2007 Mariners, post-meetings
If the season started today…
~80 wins. That’s probably a little low… 82? 83? Assumes they blow their last chunk of change on one starter, as seems likely. Also omits Reed, who is almost certainly gone.
SP Felix Hernandez
SP Wrss Fhccna
SP Jarrod Washburn
SP Horacio Ramirez
SP White/Baek/Woods/Foppert/Whoever
RP Putz
RP Mateo
RP O’Flaherty
RP Lehr
RP Sherrill
RPx2 Woods/Baek/whoever
DH-L Broussard
C-R Kenji Johjima
1B-R Richie Sexson
2B-R Jose Lopez
SS-R Yuniesky Betancourt
3B-R Adrian Beltre
LF-L Raul Ibanez
CF-L Ichiro!
RF-R Jose Guillen
C: Johnson/Rivera/whoever
UT: WFB
UT: Morse
OF: Snelling
This squad overachieves if
All the good things they said about Ramirez turn out to be true, Broussard turns in a good season, Lopez is Lopez instead of the horrible hitter Hargrove turned him into, Johjima hits better in his second season, they get Snelling three or four starts a week somehow to get the bat in there, Guillen is healthy and productive. Betancourt turns in another good year with the bat, Sexson starts well and hits all season long. Ibanez defies age entirely for another year. That magical team wins 90 games. Hargrove quits to pursue another career during spring training.
They undershoot if
Ramirez is what everyone thinks he is, Snelling never plays, Lopez is the horrible hitter Hargrove wants him to be… you know this litany.
The year collapses if
Felix or Ichiro is injured for any significant amount of time.
Things that could yet help or hurt the team
- Whoever that last starter they throw money at turns out to be
- Whether Broussard is moved, and for what
- Whether Sexson is moved, and for what
- Whether spring training actually matters in determining spots
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Why no Jon Huber love?
Broussard’s not listed on your roster, but then you don’t show a DH either. Is that where you’ve got Broussard?
Lucky for us the season has a small chance of collapsing in your way Derek since Ichiro hardly ever gets hurt.
A little depressing, I must admit. It’s not a significant upgrade over the 2006 squad or even much of a change. And where is the DH on that roster? Do we keep the Broussard/Perez’s replacement platoon? (We did get rid of Perez, didn’t we?)
On the flip side, he’s due for an injury
I fixed that, I was just writing too fast and dropped the DH
Just like how the M’s dropped the DH all of last year.
Hmm, so if the M’s indeed sign Wrss Fhccna, will we be given a mulligan or two for misspellings?
I can see the litany of [Fhccna] posts already. I forget my quintuple-consonant spelling rules quite often, and will definitely need the mulligan. Or an ‘edit’ button/link.
On a more serious note…
Do you really think Reed’s going to get traded? Now, Bavasi’s got some pretty strong intestinal fortitude, but even he has to be a little gun shy about now, with all the likely flak he’s getting ’round the league. Well, perhaps there’s another Carlos Guillen trade in his bag o’ tricks. I mean, heck, does he or anyone else in the M’s for that matter, value Reed any higher than they did Guillen at this point? Certainly Reed’s got more value than what the M’s got for Guillen, right?
Why so negative Corco? We all know that the M’s are going to the WS so we might as well have some fun right. Ha, Ha Wheeeeee!
It’s really Dave who’s sure Reed is gone. You should ask him.
I hate the Mariners. I want to watch them crash and burn and die. And then we’ll get new ownership and I’ll start liking them again.
That starting rotation sucks ass! It’s worse than last year’s.
I don’t know. I hear Wrss Fcchna is pretty good.
If the M’s get stuck with Reed, there are two things that might happen:
- he’s the 4th OF instead of Morse/Snelling or even a 5th OF
- they stick him in Tacoma
Either way I don’t think he’s going to get much playing time.
Who doesn’t want Wrss Fcchna? You’d have to be crazy not to want him.
How do you pronounce that? Is it War-us Fuck-nuh?
Who really thinks this team can win 80 games with that starting rotation? Which of those starters is actually going to have a winning record?
I humbly suggest you start referring to the 5th starter as the “Baek of the Rotation”.
Right now, I’d prefer either of these options than to give him the Carlos Guillen Punt treatment. Play him in LF and CF (platoon with AJ) in Tacoma and/or DH him there to get his bat back up to speed. Anything to keep him away from Jeff “Let’s Turn Reed into Jim Edmonds!” Pentland.
Is it just me, or did I count only 24 players? Since Grover is still managing, that would make sense.
Grover would likely add a twelfth pitcher, which would make 25.
It’s subtle, but there’s a “RPx2″ — unless, of course, you haven’t refreshed the page since DMZ fixed the missing DH thing…
Yeah, sorry about that, I dashed this off and have been making little fixes since it went up. My fault.
Thanks. Now I have it.
What about that Cuban baby vampire pitcher that throws 104 mph that the Yankees were interested in last year? Is he still available? (I love the off-season, I really do.)
