More troubles for the Mariners

[Teatoe993]

The season isn't going as planned in Seattle after making such a big splash last winter. Lee's been gone for a month and looks like he won't sign an extension. Figgins is below the Mendoza Line. Bradley is out with personal issues. Add Griffey to the list.

Griffey falls asleep in clubhouse during game.

 

I don't think I would like to be Jack Z. about now. Curious to see what they do with Griffey.

[Tedaldtada]

I bet this happens more often then we think. Don't hold me to that.

[BrewCrewForever]

I love Ken Grriffey, Jr. one of my all time favorite players. But he is done. He has been for two years now, maybe three. He should just hang em up.

[Gobias Industries]

He's either gonna be released or retire in the next month. Think I read that over at deadspin.

[GAME05]

impossible not to like Griffey, not to mention he was maybe the only power hitter of his generation who didn't juice.

 

i'd love to see Griffey be allowed to have an AB in the All-Star Game, just so he can get a nice ovation on national TV, and then retire the next day. i wonder how much pressure JZ is going to have soon, because it's hard to hold him on a roster--not much call for a .200-hitting platoon DH anymore. i'd only be bad if Griffey was adamant about getting his full year's salary and forced JZ to cut him instead of retire, but it's hard to see Griffey doing that. but even if that happened, i don't think the fans would be too upset about it and would understand.

[jjkoestler]

impossible not to like Griffey, not to mention he was maybe the only power hitter of his generation who didn't juice.

I think we need to add the Big Hurt to that list. I have a lot of respect for both of them as they were putting up great numbers and didn't juice.

[Principessa21]

This is great. I have never liked Griffey, I guess because I'm a Yankees fan. As a kid he made me cry after the 95 division series, he has always badmouthed the organization, he holds a grudge against Billy Martin because as a kid he yelled at him for running through the clubhouse, and I remember him having a rep for being a prima donna when he left Seattle. Still if would have been nice to see what he could have done without being injured all the time.

[Invader3K]

Kind of surprising his teammates would blab about him napping in the clubhouse during a game. Bit embarrassing for Griffey and the team all around.

[JoeHova]

impossible not to like Griffey...

No. No, it isn't.

[pitchleague]

this is kind of like Mike Schmidt to me. Trying to hold on for one more year and barely making it to Memorial Day.

 

He should have retired at the end of last season when he was carried off the field on the shoulders of teammates and to the raucous cheers of the home crowd.

[Schlitz001]

impossible not to like Griffey, not to mention he was maybe the only power hitter of his generation who didn't juice.

I think we need to add the Big Hurt to that list. I have a lot of respect for both of them as they were putting up great numbers and didn't juice.

Can we rephrase this to players who were never caught juicing? I love Griffey to death, but I can't excuse anyone from the steroid era, especially someone who hit 56 HRs in 1998. I'm not accusing Griffey of anything, he is just a product of the era and no one can say 100% he didn't juice. He's an easy first ballot in my eyes.

[jjkoestler]

impossible not to like Griffey, not to mention he was maybe the only power hitter of his generation who didn't juice.

I think we need to add the Big Hurt to that list. I have a lot of respect for both of them as they were putting up great numbers and didn't juice.

Can we rephrase this to players who were never caught juicing? I love Griffey to death, but I can't excuse anyone from the steroid era, especially someone who hit 56 HRs in 1998. I'm not accusing Griffey of anything, he is just a product of the era and no one can say 100% he didn't juice. He's an easy first ballot in my eyes.

I thought about that as I was typing my original post. I wanted to give Griffey and Thomas the benefit of the doubt, but after I thought about it a little bit more I remembered that Bonds was never busted for PEDs. So I think you are correct.... They were never caught juicing.

[Invader3K]

I was reading speculation that they could make Griffey the new hitting coach (they just fired their previous one), but I'm not sure if Griffey would really be interested in something like that. Usually the guys that are such natural hitters like Griffey don't make the best coaches to begin with.

