“That’s who I care about — the little kid who needs bootlegs because his parent or guardian won’t let him see the excessive violence and strong sexual content you and I take for granted!”
Email today: Dave Myers is being frank and honest, and even if he’s wrong, it’s good to hear it.
Now, my own opinion of the Snelling Crippler aside, I disagree with this entirely. If Myers really thought that Cirillo sucked, the time to be honest and forthright isn’t now, with Cirillo on San Diego’s payroll and a new guy in town, when it doesn’t matter. It would have been when the position was up for grabs. But if he did it, best to do it in private out of the public eye, right? Why is this any different? If Myers wants to boost the new guy a little, go right ahead. But taking a shot at a departed player is nothing to applaud, and accomplishes nothing.
Looks like the M’s won’t have John Mabry to kick around anymore!
The 19th non-roster invitee is one Wiki Gonzalez, according to the link above. Gonzalez was not on the original list of 16, and what I had heard is that if he impressed the M’s with his play during winter ball, they’d invite him. Apparently hitting .211/.318/.380 in 71 at-bats is enough to impress the M’s, which fits with the rest of this off-season if you think about it. Thanks to everyone who emailed about this.
From all accounts, Dave Myers is a pretty nice guy, but that’s a ridiculous thing to say. This is simply piling on the guy who isn’t here to defend himself for no other reason than to try and drum up optimism. If Myers really believes that Cirillo is a poor defensive third baseman, then he’s deluded himself into being completely negative about the guy due to reasons other than logic and basic evaluation techniques.
If Myers hasn’t seen some tremendous defensive plays (which, by and large, have nothing to do with diving), then he simply hasn’t been paying attention. There is nothing resembling logic or evidence that suggests Spiezio will be anything but a significant downgrade defensively over Cirillo. The offense he provides should outweigh the differences, though, to be fair, improving over what the Mariners got from third base last year is about as easy as beating Rick Rizzs in a negativity contest.