Game 57, Mariners at Twins
Jeremy Bonderman vs. Scott Diamond 11:10am
When asked a few days ago who I thought would make this start, I answered Hector Noesi. Not because I have a lot of confidence in Noesi, but because Jeremy Bonderman was limping towards his contract’s finish line. Over his last four starts, Bonderman walked eight and struck out six. Oh well – welcome back, Jeremy.
Comparisons to Blake Beavan are too easy with Twins pitchers and their whiffless ways, but Scott Diamond is a lot like Blake Beavan. This year, he’s striking out less than 11% of opposing hitters while walking less than 5%. He’s a lefty with an 89mph fastball, a curveball he throws for strikes (duh) and a change for RHBs. Like Beavan, he often gets too much of the plate and serves up HRs.
1: Saunders CF
2: Bay LF
3: Seager 3B
4: Morales DH
5: Ibanez RF
6: Liddi 1B
7: Triunfel 2B
8: Sucre C
9: Ryan SS
SP: Bonderman
Erasmo Ramirez makes his first AAA start of the year today in Tacoma at 1:30. If you’re in the South Sound, that looks like a good game to attend.
Nice catch by Bay!
What’s the latest you guys have heard on Hultzen? Seems like there hasn’t been much news on him. It’s been over a month now since he pitched.
This game is in the dumper. Has been for a few innings. I’m gonna go outside, do yardwork and mow my lawn. It’ll be more entertaining.
And I hate yardwork and mowing lawns.
Hultzen was throwing a couple weeks ago. I think he’s in Arizona.
Good analysis by Blowers in regard to Triunfel tapping his glove on the run. What the hell was Triunfel doing in that situation. On the run sideways, leaning – and he goes to the glove tap?
WTF.
I would be curious to head what WTF M’s has to say about that play named in his honor.
I suspect Z called up Triunfel to “show him” for a minor trade. I imagine Miller will be here sooner than later.
I don’t see how Zduriencik, let alone Wedge, survives this…
What’s the latest you guys have heard on Hultzen? Seems like there hasn’t been much news on him. It’s been over a month now since he pitched.
Last I heard was through Drayer…he’s in extended ST. Probably go right back to AAA Tacoma when he’s ready for game pitching. He has to be close, I’d think.
(Although an injury that doesn’t get copious amounts of follow-up? It often seems to be a situation that’s a lot worse than what’s being said. REALLY hope that’s not the case with Hultzen. We’ve had enough bad news this year, thank you.)
Well, at least we don’t have to worry about a save situation today…
There’s the double digits.
2013 Seattle Mariners – Stay true to the blue, come ready to play, and have fun!
Man, we’ve struggled against the Angels, Padres, Twins, and even the Astros. Now I’m worried about the Cubs.
It’s almost over?
10-run mercy rule?
This game is over… For me, at least.
See y’all next time.
Prediction: M’s will have a new manager as soon as the plane lands at Sea-Tac.
From your fingers to the baseball gods’ ears, jak924.
Wait until the end of the year, wait and see if any of the young guys develop, and if not we fire Zduriencik and Wedge and look at getting Thad Levine or David Forst.
Wait until the end of the year, wait and see if any of the young guys develop, and if not we fire Zduriencik and Wedge and look at getting Thad Levine or David Forst.
And we go ahead and ignore the fact that they did a terrible job of putting together a roster for the 2013 Mariners why, exactly?
Bill Bavasi managed to develop Felix Hernandez, and signed Adrian Beltre to a good deal. Didn’t make him a good GM.
Even if you handwave a Franklin, Zunino, Miller or Hultzen into a good MLB player by year’s end, this organization’s got serious holes: there’s nobody in the OF worth a damn behind Saunders who is here long-term and under 30, the rotation is lame right now, and the current manager has a track record of being bad at his craft (and like it or not, if you think Wedge is a bad manager, he’s Zduriencik’s fault).
At this point, you have what you have in Jack Zduriencik, and it ain’t Billy Beane or Jon Daniels. His record is developed enough to make a call on him now, and 4 months of continued play in 2013 isn’t really going to change that. The M’s have not really taken much of a step forward from where they were in 2008: they still have busted high draft picks (Clement/Ackley), young players who can’t stick in MLB because they don’t seem to develop much (Lopez/Montero), questionable trades (Bedard/Morrow/Fister), and philosophies that don’t produce winning teams. They’ve gotten at best incrementally better by not making really mind-bogglingly stupid decisions, but being a D student in MLB GM might be better than being an F student like Bavasi, but it still isn’t going to get you to the postseason unless you get lucky.
