Friday, December 10, 2004
so indeed, i put in my two weeks at the table yesterday. jobs change. fun can turn into stressful pretty quick when no one cares enough to pay attention. you all know why, so i find no real reason for a bloated job-quitting post. everything will be fine, just like it always is. instead, i am going to spend this post talking about the mariners.
adrian beltre!! atomic train!
i think if we let adrian beltre slip through our fingers, i will just die. there is no excuse to not sign him this off-season. we are bidding against the dodgers and the tigers. the dodgers just wasted a bunch of their beltre money on jeff kent. they are the mariners, but they are changing. new gm, new manager, new promises. 99 losses should have been enough to convince them that they need to shift their thinking slightly. 8 years for a 25 year old is different than 8 years for a 29 year old. he is almost too good to be true. he fits too well. thats why i'm afraid we won't get him, he makes too much sense. they are still the mariners.
he is 25, and would improve our offense and our defense at a position we have no one to play. all of the other big market teams except for the dodgers have no need for a 3rd baseman. red sox have mueller and youkalis. cardinals have rolen. cubs have aramis ramirez. the mets have wright. i'm worried, though, because the astros and the angels could be players for beltre once carlos beltran gets signed. by then we'll still be sitting there waiting for the timing to be right to make our big splash, then jump into an empty pool. 8 years, $100M. use the sasaki money to give him a $12M signing bonus. at the end of the contract, he'll be only 33. we'll have potentially one of the best third basemen in the league locked up through his prime years for only $11M a year. thats less than ichiro makes. it all fits too well. if we make one move this offseason to improve our team, this should be it. it even still fits within the mariners mysterious shrinking budget numbers. i still think we could afford him and jd drew.
we might not even need another pitcher this offseason. which might be good. we need to keep giving these young guys a chance. nageotte's slider is maybe the nastiest pitch i have ever seen. he can morph it into his wierd curve at will. he has enough control over its mechanics to make it break differently every time. he's only freaking 23. i think he'll be a good pitcher for us. we have a lot of guys like him who will be good for us in the next few years, or good for someone else in the next few years. they need the chance to go through some bumps before they figure it all out. and then we've got king felix. i really hope we get to see him in the rotation in 2006 :) freaking 19, dominated at every level, hopefully we should see him in AAA tacoma this year. 97 miles an hour. we've got more money coming off the books next season to get pitching, if we even need it. pitchers are too expensive this year. its been a wierd off season, sketchy players have been going for 7, 8 million dollars. at least spiezio only makes $3M a year. imagine if we locked corey k_____ in for $7 a year? we'd be screwed. dead. i agree with all of the other mariners bloggers that his name should not be mentioned. its bad luck.
its looking like a choice between two good players, or three bad players. we'll spend the same amount of money either way. everyone else seems to think that the bad players fit into their plans better. good news for our plans, hopefully. the league is making our decisions really easy right now, in my mind. everything is aligning perfectly for us to make some big, impact signings this season. just like last season, and we all saw what a huge mistake not doing anything was last season.
mariners, MARINERS! go sonics. sports for president.
adrian beltre!! atomic train!
i think if we let adrian beltre slip through our fingers, i will just die. there is no excuse to not sign him this off-season. we are bidding against the dodgers and the tigers. the dodgers just wasted a bunch of their beltre money on jeff kent. they are the mariners, but they are changing. new gm, new manager, new promises. 99 losses should have been enough to convince them that they need to shift their thinking slightly. 8 years for a 25 year old is different than 8 years for a 29 year old. he is almost too good to be true. he fits too well. thats why i'm afraid we won't get him, he makes too much sense. they are still the mariners.
he is 25, and would improve our offense and our defense at a position we have no one to play. all of the other big market teams except for the dodgers have no need for a 3rd baseman. red sox have mueller and youkalis. cardinals have rolen. cubs have aramis ramirez. the mets have wright. i'm worried, though, because the astros and the angels could be players for beltre once carlos beltran gets signed. by then we'll still be sitting there waiting for the timing to be right to make our big splash, then jump into an empty pool. 8 years, $100M. use the sasaki money to give him a $12M signing bonus. at the end of the contract, he'll be only 33. we'll have potentially one of the best third basemen in the league locked up through his prime years for only $11M a year. thats less than ichiro makes. it all fits too well. if we make one move this offseason to improve our team, this should be it. it even still fits within the mariners mysterious shrinking budget numbers. i still think we could afford him and jd drew.
we might not even need another pitcher this offseason. which might be good. we need to keep giving these young guys a chance. nageotte's slider is maybe the nastiest pitch i have ever seen. he can morph it into his wierd curve at will. he has enough control over its mechanics to make it break differently every time. he's only freaking 23. i think he'll be a good pitcher for us. we have a lot of guys like him who will be good for us in the next few years, or good for someone else in the next few years. they need the chance to go through some bumps before they figure it all out. and then we've got king felix. i really hope we get to see him in the rotation in 2006 :) freaking 19, dominated at every level, hopefully we should see him in AAA tacoma this year. 97 miles an hour. we've got more money coming off the books next season to get pitching, if we even need it. pitchers are too expensive this year. its been a wierd off season, sketchy players have been going for 7, 8 million dollars. at least spiezio only makes $3M a year. imagine if we locked corey k_____ in for $7 a year? we'd be screwed. dead. i agree with all of the other mariners bloggers that his name should not be mentioned. its bad luck.
its looking like a choice between two good players, or three bad players. we'll spend the same amount of money either way. everyone else seems to think that the bad players fit into their plans better. good news for our plans, hopefully. the league is making our decisions really easy right now, in my mind. everything is aligning perfectly for us to make some big, impact signings this season. just like last season, and we all saw what a huge mistake not doing anything was last season.
mariners, MARINERS! go sonics. sports for president.
