Rose colored, homer preview of the Seattle Mariners

It is almost as discouraging this year as it was encouraging last year to look at the preseason predictions for the Mariners.  Last year, after signing Chone Figgins, trading for Cliff Lee, and focusing on defense (the new Moneyball), the Mariners were being celebrated for how good they were going to be in the 2010 season.  I was right there with them eating it up.  I thought if this team can make the playoffs then they'll only have to pitch Felix, Cliff Lee, and Bedard and will dominate any team that faces them.  I was pretty sure that this team had our best chance at winning a World Series.  No other Mariner team had ever been this dominant at the top of the rotation.  While Felix and Lee pitched exactly how they were expected it didn't matter.  The offense flopped so badly that it didn't matter that Felix had only given up 1 run because the offense didn't score at all.  Lee's ridiculous strike out to walk ratio of something like 19:1 was totally wasted too.  It's easy to see why every single journalist and analyst has the Mariners finishing in the same place as last year.  Some people have put the Mariners on par with the terrible Pittsburgh Pirates, who have bad pitching, bad defense, and only average hitting. 

While I don't think the Mariners will win the World Series this year and they will probably not even make the playoffs I am optimistic about the upcoming season.  Almost every one of the hitters hit well below their career averages last year.  Chone Figgins changed positions and it seemed to affect his previously stellar defense and solid hitting skills.  Ichiro! saw his batting average drop to .315.  Milton Bradley had his expected meltdowns and Franklin Gutierrez regressed.  Other guys (Jose Lopez, Rob Johnson, Griffey/Sweeney, Josh Wilson, and Casey Kotchman), who were black holes, are now gone from the team.  I think Figgins and Ichiro! will bounce back, although Ichiro! is 37 so its no guarantee.  Gutierrez is having issues with his stomach, but after that is resolved I can see him having a bounce back also.  Milton is a wild card, but he is a good hitter when he's healthy.  The new guys look to be better than the black holes that they are replacing.  Jack Cust has good power and good patience at the plate.  He will be a huge improvement at DH this year.  Justin Smoak is unproven, but was a highly ranked prospect before last year.  Even if he's terrible he should be better than Kotchman was last year.  If he's bad enough the Mariners could just trade for Branyan again.  Lopez and Josh Wilson are being replaced with a combination of Adam Kennedy, Jack Wilson, Brendan Ryan, and Dustin Ackley.  Ryan and Kennedy should be improvements over Wilson and Lopez while Ackley, even if he doesn't hit for power, should still have the ability to get on base at an above average level.  This team cannot be worse than last year's offense and should be much better.

The defense will still be good this year.  Every position except maybe left field and possibly first base has an above average defensive player.  The Mariners should be one of the top defensive teams again this year.


Eric Bedard's Arm?

The starting pitching could be very good this year.  I see this part of the team as having the most volatility because of Michael Pineda and Eric Bedard.  To a lesser extent Doug Fister and Jason Vargas will have to show that they can do what they did last year.  Rookie pitchers not named Stephen Strasburg are wild cards.  Pineda has the talent, but there's no way knowing that he can consistently get Major League hitters out until he does it.  Bedard has pitched really well this spring, but has not been able to stay healthy as a Mariner.  Because of the volatility the Mariners will probably see a lot of starts from the AAA pitchers like Luke French.  Even though the rotation is the Mariners biggest strength I believe that it could be the one part of the team that leads to the team not having a winning record this year.  If Bedard and Pineda can pitch well and stay healthy this team could be very good otherwise it may be a long season again. 

I feel like the relief pitchers of a team are very hard to predict.  Every year, it seems, that someone comes out of nowhere and is awesome or someone that was previously counted on for years hits a wall and suddenly is not productive anymore.  This is true of any portion of a team, but I feel that it is more extreme with the bullpen.  David Aardsma wasn't good enough for the Giants, White Sox, Cubs and Red Sox and then the Mariners pick him up and he suddenly is the team's very effective closer.  I'm very excited for Tom Wilhelmsen to pitch this year.  If you haven't heard his story it's definitely worth checking out.  Josh Lueke is an interesting arm that will be playing for the first time at the Major League level too.  I advise you not to check out his past history.  One thing that bullpen will have that it didn't have last year is a lefty, Aaron Laffey.  With Aardsma returning soon and League holding down the closer role I could see this bullpen being a strength of the team, however, with the rookies and volatility of relief pitcher performance from year to year it could be a weakness.  Hopefully the Mariners starting pitching will be good enough that the bullpen will not have to work a ton of innings this year. 

