Aumont said every time a team had its turn at the microphone yesterday he was thinking of the players with that team.

“When it was Seattle’s turn I was thinking of Richie Sexson, a tall guy like me, he and Adrian Beltre,” Aumont said. “When I was young I always liked watching Randy Johnson pitch because of his size.”
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Aumont said he enjoys playing Nintendo, especially Madden Football. Nintendo is the majority owner of the Mariners.

Maybe they can pay part of his signing bonus in video games. “Welcome to the Mariners! Here, have a Wii.”

I’d say it’s more like for every “superstar” pitching prospect there’s five or six superstar pitching prospects who don’t make it for one reason or another — injury most obviously, but lots of other factors can derail a promising career.

My hope is he’ll be ready by the middle of ‘09 (2 years) or the beginning of 2010 (2.5 years) to join our pitching staff because of that lively arm of his

Ok, everybody needs to just turn it down a couple of notches. I understand: we all hope the M’s have found a diamond in rough, and we’re all desperate to see the team improve today, or at least soon. But the one doesn’t solve the other. The dude is 18. Two years from now he’ll be 20. Remember what a big deal it was for Felix to be pitching before his 21st birthday? This guy isn’t Felix. (And yeah, Felix debuted before 20. He’s still not Felix). Sure there are HS pitchers who reached the majors at 20 and have seen success — Bonderman, Sabathia, Suppan. But the last guy before Felix to debut for the M’s at age 20? Gil Meche. People thought he had #1 starter stuff too (and before his surgeries, maybe he did). Things happen. Just ask Kerry Wood or Rick Ankiel or Matt Riley. And Aumont is raw. He needs more than just “some polishing.” He’s got a lot of potential, but he has to learn how to throw something other than fastballs — and that’s how guys get hurt. Sure, he may sail through it, picking up pitches and staying healthy, but that’s an awful lot to assume — even if it wasn’t with the M’s, whose track record with injuries in young pitchers doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

And let’s suppose everyone’s wildest dreams come true, and he turns out to be the second coming of Randy Johnson. Even Randy Johnson wasn’t Randy Johnson for his first couple of years in the bigs.

I hope he turns out to be everything everyone hopes him to be, but projecting out and talking about the year he arrives (what’s the rest of the team going to look like then? Who will be managing, or coaching, or even owning it?) just gets a little silly.

I’d suggest “Dauphin”

Dolphin?

Quit honestly for Aumont, and any pitcher for that matter, turning into a successful Major League pitcher requires time, patience, receptiveness to learning, health, being able to accept failure early on, and a little bit of luck. And even if the pitcher does everything right in the minors, there’s still the matter of pitching well enough to stay in the big leagues.

Certainly I think he has all the talent in the world to be a TOR pitcher and the scouts really had him as a can’t miss in the Top 10. He’ll just need some polishing in the minor leagues.

My hope is he’ll be ready by the middle of ’09 (2 years) or the beginning of 2010 (2.5 years) to join our pitching staff because of that lively arm of his, but if it takes a little bit longer (like until 2011, 3.5-4 years from now), I can live with it. Just as long as he has the attitude to go along with the talent to succeed in the big leagues, which is something a certain guy on our club named Weaver lacks completely as shown by taking $8.3 million this year to not play for the Seattle Mariners, but to play strictly for Jeff Weaver getting an even more absurd multi-million, multi-year deal later.