Kenji Johjima is really struggling for the Seattle Mariners right now. According to his ESPN player card, he is now projected to end the current season with 8 home runs, 51 runs batted in and a .236 average. If these projections fall through that would mean his average would dip a good 40 points from his career average of .282. Not only is he hurting the Mariners on the offensive side, but according to a recent Seattle Times report, Kenji has had trouble communicating with his pitching staff. Does this explain some of the uncharacteristic starts by some of our otherwise consistent starters?

What to do?

Well he is hitting good at home with a .333 average, but on the road he is batting .143 and he is batting .192 against left-handers. My suggestion to Johnny Mac: Start Jeff Clement on the road against left-handers,and maybe he’ll have a little more success than Kenji.

Turnaround?

Lately he’s been picking it up. This month he is batting .341, so I think he’ll end up around the .280 range around the end of the season. However his rough start along with his teammates’ slow starts has hurt the Mariners too much too early. In the last 7 games he has had a .429 batting average and a on-base percentage at 1.123. These numbers are well above his overall-season numbers where he has held a .236 average a .608 on-base percentage. What’s the reason for this sudden surge? Jeff Clement. Even though Johjima just signed an extension, he could easily lose his job to a much younger more capable, Jeff Clement. I don’t think he is starting to decline as a player, but he’s definitely reaching his peak. And when he does, Jeff Clement will be right there waiting to replace him.

On a brighter note, Kenji has been making a difference in the local community. He has pledged to donate $250 to the Ronald McDonald house for every runner he catches stealing.

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2007: Great rebuilding year and a good year in general, record: 88-74. The thing that shocked me was why everyone thought they would be so much better this year when they didn't add any significant offensive players. Yes Eric Bedard will have an o.k. season, but he's not going to effect the win column too much this year. For a team that is supposed to be rebuilding, why did they not acquire any more offense, which is by far what we need the most. And on top of that we gave up one of our best offensive prospects, Adam Jones. Even if our pitchers throw a solid 2 or 3 run game, there isn't a very good chance of us winning because our offense is so weak. The Mariners are 14-24 right now. Also, last year we were very lucky to win as many games as we did, winning 41, by 2 or less runs. That's about 47% of our wins that could have gone either way. This year, our hitting is so bad, that we can't get that extra run or two to win a game. I have and will stay true to what I said before the season started, that the Mariners' were overrated and are not a playoff caliber team this year. no comments

Sexson's appeal cuts his suspension down by 1 game. [SeattleTimes]
In other news, Yay! We get to see Miguel Cairo play 1st base now! no comments

Well, that should just about do it. With that pathetic loss, we are 8 games back of the division, have the second worst record in the majors (worse than the Giants!), and according to coolstandings.com, we have a 2.8% chance at reaching the postseason. 2.8%. If we were to flip a coin 1000 times, and if we got heads, we would make the playoffs, we would get heads 28 times. It doesn't look like its going to improve, folks.
The Bedard Trade, once merely a point of debate, can now (in hindsight) be seen as the catastrophe it has been from the start. In that trade, we gave away a group of young players who could have been the core for a contender in 2010. It was a desperate, job-saving win-now move for a team that was nowhere near ready to win. Now, we are in the trap that all teams pray to avoid- we are a bad team, getting worse.
In my opinion, this team needs a fresh start. That means dumping Bavasi, McLaren, and trading Sexson, Bedard, Ibanez, Johjima, and even Putz for whatever they are worth, and start over. I don't think this will happen in a trillion years. Our upper management (I'm talking about Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong here) is very stubborn and shows no sign of thinking this is anything other than a championship caliber team, which is madness. This team needs a young core of talent assembled by baseball people who know what they are doing and can correctly evaluate talent.

Maybe I'm wrong, but we could be entering a dark age for Seattle Mariner baseball. no comments

What’s wrong with the mariners?

The Mariners are now 13-19 and tied with the Texas Rangers for the worst record in the American League. Almost every so-called baseball “expert” had the Mariners pegged at least a 2^nd place finish, or competing with the Angels for 1^st place. Shoot, Mike and Mike even had the M’s in the World Series. THIS STINKS! Is the season still too early? My answer is yes. However, if something isn’t fixed, or if players don’t start playing to at least their average expectations, the Mariners won’t be going anywhere. I’m starting to think we’re worst than last year. Maybe those PECOTA projections have some meaning to them after all.

