Lookout Landing

Jul 31 LF/DH Milton Bradley was held out of the lineup again Friday. `"We're still protecting his knee" manager Don Wakamatsu said before the game.

msb - July 31, 2010 reply

It feels nice.

abender20 - July 31, 2010 reply

Reporting live from somewhere.

abender20 - July 31, 2010 reply

To make room for Tui or Sean White?

Neither of those guys are begging for a spot on the roster over Bradley even when he’s terrible, not much reason to make anything up.

OlSalty - July 31, 2010 reply

Oh, dear God...

section331 - July 31, 2010 reply

According to Drayer,

Tui will be playing third… Why the hell isn’t figgins moving back to third?

zeeehjee - July 31, 2010 reply

No point in moving him back and forth now

I can't imagine two players I'm less excited about seeing come up

I’d be more excited to hear we’re pulling Quinton McCracken and Kevin Jarvis out of retirement

We're bringing Rich Dorman and Andrew Lorraine out of their pitching coach roles.

I would love to see Rich Dorman play third at this point

No, he's going to be replacing Rob Johnson.

So I guess this would be funnier if people knew Dorman used to catch.

Or knew who Dorman was.

Who?

Or Player A.

Because then we could make fun of Player A.

zeeehjee - July 31, 2010 reply

If Smoak struggles in AAA it's going to be a long August

OceanBird - July 31, 2010 reply

My reaction,

here.

SeaKoala - July 31, 2010 reply

The move makes sense, I guess

but this team just went from really boring to rather have a root canal boring

Yay.

And by ‘yay’, I mean, this team is going to be even more terribler to watch. I’m surprised we haven’t brought Snell back up yet.

oh just you wait

after roland-smith’s last outing, I’m wondering how long until Snell is called back up.

dundundun - July 31, 2010 reply

Have you seen Snell lately?

His last outing had him giving up nine runs in 5.2 innings on twelve hits and three walks against four Ks. It was a hot day in Fresno, mind you, but still that’s really bad.

He’s turned in some good outings of late, but they’ve been every other time at best.

My tongue was so deep in my cheek with that comment...

Well, you know that, and I know that, but he doesn't know that.

I don't even know what to do or say anymore.

We have no other option but to bring Tui back up? Really?

I hate this.

You prefer Chris Woodward?

Matt Mangini’s not good at defense, BTW.

Right. So Tui has just been doing a bait and switch his whole career and is just waiting for the right moment to emerge as a significant contributor to this team.

Blah blah blah absurdly small sample size, whatever.

Instantly regret posting this, don't hurt me please.

Have you been paying attention to his numbers at Tacoma?

Guilty.

130 PAs over three seasons.

Saunders came up one shy of that last season.

I know everyone hates Tui and he’s frustrating because he can’t play defense and hits only irregularly, but it’s not as though the M’s have actually given him a chance either.

Whether he deserves one is another matter. He’s been damned awful in Tacoma of late.

Tui definitely gets a little too much shit for what he is

Sure is unwatchable, though.

Most players with little MLB experience are.

So are a number of players with a fair amount of MLB experience, like say, most of the Seattle Mariners.

For a while he was way overrated by the Mike Morse fanboys so this balances it out

OlSalty - July 31, 2010 reply

So, let's get it out of the way now...

… Give him his ABs, let him suck again, and then the only thing we’ll talk about next season is how he should have played football.

Gekko Mojo - August 1, 2010 reply

I just don't see a lot in his minor league numbers to make me believe he has potential we haven't seen yet.

Really?

Because I’d look at the 35/32 K/BB he’s running right now and be at least a little intrigued considering it’s, what, 176 PA? The power is inconsistent, but you also have to bear in mind that last year his arm was fucked up for a while, and he still had 44% xbh.

Tui could end up kind of being the Mike Wilson type where eventually it all clicks for him and he’s a beast around his physical prime. I still think he’s closer to Morse, but you never know. He’s flashed enough that’s interesting.

I am glad that you're here

A little intrigued, maybe

But he’s still a 24 year old with no established defensive position whose entire game has been inconsistent. I still think he’s going to end up as a AAAA guy.

