That ball that Aurilia fielded in the hole in the second is so far the frontrunner for the "Most Routine Play Made To Look The Most Difficult" Award for 2004.

If you missed it, the ball was hit off the end of the bat and was hit on a couple of hops about six feet to Aurilia's right. Aurilia fielded the ball on an awkward-looking short hop facing left field for some reason, then jumped about four inches off the ground, spun and "fired" a "laser" on a short hop to Jolbert Cabrera at first. David at Your Thoughts Exactly posted a similar observation after attending Saturday's game:

(regarding Aurilia's fielding)

...in the 8th he fielded a hard-hit grounder right at him like a high-schooler without a cup.

Yeah, I know, it's not exactly breaking news, but I really, REALLY miss Carlos Guillen right about now.

Niehaus, during the Texas Rangers' half of the second inning tonight:

Diving try
But the ball's on by
Boone.

This winter will be pivotal if Bill Bavasi wants to stay with the Mariners for much longer. He's going to have a $h!t-ton of cash from the expired contracts of Edgar Martinez, John Olerud, Dan Wilson, and Rich Aurilia, among others, and he's under-budget (I don't care what HowLi says) this season, so fans are going to expect some spending.

The Freddy Garcia trade yesterday could be Bavasi's greatest coup as a GM if he does what he should and re-signs Garcia this winter. Are there any other free agent pitchers on the market that will, with any certainty, outperform Freddy over the next three or four years? The competition boils down to Russ Ortiz of the Braves and Kevin Millwood of the Phillies. Garcia's younger than both and clearly better than Ortiz. I wouldn't have said so a couple of years ago, but Garcia's probably better than Millwood right now too.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a first baseman who scared the pants off opposing pitchers? We could next year if Bavasi decides to make a run at the Blue Jays' Carlos Delgado. How many times a year would he put one off the Hit It Here Cafe plexiglass? Ten? Fifteen?

At third base, L.A.'s Adrian Beltre is available. Seems like he's about 30 or so, doesn't it? He's been with the Dodgers since 1998, but just had his 25th birthday in April of this year. It looks like he's finally approaching the amazing potential scouts noted early in his career. So far in 2004, he's got 19 HR, is hitting .323, and has driven in 52 runs. The biggest risk with Beltre is that the M's overpay him based on his 2004 numbers and disregard his unspectacular numbers prior to this year. With Justin Leone doing well in Tacoma, I would hesitate to sign Beltre for more than six or seven million dollars a year.

The M's could really use some help behind the dish. The best catcher available via free agency this winter looks to be Boston's Jason Varitek. I wouldn't offer Varitek a contract, which means Bavasi will. Varitek is 32 years old, and his offensive numbers, while mildly impressive over the years, can be expected to decline with a move from Fenway Park to Safeco Field. If I ran things, Miguel Olivo, fresh from Chicago via the Freddy Garcia trade, would be the man in 2005. Olivo will only be 26 at the start of next season, and could be re-signed on the cheap.


As for the remainder of the 2004 season, I would shop all the veterans, especially Boone, Spiezio, Randy Winn, and, dare I say, Jamie Moyer. Boone especially could command a significant prospect or two in return, and would open up a few million dollars of additional free agent funds for the winter.

Freddy and Ben Davis to the ChiSox for Miguel Olivo and others, according to Rick Rizzs.

German Politicians Tell Men To Have More Sex

No, that's not a headline from The Onion. That one comes from the good people at MSNBC.

I know, it has nothing to do with baseball, but I am hopelessly addicted to the NBA and NFL drafts. It's a great combination of feelings.

A couple of picks each round, you feel smart enough to be a pro GM. Like when the Blazers picked up Sebastian Telfair, the NYC high school point guard, with the 13th pick instead of College Player of the Year Jameer Nelson of St. Joseph's. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Telfair's best move, based on the video I've seen, is the "Look Right At The Guy You're Passing To Then After You Release The Ball Look Away" no-look pass. I think Hot Sauce from the And 1 Streetball Tour would just laugh in his face at that one.

Then the Sonics went Branch Rickey on us and drafted, for the first time in NBA history since the lottery was established, a white high school kid in the first round. I refuse to acknowledge the kid's real name and will forever call him "Rich King Junior." Best of luck, kid. Best of luck.

