Mariners OK With Griffey's Salary

I really could see Saunders and Moore filling some pretty glaring holes for the reds in the near future with the hopeful departure of Dunn and Bako being our catcher. When Dunn and Griff are gone we are left with Bruce then question marks in the OF and Saunders would be a good fit to fill a void

redhawk, being familiar with both teams, I'll field your questions... Yes, that would be a decent deal for both teams, but I think it hamstrings the Reds in other moves...

Typically you want an offensive minded catcher and a defensive minded catcher... In a perfect world you would have a lefty and a righty with the righthand hitting catcher being the defensive wiz...

Very few times will you find a catcher that does it all, it's why Johnny Bench, Pudge Rodriguez, Yogi Berra are all or will be HOF'ers.

I think that if you look a level lower in the Mariners farm system you'll see Travis Scott who is very similar to Adam Moore, but hits left handed, he's a year younger than Moore and a better defensive catcher as Moore can seem a littl clumsy at times.

Scott's plate discipline causes his BB to SO ratio to be a little off, but it's not bad and his numbers are better than Moore's stats across the board, with less at bats to do it in.

I think this could be one of the catchers of the future for the Reds and if you throw in Rob Johnson who is a GG caliber catcher as well, you have your two headed backstop both under the age of 25.

In addition to this, I don't think Michael Saunders is a good fit for the Reds because he doesn't project as a CF option long term and that is probably the most pressing need as Bruce is a LF or RF in the majors!

Saunders also has Dunn like SO numbers to go with minimal patience at the plate. He is five tooled athlete, but I think a better fit would be Daniel Carroll, you'll find his stats Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, in a pitching dominated league he's managed to hit .339 with a .413 OPS, 10 SBs in 56 ABs + 5 walks over 15 games.

The thing you'll like best about this kid is he's only 19 and he already understands how to steal a bag and to work the count, in a couple years he'll gain power to go with his speed as he's already 6'1 and 175 lbs.

Maybe a good comparison would be he's a right handed Ichiro with a little less contact ability, more SO, but the same kind of guy, expect 40-60 SBs, .310 AVG, 10-15 HRs, 50-60 XBH a year, less than 100 SO, more than 50-60 BB, good defensive, decent arm.

He was a 2nd or 3rd round pick, so his skills are legitimate and he doesn't turn 20 until next year! This gives you the two catchers and CF of the future... Then throw in a mid-level prospect arm going to Cincinnati along with Miguel Cairo and send Griffey and Freel to Seattle.

A name that comes to mind for the pitcher would be an A level pitcher playing for the High Desert Mavericks named Enrique (Ricky) Orta, he doesn't throw very hard maybe low 90s topping out at 92mph, something akin to Bronso Arroyo, with similar movement on his pitches!

That means it would be:

Griffey and Freel to Seattle

Travis Scott C, Rob Johnson C, Daniel Carroll CF, Ricky Orta SP (RH), and Miguel Cairo UTL to Cincinnati

This means that Griffey and Freel will take up roster spots on the 40-man which were held by Rob Johnson and Miguel Cairo. This is a very fair deal and helps both teams! As it is Dusty doesn't like Freel, so let him get a chance to get out of Cinci with Griffey.

ASM,

I like you kid, but your comment is terribly short sighted, look at the career numbers of the Mariners and you'll see that they are all playing well below their norms and in baseball players always bounce back, it's probability and statistics!

Plus you can say it happens to everyone, but Washburn has had 8 ERs tacked onto his ERA after the last out of the inning was recorded but the umpire missed the call. That's good for about 1.5 runs meaning he'd have a 4.00 ERA. Batista hasn't been feeling great and usually starts out rough, but this is by far the best staff in the American League and any knowledge baseball person will tell you that.

Write any baseball guy Ken Rosenthal, whoever, ask them their opinion and they will say they are the best or one of the best bullpens as far as talent and eventually talent turns into numbers especially with Mel Stottlemyre as the pitching coach!

As they say during the games, if these guys did this in July or August, no one would even notice... I think if you were to talk to most players around the league, they would tell you that Seattle is one of the scariest teams in baseball.

