Kuzul

As of today (5/23/2010), the Seattle Mariners sit at 16-28 record, good enough for last place in the American League West and third worst record in the entire MLB. Prior to the season, the Mariners were predicted to win the AL West, but so far, it hasn’t gone that way. What can we do to fix this team?

1. Convert back Jose Lopez to 2B, Chone Figgins to 3B

During the spring training, the Mariners converted Lopez to 3B and Figgins to 2B. That worked out for Lopez defensively, as he is posting 32.3 UZR/150 and 11 Defensive Runs Saved. But for Figgins, it has been a nightmare, posting -12.2 UZR/150 and zero Defensive Runs Saved.

This conversion effected both offensively, as Lopez is hitting .211 BA/.240 OBP/.263 SLG and Figgins .195 BA/.305 OBP/.252 SLG. Converting back to their familiar position will relax them and would bring a good result offensively.

2. Switch Figgins and Ichiro in the Lineup

That means Figgins would hit lead-off and Ichiro would hit second in the lineup. This may sound stupid, but Figgins is used to hit from the lead-off spot and can hit around .300 with .400 OBP there.

So we can think of a situation like this: Figgins walks, steal second then scores on Ichiro’s single. That way, the Mariners can score runs easily in the first inning. So far, the Mariners haven’t been able to pressure opponent’s pitcher from their speedy number one and two hitter.

3. Call Up Chad Cordero from Tacoma

In last night’s 8-1 loss against the Padres, Don Wakamatsu brought in Jesus Colome to pitch in the eighth inning in a 2-run game. As a result, Colome couldn’t get any out and gave up three earned runs, giving the Mariners almost no chance to rally back.

I don’t know what Wak was thinking, bringing Colome in a close game, but this may be due to the fact that the Mariners only have 11 pitchers on the active roster right now and didn’t wanted to use guys like Brandon League and Shawn Kelley. Eleven pitchers on the roster didn’t worked out earlier in the season and it is not working out right now as well.

Cordero, in AAA Tacoma, is striking out more than a batter per inning and can be a nice addition to the bullpen. In that case, Michael Saunders will be optioned or Ryan Langerhans would be designated for assignment since the Mariners want to keep Ken Griffey Jr.

Cordero is a fly-ball pitcher, but Safeco Field is pitcher’s paradise so he should be fine in Seattle.

Of course, by doing this three doesn’t guarantee the Mariners will bounce back. They need to support their starting pitchers more, and they need their relievers to pitch better, but when nothing is working out, they should try anything possible, and maybe something might work out.

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There were many baseball fans, myself included, who thought that the Mariner’s were the real day. Who wouldn’t? They showed vast improvements in 2009 and they made a bunch of moves to get even better. The fact that the Angels looked pretty weak only help the Mariners’ chances. Oh were we wrong.

This team can’t hit, can’t score, and can’t hit home runs. It doesn’t even matter that they can’t hit home runs because there’s no one on the stadium to catch them. What exactly went wrong?

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Thank you ESPN. Thank you Seattle newspapers. Thank you Mariners fans. Thank you radio talk shows. Thank you sports world. Oh yeah, and thank you Kevin Gregg.

I say thank you to all of the above because you have awoken one of the greatest baseball players of all time from his slumber.

Throughout this season, Griffey had been criticized day in and day out on how he should retire. People have said he’s too old, doesn’t have the same bat anymore, and simply cannot perform at the Major League level.

Maybe they are right. Maybe he is getting older. Maybe he doesn’t have the same bat speed anymore. Maybe he doesn’t belong in the big leagues.

Maybe. Maybe not.

With the tying run on base in the bottom of the ninth, just two outs away from the club’s sixth loss in a row, Ken Griffey Jr. was called upon to save the day.

On a 2-1 pitch, Griffey lined a base hit to right field to deliver the game winning run and perhaps becoming the spark that the Mariners needed to turn this thing around.

On a night where all hope seemed lost, where the Mariners were just two outs away from another disheartening loss, the Kid came through with a clutch hit that will shut critics up for at least one night.

