I replied to a couple of emails today w/r/t roster rules, and after thinking it over, I’m not sure that I was right at all, and Pelekoudas was right: that the team can tweak roster composition through DL usage. The rule on this says the players eligible for post-season play have to be (essentially) on the roster or DL on August 31st. And so my first criticism of the Times article could be totally wrong, though the second one remains correct (pitchers-pitchers). Here’s how it would work. If you had (like the M’s) a roster of
15 healthy hitters + 1 DL hitter
10 healthy pitchers + 1 DL pitcher
When it came time to submit your roster, you then would be able to pick up to 16 hitters, or up to 11 pitchers. So if that’s the case, and it makes sense that it would be, now that I’ve given this some serious thought, I’d like to apologize to the people I already wrote back to.
What I don’t understand about this, then, is that if you wanted maximum flexibilty, you’d call up everyone DLed on the 40m, while optioning down anyone marginal you could on the 25m.
Aaalso, I don’t understand this part: if you’re going to bring Meche into the playoffs, optioning him off the active roster for August 31st in order to bring up a DL guy does you no good: you then have to use that DL guy to slip Meche back through, which means you’ve burned that spot (and a Meche option year) for no reason. Maybe they figure there’s a decent chance they’re going to have to shut him down for the playoffs, and want flexibility around him.
Some have submitted that post-season roster eligibility can come by being on the roster before then, even if it’s not then, but Rule 40’s pretty clear they have to be on the active/DL on midnight 8/31 to be eligible, so I reject that.
The other interesting thing here is that it does mean the Mariners don’t have to make choices about whether to carry Cirillo/Sasaki yet: the 8/31 eligibles include them, but they don’t necc. have to be there. If the M’s indeed decide they want, uh, Aaron Looper on there, while carrying 15 hitters, no problem — in fact, they still have a roster spot to play with on the hitter’s side.
Ron Fairly Zen Koan of the Day: “Don’t try to see how far you can hit the ball, see how hard you can hit it.”
Bonus: “Averages are great, but they don’t mean much for individuals. What matters is runs scored and runs batted in and the great players, they give you both.”
Errors in this article:
[Edited: turns out this first part is probably me being wrong, see subsequent post]
“That gave us 15 position players on Aug. 31” — Pelekoudas, then — “The idea was to give us flexibility,” Pelekoudas said. “We can go 14-11 (position players to pitchers) or 15-10 or even 16-9, although I doubt you’d see that.”
As you can see from the rules, pitchers have to be replaced with pitchers, and position players with position players. You can’t sub in Jamal Strong for Rett Johnson. So if they had 15 position players and 10 pitchers on August 31st, they’re going to have 15/10 in the playoffs.
“If Seattle wishes to name a player to fill Colbrunn’s spot, should he be named to the postseason roster, they can choose from any player who was in the organization on Aug. 31. ”
Nope, has to be a position player.
Bob Finnegan contributes a worthwhile column; News at 11!
Seriously, thats the best explanation of the postseason roster I’ve ever seen. Kudos to Pelekoudas for explaining it in english.
Also, this is likely all pointless, because the M’s postseason odds are dwindling by the day.
Last Game at Everett
What will be, I only presume, a long game of photo one-upmanship between me and Jason.
The woman in blue here
got very agitated when the outfield scoreboard was behind the game. She’d look at the press box and yell “Fix the scoreboard!” every five, ten seconds, as if people in the press box had super-extendable arms, or telekenetic abilities. Which meant that this guy
yelled back “Go do it yourself, fatty!” Except that he didn’t, because that guy’s worried about getting tossed out of the box by
this guy, who is the PA announcer and, uh, doesn’t look kindly on rowdy conduct in the press box and on something like
THE HEIGHT-WEIGHT RATIO MATRIX
tall
and +————–+ not so much
thin
there would be an obvious alliance,
So I, I mean he, kept his big yap shut for once and didn’t get tossed.
Flair
“If you want me to wear 37 pieces of flair like your pretty boy Brian over there, make the minimum 37 pieces of flair.”
I know I posted this a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating:
We suck.
After beating the snot out of terrible teams for 10 games, the A’s have now dropped two in a row. Way to go Orioles. M’s need to capitalize tonight.
Also, we haven’t done this in a while, and I feel like mentioning it. Here is Rafael Soriano’s line since the all-star break:
29 1/3 innings, 12 hits, 3 walks, 41 strikeouts, 1.23 ERA.
Nice.
On the other end of the spectrum, its the post all-star Ben Davis:
70 AB, 10 H, 3 XBH, 8 BB, 14 K, .143/.225/.214.
Ick.
I don’t know if we’ve talked about this series yet, so here goes. David Andriesen of the P-I has an interesting series going right now, looking at each club in the minor league system. He talked to players and coaches about the differences at each level, the experience of playing in the minors, and how the level relates to the major leagues. I’ve enjoyed each one so far and you will too.
short-season: Everett
low-A: Wisconsin
high-A: Inland Empire
AA: San Antonio
He’s back with a look at AAA Tacoma tomorrow.
I’ll be there too. In Everett, I mean. So yeah, drop by and say hello.
You know, Derek, there’s no love lost between the Aquasox and the Volcanos. I mean, these two teams flat out do not like each other. In fact, when they get together you may as well throw out the record books (as the Frogs are playing .427 ball this year compared to S-K’s .560, I’m sure they’d like to do just that).
It appears we’ll be seeing LHP Sam Hays take the mound tonight. Hays, you might remember, was once thought of as a darned good prospect. The M’s took him in the 4th round of the 2000 draft, but he only slipped that far because most teams thought he’d be attending (I think) the University of Texas on a baseball scholarship. The M’s managed to woo him instead, but he’s been a bust ever since:
2000: Signed late; did not pitch
2001: 6.83 ERA at Peoria (rookie ball); 36 H, 14 BB in 29 IP
2002: Injured; did not pitch
2003: 4.93 ERA at Everett; 37 H, 35 BB in 38.1 IP
Considering he’s putting on better than two runners an inning (when you factor in his seven hit batters), it’s amazing his ERA is under 5.00.
In more interesting news, we should also see SS Adam Jones. Jones was the M’s 1st round pick this June, and hit .284/.368/.349 at Peoria before getting called up to Everett for the final three games of the year. He was plunked an amazing 10 times in 28 games, which inflates his OBP quite a bit (he only drew 5 walks against 109 at-bats). So far he’s 4-for-8 with Everett.
Last chance to go catch an Aquasox game. See live baseball tonight as the fighting frogs take on division rivals Salem-Keizer Volcanos in a matchup with, uh, playoff.. no, uh, future implications! I’ll be there, so you know it’ll be… uh, Zumsteg-riffic?
Funny internet moment of the day: I got pointed to a Game Chatter thread–
Posted 1:26 p.m., August 25, 2003 (#23) – bob mong
With little hope in 2003, who’s gonna be the M’s GM in 2004?
Hopefully Zumsteg 🙂
Posted 1:28 p.m., August 25, 2003 (#24) – Adam
Nooo not Zumsteg
I think Theo should hire the BP guys.
—
Umm… yeah. I hate to point this out, but here’s a handy Venn-diagram-type-ASCII thing to explain.
+--------------------+
| All guys |
| |
| +------------+ |
| | | |
| | BP guys | |
| | | |
| | +------++ |
| | | Me || |
| +----+------++ |
+--------------------+
Unless I’d been fired… but no, I’ve got a column running today. So that can’t be it. Hmmm.
A nod to Bob Mong for that first post, though. I’ll be posting my application packet here when I’m done with it.