And Jesse Baumgartner of MLB.com must be his sidekick. Take a look at these mind-bendingly denial-ridden snippets from
a piece Baumgartner wrote about Seattle's abysmal DH situation:
Different approach at DH
SEATTLE -- Most American League teams use the designated hitter position to stick a little more pop in their lineup. David Ortiz of the visiting Boston Red Sox would be a prime example.Most American League teams try to play someone who can hit in the position of Designated Hitter, a job whose description reads "Someone who can hit." It's taken approximately four billion years for life to evolve from some sort of self-replicating ribozyme into a creature, man, whose brain is able to complete the difficult task of assigning a good hitter to DH.
But that's not the way the Seattle Mariners approach that part of their team. What if...
What if we played a bad hitter at DH? An execrably, eye-gougingly, fingernail-scrapingly
awful hitter?
Would that help us win games?
"I'm just kind of using it just to try to have some contact in that spot, and maybe be able to move some runners and hit and run and that kind of stuff, get some at-bats for some guys," interim manager Jim Riggleman said.Yeah, that's it. We don't want a home run hitter, or a doubles hitter, or a hitter at all. Give me a lamp at DH. Or an Eames chair. Is an Eames chair available? No? Then get Jose Vidro.
By the way, Mariners fans, your manager just said: The purpose of the DH is to "get some at-bats for some guys." Yes, the DH's at-bats don't officially count, do they? Riggleman's not sure. He has to check the rulebook.
"It's not a classic DH spot -- the kind where the guy hits well --
where we're looking for our DH to give us 25 to 30 home runs and 100 RBIs, that's just not what we are. So I'm fine with it the way it is."Now, on the one hand, I know he's the manager (interim manager at that), not the GM, so he kind of has to say things like this to put a good face on things, but on the other hand, what in the bloody flying fuck are you talking about? Would it be crazy for him to say, "Hey, sure, we're hoping to get a little more production out of that spot." Or even more sensibly: "We think Jose's going to hit a little better from here on out." Would that absolutely ruin Jose Vidro's confidence to the point that Vidro can no longer successfully OPS .584, as he's doing right now?
You heard me: Jose Vidro is OPSing .584. He's a few at bats short of qualifying for the OPS leaders minimum, but after a cursory look I'm pretty sure that would be the worst figure in the American League.
He's your DESIGNATED. H. I. T. T. E. R.
While the team sometimes puts an extra catcher in the lineup at DH,That is such sad beginning to a sentence.
Jose Vidro has been the mainstay for much of the season -- Tuesday' s start was his 61st this year at the position.
Vidro is about as far away from Ortiz as you can get. He has just five homers this season and is hitting .223 with a .267 OBP and 41 RBIs.Additional note to the Mariners: Jose Vidro has an EqA of .218 and a WARP3 of -0.5. He is one of the worst hitters in baseball. His numbers are embarrassing even for, like, a historically-great-fielding catcher. He does not field for your team.
But you knew that, right? I mean, there's no way this is a surprise to you or anything --
"I'm astonished to tell you the truth when I look up and I see Vidro's average is what it is,I know you're a professional baseball manager and everything, but dude, seriously, Riggleman, have you ever even seen a game this year? Members of the uncontacted Yanaigua tribe of Bolivia know that Jose Vidro has a sub-.600 OPS, and you don't seem to have a clue.
He plays on your team, bro-bro.
because I feel like every time he goes up there I'm very confident that he's going to give us a good at-bat," Riggleman said.Things that belie Riggleman's confidence: EVERY SINGLE OTHER AT BAT JOSE VIDRO HAS HAD THIS YEAR.
"And for the at-bats that he has, he's knocked in quite a few runs ... he's been fairly effective in the way we want to use him.There, my friends, is the standard if you want to be the designated hitter for the Seattle Mariners professional major league baseball club: in order to be considered "fairly effective," you merely have to be the worst hitter in your league. That is all.
Send your résumés to:
"I Want To Be The Mariners' DH"
c/o Jim Riggleman
.266 OBP Lane
Ridiculously Low Slugging Percentageburg, WA 98134
And for now, while many teams would prefer some additional pop in the lineup, the Mariners are content to stay with their different breed of designated hitter.Can a baseball franchise be declared clinically insane? I believe, if organizations were to be treated as human beings, one of the legal criteria for a franchise to be officially designated "insane" would be
1. Franchise claims to be content with a .584 OPS player as their DH.
"It's not a classic DH situation, but I feel good every time he walks up to the plate," Riggleman said."It's not the classic DH situation where you expect a professional baseball player to at least put together a major league-quality at bat, but what do I know about baseball? I'm a millet farmer from sub-Saharan Africa," Riggleman said while farming millet. "I feel good every time he walks up to the plate, primarily because here, in America, I have clean water and food with enough niacin in it to stave off pellagra. Plus, very little chance of getting sleeping sickness."
"The numbers may say otherwise, but I think he's going to give us good at-bats." Jose Vidro has been way better than a .584 OPS hitter in the past, so I hope for the Mariners' and Riggleman's sake he's right. On the other hand, Vidro's 34 and he batted .189 in the month of June. .189!
