I haven’t spent much time in front of the computer or in front of the TV lately.  I have lots of family in town and I’m days away from embarking on a series of trips (some work, mostly vacation) that’ll have me away from Washington for 41 days consecutively, so sorry for the lack of updates!  Scott was just married and I believe is still on his honeymoon so he’s got other stuff on his plate (as he should), so I’ll have to send some naggy emails to the rest of the BBT roster to start picking up the slack.  In case you’re wondering, of my 41 day absence I’ll only be completely out of the loop for the first 16 days or so, at which point I should be able to log onto MLB.tv and catch most of the games late-night from the east coast. 

Alright!  Catching up… As I’m sure all of you know by now, Jeff Clement was optioned to AAA Tacoma on Sunday after struggling in his first non-September MLB stint.  Kenji Johjima recently snapped out of his season long slump, making this move possible. 

The silver lining to this one is that Seattle may be able to delay Clement’s free agent eligibility by one year, if we understand this correctly.  He was originally called up just days before the supposed deadline.

Jeremy Reed was called up to take his 25-man roster spot, and becomes Seattle’s only true outfielder off the bench.  Reed has been fantastic in AAA this year and last, but still hasn’t proven himself in the big leagues.  He could very well be one of those dreaded “4A” players, or players that are studs in AAA or Japan but can’t hold down a starting job in the MLB.  Time will only tell.  If Reed does well with Seattle during this stint it will certainly help his trade value.  He’s been mentioned in rumors since the offseason for various teams, but mainly the Rays and Padres.

In other minor news, Seattle claimed right handed reliever Tracey Thorpe off of waiver to fill one of the empty 40-man roster spots.  The 27 year old, standing 6′4 and weighing in at around 250 pounds, progressed slowly through the Blue Jays’ organization, but has put up some okay numbers throughout his minor league career, including some excellent strikeout rates, but isn’t anything spectacular.  If there’s one thing you can never stockpile too much of it’s cheap pitching, so this is a fine move by Seattle.