Every athlete has a mean streak in them that when tapped into, they become one of the most dangerous players on the field. A man can only take so much criticism before he starts to do something about it.

Being the leader of this team and the face of the franchise, its up to Griffey to help salvage the season.

Although he is only hitting .191 with no home runs, and as a team the Mariners they are ranked 28th in the entire league, you have to feel that the wheels are slowly turning in the Mariners’ favor.

So baseball world, sit back, relax and enjoy because I think the Mariners are on to something.

Oh and some advice on bashing one of the greatest players ever:

Don’t sleep on him.

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Ken Griffey, Jr. is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. That is obvious. Those Hall Of Fame skills are long gone, though. He was bad enough last year. Here are Griffey’s 2009 stats: .214/.324/.411. That isn’t good. Today, though, he flat out stinks. Check out his 2010 line: .191/.252/.213. Ouch! This isn’t new, either. Ken Griffey has been a below average player for years.

With all of that said, he is still very popular in Seattle. Griffey gets a big cheer when the lineup is called out over the PA system before the game. When he comes to the plate, people get off their butts to cheer for him.

It is not Griffey’s responsibility to bow out gracefully. The Mariners must take the bold step of cutting him. Here is why.

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As a lifelong skeptic, I am the first person to downplay a small sample size of excellent statistics.

When Mike Sweeney tore through spring training and earned a roster spot with the Mariners this year, part of me said ‘good, I’ll take an able bat on the bench,’ while another part of me said ‘why are we wasting a roster spot on a non-fielding designated hitter and pinch hitter when we already have Griffey filling that role?’ I was skeptical, but willing to give Sweeney a few weeks to prove me wrong.

When Mike Sweeney went 1-14 to start the season (a tidy .071 batting average), I was one of the first to demand he be sent out to pasture. As previously mentioned, we already had Griffey to fill the “veteran leader slash clubhouse presence slash non-fielder slash decent pinch hitting option slash past-his-prime hitter” on the roster, and an older Mike Sweeney who couldn’t even bat the Mendoza line had no spot on the team in my opinion.

Not even two months into the season, Mike Sweeney is starting to prove me wrong.

It all started last week, when a friend and I had a discussion over who we would rather have as the everyday DH, Sweeney or Ken Griffey Jr. The nostalgic part of me leaned towards The Kid, but I was arguing in favor of…Mike Sweeney. 

This was before sleep-gate , before Griffey’s silent demotion from the DH role, and before Sweeney strung together a few starts at DH this week, but I still endorsed him over Griffey. Why? Because, unlike Griffey, Sweeney seems to actually have some pop left in his bat. 

As I mentioned before, I am generally skeptical of small statistical samples. That being said, it is interesting to look at Mike Sweeney’s statistics both after his 1-14 start (April 25 to present) and starting at DH this week (May 13-15). 

Since his 1-14 start, Mike Sweeney is 10-31 (.323) with 3HR/5R/5RBI. In three starts at DH this week, Sweeney is 5-11 (.455) with 3HR/3R/3RBI. 

Obviously, Mike Sweeney’s recent numbers will not continue all year (Sweeney’s last .300+ season was in 2005), but he has shown promising results for a team desperately lacking power. His most important statistic may be his four extra-base hits (three home runs and a double) over his past four starts at designated hitter. It should be noted that since April 25, a stretch where Mike Sweeney is hitting .323, Ken Griffey Jr. is a miserable 6-35 (.171) with only one extra-base hit.

As the baseball world speculates over whether the Mariners will pursue a better designated hitter via trade, one must wonder whether Don Wakamatsu is willing to let Mike Sweeney have the job for the time being.

If the last three games are any indication, the job is Sweeney’s to lose.

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The Seattle Mariners have entered a world they may eventually wish they hadn’t. In the wake of the Ken Griffey Jr. “sleeping in the clubhouse during a game article,” the Mariner players have decided to boycott the newspaper in which the article appeared.

The Mariners are now refusing to talk to or grant any interviews to the Tacoma News Tribune.

Why, exactly? Because apparently, they feel the reporter who wrote the piece, veteran Mariners beat writer Larry LaRue, was irresponsible for publishing it.

