Putz peril, Morrow earns notice, White wishful
Putz’s elbow “tightened” up after his bullpen session yesterday. Yeagh. Times.
Echoing Dave’s notes yesterday, Brandon Morrow’s performance is praised by Johjima in the PI, and others carried the tune.
Also in the PI, Sean White wants to make the team.
In what is likely really good news for the M’s, the Rangers put Sosa on their 40m, and seem likely to go into the season relying on him for offense. Woooo! Chances of that panning out… 10%? 12?
Mark Shapiro agreed to a 5-year extension in Cleveland. Not that I wish them ill, but I’m hoping they don’t go through the rest of the front office and make those guys offers they can’t refuse.
Update! Cuts! Looks like C Rob Johnson’s headed to minor league camp, which at this point pretty much means you’re assured Rivera’s the backup catcher this year. I don’t think Burke or Johnson are going to be given a realistic chance.
Also tossed off the team: IF-R Garciaparra, IF-R LaHair, IF-R Navarro, OF-B Wilson, OF-R Balentien
Notes From Mesa and Peoria
I didn’t sleep much last night and its 1 am my time, even if I’m temporarily back on the west coast, so no fluffy intro – let’s get right into the interesting things I saw and heard today, in no particular order.
1. Brandon Morrow looked tremendous in Mesa against the Cubs. Perhaps some of it was coming in to relieve Cha Baek, who looked as bad as I expected, but he showed the power arsenal that got him selected #5 overall last summer. In his first inning of work, against the bottom of the line-up, the breaking ball was pretty slurvy and didn’t have much bite, but his fastball was overpowering. He pitched almost exclusively on the outside corner to both sides, Tom Glavine style, but it worked to perfection because the bottom of the Cubs order sucks.
During his second inning, against the meat of the Cubs line-up, he showed a real understanding of setting up hitters. He suckered Soriano with a fastball out of the zone early, then just busted off breaking balls out of the zone to induce a weak chopper. He then continued throwing harder, biting breaking balls to Jacque Jones, Derek Lee, and Aramis Ramirez. The slurviness of the last inning was gone, and his second inning breaking ball (honestly, I don’t know if it was a curve or a slider) was very tight and dove hard, making it a great out pitch to go with his mid-90s fastball.
This is the kind of outing that gets guys noticed in spring training. I had a brief conversation with a scout afterwards and asked him what he thought of Morrow’s appearance, and his answer was essentially “why are you guys sending him to Double-A again?” He could use the work, but I guarantee you he opened some eyes today, and with the M’s bullpen suddenly a huge question mark, Morrow has to be considered a legitimate option to join the pen at some point later this year.
2. Bryan LaHair’s home run binge last year was either the greatest fluke of all time or he just has several different swings and approaches at the plate. The swing he had today couldn’t hit a home run off a tee – his entire focus was making contact and hitting a flare over the outfielder. I’m still a skeptic that he’s ever going to be more than the new Randall Simon.
3. Adam Jones took several good routes going back on the ball. He’s a lot better now than he was a year ago with the glove.
4. If there’s not a job opening for PA announcer at the Peoria Sports Complex, there really should be – the current guy, yea, he isn’t good. He had no idea how to pronounce basic names like Beltre (he says Bell-tree) or Feliz (Fee-lez), screwed up ad announcements, said “uh” about 30 times, and when announcing NCAA tournament scores decided that Weber State knocked off UCLA, generating a huge “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh” from the crowd before correcting himself. He needs to be reassigned to minor league camp.
5. If you drew up a list of Mariner pitchers I wasn’t interested in seeing, it would probably go something like this: Aaron Small, Jake Woods, Cha Baek, Jarrod Washburn, Jeff Weaver. I got four of the five today. Thanks guys! At least they threw me a bone with Morrow.
6. Betancourt’s bomb got out in a hurry. His home runs last year were all cheapos, sneaking over the wall by a foot or two – not this one. He crushed it.
7. The Cubs got 12,700 fans at HoHoKam park on a Thursday afternoon when the opponent sent one regular – the Mariners couldn’t pull 10,000 for a night game when essentially the regular team was taking the field and playing most of the game. The difference in atmosphere between the two parks was striking.
Back to Peoria tomorrow afternoon, and I’m hoping to spend several hours at the minor league fields, so look for another post like this tomorrow night.
Betancourt’s journey, Reitsma’s elbow
No M’s notebooks… slow news day.
Greg Bishop at the Times, on Betancourt’s emigration from Cuba, and his family.
In the PI, Chris Reitsma underwent surgery once and wants to pitch again.
Hickey says the M’s “won’t be making a play” for Benitez.
Local wants to make team, youngsters, Stone on Niehaus
PI: “Walla Walla lefty holds onto hope for spot in M’s bullpen”
Over at the Times, Stone waxes eloquent on Niehaus.
Bishop on teenage players.
Also, the team’s ads are out. Consume! Feel free to speculate on who the team feels is likely and unlikely to be traded during the season based on these snippets.
Now it’s time for the easiest part of any coach’s job…
…the cuts. Although I wasn’t able to cut everyone I wanted to, I have cut a lot of you.
— Homer
From the Times and PI blogs, here’s the news.
Reassigned to minor league camp
C Luis Oliveros
IF Matt Tuiasosopo (in the Times blog, this is “infielder Matt Tuiasosopo, a Woodinville native”)
LHP Jim Parque
LHP Travis Blackley
LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith
RHP Carlos Alvarado
RHP Jesse Foppert
RHP Juan Sandoval
Released
LHP Matt Perisho
Five Questions at THT
As part of The Hardball Times season preview series, they asked me to write and answer five questions about the team heading into 2007. Head on over and check it out.
