After picking through his available options (few), outfielder Mike Wilson decided to accept a Minor League deal with the Mariners and has now been given a Spring Training invite with the figurative big boys, bringing the total in camp up to 67 players. Literally they're probably all actually smaller boys than him. Mike Wilson is a big man is what I'm communicating here.
Wilson was designated for assignment along with Chris Gimenez when the signings of Shawn Camp and Hong-Chih Kuo created a 40-man roster crunch. It was smart of the Mariners' front office to sign two players simultaneously. This way, Mike Wilson doesn't know which of the two exactly caused him to be DFA'd and thus both are safe from his terrible wrath.
So JY breathes a deep sign of relief, because really, who likes change? Mike Wilson will once again head to Tacoma once everyone else* heads there as Spring Training ends later in March. It caught me off guard to note that Mike Wilson is still only 28. This will be his age 29 season but his birthday of June 29 is right at the baseball age cutoff line. I guess it's not crazy to think that Wilson still has a chance at getting his chance, somewhere, sometime. Another .971 Triple-A OPS wouldn't hurt.
*everyone else = Tacoma Rainier personnel. I do not mean to imply that every literal resident of Tacoma is currently in Peoria.
When the offseason began, there was Miguel Olivo, there was Adam Moore, and there was Chris Gimenez. Olivo was a veteran workhorse, but he was only one guy, and he needed some rest. Moore was coming off a major injury. Gimenez was in a promising albeit strange position. He probably knew that the Mariners needed to upgrade behind the plate, but as long as the Mariners didn't upgrade behind the plate, he'd be in line for some Major League playing time. He had certain people within the organization on his side.
The Mariners upgraded. They traded for John Jaso. Still, Gimenez re-signed after being non-tendered. They traded for Jesus Montero. That did it. Or, that might have done it. Gimenez was designated for assignment when the Mariners brought in one of their relievers. He cleared waivers, and, rather than accept an assignment to triple-A, he's opted to make himself a free agent.
Former Mariners catcher Chris Gimenez [...] has cleared waivers and declined being optioned to Triple-A by the Mariners. That makes the veteran a free agent eligible to sign with any club when his 10-day window is up on Thursday. It appears likely he could end up with the Pirates, where his versatility may be more useful in the National League.
Something tells me Johns has a lead with regard to that Pirates thing, since I doubt he'd speculate otherwise. The Pirates have Rod Barajas and a handful of guys you've probably never heard of. That's not a shot against you - I just don't know why a selection of Mariners fans would be familiar with the works of Michael McKenry, Eric Fryer and Jose Morales. I thought Jose Morales sounded familiar until I remembered that Jose Molina is a person and, more importantly, a different person.
So Gimenez looks to be gone. Where once there was an opportunity, there is no longer much of an opportunity, and Gimenez or Gimenez's agent recognizes that. Olivo, Jaso and Montero will handle the job in the Majors. Moore and Guillermo Quiroz will handle the job in Tacoma. Space is at a premium.
I wonder how Gimenez is going to be remembered as a Mariner. I wonder if Gimenez is going to be remembered as a Mariner. I wonder if he'll be one of those guys you see on the team's Baseball-Reference page in a year or two or three and you think to yourself "wow I completely forgot about that." Like Chris Shelton and Denny Stark and Bill Hall in 2009. Those guys were Mariners in 2009! I vaguely remember Hall, because he looked like shit in the outfield. I don't remember the other two doing anything at all.
If Gimenez is to be remembered, it'll be for his toughness. Remember, he played through a strained oblique on June 28. He then went on the DL and didn't come back until September 4. There are times when I get frustrated with players when they play through injuries, but Gimenez didn't have much of a choice, and he did something a hell of a lot tougher than I can recall doing myself. Toughness scores points. Toughness creates memories. Chris Gimenez could be remembered as a tough Mariner.
Or he could be remembered as the Cleveland Indian who took a home run away from Michael Saunders in Saunders' first-ever game. Who knows if that's what ruined Saunders forever. Two days later, Gimenez allowed a Kendrys Morales fly ball to bounce off his glove and go over the wall. Most recently, Chris Gimenez was a tough Mariner. Less recently, Chris Gimenez was a bitch.
