Forecast calls for games
Hickey writes about getting out of town, but the big news is it’s game on. Hopefully we get a game tomorrow at 11:05 (no TV) and then, oh yes, Matsuzaka versus Hernandez on Wednesday (Baker, Hickey, Brad Lefton in the Times on Ichiro-Matsuzaka)
Now, it’s my experience that whenever there’s a matchup that looks like it’ll be great, I tune in and end up disappointed. One pitcher gets scratched, or they don’t have their best stuff and you get the kind of 6-5 snoozer you might expect from the back of the rotation. The matchup of the week seems to turn out to also be the week’s worst disappointment.
But this – this could well be the best game we see all year. Really. The Mariners and Red Sox, in Fenway, King Felix versus Dice-K, in a matchup so amazing our heads might well split open while we sit at home, jaws open in disbelief at the quality of play before us. Oh yeah. I’m excited.
On the same day, I’m doing a Cheater’s Guide event at Third Place Books. 7 pm. Hopefully Felix makes quick work of the game. Deanna’s promised to show up and heckle me, among others.
Anyway, how about that world we’ve created? Pretty wacky, huh.
Future Forty Updated
With the M’s taking a sabbatical for a week, we can continue to focus on the minor leagues, where actual games are being played. So, to kick off the minor league season, we resume the monthly updates of the Future Forty.
Since I expect this to be the main discussion point, let’s get this out of the way early – yes, I have Carlos Triunfel rated as an Elite Prospect despite one professional baseball game. Statistical analysts will laugh at a ranking that places Triunfel in a tier ahead of Adam Jones, but I’m okay with that. Triunfel has the talent to justify the ranking. With all due respect to Adam Jones, Triunfel is the best prospect in the organization. His bat is special in a way that Jones’ isn’t, and while he obviously has no experience in professional baseball, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between performance and potential. Triunfel’s potential is so high that the balance point for him is significantly further towards the elite end of the scale than it would be with lesser talents.
Yes, this is an aggressive ranking, but it’s one I’m going to stand behind. Jones is a very nice prospect, but Carlos Triunfel is the one guy in the organization who could walk away with an MVP award or two. He’s got that much physical ability, and the scouts who watch him play can’t stop talking about how good he can be. Carlos Triunfel, folks – he’s really good.
Also, if you want to know just how uninteresting the High Desert roster is, consider that they have exactly one member of the Future Forty on their team, and it’s a relief pitcher who probably will be in Double-A before too long. Austin Bibens-Dirkx is the only prospect of consequence the Mariners sent to the Cal League, and for good reason – High Desert’s ballpark is a joke, and the games played there barely resemble baseball. The scores from their opening weekend games with Inland Empire: 9-7, 18-11, 11-6, and 15-11. Four games played, 88 runs scored. Only two more years until the M’s can get away from that ridiculous experience.
Don’t look now, but Matt Tuiasasopo is hitting the baseball. After one of the most miserable seasons in prospect history, Tui is repeating Double-A by spending the summer in West Tennessee and looks to be trying to put 2006 behind him as quickly as possible. In the first four games of the year, he’s 6 for 13 with 3 doubles, giving him a nifty .462/.533/.692 line. Compare to last season’s Double-A experience, where he had five extra base hits in 62 games. Tui has battled two huge weaknesses at the plate so far; a total lack of power and poor pitch recognition. If he really is learning how to drive the ball, that’s going to be a legitimate step towards fixing the issue that nearly derailed his career last year. It’s just four games, but it’s the best four game stretch of Matt Tuiasasopo’s baseball career. So that’s something.
I’ve got Brandon Morrow’s current rating as a 4. Other players I’ve assigned a 4 rating too include Jeff Clement, Ryan Feierabend, Bryan LaHair, Jon Huber, Yung-Chi Chen, and Jake Woods. They’re all in Tacoma. I’m just saying.
I left Michael Garciaparra on the Future Forty even though he was designated for assignment last week, because I expect him to clear waivers and remain in the organization. The upside just isn’t very high with Little G, and I don’t see another team using a 40 man roster spot on him.
