Thanks to Bob Finnigan there is some confusion and in some instances panic throughout the blogosphere and in Mariner fans everywhere regarding this off-season. Dave should help to calm some of the skeptics with a terrific post on USSM and over the next few weeks we all should know the direction the M's will be taking in 2005 and beyond. I have yet to jump onboard the "Playoffs in 2005" bandwagon but despite the negativity floating around, I am more optimistic than most. I compiled a rough estimate for how the 2005 payroll currently stands, although you can expect a large player turnover for 2005.

Pos	Player	2005 Salary	Expected 2005
P	Atchinson, Scott	~	$.30
P	Baek, Cha Seung	~	$.05
P	Blackley, Travis	~	$.05
IF	Bloomquist, Willie	~	$.40
2B	Boone, Bret	$9.0	~
IF/OF	Cabrera, Jolbert	~	$1.5
3B	Dobbs, Greg	~	$.05
P	Franklin, Ryan	$2.40	~
OF	Garbe, B.J.	~	$.05
C	Gonzalez, Wiki	$2.25	~
P	Guardado, Eddie	$7.00*	~
P	Hasegawa, Shigetoshi	$2.98	~
P	Heaverlo, Jeff	~	$.05
OF	Ibanez, Raul	$3.75	~
DH	Jacobsen, Bucky	~	$.30
P	Johnson, Rett	~	$.05
3B	Leone, Justin	~	$.05
P	Looper, Aaron	~	$.05
SS	Lopez, Jose	$.30	~
P	Madritsch, Bobby	$.30	~
P	Mateo, Julio	$.40	~
P	Meche, Gil	$2.50	~
P	Moyer, Jamie	$7.50	~
P	Nageotte, Clint	~	$.05
C	Olivo, Miguel	~	$.40
P	Pineiro, Joel	$4.20	~
P	Putz, J.J.	$.30	~
OF	Reed, Jeremy	~	$.05
C	Rivera, Rene	~	$.05
SS	Santiago, Ramon	~	$.05
P	Sherrill, George	$.30	~
OF	Snelling, Chris	~	$.30
P	Soriano, Rafael	$.35	~
IF	Spiezio, Scott	$3.10	~
OF	Strong, Jamal	~	$.05
OF	Suzuki, Ichiro	$10.75**	~
P	Taylor, Aaron	~	$.05
P	Thorton, Matt	~	$.05
P	Villone, Ron	~	$2.00***
C	Wilson, Dan	~	$2.00
OF	Winn, Randy	$3.75	~
IF	Cirillo, Jeff	$4.78	~
	Subtotal	$61.46	$12.65
	Total		$74.11

* Based on the assumption that the team picks up his option, plus his $1 million bonus
** Based on $250K in bonus money for plate appearances
*** The feeling is that he will be back, I'm praying he isn't

There are currently 42 players on this list including those who ended the season on the DL (Soriano, Guardado, Bucky, Leone, Pineiro, Snelling, Nageotte) and minus those who will not be on the 40 man roster next season (Mickey Lopez, Bocachica, Kida, Williams).

By taking the M's supposed payroll of $95 million and subtracting the estimated payroll, the team is left with roughly $20-21 million to spend on free agents. Keep in mind the $74.11 million figure includes everyone on the 40 man roster and there are definitely going to be players on this list today that will not be on this same list in a month. There are a lot of what ifs that remain unanswered so I recommend sitting down with your favorite brew and just enjoying some playoff baseball. We have months to worry about 2005.

If you're having trouble getting excited about this year's brand of October baseball and all you want to hear about is how the Mariners intend to go about rebuilding the team this winter, go read David Cameron's piece.

The M’s are going to spend a lot of money this winter. I can’t guarantee they are going to spend it all well, but I can tell you that several of the players we would like to see in Seattle will be forced into deciding to take less money from another organization to turn down the Mariners offer. And, with very few exceptions, the high bidder almost always gets the player in free agency.

Go ahead, tell me you aren't looking forward to the winter.

