the P-I after the Mariners traded ace Mark Langston to Montreal for Brian Holman, Gene Harris, and a former USC basketball player known more for being the tallest player in major league history than for his pitching prowess. Randy Johnson was 25 years old (two years older than Felix Hernandez is now), and had just three career major league wins.
"These guys have a chance to be very good," Mariner manager Jim Lefebvre said at the time. He had no idea how good.
Johnson made 22 starts for the 1989 M's, finishing with a 7-9 record. In June of 1990, he pitched the first no-hitter in Mariner history, striking out the Tigers' Mike Heath on a fastball in his eyes. The Dave Niehaus call is a classic, and some delightful soul has recorded it on YouTube.
Thought it would be fun to mark the high and low points for our local sports teams this decade. Today: The Mariners!
High point: October 6, 2001. By beating Texas 3-2 for their 116th win, the Mariners match the 1908 Cubs for the winningest season in major league history. Fans look forward to a cakewalk through the playoffs.
Low point: June 4, 2008. After the $100 million Mariners fall to 21-39, manager John McLaren unleashes this nonsensical rant. He was fired later that month, and the M's dropped 101 games.
Best player: Ichiro. Who else? The 2001 MVP, breaker of the all-time hits mark in 2004, he compiled 2030 hits in nine years. And played a little defense.
Worst player: Carlos Silva. Given a four-year, $48-million contract by Bill Bavasi, Silva compiled this line in 34 starts as a Mariner: 5-18, 6.81 ERA, 25 HRs allowed. ICK ICK ICK.
Best trade: Franklin Gutierrez for J.J. Putz. Some other prospects and bit players were involved, but these were the two big pieces in the deal. Jack Zduriencik obtained the best centerfielder I've ever seen (yes, better than Griffey and Cameron). Putz threw only 29 innings with his new team and had a 5.22 ERA.
Worst trade: Ramon Santiago for Carlos Guillen. One of Bavasi's first moves as GM foretold his future mistakes. He threw aside Guillen for a minor prospect so he could play Rich Aurilia at shortstop. Aurilia was released in July after hitting .241. Santiago had just eight hits as a Mariner. Guillen became a cornerstone of the Tigers' revival, going to three All-Star Games in six years....
Which pitcher would you rather have?
Pitcher A: 74.2 IP, 76 K, 21 BB, 8 HR allowed. Ground ball/Fly ball: 1.23.
Pitcher B: 69.2 IP, 63 K, 44 BB, 10 HR allowed. Ground ball/Fly ball: 0.57.
Word came last night that former M's first round pick Brandon Morrow was traded to Toronto for reliever Brandon League and a prospect. The general media consensus is that this prospect will be a good one, since Morrow was such a high draft pick.
But I'm not so sure. In that little quiz above, League is pitcher A, and Morrow is pitcher B. Looks to me like League's the better pitcher.
Oh, but Morrow has such great stuff, you say? Well, so does League--he throws a mid 90s fastball and a high 90s sinker. And though League was selected in the 2001 draft, five years before Morrow, he's actually only 16 months older.
One thing I love about Jack Zduriencik is that he doesn't make decisions based on reputation. Russell Branyan was considered a part-time player, but Zduriencik made him a starter and got 31 homers from him. Last year, Zduriencik went into spring training with only one established reliever on the roster, Tyler Miller Walker, then cut the guy before opening day when he pitched poorly in Cactus League play. (Commenter Jon caught my mistake, and also notes that established reliever Miguel Batista was on the roster. Point stands, though.)
Contrast this with Bill Bavasi, who consistently overspent for reputation over performance in his acquisitions of Rich Aurilia, Scott Spezio, Carl Everett, Richie Sexson, Jose Vidro, Miguel Batista, Carlos Silva ... need I go on?
The difference I think is in the upbringing of the two men. Bavasi was the son of a baseball executive, with a leg up on the competition. His dad gave him a front office job with the Angels at age 24.
Zduriencik, on the other hand, was the son of a steel mill worker. He didn't get a job in baseball until he was 30, and that was as an area scout, the lowest possible rung of baseball administration.
No wonder Zduriencik looks at Morrow and sees a pitcher living on reputation, not performance.
Now League has his issues too--with control, primarily. But his walk numbers aren't nearly as high as Morrow's.
Morrow gave us some thrilling moments: His near-no-hitter of the Yankees in 2008 was the most exciting game of that dismal season and effectively knocked the Yanks out of the playoffs that year. But more often, Morrow struggled to do the one thing a pitcher must: throw the ball over the plate.
I hope the Mariners do get a top prospect in addition to League. But if they don't, I'm okay with the trade anyway.
Yesterday the Mariners finalized a trade that sends three lower-tier prospects to Philadelphia in exchange for 2008 Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee. Reaction is bubbly.