The talent on this team is better than the national analysts and journalists think.  I wonder if they are so hateful of the Mariners because of how badly the team made them look last year when many of them were predicting great things for the team.  I think this is an 80 win team which is about 10 wins better than almost anyone else is predicting.  Don't let me down Mariners or I might have some of the same bitterness toward them as the "experts" do this year.

Last game of the year always ends in loss

If you make the tournament, which Gonzaga has done for the last 13 years, unless you win it all your season will always end in a loss.  Every year the last taste in my mouth has been defeat.  It sucks.  I am so frustrated and disappointed.  I know it was a great season and a lot of teams would love to be in Gonzaga's position, but that doesn't make me feel any better.  Losing by 20 points makes it feel a lot worse especially to a team like BYU, a team that will be joining our conference next year. 

After a big loss like that I don't want to go on the internet.  I don't want to talk to friends.  I don't want to look at Facebook.  I ignore text messages.  I imagine that a championship will not feel as good as losing feels bad, but I hope it does.  I wish I didn't care so much, but it's so hard for me not too. 

Well, there's always next year.  I hear we have some stud recruits coming in.

Gonzaga 86 SJU 71

Great win, enough said.

Trading Felix is a terrible idea

Ken Rosenthal suggested that Jack Zduriencik trade Felix Hernandez.  He suggests the Yankees give up Jesus Montero, Ivan Nova, Manny Banuelos or Dellin Betances, and two of Hector Noesi, Eduardo Nunez, or David Adams.  Jesus Montero, Ivan Nova, and Manny Banuelos have received a ridiculous amount of hype which is typical or Yankees prospects.  The Yankees are great at making their prospects appear to be the best in baseball.  For all I know Montero will end up being Rob Johnson and Nova and Banuelos will be the next Ian Snell.  The only way the Mariners should do this trade is if they were to get young, proven Major leaguers in return and the Yankees would be stupid to do that.  The guys I have in mind are Robinson Cano and Phil Hughes and I would still want one more player at least to part with Felix.  There is no way the Yankees would give that much up for the King, but that's what it should take.

King Felix is a once in a lifetime talent.  He's the kind of guy the Mariners used to have in Randy Johnson only he's just as dominant at the age of 24.  He won the Cy Young last year and was the second best pitcher in the American League the year before that.  He has been relatively healthy and there's no reason to think he will get seriously hurt in the future.  Every team would love to have a Felix on their team.  He's the kind of pitcher that can win a 7 game series for you by dominating 3 of the games.  You only have to come up with 1 win in the other 4 games when you have Felix.

The Mariners are not that far from being a contending team again.  They had a tough year last year, but almost every single position player underperformed.  If the guys in the field play to their previous levels, which is likely, they will improve a lot over last season.  Add to that the new guys coming in and it should be a good team this year and really good the year after when they address weaknesses that emerge throughout the year.  They will have Ackley, Smoak, Nick Franklin (the following year) and Chone Figgins in the infield.  The starting rotations will be Felix, Bedard, Pineda, Vargas, and Fister.  The outfield is Franklin Gutierrez, Ichiro, and a black hole in left field.  Left field should be one of the easiest positions to address as it is one that is not dependent upon having a plus fielder.  The Mariners would be shooting themselves in the foot by trading Felix away from a team that is almost ready to contend.

Hopefully Jack Z doesn't listen to sportswriters and keeps Felix where he belongs, at the top of the Mariners rotation until the day he retires.

Selection Sunday and who I like

I assume this is what the team will look like.

I guess there has to be a last team selected on selection Sunday, but when it's your team it is really difficult.  Even though I knew Gonzaga was in I was worried until I heard their name announced.  It was gut wrenching for a few minutes.

My first thoughts were that Gonzaga got screwed with such a low seed.  I thought they should have been seeded somewhere between 7 and 9 and no greater than a 10.  11 seemed way too low.  After some thought I felt bad for St John's.  This was a team that was talked about as a possible 4 seed now seeded at 6 playing an underrated 11 seed in Gonzaga.  They also have to travel all the way to Denver, Colorado and play at 9:45 New York time.  They are the ones who got royally screwed.  Even though the committee disrespected Gonzaga with that low seed they really did us a favor.  St. John's best all around player (arguably), DJ Kennedy, just busted his knee and won't play.  Their post players are all 6'8" and shorter giving Gonzaga at least a 4" height advantage down low.  It's not going to be easy, but Gonzaga will advance to the next round and play future WCC opponent BYU.

