I like this move. Batista has spent enough time in the pen to know the difference on how to prepare for a day in the bullpen versus his routine as a starter, and I don't think a lot of guys can make that adjustment. Batista also understands the depth of our pitching staff (OMG it's nice to type that without it being a joke after all these years) and he will do whatever he can to contribute to this team being a winner. I like the idea of leaving Silva on a normal rotation schedule and Washburn is too much of a lefty (in mentality) to get thrown out of sync to be missing starts. The chances are if one of the 1-4 guys gets knocked out early enough to need a long reliever, it's going to be Washburn most of the time anyway, which means Batista will be pitching close to his regular schedule those games anyway.

Wow, Baker with the first Carnac The Magnificent call of the spring... the right SP to the #5 and for the reasons prophesied...

.........................

Skipping #5's has been a lot less common in Seattle than people might think ... compare for example 2003, when two SP's had 33 starts and the other three had 32. Not a single skip all season.

Typically the *Mariners* skip the #5 only when that slot is in turmoil... IIRC it is pretty rare for them to skip a #5 where that pitcher is a veteran in esteem... cf. again 2007, where no Seattle SP had more than 32 starts.

The M's willingness to prioritize an extra 3-4 starts by The Big Two, over the preferences of vets in the 4-5 slot, is an interesting sea change... going for the throat in Oakland style, here...

................

Baker's street cred snowballing down the mountain into avalanche warnings. :- ) ...your prediction as to the M's willingness to swap their 5-6 starters in July?

Wow, Baker with the first Carnac The Magnificent call of the spring... the right SP to the #5 and for the reasons prophesied...

.........................

Skipping #5's has been a lot less common in Seattle than people might think ... compare for example 2003, when two SP's had 33 starts and the other three had 32. Not a single skip all season.

In fact, checking again, no Mariner starter has had more than 33 starts since at least 2003...

Typically the *Mariners* skip the #5 only when that slot is in turmoil... IIRC it is pretty rare for them to skip a #5 where that pitcher is a veteran in esteem...

The M's willingness to prioritize an extra 3-4 starts by The Big Two, over the preferences of vets in the 4-5 slot, is an interesting sea change... going for the throat in Oakland style, here...

................

Baker's street cred snowballing down the mountain into avalanche warnings. :- ) ...your prediction as to the M's willingness to swap their 5-6 starters in July?

sorry for the 2x post... can't get the lay of the server land here...

Anyway, the M's skipping the #5 this year is also cheerful news in the sense that they now have two pitchers worth skipping TO.

Intriguing development, this...

Any indication how, if and when Morrow will join the rotation? His IP actually decreased in 2007 from 2006 and none of our 5 pitchers, except maybe Silva, seem likely at all to totally implode, meaning Morrow's probably going to be a reliever for a while...

I agree with Geoff that there is an importance to setting up the rotation. However, the problem in McLaren's internal book of strategy, is that he believes all lefty-righty match-ups are created equal. This flawed thinking was prevalent during the regular season by Mac. There are left-handed hitters that historically have crushed left-handed pitching and vice versa. We will see plenty of examples this upcoming season.

I also wonder if Batista is going to lose velocity by being used in the bullpen role. Batista surprisingly was hitting 97 on his 4-seamer last year. I also thought Miggie not being used in the pen led to his success in 2007.

I think it would be wiser to have Washburn and Miggie switch spots in the current rotation, and then use Washburn (who does not rely on velocity at all) to pitch from the pen. Moreover, with the M's schedule, and McLaren's burning of arms in the pen to get his lefty vs lefty match-ups, we will need to use the #5 starter out of the pen.

*boggle* McLaren... doing smart thing... with bullpen... wow. When you suggested it as a possibility a couple days ago, I dismissed it as impossible, thinking Mac would have Bavasi go get some has-been instead...

So what does this mean for the rest of the bullpen? Is that an option, or is it effectively a "slot" taken up, so that the team could theoertically carry another bench player? Also, does this mean less of a chance for HoRam or Morrow to have a spot?

Maybe the reason why our back-to-back lefties got throttled was because one of them is named Horacio Ramirez?

I am incredibly excited for this season! I'd put our starting 5 against any team in baseball and I think we stack up very well! A 16-game winner as the #5 starter?!? Wow...it's going to be quite a season I think!

Let me also just throw this shameless plug out there for UT on their big win yesterday, "I'm proud to be a TENNESEE VOL!!"

Washburn would be better if he could pitch more than five innings or 90 pitches a start.

I am not really a fan of having Batista as the #5. He is clearly not the worst starter that we have and it is wasting his skills. I think the best thing to do, if they are so inclined to split up the lefties, is to have King Felix be the #1. I think he is up to the challenge and then you have Bedard, Batista, Silva, and Washburn follow. The lefties are split up and you still have the 3 - 5 pitchers in the order of their effectiveness.

