M’s Option Furbush, probably Peguero
The Mariners haven’t officially announced just announced their final two moves to get down to a 25 man roster before Friday’s opener, and Charlie Furbush and Carlos Peguero are going to join Shawn Kelley down in Tacoma, which will leave open roster spots for Rule 5 LHP Lucas Luetge and 3B Alex Liddi.
Luetge isn’t a surprise, as he pitched well during the spring and the team obviously saw something they liked when they added him over the winter. The shift here is Liddi making the team, as this is essentially the fallout from Mike Carp landing on the DL.
With Liddi apparently making the team, the plan appears to be to move Chone Figgins to left field in Carp’s absence. Essentially, the team is choosing to give Kyle Seager playing time instead of Casper Wells, which is probably a direct result of their spring training performances. With Figgins in LF, they wanted another third baseman on the roster, so Liddi will backup/platoon with Seager at third, and Wells will remain in the fourth OF role even with Carp on the DL.
It will be interesting to see how the team handles Carp’s return, given this change. With Seager getting regular playing time to start the season, he probably has a chance to take the starting job and run with it. If he’s hitting .300 with some doubles and triples mixed in, they’re not going to stick him back on the bench, and Wedge has been pretty adamant that Carp was going to get regular playing time this year.
So, my guess is that this means that Figgins now has about 7-10 days to show something in order to maintain his hold on a starting job. If Seager struggles out of the gate, he might get a little bit longer of a leash, but Carp’s injury opens up the door for Seager to take some playing time that probably was going to go to Figgins had Carp stayed healthy.
Nothing’s set in stone, and I’d imagine Wedge will probably still mix-and-match some, but with Liddi making the team, I think Seager’s hold on the third base job just got a little bit stronger. Also, it means we won’t have to watch Carlos Peguero, which is nice.
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22 Responses to “M’s Option Furbush, probably Peguero”
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I think you are right. I don’t think Figgy is long for our world.
But, …but, but..Dingers!? (not serious).
The bigger question now is whether they keep Saunders or Wells when/if? Guti regains IBS midseason form.
Curious to know who’d bat lead off is Figgins is bumped from starting at both 3rd and LF. Either Ackley or Seager?
Carp’s injury could be a blessing in disguise if things play out accordingly on the Figgins front.
Good follow-up question Jordan … I suppose it will depend on who is performing better. However, having 3 main cogs from the Fister trade playing in AAA at the same time, might be tough on Jack.
I know, I know… spring training results are meaningless. AND Figgy did draw a fair number of walks this spring… but Wedge doesn’t seem all that enamored of walking, and Figgins spent this spring hitting below the Mendoza line even though (hehe) he’s back in his “comfort zone” at lead-off.
This is one case where the result I want is probably going to happen due to the type of “baseball logic” I usually deplore. But given how often flawed reasoning has led to me pulling my hair out – I’ll live with it this time.
“but Wedge doesn’t seem all that enamored of walking”
Which is kind of odd. Really odd, in fact. Wedge led the NCAA in walks and slugging percentage his last year as a player at Wichita State – if memory serves.
Well, I think Wedge likes walks IF they come from a guy who’s also hitting respectably.
An interesting thought experiment would be to examine how Wedge would feel about a guy who hit .100, but had an OBP of .450. 😉
Well, the main cog from the Fister deal’s going to start off in AA, it appears.
I’d assume they’d just drop Liddi when Carp’s ready to come back, so he’s got a very short window to prove he belongs as well. This’ll be tough in a strict platoon, of course, and ever harder if he’s a true back-up.
Isn’t there one more safety valve they can open on the roster, if they need the rest of April to sort out the outfield pile and/or Figgins?
They could stash Iwakuma on the 15-day DL with very believable health concerns, especially if he struggles in long relief a couple times. That allows them to slide Carp into the mix when Carp comes back in a couple weeks.
Barring any new unpleasant surprises on the injury or performance front, they can then use Guti’s return as the go/no-go for offloading Figgins.