Four months of 2013 doesn’t change the previous four+ years. At this point, you can make the call, or decide it’s worth going down this road again in 2014.
Mariners are a Mess. I suspect there will be competition to gain Morales services. Why would he want to sign with the Mariners, unless the Ms made a crazy over-the-top offer? But then not have enough to fund filling the glaring holes in the rest of the roster. Mariners are a Mess.
It’s a weird situation. I’m not sure anyone in baseball is better at building a farm system than Jack Z. But his management of major leaguers is not looking good.
Z is what he is… A damned fine scout/draft analyst.
As he always was… Pretty clear that the “wonder what type of GM he’d make” plan is nearing completion. Montero’s path sort of parallels Z’s at this point. (Or should… At least.) Tons of potential, everyone saw his talent, but the execution just hasn’t been up to expectations.
I said it once before, but it’s a shame it’s not likely a GM would consider stepping down to become the director of scouting.
I’m not really a big NFL guy, but it would be great to get a team like the Seahawks have to be our new GM and Manager.
Or hey, maybe Chris Hansen wants to own a baseball team, instead? He seems to be good at putting quality, forward-thinking people together who then do good work. And he seems to impress just about anyone who comes in contact with him. Buy our team, Chris!
They’ve gotten at best incrementally better by not making really mind-bogglingly stupid decisions, but being a D student in MLB GM might be better than being an F student like Bavasi, but it still isn’t going to get you to the postseason unless you get lucky.
That might be the most perfect description of what we’ve seen regarding Jack yet… a ‘Grade D’ GM.
My patience is gone. I really don’t care how Zunino, Walker, Franklin, Hultzen, etc. pan out. We’ve see a flurry of bad moves, cheap moves, and desperate moves. Nothing he has done reflects competence to construct a ML franchise.
The sooner we move on from this era, the sooner we can focus on 2014.
I’m not sure anyone in baseball is better at building a farm system than Jack Z. But his management of major leaguers is not looking good.
Isn’t the point of a farm system to produce major leaguers?
Also, the 2012 Mariners opening day lineup had 4 position players under 28 in it. Of those 4 players, one (MIchael Saunders) is on the M’s active roster today. Two of them (Ackley and Montero) have been sent down to AAA, one of them (Smoak) is on the DL and is well into a career of producing at replacement-level (in other words: we could send him down to Tacoma too and not really be any worse for it). (Seager wasn’t in the lineup.)
This isn’t the hallmark of a productive minor league system…
Baseball America says we’re #2 in baseball, but what do they know? Results matter and I’m tired of waiting, too, but I think we’re about to produce several major leaguers. Maybe we need a new GM for better trades and signings, but I’m thrilled to have Z at the helm for the draft this week.
“This isn’t the hallmark of a productive minor league system…”
Exactly. There’s something messed up in our system. I’d like to see someone come in and rebuild our entire minor leagues, both on the field and at the operational level. Something’s wrong. There is a systematic flaw, when a group of young prospects can be consistently ranked highly by national publications, perform well at the minor league level initially, and then not have ANY of their performances translate to the major league level (Saunders and Seager being the exceptions, but not from the “highly touted” crew).
Something in the way we prepare our minor leaguers for Major League baseball leaves them unprepared when they reach that level.
I’m not able to offer a guess what the problem is, but it’s gone on for a very long time now, so coincidence seems like an unlikely cause. And even when people point to former Mariners who have succeeded after leaving here (Jones, Cabrera…) neither were enjoying much success when they were here. Which isn’t to say they wouldn’t have, but history seems to point to something in our system that would have “coached” them into under-performing. Because the guys who stay here do just that.
Or look at Montero, his OPS+ for 2013 so far (68 in 101 AB’s) is 100 pts lower than 2 years ago with the Yankees (.328/.406/.590, an OPS+ of 163 in 61 AB’s)… So it’s not like he’s shown that he can’t hit major league pitching– why is he lost at the plate NOW that he’s in Seattle?
Look at Saunders– he may be an excellent example actually– he’s seen a spike in his offensive performance, after going OUTSIDE the system for help, and then recently, well into the season, living back in our system, for whatever reason he’s begun to struggle again?
