Earlier, I was a few minutes late meeting somebody, and I explained to him that it was because there was big Mariners news I wanted to write about before getting in the car. It felt weird to refer to this stuff as "big Mariners news" since we and you have come to understand that lineup construction doesn't make that much of a difference, but there's no denying that the Mariners moving Ichiro down to #3 feels big. It at least feels not small. Ichiro has been the Mariners' leadoff hitter for as long as I've been able to watch them on a daily basis. He was the Mariners' leadoff hitter for years before that, too.
This is a change in Ichiro's identity, and this is a change in the Mariners' identity. Ichiro is no longer the Mariners' leadoff hitter and right fielder. Now Ichiro is the Mariners' right fielder. What he is beyond that, we'll see, but the #3 slot doesn't have a neat word attached to it like "leadoff" or "cleanup".
The first thing that probably crossed most of our minds when we learned about the switch was, is Ichiro going to hit for power now? Is he going to change his approach to correspond to the drop in the order? I know I have a strong desire to see the Ichiro mythology put to the test. I know I also have a strong desire to see the Ichiro mythology not put to the test, so, via Greg Johns:
"The situation of hitting third won't change my approach in my hitting style," Ichiro said. "It'll only change the situation with runners on base."
That disappoints me, and it doesn't. I'd like to see of what Ichiro is capable, but I'd also like for some things to be left to the imagination. It's not like Ichiro's regular approach hasn't allowed him to be a productive player before.
But if you're thirsting for change, Ichiro has made one adjustment. He's spent the entire offseason working on a new stance. It's a little more than just a new stance, yet a little less than a whole new swing. After the jump, you'll see what I'm talking about.
I'm in a hell of a hurry and don't have much time to address this at the moment, but I wanted to get something posted before running out the door. Recently we've talked about how the Mariners are probably going to move Ichiro down in the lineup, and move Chone Figgins up. Eric Wedge just made that official:
#Mariners manager Eric Wedge just announced that Ichiro will hit 3rd in the lineup this season.
A companion tweet said something along the lines of, if the season were to start today, Figgins would bat first, and Dustin Ackley would bat second. One gets the sense that the top of the lineup is far from being set in stone, and that the Mariners will re-evaluate if Figgins isn't getting the job done. But one also gets the sense that Ichiro batting third is essentially permanent. Maybe that sense is inaccurate, but I feel like Ichiro's kind of like a closer, where he wants to know what his role is. Now he can spend the next several weeks preparing to bat in a new place, which he's probably going to do all season long.
It sounds weird that a player might have to prepare to move a few slots in the lineup, but there are different responsibilities, and there's no denying that these things make a difference to players. Chone Figgins certainly believes that moving around has been an issue, and while I'm skeptical that moving back to leadoff will be the answer for him, I don't think his words are completely irrelevant. Moving in the order matters for players, more than we might be able to understand.
We've talked about Figgins leading off. We haven't talked about Ackley batting second, but that's a pretty natural place. We've talked less about Ichiro batting third. The big question, obviously, is going to be whether he changes his approach, and, if so, to what degree. All those rumors about Ichiro having the ability to hit for power - is this the year that gets put to the test? Will Ichiro treat this year more or less like any other year? God knows we'll never get a straight answer out of Ichiro, but it's going to be interesting to see what he looks like, relative to what he used to look like. Ichiro as a #3 hitter feels different from Ichiro as a #1 hitter; now we'll see if Ichiro as a #3 hitter looks different. I don't know what I'm rooting for, myself. I don't know if I want Ichiro to try to change, or if I want him to try to stay exactly the same.
There'll be more time to discuss potential implications later on. For now, news. News that seems a little more significant than it ultimately is, but news that at the same time is by no means insignificant. The last regular leadoff hitter the Mariners had before Ichiro was Rickey Henderson. Ichiro's long been a wee bit entrenched.