Maybe there isn't anyone in the entire Mariners organization who can hit better than that, or maybe Jim Riggleman is in such profound denial he's forgotten what the rules of baseball even are anymore.
Labels: jesse baumgartner, jim riggleman, jose vidro, mariners, mid-century modern furniture
Somewhere along the way, bad sportswriters got together and decided that simply making crazy overstatements or predictions counted as being funny. Sort of like the stand-up comedian who tries to skate by on being "outrageous" or "saying what you're afraid to say." I hate those guys.
This piece by Art Thiel from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the epitome of that unfunny hyperbole. It's not just the opposite of funny, it's profoundly weird and pointless that I'm almost scared it was published in a newspaper that people pay money for.
Mariners must beat the A's, or it's overAlready, you have to assume this thing is a joke, right? Unfortunately, it's an endless, endless joke that goes on for what seems like 10,000 words.
Forecasts for the start of any new Major League Baseball season are always filled with uncertainty.
Not this week in Seattle, pally. No nebulous knee-knocking here.
The entire Mariners season will be decided in the opening series against the Oakland A's.It keeps going like this. Really.
No need to wait until Memorial Day, July 4, the trading deadline, Labor Day or any other traditional seasonal milestones for measuring progress.
All are irrelevant in 2007.
Three games. Three days. Four possible outcomes.
If the Mariners sweep the A's -- Mariners go to the World Series.
If the Mariners win the series 2-1 -- A contending team with a real shot at the division title.
If the Mariners lose the series 1-2 -- Gather into the basement the elderly, the children and bring some bannock and hardtack.What is the point of this? Honestly? I can't think of a reason why anybody would continue to read on after this point in the column other than to keep copying and pasting sections of it into a sports media criticism blog.
If the A's sweep the Mariners -- The cataclysm, as predicted in the movie "Ghostbusters":
"Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together -- mass hysteria."You included an entire paragraph from Ghostbusters in your column about the Mariners?! Wait -- it gets crazier.
Not to put too fine a point on it, or anything ...
If the A's sweep the biggest opening series in Mariners history, fans can save the cosmos some trouble by driving down Fourth Avenue South to Costco for the 45,000-pack of hara-kiri blades.
Oh-for-three, and Russian winter starts here Friday, broken by patches of morning eruptions from Krakatoa.I am starting to think that I am the one who is crazy. We're still talking about the opening series between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics. This is a baseball column.
Nothing has been more intensely urgent since the paternity line formed for Anna Nicole's baby. This team, in this circumstance, is the personification of the Rev. Leroy and the Church of What's Happenin' Now. No green-bananas outfit here, baby.Seriously. WHAT THE FUCK. I am scared. Art Thiel's family: if you are reading this, I think he is in trouble. Help him. He is not well.
These Mariners are so in the moment that they nearly will be out of date before today's national anthem, which, by the way, better damn well be sung by Mick Jagger, accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma and backed by the New York Symphony Orchestra.
This is no time for KazooKlub.The joke band name he came up with was KazooKlub.
Or don't you remember 2-17? That was the season-series result between the A's and Mariners last season.
It was the most lopsided series in the history of the American League since the start of divisional play in 1969, out-failed in MLB annals only by the 1974 Padres against the Braves and the 1986 Pirates against the Mets (both 1-17).
In an era of parity, that kind of disparity borders on the pathologically pathetic.Alliteration, see? FUNNY. Just like "nebulous knee-knocking" earlier. Art Thiel loves the English language.
Last year, the A's were the organ grinder, the Mariners the monkey. The A's were George Bush, the Mariners were Tony Blair. The A's were Penn, the Mariners were Teller.Penn doesn't make Teller do things. They have a mutual respect.
Not since Moe last frying-panned Curly have we seen such a cringe-inducing tribute to dope-slapping.Cannot parse.
That's why this series is so important for the Mariners. The 2006 bleakness was so overwhelming that it must be stopped, starting this week, before it gets a chance to reproduce. Once the spores spread, all is lost, and Kansas City's Gil Meche will come to town and pitch a no-hitter.
I suppose some crank among the readership will say I'm exaggerating the importance of the series, reminding me that there will remain 159 games. Well, thanks for that, Alex Trebek. Let me save some time by having you talk to the hand while I explain.Mind spinning. Alex Trebek ref. "Talk to the hand." Where am I? Thirsty. Incoherent ramblings of an unfunny madman.
Insane people are usually funnier than this.
This isn't just "Git 'er done," an expression so yesterday. This is "Git 'er done -- yesterday."Why is "talk to the hand" acceptable but "git 'er done," a much more recent execrable catch phrase, outdated? Is "so yesterday" an intentional Hillary Duff reference? This article makes me feel like vultures are eating my brain.
Hey, Mariners players. No pressure. Deep breath. Relax. Cue the tinkly piano music from the background of the Masters broadcast.
Aaahh.
See the ball. Hit the ball. Catch the ball.
Beat the A's.
Or it's over.I skipped like six paragraphs where Art Thiel talked about cutting some minor league guys. Was that the point of the column? I don't even care anymore. Nothing -- not even cutting mediocre 24-year-old prospect Michael Garciaparra -- warrants the rampant insanity of the other 80% of the piece.
Labels: art thiel, mariners