I fail to see how replacing Broussard with Snelling in that lineup would have much impact at all. So a Broussard trade could only be a good thing at this point. Unless they bring in another lefty bat to replace him like Floyd or Nixon.
Is Morse really Broussard’s platoon mate? yikes. This roster is screaming for a right OF who can let Raul DH when Broussard sits. Marcus Thames anyone? Detroit’s got no use for him anymore.
Its hard to see Huber not being on the team on Opening Day. He was the Mariner bullpen for all of September.
If its me running this team, I’m shipping Broussard and Balentien and maybe another middling prospect to Pittsburgh for Damaso Marte and Ryan Doumit. Then I’m flipping Marte or Sherrill to Detroit for Thames. Instant uber-bench. Plus I’ve got a bigger wad to throw at Zito
Reed ought to be able to land a set-up guy with similar upside to himself. Florida’s crawling with them.
I don’t see Lehr making this team. Ranking the right-handers (in order of probablity of making the team):
Mateo
Huber
Fruto
White
Green
Lehr
Plus I’m betting that there’s going to be a couple more names added to that list.
Man, I don’t see an 82-win team there. In the AL, where the competition is stiff, that’s a 78-win team, just like last year. In fact, it’s basically same team as last year. Assume the guys over 30 will be 10% worse than last year and the guys under 30 will be 10% better and you get last year’s resoluts. OK, maybe an 80 win team because there won’t be the Guardado blown saves early on…
I think you failed to hightlight a significant potential development under “Things that could yet help or hurt the Team”; namely, that they get off to a horrible start and fire Hargrove (and maybe Bavasi) by May. With Howchuck Lincstrong in charge it probably won’t happen, but we can dream, can’t we?
It’s too bad we don’t have Bucky Jacobsen to plug in as Broussard’s platoon partner. Or Bobby Madritsch to plug into the rotation. Believe it or not, there are still M’s “fans” who call KJR wondering what happened to both of those guys.
I’m rooting especially hard against any injuries this year. A hangnail on Willie Bloomquist and a 78-win season; we’ll be hearing “We’d have been right there if it hadn’t been for these injuries…”
I’d like Bavasia / Hargrove / Lincoln / Etc. to fail on their own merits.
All of this speculation is of course overlooking the very real possibility of another bad trade sometime after the All-Star break.
Maybe Bavasi will go with the four headed DH monster this year. You got yer R/L split, but also home/away… Which I suppose could turn into an eight headed monster. Scary.
The Rumanian League is always good to pitchers. Meanwhile, what are the odds the Mariners can be as lucky injury-wise in 2007 as they were in 2006? Whle Felix or Ichiro would be catastrophes, it’s not like this team has depth anywhere except maybe at mediocre.
Does Wrss Fcchna have any grit?
He won a World Series last year….
meaning 2006
Loosly translated to English, Wrss Fcchna means Cy Young
Or is it Bobby Ayala…not sure..we’ll find out!
I’d like Bavasia / Hargrove / Lincoln / Etc. to fail on their own merits.
I thought they did, last year.
Reports have the Royals offering a six year, sixty five million dollar contract to Wrss Fhccna. It is correctly pronounced “Walrus Fuck-nah”.
He is the first major leaguer to hail from Outer Slobovia.
Unless O’Flaherty shows vast improvement, he won’t be ready to consistently contribute. Still not sure, unless I missed something (usually a safe bet) why Huber isn’t a mortal lock to be in the ‘pen.
Funny…I thought Wrss Fhccna was from Bavasia.
sigh… I cannot believe a month ago I was hoping for a Matsuzaka / Felix / Schmidt / Washburn / one more starting lineup…
Just hope Felix does something amazing like Liriano last year, the rest of the line up does so-so, and hope the offense explodes to make up for it.
So is the general USSM opinion that the best move would be to aim at 2 John Thomson type cross-your-fingers-for-league-average pitchers on short contracts rather than getting sucked in for someone better at more money and longer term?
I actually think the general USSM opinion is something in the realm of “Fire Bavasi”
I actually think the general USSM opinion is something in the realm of “Fire Bavasiâ€
That, and “We got hosed Tommy, we got hosed.”
So does Bill get invited to speak at the next USS Mariner feed?
Is there a baseball equivalent to Comic Book Guy Voice?
Given that someone in the M’s FO is undoubtably aware of the last week’s worth of posts, a better question would be: if he was invited, would he come?
Of course there’s a chance he’ll pull a deal out of his hat in the remainder of the offseason that moderates the general opinion. There’s also a chance he’s out of a job by the time the next feed happens.
Is there a baseball equivalent to Comic Book Guy Voice?
Worst. Mariners. Team. Ever.
(And of course that wouldn’t be true. But I have to say, I’m getting close to the point I was at in ‘86 or so, when I checked out for almost a decade).
Was this really just 4 years ago?
Since Liriano’s out for the 2007 season (and God knows whether he’ll ever come back), let’s hope Felix doesn’tdo anything amazing “like Liriano last year”.
