Now we must come together as fans to find and consume beers from Papua New Guinea
“Usually I enjoy Japanese beer, but given the situation, if I was objectively watching the game, I wouldn’t care if it was Japanese beer, American beer or beer from Papua New Guinea.†— Ichiro
Being nothing if not devoted, near-slavish zombies who worship Ichiro here at USSM, I feel we must now carry out his will and find beer to drink while we cheer (and boo)(we boo with love). American beers are available at every corner mart. Japanese beers, still no problem. But as all good followers do, we must now take the words of our hero too seriously and locate places that carry the only beers from Papua New Guinea, all brewed by South Pacific Brewery Ltd:
– South Pacific Export Lager
– SP Lager Beer
– Niugini Ice (this is obviously lower priority, as chances are the others are a lot more drinkable)
From the SP site, this is what
SP Lager Beer:
Niugini Ice:
The ice beer has its own website “Devoted to the Niugini chillout culture“. Maybe that’s what we need to do: chill out.
So here’s what we need in the comments, so that I can put up a good tracking page for dedicated Mariner fans who want to make it through this season:
– confirmed sightings of these beers, with prices and stock details if you can manage it
– pictures of you with purchased SP Brewery products. Bonus points if you’re at Safeco Field (warning! open container laws mean you should probably keep them shut, though obviously… yeah) and super bonus points if you can get pictures of you, the can/bottle/etc with Ichiro. In fact, you’ll pretty much be my hero if you can get a picture of you, Ichiro, and SP Lager.
– other helpful information related to tracking down these beers, like “I called the SP Brewery and they’re distributed in Seattle by Esposito’s Entirely Legitimate Import-Export Business”
That’s it. We know SP Lager might suck. And I don’t want to hear that this is a stupid project, or Ichiro sucks, or anything of the sort. If you’re not on board with this noble endeavor, then I feel sorry that you can’t get on board with this potentially fun activity born out of this season’s horrible start. Please take your negativity elsewhere, because we have beers to find.
Thank you.
That sizzling hot youngster Vidro
Since being called up to replace Jeff Clement (who was called down to Tacoma as part of the team’s efforts to bring a PCL championship to the Sound) at DH, Vidro’s been blistering the ball. Blistering!
8-18 with a walk, two doubles, and one home run (!) — that’s a .444/.473/.737 line! Crazy!
That’s exactly the kind of hitting the team’s needed. Why did they wait so long to give him this chance?
Bavasi Blissfully Unaware Of Real Analysis
From Baker’s notes of a conference call Bavasi had with reporters a little while ago.
“This is not a field managerial issue,” he said. “John is doing a good job. Our performance is not related to his work. It’s purely related to player performance and underperformance and underachievement. Nobody had the nerve to pick us less than second place in our division. We were picked anything from first to second to wild-card. You name it. The expectations were a heck of a lot higher than this, based on any analysts’ evaluation of out players’ individual track records and their age. Their ages are such that they’re not all young guys that they’re inexperienced. But they’re not too old to believe that they would backslide. So, I think those expectations are realistic. They were and they are.”
My official prediction: 83-79, one game better than Texas, nowhere close to the playoffs.
PECOTA projections: 76-86, third place, nowhere close to the playoffs.
ZIPS projections: 72-90, third place, nowhere close to the playoffs
CHONE projections: 83-79, nowhere close to the playoffs
Hardball Times projections: 79-83, third place, nowhere close to the playoffs.
Lots of people had “the nerve” to tell you that you did a horrible job building this roster, Bill. Lots of people pointed out that this team wasn’t a contender. Lots of people told you that you that you had a roster setup for failure, with collapse potential everywhere. You just don’t listen to those people, because they’re nerds with computers who don’t understand baseball. Or something.
But you don’t get to rewrite history. We knew this team wasn’t good, and we spent the entire offseason trying to tell you that. You ignored us at your own peril, and you built a terrible baseball team for $117 million. That’s your fault.
And now, rather than learning from your mistakes, admitting that you have absolutely no idea how to evaluate pitching talent, you’re completely ignorant of how to value defense, you don’t know what kinds of hitters work in your own park, and realizing that there’s an entire school of analysis that could help improve the decision making of the club, you’re once again focusing on things like clubhouse leadership and character.
This is ridiculous. Build a good baseball team, and you won’t have to talk about all this psycho babble crap that you guys invent to try to justify your horrible decisions. Learn more about baseball than a blogger who lives 2,500 miles from Safeco Field and covers the team as a freaking hobby. I shouldn’t know more about how to build a baseball team than you, but I do, and that’s why you and your entire staff deserve to be fired.
Jose Vidro, your 2009 designated hitter
Not to be a downer or anything, but the M’s are showing every sign that they’re content to let their wretched designated hitter’s 2009 option vest.
He’s playing in three quarters of the team’s games so far, and that includes a stretch where he was out with back spasms. Over 140 plate appearances. His option almost certainly vests at 400 or 450 plate appearances. Assuming that as a fragile guy he’ll miss that much proportional time, he’ll still easily clear either of those marks and be back for 2009 at a cost of about $9, $10m, maybe $12m.
Maybe the M’s can’t move Silva, or Washburn, or Sexson, or whatever. But if there’s one thing they can manage to easily do in this horrible season it would be to ensure their abysmal designated hitter doesn’t return for next year.
