Game 32, Indians at Mariners
Cliff Lee, extreme flyball pitcher, against Joel Pineiro, extreme groundball pitcher in the making?
As we’ve talked about, Joel’s stuff is gone, likely never to return. But this year, he’s getting a lot of groundballs, and you can actually be a reasonably effective pitcher even without missing bats if you’re throwing strikes and getting balls hit on the ground.
Should be an interesting contrast of styles. So that’s something to watch for.
And really, I don’t have much else. This team isn’t that much fun to watch right now.
Game 31, Indians at Mariners
RHP Jake Westbrook v LHP Jamie Moyer. 7:05 FSN. Suggested drink: margarita on the rocks.
Tickets available for upcoming games:
Saturday: 19,500
Sunday: 12,000
Looks like sales are up.
Is Adrian Beltre the worst free agent signing ever?
Today’s fun venture into random comments or emails!
Warning! Contains condescension, sarcasm, and weariness
Contention:
Adrian Beltre is the worst free agent signing ever.
Refutation:
This is one of the most ridiculous and uninformed statements ever to waste our electrons here, the kind of lazy exaggeration that turns the mundane into the blissful or the unsufferable. If you know anything about baseball, if you pay attention at all, it takes about ten, fifteen seconds if you’re asleep to come up with worse deals, and if you’re totally ignorant, a couple of minutes informs you so you know better. There’s no excuse for making this kind of error.
Beltre doesn’t have one of the top 25 deals in baseball. Among those who are clearly right now in the middle of worse deals: Chan Ho Park ($15.5m), Mike Hampton ($14.5m).
In baseball history, you’re awash in choices, especially if we include players felled by injury — Mo Vaughn! Darren Driefor’s LA contract is, strictly in terms of production for dollar, the worst signing in baseball history (I used VORP for that, btw).
Or, to sum up: no.
Drinking guide re-write looms
Hey all — this came up at the last Feed (and comes up fairly frequently in email and people stopping me randomly) so I wanted to say — I’m going to try and get through a total, top-to-bottom rewrite of “Drinking at Safeco” over the course of the next homestand.
What I need from you, dear readers: if there’s a place within walking distance of Safeco you want included, especially if it’s got good drink specials, drop me a line or leave a comment here with name of the place/address/why it’s good.
Cinco de Mayo
Ahhhh, the 5th of May, another holiday that makes it socially acceptable to drink hard alcohol in the workplace. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. I do love a nice tequila. Good job, Mexico, killing up those French dudes.
PI: Sexson may not start today, either.
“That’s the happiest I’ve ever been with Gil,” Chaves said, noting that Meche allowed just two singles and two walks in six innings before running into a little trouble in the seventh.
“It wasn’t just the results. It was the intensity, too. And it was the direction (of his body) toward the plate. It’s the first time I’ve seen exactly what I liked from Gil.”
And Guardado, you may have heard — not the closer.
So the Seattle Times has a story on Guardado losing the official closer sticker (but has a much more interesting story about some cool things Boeing’s mulling over).
You said the union forever
The MLBPA should have used their power to help support and thus end the minor league umpire strike. I know it’s close to being settled now, but the state of umpiring in the minors is bad enough without scab umpires taking twenty minutes to make horrible calls.
The MLB Players Association gets attacked all the time for being a bunch of horrible spoiled millionaires, and I’ve defended them again and again over their right to bargain on issues like drug testing, or salary caps, or whatever. It’s their livelihood and I respect their right to act in whatever way they think best benefits their own interests. I’ve differed with them on a lot of issues — their lack of attention to the situation of minor leaguers is pretty horrible, for one thing — and this is another one.
A lot of the resentment of the MLBPA comes from something most people don’t really think about though: they don’t act like a union. They never respect strikes by other unions and seem, at best, to give only glancing attention to those issues. They act more like a guild of the rich. This isn’t unique to the MLBPA. Like other unions, pro athlete or not, too many are led by the veterans and all too willing to sell out the newest members on the chain (there’s an exemption for signing players with more than 5 years of experience — take it out of the draft pick structure).