Gonzaga

This season has been one of the toughest.  The year that Josh and Theo were suspended had to have been the toughest.  The two three game losing streaks made almost every Zag fan to not only jump off the bandwagon, but to let the bandwagon run them over.  This team showed a lot of heart and didn't quit.  They had 5 of their last 7 league games on he road and they won all 7.  They then did what they had to do win the WCC tournament.  I think the biggest thing that makes this team tough to watch is that they don't win pretty like the Zag teams of the past.  This is the worst offensive efficiency that Gonzaga has had going back to 2003 according to kenpom while this is the second best defensive efficiency that Gonzaga has had over that same time period.

Another thing that led to a slow start and some ugly games was that this team is very young and inexperienced.  Sacre, Gray, and Meech are the only three that have been playing for three or more years.  This has led to Coach Few having to tinker a lot with the lineup.  A lot of guys played a lot of minutes early on.  At this point Few has a pretty tight rotation.  He has Stockton and Meech running the point, Carter and Gray on the wings, Sacre, Harris, Olynyk, and Dower in the post.  Carter and Dower took a while to get comfortable, but now are playing at a high level. 

Gonzaga will make a deep run in the tournament this year as they are peaking at the right time and play tough defense.

Thin Walls

I live in a two bedroom townhouse where the two bedrooms and the only bathroom are upstairs.  The living room and kitchen are on the first floor.  I share my thin wall with neighbors on either side.  I have never lived in an apartment or townhouse or anything else that shares a wall.  I thought it would be really cool to live somewhere where I was living in close proximity with so many people.  I figured it would be an easy way to make friends in a new city.  It really hasn't been the case.  Most of the people who live in my apartment complex speak English as a second language and it's really difficult to say more than hello to some of these people.

I feel like I know my neighbors that I share a wall with because of the thin walls.  If I go to bed after my neighbors I can hear them snoring.  In the morning when we are all getting ready I can hear them talking.  I have not heard them have sex, but I assume that's what's going on when they have their music on to muffle the sound.  My neighbors on the other wall are teenage boys and their mom.  When mom isn't home, which seems to be often, they listen to loud music or loudly "sing" at the top of their lungs.  The singing usually scares Clara as it does Jana and I for different reasons.  Our bathrooms are right next to each other and there will be times that I am brushing my teeth or something and one of the boys will start screaming words like F--k or S--t.  It freaked me out the first time I heard it. 

Being able to afford a single family home is probably the second biggest thing I miss about Spokane (after family).  It sort of makes a little more sense why so many people move from California to Spokane and then complain about the weather all of the time.  In spite of the weather, Spokane is still a better place to live than some of these other "nicer" places because of you're ability to live.

Dinner with Old Friends

Jana and I went to dinner last night at a restaurant called Old Ebbitt Grill with some friends from Jana's past.  While at Costco last Sunday a man came up to me and asked what my wife's name was.  I told him and then his wife asked about her maiden name.  She said they had gone to grade school together.  I motioned Jana to come over and she instantly recognized this women from 20 years ago.  The school they went to was located in a little farming town outside of Spokane, WA.  I was always a little surprised when Jana would run into someone she had known a long time ago when living in Spokane, but at least that was where she grew up and it's kind of a small city.  I never expect to run into anyone I know in this area that has, according to wikipedia, 5.4 million people living here.  Another coincidence was that one of Jana's other friends from grade school was flying to the area this weekend for a conference.  Jana was able to surprise her at the airport.  The chances of all this happening is pretty amazing.

We had dinner for the first time at Old Ebbitt Grill with her two long lost friends* and the husband* from Costco.  The restaurant was established in 1856 and is literally only steps away from the White House.  The food lived up to the great atmosphere.  I had beef stew and it was some of the best beef stew I have had.  The stew consisted of large tender pieces of beef, carrots, onions, and mashed potatoes.  Jana had a french dip.  She said it was very tasty also.  I had a Brooklyn Lager that at first I did not care for, but as I continued to drink it the flavor grew on me. 

Overall it was a great and fun evening.  I will definitely try to take friends and family to Old Ebbitt Grill when they come into town.


*will not use names to protect the innocent

Why I'm blogging

I have always been interested in blogging and have attempted and failed a couple of times.  I'm going to give it another shot.  I am going to blog about sports, family life, food, and anything else I find interesting.

The inspiration for the title of my blog comes from my home town of Spokane, WA.  I was sitting in one of my favorite bars, Jack and Dan's, for lunch when I looked out the window and saw a hot tub trailer.  It was like seeing Spokane in a nutshell.  It was creative yet ghetto.  It was functional yet probably unsafe.  There were a lot of bicycles in it.  I'm guessing there were more bicycles than that person needed which probably means they were being "collected" for later sale to a pawn shop or Craigslist.