Every few years, based on its draft, I pick up a new team to pull for. This year, it's the Bulls. They got Connecticut's Ben Gordon with pick number three, then traded for the rights to Duke's Luol Deng. Two players I am very high on.

I was hopeful that Luke Jackson of Oregon would last long enough for the Sonics to nab him, but Cleveland took him with the 10th pick. Cue "LeBron and Luke" ad campaign.

If you want to read a real professional's take on the NBA draft, go to one of my favorite sports columns every year, the Bill Simmons draft diary on ESPN.com. It's always both hilarious and insightful, and this year is no exception.

Another key selling point for Mark Loretta as National League second baseman, of which I'm sure Pete was unaware, is that Mark Loretta has been to my house. Tie goes to the houseguest.

500!!!

Junior got number 500 today.

Additional Griffey 500 links:

Tim Kurkjian's story
Jayson Stark
Jim Caple
Fox Sports.com story
MLB.com story
USAToday.com story

In the top of the sixth, Pirates pitcher Sean Burnett gave Ichiro a bit of chin music, backing Ichiro off the plate. Ichiro gave Burnett a "You're Gonna Pay For That" glare, then smoked a liner on the next pitch off Burnett's pitching arm, literally knocking him out of the game.

I live for this.

Daryle Ward just got the first hit of the game, for either side, in the bottom of the fourth.

Joel got through the third unscathed. He's one-third of the way there.

OK, so he had a little bit less command in the second, and that ball Jason Bay hit would have been out of a lot of ballparks, but Piniero's still got "it" intact.

After seeing one inning, I'll say this much: I really like the way Joel Piniero is throwing right now.

You, the loyal reader, can now comment on anything that Pete and I write here at Sox-1918. Simply click on the "Comments" link below each post. We look forward to hearing from you!

An excerpt from the winner (scroll to the comments at the bottom):

"Manny Ramirez steps up to the plate and he hits the ball very far and it goes over a fence. This counts as a homerun, which means the team that Ramirez plays on gets one run, unless there were men on base...there were no men on base, so the Red Sox get one run. Now they are leading 5 to 4. The Red Sox appear to be happy and the Blue Jays not so much."

The SA and CSPAN leaders have been updated on the left sidebar.

Ken Griffey responded to criticism from ESPN's Rob Dibble (registration required) about as well as it could be done:

"That goes back a few years to when I wouldn't autograph a ball for him," Griffey said. "He rips me all the time, so why would I sign a ball for him? He's ripped me ever since. He needs to grow up.

"It wasn't me who threw a ball into the center-field seats after blowing a save that hit a woman," Griffey added. "It wasn't me fighting my manager (Lou Piniella, when he managed the Reds and Dibble was in the bullpen). It wasn't me ripping off my uniform on the field when he blew a game (after giving up a winning home run in New York to Bobby Bonilla).

And now for the knockout punch:

"He's just mad and bitter because he was never more than a 100-miles-an-hour set-up guy."

Good for you, Junior.

(Fred and Daphne pull a hideous Rich Aurilia mask off a man in a Seattle Mariners uniform)

THE GANG (in surprise): Jeff Cirillo!!!!

CIRILLO: And I would have got away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!

VELMA: Looks like we can close the book on that mystery, gang!

SCOOBY: Reah, Raggy!



It has been observed many times before that similarities exist between Rich Aurilia and Jeff Cirillo. With both players, you get the sense that if they just relaxed and stopped trying too hard they might both be decent hitters at the big league level, just like they were before joining the Mariners. Back in December, I observed that Cirillo had a huge mechanical flaw in his swing; he would consistently cut his follow-through short and ground weakly to the left side. The few times that Cirillo blasted one into the gaps or the seats, he kept his weight back and completed his swings. I'm seeing the same thing in Rich Aurilia. When he hits a ball hard, his weight is back and he throws his hips fully. When he weakly grounds out, it seems like he is already running to first halfway through the swing. Hustle is good, but not at the expense of mechanics.

