Streaking M's

The Mariners are good. Somehow, someway they are good.

Six games over .500 after winning three out of four games, the M’s head to Detroit to play three games and they don’t face Justin Verlander or Edwin Jackson. Awesome.

Seattle won six out of the last eight games and sits only four games out of first place. The success is thanks to a few key players.

Felix Hernandez

10-3 with a 2.51 ERA (2^nd in the ERA) and 129 strikeouts (4^th in AL). His ten wins are

2^nd in the AL and over his past ten starts he is 6-0 with a 1.30 ERA. He is Cy Young worthy.

Jarrod Washburn

What happened here? He is 7-6 with a 2.87 ERA (5^th in the AL). His win-loss record is a reflection of run support rather than anything else. He has won three straight starts. Washburn has gone at least six innings in 16 out of 18 starts this year. That is insane. His July ERA is 1.82 in four starts.

Franklin Gutierrez

All of a sudden the best player ever (in my opinion) is the best player ever. Gutierrez is hitting .295 with 12 homers and 42 RBI. His OPS is .815 and his on base percentage is .355. Compare with the immortal Adam Jones (an All-Star by the way) who is hitting .305 with 13 homers and 50 RBI. His OPS is .841 and on base percentage is .359. Damn it we could have both of them. No! I won’t talk about that.

Frankie G is on fire right now. He hit .304 in June with four homers and 9 RBI. He is hitting .375 in July with 5 homers and 14 RBI. Not to mention his UZR of 14.3 which is #1 in the major leagues, meaning he is the best fielder in all of baseball.

Rob Johnson

I know, what? After Kenji Johjima essentially cemented himself on the bench with the mix of horrible pitch calling and passed balls, Rob Johnson earned himself some playing time again. Pitchers love him. And now everyone should. He is hitting .303 in July with six RBI. This is huge considering the lack of production from the line up in general, but specifically the bottom of the order.

Will this continue? For all four of these guys….probably not. Felix can do it and will win the Cy Young if he does. The other three seem unlikely. But who would have believed the M’s would be six games over at this point?

Enjoy it. Don’t debate if they can keep it up, just enjoy it.

Frankie G and Lights Out

I can’t describe to you how much I love Franklin Gutierrez. And I also really can’t describe why.

Years ago I decided I would have a favorite player on the Mariners who wasn’t the main star. It may have developed as a defense mechanism to be honest. When I was ten years old and Ken Griffey, Jr. hit a double off Dave Stewart in Oakland in his first major league at bat, I was in love. Platonically of course. Then Griffey broke all of our hearts when he requested – make that demanded – a trade to Cincinnati. It sucked. I hated him. So I started loving Mike Cameron. He hustled, played a ridiculous center field (and still does), swung at high fastballs and hit them sometimes. He had heart, charisma, and was never quite good enough to demand a trade.

I followed my love of Mike Cameron with a love of Yuniesky Betancourt (which amounted in many ways to a brief fling only to end when the woman you courted ended up eating way too much Jack In the Box Mini Sirloin Burgers and stopped working out), then Felix Hernandez.

I still love watching Felix pitch, but there is nothing like having a favorite player who impacts the game daily. Gutierrez does that – sometimes negatively, but most of the time positively. He is essentially Mike Cameron with less strikeouts. Frankie G makes ridiculous catches in centerfield and is starting to hit with more power. He still does things like grounding out with the bases loaded and one out as he did in the first inning yesterday. But then he goes out and....totally redeems himself! He made my night as I sat with my dad and watched him hit the game winning homer in the 8th inning yesterday.

The only thing better than that was when the ninth inning started. All of the scoreboards at Safeco Field went black. I turned to my father and said, “What the hell is going on?” The marketing folks at Safeco had done their job. They fooled me completely. Then the scoreboards starting flashing and the words “Lights Out” came on all of the boards as closer David Aardsma came into the game. It was awesome. I loved it so much that I sounded like a school kid when I told Dana as I got home. She just laughed at me. Pretty typical day.

Can I Get a Philly Cheesesteak? Can I Get a What What?

After spending hours researching the absolute putrid performance of Bill Bavasi as Mariners General Manager, I felt quite depressed. Then I felt even more depressed when I thought about the Erik Bedard trade again. Then I felt the most depressed when I saw Larry Stone of the Seattle Times write essentially the same article, yet he gets paid to do it and they talk about him as a genius on sports radio. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thehotstoneleague/2009264288_bill_bavasi_gets_ripped_and.html#continue)
Is there any hope? Yes. Thankfully.

Jack Zduriencik is our hope. The new JZ. Hence the title of the post.

