I suppose there is a chance that Ryan Feierabend fills Batista’s spot, he certainly deserves it, but with RRS last starting on the same day as Batista it makes it really easy to slot him and let him pitch on regular rest.

Hickey also reports that Jeremy Reed will start receiving starts at first base, where he spent a lot of time in college.  This is another good move, in my opinion.  It appears that the team is choosing not to value defense in a lost season, allowing Raul Ibanez to stay in left field rather than shifting to DH; a dying man’s wish, if you will.  With Raul and Ichiro firmly entrenched at the corners (I don’t see them moving Ichiro back to center field, even though that would make a world of difference), center field and left/right backup duties are pretty crowded, being rotated between Wlad Balentien, Willie Bloomquist and Reed. 

Reed has been hot in his last 10 games or so, while Bryan LaHair still has people thinking he’s good after two games in Texas.  If you haven’t noticed, he’s not so awesome, hitting five singles in eight games since then, so giving some of his at bats to Reed isn’t a bad thing at all.

The lineups are going to be a mess from here on out.  Three guys behind the plate, about four guys at first base (LaHair, Reed, Clement, Cairo) and five guys fighting for outfield spots, with the DH slot taking someone left over; and it’s not even September callups yet!

Team: Rookie-level AZL Mariners (Arizona League)
Age: 18
Why He’s Here: .400/.455/1.050 (8-for-20), 1 2B, 4 HR, 5 RBIs, 2 BB, 4 SO
The Scoop:It takes a pretty impressive performance from a complex-league player to land on the Hot Sheet, but DeJesus turned some heads with the power he displayed this week. DeJesus was signed last year out of the Dominican Republic for $1 million as a shortstop, but his big frame has already warranted a move to third base. Many draw comparisons between DeJesus and Carlos Triunfel, another prized Mariners shortstop prospect, but DeJesus has shown more power than Triunfel displayed in his first two professional seasons. DeJesus’ success should not come as a complete surprise as he was highly touted coming out of the Dominican Republic and is a year older than most international signees from 2007, because he didn’t sign in 2006, when he was eligible, due to his bonus demands.

When I put together my All Minor League Team post a few days ago, DeJesus was merely an afterthought. Not because he didn’t deserve to be on there, but because I had written the entire thing before remembering him, not to mention he was playing for Seattle’s lowest minor league affiliate. Either way, this guy has just been promoted to Everett and will find himself top-5 prospect status sooner than later, if he hasn’t already.  You can see his complete 2008 statistics here.

UPDATE: Didn’t catch this, but Churchill’s latest “Farm Report” is focused on DeJesus as well.  It’s full of some good info, so check it out!

One of the team’s weaknesses was the shortage of worthwhile starters in the upper levels.  In just a few short weeks the organization has added three guys to go along with Ryan Feierabend in Ryan Rowland-Smith, Gaby Hernandez and Brandon Morrow.  While Morrow is the only one with true impact potential, the other guys are exactly the type of pitchers the organization needs to produce from within.  These guys can better or at least match the numbers produced by Miguel Batista, Jarrod Washburn, Carlos Silva while costing nearly $30 million less per season.  Wouldn’t it be nice to spend that $30 million on an impact bat, covering their salary for more than just one season, rather than on one year of filling the back of the rotation?

Those guys are still here for now, but Washburn and Batista are only under contract through next season, if they make it that far at all, and hopefully the new GM will be smart enough to fill those holes from within.

The only thing left to do this season would be to move Batista from the starting rotation (7.07 ERA) to the bullpen (4.15 ERA), and replace him with Rowland-Smith or Feierabend.  That gives you a rotation that includes Felix Hernandez, Washburn, Silva, RA Dickey, RRS/Feierabend.  If Washburn is dumped this month then he can be replaced by the other one.  That should work out fine until the rosters expand for September, at which point Morrow should be ready to make a few starts.

Who takes Washburn?

The New York Yankees have supposedly bowed out, and the Colorado Rockies filled their rotation with Livan Hernandez, so is there anyone left to take Jarrod Washburn’s salary off of the Mariners’ hands?

We won’t know until three days after he’s placed on waivers, which probably won’t come until the end of August once GM Pelekoudas has finally given up on getting something back, but the prospects of him entering the offseason as a Mariner are seeming more realistic than a month ago. 

That said, there is still a lot of time for a team to become desperate for a “solid” starter.

Teixiera Blurb

Mark Teixiera’s three favorite places to play are New York, Los Angeles and Seattle, according to the LA Times.  That’s a surprise to me, but would Seattle have a chance at signing him because of this?  I doubt it, because he’s already on a winning team in Los Angeles that will probably try and extend him, especially if it meant keeping him out of Seattle.  Also, as good as he is offensively, he’s looking for a ten year deal, which is never a good idea in my opinion.  I used to be extremely gung ho about the prospect of signing Tex, but 10 years is an awfully long time to commit to, especially when you aren’t confident that the organization can pull together the remaining pieces.

UPDATE: Wlad has been called up to take Vidro’s roster spot according to Ryan Divish.

Jared Wells is being promoted, which baffles me.  Ryan Rowland-Smith should be promoted, pushing Miguel Batista into Morrow’s former role.  The only way this makes sense is if they just want an extra arm until Batista/RRS’s turn comes back around, in which time they’ll jettison Wells.