Looking for statistics to back my observation, I looked at slugging average on balls put in play, the idea being to see which players hit the ball hardest on average. The formula is simple: total bases divided by (at-bats minus strikeouts). The top ten in baseball, among batting title qualifiers, are:

Adam Dunn, .947
Jim Thome, .928
Barry Bonds, .913
Craig Wilson, .854
Manny Ramirez, .825
Frank Thomas, .803
Lance Berkman, .802
Jim Edmonds, .788
Scott Rolen, .787
Jeromy Burnitz, .766

This list is a good sampling of the big-name players you'd expect to be on it, and it passes the Barry Test (any stat that measures hitting success should place Bonds near the top). As a further check, we'd expect the bottom ten to contain many of the notoriously weak hitters in baseball:

Neifi Perez, .342
Orlando Cabrera, .350 (sorry, Jolbert, your bro stinks this year)
Tike Redman, .357
Rich Aurilia, .377
Tony Batista, .378
Brad Ausmus, .379
Morgan Ensberg, .383
Marlon Byrd, .383
David Eckstein, .387
Mark Derosa, .388

As you can see, the bottom ten list is peppered with weaklings like Neifi Perez and David Eckstein. Not at all surpisingly, we find Rich Aurilia as the fourth weakest-hitting player in baseball among regulars.

Now the question is: what kind of conclusions should we draw from this information? One thing we can say is that when Rich Aurilia makes contact, he's putting a lot of balls in play that are either just singles or are weakly hit and easily turned into outs by the defense. Another conclusion we can draw is that Aurilia could be better off focusing on hitting the ball hard, rather than just making contact. When all he does is make contact, he's not adding value to the offense, so he might as well take some strong hacks. He's performing so poorly that the additional strikeouts would be worth the increase in extra-base hits in Aurilia's case.

Aurilia's mechanics and approach at the plate are in need of major overhaul. It might be worth considering a move to Tacoma to work things out. He's been an above-average hitter the last few years, and he might return to that level with a little work.

Check out Tom's "Office Space" Bit at Mariners Analysis.


Here's one of my own:


Bob #1: Here we have... Mike Myers?

Myers: Uh, yeah.

Bob #1: Any relation to the actor?

Myers: No, it's just a coincidence.

Bob #1: Oh.

Now that the NBA finals are over, we can all be thankful that we never have to hear that "Let's Get It Started" song from the NBA Playoffs promos ever again. By far, the worst part about the spots were that we saw about half a second of the super hot female singer from the song and about five seconds of George Gervin every time they aired.

Before I get to my selections, I'll describe my general philosophy in filling out an All-Star ballot. First of all, I never vote for write-ins (except for Albert Pujols his rookie season). To me, choosing a write-in is like choosing Ralph Nader for the presidency: it's a wasted vote. Second, a tie goes to the Mariner. If I can't determine the more deserving player between a Mariner and an enemy, the Mariner gets my vote for obvious reasons. Third, defense is important, particularly at shortstop, second base, outfield, and catcher. I'll vote for a (hypothetical) .275-hitting Mike Cameron over a .300-hitting Manny Ramirez (again, hypothetical) every time. Fourth, no player from my Most Hated Players list is eligible. Fifth, if a Mariner is on the Most Hated list, Most Hated-ness takes priority over Mariner-ness. Finally, I can make exceptions to my rules whenever I want, because they're my rules.

Here goes:

Catcher

Leading vote-getter: Ivan Rodriguez, Detroit.
My vote: Rodriguez.
I wouldn't blame you for voting for: Victor Martinez, Cleveland; Jorge Posada, New York.

Offensively, all three of the catchers mentioned above are very close. Rodriguez is hitting .361, getting on base at a .396 clip, and slugging .532 with nine homers and 47 RBI. Posada measures at .272/.412/.538 with nine home runs and 30 RBI, while Martinez is hitting .312/.382/.563 with 10 HR's and 47 RBI. The difference is that Posada's a defensive liability, Martinez I've never seen play, and Pudge Rodriguez is one of my all-time favorite players. This one simply comes down to which man I'd rather see catch one game.

First Base

Leading vote-getter: Jason Giambi, New York.
My vote: Frank Thomas, Chicago.
You're an absolute idiot if you vote/voted for:Jason Giambi, New York.

First base is by far the easiest position to pick in the American League in 2004. Thomas is having the best offensive season in the league so far, putting up some serious numbers: .298/.462/.639, 17 HR, 43 RBI. Thomas, one of the best offensive players of the last decade, is having another Hall Of Fame season. Giambi, on the other hand, may not even be alive this year, having only appeared in 45 games due to injury and batting a weak .244.

Second Base

Leading vote-getter: Alfonso Soriano, Texas.
My vote: Ron Belliard, Cleveland.
I wouldn't blame you for voting for: Willie Harris, Chicago; Soriano.

