Peabody: Life, Friends Baseball

Is that correct? Somebody help me out, please!

There have been all kinds of posts about how not to pay attention to spring results, because they don’t mean anything in the long run. Nothing mostly.

The thing to watch though are the players. Some of these guys will peel off and head to the minor league camp. Usually that happens when after they’ve crushed the ball for five straight weeks and then they have a game a week before the season starts where they don’t get a hit or they throw the ball into the stands or something and the keen eyed staff of Eric Wedge will say, “Aha!”

Then the kid will be sent down, accompanied by the admonition to work hard. This year it will seem horribly one sided as decisions will be made solely on one year investments in all the new designated hitters we signed.

So despite playing three routine outs into doubles in and inning or so the other day in right field, Michael Morse who is the prototypical designated hitter will play in right field and the Mariners will trade Casper Wells no matter how well he plays. Carlos Peguero has options, so despite making adjustments that see him both not swinging and crushing good pitches, he will go to Tacoma no matter what. Similarly in the first game of the year a charity game Raul Ibanez was plowing some ground in left and dropped a fly ball that was routine.

John Hicks, Nick Franklin, Brad Miller and Stefen Romero barring injury will play major league ball. Maybe in Seattle, maybe not. Maybe this fall or next year, here there or anywhere. Jesus Montero has really struggled hitting and catching so far. He might be with these guys in Tacoma as Kendrys Morales is the dh. The Mariners could play Ronnie Paulino and Kelly Shoppach or even Mike Zunino.

But so far the dilemma is that the kids are playing better than the “veterans” that Wedge so craves. Same thing is true with the pitchers.

It IS early, but it is better than being early at 1-6.

Over the winter following a trend set by Michael Saunders who invested in his hitting craft by working with Josh Bard last winter, because the Mariners offered no credible hope and Nick Franklin gained a bunch of muscle and hit a homer today and Ackley and Smoak and Beavan all followed Saunders lead and got some help. As a result the Mariners yelled at Franklin publicly via Jack Zduriencik. Franklin is not fat, hard as a rock, passed his physical and all, but the Mariner response seems to be one of embarrassment, and lets yell at the little kid. Almost certainly he is gone and was named in the Upton fiasco as trade bait. They purportedly like Miller better. He had a triple today.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2013 at 10:40 pm by terrybenish and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.