Some have even gone as far as to call him a liar. LaRue went with “anonymous sources” for the piece, indicating they were two younger Mariner players who did not want to be identified.

According to LaRue, several players have approached him and tried to get him to tell them who the players were. He has refused. This refusal to give up his sources is what some Mariner players view as proof that he is lying.

Why would a veteran beat writer of 22 years would make this piece up? They don’t seem to have an answer.

After Tuesday’s game in Baltimore, Mariner pitcher Cliff Lee was in the process of addressing the media, but he abruptly stopped and said he could not continue until the reporter from the News Tribune left. 

ESPN has reported that other players have done the same thing while conducting interviews in front of their lockers.

This is a dangerous road to go down for the Mariners and their players. LaRue had every right to print the article, and he has every right to not give up his sources.

Was it the best idea to publish it? Perhaps not. What was there ultimately to gain?

However, that was LaRue’s decision. It seems unprofessional and even a little childish of the Mariners to react this way. And where do they draw the line? What if the Seattle Times comes out in support of LaRue? Do they then boycott the Times?

Can a team floundering like the Mariners have been this year afford to not be talking to the local media?

And speaking of childish, there is also the behavior of Seattle Mariners DH Mike Sweeney to consider.

Apparently the Mariners held a players only meeting Monday night in Baltimore, and, according to Fox Sports, Sweeney demanded that the players who made the Griffey sleeping comments to the reporter stand up so he could beat the crap out of them.

No one stood up.

This has led Sweeney to the logical conclusion that since no one stood up to get beat up, then there were no players who talked to LaRue and he made the whole story up.

Sweeney told Fox Sports, “Nothing is going to divide this clubhouse, especially a makeshift article made up of lies.”

The chance of it being a lie (the fact that two players told LaRue the story) is unlikely. But even if it were, even if for no reason LaRue decided to concoct the whole article and publish it, it doesn’t matter.

The Mariners are in no position to isolate certain aspects of the media. They need the media, and the media needs them. This is not a reason to stop the relationship, even if it is just one newspaper.

The Mariners are trying to sell a product to the people of Seattle that, let’s be honest, isn’t really all that good. This is no time to climb up on your high horse and start picking and choosing who can cover your clubhouse. You better be damn grateful anyone is covering you at all at this point.

Although Mike Sweeney is apparently ready to go to battle, maybe he isn’t the general you want to follow into the front lines. Might want to think about that first.

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The Mariners’ hitting is, to be blunt, very bad.

As an Indians fan, I think of my team’s hitting, and think to myself, it could be worse. We could have the Mariners’ hitting.

They are last in runs, home runs, and slugging percentage, and nearly last in batting average, hits, and other categories.

So the question is, how do we fix this?

Clearly, the Mariners are still in the hunt in a tight AL West, so they aren’t out of it, and can afford to make some changes.

Here are five guaranteed ways to lift the Mariners’ spirits and get them back into things.

Note: The following list is satirical, and not a list of serious suggestions. Their minor league team isn’t hitting well either, so they don’t have many options available for modifying.

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With each passing day, the events surrounding Ken Griffey Jr.’s alleged mid-game snooze are becoming less clear in the eyes of many within the sport.

Seattle Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said Ken Griffey Jr. was not asleep in the clubhouse in the eighth inning last Saturday night.

He was indeed on the bench and available to pinch-hit, contradicting parts of a story that appeared in The Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune on Monday.

In case you yourself were napping and missed it, The News Tribune story quoted two young players, who spoke off the record, saying that Griffey was asleep in the clubhouse during the game Saturday night.

When asked whether he was asleep in the clubhouse, Griffey was vague. He didn’t answer the specific question but said, “I wish they [the unnamed players] had been man enough to talk to me.”

Upon being asked if Griffey had been asleep in the clubhouse during the game Saturday night, Wakamatsu said Tuesday, “He wasn’t asleep. He was available to pinch hit, and I chose not to use him as the manager.”

Before Tuesday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles , the Mariners held a players-only meeting. A club source said the meeting was organized by Mike Sweeney and “was 100 percent about Griffey” and was designed to support Griffey.