Now he's a free agent. Soon he'll be a Pirate, probably. If he does sign with Pittsburgh, he'll report to camp along with Jeff Clement, who is a 28-year-old non-roster invitee. I wish Gimenez the best of luck, because I have no reason not to wish him the best of luck, except for that one thing from a few years ago. That was annoying. I hope Gimenez does well and has one annoying thing happen to him, like the Pirates completing a trade for A.J. Burnett.
The signings of Hong-Chih Kuo and Shawn Camp to Major League contracts have restricted the likely openings on the Seattle bullpen for all those candidates that Jack Zduriencik gathered over the winter like an adorable little pika. With those two plus George Sherrill and Brandon League, the consensus is that the bullpen is already taking semi-rigid shape, like the frame of a tent with only the rain flaps and other doodads left to perch on top.
The favorites to make the trip to Japan along with their three-year weighted tRA+s:
Closer: Brandon League (117)
LH short: George Sherrill* (99) [signing link]
RH short: Shawn Camp (96) [signing link]
LH middle: Hong-Chih Kuo* (114) [signing links]
RH middle: Shawn Kelley (130)
LH long: Charlie Furbush* (81)
RH long: Tom Wilhelmsen (107)
The roles laid out are not requirements of course. The Mariners don't need to carry both a left and right-handed long man. The players drive the roles, not the other way around. I find it amusing though how cleanly it breaks down with this group of seven. The back three do not have much Major League experience, so take their weighted tRA+s with more salt than the first four, whom you should still take with quite a bit of salt because they are relievers. It's a lot of salt all together so I suggest having a friend or perhaps a nemesis assist you with the intake. Why salt anyways? Is that implying they are bland tasting or perhaps rotting? This is weird.
On the outside, overhanging but not overshadowing, is Mount Pile:
Steve Delabar
Matt Fox [signing link]
Steve Garrison* [signing link]
Jarrett Grube
Aaron Heilman [signing link]
Sean Henn* [signing link]
Cesar Jimenez* [out of options]
Josh Kinney [signing link]
Lucas Luetge* [rule 5] [selecting link]
Jeff Marquez [signing link]
Chance Ruffin
Scott Patterson [signing link]
Oliver Perez* [signing link]
Phillippe-Alexandre Valiquette* [info link]
There's a few interesting names on that list. And there's a few interesting players on that list. Those two sets overlap but are not identical. I see that some people are puzzled by the Shawn Camp addition coming at the Major League expense of one of the above players, but I am unconcerned and even slightly happy at his coming aboard (nautical term). Perusing Mount Pile, none of those people strike me as substantially more likely than Camp to offer 50 league average innings of relief. The difference between what he's projected to produce and what some combination of rocks would is proabably minimal and ultimately meaningless for 2012's playoff odds, but I don't find that makes Camp a waste.
Camp isn't young and is unlikely to be a meaningful part of any kind of future, but he does provide some depth that I think is useful. It would be really great for the fans if the Mariners avoided a third-consecutive 90-loss season and though Camp isn't going to single-handedly stem that tide (nautical term), he can be one more minor fail safe to prevent a 2010-everyone-sucks-we're-screwed situation from arising again. I wrote previously about my concerns surrounding the lack of quality hitting depth behind the starters and I shared similar reservations about the pitching. Kuo and Camp help to mitigate that. It makes it a little less likely that the bullpen is horrifying in 2012.
My hunch is that if Camp were brought in on another of the minor league contracts plus Spring Training invite deals, then nobody would raise a peep of concern. That it is the guaranteed roster spot that wiggles against some people. That doesn't bother me either for a couple reasons. As Jeff pointed out, Ruffin and Delabar — the two most oft-cited to be left high and dry (nautical term) by Camp's signing — both have very limited time at the Triple-A level so neither would simply be twiddling their thumbs. Ruffin jumped from Double-A to the Majors with Detroit before heading down to their AAA-affilate Toledo for 15 innings. Delabar made a 13-inning pit stop in Tacoma on his third stop of a four-level trip last season that began in High Desert and ended with a whopping seven Major League innings. Neither had the sort of dominant 2011 seasons that suggest some time in Triple-A would go to waste.
