FanPost Friday: Grab bag of Mariners goodies

Jan 27, 2023 - 7:11 PM

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Hello and welcome back to FanPost Friday. This week we’re going to round up the last couple weeks of Mariners offseason happenings, throw in some polls, and have a good old time.

First of all, there are approximately 17(!) days left until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. That’s barely 2.5 weeks! That means in about 17 days we’ll be getting some photos of pitchers running and stretching and then shortly after that we’ll be getting this year’s crop of Best Shape of His Life tweets. Personally, I can’t wait.

Speaking of best shape, Julio Rodríguez and Teoscar Hernández look pretty ready for Spring Training:

And speaking of Julio, if you’re like me and have felt dragged down by the abysmal offseason efforts to make the Mariners significantly better than last season, I highly recommend reading this glowing profile/scouting report by the excellent Patrick Ellington, Jr. on his new blog (he’s a good follow on Twitter, too). Also, if you haven’t yet, you should watch this regular season Julio Rodríguez home run compilation video. Jah help me, but this honestly got me ready to FEEL things about baseball again:

Mmmm, feels good, huh? All right, what else is going on in Mariners-ville? As the old saying around here goes, to the bullet points!

• If you don’t regularly check out the Moose Tracks comments, you’ve been missing out on another one of site mod btownfritz’s signature offseason bracket tournaments. This time it’s LL memes, jokes, and sayings and we’ve been killing off our darlings all week long. Check out the bracket and find Fritz’s postings in the Moose Tracks comments next week to find the THIRD ROUND match-ups for voting.
• Mariners Twitter veteran @ZachLeft posted his City Connect uniform rankings and while I definitely agree with the #1 spot for the Marlins, I very much disagree with the rest. Sound off in the comments with your rankings:

• Broadcaster Aaron Goldsmith almost bailed for St. Louis, but then he didn’t! Read Larry Stone’s article to get more insight on Goldsmith’s tough call and why he decided to stay in Seattle.

• On that note, poll time!

• Former Mariners King Blogger Dave Cameron had a rare interview with Seattle Sports and had some very interesting things to say about the progress league-wide made by teams in advanced player evaluation techniques and dropped some hints on where the next exploitable market efficiencies could be in that realm. A thought I had while reading this and particularly about Cameron’s title of “Director of Player Procurement” is how much blame rests on him for this lackluster offseason? One would presume that he and his team make the recommendations and the decision ultimately lies with Justin Hollander and Jerry Dipoto on trades and free agent signings. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in a Mariners FO meeting when Carlos Correa or Trea Turner were discussed. I’d also love to hear their takes on the Giants and Mets both deciding to ultimately NOT sign Correa. There’s truly so much we fans just will never know about this silly game we all love.
• Finally, in non-baseball news, you may have heard that our friends at the Seattle Kraken SBNation blog Davy Jones Locker Room are among one of the many Vox-owned outlets being blinked out of existence at the end of February. Obviously, this really sucks for Editor Dan Morse and all the staff writers there who have done a phenomenal job covering a brand new expansion team through an exciting but rough first season, and now into the team’s first winning season that will very likely see a playoff berth in mid-April. So, hats off to all of them for covering the team in a way that’s both accessible to new hockey fans and old heads alike. I am very sad to see them go, but we at LL are trying to pump up their traffic numbers in a last-ditch effort to show Vox how poor of a business decision this is, so go ahead and head on over there and click on all the stories, would you? I’d really appreciate it. Go Kraken, and like Fiddle Cat at LL, always post Zoidberg when they win.

That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend, be safe, and be kind to each other out there. Go Mariners.