Erratic Offense

-Kenji Johjima was recently in a 0-20 slump on the road. And he broke it 2 games ago with an infield single. So theoretically, Kenji is still in a slump. He is sitting with a .190 average (sounds like Richie Sexson last year). The more Kenji falters at the plate, the more I hate Bill Bavasi for his stupid decisions in the front office. What is the point of signing a veteran catcher whose production is falling when you have one of the best catcher prospects in the Major Leagues? I have confidence Kenji will turn it around, and maybe some home games will solve some problems for him.

-Currently the Mariners have only one player hitting over .300, Raul Ibanez. Nope, Ichiro isn’t even batting .300. I think Ichiro will get it going for sure; he’ll without a doubt get his 200 hits. The key to this lineup is having Lopez and Ichiro hitting above .300, because if they can get on base, Sexson, Beltre, and Ibanez all will have chances to drive them in.

Bullpen (What’s wrong with Putz?)

Putz is having some command issues. Some serious ones. Although, I think that “command issues” is an excuse for hitters being able to finally figure JJ Putz out. I believe the key to his success will be sticking with his firepower (fastball and split finger) and mixing those in and being fearless. I think his command issues can be attributed to his fear of someone getting a hit off him. He needs to realize that he won’t strike some one out every single time. Some advice for JJ: give your defense a chance (although after that Yankees game, I wouldn’t) and trust them.

Strength: Starting Pitching

Felix Hernandez- Great, run support needed

Erik Bedard- Awesome, run support needed

Carlos Silva- He is human after seeing that Yankees game, however he is an inning-eating monster, and he’s been saving the bullpen from further distraught

Miguel Batista- As long as you only give up 3 runs, you keep this team in it, unless of course your offense is the Mariners

Jarrod Washburn-See above, however you are indeed washed-up

At least our Manager Cares

I was glad to hear the news of McLaren getting angry at his team. Or maybe his players should be getting angry at him, instead? No. It’s the player’s faults right now; hopefully he lit a fire under them to make them realize that their errors, poor hitting, and poor pitching will not get them anywhere. I commend McLaren for taking responsibility for his team’s current performance, but he has no control of the out-of-character JJ Putz, the slumping Kenji, or the poor defense through and through.

And I didn’t even get to our bad defense or the rest of our bullpen…..

If some of these issues are addressed I think the Mariners will still be able to contend for the AL West crown. If you’re a Mariners fan, don’t give up hope yet, but don’t go out saying we’ll go to the World Series.

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The last two or three years many among the Mariners fanbase have begged the front office to aquire Ken Griffey Jr. This is understandable in a way: many still think of Junior as he was in the 90's- a first rate hitter and fielder who put Seattle baseball on the map. That Griffey was one of the best players of all time. The Griffey that we would aquire now is no longer that player. Griffey now is a slightly above average fielder and a downright awful fielder. Having Griffey playing in the outfield along with Ibanez (another truly ghastly fielder) would cripple the team, and his offfense would not come close to making up for it. Having Griffey this year would make no sense, and besides, we wouldnt be able to trade for him without giving up 17 year old superstud Carlos Triunfel, our organization's best prostpect since Alex Rodriguez. It would be a bad decision in both the short term and the long term to trade for Griffey.

However, if you insist on having Griffey as a Mariner again, which I am not completley opposed to, it would make the most sense to sign him as a free agent at the end of the year. We would have a spot for him then (Sexson doesn't get resigned, and Vidro could get benched or released with Clement going to 1B to DH Griffey). We also wouldn't have to give up young talent. Right now Griffey would put up okay numbers in the plate while murdering us in the field,. Next year the fielding won't be an issue and we can keep our young talent. So do NOT trade for Griffey. Sign him instead. no comments

This one does not look promising for the Mariners.
Check out James' post on Cliff Lee's early success that he put up yesterday. This is one of the most amazing starts by anyone but I'm trying to take it with a grain of salt due to the fact that he has not faced the strongest competition to this date. In fact the Mariners might be his most difficult matchup so far. The man still deserves a great amount of credit though because it is still Major League competition nonetheless.