"THANK YOU SANTA Z!!!"--Seattle Times commenter
"This is, quite frankly, a heist. The Mariners are getting a Cy Young caliber pitcher for some decent-but-not-great prospects. They aren’t giving up Morrow. They aren’t giving up Saunders. They aren’t even giving up Triunfel. And yet, they walk away with one of the five or six best pitchers in baseball."--Dave Cameron, USS Mariner
"The virtues of acquiring a starting left-handed pitcher in his prime with the resume of Cliff Lee are apparent to any attentive Mariners fan. To summarize: JEEZUSRUKIDDINMEDRINKSALLAROUND!"--Art Thiel, Seattlepi.com (It's worth reading the rest of Thiel's thought-provoking column about the national perception of the Mariner franchise.)
"This is about as good as a right left punch can get. It gives me a boost of energy knowing that this is what the team is doing and that expectations are we will go further."--M's pitcher Ian Snell, via KIRO's Shannon Dreyer
"We've acquired a very, very nice piece to help this organization move forward. It will be exciting to watch him pitch at the top of out rotation – him and Felix Hernandez.... I don't think we're done yet."--Jack Zduriencik
"Lee succeeds in the same way that Ben Sheets used to succeed--by just throwing strikes over and over with sufficiently good stuff to maintain a solid strikeout rate. He doesn't miss a ton of bats--his contact rate is actually below-average--but he's consistently ahead in the count, which puts him at a significant advantage. In a way, he and Felix take remarkably different paths towards a similar end result, and it'll be all kinds of fun to watch them BACK TO BACK OH MY GOD."--Jeff Sullivan, Lookout Landing...
If your sports fan coworker came back beaming yesterday after a long lunch, he or she may have, like me, gotten twin text messages bearing tidings of great joy.
First, at about 12:24 p.m., friend David: "Locker is coming back!"
Then, at 1:20 p.m., friend Clint: "Holy crap! Cliff Lee to the Mariners?"
True and (apparently) true. Husky star quarterback Jake Locker, on the morning that ESPN projected him as the first overall pick in the NFL draft, walked into the Husky football offices with his chocolate lab Ten and told coach Steve Sarkisian "I'm staying."
Locker's decision to forego the NFL draft and return for his senior season means that the Huskies will have a very potent offense next year. Between Locker, running back Chris Polk, and receiver Jermaine Kearse, the Dawgs could have the best combination of skill players in the league. Locker's decision will also give top QB recruit Nick Montana a year of seasoning before taking over the reigns in 2011.
The supposed acquisition of 2008 Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee, is a little murkier. ESPN's Jayson Stark, who reported the trade in the first place, now writes that the deal is "close" but "not done." Didn't stop me from dreaming last night that the Mariners won the World Series.
(I was watching with friend David and Kyle MacLachlan's character from Twin Peaks. The Mariners won in the fifth game after a series of throwing errors got Matt Stairs--who apparently has signed with the M's in my subconscious--around with the series-winning run.)...
Baseball's winter meetings are over, and the only important local news is this: the Seattle Mariners will pay $36 million over the next four years for the services of longtime Los Angeles Angel infielder Chone (pronounced "Shawn") Figgins.
Figgins brings along a career .363 on-base percentage, speed on the basepaths, and defensive versatility--having played every position except catcher and first base.
The 31-year-old Floridian (full name: Desmond DeChone Figgins) reached base in nearly four out of every ten plate appearances last season. His .395 on base percentage would've led the 2009 Mariners, with only Ichiro even close at .386. Figgins' 42 stolen bases would also have lead the team (Ichiro again, with 26).
But Figgins is not going to score without assistance. He's hit just 9 home runs in the past 3 seasons, and, fast as he is, stealing home is not a reliable source of run production.
With Russell Branyan and Adrian Beltre now free agents, the Mariners' best slugger is second baseman Jose Lopez. However, it is a not too closely guarded secret that current Mariners management wants Lopez to go away, feeling that his substandard defense and proclivity for strikeouts cost the team more than his 25 home runs are worth.
The late-'90s Mariners did not have this problem. With a younger Ken Griffey Jr., Jay Buhner, Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez, they set a major league record for home runs in a season. They also didn't reach a World Series.
The best Mariner team ever, the 116-win 2001 squad, had a much more balanced attack, leading the AL in on-base percentage and stolen bases. However, they also ranked 4th in slugging.
The 2009 Mariners were 2nd-to-last in the AL in slugging, at just .402. Though the Figgins signing improves their last-in-the-league OPB, the potential losses of Beltre, Lopez and Branyan sink their slugging even more....
Ken Griffey, Jr., 13-time All-Star, slugger of 630 home runs, former guest star on the Harry and the Hendersons TV show, will return for his 13th season as a Mariner, the Seattle Times' Larry Stone is reporting.
Griffey's return to Seattle last season caused much rejoicing: my own reaction was to cancel evening plans and enjoy celebratory drinks with a longtime friend and Mariners rooter. The Mariners sold 23,000 tickets in two days.
The joy will be more muted this time--I'm not canceling any plans, and I doubt the Mariners will see much of a spike in ticket sales.
