Some questions rolling in now that the candidates for hitting coaches have been made public. Specifically, the question of do hitting coaches matter. This might be something of a controversial point, but I’ll say that in the grand scheme of things, they really don’t.
Hitting is not like pitching in the sense that bad mechanics can lead to serious injury and ruin your career. A pitching coach who can make minor changes to a pitchers delivery can manage to increase his effectiveness and longevity by a few hundred precent. Rick Peterson may have been one of the most important parts of the A’s success by not only helping The Big Three develop, but keeping them healthy enough to take the hill every 5 days. Bryan Price is an extremely important part of the Mariners staff, and I was glad to see him get rewarded with another multiyear contract.
Hitting coaches, on the other hand, don’t carry the same weight of responsibility. The involvement they have in a players ability to stay healthy is far less, and it is easier to perform well with a minor mechanical flaw at the plate than it is on the mound. Certainly, there are good hitting coaches (Lee Elia, Jeff Pentland, Dave Magadan) and bad hitting coaches (Mickey Hatcher, for one), but their impact is far less important than their pitching counterparts.
So, whether the M’s hire Chili Davis, Hal McRae, or one of Bob Melvin’s cronies, the most important key to their success will be their ability to gain the players respect and help instill a philosophy that goes along with what the rest of the staff is teaching. Lamar Johnson wasn’t a good fit here, but he wasn’t the reason the M’s offense went in the tank. Maybe a better hitting coach could have helped Ben Davis, but I’m not going to let Big Ben off the hook that quickly. In the end, it probably doesn’t matter who the M’s hire as a hitting coach, as long as he fits in with the team and gains the players respect. Edgar Martinez really doesn’t need someone telling him how to hit, anyways.
Jason here.
The venders of which Derek speaks are Hot Dog Joe’s (slogan: “U Wanna Eat!”) and The Dragon kettlecorn. I buy my pre-game snacks there and so should you. Let’s make it official…
Official Outside Hot Dog Vendor: Hot Dog Joe’s (U Wanna Eat!)
Official Outside Kettle Corn Vendor: The Dragon
And if we haven’t mentioned this already, the Official In-Game Reading Material is, of course, The Grand Salami.
Some might say I’m getting silly now. Those people have a point.
Official Safeco Value Seats: View Box, $23/seat
Official Safeco Cheap Seats: Center Field Bleachers, $6/seat
Official Foul Ball Hitter: Mike Young
Official Reader of the U.S.S. Mariner in Adult Entertainment: Jennie J, who emailed us a photo so smoking hot we cannot, for safety reasons, open, much less look at
Official Daily Comic: Frazz
Official Safeco Beer: Large Fat Tire for $7.75. Few beers make this kind of investment seem worthwhile
Official Final Fantasy VII Character: Aerith
Official Pre-game Pizza Vendor: Sodo Pizza, $6/pie
Official Most Helpful Reader of the U.S.S. Mariner: Jeff Lubetkin
I was going to put up outside Kettle Corn and Hot Dog Vendor, but I forgot who the dudes in front of the Home Plate Parking Lot are. Jason’ll know. Jason knows everything. Now if someone could find Jason for me, that’d be super.
Jamie Moyer, for anyone who missed the World Series broadcast tonight, won the Roberto Clemente Award for 2003 in recognition of his work with the Moyer Foundation. Man, he’s cool.
Coming soon: Derek’s guide to Spring Training in Arizona.
NY media’s reporting that the Omar Minaya-Mets negotations have stalled as Omar refuses a power-sharing arrangement with interim GM Jim Duquette. I’m still hoping someone the M’s compete against hires Omar, but I’d settle for him not getting our job.
Of the officially mentioned candidates, I would love to see Ned Coletti get the job.