Spring Training competition gave Kawasaki and Ramirez a chance to earn a roster spot; and Luetge (Rule 5 ) and Jaso (back-up catcher) did enough to keep their protected spots. As above comments have foreshadowed, when Carp and Guti come off the DL…(insert metaphor here…) wither Figgins
This is certainly a step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see what they do when Carp is back. Especially if both Figgins and Liddi get off to a good start. I think that scenario is less likely though.
I wouldn’t mind watching a lineup of:
Ackley, 2b
Seager, 3b
Ichiro, RF
Montero, C/DH
Smoak, 1b
Carp, LF
Guti, CF (If not healthy, Saunders bumped down one.)
Liddi/Jaso/Olivo DH/C
Ryan, SS
“Well, the main cog from the Fister deal’s going to start off in AA, it appears”
I sure hope so … and here’s to hoping he is so good that he clearly outperforms Seager, Liddi and Catricala.
Wells obviously has some tools, but the jury is going to be “out” for a while in regard to what type of player he will eventually become as he nears the age of 28. Maybe he already is “that” player. I remember a fuss being made by the FO in regard to how good the PTBNL was going to be. Ruffin is still very young, but whatever special skill he may eventually master whereby any of us would be willing to proclaim his “goodness” – remains a bit elusive to define at this point. A bit of a quirky delivery with average stuff and less than average control. I remember a lot of head scratching over his inculusion – within USSM Nation – rather than a position player, but the position player hopeful at that time may have only been rumor, anyway.
EricL, when Montero is catching, I would probably rather have Carp at DH than Liddi (and way more than Jaso or Olivo).
Wedge on the radio pretty much said he thinkg Peguero is really close to being ready to play in the majors.
I hope he stays in AAA until they can really be sure he is ready (if he is ever ready).
“An interesting thought experiment would be to examine how Wedge would feel about a guy who hit .100, but had an OBP of .450”
Unless this bating line comes from the next version of Eddie Gaedel or on some island where taking ice samples is the national pastime, I don’t think it will ever occur. Saunders (last years version) was pretty close to pulling off half of it, though. I am hopeful his problems have been resolved because once the games start to count and the pitches continually dive into the dirt, it’s a whole different story. We need him to be productive in order to help the Figgins exodus along its way.
Regarding Wedge and walks, it should be pointed out that Lou Piniella was kind of awful at drawing walks as a player but valued them very highly as a manager (both in terms of going after guys who walked a lot and coaxing them to walk more and blowing up Mt. Piniella style over pitchers who couldn’t get the ball over the plate). It’s really not that uncommon to see this, actually. I think what happens psychologically speaking is that for a guy like Wedge pitch selection just came naturally and so he doesn’t necessarily see it as a skill to go after the way he does bat speed or “making productive outs”.
“An interesting thought experiment would be to examine how Wedge would feel about a guy who hit .100, but had an OBP of .450?
He cut him pretty quickly if I remember correctly… (Jack Cust waves “hi” from a Florida bingo parlor)
Ryan Langerhans also says hi… from beyond the grave… (actually, didn’t the Yankees just pick up Cust?)
Yeah, the Yankees picked up Cust on a minor league deal after the Astros cut him.
Re: “I wouldn’t mind watching a lineup of”:
And I wouldn’t mind wathing one with ACKLEY in LF, and KAWASAKI at 2B.
(In the days of single-platoon football, Woody Hayes said, “On any football team, you have eleven best men, and you’d better find out damned quick who they are.” Although the numbers are different, the sentiment is the same. WEDGE doesn’t seem to know who his best players are.)
I really, really don’t want to see Ackley in left unless he absolutely proves that he can’t hack it at second. This is a team with more holes than players to fill them, still, and when the time comes to finally really worry about plugging individual holes to make a playoff run it will be far, far easier to find a good corner OF than a good 2B. I mean, I think Kawasaki is neat, too, but…