Token Mariner Blogging
By Next class doesn’t start for two hours, and still not sick enough to cancel, so. . .
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that offseason 2004-5 has been better for the Mariners than offseason 2003-4. Last year, of course, the Mariners signed Raul Ibanez, Rich Aurillia, and Scott Spiezio, letting Mike Cameron, Carlos Guillen, and Jeff Cirillo go. Carlos Guillen went to Detroit, where he demonstrated that his trade was one of the top five worst moves in Mariner’s history (and that’s saying a lot). Cameron had an entirely honorable season for the Mets. Cirillo was predictably awful, as were all of the players signed by the Mariners, with the partial exception of Ibanez. By the end of the year, the Mariners were playing not-ready-for-prime-time rookies at third and short, with Spiezio sharing time at first.
So, not too hard to top that, which the Mariners have fortunately done by signing Richie Sexson, Adrian Beltre, and Pokey Reese. The folks at USS Mariner got all worked up about the Sexson signing, and I can sympathize to some extent. Sexson is over-priced, over-rated, and was injured last year. However, he has the chance to be pretty solid, he hits lots of home runs, and just because the Mariners couldhave used the money better doesn’t mean that they would have used the money better. I’d much rather have Sexson that Jaret Wright or Eric Milton, for example, and I have no confidence that the Mariners management has a sane assessment of those players’ abilities.
The Beltre signing is nothing short of glorious. Beltre is an outstanding young player, and has the potential to be a true superstar. He hit forty-eight home runs playing in Dodger Stadium last year, and plays great defense to boot!! Yes, Beltre’s production last year was better than in any previous year, but the kid was in the majors at 19, and was always supposed to be this good. Moreover, he was derailed by a botched appendectomy that took part of two years away from him. I can’t help being optimistic about Beltre’s performance on this team next year.
Reese? Well, I’d rather have Carlos Guillen, but that’s not possible. Our other options are Jose Lopez, or possibly Barry Larkin. We might have had either Jose Valentin or Jose Hernandez for not terribly much more, but Mariner’s management has the typical fear of strikeouts. More specifically, they and many others fear strikeouts when those strikeouts are made by players who can otherwise hit, like Valentin or Hernandez. Pokey Reese will strike out plenty but no one will care because he’s supposed to be an all-field/no-hit scrappy infielder. . .All that said, he is an excellent fielder, and Lopez probably isn’t ready for the bigs.
What the Mariners need, of course, is Odalis Perez or some other player capable of throwing the ball from the mound to the catcher at a reasonable velocity for a couple hundred innings. The state of Mariner’s starting pitching is deplorable; I think Bobby Madritsch might be the best bet in the rotation. Without some additional pitching, we’re not going to get past .500, even with Beltre and Sexson.