More importantly, relievers are volatile creatures by nature of their small sample opportunities and they, being pitchers and being pitchers without the benefit of a weekly routine, tend to get hurt a lot. Shawn Kelley was injured last year. Hong-Chih Kuo was injured last year. George Sherrill was injured last year. By and large (nautical term), the Mariners may not break camp with the absolute best bullpen they could muster, but that means almost nothing. Bullpens fluctuate constantly throughout the season unless they're rolling good and healthy; so if someone like Chance Ruffin starts in Tacoma, there's still little impeding him from being a Mariner come May and a month of relief usage only represents approximately 11 innings of pitching. It's not a big deal.
Twitter link here. Shannon states that it is a Major League deal which means that another 40-man roster spot will have to be opened up. It's weird because so far only Shannon has tweeted it. Usually when there's a transaction, my twitter stream has identical tweets from Shannon, Larry Stone and Greg Johns, followed by Rotoworld linking to those three and then MLBTradeRumors. So far, nothing but Shannon. I hope Larry and Greg aren't dead. Don't be dead, guys.
[11:48 UPDATE] Both Greg Johns and Larry Stone tweet that the Mariners have DFA'd Chris Gimenez and Mike Wilson to make room for Hong-Chih Kuo and Camp. Whew! Still alive.
Shawn Camp is a mid-30s reliever who's been with the Blue Jays for the past four seasons and unfortunately does nothing to add to the Mariners quota of ʃɔn given names. The righty throws a high-80s sinker, a low-80s change and a high-70s slider and succeeds probably how you'd expect, through a combination of ground balls and throwing strikes.
Up until last season, he'd been a quietly effectively bullpen arm. Over the last half-dozen years, Camp's xFIP has stayed in the 3.65-4.00 range, which is fine enough. He's not going to be a transformational figure for the bullpen, but building up depth there is not a bad thing and Camp is better than the pile-type additions we've become used to seeing.
It's not all an adequate plate of noodles though. Since Camp's deal is that he needs to throw strikes, 2011 is a bit worrisome as Camp threw far fewer pitches in the strike zone last year than ever before. Now that didn't translate to a significantly higher walk rate and zone% by itself is not enough to worry about, but it is pause-worthy. Camp also saw his strikeout rate dip from below average (~17%) toward dangerously low (11%) territory which is worth even more pauses. Of course, all the normal warnings about a single year of relief pitching applies so don't freak out and go all Harold Pinter on us, but his fastball speed did dip a little so perhaps it's a harbinger of disappointment to come.
Camp is a bit of a side-tosser so he comes equipped with the enhanced platoon splits module that you really didn't want anyway but can be useful in some circumstances. In a certain light, Shawn Camp is the chiral George Sherrill. So hooray for probably many more mid-inning pitching changes this upcoming season. Those are fun, right? Everybody likes those!
Yesterday, while artificial giants brought an official end to another season of concussing one another, we talked a lot about free agent reliever Hong-Chih Kuo. The Mariners were linked to free agent reliever Hong-Chih Kuo, see, and a later report went so far as to say the Mariners were expected to sign him.
Rumor was, there was a small handful of West Coast teams sniffing Kuo to see if they liked it. One of those teams was probably the Angels, since the Angels have long been searching for help in the bullpen. How could the Mariners compete with the Angels as a potential free agent destination? Here's how, courtesy of Dylan Hernandez:
Source: Former #Dodgers reliever Hong-Chih Kuo has signed a one-year, major-league contract with the Seattle #Mariners.
Guaranteed money is how. Given what he went through in 2011, it would've made a lot of sense for Kuo to end up signing a minor league contract. The Mariners made a commitment, and while I'll freely admit that this is speculation, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what put the Mariners over the top. One notes that this signing isn't yet official, but that isn't reason to believe that Hernandez's source is wrong. We knew about Kevin Millwood before that was official. We knew about Munenori Kawasaki before that was official. We learned about Darren Ford from his sister, and so on. It's just about an absolute certainty that Kuo has signed, and that all that's left is troubleshooting the fax machine, or writing up the press release.
Or identifying somebody on the 40-man roster to ditch. As Kuo is signing a Major League contract, the Mariners will have to make room, seeing as how their 40-man roster is currently full. Mike Wilson is one option to go. Cesar Jimenez is another option to go. The Mariners could return Rule 5 pick Lucas Luetge, I think. It shouldn't be hard to fit Kuo in. If it were hard to fit Kuo in, that would imply that the Mariners have too much high-level talent. Good news!
