i hate the new york yankees. i hope we meet them in the post season so we can destroy them. so overrated. they play in a league with the two worst teams in baseball, and due to some crack ass new scheduling thing, they get to play MORE games against them. it is a small wonder that they are doing as well as they are doing. but are they? there is a stat out there somewhere that the yankees are a .500 ball club if you take away their games vs. the Royals, Devil Rays and Orioles. the mariners sit here in arguably the toughest division in the league. we have the two best teams in baseball. our other teams are no slouches either. the AL west has no KC or Baltimore or Tampa Bay or Pittsburg to inflate win counts. yet still we have won 106 games, with 15 still remaining. how good would we have been if we had been in the AL east instead of the yankees? extra games against baltimore and TB? yeehaw!!! throw in the lack luster blue jays and the self destructing red sox, you have a free ride to the playoffs. yet people still argue that they are better than the mariners, and that they should be the favorties out of the AL to go to the world series. screw that, so overrated. one of the highest payrolls in the game, if not THE highest. buying themself a GODLIKE starting rotation instead of bringing one up through the farm system. loading their lineup with RBI machines. how much did they spend on their team this year? dare i even ask? $109 million dollars as their opening payroll. compare that with the mariners $75 million, or especially the A's 33 million, how can you even compare the yankees to the mariners or a's. that is almost 35 million more than the mariners. 35 million, that is 3 12 million dollar players. before this offseason, 12 million dollar players were the GODS of baseball. that is what is so impressive about the mariners and a's. when the yankees have a hole, they up their payroll and go out and buy the best player in the league to fill it. mariners are left with 3 huge holes in 3 consecutive seasons, their 3 superstars, the 3 people who anchored their team. instead of going out and spending a lot of money in free agency to try and fill these holes with big names like most teams would, they traded for young guys, creating prospects to nurture into gods, who they could mold into valuable team players. right now, we have an incredible team of no names. the biggest name we had before the season started was aaron sele, and even he wasn't that good. no longer do we have no names, we have all stars. even people like david bell were on everyones mind as the allstar balloting came to a close. we also have one of the deepest minor league systems in the majors. pitching-wise, we have gods right now, and still more gods to replaces them. it will be glorious. we are the next atlanta braves. our pitching will be dominant for years to come, because we have refused to trade away these prospects. how many offers have we turned down for Joel Pineiro in the past 2 years? way too many. people may have scoffed at the beginning of last year when we refused to give him up, but right now we are laughing back at them. we let him develop, threw him into the lineup when he was ready, and bam, we had yet another dominant pitcher to add to our already stellar rotation. his era was somthing like .85 through is first few starts, unbelievable. we have freddy garcia anchoring our staff, leading the league in era. he is what, 25 now? holy shnikes!!! once jamie moyer retires, john halama will step up and take his place. both pitchers were struggling until he was sent down. since them, moyer has been unstoppable, and halama as been adequate. still not awesome, compared to all our other dudes, but he will only get better. he will be our crafty ultra slow ultra movement pitcher once moyer is gone. our farm system is stacked with big guys who throw hard. once they learn some control, they will be pimps we can bring up. there is that really tall guy, ryan anderson or whatever we drafted a few years back. we just got some guy from russia, and some guy from china to be pimps. we have some other guy who has 4 excellent pitches, who mariner scouts say could be dominant in a few years. our farm system is stacked. our offense will be our downfall, if we have one, yet we still lead the league in this category this year. somehow, i don't know, incredible. our group of no names and jabronis lead the league in offense. how did this happen!!! oh well, scrapping together hits, never giving up down late in games, late in innings, two outs, two strikes whatever!! we still manage to get hits. #1 offense, #1 pitching staff. AND, our defense. russ davis, error every other game. david bell, error every other game at second. paul sorrento, pfft, in there for the power. we had so many errors, and it bit us in the ass so many times. but now..... cameron, great range in center. ichiro, gold glove hands down in right. the platoon in left holding up as well as they should. david bell, absolutely awesome at third. olerud, always has been an incredible first basemen. booney and guillen holding their own. wilson, always has been fantastic behind the plate, even if he doesn't start every night. last time i checked, no one on our team had more than 10 errors, no one. how many gold gloves will we get this year? who knows, any number of our guys could get them. no one runs on ichiro. NO ONE. he has a cannon. insanity. where did this rush of defense come from, who would have thought it. #1 in offense, defense and pitching. if we end the season like this, only the 8th team in history to lead the leage in all 3 categories. what an insane season. reason to be happy about seattle sports again :)

frivved up by Ben at 3:34 PM