There has not been a whole lot of news out of Mariners camp so far. Nor would you expect there to be - camp is just getting going. It's probably a good thing that there hasn't been a whole lot of news so far, because I think most news around this point is bad news. This guy's out of shape. That guy's still getting over an injury. That other guy has tuberculosis. I hope you like tuberculosis jokes because there are going to be a lot of them.
There's one thing now that's getting a lot of attention, though. Geoff Baker's been all over it. Chone Figgins has apparently been told by the team that he's going to play very very often, and Baker expects that Figgins will be named the new leadoff hitter within a few days.
Immediately, it sounds unpleasant. Immediately, the temptation is to snark. I saw a handful of #6org remarks floating around Twitter earlier in response. Last season, there were 265 batters who came to the plate at least 300 times. Chone Figgins had the worst OBP out of all of them. Chone Figgins also had the worst slugging percentage out of all of them. The Mariners, it would appear, want to see more of that guy. More of that guy who just posted a .484 OPS. That is a four, and then that is an eight. I didn't just make a typo.
But as much fun as snark can be, there's a reason it comes easily. It doesn't add anything worthwhile. It doesn't say anything worthwhile. I'm not wild about the idea of Chone Figgins playing a lot and batting leadoff myself, but you can understand where the team's coming from.
First of all: Chone Figgins hasn't been named the leadoff hitter, yet. He hasn't been regularly put in the lineup, yet. At this point, right now, it's all words and speculation.
But let's say Figgins does start out with plenty of playing time. Let's say Figgins does supplant Ichiro at the top of the order. Then what?
Then we see. Then we see, and then the team sees. If the Mariners name Chone Figgins their leadoff hitter this week, that wouldn't mean anything for September, or August, or July, or so on. That would mean something for the end of March and the beginning of April. From there on, things can change. Things do change, all the time, often unpredictably.
It's important to understand that, if the Mariners commit to Figgins, it won't be to reward him. Chone Figgins has done nothing for which he ought to be rewarded. But that's exactly the thing. If the Mariners commit to Figgins, it'll be because they're trying to get him going. They're trying to get him going by making a change. Chone Figgins claims that he's most comfortable batting leadoff. Okay, then the Mariners can give him a trial. If it works, it works. That would be interesting and weird. If it doesn't work - and it should go without saying that I'm skeptical - then the Mariners can be like "well we tried."
If the Mariners commit to Figgins, and Figgins keeps on underachieving, he's not going to keep playing all the time, and he's not going to keep batting near the top of the order. It would really just be a test. It would be the Mariners exploring another option before having to cut bait. You and I can say that they should just cut bait now, or a year ago, but the Mariners invested a lot in the guy, and you can understand why they'd have more patience. Especially in a season like this.
Remember, the Mariners are probably looking at playoff odds around, I don't know, three percent. Put another way, the Mariners as constructed are probably a mid-70s win team, with upside and perhaps more downside than we'd care to acknowledge. If the Mariners play Figgins a lot from the beginning and he's bad, what is that really going to cost them? A win? A win that presumably isn't going to mean very much? If that's what it would take to know for sure that Figgins is a lost cause, well, okay. This year is about learning and developing. It's not going to be about contending unless a whole lot of things go really really well.
Chone Figgins is an unpopular player, at least among the fans. Of course he is. He's been bad, and he hasn't been particularly likable. People don't like hearing talk that the Mariners are going to try to get him going again. But if the Mariners could get him going, wouldn't that be great? Weren't most of us supportive of the contract at the time? Would it really be so crazy for the Mariners to try one last thing? Let's face it - it's not like Chone Figgins is blocking a big-time prospect at the moment. Kyle Seager has half a season above double-A. Plus he's Kyle Seager. And so on.
I don't see anything particularly objectionable about the Mariners trying to get Chone Figgins back on his feet. I don't think that playing him all the time and batting him leadoff is the answer. I suspect that Chone Figgins is just not that good a baseball player anymore. He's 34 and little. But I get it. I get what it seems like the Mariners are thinking. This would get objectionable if it gets to be June or July and Figgins is bad and still playing a lot. Now? Give him a shot. Whatever. Maybe, right?
I've written a lot of words explaining why I don't think something is a big deal. And that something isn't even official yet. I haven't even touched on the other side of Chone Figgins batting leadoff, which would be Ichiro no longer batting leadoff. I also don't think that would be a big deal, although it would definitely be strange. Ichiro's a leadoff hitter. That's long been a part of his identity. Now that part of his identity could be changing, just like other parts of his identity.
Lots of words. Maybe not worth this many words. Chone Figgins as a regular and a leadoff hitter? Ehh. It probably wouldn't work. But it could work, if batting order position is as important to Figgins as he seems to think it is. I don't like this idea if Figgins is bad and they keep it up, but Figgins hasn't been bad yet. Not post-change Figgins. So let's see where we are after a handful of weeks. Then we'll have data, and it's always better with data.
The original headline of this post was Alex Gaining Some Versati-Liddi but then I threw up all over my computer and had to get a new computer. Greg Johns:
Mariners manager Eric Wedge says Alex Liddi will get work at both 1B and 3B this spring to give him more options.
Not long ago, Mike Curto basically predicted that this would happen. Alex Liddi is almost guaranteed to begin the season with Tacoma. Other players who are almost guaranteed to begin the season with Tacoma, or who will at least show up in Tacoma before long, are Vinnie Catricala and Francisco Martinez. Catricala will probably spend a lot of his time in left field, but Martinez is a third baseman, and Martinez is a guy the Mariners really like, since they brought him over in the Doug Fister trade. The Mariners think Martinez could be the third baseman of the future, so Liddi will have to make some space.
Read into it however you want. I personally don't think this is huge news, or that it changes very much. My understanding is that Martinez has the better defensive reputation as a third baseman, so he should naturally be the one to stick. Not that Liddi is a disaster, but he isn't Martinez. Additionally, it's not like all of Liddi's third base skills are going to atrophy - if the Mariners need him to be a third baseman, he can be a third baseman. This is more about versatility than an out-and-out position switch.
And of course, Liddi is a prospect who might never make it in the Majors, on account of questions regarding his ability to make contact. Alex Liddi misses the ball a lot when he swings, and he needs to get better in that department if he wants to have a long career. So whatever position Liddi plays might end up being way more important to Mike Curto than it ever is to us.
For the last like two or three years, I have had people in my virtual ear, pleading for me to write more SEO-friendly headlines. At last I think I finally have it nailed down. It's always so fulfilling when you figure something out on your own. I'm going to call my mother! But after I write this post. Gotta write this post first, it's full of time-critical information.
Lookout Landing was quiet today, but it wasn't quiet due to anything worrisome, or out of some sort of protest. Rather, it was quiet because Matthew's out of town and I was invited to attend the Mariners' annual pre-spring training conference and luncheon. I considered it something of an honor. Then I parked without getting ID'd. Then I entered without getting ID'd. Then I helped myself to lunch without getting ID'd. So it turns out today's event was effectively open to anyone from the president to the homeless.
You've probably already read about what was discussed. Larry Stone posted his coverage. Shannon Drayer posted her coverage. Greg Johns posted his coverage. And so on. There were also real-time tweets, and the conference was broadcast on Mariners.com. Unsurprisingly, nothing earth-shattering was revealed. Jack Zduriencik didn't pull back any curtains to show Joey Votto standing behind. It was basically a two-hour State of the Mariners address, given by a number of people representing the Mariners.
But there were a handful of interesting nuggets. I'll get to them in no particular order because I forgot to take notes. First, Rick Griffin confirmed that Franklin Gutierrez has added about 14 pounds since the end of last season, and that those are 14 pounds of muscle. Justin Smoak apparently worked himself into terrific shape as well, but Gutierrez is the bigger story, because one senses that Gutierrez's performance was more directly tied to his physical condition. Last season, Guti was practically frail. Now he's not frail. Griffin said that Guti hasn't experienced any symptoms in several months and has his diet under control, so hopefully our comments section is done hearing from the armchair naturopaths.
Eric Wedge isn't just thinking about removing Ichiro from the leadoff slot - it sounds like he's probably going to remove Ichiro from the leadoff slot. If you're a reader of Internet blogs, you're probably smart enough to know that by and large lineup arrangement doesn't make much of a difference, but this is at least psychologically significant just because Ichiro has been entrenched up there for so long. Other leadoff candidates were named. Dustin Ackley was one of them. It's going to be Ackley. It's totally going to be Ackley. I mean, it has to be Ackley, right? Wedge mentioned Chone Figgins which made me want to laugh, but it wasn't an appropriate venue.
Figgins' hip is all better, by the way, in case you were worried. You can stop sending all those cards and gift baskets. And Casper Wells is over his balance problems, although I'm still not convinced we have a good explanation for where they came from in the first place, and there's nothing more reassuring than mysterious neurological pathology.
In the surprise to end all surprises, Zduriencik didn't go into any detail with regard to Prince Fielder. You might think that he could open up now, since the sweepstakes are over, but opening up about how those sweepstakes went could work against him come the next opportunity. It doesn't sound like any other transactions are imminent, although I guess the team's interested in adding some kind of veteran position player. If you were wondering who's going to be this year's Adam Kennedy, there's a good chance he's not yet in the organization. Kevin Millwood will be this year's Adam Kennedy for the pitchers. So I guess that makes him this year's...Jamey Wright?
Jesus Montero's going to catch. The team loves his opposite-field power. Duh. Miguel Olivo's still going to catch more, at least for the first while. Trying to think of other things...Figgins can expect to play pretty much everywhere in a super-utility role. It's what he used to do, so maybe that'll make him comfortable. Of course, another thing he used to do is hit. Eric Wedge is a prolific blinker. In a side conversation, Tony Blengino told me about what Dazzy Vance used to do. Look at this Baseball-Reference page, about 1924. Look at the strikeouts. Vance led the National League in K/9, at 7.6. In second place was Burleigh Grimes, at 3.9. There were eight teams in the NL that year. There were a total of 3,381 strikeouts. Vance was responsible for 8% of them.
Anyway, back on topic, the theme of the day was basically growth and development. So much emphasis was put on how the team is doing things the right way, or in the way that the team believes is the right way, by building from within. Zduriencik was very adamant about this. I guess he has to be. Something he said that stuck with me was that baseball isn't like basketball or football. You can't turn a team around with one guy. (He cited Andrew Luck.) I knew that already, and most of you knew that already, but it's worth keeping in mind. It's so critical to understand the limited impact that individual players can have in this game.
Wedge was optimistic. Wedge has always been optimistic. Zduriencik was a little less optimistic, as far as 2012 is concerned. His big quote that people kept talking about was "This is going to be a challenging year at the big league level. Let's not kid ourselves." As Mike Salk pointed out, it lends itself well to a team slogan. Mariners Baseball: Let's Not Kid Ourselves.
But as much as people are bracing for 2012 to be another development year, it should be an exciting development year, and there's no question that things are looking up. The organization has made tremendous progress, as hard as that might be to believe if you just look at the surface. The Mariners' day will come. The day brings no promises, but it'll be brighter.
Most of the time, I don't think we have much use for the Mariners.com mailbags. Which isn't by any means to say that Greg Johns doesn't do the Lord's work - I can't imagine sifting through the questions he must receive every week - but those things are usually geared to a different audience. If you're a Lookout Landing reader, you probably know a lot about the Mariners. You probably know enough about the Mariners.
This time around, though, there was one thing that caught my eye. Somebody wrote in asking that old question about whether the Mariners would ever consider moving in the fences. Safeco's a pitcher-friendly, run-suppressing park, see, and by moving in the fences, it could play more average. It could appeal more to hitters. Dingers! There would be more dingers!
Johns went about investigating. The answer, or at least parts of the answer:
I was told that since moving into Safeco Field in 1999, club officials have regularly discussed the topic and explored it with both statistical analysis and discussions with various field managers, coaches and baseball operations staff.
The team's stance is that if and when such a change would benefit the club, it would be open to moving in the fences [...]
Safeco, right now, is a fairly extreme pitcher-friendly park. It's been that way since the beginning, and the only significant changes I can recall involved the hitter backdrop. But it might not always be this way. Safeco could change, because the Mariners are open to change, and if the Mariners ever feel like making a change, they can basically make the change that they want.
Of course, that second thing - according to Johns, the Mariners would consider adjusting the dimensions if they thought it would help the team. But the Mariners are also building their team to suit the current dimensions, or at least they ought to be. So that's a hurdle, if you're someone who really wants different walls. If the Mariners will only change the fences if it helps a team that's presumably been built for other fences, then the Mariners probably won't change the fences.
For now, the prospect of Safeco playing in a different way is a distant possibility. I think they should temporarily add a hill and a flagpole to welcome the Astros to the AL West, just because hey look how fuckin stupid this is, but that wouldn't have anything to do with the fences so that's a different conversation. I also think the pitcher's mound should be glass and there should be a man looking out from inside, like a turret on a B-17. The hitter would be looking at the pitcher, and then he'd be like, what??
I like individual team halls of fame. They're significant enough to confer a high honor, but insignificant enough to avoid all the bickering and heated debate that surrounds their...dad? Mothership? If a player is inducted into a team hall of fame, it is neat. If a player is not inducted into a team hall of fame, it's really just not that important.
The Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame, at present, has four members. There's Alvin Davis, who was known as "Mr. Mariner" when "Mr. Mariner" was a devastating insult. There's Jay Buhner, who resides in the catacombs beneath Safeco Field and emerges when he senses a tremor in the floor. There's Dave Niehaus, who never played a single inning for the team. And there's Edgar Martinez, who was and is awesome in every way.
The Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame will soon have a fifth and sixth member. According to Greg Johns and countless other people, Randy Johnson and Dan Wilson will be inducted on Saturday, July 28th. Randy Johnson and Dan Wilson are basically members of the Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame now, but they'll become official members in six months. Think of this like a trade, pending a six-month physical. A physical that neither Johnson nor Wilson can fail unless we become aware of gambling allegations. Not that I'm saying there will be gambling allegations. Hands off this passage, Bleacher Report.
Randy Johnson was a Mariner from 1989 to 1998. Over that span he posted a 128 ERA+, but that includes the early part when he was still developing. In Randy Johnson's first year with the Mariners, he had 104 strikeouts and 70 walks in 131 innings. In Randy Johnson's last year with the Mariners, he had 213 strikeouts and 60 walks in 160 innings. Randy Johnson got a lot better. He went from terrifying to terrifying and dominant. Johnson has the most strikeouts in Mariners franchise history, and for a long time one of my favorite facts was that Jamie Moyer sat in second. Jamie Moyer now sits in third. Damn (bless) you, Felix. Moyer could always return in an attempt to re-claim his position!
So, Johnson is an obvious fit. A player doesn't get much more beloved than Randy Johnson. Dan Wilson is also an obvious fit, albeit for different reasons. Wilson was a Mariner from 1994 to 2005. Following are the main ways that I remember Dan Wilson:
(1) He was a Mariner for a while.
(2) He dropped down a lot of sac bunts, or at least an amount of sac bunts that one baseball card company thought was a lot one time.
(3) He used to be a hockey goalie.
(4) He was and is so darn nice.
(5) My mom thought he was the cutest Mariners player in 1999 or 2000. He doesn't seem to have aged a day. In our limited interaction I have refrained from letting him know that my mom thinks he's cute.
(6) He wasn't a good hitter or an awful hitter.
(7) He walked off the field in 2005 with what turned out to be an ACL tear that in a way ended his career.
Strictly based on statistics, Dan Wilson probably doesn't belong in a team hall of fame. But team halls of fame aren't strictly based on statistics, and the fact of the matter is that, when you think about the good Mariners teams, you usually end up thinking about Dan Wilson at some point. He was there, and he was popular, and now he's being honored, and nobody is upset about that. Team halls of fame have it figured out.
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