(In college, a guy we hung out with named Matt asked the lady at the cafeteria that question after Adam ordered a Philly Cheesesteak. One of the top lunch room moments of all time).

Since becoming the GM of the beloved hometown nine, he has done the following:
Traded JJ Putz, Sean Green, Jeremy Reed, and Luis Valbuena for Aaron Heilman, Jason Vargas, Mike Carp, Maikel Cleto, Ezekiel Carrera, Endy Chavez, and Franklin Gutierrez.

Traded Heilman to the Cubs for Garrett Olson and Ronny Cedeno.

Signed Russell Branyan and Ken Griffey Jr.

Traded Fabian Williamson for David Aardsma.

How did those deals work out? In a few months time better than all of Bavasi’s actions put together.

I am not ready to say Jack Z is the savior. But he has given me hope. And as Winston Churchill once said, “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.” Ignore the other words, just focus on the hope. Everyone knows that is what Churchill meant.

Putz instantly became the eighth inning set up guy for the Mets (at $6 million per year and 32 years of age) and has not been lights out. He hasn’t been bad necessarily, but a 3.81 ERA sits below Sean White, Shawn Kelley, and David Aardsma of the Mariners (who combined make about $1.2 million). Meanwhile Sean Green has been pretty awful with an 0-2 record, 6.98 ERA, and 1.86 WHIP. Jeremy Reed remains irrelevant as he was for years in Seattle. Congrats Jeremy, you suck but not enough for anyone to care.

The Indians received Luis Valbuena who is now on the major league roster, but hitting only .188. He was great in AAA at .321 and .436 OBP. The Indians received Joe Smith (really that is his name) who has been atrocious (7.11 ERA in 6 1/3 innings all in April).

The Mariners gained two starting outfielders in Chavez and Gutierrez who immediately changed the outfield defense. Chavez has a UZR of 2.4 (ultimate zone rating) and Gutierrez sits at 6.1. That puts Franklin only behind Mike Cameron (a golden god in my book) and Matt Kemp among all major league center fielders. Offensively neither will be confused for Evan Longoria (or Eva Longoria on some days) as Chavez sits at .289, 2 HR, 13 RBI, and eight steals. Gutierrez is hitting .258 with three homers and 19 RBI. Yet when I examined a little closer, Gutierrez adds a lot of value. He is in the top five of OBP among the Mariners – nothing to brag about necessarily – and has swung at only 22.4% of pitches outside the strike zone. That percentage is tops on the M’s. In comparison, Jose Lopez swings at 33.3%, Yuniesky Betancourt at 38.6%, and Adrian Beltre at 39.2%. All three of those players sit in the bottom eight of eligible players in the AL. Pathetic.

Jack Z’s acquisitions are paying dividends already. Three of the top four hitters on the Mariners in terms of average where JZ’s acquisitions. Four of the top five OBP as I said earlier. The other player? Ichiro.

Meanwhile Cedeno provides some back up infield help and Garrett Olson has been serviceable as a spot starter. He dominated the Giants and then was cruising for five against the Angels until he started remembering he was Garrett Olson.

Aardsma is almost lights out as closer since replacing Brandon Morrow. He blew it yesterday after throwing a fourth consecutive day, but admitted to having nothing in his arm. As a fellow self-depricator like Aardsma, I believe him when he says that. He isn’t LeBron blowing smoke up anything that moves. Even with yesterday’s blow up, Aardsma has a 2.13 ERA, hitters are only batting .169 against him, and he is eight for nine in save opportunities. The man they traded, Fabian Williamson, is having a good season with a 2.82 ERA in A, but that is low minors. Plus the Mariners have 72 first round draft picks to become relievers in the future with Philipe Aumont in A and Josh Fields in AA already.

Mike Carp is hitting .291 with eight homers and 24 RBI (also .935 OPS) in AAA and Carrerra is raking in AA with a .351 average.

Russell Branyan is dominating for some reason as he sits at #8 in the AL in OBP, #4 in OPS, and leads the team with 11 homers. He is hitting an ungodly (for Branyan) .323 with 23 RBI. Cost? $1.4 million. Ken Griffey is not excelling, nor is he average. Yet he only cost $2 million for one year. Big deal. Remember Bavasi gave the worst pitcher in the league $48 million over four years. I hate you Carlos Silva.

As you can see, JZ (why would I call him anything else?) dominates Bavasi. Yet it is early. A lot could change for the better or the worse. The next two tests come up quickly for JZ in the MLB draft (#2, #27, and #33 overall picks) and the trade deadline (Beltre, Bedard, Washburn?). Either way I imagine JZ sitting in his office with his Roc-A-Fella mates, saying to himself, “Bill Bavasi is the world’s biggest jackass”.