Jerrod Washburn's stats look competent, I just don't know why I dislike seeing him take the mound so much. It is proably just a matter of consistency. Also, compared to our other options in the rotation this year he would be my last pick. But hey, if my biggest beef with our starting pitching is a guy with a 4.03 ERA, I think we'll live. This is especially true after looking at previous rotations. Just imagine where our team would be this year with Horacio Ramirez and the first-half edition of Jeff Weaver. Right now we would be looking up to the Rangers.

I am making this claim without doing any research but I think the ninth inning last night was the first time this year that the M's dismantled a pitcher. A lot of these kind of innings hinge on Ibanez an Beltre. Chances are somebody will be on base when they knock one out of the park. 30 home runs from each should equal at least 88 wins, keeping with my theory that this team could get by with that many runs while averaging 4.5 runs a game.


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The first month of baseball usually provides us with lots of discussion. Typically this discussion revolves around players who are slumping (hello, David Ortiz) and less known players who are doing well, whether that production is legit (2006 Fransisco Liriano, pre-injury) or something that dies down in June, never to reappear (so many examples).

As Charlie mentioned in the comment thread two posts down, the Indians' Cliff Lee is currently sporting an ERA of 0.28 in over 31 innings of work. Last year, Cliff Lee's ERA was over 6. Cliff Lee is age 29, which is way past the normal improvement period for a pitcher. So why is he pitching like a first ballot HOFer? Is it steroids?

Maybe, but what I can say is that Cliff Lee is definitely an odd case, which I will try to dissect. Most of the time, pitchers who pitch above their career levels are doing so because of three things. The first is the improvement that comes with a young player maturing. We can count that out for Cliff Lee. The second is an improvement or modification of stuff. according to his Fangraphs page, Cliff Lee's stuff is almost exactly the same as it was last year: fastball around 90, with average off speed stuff. This leads us to the third reason: he's just really, really lucky.

You can tell is a pitcher is lucky in a few ways. The first and most common is with BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play). The theory is that pitchers don't have hardly any control over where a ball is hit after the batter has hit it. When the ball has been put in play, it generally has a 30% chance of becoming a hit, so the average BABIP for pitchers is .300. If a pitcher has a BABIP significantly lower than .300, than he is getting lucky, and more batted balls are becoming outs than they should. This can also be swayed by an excellent defense, but not too significantly. If a pitcher's BABIP is significantly over .300, than he is getting unlucky, and balls that should be outs are dropping for hits (this too can be swayed by defense). Cliff Lee's BABIP is .154, which puts him in the insanely lucky category. Last year's luckiest pitcher was Chris Young with a BABIP of .252. Half of what should be hits against Cliff Lee are turning into outs. This is one reason for his success.

Cliff Lee is also getting more strikeouts than last year, with the same stuff. This is usually less susceptible to luck. So what gives? If one looks at Cliff Lee's starts, they will find he pitched against Oakland twice, and KC and Minnesota once each. Oakland's OPS ranks 19th in MLB, and Minnesota and KC place 27th and 28th, respectively.

There you go. Cliff Lee is having such a great year because he is getting very lucky against poor competition, both of which are bound to regress to average. At the same time, I love it when things like this happen, because although it may be frustrating to see somebody look amazing when he isn't or suck when they shouldn't, if we knew exactly how players would do, I wouldn't watch baseball.
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Time to put in my 2 cents about what the Mariners should do with their prospects.

First and foremost, the team needs to make a move no matter what. What we've got going now is not going to lead us into the playoffs, and you don't need to look any farther than the gaping hole that is Wilkerson, Sexson, Vidro, and Johjima.

Of course we are not going to give up and Johjima and I do not feel like we need to because out of those four he is the only one I can see working it out and actually amounting to something this year. Not to mention we need to get out money's worth out of him. I'm not a firm believer that Jamie Burke is the solution to offset Kenji's hitting woes till he works them out. I do believe that we owe it to Jeff Clement to give him a look over a full season instead of having him spend his fourth year in the minor leagues after becoming a 3rd draft pick. There probably is little argument there, as he is tearing it up in Tacoma and we have nothing to lose. Let him catch once or twice a week and we will see where things go from there.