And finally, as an overview for what kind of shape the organization is in, I’ll continue to point out that Wisconsin is probably the most talented team in the minor leagues, as they have 10 members of the Future Forty on their roster, six of whom have potential ratings of 7 or higher. The upper levels of the system aren’t very good, but there’s a lot of high ceiling talent hanging out in the Midwest League.
Nope, not today either
Both games scheduled for today have been canceled as well. The M’s will now fly to Boston to try to begin their series against the Red Sox tomorrow. Since the M’s haven’t played since Wednesday, they can literally do whatever they want with their rotation. Knowing Hargrove, he’ll probably give Weaver the start tomorrow so that he doesn’t go several weeks between starts, then start the rotation back over with Felix going Wednesday (against Matsuzaka, on ESPN2).
Personally, I’d throw Felix tomorrow, which would then set him up to pitch against Minnesota when the road trip ends and then the final game of the Angels series in Los Angeles. If you save him for Wednesday, then he pitches in game two of the Minnesota series and the opening game of the series at Texas. I’d rather have Felix pitching in Los Angeles, against the free-swinging Angels, then against the Rangers in their bandbox of a ballpark. It’s still worth putting him in situations where he can succeed if you can, and the Mariners have a chance to do just that.
M’s play none today
Double-header’s canceled. In the Times blog, Geoff Baker goes off on this ridiculousness.
Most interesting pitching matchup today might be Johan Santana vs John Danks. There’s also the ex-Philly reunion of Schilling and Padilla… man, I wanted my two M’s games today.
M’s play two today, one disappears, other stuff
It looks like the new schedule, weather permitting, is to play game one at 10:05 PDT (on FSN!) with the second one twenty minutes after (also on FSN!). Geoff Baker writes about the games and associated craziness.
Some Mariners were seeing snow for the first time ever. Lopez grew up in Venezuela and was one of several Latin American players on the field making snowballs and taking photographs before the game.
But afterward — having tried to hit with snow flakes blowing in his eyes — he sang a different tune.
“I don’t like it,” he said.
Larry Stone on the K-Rod incident.
Also, Blaine Newham files a story from retirement about how Safeco is still nice. I’m not kidding, that’s the story.
Random side note: it’s now been 140 days since USSM Labs mentioned we’d really like to get our hands on a Wii, and still nothing, despite spending those 140 days promoting a team owned by Nintendo of America. How can that even be possible? Even stranger – despite accounting for about 5% of *total* USSM traffic (and I’m not counting search engines) Microsoft still hasn’t kicked us a 360. What kind of world is it where local bloggers don’t get swag by whinging?
Cleveland Cold, Jamie’s Journey
Not much in the news today for you. John Hickey reports it’s cold and snowing in Cleveland.
Larry Stone writes about the long journey of Jamie Burke. You want grit? This article contains 100% of your RDA of grit. Stone does not, however, ask Burke about his stellar pitching performance against the Rainiers. I think they’ve all secretly interviewed him and are saving the write-up for an even slower news day. We’ll see.
Or — Jamie! Email us! We’ll chat about your W.
Stone also handles the Notebook duties, giving us Broussard, and Ho-Ram looking forward to his start.
Matsuzaka made his debut and looked great. His home opener will be against the M’s. Media storm approaches.
Book plugging: I don’t think I mentioned this, so — I did an interview with The Hardball Times that ran on Monday. Events got away from me.
Rainiers Opening Day Game Thread
It’s opening day in the minors, and the M’s have a day off, so we’re throwing up a game thread for the classic showdown between the Tacoma Rainiers and the Sacramento Rivercats. Cha Seung Baek vs Jason Windsor in a battle of guys with command and no outpitch.
You can catch USSM-endorsed announcer Mike Curto call the game from the Rainiers webpage.
Also, in other news from the affiliates:
Justin Thomas has been impressive in his start for West Tennessee but is being outdueled by Chris Seddon. Thomas has kept elite prospects Evan Longoria and Reid Brignac off the bases so far. Tui is shockingly pulling an 0-fer.
Ricky Orta got bombed for Wisconsin (1 IP, 4 H, 7 R, 4 BB, 2 K), but Carlos Triunfel is already 2-3 with 2 steals in his professional debut as a 17-year-old. He was replaced in the top of the 6th inning after making a play on a groundball – no word on the injury yet, but we’ll let you know.
