Good, Better, Bench
It’s no secret that the bench has been a huge weakness for the Mariners over the last two years. Quick query: how would you like to have a left-handed hitter with a .331/.458/.644 line in Tacoma available as a reserve?
Don’t get excited: we don’t have such a player at Triple A. But the Red Sox do, and his name is Roberto Petagine.
This off-season, I did a long post suggesting that the Mariners make a run at adding him to the roster. Long story short, Petagine hit well in the minors, but not in 300 major league at bats — after which he went to Japan, made a lot of money, and absolutely mashed, putting up numbers comparable to Hideki Matsui.
What does a player like this cost? A minor league deal. That’s what Boston signed him for.
To date, the Crimson Hose haven’t found a spot for Petagine yet, unless you count Pawtucket. But he’s treating the International League like Moe treated Curly, putting up the numbers previously cited. This gives them valuable insurance in the event their players continue to get injured at a Stoogelike rate.
Look, Petagine wouldn’t have saved the Mariners’ season by any stretch. That’s not my claim. This just shows that there is freely available talent out there each year that could help improve the bench dramatically. The M’s should remember that this offseason.
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34 Responses to “Good, Better, Bench”
the Boston Globe did mention him today after Nixon went on the DL:
“The Sox’ only spare outfielders are Stern and journeyman Adam Hyzdu.
Gabe Kapler, playing his way back into shape — he was 4 for 4 with a homer and a triple at Triple A Pawtucket last night — is eligible to come off the DL Saturday and is expected to join the team that day.
But with the trading deadline Sunday and the Sox in need of a lefthanded-hitting outfielder, the club’s shopping list probably grew the moment Nixon painfully swung and missed at a Mark Hendrickson fastball Tuesday night. [snip] It’s also possible the Sox could promote Triple A first baseman Roberto Petagine. The 34-year-old went into last night hitting .336 with 18 homers and 62 RBIs, and has crushed righthanded pitching (.358, 15 HRs, 47 RBIs). Petagine, though, has a history of knee troubles and is not an option in the outfield.”
But does Petaigne’s swing look as nice as Greg Dobbs’ does?
So we should build for the future by trading young talent for a (presumably well paid)34 year old guy who can only DH and pinch hit? I’ll wait for Bucky.
Even Chris Kahrl’s been seduced by Dobbs’s swing. She mentioned in today’s TA that she wants us to call him up.
I’ve been following the Sons of Sam Horn message boards the last few days, looking for trade gossip, and Petagine seems to be a pretty popular commodity with lots of Sox fans over there. Particularly, they’d rather see him in the lineup than Millar, which is actually a fairly defensible position.
Other useful minor league free agents that come to mind are Bobby Kielty and Dustin Mohr, who were signed by the Twins a few season back. After being useful pieces with the Twins for a while, they were then shipped off for other useful pieces. Kielty remains useful, while Mohr remains in use.
re 3
Um, no.
Even >I
So we should build for the future by trading young talent for a (presumably well paid)34 year old guy who can only DH and pinch hit? I’ll wait for Bucky.
Did you read the post? First of all, he’s signed to a MINOR LEAGUE DEAL. Secondly, nobody advocated trading ‘young talent’ for him. The point was that free talent is available in off-seasons, and it would benefit the M’s to take a look at some guys like this in the future.
As others have said, my intent wasn’t to say we should go out and get Petagine. The point of the post is that there are guys like this available at extremely cheap prices every offseason that would improve a chronic weak point for the M’s.
Also, had Petagine produced on the bench as a Mariner, he could potentially be used as trade bait to get something useful for the future.
The problem is that with the advent of the 11-12 man bullpen and the DH, AL teams basically are working with 3-4 free bench spots (assuming you MUST carry a backup C). Assuming you want to carry a backup middle infielder and backup outfielder who can field all 3 OF positions, you’ve basically got ONE bench spot to have to cover any other position. Usually, your backup C and middle infielder can’t hit worth a crap. So if you are carrying a bad contract or have some other needs, there goes the decent pinch hitter, unless they can play other positions.
You used to be able to carry guys like Harold Baines, Rusty Staub or Manny Mota, who basically did nothing but PH the last few years of their careers as part of a deep bench. But thanks to the DH and the insanity that’s the modern bullpen, guys like that are becoming rarer, and benches are thinner.
This is going to sound like old fogey-ism, but this sucks. Screw having 3 mediocre lefties in my bullpen, and a bunch of .200 hitters on my bench. I’ll take my chances with a 10 man staff where all the bullpen can take a complete turn through a lineup.
EC:
First thing is to go with 11 pitchers at most, the 12 man staff is inane; we seem to do several game stretches where Shiggy or Mateo isn’t used.
Okay, sorry. Dumb comment (#3). I’m afraid I’ve got a one track mind at the trading deadline.
“Assuming you want to carry a backup middle infielder and backup outfielder who can field all 3 OF positions, you’ve basically got ONE bench spot to have to cover any other position.”
But the M’s have WFB, covering both bench spots and thereby opening up another spot for somebody else. Willie B. puts the M’s ahead of the curve! Unfortunately by carrying Spezio and Hansen, they go and waste the opportunity. Bloomquist is foiled again in his quest to save the Mariners from themselves.
