Our long nightmare ends
DMZ · September 24, 2008 at 8:47 am · Filed Under Mariners
If you’d told me before the season started that the M’s would have a 12-game losing streak broken in a start where Ryan Feierabend left with five runs on his record, Roy Corcoran would get the win by pitching two innings, and four of the teams’ nine RBI would be from Jeremy Reed and Wlad Balentien, I’d probably have just stared.
“Attendance” last night was under 20k: 19,065.
Remaining games: 2 against the Angels, 3 against the A’s.
The Nationals have 2 against the Marlins and three in Philly.
I can’t bring myself to root against the M’s, but I don’t see any reason I can’t root for those lovable Nationals.
Given how they acquired their team, I’m enjoying the wretchedness of the Nationals. I’d prefer they be the worst team in baseball, and I can’t root against the Mariners either. Is second-worst likely to be effectively different for the Mariners, anyway?
That’s the thing that I think is getting overblown in the whole “Strasburg Chase” coverage – history says he’s not likely to end up going #1 overall anyway. The best prospect the summer before rarely ends up going #1.
Last year, Pedro Alvarez was the top guy headed into the 2008 draft. He went #2, behind a HS SS that had little to no press at the time.
Andrew Miller was the big name going into 2006 – he went 6th overall.
Stephen Drew was the stud of 2004, but he went 15th. Jered Weaver had also gotten a lot of early attention – he went 12th.
Rickie Weeks and Lastings Milledge were the big names headed in 2003 – they went 2nd and 9th respectively.
B.J. Upton was the most hyped HS kid since A-Rod in 2002, and he went 2nd.
2001 was the year of Mark Prior and Mark Teixeira, two of the best college prospects ever. They went 2nd and 5th.
History says that there’s a good chance that Strasburg will fall due to bonus demands or that some other kid will make a huge push and give Washington pause.
This isn’t the NBA draft, and Strasburg isn’t LeBron James. If you’re given even money to bet on him going #1 or not, go with not.
I was at the game last night and considering that both of the teams had absolutely nothing to play for (maybe because they didn’t) it was a very entertaining night, very relaxing to sit and watch the people and occasionally watch the game.
I was a Twins fan when they were awful, but what kept me rooting for them during some pretty bleak years was that they were going with young players that kept improving, and before you knew it, Kirby Puckett entered the picture and blew the lid off that team.
I don’t think the “attendance” last night was 19,065…more like 9,065.
Paid attendance usually includes season tickets and other ticket purchases (scalpers, companies looking to give them away, and of course people who turned out just couldn’t or didn’t go) where they eventually don’t get used. So yeah, if it didn’t look like there were 19K people, it’s because that count doesn’t come from turnstile counts but from raw sales.
Hey Dave, based on the Nationals history in the draft, are they then unlikely to put up a larger sum to sign someone?
The M’s seem to be sometimes, so I’m interested if there’s a team down in the standings where you think Strasburg is likely to end up.
Obviously I’m asking you to predict basically the unpredictable, but at least you have a better shot of doing so than Stark getting the standings right.
Speaking of great pitchers picked other than #1, as of last night Tim Lincecum has set the SF* record for most Ks in a season (252) and K/9 (10.31). He’s also thrown a total of 709 pitches over his last six starts (that’s an average of 118 per start). For a team that is going exactly nowhere in the postseason. I realize they’re trying to keep him in the NL Cy Young conversation, and he thinks he’s invincible, but if his arm blows up — or he just has a bad sophomore slump, which isn’t unusual anyway — the Giants management will be (or should be) tarred and feathered. Of course, they (and Giants fans, too) seem to have perfected the “blind eye” technique for all kinds of abuses.
* That’s the modern, SF Giants record. There’s actually a whole top ten above that dating back to pre-1900, and Christy Mathewson had 259 in 1908 and 267 in 1903 in NY (#9 and #9 on that top ten). Then again, Lincecum may get one more start at the end of the week, so he could easily break into the Giants’ all-time top ten list.
I’m with scraps. I can’t bring myself to support the Nationals in any way. They killed my beloved Expos (this is the same reason I want the Marlins to be destroyed in a freak David Caruso accident).
Luckily, I’m happy to root against the Mariners. It’s like that game show Ewan McGregor is watching in Shallow Grave. The only way to win is to lose, and the goal is not to give right answers but wrong ones.
Also remarkable is that the bullpen relay game started by Jiminez on September 10th was the last win prior to the streak.
I never root against the M’s but I also admit that I’m kind of glad the team has been doing so poorly these past few weeks. That’s a contradiction, I know, but I don’t want there to be any excuses for not making sweeping changes after the season. I’m also hoping against hope that this debacle will be enough to get Lincoln and Armstrong ousted.
And, yeah, I am rooting for the Nats to win. I do want the M’s to have the #1 pick and a shot at Strasburg, even if there’s a chance the Nats may pass on him.
Hey, watch the post titles. I came in fully expecting Lincoln and/or Armstrong to have resigned.
Thank god the streak is over though.
I won’t root against the Mariners, either. However, I am in the grip of indifference about their last five games as massive and cold as the Antarctic icecap.
My wife, on the other hand, has been delighted with this season and is rooting for many more just like it:
I like the Nationals. I will agree that it was crummy that Montreal had to lose their team but DC was ready to go major league. I used to live in DC years ago, and returned this year for a game. It was fun. Nice stadium, too.
