This team is starting to really impress me with their tenacity and ability to overcome. Terrible starts by the star hitters - just persevere Injuries to the rotation - next man up Lose in a terrible way - let it roll off your back Yordan hurt - young guys pick up the slack Fall behind in the early innings - hold my beer. May 31st - division lead. Seattle and Texas have to feel defeated. I am more impressed every week and am looking forward to the next 5 months.
Ok. This team has done its job. Dana Brown - you are up. You need to get a lefty bat that can play 2b or OF and a legitimate innings eating SP. ASAP
I think they will do both at the expense of setting our minor league system back a bit. I doubt is sooner than the deadline, though.
I’m getting excited too. 1st place heading into the easiest month on the schedule. Shown the ability to come back. Elite 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation. Bottom of the order guys producing consistently. Deepest bullpen in baseball. I think they’ll be able to add what they want without decimating the system. Dezenzo and several SP are good trade chips that aren’t technically prospects. They need to keep Melton off the table. Matthews and Ullola need to be highly valued and traded only for a controllable star. They can likely get a Kikuchi level rental SP for something like Dezenzo, Blubaugh, and Sullivan. I don’t think a LHH 2B will be available. I think they’ll call up Melton as their lefty bat.
I agree. Brown has done some great things, but not bringing in a lefty bat this offseason was a big miss. But The Smith/Paredes trade is destined to be talked about like the Bagwell or Yordan trade. He has absolutely crushed it on bringing in pitching too. How about making Blanco a starter? He has had a good enough start that with a couple of good seasons worth of moves he will be spoken about on Luhnow's level. ( and Click's results were very underrated)
I agree with most of this. I also expect Melton to be brought up and get meaningful PAs in CF and spelling Smith in RF. I just hope he's reasonably productive. However 1) Sulluvan- this team has tried to find a LH OF bat for years. I would hate to see them give up on another one before even finding out if he is the answer. 2) I think if they don't get another impact lefty bat things will get really hard. If they don't find a lefty hitting 2b then Melton will have to be good. Thats a lot of pressure. I like Dezenzo, but like Whitcomb he doesn't really fit. He needs to be lefthanded and/or play a good CF or 2b to be a long term answer for this team.
I don't think they are a great team. But I think they have many characteristics that great teams have. And they have the foundation to become a great team. The must add a lefty bat that can play 75% of the time and produce at 110 level or better. They need Yordan to get healthy They need the rotation behind Framber and Brown to be consistently very very slightly below average or better. They need to get/stay healthy.
This post belongs on a Mariners message board. If your expectations are low for an organization that's won their division for 7 consecutive full seasons than when will you ever have high expectations?
I would be fine with this. In order to balance the lineup they must have a place to play the left handed bat. C, 1b, SS, 3b, RF, DH, and either 2b or LF are set. That leaves CF and 2b or LF as only options. While its clear ( to me) that Meyers is better than Chas now, he is not nearly as versatile and certainly hasn't proven he will remain better.
If it were any other team and fan base... there'd be one person in the clubhouse getting the overwhelming credit for accomplishing all of this... At least the counterparts in Baltimore, Texas, and pretty much the rest of the league are dealing with the same inconsistencies/questions. Its wide open.
Crazy like a fox. Depends on if you believe in Melton. Personally I don’t but I trust Dana to be right about this ****. If he thinks melton is ready you aren’t ever getting a better return for Jake. get a couple left handed hitting infield prospects and go on down the road.
Actually, its more than believing in Melton or even Brown. Meyers has, probably, the most value he has ever had right now. He hits RH which reduces his value on this roster. He hasn't proven he will keep this up Even now, he isn't playing at an All-star level (we just have such a low bar for CF play recently) He has below average power ( about 1/2 MLB avg HR rate) and despite good speed is a below average base stealer. He is doing this with a .350 BIBIP which is about 50 pts above MLB average. If that regresses he becomes decidedly average offensively, or worse. He is on pace for 4 WAR but looks like he is a 3 WAR guy. Still very good but not a guy you refuse to trade. And this is his ceiling. I think it is generally accepted that Melton will play excellent defense and steal bases when he does gets on. Worse case is about a loss of 2 WAR Best case is a gain of about 1 WAR But you have gotten a return for Meyers and potentially filled CF for 6 years.
I believe they will easily win the division. Yordan and Arighetti are likely to both come back with no reason to think they will suffer. There is your LH bat and SP4 there, though I agree another of each would be fantastic. But I simply don’t care about the division. We have to chase down the Yankees or Tigers. 3 game series are a crap shoot, and home field advantage isn’t that valuable. I hope they agree it is top 2 or bust at the deadline. I do think they can do it.
His contact profile is such (basically no fly balls) that with his speed his babip should probably be higher than average, but I don’t know that that’s 350- maybe more like 325 or 330. For him to be a good offensive player he just has to virtually not strike out while walking, which is sort of hard to do if you don’t have enough thump to scare pitchers into trying to get you out out of the zone. There is a lot of dreck out there at CF and I’d think someone would be happy to have him bc his defense sets a pretty solid floor and he’s club controlled and cheap for 2 more years.
