Reflections...

Wow, I'm really having a hard time completing things at home. I'm finishing up my blogging app and my thoughts on what the M's can, should, and will do this offseason about as fast as I've completed that post on why I believed Richie Sexson was a better signing for the M's than Carlos Delgado. And, I just noticed that it's darn near been 2 weeks since I posted anything on this blog.

So, while I have flooded the typical blogs with my comments (and even added a few thoughts on the Seahawks, who finally totally rock this year), I still have many other thoughts that need to be down.

One thing I still can't get out of my head, even a week later, is that the M's jettisoned Bobby Madritsch. What a stupid, stupid move!

Back in 2002, Bobby Madritsch and George Sherrill were teammates on the Northern (Independent) League's Winnipeg Goldeneyes. Lead by Bobby's Northern League record-breaking strikeouts (and recepient of Baseball America's IL Player of the Year award), and George's 38 appearances, the Goldeneyes darn near won the Northern League championship! Brilliant scout Charlie Kerfield (now with the Padres) signed both Bobby and George to come pitch for the M's. It's no secret that Bobby and George are really good friends.

I realize that I'm probably a little biased, considering the connection between George and Bobby (and my general fandom for George in particular), but I'm still really disappointed in the M's for letting Bobby go. I'm sure there's more to the story than I'll ever know, but it doesn't entirely appear that Bavasi was merely trying to slip Bobby through the waiver radar.

Does this move mean that Bavasi didn't believe Bobby would ever pitch again, in any capacity? I'm not a fly inside the walls of Bavasi's skull, so I can't answer that. But, still, Bobby had scheduled surgery this offseason, and was in line to be rehabbed enough to give it a go in Spring Training. Certainly his injury concerns are quite high. He's battled injury forever, causing two MLB clubs now to give up on him, in spite of being an awesome pitcher when healthy.

I'm still perplexed as to why Bavasi saw the risk of waiving Bobby (to clear a 40-man spot) higher than:

• waiving a sucky, yet healthy, Matt Thornton, when Bobby clearly could've taken Thornton's innings as a more effective lefty reliever.
  
• waiving a totally sucky, suspiciously "healthy" Cha Seung Baek, when Baek's best hope is to become a poor man's Ryan Franklin.
• waiving an older, ineffective Masao Kida, when you've got a glut of righty relievers who can take his place.
• waiving an easily-replacable Ramon Santiago, who's slipped several times through the waiver wires already.

There are other alternatives, of course, but any one of these four moves would've been a much better idea, and an easier idea, than waiving an effective-when-healthy Bobby Madritsch. I would totally be shocked to see Bobby Madritsch throw 160+ innings in 3 consecutive years as a starting pitcher, even in Kansas City. But that's not the point. If you have concerns about Bobby's health, then move him into the bullpen.

I generally like Bill Bavasi as the GM for the Mariners. In this case, though, I want some answers to my disappointment.

Back to the Roots

I've decided to re-name this blog's a.k.a. "Free George Sherrill!" This is for two reasons (in order):

1) It's not a total given that George will remain with the club for the entire 2006 season. For some strange reason, the M's seem content with keeping Matt Thornton on the roster. I can partially justify this -- they've spent tons of money on him, he doesn't have any options left, and other than George, there aren't any lefty relievers in the M's farm system that he's really blocking. It doesn't excuse the fact that he's just not a very good pitcher, and likely won't become one. He may suck, but at least he doesn't pretend he doesn't and whine and moan about it like the delusional Ryan "Flyball" Franklin does.

However, there's no excuse for George Sherrill to be held back in 2006. Okay, so his ERA was a little high. He can be forgiven for giving up a few runs without making an out on the last game of the season, when half of the team was already in the clubhouse packing up their stuff. And, Jeff Nelson still owes George a steak dinner for bloating his ERA by giving up a grand slam with a few of George's runners aboard...

2) I've decided to give some money to one of my favorite baseball sites. Baseball-Reference.com is a wonderful free site that I use all the time. There are other sites I use, too, but I find myself loading them most frequently. When I saw George Sherrill's page available for sponsorship, I figured, hey -- there's a good use of $5! The fact that it only cost me $5 to sponsor his page, when it (currently) costs $60 to sponsor Felix's, shows just how underrated George truly is. Here's to hoping it costs $20 next season.

Granted, that only brings it up to Rich Aurillia, Mario Mendoza, Christian Guzman, and Matt Lecroy territory -- but hey, Jason Isringhausen and Mike Jackson, not to mention HOF'ers Heine Manush, Jim Bottomley and Earl "Pride of Snohomish" are also $20 pages. And that's a step above the $15 level, which gives you Scott Spiezio, Jarrod "Blue Eyes" Washburn (hint, hint, Deanna!), Kevin "Greek God of Walks" Youkalis, and B.J. "Hey, PositivePaul Drafted Me in the Third Round of the Seattle PI Blog Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League -- and Still Won The Title!" Upton.

So, hey! Visit George's page a ton, so it gets popular. And pray that George stays healthy, and can stick in Seattle next season.

Intermission.

I just want to take a quick commercial break between my thoughts on what the M's have, need, and where to find it. I want to give a quick shout out to three totally sweet blogs that I've started reading on a more consistent basis. Of course, since this blog is basically crumbs on the floor of the M's blogosphere, you're probably already aware of them, but in case you haven't read them (or even if you have), I'd like to give them my full endorsement. All of these places are most excellent diversions from the Seattle dailies, especially while Finnegan, Kelley, Moore and Levesque are still writing about M's baseball.

Seattle Marinerds
Deanna has totally established herself as the M's version of Batgirl. You'll find a wide variety of things to entertain you, including Song Parodies, In-depth Game Reports (from someone who was actually there most of the time!) , and even pictures. We'll forgive her for being a Phillies fan (not that there's really anything wrong with that -- though my favorite NL team is the Cardinals), but it's totally cool having the male-dominated M's blogosphere represented from the female perspective, and from a self-professed Nerd (of which I totally can relate).

Nice Guys Finish Third
Paul's been a-bloggin for a long time, and he updates his site very frequently with excellent, well-thought-out ideas. Nevermind that he slightly rips off his blog name from one of my all time favorite people in baseball, ever: Leo Durocher. I'm completely sold on that idea, and I always have been. Like my mateys over at Sports & Bremertonians, he's also a HUGE Almost Live! fan. Did I mention his cool first name ;-)

Detect-O-Vision
Two words: Brilliance! (okay, so that's just one word -- that blog, and Dr. Detecto doesn't need another)

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With that said, I'm still collecting info, formulating thoughts, and looking for time (especially since I've been flying solo all week, throwing my schedule completely out of whack) to finish my discussion here. I'll try to wrap things up shortly. Grrr.