Rumor Royalty: Geoff Baker (Mariners)

Wow, I'm totally UNDERWHELMED with the questions asked. I mean sure some of my questions were obtuse, but to not ask any of mine from my comment when no other person responded to the original post AND THEN to ask these lame and pointless items. I could have answered them without even having to look something up. ON top of that it was titled RUMOR ROYALTY, as in stuff that is unknown, not EDITORIAL ROYALTY. Asking an opinion about things or for a researchable item to be answered is ridiculous!

The only good question was about the catching position. Everyone that even glances at the Mariners official homepage or through the local sports section of the Seattle P-I/Post, Tacoma Tribune, or Everett Herald, would know the answer to the "Barry Bonds" and "Out of Options" questions. All newspaper articles for every major team in every major sport can be found online at their respective sites or by going to www.prosportsdaily.com where they have it subdivided by news, rumors, etc.

The point is that these weren't even enlightning questions and instead of asking questions that deal with "rumors" you took a weak hack at some questions like an AL pitcher in an NL park waving at strike three. How about the fact that there are a number of other players who were on the team last year that also influence the makeup of the team that weren't even included. Bloomquist for instance is out of options and his INABILITY to be moved to the minors keeps them from promoting a guy in his place. How about Charlton Jimerson who either has to make the team or clear waivers! Then you have Jake Woods who also is out of options and would have to clear waivers if sent to the minors let alone not being on the 40-man roster.

As for the Bonds question, my God, that's the most erroneous item in the list as he hasn't even been connected to Seattle with the exception of a post-game interview last year where they asked him about playing here and only because we were the only fans to not boo him outside of SF. There is no way they extend the payroll anymore than they all ready have and they don't have room for both Morse and Jimerson right now let alone if they were to bring in Bonds. My final thing about this would be an alternative that should've been brought up as a topic. Bringing Griffey back to Seattle would be a MUCH better alternative and the increased revenue from his addition would make up for most of the contract he would bring with him. How you picked to talk about Bonds as opposed to a topic regarding Griffey and whether he's available for trade, what it might take to get him from Cincinnati, and whether Lincoln and him have resolved their issues, all would have been better questions! The fact is that Griffey makes a ton more sense and it's been speculated a lot because he's already BEEN a Mariner and wants to retire in Seattle!

As for the Sexson question, are we really talking about a guy that had an injury for half the season and still almost lead the team in HRs despite not playing for a month and a half?! Anybody that thinks this even deserves to be talked about isn't a real fan. Anybody that can look at career stats would realize that he was on course for his normal stat line EXACTLY except for he would've been about 20 RBIs and .60 AVG lower than normal, but considering he played through and injury and his lack of hits contributed to his RBI drop off, it stands to reason that a healthy Sexson will hit 35-40 bombs with 110 ribbies, and a .270 AVG. Sill questions all the way around and there's no way they are eating a $14.5MM contract, no way in hell, so no matter what he does short of sitting indian style in the batters box and reading a book, they are going to play him 145-150 games predominately at 1B and a little at DH, if he's healthy.

All together this was a major let down in terms of what was given versus what was expected out of this Rumor Royalty. This by far was the worst of all these that you've done and I'm not ashamed to say that no amount of good rumor hunting by you balances out for the status quo misrepresenting of the Mariners that happens evidently from ESPN down to even mlbtraderumors.com.

Questions you should've asked...

Why do they have so many 2B in camp this spring if Lopez is the starter?!

If all the players who are guaranteed a place on the 25-man roster are in the Mariner commercials besides Wilkerson and Lopez, what is the long term plan for these guys? (As a side note, every player that's been traded or left through free agency the following year has been "coincidentally" left out of the Mariner commercials from Freddy Garcia to Gil Meche) The only one that didn't get removed was Jamie Moyer, but they gave him a solo spot and pulled it after he was traded to Philly. The players are the product the Mariners company is selling and you don't forget to advertise your best products, so there has to be a reason why they aren't marketing a 2B who they've invested a long-term contract in for 3 years plus a team option.

Is there any chance they will give away a good number of Vidro's at bats to keep his contract for next year from vesting?

If Vidro's contract vests, how does this effect Clement considering the team has made a public statement that they do NOT want Clement to start full-time at any position besides maybe DH and catcher?

When will the team sit down with Beltre and talk about an extension or are they ready to let him walk after 2009, normally this would be too early to bring these discussions up, but with the market being more reasonable and Bavasi not being one to have his players enter a season in the final year of their contract, something has to give, right?

What are the chances they bring back Ibanez who's a fan favorite, especially if he puts up 20+ HR, 100 RBI, .280 stats. He's a big part of this club and while he's getting up in age, he's still only going to be 37 next season and 40 seems to be the new 35 especially when you have a DH position to fill, so does he come back in 2009 or no?

Whatis going to happen with the pitching staff considering that as of right now we are about to see 60% of the starters leave via free agency after the 2009 season if they don't sign some extensions, so who is Bavasi going to lock up long-term in the next 12 months or are we going to try and find three new starters in the same offseason like last seasons debacle?