Dobbs is hitting .321/.366/.455 in Tacoma in 34 games (112 ABs).
I’m as shocked as anyone — I hadn’t checked in a while, and last I looked, he was at something like .180/.180/.180
Bah, I’d love to see the Mariners sign Roberto Petagine just to see what happens when the Mariners Wives gang blacklists his wife Olga.
The BoSox have done a few things that make other teams look stupid, like the aforementioned Petagine/Minor League deal and the make-good contract with Wade Miller.
That said, I wonder if perhaps Petagine would’ve come on a minor league deal to just any team, or if he was willing to do so with the Red Sox to be on the defending W.S. Champs but wouldn’t have done so for certain other teams.
And while I’ve always liked Petagine since he was a prospect with the Astros (and was treated even worse than Edgar as far as getting a fair shot in the bigs), it’s somewhat difficult to argue for a bench spot for a guy that’s basically a 1B/DH guy. I’m not saying we couldn’t have used him on the M’s (especially if we drop the 12th pitcher), but he’s somewhat limited.
#14: “Dobbs is hitting .321/.366/.455 in Tacoma in 34 games (112 ABs).
I’m as shocked as anyone  I hadn’t checked in a while, and last I looked, he was at something like .180/.180/.180”
???
Why is this so shocking Derek? Given his minor league hitting history, this isn’t out of line. I’m not saying he’s a great hitter, but I’ve been a bit surprised by the amount of abuse he’s taken from the USSM crew.
Why would the Mariner Wives not like Olga?
Setting aside Dobbs’ minor league lines for a second, I meant that it was shocking to see him do so badly for the Mariners, go back and see him play just awfully for Tacoma… and then check up on him randomly later and see him tearing it up. That must have been an insane stretch of games there.
#19
Gotcha.
So, how would this improve our bench?
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2118911
We’ll take him! Strait up for Randy Winn with the contract? (ok, so I can’t exactly type that with a strait face…)
#18 – from every article I ever read back when Petagine was still playing for the Giants, his wife’s pretty psychotic (and she’s like 58 years old or something). She openly criticized the Yomiuri management for not giving her husband more playing time, which was part of why he couldn’t find more work in Japan; I’m sure the other part was the ridiculously high salary he was pulling. But oh man, the Japanese media had a field day with that…
I was looking at the stats when he first got to Tacoma and he has been hitting for a high average the whole time there. Where does the .180 come from?
I seriously have no idea, I was guessing at what I saw back when.
Deanna said: “Bah, I’d love to see the Mariners sign Roberto Petagine just to see what happens when the Mariners Wives gang blacklists his wife Olga.”
hey, as long as Olga helped out with the Mariner Wives duties, not a problem. After all, Collette Nelson has never been shy about expressing her opinions 🙂
Regarding Petagine’s wife, my post talks about that a bit. The Petagines got into several disputes with ownership, and yeah, the Japanese media went goofy. As I said then, I remember watching a 10-minute segment entirely devoted to making fun of Roberto Petagine for having a wife more than 20 years older than he was.
Classy.
feh. html glitches. ok, try this:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4154/is_20050226/ai_n11828451
Does the newest Mariner, Yuniesky Betancourt count as free talent? Wasn’t he signed as a non-drafted free agent? Now, if he only new the value of a walk.
Please, whole other Lopez/Betancourt thread over and on the right.
Sorry, it wasn’t up yet when I started reading this thread. But he was free talent, along with Soriano, right?
I guess the guestion is where do you draw the line when describing “free talent” – is it AAA+ guys who can help this year, or guys that go to the low minors and then make their way up the ladder?
Free talent is guys you can pick up for the major-league minimum or close to it to fill a role adequately. They can be anywhere, as long as they’re basically free pickups — no trading away prospects to get ’em. They’re not guys that are heavily coveted. Betancourt is NOT free talent, by my definition; if we cut him today he’d have fifteen teams calling him within a minute.
Betancourt also cost, what, a $2.3M signing bonus? That’s not free talent. Free talent is guys like Petagine, Aaron Sele and Jeff Nelson – guys that can be signed to minor league contracts with provisions if they earn a spot on the big league team.
On a side note, apparently Manny Ramirez has asked for a trade yet again.
#21 # VB1138 So, how would this improve our bench?
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2118911
We’ll take him! Strait up for Randy Winn with the contract? (ok, so I can’t exactly type that with a strait face…)
Now I know you weren’t serious about trying to get Manny Ramirez, but I am. If the Sox are anxious to get rid of him before the deadline as they seem to be and pay a good portion of his salary, I give them a package of guys they need in a deal that would be hard for them to pass up.
Guardado and Randy Winn for M-Ram with the Sox paying half of the salary. He has 3 years left on his contract (with 2 option years after that), he’s averaged almost 40 HR’s a year in his first 4 1/2 years in Boston, he’s a .313 lifetime hitter. Yes, he can be a pain in the ass to deal with and quite a head case, but he is a future Hall of Famer and is going to hit 600+ HR’s — and did help the Sox win the WS and might help us do the same. I only wish he were left-handed…
Not only would this deal help the M’s for the future but I think it might also help the club get close to .500 this year. Adding another premium bat in the middle of the order would be great. Am I the only one who’d like to see them make an effort here?