Last year, the team tried playing that game where you spread your hand on a table and quickly poke a knife between each finger, and it lost some digits.




Undeterred, they decided to pick it up a notch and enter this offseason tied to a rotating disc, with another guy throwing knives at the circle and trying to miss the person. If they succeed, then they're the most entertaining group of guys on the planet, but if they fail...well, there are better analogies than this one, so forget it. I'm excited.

Brief synopsis of Howard Lincoln’s responses to questions asked by Groz this afternoon on KJ:

“We are not going to get silly (this offseason).”

The fans don't want silly, we want smart.


“We don’t have any set rules on contract lengths. We were willing to give Rhodes and Suzuki four year contracts. One thing Pat Gillick and Bill Bavasi are aware of are that long-term contracts are risky.”

No rules, yet in the past five years only two players have signed four year contract offers?


“Our budget for the next fiscal year will include an operating loss in the millions, partly because we will maintain a top 10 payroll.”

Obviously they are anticipating a considerable drop in attendance, as they should be.


“This was the toughest year…way we played was unexpected…we disappointed the fans…we, as an organization, felt good coming out of spring training.”

“This was a very disappointing season…unacceptable…we called up our ML ready prospects becaue we are bound and determined to give Bavasi the ability to discover holes and figure out where the priorities lie.”

“It was swing and miss. We couldn’t anticipate the decline of the veterans. It was hard to believe that after Ichiro and Winn there was nothing.”

What?!? Where the hell have these guys been since last year? These were some of the most disturbing parts of the interview. Groz had asked questions pertaining to a change in the organizational philosophies when it came to evaluating players due to the results of this past season. The majority of the blogoshpere anticipated a significant drop off from numerous players, (nothing as severe as what actually occurred though). This further illustrates that the brain trust of the team really doesn’t understand what went wrong.

The final tidbit is one that DMZ and the other fans of the beer garden should be pleased to hear:

“The bricks will be moved this offseason. I was amazed that no one noticed that the temporary bleachers covered up a section of the bricks, albeit a small one. Every organization makes mistakes and we are extremely sorry for covering up those bricks... It will be rare that those bleachers will be up in the near future.”

Nothing to new came out of the interview that we didn’t already know, but it is just further evidence that they aren’t ready to make the necessary changes required to turn this team around quickly.

Breaking Down Bob Finnigan's "M's try to head off winter of discontent".

About all that is widely known is that the Mariners will have money to work with — while less than previous speculation, it should be about $20 million to $22 million...

How many times have we heard that one? The Mariners currently have ~$64m tied up in 2005 payroll once you factor in incentives for Boone and Moyer, and the money we sent to San Diego in the Cirillo trade. Going with the $92m payroll figure cited by Lincoln later in the article, that would leave us with about $28m to spend this winter - exactly what has been speculated. Rookies who stick around on the roster next year (Madritsch, Lopez, Putz, possibly Reed, etc) won't cost much of anything, so the team should have more payroll flexibility than it has in recent memory.

"Anything we do," said general manager Bill Bavasi, who this week is leading organizational meetings in Peoria, Ariz., "will not just be for next season, but with an eye to 2005, 2006 and 2007."

It's a promising quotation, but then you scroll down:

Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln promised in a letter to season-ticket holders the team would return to contention as soon as possible.

What we have here are different plans. Mind you, they're not mutually exclusive - signing some of the younger free agent talents (Beltran, Beltre, Drew, etc) would accomplish both tasks. However, it leaves open the likely possibility that the club settles for three-year deals with the next Ibanez and Spiezio, stopgaps with a little name value who are beyond their best years, but not yet at the end of their careers. Lincoln wants the team to be successful again in order to generate fan interest and revenue, and emotions have a tendency to cloud rational thought. If and when you hear that the team is negotiating with Carlos Delgado, then you can be sure that nobody's learned anything.

"We won't try to fool our fans."

