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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
As y'know, we live to serve.
Divish says that the Mariners are watching Felix and Andrew Moore most closely as we go into the Dog Days thinking about trades. ... Here is a quick reminder that trading for August and trading for 2018-19 is not an either-or, zero sum game. The deal for Jean Segura was not necessarily a wild, all-in bet on 2017 just because it helped Now. Neither would a deal for Sonny Gray be the exact moral equivalent of a mindless scream "Blast The Torpedoes Full Speed Ahead!"
It is a curious and amusing trait of the Big Blogs that they love to see GM's admit defeat mid-summer. Not real sure whether GM's are supposed to literally hold their hats in hand as they Fire Sale their best four players in July. But the Mainframe is here to unapologetically rebut that false dilemma. It's not "This Year" or "2024." There are deals that address both. Admittedly such deals aren't always going to thrill the Baseball America wonks.
We believe it was Jeff Sullivan's last Friday chat, wherein a reader demanded the Mariners deal James Paxton for "a useful prospect." We'll forego the usual 800-word /rant and simply ask, Why is James Paxton not a "useful prospect"?
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Beyond the Boxscore, keeping things fresh, categorizes the Mariners as "Buyers" and recommends Sean Manaea. He comes off the DL to start against K-Pax tonight. Why he is such a subject of rumors, you'll have to explain to me; I thought Billy Beane traded his good starting pitchers after 5 years, rather than after 1.5.
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Prospect Insider, which gobbles up SSI shtick but is loathe to admit same, liked our idea of "fronting" Edwin Diaz so much that they put up several trade concepts for the bullpen and even proposed making Nick Vincent the closer (so that Diaz could spend some time doing what Mariano Rivera did for John Wetteland). Personally, I don't think Diaz' mind is that kind of a problem, as such. It's just that if you could ADD the talent of a David Robertson to the bullpen, it would be a nice bonus to slide Sugar down a weight class so that he could Punch Down a while.
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Nick Neidert threw another 4-hit shutout a couple days ago and made Baseball America's top 100 prospects midsummer list. Again, Drew Smyly will probably be wiping out big league lineups for the M's before Neidert will, but it's great to see your low-minors blue chippers move forward instead of backward. And I know this will send m'man G-Money screaming into the night but with his positive momentum, Neidert sits about where Luis Gohara did last year, when Gohara keyed a Drew Smyly deal. Neidert could be really good; Sonny Gray is in fact really good.
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Ah! Here we are. :: skimming 'net for a suitable blog finish :: We'd been waiting for some kinda confirmation right from the dog's mouth and wouldn'tcha know. My Northwest's Brent Stecker has a piece where Dipoto insists this very thing, pitching Now and For the Future. The operative word there on July 7th, kiddies, is that he said Now. Under the specific circumstances -- by "specific circumstances" we mean 41 wins, 46 losses and the middle of July -- that is GM-speak for We're Buyers. Music to Denizens' ears.
Stecker is one of my fave local reads of the past few years ... his fine report includes Dipoto quotes
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“Our needs are clear. We need to find pitching depth and add on that end both for the present and the future.”
“We’re going to try to make this team better for 2017. We do think that we have a chance to make a run as the second half gets underway,” he said. “We are aware that these are the times – mid-summer and then again as we get into the holiday season, December, January – this is when you can tap in to the market, particularly the pitching market.”
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I like the way this guy thinks, don' choo? More quotes at Stecker's site.
Hey, the losses hurt him way more than they do us. If Dipoto is up to the emotional investment, why not us? :- )
Enjoy,
Dr D
"... don’t really have enough to grab help at the deadline ..."
Cliff Lee, anyone?
Meh. I'm done. =P Manaea works for me, or Gray, or anything resembling a bullpen ace and a rotation's #2 (or so). Let's strike now; the hometown 9 are in a funk and need a pick-me-up. Let's not waste the games before the break!
I'm really glad JeDi is still in. If that's the case, who cares about where Big Blog X falls on the issue? =)
Honestly. How the myth persists that ANY of the 30 MLB teams would be short the prospects necessary to complete a blockbuster trade.
Bill James was asked one year, "Do the Sox have any 'touchable' prospects they could offer for Shlabotnik?" His acid reply, "Dozens of them."
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Fans imagine that the White Sox wouldn't take 1) Lewis 2) Neidert 3) O'Neill 4) Heredia 5) Moore 6) Veiera and 7) Bishop for Jose Quintana? SCREEEEEEECH the subject changes to "The M's wouldn't pay that"
It might be true, once in a while, that a seller is looking for something very specific, such as an ML-ready power hitter to plug into the lineup Friday. But it's not often.
By that, I mean, they have always overvalued them.
That having been said...I think any deals the Mariners make should be deals that improve the stable of young controllable guys we already have...if it helps in 2017, great...but that shouldn't be required. The odds of us reaching the post-season are pretty darned small at this point.
I would be looking for guys who are just about to hit the bigs or have a lot of controlled years left and be willing to give up veterans we don't absolutely need (Dyson? I'd think a lot of teams would be interested in him) along with prospects we don't believe in *cough*O'Neill*coughcough*
We have an outstanding, familiar CF at Tacoma who is hittting .300+ and stealing bases L and R who could slide right in if Dyson is the key to getting some (healthy) controllable pitching on our roster. And I wouldn't mind seeing Boog Powell get some more ABs- after his suspensions, I really believed he had nothing left to show, and that he had burned his bridges here. But he's another one whose Tacoma tenure has impressed me.
By the way- if we promote Martin and (we already promoted) Powell, then that makes room at Tacoma for Ian Miller and Chuck Taylor- who look more than ready for promos- which leaves room in Arkansas for Braden Bishop and Eric Filia, two Pac-12 outfielders who could do with moving along. Modesto has already received a promo from Clinton (Luis Liberato) and we have another .300+ outfielder at Clinton (ANthony Jiminez) who could step up when he comes back off the DL. I'm not proposing a Bavasi-style "Peter Principle", where we promote our prospects beyond their capability and shift them for aging vets when they fail, but well-deserved, reasonable promotions.