[bklynbrewcrew]

Jack Z isnt exactly looking like a genius at this point. I never understood why Seattle was such a popular pick to win the AL West when they have no offense whatsoever. Jack overvalued defense at the expense of putting together a viable offense.

[JohnBriggs12]

Jack Z isnt exactly looking like a genius at this point. I never understood why Seattle was such a popular pick to win the AL West when they have no offense whatsoever. Jack overvalued defense at the expense of putting together a viable offense.

I don't think anyone foresaw Figgins hitting 100 points under his career average or Casey Kotchman hitting 70 points below his. Everyone knew the middle of their order wasn't imposing, but they figured Ichiro and Figgins would be on base enough that they'd manufacture some runs. I wouldn't count them out if and when Figgins gets hot to go along with Ichiro. King Felix hasn't got it going like he can. Lee's been Lee in his 2 starts and they are getting unexpected quality starts from Doug Fister and Jason Vargas.

[CheezWizHed]

This is great. I have never liked Griffey, I guess because I'm a Yankees fan. As a kid he made me cry after the 95 division series, he has always badmouthed the organization, he holds a grudge against Billy Martin because as a kid he yelled at him for running through the clubhouse, and I remember him having a rep for being a prima donna when he left Seattle. Still if would have been nice to see what he could have done without being injured all the time.

Sorry Principessa... that just made me like Griffy more! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Roderick]

impossible not to like Griffey, not to mention he was maybe the only power hitter of his generation who didn't juice.

I wouldn't say you could take him off the juicing list. He was always the one missing chunks of the season due to leg muscle issues, right?

[joepepsi]

Seattle was pretty lucky last year. These things tend to even out over time.

[young guns]

impossible not to like Griffey...

No. No, it isn't.

I've never liked Griffey since he made that catch where he went all the way from right field to left field against the Twins in the tie breaker game, in the movie Little Big League.

 

But seriously, I would say I'm more neutral to him. I definitely don't like him, but he hasn't done anything to make me hate him.

[dadofandrew]

I said 2 months ago SEA's offense was awful. What's funny is, the stathead crowd failed to see this, and expected the M's to outperform their runs scored/runs allowed by 8-10 games again.

 

The irony is, no one seemed to notice they lost Branyan and Beltre and replaced them with Kotchman and Figgins. Defense is great, but they are way down the pack in scoring...and they have the DH.

[TooLiveBrew]

I said 2 months ago SEA's offense was awful. What's funny is, the stathead crowd failed to see this, and expected the M's to outperform their runs scored/runs allowed by 8-10 games again.

 

I need to see some facts to back this self-congratulatory statement up. Every discussion about the M's on this forum over the offseason had a very healthy population of comments pointing out how far they'd exceeded their runs scored & allowed last season.

[And That]

The irony is, no one seemed to notice they lost Branyan and Beltre and replaced them with Kotchman and Figgins. Defense is great, but they are way down in scoring...and they have the DH.

Figgins has been vastly superior to Beltre at the plate over the past 3 years and Beltre is generally regarded as one of the best defensive 3B in the game, so I'm not sure what that comment about defense means. Branyan to Kotchman is probably a downgrade, though Kotchman's doing better so far this year and Branyan has a bad back.

[dadofandrew]

2LB, I believe I agreed with Rosenthal at Ramblings in late March when we both felt they were very overrated. It's archived.

[TooLiveBrew]

Ok, but what "statheads" are you referring to? The "stathead" crowd here was talking relatively extensively about how the M's were overrated.

[JoeHova]

Even people who thought the Mariners might be contenders were quick to point out how weak their offense was projected to be. For example, Szym over at bbtf thought the Mariners were probably the favorite in the AL West even though his ZiPS projections had them with only 2 above league average hitters (Ichiro & Bradley, btw). Their lack of offense was hardly a secret or something that only a doyen could suss out.