What are the chances that the Mariners make a run at Teixeira next offseason with 1B coming open and Teixeira only representing a 4-6 million dollar increase over Sexson?

Any chance the Mariners make a run at Sabathia when he hits free agency and simultaneously send Washburn and/or Batista to another team in a move to free up Salary? Sabathia would represent an improvement to the rotation over Washburn or Batista while also making our starting 5 younger. He would take the burden off of the Mariners having to deal with three starters in free agency during the same time period as well as offer incentive for Bedard to want to stay with Seattle. Batista and Washburn are due to make a couple million more in 2009 than Sabathia would require to sign, yet Washburn and Batista are good contracts when you look at their performance based on the landscape of free agency and what other pitchers are commanding.

So could the Mariners clear out close to 60 million($58.15MM) in salary through trading Batista ($9MM) and Washburn($10.2MM) to leave room for Sabathia and maybe Aumont or another promising young starter to pitch as the #5?! How about if they don't bring back Sexson($14MM), Vidro($8.5MM), Ramirez($2.75MM), Wilkerson($3MM), Ibanez($5.5MM), and Johjima($5.2MM)? Or even bringing back Ibanez and Johjima at similar money but 4MM to Ibanez and 7MM to Johjima sounds closer to how it would be split.

That would still leave $47MM minus a Bedard increase of maybe 5MM, and the minor league contracts of Balentien and assorted other youngsters. They'd still have around 40MM to spend and bringing in Teixeira at $125MM over 7 years at basically $18MM a season and then acquiring Sabathia at a similar price would still leave about $4MM for salary increases for other players and the host of minor leaguers that would get promoted to replace the guys leaving. I don't see Sabathia or Teixeira cresting the 20MM threshhold as that's just taboo after every contract over that has been bad and Santana is widely considered the best pitcher and Alex the best position player in baseball, statistically, so there will be a cushion beneath their salaries as no one will come close.

We only have to look at Alex's last contract and no one even made $22MM to his nearly $26MM and then $28MM a year over the last year of his contract. Teixeira is a solid contributor with a major upside, but he's not a $0MM player IMO and the same can be said of Sabathia and his pitching as 7 years is a very long time for a starter and the length could allow for a minor discount on the yearly cost. Also the ability of Sabathia probably equates to a 16MM a year contract but being left handed would bump him a couple million a year I think. So could we see these two stars come to Seattle now that they're willing to start spending like a big market club?!

These are just a few of the questions that you should have asked. They would have been cut down in size, but the explanations were for your benefit more than Geoff's. These are the things that can't be researched, but rather must be speculated on and who better than Geoff Baker the annointed king of Mariners Rumor Royalty? I might just be having a pout, but I'm losing my patience with bloggers not reading what other post and then shitting all over them when it was their own illiteracy or comprehension of the words that caused the misunderstanding, no administrative guidance for when others void the agreements of use, and then getting attacked for defending myself. It's all very silly and most of the people who chime in here are very unknowledgable about baseball, which you should take as your responsibility to better monitor the site since it's your baby, and you should make it a goal to enlighten your readers with a more frequent mailbag where you field various questions including the basic rules of the game for those who don't know and post a link on the side of your page for them to access it specifically whenever they want, outside of the mailbag. Like what is the infield fly rule, how does the rule 5 draft work. Create a place to research disagreements. You've begun that with the list of players that are out of options and the free agent lists, but there are other things that deal with the nuiances of the game that need to be broached. Most importantly, if you are only going to get 4 questions make sure it appeals to the most knowledgable fans and let the lesser fans ask you questions that you don't need Baker for in order to reply. Maybe I'll be back, but I doubt it and while some if not most will be excited to hear this, there are those out there that appreciate my insight as I have appreciated the insight of some readers on here. Most notably scribbletone, who I don't agree with all the time has some keen thoughts and ctownboy, who keeps tabs on my 2nd team the Reds since I live there for a few years and they play in the senior circuit. Finally, Sesshomaru who is an Orioles fan and we had many a long message for darkstar about his belief that Angelos wasn't holding up the Bedard trade. Sesshomaru would a lot of fun to talk baseball with and I'm sure there are more out there, but those are the three that standout to me the most! Wasting my time educating people that don't want to learn isn't doing anybody any good, so I'm out of here.

P.S. - I may be a Mariners fan first and a Reds fan second, but I've always been impartial even when I talked about the Angels needing a SS or 3B in exchange for Willits, personally I'd rather see the Angels keep things the way they are, but I took an impartial view, others should try that!

This goes to BaseballGuru. I would just like to say thank you. That was a fantastic comment and I found it very informative and useful. I learned more about the Mariners reading your comment then I would have had I done the research myself. I'm a huge M's fan, but I'm not much for the political side of things. I don't know anything about our minor league players (it doesn't help that I live in New Jersey though), I don't pay any attention to who's getting paid what and the terms of contracts, and all the other stuff. You were dead on about the questions that were asked though. Even I could have answered them without even having to do the research. I loved your questions though. The Texeira question is one I would have liked to see answered and the one with Sabathia and clearing out some cap room. Anyway, I gotta get back to work. Thanks again.