The source said that Griffey was upset and hurt by the story, and cried briefly during the meeting.

Sweeney chastised the anonymous young players for speaking about something that had happened in the clubhouse, in essence challenging the clubhouse “Deep Throats” to a fight, according to the source.

And therein lies the rub.

If Griffey was indeed NOT asleep and available, then where was the need to chastise these younger players? 

What clubhouse incident were they relaying to the world that justified this admonishment?

There is absolutely nothing that makes sense in the team’s statements, and the whole thing smells fishier than the Pike Place Fish Market .

The incident continues to make waves as each day goes by.

After the Mariners beat the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night, winning pitcher Cliff Lee started to address the media, then stopped and said he could not continue until the reporter from The Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune left.

Other Mariners players followed suit with the newspaper at their lockers, according to Seattle-area media reports.

Look, I don’t want to admonish anyone for being a good teammate and looking out for one of their guys. 

The sanctity of the clubhouse is one of the values held most dear across Major League Baseball, and the Mariners can’t be happy that two of their teammates allegedly violated that trust while creating a big media controversy in the process.

But from all appearances the events outlined in the initial report seem to be in all likelihood fairly accurate , meaning the Mariners are doing nothing more than killing the messenger here.

So Seattle’s management, keep giving your contradictory statements. Cliff Lee, go on blackballing the reporter who wrote the piece. Mike Sweeney keep offering up “stitches for the snitches.” 

All y’all just keep doin’ your thing.

But if your trying to sell me that there is little or no truth to the initial story, just know that I’m not buying it.

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As it stands, the Dodgers are 15-17.

This is an appalling statistic for a team loaded with talent. Unfortunately the Dodgers are one dimensional and can’t play with the mentality of always climbing uphill; mainly due to the fact that it isn’t uncommon to be down five runs in the third inning.

The remedy would make for a story comparable to the Manny Ramirez trade. Eight letters encompass what the Dodgers desperately need: Cliff Lee.

The former property of the Philadelphia Phillies, Cliff Lee would be (by far) the most coveted player on the Dodgers radar, should he become available. It would be astounding should the former CY Young award winner become the topic of trade.

It’s still fresh in the minds of Los Angelinos how the southpaw handled their team in the post-season. Especially given the caliber of play the Dodgers were showcasing.

With that in mind, Seattle is off to a lousy start as well, dipping at 12-19. That would point to the fact that the master plan for Seattle’s organization failed, though it was gutty enough to make the moves they did.

Now it’s the Dodgers turn.

In 2005 the Boys In Blue started the “Youth Movement”. This was the idea that the team would eventually grow into All-Stars and consistently appear in the post-season.

Last year Los Angeles swept the long hated Cardinals to advance to the National League Championship Series for the second year in a row. Then it got better. They were presented with facing the Phillies again in a rematch of two formidable powers. 

Unfortunately the Dodgers had to face a test that they were not capable of passing. The unanswerable question was how to solve Cliff Lee.

The offense was scorching and Lee shut them down with insurmountable authority.

The Phillies reached the World Series and failed to defeat the Yankees, leading to the trade of… Cliff Lee. This defiantly turned out to be hard news to handle for Lee.

If geared in Dodger Blue, Lee would make the Dodgers the co-favorites to reach the NLCS, along with Philadelphia. An exciting time it could be, Roy Halladay the Ace of Spades against Cliff Lee, the answer to again becoming the boys of summer.

Los Angeles fans and players have done what they could and gotten as far as they could go. The off-season came and went, and an ugly divorce within the Dodger’s Organization replaced what would have been an arbitration offer to Randy Wolf.

Still, it could happen.

Trading a player who can help Seattle now as well as in the future should be an attractive option for the Mariners.  That player would be James Loney.

It would be a heavy loss in Dodger hearts but necessary for a possible marquee maneuver. He would be a huge upgrade form Casey Kotchman. Throw in a couple prospects such as John Ely, Carlos Monasterios, and Scott Elbert and you might have a deal.

