Lkj, what do you think of the Aoki pickup? He was one of my favorite players last year

Unfortunately I'm pretty clueless about all teams that aren't my own, so I pretty much just let the smart baseball people tell me whether our pickups are good or not.

I believe the consensus among those people was that it was a fine move but nothing earth-shattering.

Yeah that's about right. He is a very good leadoff hitter that's mostly a slap with a little power. Fair to poor outfielder but he rarely K's so he will get on base. He reminds me of Tajiri a bit, so I called him the leadoff buzzsaw. Fast, but injury prone.

Mlb.tv plans are now live. Just signed up for my giants package for 84.99

I'm certainly ready for it to be April.

Eh Im still rolling with full. Its fun to watch certain players at bats + pitchers + no hitters + random cubs and tigers games. Still has to be said, especially after the price drop, probably one of the best cost -> reward services outside of Spotify and Netflix

Understandable, I just don't think I watch any of that enough to justify and extra 30 bucks.

If I had any significant belief that the Mariners would contend for a playoff spot this year, I would purchase the full package just to track our main competitors. While it wouldn't be shocking if the M's at least managed to hang around all year, I guess I have a hard time expecting it after they flopped so hard last season.

Yeah, amazingly, I am seeing reports of them again being a surprise playoff team this year, but after last season, I'll believe it when i see it.

They have enough pieces in place that they'll at least allow me to hope for a worthwhile season. Honestly it's a better place to be than last year, when I outright expected a playoff season for the first time in forever.

Fwiw, Seattle over 83 wins is one of the two season over/unders I like a lot this year (along with detroit under 85). I think they have a good chance in a division that is filled with uncertainty.

There were no major changes in the roster, but the things that did change are positive. Replacing Ackley (-11.3 UZR/150 last year) and Jackson (was positive last year but negative the two years before) with Aoki (+4 +8 +6 last 3 years) and Martin (+11 +10 +15 last 3) is a nice improvement in a large outfield.

Additionally, they took a bottom of the line bullpen and took strides to improve it by acquiring both Cishek and Benoit. Cishek is coming off his worst year but none of the important things seems to be out of line to make you think it's a long term issue.

Also think Karns will be surprisingly solid this year.


I fully expect them to be in the hunt late. Get the package.

Austin Jackson was positive last year? That seems impossible. Does that include the stats before he was traded away?

and before anyone mentions it: yes UZR/150 is a mediocre stat, but all fielding metrics are pretty meh at the moment.

yeah, it includes all games in 2015
doesnt seem to have a breakdown on team by team

Oh, those are fielding stats. Yes I can imagine Jackson having had good defensive stats.

Yeah.

FWIW on the offensive side of things I also expect Martin to bounce back from his -0.5 oWAR last year and be closer to his 2.0 and 2.8 oWAR from the last two years before that.

I cannot wait til baseball season. The lull between NFL and MLB is awful, made even worse so by the lack of DFS to get me through NBA.

MLB opening day is my 2nd favorite day of the sports year behind d1 of march madness (despite me watching 0 other cbb)

As an avid watcher of baseball , it took me a good three watches to see why this summed up the team. Good luck, LKJ. Hopefully it's they at least learn the rules of the game before taking the field.

Oh it didn't really sum up the team, that gif is of an obvious strike being called a ball, which at the time just had me incensed. In hindsight it's funny to watch. You occasionally see a false start like that from a pitcher when the result of the pitch seems that clear and even the batter seems to be getting ready to leave.

This was from the 10th inning in the same game, the fourth ball of a walk when all four balls were in the strike zone.



Every Mariner fan who watched just had to be sideways like I was. The PitchFX from the game was absurd, with its findings being that he called 28 strikes as balls. He was a minor league ump who got the call-up to do this game, I believe as his first major league outing, and it was the worst home plate umpiring I can remember ever seeing for an entire game.

I have zero idea why I'm posting about this. It's nearly two years old. I promise I'm not still mad about it. I think I first got it in my head as a joke to describe how the season would go. Being a Mariner fan requires a lovely mix of short-term cynicism and long-term optimism.

Interesting enough to a no nothing baseball noob like me. When originally watching, I thought it was called a strike and they left but it was strike two. Did the umpire have a game two in the majors?

I'm pretty sure he got sent back down after this game. Whether he managed to make it back up since then, I don't know.

When I Google him the top hit is about that game, but of course Google knows that I'm a Mariner fan. It looks like he's on the official MLB umpire roster, but unlike most names he doesn't actually have a hyperlink to a personal bio. So I dunno if he's really in any regular crew or if he's just a warm body who can be brought up in case of emergency.

Actually Google tells me that it wasn't his very first game, but I'm guessing I still may have been right about it being his first home plate gig calling balls and strikes. It was the fourth overall game that regular season.

Recommend 9 of them. Ending pissed me off.

i liked that i hated it

Meh I got bored pretty quick, and the one where he takes some chick to a concert and she steals a coat or something was just cringeworthy bad ~25 mins