TERRY MOSHER
JAMES PAXTON
I’m tired of the wacky-whack ways the Seattle Mariners can change course so often. Make up my mind. You are building a contender or not? Make up your mind.
Baseball is a simple game See the ball, hit the ball. That’s not an original thought, by the way. Ken Griffey Jr. use to repeat that over and over when cornered by reporters after another one of his dramatic blasts into the second deck in right field at the Kingdome and then Safeco Field.
There is truth to what he says, though. But the Mariners for almost all of the 2000s have been swinging and missing. We don’t need a rebuild, as general manager Jerry Dipoto apparently thinks after sending lefty ace James Paxton to the Yankees. Geez, I thought the Yankees were the ones the Mariners were trying to catch. What are they doing bolstering their pitching staff? Man, that is crazy. Send Paxton to the Kansas City Royals. It could have been worst, I suppose. Paxton could have been traded to the Astros.
If I seem frustrated, yeah I am. Stick with a plan. Stay the course. Don’t change plans with the weather. Building a contender on other people’s second-tier players seemed like a good idea to me. That is how the Mariners got Mitch Haniger. With a farm system that is second to none (no team is close to as bad as the Mariners system is), I realized it’s difficult to built a real contender. But, man, work it, stick with it, keep on keeping on.
Nah, Dipoto decided to switch gears. Now, he is sending his best players to other teams for their rejects. Good move. That is sarcasm. Next I hear he is going to send Jean Jean the hitting machine away. I know Jean Segura might be a bad actor in the clubhouse, but as former Mariner manger, the late Dick Williams, once said, “I’ve got a bunch of milk drinkers” when what he wanted was somebody that could match him in a Johnnie Walker Red drink-off.
Listen, I could go on and on, but I’ll shorten this up by saying that the best teams have a line-up full of guys who have explosive bats that can kill you with just one swing of “see the ball, hit the ball.”
You can’t beat people with a collective outfield production of 43 home runs, with Haniger getting 26 of them. C’mon, your outfield should be Charles Atlas in disguise. Each outfield should be a threat to rip the cover off the ball. The whole lineup should be power plus, but you want power in the outfield and the Mariners did not have that. Houston and Milwaukee’s outfielders hit 77 home runs each; the Yankees blasted 71, the Dodgers 91.
I don’t know where Dipoto is going next, but I know he will be going somewhere to remake the roster. And I still think it’s wrong. You build winners with consistency. You build baseball teams with powerful bats. I don’t need the Dee Gordon’s of the world. Yes, speed kills in most sports, but baseball in today’s world needs Paul Bunyans that swing mighty bats. They may strike out a lot, but they also homer a lot. Until everybody in the lineup is a threat to go yard, you are behind the 8-ball.
But face it the real problem is having a general manager that can’t make up his mind, or mine. Have a plan and stick with it. Don’t each off-season retool the lineup.
It’s possible, even probable, that Dipoto is waking up to the fact that baseball is getting younger. The days of big name players sticking around with big-salaries are vanishing. Somebody woke up and said, hey, we can win with younger guys that are making a lot less and who we have control over for years. Why sign talented free agents like Robinson Cano to huge contracts and then watch as they return diminishing returns in the latter years of the contract?
Why not, instead, play young players and develop them on the major league scene? Then, when they reach the stage where they can demand a big salary, get rid of them and start the process all over again. It worked for the Yankees. Only outfielder Brett Gardner in their lineup was over 28. Gardner was 34.
Of course, it takes good scouting to find those young and talented players you can rush through your farm system and make it work on the Major League level. And with today’s advancement in analytics, there is a lot less chance of making mistakes on young players.
I don’t know, maybe I’m whistling in the dark. Maybe I’m wrong to be frustrated with the constant reshuffling of the Mariners’ roster under a revolving door of general managers. I just don’t think it takes a genius to put together a good roster and then stick with it. Players get better with experience. Stick with them until they are set to make big money. Then dump them and plug in another talented youngster. It couldn’t hurt at least to try this approach.
So now, under Dipoto’s current plan, we have to wait another year, maybe two, before we see positive results of his off-season moves, many of them yet to come. My worry is that next off-season, after a dumpster of a 2019 season, Dipoto will start over again with a new plan.
Oh well, it’s just a game.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.