You mean like you did when you passed off Raul Ibanez as the big bat this team needed in the middle of the order? Like you did when you decided that Scott Spiezio would be an acceptable long-term solution to our Cirillo problem? Like you did when you declared that Ramon Santiago and The Bad Juan Gonzalez were an acceptable return on Carlos Guillen? Like you did when you claimed that Quinton McCracken was a valuable, versatile fourth outfielder? Like you did when you said that there was no way to predict this kind of dismal season?

"This club understandably got caught with some contracts," Bavasi said. "It's hard to have it end perfectly, where the club gets its money's worth and the player may be through. It's tough on either part."

Any single member of this blogosphere community could've told you that Scott Spiezio was a bad investment, champ. "Sure thing" contracts don't exist, but a little research can make it a simpler process. Besides, ignoring market value and caving in to the players' demands is no way to make sure that you get your money's worth.

Now, with former manager Bob Melvin paying the price of the lack of production that led to 99 losses, Bavasi and his staff must come up with a manager and an offense, ostensibly in that order, and more pitching and defense, too.

So, we need pitching, hitting, defense, and leadership - in other words, we're essentially starting from scratch. Except that we're not, because we already have a bunch of money tied up in 2005 payroll. You can dream about building the strongest, fastest car on the road, but you won't get very far when 70% of your starting material is balsa wood.

After he looked almost ready for the majors when rushed up this year, although not necessarily at shortstop, Lopez will play every day next season at age 21...If he is in the minors, honing his play at shortstop or moving to second or third, Seattle has opted to go for contention next season.

So, either we'll burn a year of service time on a player who isn't ready for an everyday ML job, or we'll send him to the minors after loading up the big league team with short-term veterans. When presented with the option of sacrificing a player or sacrificing a team, you will invariably choose the former. Now look, all of a sudden you're not so sure you want the team to contend next year...

"When you see Jolbert Cabrera hitting fifth, and Melvin had him there a lot the last four weeks, your offense is in trouble. In fact, you don't have an offense. Cabrera is a nice role guy but has to hit much lower in a big-league lineup. For Seattle, it will be tough to be real good very soon."

This is something the front office needs to figure out before they go after anyone. The 2004 Mariners were two top-tier position players away from contention. Signing a Carlos Delgado, a Derek Lowe, or a Corey Koskie isn't going to have much of an impact on next year's team. The recent strategy of surrounding our best bats and arms with mid-range players isn't going to cut it this time, because we don't *have* those bats and arms anymore. Edgar's gone, Boone's getting slower, Moyer's getting lit up, Pineiro may not pitch at all in 2005...looking at the players we'll have around next year, there is only one guy who you can confidently assume will turn in an above-average performance (Ichiro). The lineup and rotation each need to be rebuilt, because the core that's carried them for the last handful of years is almost entirely gone. It's one of the reasons that I'm cautiously optimistic about this offseason - the conservative front office has never faced a situation so drastic - but it's also one of the reasons that I wake up screaming at night, and realize that I hadn't even fallen asleep.

Dan Wilson, virtually a must-return free agent unless the Mariners can coax Jason Varitek to come back as a free agent...

What?

Longshot: Lopez, Miguel Olivo, Bucky Jacobsen.

What?

While the most common guess has been first base, with Toronto free agent Carlos Delgado often mentioned, Seattle has people who can play there, Ibanez for offense and Spiezio for defense.

Coincidentally, we have people who can play anywhere. It's pretty easy to change the sentence to "...while the most common guess has been third base, with Los Angeles free agent Adrian Beltre often mentioned, Seattle has people who can play there, Cabrera for offense and Bloomquist for defense." It works for any position. Left field? Winn, Reed, Ibanez. Shortstop? Lopez, Bloomquist. Center field? Winn and Reed again. Don't buy this. If you want to build a competitive roster and have a marginal player hanging around, you don't find a place to play that marginal player every day. Rather, you admit that you screwed up, get rid of him one way or another (trade, bench, waive), and bring in somebody better. Just because Jeremy Reed stands in the middle of the outfield 120 times a year doesn't mean that you cross Carlos Beltran off your list.

But they have no viable everyday option at third base.

With sufficient upgrades at other positions, I'm sure Leone and Cabrera could handle it.

