Good times. According to the New York Post, the M’s and Mets are talking about a Jeff Cirillo for Roger Cedeno trade. I’m not sure how I feel about this, though right now I’m leaning towards, “simply releasing Cirillo would be better than trading him for Cedeno.”
Yet another new blog — MFan4Life_24’s Blog, otherwise known as the Greg Colbrunn-inspired blog with the really long URL. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s pretty cool that so many M’s blogs have popped up in the last couple of months. When we started doing this in April, there were what, two or three M’s blogs? Now there are a dozen.
New Big Board… just in case you needed yet another reminder that Quinton McCracken and Scott Spiezio will be members of the 2004 Seattle Mariners.
Players chosen by the M’s in the minor league portion of the Rule 5:
1st Round: RHP Darwin Soto, Boston
2nd Round: C Omar Falcon, San Diego
3rd Round: LHP Chris Key, Florida
Unfortunately, I can’t remember what the stipulations of the minor league portion are, but there you go.
Update: Dave informs me that the stipulations are few. It costs $12K for a AAA player and $4K for a AA player, you can assign said player wherever you want, and don’t have to offer them back. It’s just a way for clubs to swap organizational, non-prospect types.
I’m reminded today of a book by Walter Jon Williams (“City on Fire“). In it, one of the characters tells the story of his grandfather, who when under criticism for his leadership, steps aside to let others take control. The result, as he knew it would be, is a disaster, and soon he is welcomed back, given free reign to do as he pleases, and lives happily ever after.
Gillick chose Bavasi. This off-season’s moves range from known Gillick move Ibanez on down to likely-Bavasi moves (Spiezio?) and they’re all pretty much bad after Edgar signed, each worse than the last.
I wonder if this isn’t Gillick burning down the house, telling us all “you thought I sucked? Well check this out.” Bavasi gets blamed for everything, and Gillick gets revenge, keeps his reputation as one of the best GMs ever, and if he wants to take it, the city will be begging for him to return at any price as soon as next year.
What other explanation is there for this winter?
Possibly this is a stunning vindication of the Buddhist belief that desire creates suffering, in that in my frustration with the Mariners and my burning hope for a great Mariners team, I will be broken and humbled for dreaming.
Or, to quote Yoda: “Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Before I go off into my non-Mariner serenity, the organization thought I needed one more low blow, trading U.S.S. Mariner endorsed unheralded prospect, Allan Simpson, to Colorado for Chris Buglovsky. Bugs is so talented that he was passed over by every team in the rule 5 draft today, after getting beaten around like a ragdoll for Double-A Tulsa and posting horrible BB/K rates in both Double-A and the AFL. His career K rates are uninspiring, and Bugger is, essentially, a fringe non-prospect. Decent arm, but 4 years of middling results was enough to convince most teams to take their flyers elsewhere.
Not the M’s, though. They swap out Simpson, who could easily have filled the 6th spot in the pen for the league minimum and been quite effective, for the Bugger, apparently for the sole intention of further ruining my day.
I agree with Dave: I’m still stunned and speechless with how abjectly wrong this has gone. Gillvasi has engineered one of the most disastrous off-seasons of recent memory, and the only question that remains is how bad the M’s are going to be next year, which I’ll attempt to answer later tonight.
We know that a lot of people visit this site in the wake of transactions looking for analysis of the moves. The two busiest days in our sites history were last Friday, the start of the winter meetings, and July 31st, the day of the trading deadline.
However, I find myself unable to write about the team today. Bill Bavasi has, in one month, worn down the joy of following this club. I need a day off. Maybe more than one. I need to go find a quiet place and think happy thoughts. Those thoughts will not include the Mariners.
As a public service, here is what I said before these deals went down:
Why McCracken was a terrible idea.
Why Spiezio was, at best, not a good idea.
Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal by Saturday. I have a feeling Piecora’s is going to sell a lot more alcohol on Saturday.
w/r/t Jason’s post, I have some different thoughts on this. Spending money if a team isn’t going to win the division isn’t a bad thing, given some reasonable restraint. There’s a big difference to the local fans between a team that goes .400 and one that is around .500. Say you’ve got the money and no second basemen in the system at all: it’ll be a couple years before anyone potentially develops. Go on and sign a good second baseman. If someone comes along unexpectedly in the future, no harm done. Shore up your rotation with some decent veteran starters who’ll give you 200+ innings and allow your pitching prospects to develop on their own schedule. The problem is when you spend unwisely: Tejeda’s contract, for instance, is back-loaded when he’s most likely to be bad. Or you sign a free agent to block the natural position of your most promising-and-ready prospect.
I’m ill.