Reacting to Raul – What’s The Plan?

You won’t be wearing a hoodie like that around here anytime soon, Raul.

I want to preface this with – I am a Mariners fan, and Raul is a great person.  I hear he has a house in the area, and given that this will be his third stint with the team, it probably isn’t a bad idea to have a home around here.

Raul is 40 years old.  In baseball terms, he is basically Methuselah.  Yeah, I just went biblical on you, only because I think that is the only way to accurately describe his career, because I am sure it started with the Mariners at the time they finished up the Old Testament.  In a limited role with the Yankees last year, he was fairly decent – hit for some power with not many plate appearances. If he were plugged into the lineup as it was last year, he would have led the team in OPS over Michael Saunders and Kyle Seager.  Note, those were the only two guys on the team that were regulars that had an OPS over .700.

The only exception to this was John Jaso, who as a backup catcher hit for an OPS of over .800 with 10 HR’s in less PA’s – but hey, let’s give Olivo some AB’s to be a thousand times worse.

I guess, this is where my frustration is starting to come from.   Apparently, there is no real plan coming to shape.  Let’s look at John Jaso, based on the above.  You would think that a plan for Jaso to continue to play in a more expanded role with M’s would be the cards.   But it is not.  The M’s wanted to try to sign a few catchers this off-season.  Nothing really panned out, and they have been on a tear of getting 1B/DH/Nightmare OF types that seemingly have no position to really play here.  Not even this sick beard is getting him any respect.

Get that clutch beard outta here, John.

So, we add Ibanez to the pile of the guys who can kinda hit but are statues in the field.  I can’t get upset about Raul, but I can’t get excited either.  What’s the plan for him?  It certainly can’t be the outfield.  It certainly can’t be at 1B.  It might be DH, but then are you putting Montero behind the plate for good?  The M’s haven’t committed to that at all.  Is it then putting Kendrys at 1B, getting rid of Smoak (admitting he was a failure is going to be a hard one for Jack Z to swallow) and getting Raul designated hitter AB’s? You can’t put Ibanez in the outfield, because the M’s signed someone equally as bad if not worse to patrol the outfield potentially in Jason Bay.  Does Smoak even have value?  Montero might, but would Jack trade him?  Who knows?

And in all honestly – do any of those plans above, no matter how they pan out, want you to go out and sign up for season tickets? Do they make you want to pay for a renewal that went up as payroll has continued to basically go down?

The Mariners, pun intended, just seem rudderless,  kind of drifting, signing dudes that used to have ties here or are from around here that makes them slightly marketable to a fanbase that actually cares about crap like that. They are not overpaying, kind of standing pat, just making some moves for the sake of signing some guys that will get the uneducated fans excited about guys like Raul and Bay coming back.

So welcome, I guess, Raul – the shishkaberries are still good and nothing has changed out here besides left field. The Mariners made it smaller for you to patrol, so there’s that.