A friend who has season tix and who is fairly knowledgeable about the franchise and its farm system says that they have good young pitching in their system and what they really need are better hitters. So maybe they’ll pick from need instead of best available talent if they have the #1 pick.
Montreal had personality – it was a great place to see a game (yes, I think Olympic Stadium was a good place to see a game – but that’s mostly the poutine and smoked meat talking).
I don’t see what DC brings to baseball that other cities didn’t already.
Anyone know who “wins” the tie-breaker in the Nats vs. M’s race? How do they determine who gets #1 in case of a tie?
Pete,
I may be wrong, but I believe that I read the tie-breaker is based on last years record. If that’s the case then the Nationals would be #1.
Dave, you hit the nail on the head. Can’t we surmise that, with the M’s following the MLB Slotting Recommendations, signability will be a factor? I’m not saying that it’ll be a Bryan Bullington-esque choice, but it’ll be a factor unless they totally abandon ship and surprise us with a GM we like and let him go over slot, just like many other teams.
Son of a gun. Go Nats!
I didn’t do a systematic study, but a week or two ago when I posted the results of a quick glance at the list of #1 picks and #2 picks over the most recent dozen years or so, the #1s looked like they’ve been having better careers than the #2 picks by a pretty decent margin.
Derek’s point about teams not always drafting the “obvious” #1 is valid, but couldn’t we expect the Nats to be more likely to draft such a player, it’s not as if they’re one of the low-resource, small-market teams.
King Felix, B-Mor, Stephen Strasburg … then maybe Bedard after the all star break next year.
That is a 1,2,3 staff that gets you from worst to first … The Rays did it – we can too!
I guess we might need to find some hitting somewhere … but whose counting – at least, like you said: “the nightmare ends”
crazyray7391, you are correct. The Nat’s have the tiebreaker for that exact reason.
You’re dreaming bratman:
Bedard is probably toast till 2010 and has pitched his last game in Seattle
No 2009 draft pick is going to be starting games in the majors before late, late 2010
The Mariners might get better, but, aw crap, next season is also going to suck.
Yeah, but the Rays did it with alot more than a good pitching staff – they finally have good defense behind them. The M’s should look into getting lots of defense and a side order of hitting.
Yes. This isn’t basketball.
One thing DC brings to games that Montreal didn’t: fans in the seats.
A stadium deal.
“Our long nightmare” indeed. Although it seems like a century ago that Hargrove resigned in mid-apparently-successful-season and not just 15 months, he really is starting to look like the guy who tore up his ticket on the Titanic and waved ‘good-bye’ from the dock. And, hell, even McClaren arguably made the lifeboats.
But Riggleman….they’re not even going to find the body.
shouldn’t there be some kind of award/recognition for the founders of the 100-100 club?
Not really, though. They actually have fewer fans listening on the radio and watching on TV than attending in person. Nats’ ratings are abysmal. Honestly, fewer than 10,000 per game watch on TV, and fewer than 20,000 listen on radio.
Which leads me to believe that once the shine wears off the new stadium, deeper fan support won’t be there.
That said, go Nats! The Ms have a one-game “lead,” so both teams can win out, and all is good!
Right, like that’s gonna happen…
Gomez, Montreal supported the Expos just fine until several years of incompetence followed by a few years of active destruction crushed that support.
If the Mariners had left for Florida, people would have said the same thing about Seattle’s attendance. Montreal was a major league city, and they got royally shafted by Jeffrey Loria and Bud Selig.
oh, yay! call in your managerial candidates–
so far, field manager names brought up: Davey Johnson, Buck Showalter (’cause they’d bring some fire to this team) and GM? Bill Krueger (he has a financial background, and every time he’s on the pregame, he shows he knows what this team needs)
oh, and the guy who thinks they should go get Tim Lincecum for the pitching staff.
What the hell difference does it make what position we draft in, we can’t sign the draftee anyway. The excuse for drafting Fields was that he was the most major league ready of the players available. What good does that do, they’ve wasted a whole year of his career already. Not to mention the effect they’ve had on Morrow. If the 2 stooges in the front office aren’t gone at the end of this debacle we are going to be toast for years to come,
some think that Fields & Boras’ have wasted this first year of his career ….
Sorry I’m clueless on this, but is it now too late for the M’s to sign Fields? Does he go back into this year’s draft? Sorry for being uninformed.
The Lions finally fired Millen today so keep hope alive.
Here’s the thing though, Strasburg may have been last year’s “flavor of the day” based upon how scouts dream, but he went on to do this after taking on the “mantle”: 97 IP, HR/9: 0.09, BB/9:1.48; K/9: 12.30, K/BB: 8.30.
It’s tough to see how someone else could’ve surpassed that. It’s kind of like well, LSU had a great night in Auburn last week but really, USC isn’t sweating their #1 rank.
Actually, the last year that the Expos were in the top half of the NL in attendance was 1983, and that 5 year stretch (1979-1983) proved to be their best drawing years in terms of attendance. Beyond 1987, they settled into the bottom 3rd of the NL and never left until they moved to DC. Even after they moved into Stade Olympique in 1977, their attendance didn’t significantly improve until the ‘boom’ years.