Speaking of me being in town, that actually isn’t too terribly far away. I’m coming back to the great northwest for Christmas, and we’re going to attempt to have a big USSM get together, likely the weekend of December 20th-21st. If you’ve ever been to a BP pizza feed, you basically get the idea. For some reasonably small amount of money, we’ll find a gathering hole and spend several hours talking baseball, and specifically, the Mariners. We’ll do our best to get lots of cool people to show up, and we’ll invite Derek too. No, seriously, you’ll like live-and-in-person Derek even more than you like blogging-and-writing Derek. And Jason and I will be there too, doing whatever it is we do.
Now, here’s where you come in. We’re three busy folks, and there are few things in life less fun than organizing, planning, and administrating large group functions. So, here is what we’re hoping for:
1. Someone to volunteer to do the legwork of finding a suitable gathering spot, making the reservations, confirming the RSVP’s, and generally being our USSM-feed lacky. If you have a phone, some free time, and an interest in seeing this come about, you will be dutifully honored at the feed. I’m sure we can even pitch in and get you a Rich Amaral jersey as a token of our appreciation.
2. People who are interested in attending should email us with the subject of “Feed Information”. Include in the email how many people you would be interested in bringing with you. When we get a general idea of whether we need to find a place to seat 20 or 200, we’ll put our lacky on the task. We’ll compile a mailing list with everyone who expresses interest in going, and email you (and, of course, post it here) with further information. Emailing us does not construe a commitment to go, so if you think you may want to come, drop us a line. We’d rather have a big room with lots of space than a tiny room and try to cram all the last minute people in.
3. Invite cool people to come, then get them to email us as well. These things are a lot of fun, especially when you get to meet a bunch of good folk. The more good folk, the better.
So, basically, the point of this is for you to email us so that this thing can happen. We’ll enjoy it, you’ll enjoy, and hey, maybe Pat Gillick will even show up to say thanks for all the great things we’ve said about him over the years.
Two quick bits:
1) I’m opposed to a ‘donation box’ or similar thing. I just don’t want to do it.
2) Checking the USS Mariner email queue at lunch, I noticed MSN is pushing an article on ‘5 Reasons to Read Your Horoscope’. It included this gem after a paragraph about how they’re carefully crafted to offer advice to all: “As a result, there is almost always a grain of truth in the daily horoscope, which readers can make use of if they so choose.” There are grains of truth everywhere, if you want to look at it that way. I’ve no tolerance for this kind of hooey, and trying to pass it off as entertainment only makes me angrier. I can type this because science and happy coincidence have combined over the years to produce laptops, and global networks, and electronic publishing tools that allow me to write something and Jeffrey Wood in France to email us about it. All of this is from the application of the scientific method, and to…arrrgghhhh!
I did answer a couple emails though.
Actually, three bits:
3) None of this should be taken to imply we’re doing this for money, only that for as much time, effort, and $ we put into it, it’d be nice if we broke even, and even better if we could have a nice dinner next time David’s in town. That’s all — we didn’t start this to cash in, and if it’s that much of an issue, I’d rather just eat the money than have this be a hassle.
I’ve gotten word that, by the end of the day, the Mariners will have interviewed at least five candidates. Everyone knows about Mike Port, Omar Minaya, and Benny Looper. Also interviewing are Detroit assistant GM Al Avila (because anyone who can help build a 43 win team should get a promotion!) and San Francisco assistant GM Ned Coletti. Lee Pelekoudas should interview later this week.
Also, the Billy Beane rumors are picking up some steam. I’m still not buying it, but I can’t ignore the fact that several different sources are claiming he’s going to talk to Howard Lincoln about the position.
Official Rules of Baseball — the M’s actually did this as a give-away a few years back at the Kingdome, around 1996 or so (sponsored by Eagle, maybe?). I always thought it was a darned cool thing to give out, and still have my copy around somewhere. Yeah, it can be out of date in places, but for the most part things are the same.
Also, it is my belief that the knits and delicates setting on clothes dryers actually, using space technology, super-saturates clothing so that it becomes even wetter than it when taken out of the washer.