Thursday pre-season countdown fun

DMZ · March 30, 2006 at 10:19 am · Filed Under Mariners 

Dave covered the many roster moves. Only one got articles written up. Petagine’s on the roster, occupying the Dave Hansen/Greg Dobbs spot. PI, Times, Tribune.

There’s a split-squad game v San Diego @ 11 and a split-squad game v the Dodgers in Vegas that’ll be on TV at 7. It’d be shocking if they didn’t send almost all the starters to Vegas.

And yes, there’s a Craig Wilson-for-Pineiro rumor. I’m not sure where they’d put him or how they’d patch the rotation.

Comments

74 Responses to “Thursday pre-season countdown fun”

  1. Jim Thomsen on March 30th, 2006 3:29 pm

    So, basically, what we’re saying is that we want all our starting pitchers to pitch as little as possible.

  2. eponymous coward on March 30th, 2006 3:32 pm

    Nice to quote ERA and ERA+, when it A: doesn’t predict future ERA as well as other stats and B: ignores that Joel gave up exactly ZERO unearned runs.

    Time to go back to our favorite game, Player A and Player B (except this time it’s Pitcher A and B…

    Pitcher A’s 2005 xFIP: 4.61
    Pitcher B’s 2005 xFIP: 4.66

    Anyone thinking Billy Beane’s trading Player A for Wilson? Because Pitcher A is Barry Zito. Player B is, of course, Joel. (FWIW, other pitchers with comparable xFIPs are named Matt Clement, Carl Pavano, and Cliff Lee. You seriously think they are going to be traded for a DH?)

    Joel actually has a decent shot of being considerably better this upcoming season. Blowing a hole in the rotation that we have exactly zero ways to fill for an upgrade from crappy DH to decent DH (when there are COMPLETELY FREE ways to do it if you really want to, aka Carlos Pena, Choi, and so on) is poor roster management. Like people have said, if we were in the middle of the Hot Stove League and didn’t have to worry about a team taking the field in less than 100 hours, sure, no problem. Now? Might as well tell the team you want to throw in the towel.

  3. eponymous coward on March 30th, 2006 3:38 pm

    So, basically, what we’re saying is that we want all our starting pitchers to pitch as little as possible.

    “Felix and four days of rain” sounds nice.

  4. Smegmalicious on March 30th, 2006 3:39 pm

    The bottom line is we need pithing. We need no defense corner outfileders/DH guys like we need a hole in the head.

  5. Mike Snow on March 30th, 2006 3:51 pm

    We want all our pitchers to pitch as little as possible, and our hitters to hit as much as possible. That correlates pretty well with outscoring the other team and winning games, I believe. The problem is that this requires some level of skill that our players may not have.

  6. eponymous coward on March 30th, 2006 3:55 pm

    That correlates pretty well with outscoring the other team and winning games, I believe.

    Mike, commentary like that could qualify you to be a color commentator for the M’s. Do you have any theories about scoring 4 runs in a game you’d like to share with us?

    (Just for the record, that’s a dig at some Fairly Obvious Facts, not you, Mike.)

  7. Evan on March 30th, 2006 3:56 pm

    Franklin went 8-15 with a 5.10 ERA in 190 2-3 innings with the Mariners last season, but had some of the worst run support of any starting pitcher.

    Right, because the lack of run support had a lot to do with his ERA.

    I’m actually annoyed. I had hoped Franklin’s price tag would keep him in the rotation – now they’re spending $2.6 million on a mopup guy – because I really wanted him on my HACKIGN MASS team.

  8. Evan on March 30th, 2006 3:57 pm

    As a general rule, I try not to misspell acronyms.

  9. Smegmalicious on March 30th, 2006 4:01 pm

    Of course we could have Ichiro pitch…
    As you can see in this video clip:
    http://tinyurl.com/kcz4u (skip to about 2/3 of the way through)
    He can trow about 90 just comming in from the outfield. Imagine what he could do if he had time to warm up!

