Bleeding Blue and Teal points out a great Junior anecdote.  Sourced by Shannon Dreyer, who was kind enough to answer a couple of dozen questions at Mariner Central.  :- )   Greg Halman gets invited to dinner by Griffey and phones his dad to give him the news… then hands Junior the cell phone to say hi.  LOL!

Having said our share of critical things about The Committee in the past, here is an SSI post that gives kudos to Chuck Armstrong…

Jason at Prospect Insider has an article on the WBC, noting that the D.R. has an infield that includes David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez.  Sounds like the Barclays Premier League.

At NY Sports Insider, we have an article complaining about the fact that it's too tough to trade in baseball.  (Nick Swisher would make this ballclub really interesting, now that Junior's here.)  Dr. D has blogs in about a dozen cities now, all with fresh material for the four of you who are interested.  :- )  Please visit the blogroll at Seattle Sports Insider if you want to leaf through them.

Matthew at Lookout Landing points out that it takes some stones for the newcomers to tell Adrian Beltre how it's going to be.  Reminds me of Earl's rookie year.  If you're going to take charge, you have to lead off with your bottom line; you can't gradually gain control.  It happens in one shot.  Good sign there.

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We've seen the thought floated that Endy Chavez is the 'correct' choice to start in LF. 

Typically this assertion is made in such a way as to discourage any open-air discussion of the issue — e.g. 'Wakamatsu deserves the benefit of the doubt' as to his competence:  that competence being measured by whether he'll 'realize' that Junior should not play (more than rarely in) LF under any circumstances whatsoever.

Everybody realizes that THIS version of Mariners' management is not incompetent (and D-O-V'ites realized that previous versions were not, either).  But we detect :- ) edgy teeth to the warning that HOF'er Ken Griffey Jr. had better not be allowed to play in front of the epic Endy Chavez, under implied threat of cyber-amigos turning on the regime, I guess.

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The argument is not, "I expect Junior to hit .250/.310/.410 and limp around like a pregnant yak, so ANYBODY even Endy Chavez should play in front of him."  That's not what we hear.

What we hear is, even if Ken Griffey Jr is hitting (say) 275/375/500 against RHP, and running comfortably, that STILL the starting nod should go to Chavez.  Against RHP.

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Here is an article on underrated and overrated hitters.  Dustin Pedroia — one of my fave players — would hardly be on the radar if he played outside Fenway.

Here are our Feb. 09 two cents on Mr. Clement, courtesy of SSI.

HERE is a June 05 POTD on Clement (with brief 6/06 update towards the end), and HERE is a 6/23/06 mini-report on him from Cheney.

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Positive Paul's Photo Morph   Click the link to watch Jeff Clement morph into Jim Thome.

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