Can Seattle land the likes of Lowell and/or Delgado?

Two over-30 hitters about to become expensive (although Carlos will still be taking a paycut) in free agency? Bad ideas come in pairs this year.

Once beyond Villone, whom the Mariners will try hard to re-sign, candidates for Seattle could be the likes of Derek Lowe, who pitched at times better than his Boston numbers showed, Brad Radke, Eric Milton, Matt Clement and Cory Lidle.

There are so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to begin (or even if it's worth it). Matt Clement is the only member of that list who even comes close to being a good idea. And how can you put him on the same level as Cory friggin' Lidle? Why are we trying hard to re-sign Ron Villone? Why does...he isn't...I don't...

Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright could figure, but good as they were in 2004 for Florida and Atlanta, each have had only one really good year.

How many really good years has Ron Villone had?

Figure first that Seattle might opt to add one reliever at least with experience as a closer, such as Scott Williamson, Bob Wickman or Ugueth Urbina.

First of all, Scott Williamson is going to miss all of 2005 following surgery - he'll be signed to the kind of wait-and-see contract that Jon Lieber got from New York. Secondly, what's the point of signing a "veteran closer" when A) the options aren't very good, B) the team isn't going to compete in 2005, particularly if a closer is high on the list of offseason priorities, and C) Guardado's still under contract, and Soriano is considered our "closer of the future"? Where is the possible benefit here?

I do like the idea of dealing for Scot Shields (next sentence in the article), though.

The Mariners certainly won't deal Madritsch, whose work in the majors put him on the same can't-miss level as super prospect Felix Hernandez

What?

Thus, to trade, Bavasi could try to peddle the likes of Olivo, who had a dropoff in play that stunned Seattle officials after he came over from the White Sox

The bad Miguel Olivo was every bit as good offensively as Dan Wilson. Trading him - one of the few remaining young bright spots in the organization - would make me question whether or not following this team is really worth the time and effort.

It is unknown if Seattle has enough to bring in the likes of Tampa Bay's Aubrey Huff or Arizona's Shea Hillenbrand.

How are...Hillenbrand...same level of...it doesn't...

or make a big play for Miguel Tejada, now that his contract has a more acceptable five years to go.

This might be my favorite part of the article. So giving Tejada a six-year deal is inconceivable, but trading for him after an extremely productive first season somehow makes sense? If the organization was afraid of getting burned in the later years of the deal...well, nothing's changed. I can't explain how I'm feeling right now - I don't think a sufficient word exists, although if it did, it would be close to "confuriated".

Using more Mariners-like sensibility, they might try Omar Vizquel again. The Wiz has wanted back to Seattle for some time and showed he is healthy with a solid 2004 season.

How sensible - dealing for a 37 year old shortstop with a .246 career EqA. But hey, at least he proved our team doctors wrong by playing in 148 games last year. Seriously, is there any good news *anywhere* in this article?

But that's the perfect world of re-building, now for reality time.

If that's the perfect world, then just kill me now.

Art Thiel interviewed Howard Lincoln yesterday and once again delivered an excellent article. I encourage everyone to read the transcript of the interview and draw your own conclusions. For the first time since Lincoln has been here, I get the distinct impression that he is finally getting it, but continues to talk out of both sides of his mouth. Only time will tell if he is actually committed to improving the ballclub or just talking the talk without walking the walk.

From the Seattle Times:

If speculation proves correct, his second chance might come quickly. Arizona newspapers are reporting that Melvin, who came to Seattle after being the Diamondbacks' bench coach, is high on that club's list of managerial candidates.

Word is Arizona president Jerry Colangelo called Melvin yesterday, but whether he gets the job or another one, he is expected to make Bryan Price his pitching coach.

