Friday, February 20, 2009
Longtime no post, but here at Grand Salami HQ we're excited about the news that Ken Griffey, Jr. is returning to the Mariners! Should make for an interesting season at Safeco.
In other news, Grand Salami Publishing has recently launched a soccer magazine covering the Seattle Sounders FC, the new expansion franchise in Major League Soccer. The magazine will be known as Soccer Seattle. Our editor is Steve Clare from www.prostamerika.com and our writers will include Steve, Dave Clark from www.sounderatheart.com and David Falk from www.goalseattle.com.
It's good to be back!
In other news, Grand Salami Publishing has recently launched a soccer magazine covering the Seattle Sounders FC, the new expansion franchise in Major League Soccer. The magazine will be known as Soccer Seattle. Our editor is Steve Clare from www.prostamerika.com and our writers will include Steve, Dave Clark from www.sounderatheart.com and David Falk from www.goalseattle.com.
It's good to be back!
Monday, May 02, 2005
Mike Hargrove, on tonight's pre-game show on FSN, speaking about Ryan Franklin's outing last week vs. Texas (5 runs in the first) -- "Superman couldn't pitch up in the strike zone and get away with it." Actually, Mike, Superman would get away with it could he could throw 300 miles an hour!
He'd pitch a no-hitter every time out. Even if he cost $30 mil a year I call for the M's to try to sign this Superman character...
He'd pitch a no-hitter every time out. Even if he cost $30 mil a year I call for the M's to try to sign this Superman character...
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Larry Stone has some great insight into the M's failed negotiations with Carlos Delgado this past winter in Wednesday's Seattle Times. This is the kind of stuff I really like to read; oftentimes we never find out what really happened in these situations. It seems like Bavasi and the M's played things right. Delgado just wasn't going to sign on the club's timetable or anything close to it so they moved on to Sexson and Beltre.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Tomorrow, Tuesday, we'll find out if Dave Niehaus will be elected to the Hall of Fame this year as winner of the Ford Frick Award. I thought he'd get in last year but longime Oakland and SF broadcaster Lon Simmons got in instead. This year the competition isn't as stiff, with Ken Coleman, Ron Santo, Dizzy Dean and Jerry Coleman among the finalists. I think Niehaus will get in this time as Santo is more likely to be voted in as a player. If Niehaus does make the HOF, look for a commerorative cover of The Grand Salami this July or August...
Monday, February 07, 2005
Below is the latest misinformation from Jim Street's Mariner mailbag. Guess Jim hasn't seen USA Today's salary database (http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/default.aspx) or doesn't think the average Mariner fan deserves to have access to this information...
Nowhere on MLB.com is player contract information posted. Is there anywhere a fan can conveniently find out how many more years a player has on his contract, whether he has option years, his current year's salary, free agent and arbitration eligibility coming up the next off season, etc.? It seems that since that information is released to the public from time to time, that it should be compiled somewhere for a fan to conveniently find it. After all, true baseball fans would love to know that information, especially around trade deadlines and during the offseason. -- S. W., Auburn, Wash.
JIM "DEAD END" STREET: MLB teams consider contract information to be confidential. The Mariners rarely release details of a contract, especially if the player wants the figures to be confidential. However, the Associated Press usually obtains the information quicker than any other news organization. As far as I now, there isn't a specific site on the Internet that publishes each player's salary and other contract information.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Today was a great day to be a Mariner fan as one of the worst managers in club history, Bob Melvin, was shown the door. Also getting the ax along with the rest of the coaches (save pitching coach Bryan Price) was third base coach Dave Myers.
While there's some hope for 2005 and beyond the unfortunate thing is that Bill Bavasi is still general manager. To exemplify what a complete and utter idiot this fellow is here's a Bavasi's quote from the press conference on Monday announcing Melvin's firing:
We knew we had some holes," Bavasi said. "And we felt that to be competitive in our division there would have to be some fallback by the other teams and we had to get fortunate. We did show some age real quick on the field."
WHAT THE HELL? Bavasi basically admits that he knew that the club he constructed last winter wasn't good enough to compete and that the club would have to get lucky in order to compete in the AL West. This has to be one of the stupidest comments ever to come out of the mouth of a so-called "baseball executive". Bavasi had the money last winter to put together a competitive team, heck he even got an $8 million windfall in January when Kaz Sasaki decided to go back to Japan, but he didn't spend it, not on Pudge Rodriguez, not on Greg Maddux -- only $1 million of the Sasaki money was spent -- on signing lefthander Ron Villone (who actually probably got $2 million for reaching incentives based on starting X number of games).
This is the team we purchased season tickets for, a team that would have to have other teams suffer a bunch of injuries and poor seasons to compete? Is this Bavasi's idea of a joke? While it's great that the organization recognized that Melvin had to go, it's truly unbelievable that this is the clown running the franchise. He presided over one of the worst falloffs in baseball history yet he gets a mulligan because it was his first year. A team with a payroll over $90 million should not have to hope for other teams to stumble in order to contend.