Game 50, Mariners at Yankees
Silva v Mussina. 10:05 our time.
SP Lager: Official Beer of the 2008 Mariner Season.
“Usually I enjoy Japanese beer, but given the situation, if I was objectively watching the game, I wouldn’t care if it was Japanese beer, American beer or beer from Papua New Guinea,†he said.
Ichiro, Still Hilarious
Our center fielder:
“Playing on this team and seeing what is happening around me, I feel that something is beginning to fall apart,” Ichiro said, through a translator. “But, if I was not in this situation, and I was objectively watching what just happened this week, I would probably be drinking a lot of beers and booing.”
The Rotation
The Mariners built this team around a pitching rotation of “five number ones”.
The Mariners rotation has a 5.27 ERA, second worst in baseball.
This is why you don’t build a team around a pitching staff.
Game 49, Mariners at Yankees
Hey, good thing that we’re through with the powerhouse Tigers and can move onto—doh
Reminder
I’m on KJR at 3:35 pm with Groz. I’m sure the interview will be full of optimism and brightness, because this team is awesome.
The 2009 Core
After this series, I’d imagine that even the staunchest holdouts agree that this season is over. The Mariners would have to play .657 baseball, going 75-39, the rest of the way to have any realistic chance of winning this division. This team is just not capable of playing that well. They’ll be lucky to get to .500, honestly. The 2008 season is up in flames.
So, now, the question is no longer what the team should do to try to improve this year’s team. This year’s team is irrelevant. The 2009 team is now the one the organization needs to be building (and for the sake of this discussion, we’re ignoring the fact that the entire front office might get fired) – the nice thing about a losing season is that you get a head start on your competitors for the following year. With the resources and the talent on hand, this team can be a winner in 2009 if they make the right moves. We’re not looking at a long rebuilding project, where they should trade everyone and start over. They just need to import some talent, make some good moves, and build a team around the foundation that’s already here. It can be done, but first, they need to identify the core that they’re going to build around.
Here’s my take on who those guys should be considered part of that core.
Felix Hernandez, Starting Pitcher: He’s the franchise. Don’t trade him ever.
Ichiro, Center Field: If Felix is 1A, he’s 1B. Same deal – he retires here.
Erik Bedard, Starting Pitcher: The trade sucked, but he’s here and still good. Keep him.
Adrian Beltre, Third Base: Underrated, not really replaceable. Keep him.
And that’s the core. Everyone else is liable to be replaced by someone better depending on what you find available. There are other valuable players in the organization (Putz, Betancourt, Lopez, Clement to name four), but they’re not guaranteed jobs here. If someone wants to give you something for them that makes this team better, they go in a heartbeat. They’re all replaceable.
Now, the problem this presents is that if you’ve decided that your core is a center fielder, a third baseman, and two starting pitchers, you’ve got a massive amount of work to do to fill 21 spots around them before 2009 rolls around. Some of those will be filled internally, certainly, but you’re still looking at a pretty significant roster turnover. Where do you start with such a large job?
Well, to begin with, you figure out who isn’t part of your core and could have some value to a team trying to contend right now, and you figure out whether it’s worth it to trade them for 2009 help. This list is pretty short, unfortunately, since there are so many lousy players on the roster. Essentially, you’re looking at Raul Ibanez and J.J. Putz here. Both would bring in a decent return in trade as quality veterans with terrific contracts, but that return has to be weighted against the cost of subtracting them from the 2009 roster.
If Ibanez is willing to DH next year and be platooned against lefties, and he’ll re-sign for a reasonable amount of money, then he might be worth keeping around. If he’s not, then you have to weigh whether the players being offered are more valuable than the potential draft picks you’d get from letting him walk via free agency. Since this team is building for 2009, though, it’s likely that they’d be able to get some more immediate help in exchange for Ibanez, who has the reputation to fool someone into overpaying to get him for the stretch run.
Putz is a tougher call. When he’s healthy, he’s still one of the best closers alive, and he’s signed to a bargain contract through 2010. If the M’s are going to contend next year, they should be making their bullpen better, not worse. However, relievers have notoriously short shelf lives, and you can build a good bullpen very quickly. Trading Putz now and rebuilding the bullpen this winter could be a good strategy if you can get an everyday player that could fill a position on the 2009 team.
Once you’ve figured out what you’re doing with those two, you then need to answer the Jeff Clement question. Now that Johjima’s been re-signed through 2011, Clement isn’t a catcher in this organization anymore. He’s a good hitting prospect, but as a 1B/DH, he’s no longer a potential all-star, and he would have more value to a club that would stick him behind the plate everyday. Regardless of whether we agree with the Johjima deal or not, it happened, and it’s not going away, so Clement’s value to this organization might be highest as trade bait. If you could turn him into a similarly talented first baseman and get an additional player to boot, that’s a trade they should look at making. Call the Reds and ask them what they’ll give you with Joey Votto for Clement – if you like the second player, make the deal.
That’s where you start, but it’s certainly not where you finish. It’s a big job, but the sooner this organization gets started on a plan for 2009, the better.
Yes, we know, no one reading this wants this administration making the decisions on who will be here next year and who won’t. Put that aside and allow us to have a discussion that doesn’t center around your desire to see Bavasi fired. Thanks.