Minutes and Official USS Mariner Pizza Feed Wrap-Up
We took a survey.
1. How many games will the Mariners in 2004?
Average answer was 86, which is pretty pessimistic. Low was 75 (owwwwww). Almost everyone was around 86-87, though.
2. Where will the Mariners finish in the AL West?
Second. 4 firsts, 12 2nds, 10 3rds, 1 4th.
3. Will Bob Melvin receive a contract extension after 2004?
Yes, almost universally
4. Will Derek Zumsteg be named GM during your lifetime?
No.
Remarks on question 5:
And man, what a bunch of wise-acres you all are. I’m half-inclined not to even post some of the responses here (Jason’s wife, for instance, wrote “No, but Jason will!”), but unfortunately for my pride, you were also too funny to not post.
“No, even if I am immortal.” (well, I’m not, so that sort of limits things either way) “Depends on how long I live.” “No, and not in anyone else’s either.” And the “No, but he might win a Counterstrike dork tourney.” (I don’t haven’t played Counterstrike in a year!)
Some were merciful enough to not say anything.
Only Conor had faith! Oh yes, some of you said “No, unfortunately” and be assured you will be first in line for Official Endorsements in the future, but Conor said “yes”. He thought I might become Seattle’s Theo Epstein. Hooray for Conor, Official Survey Participant of the U.S.S. Mariner.
5. Favorite Mariners varied greatly, but ran towards Pineiro, Boone, Edgar, and Soriano. Least favorite Mariner was McCracken, which is ill news for a new acquisition.
We also had a conspiracy theory contest to see who could come up with the best explanation for the off-season moves.
Official First-Place Conspiracy Theory: Stephen Nelson, of Steve’s Mariners and Other Stuff, spun at first a wild tale in which the Mariners and MLB conspired to allow the Expos to move to Japan. His tale quickly spun out of control, like all good conspiracy theories, encompassing Google (through blogger) driving the off-season moves to increase traffic to M’s blogs, and finally a Boston-led sub-conspiracy where everyone (except the Yankees, presumably). Stephen Nelson, who answered the “Will Derek Zumsteg be named GM during your lifetime?” answered “Since I’m planning to spend eternity in heaven, there is no finite answer.”
Clearly we should have been more specific with Mr. Nelson’s survey. Mr. Nelson wins a valuable prize.
Official runners-up:
Ethnic cleansing.
They want a share of that sweet revenue sharing money.
One of these was by Chris Colon, the other by Matt Brignall (I believe), though unfortunately my notes are not good enough to indicate which was which. They win a year’s subscription the U.S.S. Mariner.
It was also suggested at several points that the Mariners team doctors had failed Omar’s knee for different reasons:
– they knew the deal was awful
– the team, seeing public reaction wasn’t as enthusiastic as they’d thought it would be, instructed them to find an excuse to veto the deal
The different crowd-attention-getting techniques of Mr. Cameron and Mr. Zumsteg were compared and contrasted.
Officially Endorsed Announcers Pat Dillon (Everett Aquasox) and Mike Curto (Tacoma Rainiers) were gracious enough to answer audience questions about their work and baseball in general. Pete Livengood’s phone rang and he took the call, after which he asked Mr. Curto the same question Mr. Curto had answered while Livengood was on the phone describing his location and his current activities (that is, attending a feed where Mr. Curto was answering questions).
In short, a good time was had by everyone asked. There were calls to repeat this event, possibly at a game. Some realized that I am indeed a bit insane, while Jason’s a perfectly normal guy and Dave is a fount of baseball knowledge and should be snapped up by some team with a brain who wants to do a better job with player development.
This is going to be of little interest to anyone not in Seattle, but I promise my next post will be M’s-related….