Bloomquist has new swing, should start, Sexson gets hit
BLOOMQUIST SEEKS FULL-TIME POSITION WITH MARINERS!!!11!!
Oh yes, the article you’ve all been waiting for is here.
The best way, for now, for Bloomquist to state his case is to continue doing what he has been this spring — hit the ball. If he can find a consistent swing and raise his average the combination of his newfound stroke and his unmatched versatility could force his way into the starting lineup.
Uh huh. If I could find a consistent swing, learn to pitch 100+mph and mix in a great curveball, I’d be the greatest player ever. Small sample size! Bloomquist’s supposed turnaround’s happened before. He can’t hit!
“Its hard to keep guys out that hit,” Pentland said. “He’s been a classic .250 hitter his career and if he takes his walks and sees the ball better like he has been he hits pitches he never has before. He’s hitting changeups and curveballs. He’s always been kind of a dead fastball hitter and that’s kind of like hitting off a machine — you never have to make an adjustment.
If he takes his walks, which he’s never done, and hits pitches like he never has – wow, if the Moose could do it, he could play first! It’d be awesome! Wheeeeeeeee!
Given what we know about Bloomquist’s skill set, and his long history in the minor and major leagues, his performance when he’s played consistently, the evidence is overwhelming that he cannot effectively hit major league pitching. Players like that don’t start to hit for power this late in their career. They don’t start to recognize pitches. Bloomquist is unlikely to blossom.
Stone offers a notebook including such topics as Sexson asking for the ball after he ended his 0-18 streak.
Stone blogs on Putz, Pentland instructs, swooning for Lincecum
Four weeks from now, my book, “The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball” comes out. I’ve been thinking about doing a USSM Feed/Book Bro-ha-ha mid-April, probably on a weekend, probably at Hales — if you’ve got thoughts on good locations, speak up.
In the meantime, you can pre-order:
The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball
And check out the modest blog.
Larry Stone puts up his first Times blog entry! Wooo! It’s about Putz feeling good. Stone winces at the possible Putz replacements, offering Reitsma and Batista for their prior experience.
Pentland’s trying to get Beltre and Reed to do opposite things. In one sense, that’s good news – we’ve had hitting coaches before giving the same advice to everyone, no matter what their need was.
The PI on Lincecum. The Times on Lincecum.
Weaver, LaHair, Blue Sky
The M’s won yesterday (yayyy!). What else has been going on?
Ted Miller of the PI considers Weaver’s up-and-down season and finds reason for hope. Greg Bishop follows up the next day for the Times.
M’s play two today: vs the White Sox, and @ SF. 1:05, but remember, we’re doing that pointless thing with the clocks.
And don’t flip out, but today’s the sneak preview of Wilco’s new album: 7-7 our time.
Lookout Landing calls USSM readers lazy nogoodniks, retaliation made easy
So in Dylan’s Seattle blogger poll, it’s down to us and our fine neighbors at Lookout Landing in the “Final“. Now, I only really got interested when a victory over the West Seattle Blog meant it’d be us and LL. But now it is, and since Jeff’s campaigning, I offer to you the U.S.S. Mariner Voter’s Guide on Important Issues of the Day.
| Voting Issue | USS Mariner | Lookout Landing |
|---|---|---|
| Buys beer for readers at SoDo bars before games | Yes | No |
| Affiliated with giant network of sports blogs bent on crushing opposition | No | Yes |
| David Corcoran, despite all we’ve put up with here, stuffing the box on behalf of | No | Yes |
| One of "baseball people" who advised Bavasi to trade Snelling and Fruto for Jose Vidro | No | Yes |
| Killed a homeless guy once when it thought no one was looking | No | Yes |
| Endorses proposals to rebuild the Alaskan Way Viaduct bigger, uglier, at cost of billions in your tax dollars | No | Yes |
| Utterly destroyed whiny, annoying West Seattle Blog in semis as a public service to ensure all-Mariner blog final | Yes | No |
| Accused of cheating by cheating West Seattle Blog fans | Yes | No |
| Provides, ad-free, content selected for Best American Sports Writing anthology | Yes | No |
| Pat Gillick once described using terms not suitable for family website | Yes | Not as far I know |
| Ghost-writes for Steve Kelley | No | Yes |
| Willy Bloomquist member of author group using pseudonym | No | Yes |
| Owned by Halliburton | No | Partly |
| Mentioned on woot.com | Yes | No |
And, because Jeff Sullivan said that USSM Readers are lazy nogoodniks, I provide for your voting convenience:
Unlike the West Seattle Blog writers, I promise not to come up with a list of excuses for why Lookout Landing should beat us (say, because they’re a massively well-funded part of a giant blog machine, while we’re just some dudes and a server in a room at digital.forest). I’d be happy to lose to them.
Red hot update: in attempting to rally the other members of their hive organism to their defense, admits that Lookout Landing was responsible for last season’s trades with the Indians and demands repayment of the favor. Good on them for taking credit, but I don’t see how this can help win the votes of Mariner fans.
In a Battle Royale of extreme proportions, Seattle Metroblogging Blarch Badness final, your SportsBlog Nation neighbor LookoutLanding is up against USSM, in a battle of best blog in Seattle.
Hey, we gave you Choo. And A-Cab. Yeah, do we still have Perez? Nope. How ’bout Broussard? Not for long.
Go out and give LookoutLanding your vote.
Even worse, they’re now claiming responsibility for Seahawk losses and demanding repayment of those favors! Oh, the carnage!
Shocking revelations today.
Even red-hotter update: Did you enjoy seeing the M’s lose to the A’s over and over? Lookout Landing claims responsibility for that, too!