Sure, it could eventually all click for him as you say; but I’m just not prepared to bet on it. And I think a lot of people who are still excited about Tui base it largely on this mystical athleticism that has yet to translate itself into being good at baseball.

Keeping him around Tacoma is fine in case that happens, and having him back in Seattle while there’s nothing to play for isn’t the worst thing in the world, I suppose.

I wonder if it’d be worth seeing if he could stick as a fourth outfielder. I don’t like him anywhere in the infield.

He was also in double-A by 20 and triple-A by 22 as a guy who grew up mostly playing football.

I had hoped he would have done a little more by now, being in his third season in Tacoma, but the expectations of him have not exactly been consistent or reasonable throughout.

After his first stint in double-A when he hit just .185/.259/.218, a lot of people expected him to wash out or otherwise quit. Yet, four years later he’s done a little time in the big leagues and we’re still finding reasons to talk about him, even with the elbow surgery he had last season.

And for what it’s worth, they have been playing him in left a little bit more of late. Of course they’ve also had him at shortstop a game or two in the past couple of weeks, which is what?

Most of the reason we're still talking about him is because the Mariners keep making us watch him play.

How much of the fast promotion was the old Bavasi “promote them until they’re way over their heads” strategy?

Now, if he sustains that K/BB ratio you pointed out for a while longer, especially against major league pitching, it might be worth re-assessing. 176 PAs is a somewhat significant but still fairly small sample size.

There’s certainly no harm giving him some at-bats at the MLB level this season and seeing if he can flip the lightswitch you think he might be able to; but until that happens, I have a hard time thinking of a player I’d be less interested in watching.

Now we're going around in circles.

Because again, I’m going to have to point out that 130 PA over three seasons and 45 games total, a number of which would have been as a late-game replacement, is not “the Mariners making us watch him play.”

I’m not a Tui fan really. In general, I prefer the guys that have been around the game for a while and have a good idea of what they’re doing, but the attitude towards him is just ridiculous.

It was admitedly a little hyperbolic

My point was that his skillset and the results thereof aren’t really why we’re continuing to talk about him.

Now if the Mariners scouts are telling them “Tui seems to have figured something out, you should get him some playing time and see if he can sustain it against MLB pitching”, that’s fine. That’s obviously information I don’t have access to.

But I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say that I don’t care about watching Tui until he seems to have turned a corner in a sustainable fashion.

"having him back in Seattle while there’s nothing to play for isn’t the worst thing in the world, I suppose."

From the Mariners’ perspective, I don’t think it hurts that he’s a local boy. It’s not going to excite the more rabid and knowledgeable fan, but it might help bring in a few more of the casual fans because of that. There’s very little reason for the casual fan to come out right now, if it makes people want to come out to see the local boy, at least that’s something.

nathaniel dawson - July 31, 2010 reply

I think he's one of those players whose skillset falls apart once pitchers can somewhat locate a breaking ball

Things go badly when he has to start swinging. But yeah, that K/BB is a lot better than what he used to do in Tacoma and it’s a lost season so whatever, maybe he’ll turn into a decent utility guy.

OlSalty - July 31, 2010 reply

Willie Bloomquist is being shopped

PS: Please pitch well today Felix.

Pretty please.

For the next fifteen minutes,

imagine that this means that Lopez is getting dealt.

philosofool - July 31, 2010 reply

Neat.

ThundaPC - July 31, 2010 reply

Is anyone else getting a malware notice here?

Smegmalicious - July 31, 2010 via mobile reply

Nope.

I really hope SBNation doesn’t get bit by that same fake scanner bullshit that was on the NYT and Seattle Times. That was annoying.

That thing is an absolute plague

It infects profiles on an individual basis and can’t be removed unless you boot to safe mode, run a process killer, manually clean up the registry, then run Malware Bytes.

It depends on what you're running.

That was a bit more benign than say, AntiVirus System Pro, which I got on my XP machine briefly and was fucking nasty. That locks down your Task Manager. The Times thing could at least be shut down on its own and so long as you ran something like Malwarebytes, you’d be okay.

I've gotten this thing three times all while doing seemingly harmless internet activity.

What’s leaking it into my system?

It's those mega ad distributors.

It's their model.

What they do is set themselves up what looks like a reputable group and go around buying adspace at well-trafficked sites and then use the ad to throw up dummy scanners and hijack your system in an effort to get you to stupidly give them your credit card info.

As I said, AVSP is the worst because it can totally shut down your internet connection if you aren’t careful and getting it off is a whole big to-do. Run things like Malwarebytes and Avira after getting them, then do the Microsoft malware removal shit and error check and all that.

Yeah, my sister got that a couple of weeks ago.

Trying to walk her through a removal over the phone was not fun, especially since she really has no business operating a computer.

I know enough about computers to pretty much do this shit on my own...

and it still eats up at least a day and a whole lot of troubleshooting before I get things completely squared away. There’s almost always a way to get it off without a reformat, but I don’t blame people for taking that route because these things are not to be trifled with.

If you have another computer and a USB stick, you can get it down in about 30 minutes.

Download Malware Bytes from clean computer to USB
Boot infected computer in safe mode with no networking
Plug USB into infected computer, install Malware Bytes
Click Start → run → msconfig and browse for suspicious looking Startup program (usually just a jumble of letters and located in somewhere in your Documents root). Disable it.
Run MalwareBytes, do a full scan.
Remove infected files
It should be fine now.

That's one way to do it.

Another I’ve used that’s been pretty effective is:

Download MalwareBytes and rkill to a USB drive
Load into safe mode with networking
Run rkill to terminate nonessential processes (usually this will shut down any instances of the malware temporarily)
Open internet settings and make sure a fake proxy hasn’t been set
Install and run MalwareBytes
Update MB’s definitions
Run a full scan
Remove infected files

I'll second the use of rkill.

It’s a fine little program.

Getting something to flush your temp files doesn't hurt either.

Oh yeah, forgot the proxy thing.

It keeps doing that.

What would you recommend for Macs?

Kermit. - July 31, 2010 reply

Your process is a whole lot less complicated than mine.

But then again the day or two thing is usually the effect of Trojans, and it’s mainly a day because some of them are bound to the system clock and can revive themselves as it turns over at midnight.

Malwarebytes is a good first step and can take care of smaller issues, but it doesn’t catch everything and it doesn’t necessarily fix everything either. If it’s a Trojan I’ll be busting out HiJackThis and viral scanners and every other tool I have to get it off.

Yeah, I've gotten it down to a system as far as removal goes. MBAM on a USB, safe mode, all that.

I just want some tips on how to stop it from happening in the first place.

I'm thinking that some kind of anti-ad, anti-script plugin on the browser would probably do it.

I'm really wary of Chrome's security now

Firefox with Noscript and Adblock can be annoying from a usability and speed standpoint

But for secure browsing, you really can’t do much better.

Script and flash vulnerabilities are how these things get on your system 99% of the time, from my understanding.

Honestly I have no idea.

I’m seeing it pop up on profiles with anti-malware, anti-virus, modern internet browsers, and no administrative access to install stuff.

Keeping everything updated helps....

browsers, Adobe Reader, Flash, Windows itself….

It's a constant losing battle to try and stay ahead of this particular breed of malware.

I don't doubt it, but there are at least good people combating it.

The Malwarebytes and Avira people really put in the time on their own. They can’t get everything, but they can come up with countermeasures and I know Avira at least has a whole sampler of malware and viruses that they monitor.

If the good folks at Malwarebytes and Avira weren't working so hard we'd be reformmating our machines every week.

I got it

zeeehjee - July 31, 2010 reply

Yup. Getting one every time I go to the site since last night.

MT Olson - July 31, 2010 reply

I just asked this question on Twitter and a number of people have said yes

I have no idea what the problem might be.

The website at www.lookoutlanding.com contains elements from the site bin.clearspring.com, which appears to host malware

software that can hurt your computer or otherwise operate without your consent.

MT Olson - July 31, 2010 reply

Tech guys are on it

SBN-wide issue.