High Desert kicks off their season in about 15 minutes, but their team is terrible and not particularly interesting. Their webpage is the stock one provided by minorleaguebaseball.com, and their top story is a notice that Brandon Morrow has been impressive in spring training but is still expected to open the season in the Cal League. Way to be on top of things, fellas.
Meaningless stats
Did you know Baseball-Reference is now updating every night? The greatest site of all time just got even better. You can forget hunting through ESPN or Yahoo for splits. Now you can just stroll over to the greatness that is B-R and get a guys current line right next to his career statistics.
Fun things learned while strolling through B-R this morning:
Turbo is tied with Dioner Navarro and Adam Kennedy for the most double plays grounded into so far. Shocking.
Felix Hernanez’s ERA+ is “infinity”.
The Mariners averaged 31,369 fans per game for the first three games of the year. The Royals averaged 31,803 fans per game. The M’s attendance per game is the lowest of any AL team during the first series.
The average age of the Mariners batter is 30.1 years old, and the average age of the pitchers is 29.0.
Travis Hafner has drawn four walks in two games. The Mariners offense has drawn four walks in three games.
Shea Hillenbrand has been caught stealing twice. Does he not know that he’s Shea Hillenbrand?
Batista gets hit while down
22,816 showed up to see the M’s third game yesterday. This is slightly up from last year’s game three 21,394.
Larry Stone rocks. Check out this, from his game story.
In his first start since signing a three-year, $25 million free-agent contract in December, Batista entered the game laden with expectations that he will help solidify Seattle’s rotation.
He left in the fifth inning laden with a 15.43 earned-run average. In 4-2/3 innings, before giving way to the credible major-league debut of Sean White, Batista allowed the A’s 10 hits — four of them doubles of the booming variety — and eight runs.
Greg Johns in the PI offers:
Would the addition of Miguel Batista, Horacio Ramirez and Jeff Weaver signify a step forward for a team looking to erase its three-year residence in the American League West cellar?
First impressions can be misleading, but there’s no doubt early hopes of a Mariners resurgence received a cold slap of reality Wednesday when Batista — first of the new trio out of the box — got undressed by the Oakland A’s in a 9-0 loss at Safeco Field.
Notebook fun: Betancourt’s the lead in the Times, while the PI gives him his own story. The PI’s lead notebook piece is the potential for snow and cold, cold temperatures in Cleveland.
Talent Overload in Appleton
A Future Forty update is coming tomorrow, as I wanted to confirm all the minor league rosters before putting it out there, but since the Future Forty threads often turn into discussions about a specific player, I wanted to give this its own post.
The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers have more prospects on their roster than any team I can remember in Mariner history. This team is loaded with guys who at least have a shot at a major league future, and basically every exciting young talent in the system has been sent to Appleton.
The rotation contains Tony Butler, Chris Tillman, Nathan Adcock, Anthony Varvaro, and Ricky Orta. Tillman, Butler, Orta, and Adcock were the M’s selections in the second, third, fourth, and fifth rounds respectively last summer, and Anthony Varvaro would have been a second or third round pick in the 2005 draft had he not undergone Tommy John surgery. Orta and Adcock are more fringy prospects at this point, but even they have some potential, and Butler/Tillman/Varvaro is an outstanding trio of arms. Steve Uhlmansiek, another TJ recovery guy, will work out of the bullpen.
On the offensive side, SS Carlos Triunfel will make his professional debut as a 17-year-old in the Midwest League, making him likely to be the youngest player in the league this year. He’ll be joined by Alex Liddi, Kuo-Hui Lo, Greg Halman, Gerardo Avila, and Kalian Sams to form a very talented young line-up. Of that group, only Sams won’t appear on the Future Forty, and all but Sams and Avila are among the organizations best offensive prospects.
Butler, Tillman, Varvaro, Triunfel, Liddi, Halman, and Lo are essentially the cream of the crop in terms of low-level talent in the organization, and they’re all going to be playing together in Wisconsin this year. If you’re anywhere near a Midwest League city, you want to make sure to make it to the ballpark when the T-Rats roll into town. The next wave of talent headed towards Seattle will be on full display.