Q.  What's the D-O-V opinion on Michelle Obama?  On whether Hiro needed to be "cuted up"?  On gas that's $4.40 one week and $1.75 the next?   

On voting for Pedro?

A.  Check this three-year-old post on Russell Branyan.  Level with me:  does it hold its age okay?  Yeah, all right.  We got it.

There really are Pedro Cerranos in baseball:  guys who would be Babe Ruth if you "challenged them" predictably.  When Dr. D was a kid, that guy was Lee Roy Stanton.

Branyan doesn't hit all those 425-footers by no blinkin' accident.  He's Lou Gehrig with an asterisk.  Granted it's kind of a big asterisk. :- )

Spot Branyan against the, um, right guys and he'll do what he's done since he was six years old.

Q.  What would be "as many at-bats as he's had in his career"?

A.  According to the almanac, 300 to 350.   I'd rather see 250 really well-chosen AB's, but am not complaining.

Earlquote:  You get three scrubs combining for 37 homers at a spot, that's as good as having a Reggie Jackson.

Russ Branyan is a 100-RBI thumper, on the day he's out there.

…………

Q.  What does D-O-V think of Three True Outcomes players, generally?

A.  Love them generally.  In Safeco?  What's the word past "love"?  Isn't that what you need — hitters for whom the ballpark is less of a factor?

For Branyan, the park (any park) practically is NO factor.  You could add 15-20 bonus points to your team OPS+ if you could simply find all the guys who don't care that they're in Safeco.

Branyan's career OPS+ is 109.  Last year it was 138.  If this were the Oakland organization, nobody would be surprised to see him put up 150.  Or 250.  For us, I fully expect him to step on a fungo bat and impale himself in April.

………….

Q.  Are you bailing on 2009 yet?

A.  As a year, absolutely.  I watch CNN.  As far as the Mariners go, of course not.  Who ever heard of a $100M* roster absolved of its responsibility to try to win.  Repeat something often enough and people accept it as truth out of sheer fatigue, I guess.  :- )

For quite a while now, we've been watching teams come up with a Scott Baker - Kevin Slowey - Nick Blackburn thing out of thin air.  Even when they didn't have arms like Felix, Morrowned and Co. to work from.

Don't buy into the idea that it's unreasonable to have two or three starting pitchers unexpectedly have good years for you.  It should take a lot before you give up. At least that's what my wife tells me these days.  ;- )

The Twins go for 90 wins with Slowey and Blackburn.  They wouldn't have minded going to the mat with Felix, Bedard and Morrow instead.

…………..

Q.  LOTD?

A.  Check this puppy out.  Sheehan on the '09 M's 

… how many AL rotations would you trade, straight up, for the top four guys? Eleven? Twelve? I'd certainly take the Red Sox, and probably the Rays just because of David Price. … I'd take the Mariners' rotation over the Angels, the Yankees, the Blue Jays, the White Sox…

This has the potential to be a fantastic set of pitchers. Bedard has to return from his shoulder issues, of course, and both Rowland-Smith and Morrow have to continue their transition back to starting, which is where the innings-eating qualities of Silva and Washburn may actually be a benefit. Hernandez, Bedard and Morrow all had Stuff scores of at least 19 last year.  … The 2009 Seattle Mariners will have one of the five best rotations in the American League, and if you start there, you can get to a lot of places.

The '09 version is going to have good, and possibly excellent, run prevention, and has enough time and money to possibly put a representative offense on the field. The AL West could very well be won with 87 wins next season, and I'm not convinced that the 2009 Mariners couldn't get there, and without making the kind of decisions they did a year ago.

I'm not saying that's the gospel truth, of course.  But don't be afraid to root for the Mariners to win the division.  There's nothing wrong with asking what the 2009 Mariners need to do to get to the playoffs.

Russell Branyan's a good step in the right direction :- ) 

…………… 

Q.  Are you planning to write more?  Are you, or Junior, closer to the glue factory?

A.   Gotta haaavvvve it!

We started a little freelance stuff, if anybody is so bored that they want to see the cornball Dr. D (dim)wit in non-sports contexts.  We have some noodlings at http://bostoncitytalk.com, at http://dentistreport.com and at http://animalreport.com.  (Hey, just be glad we weren't assigned SEO stuff!  Have you ever read 500 words, in which the phrase "professional carpet cleaning" was repeated ten times?!)

1.  The D-O-V subscription thing was cool.  2.  And we will keep some stuff comin'.  3. At $89, none of our good amigos here wound up paying more than 25 cents per lead article, so we hope that the experience thus far has been worth it.  Dr. D knows it has been for him..  4.  We are picking at the idea of a more serious freelance writing career, and the paid blogging is a potential lily pad towards it.  5.  Hope y'understand.  :- )

6.  If the pro blogging gets "quality" outside linkup we'll be paid triple, and we'll toke the dealers with, um, well, with M's shtick, I guess.  What quality outside linkup is, I have no clue.  But two years from now maybe somebody will advance me on my novel and then we'll be able to return to fulltime M's blogging?!

How's that for random?

Love and kisses,

Dr D