With the Internet being what it is today, and since we heard about Kuo before, I don't really have much in the way of new material for this. Most of what needs to be said about Kuo has already been said. I guess nothing really needs to be said about Kuo. "Need" is one of those words on which people carelessly trample like a Mount Rainier wildflower. If you're all about volatility and high potential reward, Kuo's a neat fit. He could be terrible, like he was last season. He could bounce back from his anxiety and his elbow problems and be amazing, like he was the season before. Kuo could quite literally pitch to either extreme, and I'd much rather the Mariners sign a guy like this than, say, a guy like Jamey Wright or Luis Ayala. The upside is considerable, and the downside is practically irrelevant. If he's bad, oh no, the Mariners might miss the playoffs!
Since I've little more to say, here are a few Kuo factoids:
(1)
Dodgers trainers referred to him as "the Cockroach" because he kept coming back and nothing could kill him. He's fought through several elbow issues. He's fought through shoulder issues. He's fought through anxiety. This article from 2010 says Kuo needs six or seven hours of prep each day before he can pitch. The thing about cockroaches is that if you step on them they die. They make a mess but they are dead. So hopefully Hong-Chih Kuo doesn't get stepped on.
(2)
Hong-Chih Kuo hit a home run, in 2007, off of John Maine. Here is proof. Hong-Chih Kuo has more home runs against John Maine than the Giants do. He hit it on the first pitch. The pitch before, Maine allowed a home run to Matt Kemp. The pitch before that, Maine allowed a home run to Wilson Betemit. Hong-Chih Kuo has a higher career OPS than Michael Saunders.
On Kuo, in a story from June 2007:
Tsao said he faced Kuo a few times in high school but never gave him any pitches to hit.
"I wouldn't throw him any strikes, because he was always trying to hit a home run," Tsao said. "He still reminds me about his team winning the championship."
(3)
According to Hit Tracker, Kuo's home run had a distance of 431 feet. That's longer than any home run ever hit by Jose Lopez. That's longer than any home run ever hit by Dustin Pedroia. That is a legitimately tattooed home run. That is a home run worthy of a bat flip.
(4)
For his career, after getting ahead 0-2, Kuo has one walk and 136 strikeouts. That walk was issued to Adam LaRoche with the bases loaded.
This news first broke some time ago. You'll forgive me for not immediately jumping to my blogging battle station. I saw it, I thought about it, and I decided I didn't need to hurry to get something up because Carlos Guillen traffic isn't going to blow up the website. I used that time to do something I deemed more important, which turned out to be making lemonade from concentrate. I haven't yet tried any of the lemonade. Maybe after this post!
At last week's media luncheon, Jack Zduriencik said that the Mariners weren't necessarily done for the offseason, but that any subsequent additions would probably be small chips. There was expressed interest in finding some kind of veteran bat who could lend the group of position players some experience. Zduriencik might have known then that he'd be signing Carlos Guillen.
Maybe he didn't. But he's now signed Carlos Guillen, to a minor league contract with a spring training invite. It's not the most surprising of transactions, given that we heard reports connecting Guillen and the Mariners back in early December. Those of you wondering who's going to be this year's Adam Kennedy? Carlos Guillen is the new favorite to be this year's Adam Kennedy.
If he makes the team. That's not guaranteed. It's never guaranteed. Even Ichiro isn't guaranteed to make the team. Think about it. Guaranteed. Carlos Guillen has much lower chances of making the team than Ichiro does, but Ichiro doesn't have a 100% chance of making the team. It's kind of hard to tell where Guillen could fit. The team obviously signed him because they have some possible fit in mind, but how versatile is Guillen, really, after all of his injuries? There's easy space if the Mariners go with a six-man bullpen, but will the Mariners go with a six-man bullpen? And on and on. Maybe Guillen makes the team. Maybe he doesn't, immediately. Maybe he doesn't, ever.
If he does make the team, it's important to understand that you shouldn't expect too much. Guillen used to be a Mariner, as you recall. Then he became good. Between 2004-2008, he posted a 127 OPS+. He's posted a 95 OPS+ since in limited time, with his time being limited due to injuries. Carlos Guillen has had a lot of injuries. He's 36, now, so it's not like the injury-proneness is going to go away.
