September 3, 2003 · Filed Under Mariners · Comments Off on  

Matt Freaking St…

Oh, wait, never mind.

Mark Hendrickson, Josh Towers, Billy Traber, and Doug Waechter are among the impressive names that have shut down the Mariners offense since the all-star break.

Oh, and hey, TTF is back in full force. Good to see Truly Terrible Freddy showing up for the stretch run.

At least Baltimore waxed Tim Hudson tonight.

September 3, 2003 · Filed Under Mariners · Comments Off on  

Hey all. You may be one of the people who email us and say (paraphrasing here) “Hey, I’m sure Cameron’s a good guy, but he’s a choke artist and he strikes out all the time and also probably is behind those internet worms I keep hearing about .”

And I say to you: you should all write Mike Cameron apology letters. This is all small sample size, but here —

Nobody on: .249/.328/.416

Runners on: .276/.377/.486

Runner in scoring position: .303/.404/.533

“Close and Late”: .296/.400/.574

Scoring position, 2 out: .270/.346/.451

The M’s as a whole:

Nobody on: .266/.331/.404

Runners on: .285/.366/.433

Runner in scoring position: .305/.386/.467

“Close and Late”: .253/.319/.392 (ugh)

Scoring position, 2 out: .289/.400/.421

In only one situation, a runner in scoring position with two out, does the team hit better than Cameron, and that’s not even that huge of a gap, while Cameron in every other of these dumb situations people want to point to has, with the other good hitters on the team, carried this team. And those averages include Cameron, now that I think about it — they would be significantly lower without his PAs in there!

So Cameron strikes out a lot. These other guys are grounding out, popping out, and striking out even more often. This fixation on Cameron’s strikeout rate borders on some kind of mass stupidity we should call CDC about. Did everyone who doesn’t like Cameron eat at the same Safeco concession stand back when it opened, or soemthing? Was the Moose carrying some crazy biogerm during his happy covorting one game?

You can’t count on one hand the center fielders in the league who offer the same kind of overall value Cameron does when you consider his hitting and defense. Mike Cameron earns every penny he’s paid. That this team and this town don’t realize how good he is will certainly come back to bite us on the ass when he signs elsewhere.

Ron Fairly Zen Koan of the Day: “To catch another team in the standings, you have to win.”