Personally, I believe Price has been given a lot more credit than he should be given for turning around the pitchers in Seattle. Since Price took control in 1999, the quality of pitchers that have come through the system has been much improved, (Bobby Ayala and Heathcliff Slocumb to Arthur Rhodes and Jeff Nelson). Part of this can be credited to Price, but a large part of the credit goes to the scouting department and front office for bringing in and drafting better pitchers. You also can't ignore the impact SafeCo has had on the pitchers either. Add to the equation the numerous career threatening injuries to our young pitchers since 2000 and the thought of losing Price doesn't appear to be as negative as some may think. While I'm not advocating for Price's removal, if he does in fact leave, this is one fan that won't be that upset.

Reflecting on 2004:

Oops.

Roger Jongewaard is gone.

His recent drafts have been undeniably terrible, but Jongewaard deserves praise for playing an instrumental role in extending the club's focus towards Asia and Australia, from which he was able to snag Shin-soo Choo, Travis Blackley, Chris Snelling, Cha Baek, and a handful of others.

Also, Bob Melvin speaks out:

"I appreciate Bill respecting my privacy," Melvin said yesterday. "But I have no problem telling you that, among other things, what he said was the primary reason (for the manager's dismissal) was that the players who left here did better, and the players we brought in didn't.

You be the judge.

From the beginning of his tenure, Bill Bavasi found numerous ways to rub me the wrong way. From the seemingly clueless way he went about business this past winter, to the absurd comments he used to help justify the ridiculous free agent pick-ups and trades, nothing he did made me confident that he was capable of taking the reigns and steering the M’s in the right direction. In short, I blamed Bavasi for trying to patch several holes in the hull of a sinking ship with band aids and bubble gum. Bavasi earned some redemption points in the early part of the season when he DFA’d Kevin Jarvis. Then he was able to receive a king’s ransom for a player they weren’t going to bring back in 2005, Freddy Garcia. Then the difficult decision to DFA fan favorite John Olerud and free agent flop Rich Aurilia. Over the course of this painful season, he had slowly gained my respect and I had become increasingly tolerant of him and the job he was doing. Then the difficult decision on Monday, a decision that was difficult to make and one that was handled extremely well, all things considered. No matter what your opinion of the firing of Bob Melvin is, it is hard to chastise the way Bavasi handled it. There was no mud slinging. No statement of flaws or personality conflicts. Bavasi had every right to do what he did, and he doesn’t need to tell us anymore than he let us know. Personally, if I am ever fired from a job, I would hope to get such a strong vote of confidence from my previous employer. With that being said, this is now Bavasi’s team. He led the organizational meetings this year. He is surrounded by people that he has worked with for over a year now. He will have a coaching staff that he has picked. No more excuses Bill. Most rational fans know you aren’t fully responsible for steering this organization into a nosedive, but you are the one who has to pull us out it.

Jeff talked earlier about the quote Bavasi made about his managerial search. During yesterday’s press conference, Bavasi said, “We'll probably target somebody, go after them, and go from there.” This quote is actually not as complex as confusing as it might sound. In fact, it’s kind of encouraging if you ask me. We all remember the revolving door of managerial candidates that interviewed for the opening back in 2002, with the relatively unknown Bob Melvin receiving the job. What Bavasi is trying to say in this quote is that they aren’t going to interview everyone on their list. Instead, they are going to discuss the possibilities internally, narrow the list to a few candidates, with one person they feel is the best possible choice, and then take it from there. This illustrates that, at the very least, Bavasi has a certain type of manager in mind, and isn’t going to just interview everyone he can. I’m not going to even begin to speculate who I think will land the job or who I feel should get the job, but Derek lists and analyzes the possibilities in great detail. I will say this though, I fully expect a new manager to be named before the World Series, as long as Anaheim isn’t representing the AL.

Bavasi, on how he'll find a successor to Melvin:

``We'll probably target somebody, go after them, and go from there,'' he said.

This runs counter to the time-tested practice of calling randomly selected numbers from the phone book whilst ignoring the list of potential candidates put together by your assistant.

So I spent the afternoon watching playoff baseball, as any college student with a difficult course load would do. Having picked up on a few things early in the game, I decided to pay careful attention to the commentary during the remainder of the Dodgers/Cardinals tilt to see if the announcers were discussing anything of substance. What I heard a lot of was:

"_ plays the game the right way."