A healthy Guillen can provide some kind of defensive versatility and decent offense from both sides of the plate. A slightly less healthy Guillen is probably the normal Guillen these days. An unhealthy Guillen doesn't play.
Except for that one time! You knew you weren't getting out of this post without me going back to the old story about Carlos Guillen playing through tuberculosis. Before the 2001 season, Guillen was at his home in Venezuela. In spring training, he tested negative for tuberculosis according to a test that apparently has a fairly high error rate. Guillen started the season slow, and on May 19th he collided with Al Martin, with Martin ending up concussed.
Guillen progressively felt worse and worse. People figured he was suffering the after-effects of the collision. He didn't say anything to Lou Piniella. It's around now that I'm going to begin with the blockquotes. Ken Daley:
Every morning Carlos Guillen woke up and wondered how he was going to play a baseball game that night.
His head ached. His chest felt almost bruised, as if he had been taking hard jabs the night before. His cough had turned his throat as raw as sandpaper.
His sheets were damp from the fever he was running. And the bed, which had become his haven, was becoming harder and harder to leave.
Teammates said he had been ill and had occasional nosebleeds, but he hadn't complained to manager Lou Piniella or team coaches.
Pitcher Jose Paniagua said Guillen had been sick for about three months and had told him he suspected the blood he was losing was from his lungs, and not his nose.
Further:
Piniella thought Guillen's performance was a tad lackadaisical during the team's trip to Texas last week, and asked coach Dave Myers to talk with the shortstop. Guillen did not offer illness as an excuse. He merely told Myers, "I'll pick it up."
KOMO:
Because tuberculosis is a contagious disease that spreads through the air like the common cold, the Mariners players were concerned about their own health and the health of their children.
Carlos Guillen was severely ill. He was severely ill, and getting iller, for months. He didn't say anything to the team, even when presented with an opportunity. And the team, for its part, somehow didn't notice. The Seattle Mariners weren't worried too much about their ill regular shortstop and were surprised when tests in late September revealed tuberculosis. Tuberculosis! That Guillen had been playing through for months!
Guillen put up an 87 OPS+ that year over 140 games. The year before, he had an 86 OPS+. His numbers in the second half were better than his numbers in the first half. He was batting .439 in September before he went to the hospital and found out he had tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis!
The Carlos Guillen story is insane. I can't believe that happened. I can't believe that happened the same year the Mariners won 116 games. Guillen returned to play in the ALCS half a month later. Given all of the injuries Guillen has faced over his career, I'm sure there are a lot of people who think he's a wimp. Carlos Guillen isn't a wimp, to the point where he endangered his own life.
The Carlos Guillen tuberculosis story is old now. He doesn't have tuberculosis anymore. (We think.) What he has is an assortment of skills that is a lesser assortment of skills than he used to have. Maybe he still has enough to contribute. Maybe he doesn't. The Mariners will decide on that within a couple of months.
It's Friday night. You and your partner have plans. You've been looking forward to them because you've both had really bad weeks and this'll be a chance to unwind. She's done getting ready and you're just about to shut down the computer when you see that Lookout Landing just put up a new post. "One minute, one minute" you say and you click through, only to find that it's a post about Brian Sweeney signing a minor league contract, and not even signing a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training. A minor league contract, just. You get upset with yourself. You get upset with me. You miss your reservation. The night is ruined. You get upset with Brian Sweeney. "How could you do this to us, Brian Sweeney!"
That's 131 words right there. I'm squeezing some juice out of this old, dry lemon. That way we can have pure, unsweetened lemon juice. Perfect for waking up the tongue or getting out stains.
So anyway, this comes courtesy of Greg Johns. Minor league contract, no invite. I don't know why he didn't get an invite, but it's not like he would've made the team anyway so this way he gets a head start on minor league camp. I'm guessing that, unlike a lot of minor league contracts with invites, this one doesn't include an opt-out date. Sweeney knows damn well he's going to Tacoma. He knows damn well that's where he's spending his season. He's okay with that. Maybe he's eager for that.
