Saturday, May 03, 2008

Mariner's Off Topic

One of the more intriguing deals of the Winter was the trade that sent Mariner offensive prodigy CF Adam Jones, LHP's George Sherrill and Tony Butler, and RHP's Chris Tillman and Kam Mickolio for Baltimore's Erik Bedard.

That is quite a lot of players to give up for one player that doesn't set your table.

Bedard is a pretty good pitcher, in fact he is a possible Cy Young winner under the right circumstances, but the Mariner's gave up quite a bit to get him, and problems in the bullpen, and in the starting offensive lineup illustrate that problem in the early going of the 2008 season.

The M's starting pitching staff has been dinged up to start the year, but they have done well enough only to be done in by the lack of offense the team has produced. That has been coupled with a slow start by Putz, and the rest of the bullpen.

For that trade to work this M's this season they needed a few things to happen:

  1. Richie Sexson needs to rebound
  2. Put needed to repeat his 2007 performance.
  3. Someone needed to step up to fill in for the loss of George Sherrill.
  4. Somebody need to make up for the lost offense and defense the Jones would have provided.
  5. Jose Vidro needed to reproduce the last half of the 2007 season.
  6. Aging regulars such as Johjima, and Ibanez needed to keep up their past performance.

None of the above has happened, so the Mariners have called up Clement and Balentien to provide some momentum. In the bull pen they are looking for one more unlikely good year out of Arthur Rhodes to fill the void for Sherrill.

It isn't enough, and John McLaren went off on the them tonight which is a foreshadow of him being fired in June along with Bavasi if he cannot get the team kick started.

It's obvious, the M's pitching will be fine over time in the starting rotation, and in the bullpen, but they need some more offense.

I say bring back Ken Griffey Jr for the last two to three years of his career, do it now, do it while the Reds have a surplus of outfielders and would love to jettison some salary. Griffey at DH would add quite a bit to this team, and it would help balance the lineup.

No comments: