Roster Moves to Expect
by Jon Shields ~ July 31st, 2008
It looks as though Ryan Rowland-Smith is going to fill Arthur Rhodes’ roster spot, bumping R.A. Dickey to the bullpen. Dickey has been great as a starter, but the bottom line is that manager Jim Riggleman doesn’t feel comfortable with the knuckleball, something that has been reported on various occasions. Dickey would become the long reliever, something Seattle has been doing without while RRS was in AAA.
After that Brandon Morrow will likely be sent down to get stretched out and will be replaced by a Tacoma arm, either Tracy Thorpe or Jared Wells. Neither has been impressive, in fact they’ve been downright awful, but they’re the only minor league relievers currently on the 40-man roster besides Eric O’Flaherty, who’s injured. Both pitchers were acquired this season, Thorpe from the Blue Jays and Wells from the Padres.
At some point in the near future you would think that Seattle would unload Jose Vidro. There isn’t a single reason why he’s on the team. I’m assuming they were hoping to pawn him off on someone before the deadline. He should be DFA’s as soon as possible, but there is a chance they hold onto him one more month in hopes of dealing him before the August trade deadline, which would be ridiculous. He’d clear waivers without a problem, but no team would take Vidro, even if they were having a first base/DH crisis. Just drop him, Lee!
Once he’s gone that opens the door for Wladimir Balentien, who starts in the outfield and bumps Raul Ibanez to DH. There will be an open 40-man roster spot at that point, probably reserved for Michael Saunders. At that point I don’t see any other 25-man roster moves happening until the roster expands for September.
15 Responses to Roster Moves to Expect
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1 August 1st, 2008 at 11:58 am
I really feel like hiring an interim general manager has set this franchise behind the 8-ball again. Had a GM been in a position to lead this team for the next 2 or 3 years, I think you would have seen a lot more movement. New faces need to show up in the lineup to replace the old, not just substitute, to change the aura of a season that went so horribly wrong, and to see some promise for the future. It would be awful to see Felix Hernandez and Brandon Morrow develop on a team with no immediate future, and to watch Ichiro become a side note as the Mariners continue their descent into irrelevance would be a disgrace. The fans of Seattle deserve better. It’s not going to get much worse than it is right now, so I hope there are a ton of waiver deals this month for the M’s, so they can have a fairly clean slate going into this off season and beyond.
http://www.centralmainesportsblog.com
2 August 1st, 2008 at 8:51 pm
-maybe the new manager will have faith in Dickey? knuckleball discrimination grinds my gears.
-those other moves seem likely, I’d kill to see Morrow starting by september
how’s this for a rotation next year?
1. king felix
2. bedard
3. dickey
4. rrs
5. morrow
batista to the bullpen, washburn in pinstripes
and in an ideal world, silva is eating a hamburger somewhere and not giving up a gazillion runs
3 August 1st, 2008 at 8:54 pm
You left out the fact that Washburn will clear waivers and be picked up by either the Rockies or the Yankees.
4 August 1st, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Matty- hiring permanent GMs mid-season hardly ever happens. Hopefully Seattle will get someone worthwhile this offseason..
5 August 2nd, 2008 at 5:11 am
Jon you are right, and I don’t understand why. To me many franchises have had their immediate futures uncovered at the deadline, and who pulls the trigger? Yeah, the interim GM. To me it’s like having your dog walker choose your homes insurance policy. If you have the foresight to fire your gm, you should have the foresight to know who want to replace him.
6 August 2nd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Most of the guys we could hire are still under contract until the end of this year. (see Cashman’s dilemma post from a few days ago)
7 August 2nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I don’t get Riggleman’s k-ball discrimination.
Once every five days, it’s Dickey time. And odds are, he’ll turn out a decent, not a gem, but a decent start, with the occasional outlier of a blowup. I love Dickey. Even when he gets hit around, it’s still something else to see a knuckleball while you’re falling behind in the division, as opposed to straight fastballs for innings and innings.
8 August 2nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Though, seatown, I think Dickey as a #3 guy could be looking wayyyy to high. Switch Morrow and Dickey or Hyphen and Dickey.
9 August 2nd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
yea..it’ll be interesting how rrs and morrow pan out
gosh, silva was just too good to be true at the start of the year, wasn’t he?
10 August 2nd, 2008 at 9:10 pm
We called up Jake Woods to fill the open roster spot. Looks like Dickey will get to keep his spot in the rotation..at least for now.
11 August 2nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Whatever happened to Woods anyway? I remember him being somewhat of an interesting prospect, but I guess that he hasn;t turned out to much.
Wang will be out for the rest of the year, so does this make the Yankees reconsider, or more heavily consider Jarrod Washburn in an August trade?
12 August 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Woods was a decent back-of-the-rotation guy with not very much of a ceiling.
Think Baek, not Aumont.
13 August 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Rosenthal says that the Yankees won’t acquire Washburn via waivers
14 August 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I completely forgot about Woods when I said that “Thorpe and Wells are the only relievers on the 40 man besides O’Flaherty”.. oops.
15 August 3rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I dont understand why Riggleman doesnt feel comfortable with a knuckleballer. I feel way more comfortable with Dickey picthing than Silva or Washburn.