Second base was the toughest position to choose in '04. In the past few seasons, either Soriano or Bret Boone has been having a monster season at the break, making the second base vote a no-brainer. Not so this year. Soriano, Harris, and Belliard are close in On Base plus Slugging (OPS), coming in at .787, .733, and .809 respectively. Soriano's bad defensive reputation and Harris's lack of power (zero homers) give the edge to Belliard, barely.

Third base

Leading vote-getter: Alex Rodriguez, New York.
My vote: Melvin Mora, Baltimore.
I wouldn't blame you for voting for: Rodriguez; Hank Blalock, Texas.

A-Rod and Blalock are having fine seasons, but Melvin Mora has been incredible. All he's doing is hitting .357/.446/.567 with 11 homers and 41 RBI. Mora's a great athlete to boot, playing several different positions well. Mora, the man with the quintuplets, needs to bee the American League's starting third baseman.

Shortstop

Leading vote-getter: Derek Jeter, New York.
My vote: Carlos Guillen, Detroit.
You're an absolute idiot if you vote/voted for: Jeter.

Carlos Guillen, playing in the hitters' graveyard known as Comerica Park in Detroit, is in the American League's top ten in runs scored (4th), triples (2nd), RBI (9th), total bases (3rd), batting average (9th), on-base average (10th), slugging average (4th), and OPS (6th). Oh, and he's one of the league's best shortstops defensively. Jeter, on the other hand, sucks. He's been one of the worst offensive players in the entire AL so far in 2004, and he's probably the worst defensive starting shortstop in the majors. Please make the right choice, ladies and gentlemen.

Outfield

Leading vote-getters: Vladimir Guerrero, Los Angeles California Anaheim; Manny Ramirez, Boston; Gary Sheffield, New York.
My votes: Guerrero; Ramirez; Ichiro, Seattle.
I wouldn't blame you for voting for: Gary Sheffield, New York; Matt Lawton, Cleveland; Hideki Matsui, New York.

Guerrero, batting .348/.395/.597, and Ramirez, at .343/.446/.652, shouldn't be left off anyone's ballot this year, and are deservedly the top two outfield vote-getters so far. I using my third vote for Ichiro even though his numbers (.330/.375/.446) don't quite match those of Sheffield (.307/.404/.494), Lawton (.331/.402/.492), or Matsui (.282/.388/.489). Ichiro gets my third pick because:
a) he's one of my favorite players.
b) Sheffield, Lawton, and Matsui aren't.
c) I want to see some NL baserunner get thrown out at the plate, and Ichiro presents the best chance of this happening.


And so goes my list of deserving All-Stars. You may notice that Thomas and Ramirez were selected despite their "Most Hated" status. In Thomas's case, I really don't hate him much anymore, and Ramirez is having too good of a season to ignore.

Remember to vote online at mlb.com, and to vote often.

I'll cover the American League, and Pete's got the National League. An early preview: you're an idiot if you vote for Derek Jeter.

Four Cougs were taken in the first two days of the 2004 MLB draft. From the Official WSU Athletics web site:

WSU's 2004 MLB draft list includes:

Bryce Chamberlin, RHP, Baltimore, 8th player taken in the 6th round, 169th overall pick;
Grant Richardson, 1B, Milwaukee, 5th player taken in the 14th round, 406th overall;
Brandon Reddinger, C, Pittsburgh, 11th player taken in the 20th round, 592nd overall pick;
Aaron Trolia, RHP, Seattle, 22nd player taken in the 27th round, 813th overall pick.

From the games I've attended, I'm surprised to see Chamberlain taken that early. He was the Cougs' best pitcher this year, but never seemed to overpower anyone. Hitters seemed to get good hacks against him.

Richardson has ridiculous power, even considering the use of an aluminum bat. If you've been to Pullman, you'll appreciate this: I saw Richardson put a ball into the Beasley Coliseum parking lot on the fly, several rows of parked cars deep. For the non-Coug readers, suffice to say that that's about like a ball going more than halfway into the left field bleachers at Safeco. The best thing about that particular shot was that it came at the expense of the Fusskies. Richardson hit .315 or so (OK but not really notable at the college level) and struck out a lot without drawing a lot of walks, so he's got work to do to reach the bigs.

Reddinger was an average hitter at the college level, and has a terrific arm.