The Typical Idiot Fan - July 31, 2010 reply

Yes

SeaKoala - July 31, 2010 reply

Getting the malware warning on the front page of each SBN blog in Chrome

lemonverbena - July 31, 2010 reply

Apparently the browser knew about Tui and Sean White! ba-dum-tish

lemonverbena - July 31, 2010 reply

Me too

JoshF - July 31, 2010 reply

NoScript is my friend.

Linux is mine :)

Rachmaninoff - July 31, 2010 reply

I long for the carefree good old days of the internet

When you could contentedly surf the web for porn and illegally download music tracks without worry of malicious viruses. Those days are long gone, my friends.

nathaniel dawson - July 31, 2010 reply

So much for the Mariners going with youth.

Cannot wait to see Kotchman and Branyan manning first base now…..should be fun!!!

spokanecougar - July 31, 2010 reply

Woo players with a futu...wait...dammit.

Is it March yet?

JAH - July 31, 2010 reply

This isn't a very exciting move.

Maybe I should say, “This doesn’t SEEM to be a very exciting move.” But maybe I’m wrong. If Tui shows something, then… OK. Great.

It’s hard to picture this happening.

ignacio - July 31, 2010 reply

Agreed.

I mean, what’s his upside? Bench utility player?

Funny

I think it’s funny that Smoak was a starter on Texas this year, but he’s not good enough to start for Seattle. I think it was a plot all along! A ruse I tells ya! Kind of like the M’s batting Lopez as cleanup, except only Jack falls for these things.

dundundun - July 31, 2010 reply

Smoak has struggled most of the season in Texas And Seattle and was rushed through the minors by Texas.

Smoak replaced a AAAA hitter in Texas

where the line up was productive enough to be patient with him. If the hadn’t traded Smoak, they would have returned him to AAA and replaced him with Jorge Cantu, or whatever, around the time that they got Cantu to replace Chris Davis, who continues not to hit well enough to be an MLB 1B.

philosofool - July 31, 2010 reply

Couldn't agree with you more Wakeupcall. DAM you Mariners for making us fools for

so long.(Not ONE world series appearance or world series title for that matter,in our club history).

scooter4 - July 31, 2010 reply

Lame

Goose - July 31, 2010 reply

This is so sad.

Seattle Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik announced today that the Mariners have made the following roster moves: RHP Sean White and INF/OF Matt Tuiasosopo have been recalled from AAA Tacoma. Milton Bradley has been placed on 15-day disabled list (retro to July 27) with right knee patellar tendonitis, and 1B Justin Smoak has been optioned to AAA Tacoma.

19 people like this.

msb - July 31, 2010 reply

Oooh! it's up to 26 thumbs up!

boy, FB commenters are even worse than those on newspaper sites.

msb - July 31, 2010 reply

I was not being truthful with the poster there if you want to know.(sorry) But everything

else is true. Just venting a little bit. thats all.

scooter4 - July 31, 2010 reply

Use the reply button in the future please

My appologies..... frustration overload :(

wakeupcall - July 31, 2010 reply

Wak must be so happy

Hes got his two boys back.

Oh god. I am dying. I am dead.

Now my goddamn cat is homeless

Kermit. - July 31, 2010 reply

Why not Mike Wilson?

Its not like Tui is a wizard with the glove. I think Dave referred to him as “potted plant with a glove.”

Mike Wilson isn't an infielder.

Yeah I realize he can't play third but Wilson and Lopez are still here

Unless Tui is going to get the majority of playing time at third.

He can't play shortstop, second, or first either.

Lopez way not play for a while because he’s got a bum hamstring.

may*

OK how about this imagine how helpless Tui is at Third, now imagine Tui being black and 40 pounds heavier and playing the OF.

Slurvey - July 31, 2010 reply

I'm not suggesting Wilson play third

I have already seen Prentice Redman play ss and LaHair play 2b. It wasn’t pretty.

With Lopez hurting they need another infielder now.

Without Tui your infielders are Josh Wilson, Jack Wilson, Chone Figgins, Casey Kotchman, Russell Branyan, and Ryan Langerhans

Of that group, Josh Wilson, Jack Wilson, and Figgins are the only ones who can play middle infield or third.

Can't play infield, isn't on the 40-man roster