  10. Jim Thomsen on March 30th, 2006 4:06 pm

    I wanted Franklin to be a starter just because if he pitched 200 innings, he could have given up 50 home runs in Citizens Bank Ballpark. I would have paid any amount of money to see Pat Gillick’s facial reaction to each.

  11. Dr. Johan on March 30th, 2006 4:11 pm

    The only point of acquiring Wilson would be if we plan to flip Ibanez to another team for prospects/a starting pitcher. A team in the need for a 1B/DH might bite.

  12. Jim Thomsen on March 30th, 2006 4:15 pm

    Yeah, every team needs lot of those … those being so rare and all.

  13. Eugene on March 30th, 2006 4:29 pm

    “A team in the need for a 1B/DH might bite.”

    Considering 1B and DH are positions that teams generally rely upon for run support, if you need a 1B/DH type, you’re probably not going to score a lot of runs, so yes, you’re team does bite.

  14. Smegmalicious on March 30th, 2006 4:30 pm

    Who in their right mind would bite on Ibanez and the contract extention we signed him to?

  15. Jim Thomsen on March 30th, 2006 4:32 pm

    Minus the contract extension, such a trade might have been theoretically possible. Now he is probably the most untradeable player in baseball … maybe even more so than Todd Helton.

  16. Dr. Johan on March 30th, 2006 4:46 pm

    Thats why I said “plan”. Like Bavasi “planned” for Adrian Beltre to be the MVP, Washburn to win 20 games, etc.,etc.,etc…….

  17. John D. on March 30th, 2006 5:44 pm

    ROTATION [(FIVE-DAY–32-32-32-32-32 or FIVE-GAME–35-35-34-34-24)]? (See # 11 “With the ability to skip starts early in the year, …”): Supposedly, Hargrove is not planning to skip srarts early in the year (the supposed reason for designating KING FELIX # 5).
    BTW, if Felix starts 32 times, and averages only 6 IP/Start, he’lll be over the 180 IP that he supposedly will be limited to.
    (I can’t bear to watch.)

  18. ChrisK on March 30th, 2006 6:08 pm

    #60 (Jim): I’m totally with you. I thought Franklin would be demoted around June after getting torched in his first few starts at Citizen’s Bank, but I was SOOO looking forward to hearing the Philly fans “respond” to his performance.

  19. John in L.A. on March 30th, 2006 7:43 pm

    Gorgeous snag by Betancourt just now. Crowd liked it.

  20. DMZ on March 30th, 2006 8:12 pm

    It’s Aaron Sele! WOOOO HOOOO

  21. joser on March 30th, 2006 8:39 pm

    Yeah, that was weird. I tuned in late and heard “Aaron Sele” and reflexively thought Oh no! — and then thought, wait, when did he… and then I realized he was pitching for the other guys. It’s like waking up thinking you’re way late for work and then realizing it’s the weekend.

    And Betancourt had a nice barehander last night. Once again, he’s going to be good for at least one highlight per game. Which on nights Felix isn’t pitching, may be all we’re going to get…

  22. JI on March 30th, 2006 9:21 pm

    #52

    I see where you’re going, but I don’t buy that Pineiro was a good as Zito / Zito was as bad as Piniero last year. Joel’s BABIP last year was quite high, and I don’t think he’ll put up 5.00 ERA, but he probably won’t throw 200 innings either.

    If I can get Wilson and a one-year patch arm (or better), I make that trade five days a week (and then spin Wilson of to CLE, STL, etc etc whoever 30 seconds later).

  23. DMZ on March 30th, 2006 9:39 pm

    I just want to point out that Hendu just riffed for what seemed like an hour on how rare a 200+ IP pitcher was, and how valuable to their team… there were 50, about 2x his rarity estimate, and includes such luminaries as Rodrigo Lopez, Mike Maroth, Jake Westbrook, Bronson Arroyo, and Horacio Ramirez, none of whom were all that impressive.

  24. JI on March 30th, 2006 10:16 pm

    Yeah, but Arroyo put out a record too.

    I always thought Hendu was a bit too pround of his HR v. the Angels.

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