Sherrill, Strong up
DMZ · July 31, 2005 at 4:45 pm · Filed Under Mariners
As seen in today’s game (but not on the transaction wire), George Sherrill’s up. We’ve talked about him before, but this is really cool — Sherrill’s a talented reliever who can help the team a lot, and I’m happy to see him get a chance.
Also, Strong’s up to be the 4th OFer for a while, presumably until Chris Snelling can be called back up. It appears we get to see Ibanez in left and a random DH-of-the-day until late next week.
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75 Responses to “Sherrill, Strong up”
By the way, I don’t think Jasyon Satrk has ever named a source in his life, other than Doug Glanville.
By the way, I don’t think Jayson Stark has ever named a source in his life, other than Doug Glanville.
(Please delete misspelled version)
Did anyone catch Bill Bavasi’s Freudian Slip in the post-game interview? He said “Matt” Clement instead of “Jeff!”
Maybe he’s really wishing he’d listened to USSM and signed Matt over the winter.
#19…your story on Hennessey is way far fetched. There were two outs when Hennessey came to the plate…….what’d you want Alou to do, have Hennessey sacrifice for the third out?
That story is crap….Alou didn’t have Hennessey swing away because he was disrespecting Ellison, there were two outs.
Why do you have to go making a story up like that?
Did I make up Alou’s quote? How often does a manager ask his pitcher to swing for the fences because he doesn’t believe his next batter  a regular player  can handle it? That Alou did it  and then told reporters about it  has to be seen by the player as a sign of disrespect, in my opinion. It seems reasonable, as the story told it, to believe that most managers in such a situation, with a pitcher ahead in the count, would want the pitcher to lay off and let the opposing pitcher get himself into trouble. But no … he did something unusual, and said so.
I see now you misunderstood be because DMZ deleted the text. But here’s the quote, for what it’s worth:
“San Francisco manager Felipe Alou said he thought the Brewers were shocked that Hennessey didn’t take the 2-0 pitch. Alou said he let Hennessey swing because the Giants’ next batter, Jason Ellison, had been struggling.
“He’s not a long ball guy,” Alou said of Ellison. “So, I let the pitcher hit the long ball.”
#51-
I noticed that too. I attribute it to his insatiable desire (and rightly so) for pitching the last few weeks. Maybe Jeff can pitch too…
My appologies then that does support your statement much better…..why’d DMZ delete it?
Either way, the Alou quote sounds more “tongue in cheek”. It was a 0-0 game and I doubt he was expecting his pitcher to hit a HR.
My appologies then that does support your statement much better…..why’d DMZ delete it?
Also, how do you know it was me?
Generally speaking, I’m hellaciously paranoid about having people post copyrighted material here, and the AP is huge on enforcing their copyrights. So beyond a quick couple of paragraphs, with commentary and preferably a link or complete citation, it’s not going to stay up.
Sorry … in my business, AP copy is there to be abused. But then again, we subscribe to the service. Point taken.
And forgive the assumption … usually DMZ is the one who comments on why deletions are made.
Jim Moore has an enjoyably candid piece in the PI. I liked this line best:
“…enough already with showering affection on Ryan Franklin, another nice guy and decent golfer”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/234731_moore01.html
But boy, the PI Blog sure is home to a lot of not-very-bright people.
But boy, the PI Blog sure is home to a lot of not-very-bright people.
That’s not news. I meet them in bars too. They live in a world where Dan Wilson is still a productive catcher, Bloomquist is the heart and soul of the team, Beltre was a terrible deal when he was picked up and a worse deal now, Franklin would be an ace if he just got some run support, and none of these kids (Reed, Lopez, Snelling etc, not that they can usually come up with the names without help) have any business being on a team that should be made up of proven vetrans.
Oh, and numbers don’t tell the whole story. Apparently some runs are worth more than others, and nothing is worth more than a clutch hitter.
The good thing is by not going to the PI blog and not talking to people in bars, you can mostly avoid them.
I’ve got to jump in here. Everyone in here who is ripping Bloomquist hasn’t played baseball enough to see his value and potential. Before you jump down my throat, let me say I have watched nearly every M’s game for the past 15 years, including all the ones where Willie didn’t produce. I am not jumping on a bandwagon here.
