3:28pm:Greg Nortonwas the other player designated. Starting Balentien and Clement regularly should be a nice offensive upgrade for the Mariners.
3:04pm:According to Ryan Divish of the News Tribune, Brad Wilkerson's locker has been cleared out. Divish speculates that Wilkerson has been designated for assignment. He expects the Ms to make one other move to accomodate for callups of Wladimir Balentien and Jeff Clement.
Wilkerson, 30, hit .232/.348/.304 for the Mariners in 56 ABs. He makes $3MM this year, plus up to $2MM in plate appearance bonuses.
This is a mistake. M's should have waited until after May 7th to bring up Clement because it would not count as a full MLB year for free agency purposes. I cannot imagine Wilkerson is really their biggest problem at the moment . . .
I don't like this move because I think Cairo offers less to the team than Norton... Cairo has been unused and Norton is hitting .438, what sense does that make?! Plus if Clement is the full-time DH and Sexson needs time off, they could've used Norton at 1B... Just silly... Everything was right about this move except not leaving Norton... The bench is now in need of a lefty besides Vidro... Especially with Balentien adding to the total of righties in the lineup regularly!
Greg Norton DFA'd as well. Wlad and Clement up.
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mariners/2008/04/wilkerson_released.html
Posted by: kdamp | April 30, 2008 at 03:21 PM
What happened to this guy?
Posted by: nic | April 30, 2008 at 03:22 PM
This is a mistake. M's should have waited until after May 7th to bring up Clement because it would not count as a full MLB year for free agency purposes. I cannot imagine Wilkerson is really their biggest problem at the moment . . .
Posted by: Mattyc44 | April 30, 2008 at 03:37 PM
I know that RotoWorld said that but it's not really an exact science where you can just pick a date. At least as far as I know.
Posted by: Tim Dierkes | April 30, 2008 at 03:49 PM
Wilkerson to the Blue Jays? He's got to be better than Shannon Stewart.
Posted by: andagh | April 30, 2008 at 04:04 PM
I caddied for Greg Norton once. Seriously.
Posted by: cubs2234 | April 30, 2008 at 04:24 PM
I don't like this move because I think Cairo offers less to the team than Norton... Cairo has been unused and Norton is hitting .438, what sense does that make?! Plus if Clement is the full-time DH and Sexson needs time off, they could've used Norton at 1B... Just silly... Everything was right about this move except not leaving Norton... The bench is now in need of a lefty besides Vidro... Especially with Balentien adding to the total of righties in the lineup regularly!
Ichiro (L)
Lopez (R)
Ibanez (L)
Beltre (R)
Balentien (R)
Clement (L)
Sexson (R)
Johjima (R)
Betancourt (R)
Burke (R)
Vidro (B)
Norton (B)
Bloomquist (R)
above looks better than with Cairo on the bench!
Posted by: BaseballGuru | April 30, 2008 at 04:30 PM
I hope Norton can catch on somewhere else. He seems like a real pro and is a decent hitter too. Certainly he can be a bat off the bench somewhere?
Posted by: wihargo | April 30, 2008 at 06:35 PM
How did Greg Norton shoot when you caddied for him? Was he any good? I'm not sure why I care, but I'm interested to find out.
Posted by: Papelboner | May 01, 2008 at 11:39 AM
About time.
Posted by: asm | May 01, 2008 at 02:49 PM