I'm torn over whether or not we need to release Vidro. He put up solid numbers last year that I wouldn't mind in our line-up but would prefer someone with a little bit more pop. Steve Kelly mentioned that we should bring up Wladimir Balentin, but I am a little bit more hesitant. He said that despite his very low average in the minors it is justified to bring him up because of his high tally of RBIs. Coincidentally Jose Vidro is in the very same boat with a .195 average and 16 RBIs. Let's wait it out until Baleltin is a little more ready, possibly around the all-star break.
But what boggles my mind the most is that we have both of them in the minors while a roster spot is being occupied by Miguel Cairo (not to mention Bloomquist, oh whoops I just did).
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Last Game
Seattle 2
Oakland 4

WP: Joe Blanton (2-4)
LP: Felix Hernandez (2-1)
Save: Huston Street (8)

This was a tough loss for the Mariners. Felix Hernandez pitched nearly perfect for seven innings, striking out batters out will. He ended up with 10 k's. He was riding smooth, until the 8th when the A's bats finally figured him out. Should he have been pulled out? Yes. However I don't play Jonny Mac, because now he knows that Felix can only go so long before losing his accuracy. This is a learning game for both Felix and the coaches, hopefully they can prevent something like that happening again.

Player of the game:
Felix Hernandez, although he gave up 4 earned runs, he gave them all up in the 8th inning. Before that collapse, he had 10 strikeouts and 0 runs allowed. Props to Yuni for getting his first homerun.

Turning Point:
Felix Hernandez falls apart in the 8th inning. King Felix's crown was smashed by his own inaccuracy and some Athletic's bats. Emil Brown was the man who had the key single that drove in 2 runs.

Bright Spot:
Yuniesky Betancourt. He's probably one of the best 9 spot hitters in baseball. He has a good average around .300, also he showed he has power, made evident by his homerun yesterday.

Notes:
When will Johjima start hitting the baseball?

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Pitching Match-up:
Joe Blanton (1-4 4.32)
vs.
Felix Hernandez (2-0 1.67)

You have to love this match-up. Blanton goes late in the game despite allowing four runs. He's a guy that looks like he should be giving up more runs than he actually does.
Felix excells against the A's. I'd be surprised if he gave up more than 2 runs.
The Mariners should be able to bring in 4 or 5 runs that mean for a nice series win. Their hitting looked good last night without any help from Raul Ibanez who bagelled in four at bats.
Frank Thomas continues to struggle this year. He's 1-8 in this series. I'm still wishing we picked him up but now we could see how Greg Norton plays out. Actually, I really wish we still had Broussard playing DH but that might not have played well for Ben.




Last Night
Seattle 5
Oakland 3

WP: Erik Bedard (2-0)
LP: Justin Duchscherer (1-1)

That one got me nervous. The reverse of last night, with runners on second and third, the A's only needed a single to tie up the game. If you take out the ninth inning this game was a beautiful display of Mariner baseball. 5 runs should be enough throughout the year for a team built around pitching.

Player of the game:
Tonights player of the game is a tie between Greg Norton and Erik Bedard. Norton came up 3-4 with 3 RBIs. Erik Bedard did everything we asked for and more on his first day back since the beginning of the month. Vidro better watch his back.

Turning Point:
The Mariners slowly but steadily piled up runs throughout the game. Knowing the end result however, Norton's two-run double in the 8th was crucial.

Bright Spot:
Erik Bedard looked exactly like the man that we traded for and provides hope for this season. With Bedard-Felix-Silva heading our rotation it would seem impossible for the M's to miss the playoffs. He went 6 2/3 of shut out baseball. The bullpen will probably calm down sometime, and 6 innings should be enough out of our starting pitchers, but for right now lets aim for 7.

Notes:
The Angels lost last night to the Tigers, meaning that the A's remain tied for first and Seattle closes in to 3 games behind.
Time to replace Wilkerson...
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