First and foremost, Willie is the most fundamentally sound ballplayer I’ve seen in years. He gets great jumps on balls in the outfield, takes good routes to the ball, has a sure glove in the infield, a strong, accurate arm, smart situational hitter, and brilliant around the basepaths. This is a guy who was mainly a pinch runner last year, and was only in games to steal at the most important moments late in games, yet still stole 87% of the bases he attempted.
People seem to think he can’t hit–and he hasn’t helped that perception in the last couple of years–but he was a crazy .400+ hitter at Arizona St and hit over .400 in his first extended callup. Clearly, he is not a batting champ over the long haul, but this guy could put up:
.280 7-10 HR 35+ doubles 5+ triples 100+ runs 40+ SB 50+ RBI
Plus, he does things like taking an extra base and challenging a short fly at home plate that spark a team without ever making it into the box score.
I’m not saying I’d rather see him play than Lopez or Snelling or even Reed, but if you want any credibility as a fan, you shouldn’t be knocking this guy.
Everyone in here who is ripping Bloomquist hasn’t played baseball enough to see his value and potential.
A statement like this to lead off your point invalidates everything else you said. After reading your introductory paragraph, I could have cared less what other points you made, because that kind of attitude is the worst kind of asanine arrogance. Seriously, you have no idea who has what kind of experience.
I despise the idea that you had to play the game to understand it. If I never hear that argument again, it’ll be too soon. Fans and non-players (or players that never made it very far) can make great students of the game and provide insightful analysis. This is true for any sport.
B-Nem both overestimates and underestimates Bloomquist’s abilities. The overestimation is his long-term capabilities as a hitter. He’s a .240 BA guy if there ever was one over a 500 AB season. The underestimation is the value as a utility guy, especially the way the M’s have been built this year, with veterans on the bench that only play one position. He’s “Super” Joe McEwing in a Seattle uniform and will probably have a similar career. Nothing wrong with that.
On topic, I’d sure like to see Strong get a start in LF before he heads back to Tacoma. What a hard luck story he has been. He deserves a chance to be a number 4 outfielder somewhere in the NL.
.280? You think Willie Bloomquist can hit .280 based on what, exactly? He has 1588 career at-bats at AA and above, during which he’s hit .259. During that time, a robust 22% of his hits have gone for extra bases.
But yeah, I’m sure if he was only given enough at-bats he could hit .280 with 7 to 10 homers — incidentally, he has a total of 15 homers in over 2000 professional at-bats — and 35+ doubles.
jason
I’ll take your defensiveness as confirmation that you haven’t played organized baseball above little league. You call it arrogance, I call it logic. How can you so vehemently deny the value of that experience when you haven’t had it? I never played organized hockey, or was in theatre, and while I can make some educated guesses about the what makes someone succeed in those areas, I would never claim to understand the intracies the way that someone who actually did those things would. My point is not that someone who hasn’t played organized baseball can’t have an opinion. My point is that I think those people are not seeing things the way someone who played the game might. And frankly, the proof is in the puddin’, since three different managers and two different GMs have loved the guy.
As for where I would get my idea that he could hit .280, I think I spelled it out. If that wasn’t enough, his career minor league average was? .281
I admit, the HR total may be off, but I don’t back down from the doubles or SB totals. He’s a guy that will make a good team great. I’d hate to see him go ’cause we just don’t have enough energy guys like him on this team.
I’ll take your defensiveness as confirmation that you haven’t played organized baseball above little league. You call it arrogance, I call it logic. How can you so vehemently deny the value of that experience when you haven’t had it?
Way to assume things.
People who played organized baseball for years kept Edgar down in the minors for far too long, and kept Jim Presley in a Mariner uniform. People who played organized baseball traded Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps. Is your assertion that you can’t make mistakes on player evaluation once you’ve spent some time in pro ball, or that you can’t spot those mistakes unless you play pro ball? How is it that Bill James gets readand hired by baseball executives, then?
He’s a guy that will make a good team great.