Wrss Fhccna is destined to become a fan favorite; I can feel it. He’s my darkhorse candidate for Cy Young.
Get on the Wrss Fhccna bandwagon now before it becomes full.
Wrss FhccnaMania! is coming to Seattle.
I don’t see how this team is worse than last year’s. Broussard/Whoever is better than Everett and Guillen/Snelling is better than Reed was. The rotation is pretty much the same or slightly better IMO.
ok, minus the injury part…
Wrss Fhccna … I hear he’s a distant cousin of Sidd Finch.
I heard that Wrss Fhccna ruptured his MCL while working out the other day (or maybe it invloved a suitcase – I’m not sure), and will undergo Tommy John surgery sometime next week.
I wasn’t concentrating apparently – must have been fatherhood and work or some other such distractions – but WHAT THE F**K happened to the John Thomson signing? A week ago I filed that in my head as a done deal; then with the not bad Guillen signing, and the rumours of flipping Sexson for something useful – things were looking pretty darn good.
One week, one terrible trade, one pointless trade and no good moves later and we’re looking at compounding our misery by locking up the future of the franchise in Jeff Scrub-pan?
Oh my God… tie that to the Washburn deal and the Mariners are going to spend the next five years beating no-one but the Royals.
In terms of playing time, it may be reasonable to think of it as a Broussard/WFB platoon (though WFB will obviously take the field when he plays).
I don’t suspect Snelling will get enough playing time to stay loose. Not good.
Can you win 83 games in the AL without a starting pitching staff? I’ll take the under (though even with Lopez and Betancourt’s anticipated struggles, the offense looks nice)
Didn’t they win 116 games in 2001 without one?
I tend to think that teams need to have periodic rebuilding years in which they trade off their veterans for prospects. This concept never seems to be mentioned on this site, so maybe it’s an old fashioned notion or something. Still, it seems like the past few seasons have shown that either it’s too hard to patch together a winning team from a team as bad as the Mariners, or else the Mariner’s front office just doesn’t have the skill to do it.
At this point, I’d love to see the M’s start moving veterans for minor league guys. Send Sexson to San Fransico, and offer to pay half his salary if necessary. There may even be a market for Washburn if Meche is considered an $11M pitcher. Heck, cash in Ichiro.
We’re going to suck next year, and I don’t see any convincing reason to think we’re not going to suck in 2008 and 2009. Adding the yearly Jose Guillen is not ever going to make us contend.
catching up woth yesterday, i think this about sums it up:
“This was one of the more miserable winter meetings I’ve ever been to,” Mariners GM Bill Bavasi said.
Geoff Baker shows again that he is not Finny in his winter meeting wrap-up and Edgar continues to utilize those business classes he took at American University…
Anyone see this article? I think it sums up a lot of the feelings being expressed around here, and made some good points.
Dude. Seriously, we talk about this all the time, and particularly how the M’s, armed with so much cash, can spend on higher-quality stopgaps during the down years to make rebuilding easier.
USS Mariner has oft espoused the virtues of the “Cleveland approach.”
“This was one of the more miserable winter meetings I’ve ever been to,†Mariners GM Bill Bavasi said.
This is classic. I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant to be heckled right and left after making the worst one-sided trade off the off-season.
The Mariners seemed to have made the biggest splash at the Winter Meetings, though not exactly in a positive way….
The deal that got the most attention within the industry was Atlanta’s acquisition of Rafael Soriano from Seattle for Horacio Ramirez. “That was a great John Schuerholz deal,” said one general manager. “Unbelievable.”
Bill Bavasi, he’s craptastic!
Our bullpen went from awesome to okay. Is Mateo officially the new Bobby Ayala?
Trading Ibanez is a great idea, even if you can only get a mildly good prospect for him… If even that. Bavasi is too afraid at this point to do something so smart (I mean really Bill, it’s not that hard: Buy low, sell high. Friggin’ A!)
Also, I hate Wee Willie Bloomquist as much as the next M’s fan (or maybe it’s just me who hates him?), but I almost have sympathy after the way he was ripped into in that article. Sheesh.
A “dud organization”? As someone who grew up with Jack Perconte, Spike Owen, and Pete O’Brien among others, I feel right at home. If only they still had the Kingdome to play in. Safeco is a waste… Plus the voters voted against it. Right now my favorite Safeco moment was seeing Tommy Lasorda fall on his ass at the All-Star game. Heh, that was great.
M’s won’t have three lefties in the rotation or three in the bullpen.
O’Flaherty will start in AAA and will come up if and when Woods or Sherrill falter.
Huber or an acquired veteran replaces O’Flaherty on your roster.
And,don’t forget Lowe, who hopefully will be up by May, best case scenario, or the ASB (someone may have mentioned him already but obviously I didn’t read all comments up to this point).
Why should Bavasi show up. Last time he went to one, he offered some information under the agreement that people attending wouldn’t post it……..and, it was up on the web before he could get his car started.
Why should he bother?