It’s odd. But something must be wrong. Something is wrong when guys DECIDE TO GO OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM… Young players think “if I’m gonna get better I need more help than these guys can give me.” If I’m gonna get better I need advice from a B-level MLB player’s brother. And he did- he got better.
I’m not blaming anyone at this point, but the system is broken. New owners, new management, and a new manager couldn’t possibly do worse at this point, with the same players (could they?)…
So yeah, I’m ready for any and all of that.
And it would hang Z out there in “lame duck” land, but it’s not like we’d be handicapping him somehow– given the direction we’re already headed. I kinda would be okay with getting it out there public that Z and Wedge’s contracts aren’t going to be renewed at the end of the year. That way their replacements, whomever may be interested, will know this opportunity is wide open. “Come help us. We’re broken.”
And… the situation of replacing them can go into high gear immediately, and hopefully miss as little time as possible in pursuing free agents and trades during the coming off season. Because, honestly, it’s a horrible time to replace our GM and manager when we have tons of holes to fill for 2014. And the money to address it, too, if only the right people were in place.
I mostly agree, MrZ. Our prospects don’t seem to be developing. However, with Franklin up, and Zunino, Romero, and Miller not far behind, we’ll soon get a larger sample to judge from.
My main problem with firing Z is that I don’t trust ownership to find a better GM. Help us, Chris Hansen!
Zduriencik merits heavy criticism for the botched trades of Morrow, Cliff Lee and Fister, as well as the disastrous Figgins free agent contract. It is hard to blame Jack for Montero…most GM’s would have made that trade.
Signing Josh Fields was a bad mistake as well…hell, we could have had Ackley, Trout and Franklin in the 2009 draft.
The Trout point is unfair but ya I also was disappointed when we picked up Fields and didn’t take someone else.
A reliever first round? Who does that?
If Zduriencik hadn’t signed Josh Fields, the Mariners would have received a compensatory pick ahead of the Angels, and could have selected Trout. We know that Trout was on the Mariners’ radar, per Jack himself.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/how-los-angeles-angels-hooked-rookie-phenom-mike-trout-in-mlb-draft-051212
Baseball America says we’re #2 in baseball, but what do they know?
I remember #6org. Ah, those were the days… when we thought anything GMZ touched would turn into gold (plus some throw-ins who would turn out much better than we thought at first).
It is hard to blame Jack for Montero…most GM’s would have made that trade.
It’s not the trade so much, as this: it was very clear last year that Montero’s not a catcher, and playing him at C is wasting everyone’s time (especially since Montero’s probably going to need a while to develop as a hitter). Nonetheless, we went into 2013 with Montero as the everyday catcher, and now we’re playing a guy in Shoppach who should not be an everyday catcher (he hasn’t been an everyday catcher since 2008, and he’s very clearly a backup). That’s a pretty clear roster fail right there.
@currcoug
But it’s still hindsight and not a guarantee.
Totally agree that signing Fields was a mistake, but I don’t hold too much against Jack for that. You can throw it on the pile of mistakes he’s made, and there’s already plenty to dismiss him (the trades alone probably do it!), but that one holds less weight, IMHO.
Not to sound like a broken record, but I still feel like trading Jaso and not signing Swisher and Bourn were the most damning (Yeah, I know that’s hindsight as well, but we already knew those players were good). Glad he failed to land Hamilton -and later Upton, but it still amazes me that he could offer so much for those two while passing on other really good players that were affordable, going the cheap route instead.
Some might argue the production from our left fielders has been good, but I would argue the defense from Ibanez and Bay hasn’t been, and the offense is more of a bandage. We’ll be facing the same problem this offseason and beyond. Nobody can say Ibanez, Bay, and Chavez figure in to the long term plan. Morse is a stretch as well, especially as an outfielder.
Not trading for pitching was understandable. Passing on Garland was understandable and the injury to Ramirez couldn’t have been foreseen. So I don’t fault him as much for the pitching situation, and I still believe it will be in pretty good shape for 2014 -the year that was more likely to be competitive than 2013 anyway, given the position/development of guys like Hultzen, Walker, Miller, Romero, Franklin, and Zunino.
I guess my point is that there’s plenty of reasons to ditch Jack. Most of it’s fair, some (little) might not be. The hindsight just amplifies it.