"_ knows what he's doing in the batter's box."

_ has a plan when he's at the plate."

"I look at this guy's approach and I know that he's a ballplayer."

"_ can throw the ball a little bit."

"_ swings the bat and makes things happen."

What does this mean? What constitutes playing the game "the right way"? Can you play it the wrong way? Can you compromise and play it the satisfactory way? After Doug Mientkiewicz dropped down an RBI bunt single late in the Boston/Anaheim game, Rick Sutcliffe uttered such a cliche, which got me wondering: had Mientkiewicz instead elected to swing away and, say, hit a double, would *that* then become the "right way", or would it be an intolerable breach of Sutcliffe's traditional conventions? Things to ponder.

What piqued my interest more than anything else, though, was in the first inning, when Sutcliffe pointed out that Anaheim is among the leaders in Productive Outs. You may have read about this new statistic in the latest Buster Olney piece of literary debris, or perhaps you stumbled across it accidentally whilst perusing the ESPN stats page. The definition is as follows:

A Productive Out, as defined and developed by ESPN The Magazine and the Elias Sports Bureau: when a fly ball, grounder or bunt advances a runner with nobody out...or when a grounder or fly ball scores a run with one out.

The first thing you notice is that Montreal leads all ML teams in PO% (productive outs divided by the opportunities to *create* a productive out). This gets you thinking: does Productive Out Percentage really mean anything at all? Is there any kind of correlation between making productive outs and scoring a bunch of runs?

Most people would stop there. Fortunately for those people, I've done the dirty work. Observe:




The chart shows that, on average, the higher a team's PO%, the lower its run total. "Well, that makes it sound bad to make productive outs!" you say to yourself. "Surely there must be a problem with the data. Of course, park factors! Certain hitters' or pitchers' parks may be skewing the data!"

Well...




Even when you remove ballpark environment from the equation, you're still left with the same trend (albeit to a slightly lesser degree). Now, we can't establish that correlation = causation, that making productive outs directly results in fewer runs scored, but what we *can* say with certainty is that productive outs don't help a team.

How about on an individual basis, then? If you take a quick look at the player leaderboard, you see names like Tony Womack, Miguel Cairo, and Mark DeRosa at or near the top. Again, you think to yourself, "Man, there sure are some crummy players up here." Let's take a look at how player performance is related to PO%. We'll remove park factors again by using EqA:




We see the same trend: the more often a player makes a productive out, the lower his positive contribution to the offense. It's a natural assumption - a player who makes a bunch of "productive outs" is, it follows, making a lot of outs in general. For this reason, the term "productive out" is something of an oxymoron.

Productive outs are nonsense. The Old Tymers' answer to Baseball Prospectus and SABR research is, like many of their cliches, poorly thought out and doesn't show the audience anything of substance. You can clap until your palms bleed every time Darin Erstad hits behind the runner and moves a guy to second base, but at the end of the day, it's still an out, and all you've accomplished is to take the bat out of the hands of a guy who might've otherwise been able to extend the inning.

Quote of the Day:

"I think you'd rather pitch to the pitcher here."

-Joe Morgan, discussing strategic approaches to facing #8 hitter Mike Matheny with two out, a man on second, and Woody Williams on deck.

Update: ...and Matheny homers in the fourth. Of course.

Update#2: the hits just keep on coming. From Morgan:

"I don't look at stats. I look at approaches, how hitters approach left-handed pitchers."

He went on to justify his statement by stating that "...over the course of a season, averages will even out, but in a short series, they don't mean a thing."

If you want information on managerial candidates, go see what DMZ has to say (to be updated as more names come to mind). I won't even try to compete with his list.

Assessing the Impact of Rick Peterson on a Pitching Staff, Part II:

Back on July 20th, Prospectus Triple Play took a look at how Oakland and New York Met starters were performing relative to their 2003 campaigns, before Rick Peterson changed alliegances. Using K/BB to reflect Peterson's influence, it was hypothesized at the time that he had helped turn Tom Glavine around, while Hudson and Mulder sorely missed their mentor.