I’ve long been interested in the gamesmanship of radio marketing. There’s a constant dance that goes on like so:
– station X sees a demographic shift it can take advantage of and changes from adult contemporary to R&B
– station Y, seeing there are only four stations doing the lucrative adult contemporary format, switches from 80s music to adult contemporary
– station Z moves up from love songs to 80s music
And so on. With each move, program directors and almost all the DJs get fired, and everyone moves chairs. Sometimes, the chain comes around all the way. KXRX, 96.5, used to compete directly with KISW for the butt-rock market (and I say that with some fondness, having grown up in Kent in the 80s) and both of them competed with KNDD for the grunge. KXRX swapped out to a “young country” format, and their listners migrated (by taste) to KISW, KZOK (classic rock), and KNDD (alternative). Over time, this didn’t work out so well for them, so they went to an 80s format, playing a lot more pop than they had back in the day, but with a playlist that overlapped a lot.
Now, here’s the thing about playlists. Stations do a ton of market research to determine what people remember and what they associate it with. Music is programmed in short blocks: the stations figure they’ve got you for 3-4 songs. So they want to get you with at least one song you will recognize, stay with, and like. This is why you hear “No Sleep ’till Brooklyn” all the time: it’s one of these songs (I refer to them as “flags” because each station picks a set and uses them like banners, but I’m sure that people in the industry have a better name for them). It’s a song you might want to hear once in a while, but if you listen to KNDD for a day, you’re likely to hear it a couple of times.
Anyway, so KNDD has always been in a weird spot. They’re “alternative” but there’s no real definition of what that is. They don’t play rap… except they’ll play Eminem while he’s hot, and then never. They’ll play some Outkast… for a minute. Cypress Hill is okay, but it’s only “Rock Superstar”. Beastie Boys are fine. They’re continually playing this game of trying to distinguish themselves from a straight-rock station like KISW, but unwilling for commercial reasons to actually get into really good, independent music that might actually be an alternative. They played a lot of the current kind of lame alt-rock (Three Doors Down, Puddle of Mudd, Limp Bizkit), but also sometimes stuff like the Shins.
Fortunately, here’s how their market lined up:
Entercom: KISW (“active rock”), KMNT (“adult rock”), KNDD (“modern rock”)
Infinity: KZOK (classic rock), KYPT (80s), KISS (ummm.. pop)
Clear Channel: the almost-unknown robot-programmed KFNK (Limp Bizkit & Co.), KUBE (“dance-CHR”… more R&B than KISS)
Entercom got to divy up their market pretty nicely: U2, all three. Coldplay, KMNT-KNDD. Metallica, KISW almost exclusively.
So a while ago, I noticed a weird shift. The End was going back to a lot of weird standbys I remembered they flew back in my days at the UW (okay, so if you didn’t think I was weird about this now, that I remember this kind of stuff should be a deal-breaker). Now, during the holidays all the DJs are on vacation, and it’s largely huge time-consuming tapes, interns, and guys passing by on the street running the station. But it was still strange for them abruptly to essentially change their whole musical mix to fly the same flags they flew in the mid-90s (for instance, they’re playing “Machine Head” by Bush (who I utterly despise as the worst and least talented of all the Nirvana knock-off bands) right now). A lot more U2, REM, Cure… and they’ve got new taglines: “Green Day, White Stripes… the Ramones, all on one station. It’s all about the music.” “Seattle’s original alternative.”
Huh?
Turns out KYPT has changed formats and from what I’ve heard them playing, they’re flying the exact same flags. Their site offers nothing on what they’re doing, but they may well be a KROQ clone, which would be even more ironic because the End has a long history of aping KROQ’s every whim (english-sounding DJs, for instance, brought us the horrible, horrible Norman B, who was faking that accent the whole time) and if KYPT is going to be a KROQ zombie broadcasting that feed, the End’s listener base will be chopped by the very station that showed it how (End plays Big Audio Dynamite… hee hee) to build an audience through a particular song rotation.
What’s even weirder is that they’ve reacted this way. Seattle’s got great music and a supportive audience for it, and the End’s been the only commercial station that’s been early to support many of the cooler acts. Faced with a competitor on one wing, instead of moving towards finally defining an actual sound and genre for itself, it has moved to directly compete on the same ground the competitor just staked out, which will (I believe) force everyone who listened for rock to KISW, everyone who listened for occasional rap to KISS/KUBE exclusively, and everyone looking for good indie music to KEXP… and Seattle will have two 80/90s-based alternative stations, neither worth listening to.