Wells has been pretty bad this year in AAA, but relievers have a funny way of playing well in the major leagues despite shotty track records.  Hopefully he is one of those guys.

I’m just throwing this out there, because I think I had been relaying incorrect figures in the past.  Larry Stone had the scoop back in May.

Not counting tonight’s game, Vidro has 325 plate appearances so far this season.  He has 950 plate appearances between 2007 and 2008, meaning he needs 280 more plate appearances this season in order for his 2009 option to vest. 

There are 51 games left this season, so he’d need 5-6 plate appearances per game in order for the option to vest, which is impossible.  Hopefully he won’t be around all season, but at least if he does we know he won’t be back next year.

There are still questions about whether he’ll be able to put together an entire season after dropping off the past couple years; questions that won’t be completely answered until the 2008 season is in the books.  Manager Jim Riggleman said on a recent pre-game show that Lopez is arriving early and getting extra work in alongside Raul Ibanez and Adrian Beltre, something he hasn’t done in the past, which is good to hear since there have also been concerns about his work ethic and focus in the past.  (Off topic, but this is the reason dealing guys like Ibanez and Beltre isn’t always an easy decision.  Raul has always been known as someone that takes the young guys under his wing and is fluent in both Spanish and English, which doesn’t hurt, while Beltre is considered by some teammates as the unofficial captain, according to what Shannon Drayer told us recently.)

If Lopez is part of the organization’s long term plans I don’t think he’ll stay at second base.  He’s arguably the worst defensive second baseman in the game, mainly because his range is so limited (see comments).  There will be better options at the position coming up through the system, including AAA’s Luis Valbuena, who is an above average glove and should be able to pull his weight with the stick after some more time with Tacoma.  Yuniesky Betancourt could even be moved to second base, where he would be much better suited due to his own lack of range, and where he showed he could excel after his call up in 2005.

Lopez may be better off at third base and could be moved there whenever Adrian Beltre departs, whether it be via trade or via free agency next year; a position switch that is made plausible by the organization’s lack of impact third base prospects.  He has played a handful of games at third throughout his career and proved that he has the throwing arm to handle the position.  He has struggled at times, but that can be attributed to unfamiliarity.  His bat doesn’t really fit the mold of a corner infielder at this point, which is the main problem, though he has been hitting well in the fifth spot recently.

Lopez had been hitting better than ever in the 2-hole this year and despite not walking enough for that spot, his .314/.331/.428 line was pretty solid.  He had a 101 OPS+ (OBP plus SLG, ballpark adjusted), which is one point above a league average hitter.  In 97 plate appearances in the 5-hole (23 games) his line is .322/.351/.533, which is good for an OPS+ of 132.  His slugging percentage in that slot is over 100 points higher than in the 2-hole, thanks to the 4 homers he’s hit there compared to the 5 home runs he hit in the 2-hole over 350 plate appearances.

Keep in mind that those 5-hole stats are based on an extremely small sample size, and we can expect the numbers to taper off a bit, especially once pitchers remember to stop throwing inner-half fastballs to him like they did in the 2006 season’s second half, though the raw power is no fluke.  As a prospect Lopez was thought to contain quite a bit of power.  He was putting up solid power numbers as a very young minor leaguer, including 13 homers and 35 doubles as a 19 year old in AA.  As a 20 year old he posted 18 homers over 482 at bats between AAA and Seattle.  He turns on that inside fastball as good as anyone in the game, and could become a force if he ever learns to jump on other pitches. 

The thing many of us seem to forget, myself included, is that Lopez is just 24 years old.  This is the fifth season that we’ve seen him, so it seems as if he’d be much older, but he is the same age as many of the system’s top prospects who’ve yet to see any big league action.  Despite his age Lopez has nearly 2000 MLB at bats under his belt, giving him a foundation that many players do not get.  He’s still a few years from hitting his physical prime, so he has time to become the offensive force the organization thought he would be as a top prospect years ago.

If Lopez can continue to develop his offensive game he’ll be a big part of Seattle’s lineup for a long time.  He is currently under team control through the 2011 season.  If the organization can realize that moving him to third will save runs, then that’s just icing on the cake.

The Mariners failed this trade deadline. Interum GM Lee Pelekoudas needed to show that he was up for the challenge of being the Mariners GM. His tenure with the Mariners in 2008 willl determine if he is in consideration for the 2009 GM spot. The trade deadline, at least to me, showed me that he is not the man for the job, in two areas specifically.

First and foremost, Lee Pelekoudas did not shed the baggage that Bill Bavasi brought upon the team. Pelekoudas did not provide some salary relief to this team. His Washburn deal with the Yankees fell through. He was not flexible in that deal, what-so-ever, and he wasn’t flexible in any other deal. Pelekoudas kept around the mistakes of Bavasi, which leads me to wonder, “What are you thinking?!?” He needed to get rid of as much Bavasi-salary as he could have, while still looking towards the future.

Secondly, Pelekoudas had extremely lofty, almost arrogant demands for his trade pieces. Some even characterized the GMs demands as “outrageous.” Arrogant, borderline stupid management of your trade bait will not get you into the final circle of consideration for the 2009 job.

I was cursing at my computer every time I hit refresh. Everytime I hit refresh all I read was “trade dead.” This was not the trade deadline that Mariners needed. We have no way to contend with this team. Shed the Bavasi-baggage.