Now we've reached the end of the year, and we can take an objective look at the numbers. What follows is a list of names, followed the percentage by which their K/BB either increased or got worse:

Oakland
Hudson: -12.0%
Mulder: -47.2%
Zito: +23.6%
Harden: +21.1%

New York
Glavine: +25.8%
Leiter: -18.2%
Seo: -54.8%
Trachsel: -17.5%

There are a few things to consider on the A's side: one, Mark Mulder pitched down the stretch with a suspected injury, and Rich Harden only spent a portion of his 2003 campaign with Peterson in Oakland (after putting up impressive K/BB ratios in the minor leagues).

Let's look at how the full pitching staffs did:

Oakland: -6.9%
New York: +5.1%

There is a bit of a swing, there. However, in the PTP article referenced above, the Mets were up 13.2% - over the rest of the year, they experienced significant regression back to the 2003 mean. New York's staff certainly didn't improve over the course of the summer, not the kind of effect you'd expect a well-renowned pitching coach to have.

A lot of Oakland's decline can be attributed to factors out of Peterson's control, as well: replacing Lilly with Redman, losing Keith Foulke (and attempting to replace him with an inconsistent Arthur Rhodes), and Mulder's aches and pains.

So how can we judge the effect of Rick Peterson? Well, Mulder was showing significant decline before he supposedly got injured, Kris Benson started throwing more strikes in New York, and the Mets were able to gather good performances from Braden Looper, Ricky Bottalico, Orber Moreno, and Mike DeJean (among others). However, there just isn't much evidence here that the Mets benefited a great deal from Peterson's arrival.

What's most disappointing to me is that we won't get to see how he works with Scott Kazmir. Keeping young pitchers comfortable and healthy is how Peterson earned his reputation in Oakland, and inheriting an old staff in New York didn't leave much for him to work with. Time will tell how young pitchers respond to his instruction in future seasons, but right now, the Mets just aren't in the right situation for a pitching coach to help out that much.

So long, Bob.

Melvin's out. All that needs to be said has already been said.

Best of luck to Melvin in his future endeavours - he's a nice enough guy, and his experience with both contending and rebuilding teams will help build his resume as he searches for employment elsewhere.

Bob Melvin was fired this morning as the manager of the Seattle Mariners and a press conference has been called at 11:30 this morning to announce the move. This isn't a huge surprise and the club should begin their search for a new skipper immediately. In my opinion, Bob Melvin did as good a job as he could have the past two seasons and in the end, it wasn't enough. I don't view this as the M's making Bob Melvin the scape goat for the 2004 season but the Mariners taking their first step in their rebuilding/retooling process. Bob Melvin was brought in and deemed the anti-Lou and a veterans manager. The 2005 version of this team should not resemble any team from the past 5 years and with the apparent change or tweaking of some of the organizational philosophies, the move had to be made. Hopefully the club acts swiftly in replacing Melvin and will continue to make the necessary steps to make the rebuilding process quick and as painless as possible.

The rest of the coaching staff was also told they could pursue jobs elsewhere and the the club would not renew any of their contracts. The only coach that was retained was Bryan Price.

EDGAR MARTINEZ, #11

Debut: 9/12/87
First at bat: 9/14/87
First hit: 9/14/87 (Triple)
Last hit: 10/1/04 (Single)
Last game: 10/3/04
Last at bat: Double play

Games: 2049
At Bats: 7187
Hits: 2242
Doubles: 514
Home Runs: 309
Walks: 1282
Runs: 1216
RBI: 1259
Batting Average: .312
On Base Percentage: .419
Slugging Percentage: .517
Equivalent Average: .316
Runs Created: 1525
Stolen Bases: 49
Stolen Hearts: Immeasurable

There are so many things to be said.

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has the words to say them.

Derek Zumsteg came the closest, so I'll leave you with his outstanding piece from last September. If you cried during tonight's ceremony (and I'm not sure how you couldn't), this'll bring those tears right back.

No posts until our season is over. This is Edgar's time.