I missed Trolia this year, so I've never seen him pitch.

There's a new often-enough-about-the-Mariners blog, Your Thoughts Exactly.

Here's what [the] people [who author the blog] are
saying:
"Common and unspectacular."
"A commendable debut"
"Colorful and witty, fun for the whole family."
"A must read."
"The biggest hit of the summer!"
"The most important source of commentary since Readers
Digest!"
"Guaranteed to make you cry!"
"Bigger than Jesus!"


So do check out Your Thoughts Exactly the next time you get a chance, perhaps during the next Bret Boone strikeout.

Ken Rosenthal of The Sporting News has Padres as the most likely destination for Carlos Beltran, followed by the Yankees. The M's could be in on Beltran's free agency bidding war at the end of the season though, since they're losing the big contracts of Olerud and Edgar and will have the money to spend.

Last night, with nobody out in the 7th, Hiram Bocachica nearly took a Roger Clemens fastball in the teeth, getting hit in the hand with the pitch. After shaking his hand for a while to test it out, he walked down to first and took his lead. Then he did one of the ballsiest things I've seen in a while. After taking a pretty big lead from first, Boca started making those jab-step, "am I going to steal? You better pay attention to me 'cause I might steal" fake jumps to second and drew about 35 throws from Clemens. It's unlikely, since yesterday's start was likely Clemens' last against the M's, but if Boca and Clemens ever square off again, rest assured Boca's getting plunked for his antics. Boca ended up running about seven or eight times on pitched fouled off by the batter, Ichiro. The drama ended when Ichiro finally put one in play, a grounder to short, and Boca absolutely tore up Astros second baseman Jose Viscaino with a hard slide to end any remote chance at doubling up Ichiro.

Oh, and to top it all off, Boca made a sick diving catch on a sinking liner in front of him in center field. It was the kind of center field play we've been spoiled with since 1989 and been lacking all season.

Filling the void left by the Optimist:

Don't look now, but the Mariners are on a roll, going 9-8 (a .521 winning percentage) in the last seventeen games!

And Rich Aurilia has a .891 OPS the last seven days!



And Rafael Soriano can't throw a ball for another three weeks!

5-0.

...because Clint Nageotte is absolutley ROLLING right now! 8 K's through 5, no runs. M's lead, 4-0.

With A.J. Burnett making his first start in over a year for the Marlins, a natural question is formed for the three Cub fans who read Sox-1918: assuming all are in good health, are the Marlins' "Big Three" of Burnett, Josh Beckett, and Dontrelle Willis better than the Cubs' Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, and Carlos Zambrano?

USS Mariner has linked a story from the New York Times that reports the Mariners' interest in Jose Contreras. Contreras has two and a half years left on his four year, $32 million contract, so financially the move makes no sense at all. Contreras has been all over the place lately, having very little command and likely earning a demotion to the Yankee 'pen, swapping places with Tanyon Sturtze. His contract is way too big for the Mariners to even think about taking it on, but assuming they can get the Yankees to eat most of Contreras' salary, his price in trade will probably never be lower. If they can get their portion of Contreras' pay to under $3 million a year, I say they take a chance with Contreras. It certainly wouldn't make the M's a worse team.

Pete told me about this one, but didn't post it himself, so allow me:

Pete, at a recent Cubs-Cards game at Wrigley:

"Pujols!"

"You're not as good as Ted Williams!"

"Yet!"

This is getting ridiculous! The way the Mariners are playing...

In the last couple of weeks, the Boston Red Sox have been on TV four or five times on ESPN, and with the recent M's-Sox series in Boston, I've seen a lot of them lately. That team is fun to watch. The fans seem to have confidence in every one of their hitters, even the Mark Bellhorns and David McCarthies of their lineup. There's none of this bunting-so-our-best-guy-gets-walked B.S. going on in New England this year. And every one of their players brings something to the table both with his play and with his personality. They've got a zillion different personas, including a big lovable Hispanic guy, a misunderstood superstar, a CAVEMAN!, the Greek God of Walks, two of the best pitchers of this generation, Mia Hamm's husband, and Kevin Millar. They're a lot like the 1997 Mariners, and hopefully they'll be on TV this often all season long.

SA and CSPAN leaders have been updated on the left sidebar. Thanks to his ept performance of late, Rich Aurilia is now off the CSPAN top ten (just barely).