Friday, January 16, 2004
Dreaming in the Rain...
Big Ben avoids arbitration, signing a 1-year, $1.4M contract. And Pudge took a physical with Detroit. Seems to me like we should sign Pudge and his 900-ish OPS to the 3-year (say $24M instead of his desired $30M) offer he's looking for, keep Ben Davis and his 700ish OPS as the backup at catcher, 1B and DH, and reunite Dan Wilson and his 600-ish OPS with Lou in Tampa. Catcher is one area we could substantially improve our offense. That would give the M's the splash their fans crave, and bring another high-character guy in Pudge into the clubhouse.
Meanwhile...
Scratch Scott Sauerbeck off the list of available lefties. He's having shoulder surgery that will shut him down for the year. He failed physicals with the Cubs and the Reds so it wasn't like he was planning on signing with the M's anyway, which actually makes me happy. Now if we can avoid signing Mark Guthrie and Mike Meyers, we'll be doing well here.
Larry Stone of the Times reports that Maels Rodriguez considers the M's one of the top 3 or 4 places he's like to go. Apparently his throwing session is next Thursday and was not yesterday. No mention of whether or not the M's are interested in the guy, except from the words of the agent. I'm all for adding more talent. You can never have too much pitching, and with our crazy budgeting process, if I recall right, signing foreigners comes from a different budget than the regular budget or some such. So, sign him and give him and Rafael Soriano rotation spots already! Give Gil Meche a rest with the long relief role and have him fresh for the second half, and deal Freddy Garcia for some serious pop a la Jim Edmonds. Ahhh, but it is this kind of dreaming that leads to pessimism among the M's faithful when it does not happen, so I'll shut my yap.
In the M's blogosphere, Steve's Mariner Wheelhouse has an excellent question for the M's doctors - why so many freakin arm injuries, and what are you doing about it. And my favorite is hearing more about Yoda and SandFrogfrom Peter White's excellent Mariner Musings. I sure hope we get to see more of Chris Snelling in the bigs soon. And Sodo Oh No has decided to put M's bloggers into a steel cage death match which sounds like fun, though I've never played Diamond Mind Baseball. And the title brings to mind a question I had.. is it blogsphere or blogosphere?
Man... I signed two free agents (Pudge and Maels) at roughly $16M a year putting our budget into the Angels zone and dreamed up 2 trades (Dan Wilson salary purge and Freddy+ for Edmonds) in one post. I see why others who do this regularly start getting down on the M's. Okay, I'm going to blame it on the rain here in Texas screwing up my weekend plans and getting me down. Its much easier to be an optimist when the sun is shining and its 70 degrees in January.
26 days until pitchers and catchers report!
Meanwhile...
Scratch Scott Sauerbeck off the list of available lefties. He's having shoulder surgery that will shut him down for the year. He failed physicals with the Cubs and the Reds so it wasn't like he was planning on signing with the M's anyway, which actually makes me happy. Now if we can avoid signing Mark Guthrie and Mike Meyers, we'll be doing well here.
Larry Stone of the Times reports that Maels Rodriguez considers the M's one of the top 3 or 4 places he's like to go. Apparently his throwing session is next Thursday and was not yesterday. No mention of whether or not the M's are interested in the guy, except from the words of the agent. I'm all for adding more talent. You can never have too much pitching, and with our crazy budgeting process, if I recall right, signing foreigners comes from a different budget than the regular budget or some such. So, sign him and give him and Rafael Soriano rotation spots already! Give Gil Meche a rest with the long relief role and have him fresh for the second half, and deal Freddy Garcia for some serious pop a la Jim Edmonds. Ahhh, but it is this kind of dreaming that leads to pessimism among the M's faithful when it does not happen, so I'll shut my yap.
In the M's blogosphere, Steve's Mariner Wheelhouse has an excellent question for the M's doctors - why so many freakin arm injuries, and what are you doing about it. And my favorite is hearing more about Yoda and SandFrogfrom Peter White's excellent Mariner Musings. I sure hope we get to see more of Chris Snelling in the bigs soon. And Sodo Oh No has decided to put M's bloggers into a steel cage death match which sounds like fun, though I've never played Diamond Mind Baseball. And the title brings to mind a question I had.. is it blogsphere or blogosphere?
Man... I signed two free agents (Pudge and Maels) at roughly $16M a year putting our budget into the Angels zone and dreamed up 2 trades (Dan Wilson salary purge and Freddy+ for Edmonds) in one post. I see why others who do this regularly start getting down on the M's. Okay, I'm going to blame it on the rain here in Texas screwing up my weekend plans and getting me down. Its much easier to be an optimist when the sun is shining and its 70 degrees in January.
26 days until pitchers and catchers report!
