Julio Lugo, Brock Lesnar, Yuniesky Betancourt, Dayton Moore, and you

Can we just quit adding players from Seattle? They stink. Meche was a good move, the rest of them have been average or worse.

or Dayton's favorite, the ex-Brave ex-Mariner: that's why he acquired Horacio Ramirez twice.

He truly casts his net widely.

Scouting reports from Seattle and Atlanta in 2005 and 2006 must be much more reliable than those wacky defensive stats.

He's doing a heckuva job.

Prepare the parade route!

This is one that I don't get. We just keep adding players from one of the OTHER worst teams of the last decade. Do we really have that much faith in our coaching staff to turn a bunch of guys who are bad in Seattle to a bunch of guys who are good in KC?

You're going to include Ron Mahay in the "bad deals" category?
He was THE BEST shut down left handed set up man in the league last year until he hurt his foot at the end of the year, and after a very shaky start this year, he is still a 38 year old veteran major leaguer who has an ERA+ of 100 (meaning he is league average) and is making only a little bit above major league average salary.

And for the money (below major league average), Ross Gload was not a bad roster piece to have, we just used him incorrectly.

Mike Jacobs has been TERRIBLE, I agree, but if you are looking for some power on the cheap (yes, for an arbitration eligible player with over 30 home runs Mike Jacobs was inexpensive) that was the way to go. The other powerful alternative was Adam Dunn (who probably would have been worth paying double considering how good he has been and how bad Jacobs has been, and could he have been any worse in right field than Guillen?).

Sometimes you just get unlucky.

you do realize that, even if Mahay was a league average pitcher (according to ERA+), that means that since he's a reliever, he's pretty much a replacement level player, right? I.E. worth a league minimunm contract?

So Dayton only overpaid about $3.6M for him last year.

Good thing players always get better with age. Relievers peak at 40, right?

That never happens!

Any deal for a veteran player who ends up getting hurt turns into a bad deal? Like we should be able to figure out which 35 year old bullpen guys are going to have ligament damage in their feet? Give me a break.

The injury thing is jsut icing on the cake. Or, if you're a Dayton Moore apologist, it's another "not that we're using injuries as an exicuse!" excuse. His overall numbers on the years resembled his prior few years of performance -- what a shock!

At 2/$8M, Mahay needed to be about 1 WAR each season to make the deal pay off. He didn't come close last season, and this season he's looking like a totallyl sunk cost, not unlike most of Dayton Moore's brilliant signings of mediocre veterans.

...are worth more than just their pitching. Think about all the young pitchers that can be helped my a veteran. Do you think the Dodgers or Padres made a bad deal when they picked up Greg Maddux? Yeah, Mad Dog was way past his prime and had a 4+ ERA, but the knowledge he passed along to those young pitchers was worth every penny. Not to say you should sign every veteran, but I think Mahay was beneficial to Nunez and Ramirez. Then we traded them away, so that point is moot now, but the principle remains the same.
Paul L.

since they doesn't factor in defense, batted-ball luck, etc. Especially over one season, and especially for relievers, since the sample sizes are so small they factor out luck.

Even figuring in leverage, Mahay was at best a 0.5 win above replacement player last season. That means he was worth, at most, half of his salary. That was a perfectly predictable outcome. And that's using FIP -- he was worse with that according to more sophisticated stats like tRA. And the Royals are on the hook for just as much for his replacement level performance this year.

Ross Gload might be okay at the minimum, but to not only given him an arb settlement (instead of cutting him and acquiring a nother replacement level, i.e., freely available player at the minimum), but a second year... why isn't Dayton Moore roundly mocked for this by the press whenever he mentions "payroll limitations."

Mike Jacobs... comparable to Adam Dunn? He's about 2.5 wins worse than Dunn with the bat so far this season. Guess what? This is what all those silly "bloggers" (who supposedly are going to be proved dead wrong about Betancourt, too) projected. He's a player who's so bad on defense, that Billy Butler starts every game at 1B. Oh, and he can't hit. He has 32 homers with a bit of luck and a lot of National League pitching. Even then he had a sub-.300 OBP. And he was horrible the year before that... He could be substantially better with the bat and he would still be a terrible player.

"Unlucky" is when you do the right thing that most informed observers would agree with and it goes bad. Almost all the people Dayton Moore is saying "were wrong about Gil Meche" also said that Guillen was terrible on defense/can't hit/when it was signed, said the Jacobs trade was terrible at the time the trade was made, know that ERA is a bad way to evaluate relievers, etc.

It's okay if fans aren't on board with projection, regression to the mean, the difficulty difference between leagues, defense-independent pitching stats, and the cost of a marginal win.

For a General Manager, it's a sign of incompetence.

I've heard rumors we have the games best closer .... haven't seen him
apparently we can only use him in the 9th ing
if ahead by 1-3 runs.

I'm sure we'll get him some work in Sunday's 15-1 blowout so he stays sharp. He's probably tired from pitching so
much over the AS break and you can't complain about
Bale and Cruz those guys are on fire- keep running them out there in the 8th what could go wrong- ah nevermind KC it's all good we got to eat nachos, winning is for those big cities.

You forgot Wright and Colon being on fire. Oh and Farnsworth has been on fire all year too.

As a true fan of baseball, it does sadden me to see the talent we waste up here in the Pacific Northwest. We gave away Lil' O and The Big Unit...for who?
ETC...

...and you people in KC cry about the talent you get from us???

Sure, I know we haven't given you George Brent, Jr ... but we don't have him. Gotta talk to George about that deal.

We could use Gil Meche now ... but we don't have him. We REALLY NEED Willie right now, but The Powers That Be wouldn't sign him to a minimum MLB contract, which is all it really would have taken to keep him 'home'.

Jose? We wouldn't renew his contract. Sure, he's run into trouble since he's been in KC, but he's still an everyday player, and like every journeyman, will or won't play himself outta his funk. Maybe the explosion he had ... based upon himself, will do some good.

Yuni? We got a couple of average AA arms for him, and now suffer with somebody with a batting average under The Mendoza Line. The expression, sadly enough, came from another Mariner's shortstop!

I know you haven't had a good run this year ... and prob'ly the way you see it, for a coupla years. It's part of the game, described by the elusive term "Chemistry". When you have it, you win ... when you don't, well...

Jamie Moyer and Raul Ibanez went to Philly ... remember Raul? You got him from us, and then gave him back. Look what he's doing now! And Jamie? Well, he's still throwing .600 ball, and now has a World Series ring to sport with his 250+ wins. Damn shame he spent twelve years w/the Mariners, because his lack of run support cost him a lock on the Hall of Fame.

It's a game, boys and girls, played by overly-talented humans, subject to the whims of everyday life. My question is: Are you a fan of the game? ... or are you a 'homer'?