This is where you start talking about intangibles, right? Could you explain to me why the GM in Oakland who doesn’t believe in them keeps kicking our asses, then?
re 67
Yes, and there are people who thinks evolution is wrong and quantum mechanics is a Satanic plot to corrupt our minds.
Arrogant. And ignorant arrogance at that– a .281 minor league average translates to a .280 major league average?????? Riiighhht.
Toooooooooooone. Toooooooooooooooone.
Ah. OK.
How about this—for a long time, people with organized baseball experience severely undervalued the usefulness of being able to draw a walk. It took years of people from outside to be able get the general public to recognize that being able to draw walks is a valuable skill; in other words, the “logic” of baseball experience failed there.
So, I’m gathering the main disagreement here is with my positioning of this argument as something best understood by a person who’s played the game before?
Because I can’t imagine people are suggesting that looking at college, minors or sections of pro performance are not relevant to predicting performance in the majors. A few post ago, someone was touting his avg in the minors to argue against me, but I can’t cite it to support my argument? Talk about group think.
Does anyone dispute that he has been a solid, non-flukey/bloopy, hitter for a full month? The only month he’s had consistent playing time this year. Does anyone dispute he’s been our best baserunner for the past two years (i.e., SB %, aggressiveness on the bathpaths, money steals, etc)? Does anyone dispute that three different, well-respected but completely different, major league managers have seen value in him? Does anyone dispute that his minor league development time was accelerated at his expense because everything but his bat was ML-ready? Does anyone dispute he could be a David Bell-like player (less HR, more SB)?
People get too caught up trying to find the next Ichiro or Derek Jeter when it’s the Joe Girardi’s, Stan Javier’s, and Scott Spiezio’s(the Angels version) of the world that are so often the difference between making the World Series and winning it.
As I said earlier, we’ve got to find out who are rocks are going to be(e.g. Lopez, Morse, Betencourt, Snelling, Reed) before we fill in the sand around them, but I stand behind the statement that Willie Blue is the kind of player we should hang on to.
I honestly believe that those who have drunk the Bloomquist Kool-Aid do more to inspire ire against their man than appreciation of him.
Look, Willie Bloomquist is what he is: a solid end-of-the-bench guy. To try to make more of him bothers me. He is not an everyday player and should not make more than the major league minimum.
To answer all your questions in order: a month is nothing compared his years of subpar, yes, no, yes, yes.
To elaborate: he had about 1,500 at bats in the minor leagues over five years. This shows that his development time was not “accelerated at his expense.” This also shows that, by major league standards, he is a terrible hitter.
His career minor league slugging percentage is .375. That’s miserable. His career major league slugging percentage is .345. That’s worse. That’s eight years of data. A hot month doesn’t change that, and that hot month just brought his numbers for this year up to his career norms.
Also, he turns 28, so this is the prime of his career. He’s not going to develop more power. What you see is what you get.
That’s fine as a utility infielder/pinch-runner at the league minimum. It’s not fine if he starts to play regularly or command any more money.
While everyone else challenges B-Nem about Willie’s batting potential (even I can see why a .281 BA in the minors (assume this means all levels) projects to a .250 or so in the majors), I’d like to jump in on the assertion that he has a “sure glove in the infield”. Without digging up the stats, he’s screwed up plenty of routine plays. Sure, he makes the occasional brilliant snag/throw, we saw a couple of those last week – followed by a difficult but common play wherein his footwork was NOT solid, and the throw pulled Sexson off the bag. Guys who get paid to do this can ALL show flashes of brilliance. The ones who make it to the top based on their defense don’t make the mistakes that Bloomie does, period. I think others may have similar feelings about “routes to the ball”. If Bloomie could hit like Soriano or Jeter or Boone of ’01-’03 his defense would be quite acceptable. But to assert that he’s major-league “solid” in the infield is just not correct. He’s not qualified to oil David Bell’s glove in my opinion.
The assumption that people who take the stance against “experience is the only way to learn” lack that experience is just dumb. You assume that, because I think your logic is flawed, I never played above little league? Seriously? You’re wrong, on both the Bloomquist issue and our experience levels.