Heyman's Latest: Mariners, Brewers

so basically, the article lists a lot of names, but doesnt actually have much in the way of substance?

seems about normal for Heyman.

anyone heard about Sheets to the Stros? Read an article from Justice on Chron.com. It was laughable but just curious.

Speaking of laughable: the thought of dealing the one singular player who has had a bigger financial impact on any one team in the history of the game.

"Shaking it up" = $100's of millions lost in revenue and maybe the dumbest move in recent history. Ichiro is like a god in Japan, he's basically A-Rod, Tom Cruise and Michael Jordan all rolled into one over there. Any team that got rid Ichiro would lose the license to print money that he gives the team.

ah yeah he was talking about FA. Sometimes i dont get to read whole articles at work?

People need to realize that he could OPS like 300 and make 4 errors a game and they'd still play him everyday.

Its money over everything in this case. No chance in heck Ichiro will never not be in another MLB uni other than the M's one.

The Japanese company is Nintendo. Ever heard of it?

The M's are a mess. I throw my support to keeping Ichiro, Hernandez and Ibanez, trading Beltre and Washburn, vaporizing Sexson (ASAP) and Vidro and making Johjima the bat boy for Ichiro.

I like Clement at catcher, and he belongs there. Jamie can back him up for another year.

As for Ichiro not being a clubhouse guy, he's got language and cultural barriers. Don't sweat it! Bavasi traded last year's clubhouse guy, Jose Gullien. Buy one...just not another Brett Boone.

If anyone could point me to a link that proves that Ichiro is worth hundred's of millions of dollars to the M's I would appreciate it.

I think people are significantly overvaluing his drawing power. Remember how Dice-K was supposed to bring in $50m ... last report I read was something to the effect that his impact was somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 or $9m.

I always thought the Mariners were owned by a former Nintendo executive, not actually BY Nintendo. Which at one point was kind of true Hiroshi Yamauchi richest man in Japan transfered ownership to Nintendo America in 2004.

But more importantly, Ichiro and King Felix are absolutely untradable. That's the Yankees trading Jeter, and Joba x 10.

The Mariners need to cut Sexson, and Vidro, these are more of the should have been done in March moves.

As far as I'm concerned, the issue isn't how much a player is worth on the market. Face it, the market is over-blown and doesn't represent team value. The only the value it represents is someone's ego. That said, M's fans want team improvement, not to discard those with something to build on.

Now, the issue of Erik Bedard has most of us baffled. He is supposed to be a firstline starter. But, he seems to have so many little "issues" that frankly he's neither fish nor fowl. Maybe with run support he's a 14 to 18 game winner. But, with the likes of Big Richie (strike-out or fly-out), he's just another mug.

"There are a lot of good players that still have value that others recognize,'' Pelekoudas asserted.

HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA......HA, HA, HA, HA, he, he, HA, Ha ha.

Oh...man...that was good.

Guess we found out Guru's true identity.

Anything worth having on that team is basically untouchable- Ichiro (whose contract is ugly anyway), Felix, and... OK, just Ichiro and King Felix- and the rest ain't worth s#$*!

Naw, that's not exactly true; I actually really like Betancourt and the young'uns are interesting- Clement and Morrow...and to a lesser extent, Balentien- but I doubt the M's are looking to part with them. That just leaves Beltre and Bedard: two overpriced 'stars' who aren't playing like it. Nice.

I hope Guru decides to chime in with a 12,000 word essay on the terrific state of the Mariners. After that last post revealing his trade plans- including getting Jose Reyes, Mark Teixeira, John Maine, Jon Lester, and Jacoby Ellsbury- among others- in deals of varying levels of absurdity, I can't wait for his take on Heyman's article. I'm like a kid at Christmas!

"I always thought the Mariners were owned by a former Nintendo executive, not actually BY Nintendo. Which at one point was kind of true Hiroshi Yamauchi richest man in Japan transfered ownership to Nintendo America in 2004."

Well, what you said is kind of true. When the team was sold in 1992, they were technically sold to Nintendo of America, which was headed by a man named Minoru Arakawa, the son-in-law of Hiroshi Yamauchi and CEO of Nintendo of America(while Yamauchi was CEO of Ninteno, Inc. in Japan).

[Of course, Nintendo of America is also a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nintendo, Inc.]

Basically, then-U.S. Senator from Washington Slade Gorton had been the chief organizer of trying to save the Mariners when previous owner Jeff Smulyan said he wanted to sell the team in 1992. Gorton contacted Arakawa and Howard Lincoln(who was senior vice president of Nintendo of America at the time) and asked about their interest in investing in baseball. Gorton wanted to ask Arakawa if there was any interest back in Japan, and eventually Yamauchi came back with a "Yes, I'm interested, but only if you round up local investors as well" angle, so Yamauchi would put up the largest investment, but several local investors(Chris Larson, John Ellis, John McCaw, and others) would put forth local money.

Once the sale was made, Yamauchi would not act directly or vote, so instead, his son-in-law Arakawa would vote on his behalf. All of these people--Arakawa, Lincoln, Ellis, Larson, McCaw, and a few others, along with president Chuck Armstrong, would form the Baseball Club of Seattle

(And I think Arakawa retired as chairman of Nintendo of America, but is still on the board of directors of the Baseball Club of Seattle.)

Interestingly enough, because of the controversy at the time of having foreign ownership of an MLB team, the Nintendo/Nintendo of America majority ownership would only get 49% voting interest, while the minority owners would get 51% voting interest.

And, you're right--in 2004, Yamauchi sold his remaining direct shares in the team back to Nintendo(Nintendo of America), and he retired from his post of president of Nintendo and also retired as chairman of the Board of Directors of Nintendo.

But even as the retired head of the company which owns Nintendo of America, which in turn owns the Mariners, he still has a say on what goes on apparently, as it's widely speculated that his fingerprints were on the Kenji Johjima extension. Make of that what you will.