The Mariners are about to break out at any moment and with great pitching and a rejuvenated offense. Keep in mind Balentien and Clement are just starting to get their feet wet at the majors and have been up for less than two weeks.

Balentien is already on pace for 35-40 HRs, with 4 in the first 11-12 games he's played. They'll stop running into Cliff Lee and Kason Gabbard pitching way better than they are and start rolling off sweeps and winning series left and right...

Most of this has been bad timing with who they play, they've traveled a lot early on and that should lessen to some extent as the season goes on, they played a stretch of 40 some games in 46 days or something like that, and they haven't really been healthy until now.

The chances of 4 offensive starters experience their worst slump of their careers, having your ace miss three starts, and you lose your closer for 18 games, plus he has to reacclimate to coming in during save situations, which means it's more like losing him for 4 weeks.

If you think back to when Johnny Damon was on the A's and Oakland was kicking around 10 games under .500 and then before you knew it was at 95 wins by the end of the season, they were a second half team and that's the whole Mariners team, I've posted the numbers 1st half versus 2nd half, but go to baseball reference and see for yourself... This team will be winning a ridiculous number of games.

Griffey could be the missing piece to that, especially if they get Freel also to compliment Bloomquist as another all purpose player with good speed and has a little dirt dog in him. This team is okay, if you think Oakland or Anaheim really can keep up what they're doing offensively, you have got to introduce me to your dealer!

That is incredibly optimistic. The Mariners....scary? Haha.

Take this from a lifelong Mariner fan and one that has seen every game this season.

The Mariner's offense is TERRIBLE. They have shown some signs of life lately and will improve when the law of averages catches up a bit. The whole they have dug is pretty huge. 10 games under .500 and 8.5 games out of the West. That is a big whole.

I really think that if this clubs wins 80+ games this year, it would be a miracle. That amount of wins though probably locks them up for 2nd place and out of the playoffs.

Unless this offense completely flips and starts hitting way above their heads, they won't run down the Angels. Griffey or no Griffey.

First off.. I meant "hole" not "whole" in that last post. Happens when its hot and you type to fast. Proofreading goes out the window.

Second. I would love to add Freel to the mix. To dump Cairo and and a guy like Freel would help the bench out immensely. Also, I wasn't inferring that the 5 guys you posted were super prospects or anything but giving up 4 promising guys and taking on a load of money doesn't even out.

I see it more like that if the Reds indeed kicked in some cash. I wouldn't have a problem with it.

This is all PR though. It has more to do with bringing in fans than it does winning. The Mariners have seen attendance start to slip away and instead of doing the right thing of building a better team for the long term, they constantly look for band-aids. Griffey is another band-aid that brings in the added bonus of nostalgia. I won't lie, I want Griffey back in Seattle as bad as anyone. But if Bavasi overpays in prospects for another quick fix, I will freak out. I'm tired of this team being run into the ground by inept management.

I'm also a Mariner fan living in Seattle, you my friend are pessimistic! A list of Mariners, their AVG now, their AVG career, and how far below their career average they are:

Ichiro .271, .331, -.060
Vidro .193, .300, -.107
Beltre .248, .271, -.023
Ibanez .299, .284, +.014
Lopez .315, .266, +.049
Johjima .227, .282, -.055
Clement .182, .233, -.051
Balentien .222, .246, -.024
Betancourt .257, .281, -.024

You're telling me that 1 hitter out of 9 is killing the ball and to some degree close to on par with where he'll be as a player career and one other guy is roughly at or exceeding his normal numbers, while every other player is struggling and you don't think they'll all start hitting the hell out of the ball and bring their numbers back to something closer to what they normally put up?! WoW!!

Since Lopez is only 24 now and his partial seasons, in 2004 and 2005 really sabotage his numbers, he's really a much more complete player than his stats indicate and you can't tell me that Balentien and Clement won't figure out the MLB pitchers soon as a regular and become more productive than their "career" numbers that I posted!

This team as a whole is due to score about 6 runs per game the rest of the season and players in their prime which all of them are, always get back to soemthing close to their norms, even an off year is in some cases .050 higher on the batting average for half the team!

To the first numbers post.