In the press conference Bavasi alluded to his own potential firing (after next season) saying that if he didn't make the right managerial choice (and the team sucked in '05), next year there'd be a press conference and Tim Hevly (Mariners Director of Baseball Information) would be standing there instead of him...
While there's some hope for 2005 and beyond the unfortunate thing is that Bill Bavasi is still general manager. To exemplify what a complete and utter idiot this fellow is here's a Bavasi's quote from the press conference on Monday announcing Melvin's firing:
We knew we had some holes," Bavasi said. "And we felt that to be competitive in our division there would have to be some fallback by the other teams and we had to get fortunate. We did show some age real quick on the field."
WHAT THE HELL? Bavasi basically admits that he knew that the club he constructed last winter wasn't good enough to compete and that the club would have to get lucky in order to compete in the AL West. This has to be one of the stupidest comments ever to come out of the mouth of a so-called "baseball executive". Bavasi had the money last winter to put together a competitive team, heck he even got an $8 million windfall in January when Kaz Sasaki decided to go back to Japan, but he didn't spend it, not on Pudge Rodriguez, not on Greg Maddux -- only $1 million of the Sasaki money was spent -- on signing lefthander Ron Villone (who actually probably got $2 million for reaching incentives based on starting X number of games).
This is the team we purchased season tickets for, a team that would have to have other teams suffer a bunch of injuries and poor seasons to compete? Is this Bavasi's idea of a joke? While it's great that the organization recognized that Melvin had to go, it's truly unbelievable that this is the clown running the franchise. He presided over one of the worst falloffs in baseball history yet he gets a mulligan because it was his first year. A team with a payroll over $90 million should not have to hope for other teams to stumble in order to contend.
In the press conference Bavasi alluded to his own potential firing (after next season) saying that if he didn't make the right managerial choice (and the team sucked in '05), next year there'd be a press conference and Tim Hevly (Mariners Director of Baseball Information) would be standing there instead of him...
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Bob F Melvin was true to his word -- Jeremy Reed is not in the starting lineup tonight --- against the Cleveland Indians. Last I looked the Indians were about 9 games out in the AL Central and not even in the Wild Card picture. Yet apparently Bo Mel doesn't think it's fair to the Minnesota Twins to start Reed tonight. After tonight Seattle has a four game series against Boston -- will Reed be glued to the bench for all four of those games too???
Never mind that the people this bozo should be concerned about are the people in the stands at Safeco tonight -- all 20,000 (maybe) of them. Those are the people that are anxious to see Jeremy Reed, to get a glimpse of this kid the team got in the Freddy Garcia trade. But instead
This just in --- Rich Waltz just asked Melvin on the pre-game show on TV when we'd see Jeremy Reed in the lineup. Melvin replied "I'm not gonna tell you. I've got to tell him first.
The best I'm gonna do is you might see him in the lineup in the next couple of games." Then he went on to add, "with all these contending teams coming in, you're kind of under the gun to put your veteran lineup out there and put your supposed best lineup out on the field. You could see up to 2 kids in the lineup on any given day but we're not gonna put 8 kids out there against one team and not another." Who exactly is putting Bob Melvin "under the gun" not to play the orgnization's best outfield prospect??? What an idiot.
And finally, it looks like Greg Dobbs may get more playing time than Reed this month. More Melvin: "Dobber (Greg Dobbs) you might see a little more in that we don't have an everyday guy out there at third. " So I guess Melvin hasn't figured out that he has the option of moving Ibanez to first (he has played there before, both with KC and Seattle), a position where we don't have an everyday guy either (last I looked Wille F Bloomquist was starting 5 of the last 7 games at first base). With Ibanez at first, Reed could step in in LF -- but NO! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW!
Never mind that the people this bozo should be concerned about are the people in the stands at Safeco tonight -- all 20,000 (maybe) of them. Those are the people that are anxious to see Jeremy Reed, to get a glimpse of this kid the team got in the Freddy Garcia trade. But instead
This just in --- Rich Waltz just asked Melvin on the pre-game show on TV when we'd see Jeremy Reed in the lineup. Melvin replied "I'm not gonna tell you. I've got to tell him first.
The best I'm gonna do is you might see him in the lineup in the next couple of games." Then he went on to add, "with all these contending teams coming in, you're kind of under the gun to put your veteran lineup out there and put your supposed best lineup out on the field. You could see up to 2 kids in the lineup on any given day but we're not gonna put 8 kids out there against one team and not another." Who exactly is putting Bob Melvin "under the gun" not to play the orgnization's best outfield prospect??? What an idiot.
And finally, it looks like Greg Dobbs may get more playing time than Reed this month. More Melvin: "Dobber (Greg Dobbs) you might see a little more in that we don't have an everyday guy out there at third. " So I guess Melvin hasn't figured out that he has the option of moving Ibanez to first (he has played there before, both with KC and Seattle), a position where we don't have an everyday guy either (last I looked Wille F Bloomquist was starting 5 of the last 7 games at first base). With Ibanez at first, Reed could step in in LF -- but NO! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW! FIRE BOB MELVIN NOW!