.

Friend-of-POTUS sez,

okdan: Yesterday when the broadcast had Zduriencik in the booth, he dropped a comment about carrying 3 lefties in the pen...

Hm.  Supposing that David Rollins were a given.  Would you rather have Justin Leone or Tyler Olson?

Whale of a question, isn't it?  Today I'd plump for Olson.  Ask me again tomorrow, though.

.......

During the same broadcast, Zduriencik clarified.  You can't just flip Erasmo to Houston and send Rollins to AAA.  The moment you drop a Rule 5 guy from your 25-man roster -- that's all year -- then 28 other teams may take him if they want.  And THEN you could work a deal with Houston.

And that makes sense.  Everybody deserves a chance at a career.

.

SABRMatt, who is offering hardcore Mariner-metrics for ten bucks, sez,

SABR Matt: I would say that Zduriencik, despite his critics in the Seattle intelligentsia, is doing a fabulous job at building a club that can contend for years to come.

If the Mariners start out 35-18 it is going to be very, VERY embarrassing for disgruntled intelligentsia who carefully, premeditatively accused Zduriencik of understanding nothing other than HR and RBI.

:: shrug ::  Which, supposing it were true, makes life easier for me.  Bring on the BALCO Bombers, my friend.

.

The Counselor sez,

mojician: Interesting McClendon stuff: On Jesus Montero: "He's going to be fighting for playing time at Tacoma." It seems like the Mariners think that Kiverson might be the new bash brothers.

.

I don't get it.  We're punishing success?  You've got to give a guy a hug when he receives his 180-day coin.  

I don't care if you do think it's your best chance to get something out of it.  I don't like it.  In principle.

.

Gordon sez, to close off a court case leveled in the Shout Box,

 The offense should be plenty to win consistently - and if they hit their stride then this could be the biggest giggle-fest since 2001. I expect 95 wins, but let's see that playoff team take shape.

From G's mouth to your ear, babe.  Cliff Floyd said the same thing on national TV:  "I'll all in, way in.  95 wins plus."   :: blinks ::

Could things go wrong?  Don't be trite.  SSI is about reading things we have NOT already seen a thousand times.

Ask Jack Z what exactly is most likely to go wrong?, and you know he'll talk about injuries.  Wouldn't shock SSI to see the 2-3-4 starters ALL get hurt.  ... In which case we win only 92, obviously.  Go to your all-lefty rotation behind the King.  ;- )  Tell us more about this Olson kid.

.

PGA-Keith sez,

moethedog: G: I am convinced that Kivlehan will hit himself right up the I-5 to Safeco pretty dang soon. A very early COF injury (April May) likely sees Romero getting the call, but by mid-June I will be surprised if Kivlehan doesn't get a 15-Day call up.

Which Jack Z underlined, that the top 30-35 guys are really on your ballclub anyway; they're just not on the traveling squad.  (For those who played chess, like me, a junior high basketball team suits up like 20 guys at home but only 12 get on the bus for Hoboken.  Logistics.)

Kivlehan has showed extra HIT ability this last week, fighting off tough pitches for bloopers and humpback liners onto the OF grass.  As the SSI emperor has forseen, he is actually more refined than D.J. Peterson.

Our anti-injury deflector shield is FULLY operational. 

.

GLS sez,

GLS: I'd still like to see DJ and Kivlehan get as many minor league AB's as possible. Churchill has a post up on his site that I think makes a lot of sense about how the current Mariners depth should allow these guys to get the minor league AB's that Ackley and Zunino should have gotten before they were called up.

We remember that era in which it seemed like the Atlanta Braves had like Chipper Jones and Ryan Klesko and Jermaine Dye and Jason Schmidt and ? all drawing raves in AAA and no place to put them in Atlanta.  We don't remember the AAA success doing their youngsters a lot of harm once they got to the big leagues.

Jack Z's got the Cheshire Cat grin pulling at the edges of his mouth right now.

B'lee DAT,

Dr D