I'm not saying they won't bounce back. They have to. There is no way they all can underachieve like this all year. Last year, they were an enigma getting better results than they should have. This year, they are underachieving badly and will snap out of it. My point is they have dug themselves into such a big hole they would have to play something like .640 baseball the rest of the season to win 90 games.

That is way too much to expect.

The second post..

Teix won't come there. He's an east coast guy through and through. Think Yankees ro Baltimore. He's overrated anyway and is going to get a huge contract. Like 20+mil per. Way to much for a first baseman. Plus with Kenji's contract, that pretty much sets Clement as the future 1B especially with Junior added. Raul and or Junior would have to take the bulk of the DHing duties.

Griffey's money would in now way hamstring the Mariners but I can see them accepting Griffey as the the be all, end all to the offensive woes. They will try to sell him off to the fans as THE missing piece. You know it and I know it, this team is more than one missing offensive piece away from true contention.

Bring Griffey back! Just don't trade anymore young promising players to do it.

As for the lineup an outfield of Balentien, Ichiro, and Griffey is playable, the infield is going to be a huge strength defensively, real soon! With Beltre, Betancourt, Lopez, and Ibanez or Clement, this team is ready to take off!

By the way, speaking of defense, it's a big reason why the struggles of the offense has been magnified... You take away the b.s. game(1) lossed to the Rangers on the homerun by Hamilton against Putz when he was injured, the blown save games(2) against the Orioles in the opening series of the season and then the game(1) the Angels won on the 19th of April, where Washuburn had the whole width of the baseball over the plate and above the knee, a strike by 2.5 inches in any direction.

Just imagine if they had just those 4 games back and they would be only two games under .500 and no one would be saying sh*t about them and they'd be going about their business. I mean Santana for Anaheim twice, Lee for Cleveland once, Gabbard for Texas twice, Cabrera for Baltimore twice, these guys suck, maybe sucks a little strong, but other than Lee and Santana, these guys are WAY overachieving and even Santana and Lee are stupid good this year and that surely will not last...

I mean when you play 7 games against pitchers throwing lights out, when they just aren't that good, it's a freak occurance, it can't be maintained and the Mariners will be winning 8 and 9 games out of every 10 within no time!

Oh and make Hatteberg the LH PH and 3rd catcher...

If you got butchered by Darkstar every time you post anything, you'd be specific too... I have to out specify his stupidity and that's no easy task, believe it or not! Yeah, I've seen the control and clutch issues, but am I being overly critical about the guy or do you agree that he doesn't look like he'll come around and start becoming a more solid pitcher?

Another idea for you, what about moving Balentien to 2nd in the order to force him to think contact instead of power get him to stop striking out!

I'd go maybe

Ichiro
Balentien
Griffey
Beltre
Lopez
Ibanez
Johjima
Clement
Betancourt

I know Lopez is looking really comfortable batting 5th and Betancourt looks anything but out of the 9-hole! Ichiro's the leadoff hitter and Beltre's best numbers come at cleanup, Griffey prefers the three hole, the rest was the best for each...

was the johjima omission an oversight...or intentional?

“Sorry I can't respond more in-depth to your 12,000 words in this thread but I have, you know, other things to do.”

…Asm, don’t bother wasting your time ~ if youre not a Mariners fan, its not going to go anywhere. If you don’t believe his theory, he will end up going off into another 5 post, 3 thousand word rant which will almost certainly be heavily-based on such strong evidence as “You don’t know what youre talking about. Youre a loser. You probably live in your moms basement. No one loves you because youre ignorant” etc... He’s been going like that for maybe 2-3 months, insisting things like “Beltre is just like Ron Santo”, “Beltre and Sexson are sure-thing First-Ballot HOFers”, “Clement is not a prospect but rather a guaranteed 300/35/100 hitter”, etc… If you don’t believe that stuff, well then youll get the “you live in your moms basement” argument… I think Nrmax and I had like 3 continuing arguments with him, over maybe 4-5 posts (the three I mentioned, and the forth was when he proclaimed Dunn doesn’t produce runs and should hit 7th or lower.) Now come to find out that my not believing those things means I’m to blame for all his personality issues... Well, like I said to start…