I’m not arguing that the MLBPA should honor every strike — but it should at least take them seriously. If there was a serious threat the players wouldn’t take the field over an issue like that, that’s an enormous pressure to settle things amicably and fast. And if it means that blue-collar janitors have the team’s star player looking out for them in some small sense, that’s worth a lot.
In cases like this, though, where it’s a union the players aren’t exactly allied with but who have a great affect on their working environment, they’re obligated to act. Every person on the 40-man roster is a member of the players’ union, even if they’re in the minor leagues. They’re also disproportionately the cream of the system. For example, guys in the Mariners’ minor league system as I write this who are not on the 25-man:
Pitchers
Yorman Bazardo, Travis Blackley, Renee Cortez, Jesse Foppert, Emiliano Fruto, Jeff Harris, Cesar Jimenez, Clint Nageotte
And then the hitters:
Wladimir Balentien, TJ Bohn, Shin-Soo Choo, Mike Morse, DOYLE(!!!)
That’s the high-level talent in the system. The Rainiers would barely field a team without those guys. Supporting the minor-league umpires’ strike would force a quick resolution to the negotiations because teams would be a team short until they settled.
Now, there are obvious sacrifices to be made. Unless the MLBPA puts on its own camp to let these guys all play (and hey, staff it with the striking umps), they’re losing development time, and I’m against that (plus, it might violate the terms of their contracts).
It means teams would have a lot harder time working out rehab schedules for players coming off the DL.
It inflicts a lot of pain on the minor league teams: instead of having horrible umpiring, they’d have much worse teams. It could be a big blow to their pockets, and minor league teams as a whole are running pretty close to the red anyway. However, they’re employing scab umpires, so I’m not sympathetic.
But for the pain, there’s a greater long-term win here. The MLBPA has been losing the public relations fight with the owners for years, as the owners have successfully painted the players are spoiled brats who are against drug testing, lower ticket prices, and cute puppies.
In sticking up for minor league umpires, they had an opportunity to stick up for a fellow union that’s directly connected to their ability to do their job, honor the sacrifices of those who fought for the collective bargaining rights they enjoy, and also to shed their image as a self-interested boy’s club where they light their cigars with hundred-dollar bills and chuckle at news of the poor and downtrodden.
Maybe next time.
Incompetent clowns
Go to the minor league baseball site’s audio page.
Go back to the May 3rd page.
Pick the “Oklahoma RedHawks @ Round Rock Express” game.
Fast forward to the 1 hour, 47 minute mark.
Listen. It’ll take a minute or two of neccessary exposition before you get to the good stuff.
Game 30, Mariners at White Sox
Happy Felix Day.
Lawton playing center field again. Good thing Felix is all ground balls, all the time.
Contreras is due for a shallacking. His ERA doesn’t come close to matching his performance so far.
Guardado removed from closer role
Everyone gets their wish – Eddie Guardado is no longer the closer for the Mariners. If the M’s encounter a save situation today, expect to see J.J. Putz on the hill.
Game 29, Mariners at White Sox
RHP Gil Meche vs RHP Freddy Garcia. Freddy faces the team he would hardly recognize! Gil Meche faces the fourth-highest-scoring team in the AL! White Sox hitters beg (beg!) Ozzie Guillen to give them a start today!
Lemme throw this out there, then: why not start Livingston? The Sox are a crazy 13-2 vs RHP so far this year and 5-6 against lefties. Meche is a hittable righty. Even if Livingston’s a hittable lefty, he’s a much better option against this team if you want to win the game.
And it’s not as if you’d be messing up a critical part of the rotation, or anything. Plus, there’s a lot of debate over whether Livingston’s minor league success can translate at the major leagues. There’s not a similar debate about whether Meche is going to be contributing to the next good Mariner team. Why not look for opportunities like this to get him some work and see how he holds up?