Seattle Sports Insider

Echo Box, 1.10.16

you gotta giiive a little... taaaake a little ... and let your pore heart breaaaak a little

Posted by

1/11/17

The comments threads have been getting way, WAY out of hand. Dr. D had been wondering what it felt like, to be a Manhattan real estate huckster sitting in a conference room with a half dozen James Mattises glaring over the table at you... in the immortal words of Billy Martin replaying the Pine Tar thing: "Wait, this is like a real game?!"

PHOENIX GUY SEZ

[Link to comment with table of stolen base kings who never got caught]

$$ Instead of using the failed Seth Smith, the MARINERS will become baseball's great magnet for GARY REDUS COMPS!! $$ (note the 140 characters) (No, seriously, assuming he gets on base, Jarrod Dyson is Rickey level scary. That will be really fun to watch.)

G-MONEYBALL SEZ

Seattle's 2016 offense was carried by a 35 year old DH (147 OPS+) and a 33 year old 2B (138 OPS+).

# of 2B seasons over 135 OPS+ for a 2B aged 34 and above: 6 since 1950 (let's leave Nap and Hornsby and Eddie Collins out of it). [More facts ensue which demonstrate that not many players dominated baseball if they were close to 40 years old]

$$ Dishonest Houston just stated that they will have younger players than we have. IT WON'T HAPPEN! $$ (No, seriously, you do have to figure on a fast-twitch-muscle death tax on Cano and Cruz next year. I don't get it either, why Dipoto seems so taken with the M's 86 wins last year.)

OBF SEZ

[What am I missing on Karns? What are you guys seeing that I am not?]

$$ If Jerry Dipoto, or some other entity, truly did not like 270 strikeouts in 265 innings, why give Miller etc for him? So sad. $$

(Look, Nate Karns is dead to me. Drop it. I ain't going to torture myself with his post-Mariner performances any more than I did Randy Johnson's ... or Michael Pineda's .. or Carlos Guillen's .. or Shin-Soo Choo's ... or ... all I can say is if you wanna draft Gallardo ahead of Karns in your 2017-19 keeper league, be my guest. It's your funeral.

There is SOMETHING going on that Nate Karns should be jettisoned for Yovani blinkin' Gallardo. You get that, right? That Nate Karns could be coming into camp instead of Yovani Gallardo, and we took Gallardo knowing for a fact that he won't last till June? Whatever it was, and 8 times out of 10 it was something off the field that was involved somewhere, it is their problem.)

MO' DAWG SEZ

Thanks Ice. You said it better than me. If Haniger hits .280 with 25 HRs, then we have a much more traditional St. Louis-type OF; Haniger becoming our Hendrick. BTW, Hendrick always had a .300 hitter in LF or CF.

$$ Reports by the scouting system that Mitch Haniger was a "tweener" OF with limited power were ridiculous & untrue - FAKE NEWS! $$

(kewl Hendrick bit, Keith! This has been one of the most pleasant episodes in the long and storied SSI franchise: the way we are all doing the wave, in unison, over Mitch Haniger. Love it, love it, love it. HERE IS ONE MORE VID, with Haniger throwing his schnozz into the strike zone again, and getting 425 feet despite leaning over a coffee table to swing at the ball.)

Enjoy,

Dr D

Blog:

Dr's R/X

Tags:

Mitch Haniger

Comments

Clarifying

Thanks for the mention.

I have no idea if Haniger is that type of hitter: .280 w/25 HR's is pretty good. I do know (and just posted back a few threads) that winning teams in the AL over the last 5 years almost NEVER roll out an OF with 3 bats in the 85-95 area. Well, only 1 playoff team in 5 years. I know we have bats elsewhere, but it looks like teams still desire some thunder in the OF. Perhaps DiPoto has figured out the new Moneyball and is ahead of the curve.

Will see.

But I'm breathing easier if Haniger thumps. Or O'Neill. You get my drift.

I'm breathing WAY easier if Haniger is in LF and JD Martinez is stumbling around in RF.

Breathing easier

Right now, it looks to me like O'Neill has a spot in LF whenever he deserves it, UNLESS the next move is for the Tank to go to Milwaukee or Pittsburgh for that "FINAL" piece.

Now that everything else is seemingly addressed, is now the time we hear of Braun or McCutchen coming northwestwards? Jerry said no more 25-man guys leaving. Maybe he's letting the teams that need CFs stew (Detroit, are you there?) (Mets, are you listening?) until Martin brings a power BP arm or something.

But an OF of Braun-Dyson-Haniger or Dyson-McCutchen-Haniger would be championship quality without a doubt. And any worries about McCutchen's range diminishing would certainly be allayed by Dyson and Haniger on either side. And Braun still seems athletic enought to patrol the expanses of Safeco's LF. So either one answers the worries.

But then again, Tank could be the answer by July.

Trump style tweets.

Hey Doc, love the Trump style tweets. Make SSI great again. Repeal the failed shoutbox immediately and replace it with something wonderful.

Karns was a highly overrated pitcher.

SabrMatt put in the shoutbox once that he heard Mike Montgomery say that Nate Karns told Montgomery "At least you get to make the post season" the day the Montgomery trade broke. This smacks of Debbie Downerism and is probably contrary to the sort of talk that the Mariners team psychologist Andy McKay recommends.

You didn't have to pick up

You didn't have to pick up Smith's option and you didn't have to take on extra money. For whatever reason, Dipoto believes in a Gallardo rebound. I DO NOT.

This is not a playoff rotation. If we really go into the season like this we are pissing our final year of contention away.

AAaaand with today's deal we almost certainly are dealing O'Neil away for some SP. lol