But I still have a smile on my face. If a different regime had brought Griffey back, I might worry that they planned to use him in a role greater than he could handle at this stage in his career.
But I trust Jack Zduriencik and Don Wakamatsu to utilize Griffey appropriately--giving him the odd start as a sometime DH, rolling the dice with him as a pinch hitter when they need a home run (à la Matt Stairs of the Phillies), and letting him play the role of leader, elder statesman, and Ichiro-tickler he filled so well last season.
The Mariners' 2010 season begins on April 5, 144 days from now, in Oakland.
Griffey's Return Would Spike Program Sales
We'll likely know this week if Ken Griffey, Jr., and the Mariners will strike a deal to bring Junior back for his 22nd MLB season, 12th as a Mariner.
Last year, Griffey demanded a multimillion-dollar salary and attendance-based performance incentives to return to Seattle. This year, as if in tune with the rest of us poor saps in this disaster of an economy, Griffey has readjusted his expectations.
In negotiations that will take place over the next few days, Griffey's agent has telegraphed his "bargaining" strategy.
"Whether Junior comes back or not, he certainly has no demands as far as dollars or playing time," Brian Goldberg told the Times' Larry Stone.
In other words, Griffey will show up at M's HQ bearing a "Will work for food" sign.
Not that he needs the money. Griffey's earned nearly $150 million in his baseball career, and that doesn't count endorsement dollars. He apparently just wants to keep playing for the love of the game.
But do the Mariners want him? For all his clubhouse leadership, and for as much as I personally loved seeing him play, Griffey was one of the worst DHs in the American League.
Far better options exist on the free agent market: Carlos Delgado, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guererro, and Hideki Matsui, all of whom far outperformed Griffey at bat last season.
Or the Mariners may choose to bring back Russell Branyan as their designated hitter and hand first base to young Mike Carp.
Griffey could serve as a pinch-hitter, but most managers like versatility and speed off their bench; Griffey doesn't have either.
Mariner watchers are weighing in on the issue:
MLB.com's Jim Street: "(Griffey) was an absolute joy to be around the entire '09 season and it rubbed off on everyone. That reason alone seems to make it worthwhile bringing him back for at least one more season."
The Times' Larry Stone: "I believe Griffey still has something to offer. He can tickle Ichiro, bring laughter to the clubhouse, hit an occasional bomb and take one more crack at October. Sounds great to me."
USS Mariner's Derek Zumsteg: "The 2010 Mariners need to improve their offense, and they need better hitting from their designated hitters. Griffey doesn’t offer that. And as much as Seattle loves him, well, we love Edgar too, but we wouldn’t bring him back to DH next year."
My take is this: Do it for Ichiro. Griffey's presence took the pressure of being the team's superstar off Ichiro's shoulders, and gave Ichiro a friend in a clubhouse that had turned against him. The hit king responded with his best season since '04.
If Griffey doesn't mind coming back as the 25th man on the roster, and getting only a few at bats a week on the rare occasions that American League teams need a pinch-hitter, the M's won't really lose anything from a strictly statistical perspective. And they certainly gain if Ichiro hits .350 again.
Rodriguez was the Seattle Mariners #1 overall pick in the 1993 draft; he was at the apex of baseball prospects.
In 1994, Rodriguez made his major league debut.
In 1995, he played in his first postseason game.
In 1996, he made his first All-Star team.
But not until 2009, after a dominating post-season performance, will Alex Rodriguez get his at-bats at the pinnacle of baseball competition: the World Series.
Partially, this is A-Rod's own fault for being hilariously incompetent in postseason baseball as a Yankee.
My childhood friend David and I, confirmed A-Rod haters after he left the Mariners claiming he had a better chance to win in Texas (har!), enjoyed Rodriguez's well-documented postseason struggles. We were remembering them last night, while the Angels pitched around a suddenly clutch Rodriguez for the umpteenth time in the ALCS.
There was 2004, when A-Rod slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's mitt on his way to first base, inspiring the brilliant "A-Rod purse" Photoshop.
There was the time in 2005 when...
The Mariners' accountants are staggering into work late yesterday morning after a night of wild celebration--the team announced Monday that veteran catcher Kenji Johjima, who lost his starting job this season, has decided to opt out of the next two years of his contract, which would've paid him a total of $16 million.
"He walks completely on his contract here, and we start fresh," Johjima's agent told the Times. The Mariners now owe Johjima nothing, not even COBRA coverage.
Why would Johjima do it? This was my question to childhood friend David as we watched the two amazing baseball playoff games Monday night at the Roanoke.
"Well, he's already made a ton of money," David said.
True. Johjima played 11 years in the Japanese league, and made more than $25 million in his four seasons as a Mariner. But. Still. $16 million! How can you walk away from that?
Mariner GM Jack Zduriencik repeatedly characterized Johjima's choice as a "personal decision"--as if there is any other kind. The real question is, why make it?...
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