I should say that Sweeney's going back to Tacoma because he was there in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2010. In case you've forgotten about Brian Sweeney, who got some time with the Mariners in 2010, he's 37 years old. He was born in the same month as Doug Mientkiewicz and Derek Jeter. He's accomplished a little bit less than them. In his baseball career, anyway. He might really like it in Tacoma. He might have a lot of friends there. He spent most of last year in Buffalo so he's probably most happy to just not be there.
I'm still writing about Brian Sweeney. This post is going on its fifth paragraph. Like hell am I stopping now. He's the rare righty with a sub-90 fastball. Lots of breaking balls and changeups from this guy. Makes him tricky for lesser-developed hitters. Not so tricky for more developed hitters. About that time with the Mariners in 2010 - in Sweeney's first 7.2 innings, he had seven strikeouts. In his last 29.1 innings, he had seven strikeouts.
So he's not a big league weapon. He's a triple-A guy, and he's pretty good there, and he might well be happy there. Jack Zduriencik has talked about the importance of having veterans in the Majors to serve as mentors to youth. There's no reason to think he's wrong, and it stands to reason that there's also value in having veterans in the minors to serve as mentors to youth. Brian Sweeney's not a prospect, but maybe he can help prospects. Maybe he can help a guy with his changeup. Maybe he can help a guy with his preparation. Who knows what Brian Sweeney could do?
Sweeney's put in a lot of time with Tacoma, but this'll be his first visit to Cheney Stadium since it was renovated. All right, it looks better! Also it's more hitter-friendly. Godspeed!
Still writing. Okay. In Sweeney's Major League debut, back in 2003, he pitched in relief of Joel Pineiro. The first batter he faced was Damian Jackson. His first strikeout victim was Todd Walker. Remember when the Red Sox had Damian Jackson and Todd Walker? And Gabe Kapler and Scott Williamson? For additional reference, their top prospect before the season started was Hanley Ramirez. He was followed by Kelly Shoppach.
Incidentally, Sweeney wasn't drafted. As a 22-year-old he pitched for Lafayette of the Heartland League. He was signed by the Mariners in September 1996. He's the only player from that Lafayette team to reach the bigs. The scout that first noticed him and was responsible for bringing him into the organization? A certain Northeast area scout by the name of Tom McNamara. I knew if I kept writing I'd get to something good. McNamara saw something in Sweeney more than 15 years ago, and McNamara's probably the reason that Sweeney's back now.
So about that four-player Mariners/Yankees trade - I decided to sit in on the Mariners media conference call without participating, which is way less awkward and uncomfortable on the phone than it is in person at an actual press conference. I'm not going to review all the bits and quotes because others will do that and they'll do it better, but there was one thing in particular early on that stood out to me.
The Mariners were looking all around the league for a young bat. Somebody they could bring in and keep for a while. They had a few options, but in the end they "settled on Jesus" (different from "settled for Jesus"). Jack Zduriencik asked Brian Cashman if there was any way to get Montero without trading Felix Hernandez, and that's where Michael Pineda came in. Pineda wasn't being shopped, but he was available at the right price, which is exactly what one would've figured.
From there, things developed, although they didn't necessarily develop that fast - the seed was first planted during the winter meetings, and then I guess it sprouted a few weeks ago. No, that doesn't sound right. It first came up during the winter meetings. Then it came up again a few weeks ago. Much better. Writing is easy!
As for Montero's future as a catcher, the quote you've probably seen all over the place is that he'll "get every opportunity to catch." The way Zduriencik tells it, they'll go to camp and let things play out as they will. So Montero could catch, and if you ask Brian Cashman he will catch, but his big selling point as far as the Mariners are concerned is most definitely his bat. They love the hell out of his bat.
Somebody always has to ask during these things what comes next, and Zduriencik always has to remind people that he won't talk about current negotiations. But for those of you who love to be teased, he did say that he has "other conversations going on." All that really says is that Jack Zduriencik isn't flat-out ignoring other executives and agents, but watch how little you care. What other conversations! How many of them involve Prince Fielder! I'm using exclamation points instead of question marks because the people who are still obsessed with the Mariners signing Prince Fielder probably don't understand punctuation.
Trade! It's done. Jesus Montero will be present at FanFest. He'll be bringing his big bat. It is a huge bat.
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