Here’s an article about Bobby Madritsch, including a number of good quotes from the pitcher himself.
As reported at the USS Mariner Pizza Feed a little over an hour ago: Freddy Garcia signed a one-year, $6.875M deal with the M’s to avoid salary arbitration. This is a good deal for a few reasons.
1. It’s the same amount he made last season, and he almost certainly would have gotten a raise in arbitration;
2. This cost certainty should allow the M’s more flexibility in terms of spending, as opposed to last season when Garcia’s arbitration win supposedly cost the team their contingency fund; and
3. This cost certainty makes Garcia much more attractive in trade
Anyway, all in all a good deal for the M’s (I know, you’re shocked to read those words on this site).
In other news which should shock no one, the team offered arbitration to Ben Davis, Gil Meche and Joel Pineiro.
“My intention is to go to camp and play the best I can for Seattle, but I can’t see myself walking through the Mariners’ door in spring training, and I told them that,” he told the paper. “You’re trying to win a championship and, especially with new guys on the team, you don’t need the distraction.”
He admits all this, and yet… still excercises his no-trade clause. What a dolt.
Oooh, time to leave for the feed.
Ahh, Seattle. Just as beautiful as when I left it. You never realize how awesome Mt. Rainier is until you’re surrounded by the foothills known as the Appalachians. Its good to be back, even if for just a short time. Taking a few days away from the news leads to a ridiculous amount of email backup, though, and I’m still playing catchup. Apparently, while I was gone:
1. Ichiro signed a 4 year, $44 million contract. While it is simply impossible for us to measure Ichiro’s financial value to the club, and thus to evaluate whether this is a smart decision from a business perspective, I don’t believe anyone really thinks that Ichiro is worthy of $11 million per year for what he does on the baseball field. The fact that the contract is supposedly backloaded scares me. We could be looking at a giant albatross in 2006 and 2007.
2. The A-Rod deal fell through. What a debacle. Alex isn’t happy. Nomar isn’t happy. Manny isn’t happy. Kevin Millar isn’t happy, and I can’t imagine that he’s feeling too great about ripping his still-teammates publically about now. We’re certainly not proponents of clubhouse chemistry being a leading component of wins, but I can’t imagine this does anything but hurt the Red Sox. Good luck, Mr. Francona.
3. The M’s expressed interest in Rich Aurilia after losing out on Jose Valentin. Unfortunately, most people see this as a good thing. Valentin is a better player than Aurilia. Aurilia has posted an OBP north of .340 once in his career, and his 2001 season just screams fluke. He’s not a bad player, but he’s not a significant improvement on Carlos Guillen, and throwing a lot of money at him is foolish.
So, I think I’m back in the flow now. Sonics game tonight, feed tommorrow, and time with family all next week. I love the holidays.
In short, the Mariners need to deal with it, particularly if they have no plans — despite their financial success — to run with the big dogs in New York, Boston and, suddenly, Baltimore.
They don’t, with yesterday’s one exception, want to pay premium dollars, and they don’t want high-maintenance personalities.
But if those limits mean exclusively a roster of 25 Oleruds, Ichiros, Wilsons and Winns, it suggests the goal is not the World Series but recognition as the Boy Scouts’ 93-win team of the century.
Ichiro’s new deal, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, is worth a reported $44M over four years, $6M of which is in the form of a signing bonus. I have yet to find out how the other $38M breaks down by year, if any of the money is deferred, etc., but of course we’ll pass that along as we find it.
From MLB.com: Ichiro inks four-year extension. By signing him to a four-year deal, the M’s have bought out the first year (2007) in which he would have been eligible for free agency. Financial terms don’t seem to be out yet, but I’m sure they’ll leak out sooner or later.
AP’s reporting the M’s have signed a four-year deal with Ichiro. Details as we find them.