In order for the Dodgers to even reach the post-season (let alone compete in it), they must acquire the qualified pitching. Cliff Lee would lead the rotation and present a major threat to go eight innings in every start.

Hope may be on the horizon for the Dodger faithful as baseball has a way of making the unbelievable happen.

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Is there a Dr. Jack Kevorkian for baseball?

Someone you go to if you want a career euthanized?

I have a candidate for Doctor Death, but bear with me first.

I’m getting flashbacks, and they aren’t good.

I’ve been remembering Willie Mays lately, but not in the way you’d think I would remember him.

The Mays memory that keeps coming to my mind these days is not the one of him running down Vic Wertz’s drive in the vastness of the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series—the one where he gets shot out of a cannon, catches Wertz’s rocket with his back to home plate, and spins 360 degrees while throwing the ball back to the infield.

No, not that one.

I’m having flashbacks of Mays in the 1973 World Series—a 42-year-old has been who, if he was hellbent on showing up at the Fall Classic, should have done so as a paying customer.

Mays was with the New York Mets in ’73, some 22 years after debuting as a big leaguer with the New York Giants. He was brought back in a 1972 trade largely to sell tickets at Shea Stadium.

Mays couldn’t play anymore by the time he returned to New York. The Say Hey Kid was the Say What? Kid.

Never was that more apparent than in the ’73 World Series, in one of the games in Oakland. Mays was patrolling center field, his old haunts, when a routine fly ball was driven to his right.

Mays, far removed from his days as the best center fielder on Earth, played the ball like he was standing on a water bed.

It was sad, seeing Willie Mays stumble around center field—once his domain—under the biggest spotlight of the year.

Fast forward 37 years, almost, to 2010. More sadness.

Call Kevorkian. Strap Ken Griffey Jr.’s career to the machine and put it out of its misery.

Junior is a senior now. He’s 40 years old and is Ken Griffey Jr. in name only. If it wasn’t for a birth certificate, I wouldn’t believe it.

He’s fading fast, in this last go-round with the Seattle Mariners, the team he put on the map.

Griffey hasn’t been a force at the plate for several years. He still has the stance and the sweet upper-cut swing—except that while the swing looks good it is late in arrival.

Junior is hitting .208 in 77 at-bats with the Mariners, with no home runs and two doubles—and 14 strikeouts.

Now there are reports that Griffey wasn’t available for a recent pinch-hitting opportunity because he was napping in the clubhouse.

“He was sitting in his chair, fast asleep,” an anonymous player said about Griffey, who had retired to the clubhouse in the fifth inning to grab a jacket. Two innings later he was discovered in his chair, snoozing.

That ought to be the final straw. And by the looks of it, it will be.

Reports are surfacing that the Mariners are close to cutting Griffey. It would be the highest-profile mercy killing since they shot Old Yeller.

Griffey can’t play. Just like Mays couldn’t play and had no business being in uniform during the 1973 World Series. The falling asleep thing is the exclamation point.

Griffey is coming off more offseason knee surgery, and he was on the decline even before that.

It doesn’t look like he’ll retire, so the Mariners will have to retire him themselves.

Mike Schmidt did it right, though painfully for him.

Schmidt got off to a rotten start in 1989 with the Phillies, at the age 39. By the end of May, Schmidt was hitting just .203 with six home runs.

A press conference was called, just like that.

Through tears, Schmidt said he couldn’t do it anymore. His presence on the roster was doing more harm than good. He was quitting, just like that.

Schmidt is the exception; normally someone from the front office has to tap these guys on the shoulder, nod for them to come into the office, and the news is delivered.

“We’re going in a different direction.”

That, unfortunately, appears to be what the Mariners are preparing to do. The end of Junior’s career, they say, could come any day now.

Griffey was the modern-day Mickey Mantle, who played much of his career on one good leg. If injuries hadn’t ravaged him, Griffey might have hit 800 home runs. No joke.

He’s got a bum leg again, but that’s not all that’s wrong with Ken Griffey Jr. He won’t, or can’t, pull the trigger on his own firing.

He can’t play anymore. Everyone seems to know that but him.

Ain’t that usually the way?

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