Batista is a class act, a true humanitarian who thinks of others first, and the perfect #5 starter. He has a variety of pitches, competes and will do anything to win. The rest of the staff should follow suit and be prepared to pitch your hearts out, whatever situation they might be in...long, middle, short, spot starter, etc. Morrow should be pitching 2 innings when called so if we need him as a starter this year or next, he will be ready. Go M's.

Very interesting stuff. I personally like the idea of getting Bedard and Felix as many starts as possible. However, there are some things said by McLaren that have left me confused.

1 - The order will be Bedard, Felix, Silva, Washburn, Batista.

2 - Batista will be skipped on occasion.

3 - They wanted to make sure Bedard and Washburn do not pitch on back to back days.

My confusion is based around the fact that as soon as you skip Batista once you have just placed Washburn and Bedard to start back to back in that order. If the goal was to keep those two separate wouldn't you slot Washburn 3rd and the Silva 4th?

I understand that for reasons beyond your control, you have to have Bedard slotted as #1 (basically the price we paid). A justification for the deal. I still think that Morrow will be knocking to break the starting line up as Washburn throws too many pitches and fails to go beyond the 4th inning.

Now if we can only score some runs and play some defense - all of this may become moot.

I can't get behind this at all. 1, 2, and 3 are fine. 4 and 5 are baffling. Jarrod Washburn has not shown any better ability to go deep in games than Batista. Batista also--despite having control issues--can miss a bat and get that big strikeout from time to time. He has much much better stuff.

The argument that he's "separating the lefties" is ridiculous. It's hard to find two more different pitchers than Bedard and Washburn. The fact that they throw with their left hand is the only similarity these pitchers have. It's not like this is Moyer/Halama and they're both soft-tossers. If anything, going from 89 MPH and every pitch being straight with Washburn to Bedard's stuff would be more frustrating for hitters.

Not to mention, Mac, when you skip Batista your lefties will be going back to back. So you're going to have to pitch them back to back anyway.

It just doesn't make sense, Washburn is clearly our worst starter, so he should be the one being skipped and getting relief appearances.

It's not a huge issue, but with Washburn consistently falling apart after 90 pitches last year (trust me, look it up) it's just a totally nonsensical move on McLaren's part.

Brett,

If you'd double check page 224, paragraph 3 of "The Book", a collaborative work by baseball men older than fifty, you'd see that you can't have lefties back to back. Not only will you lose every game you play, the dollar will plunge, communism will spread and the fabric of the universe will unravel and existence as we know it will end.

Geez man do your research.

With all of this Lefty/Righty pitching talk, and the benefits of separating the LHPs, here is what I'm DYING to watch this year:

Bedard's power 95+mph LHPing geting into the 6th inning, THEN bringing Dickey's RHP Knuckleballer with TONS of movement @ 30mph less than Bedards LHed heater!

THEN, on the next night with the same team seeing the Bedard/Dickey combo...facing Felix and his 99mph RHed fastball!

I'm sure we will be seeing the above combo this Spring, but I'm dying to actually see this in action! It's going to really have a major impact on Dickey & Felix's numbers!

Some have dogged the M's defense, but I think our IF defense is some of the best in the game! I'd take Seattle's IF defense over Angels ANYDAY!!! I don't think people realize how important Cabrera @ SS was to the Angels in 2007!

I think the problem with the two lefties back to back wasn't that there were two lefties, but that they were Washburn and HoRam. If our two back-to-back lefties were Bedard and Santana I don't think anyone would complain.
Do you honestly think that lefty hitters suddenly forget how to hit lefties when they have a right-handed pitcher pitch at them for a day? NO! That's ridiculous. I think that an experienced lefty's 1000 ABs against left-handers earlier in their minors/MLB mean more than their 3 ABs the day before.
Ridiculous assumption.

You guys are missing something...when the 5th starter is skipped, that means there is an off day, which means that we are changing opponents. For example...Washburn pitches on a wednesday against the A's, thursday is an off day, Bedard starts against another team on friday. The only reason you skip a Batista start is because of an off day. You will never see Washburn and Bedard go back to back against the same team.

I like this move. The bullpen will be stronger in August/September and we get to see more of Bedard and Felix. I can't wait till opening day.

GO M'S!!!

Miguel Batista, you're the MAN! Seriously, this guy is one of my favorite baseball players ... such a well-rounded, down-to-earth human being ... and a mighty-fine pitcher, to boot!

What's with these weird hyphenated words? "at-play", "in-between"? Does nobody edit this?

Geoff,

Did you get the feeling that Washburn might be skipped as well, depending on match ups?

Any thoughts on who is left to make the bull pen?

My guess is Morrow, O'Flaherty, Jimenez, Lowe, & JJ of course. On the bubble Dickey, Rhodes, Reitsma, & Rowland-Smith.

If we do not keep Dickey on the 25 Man Roster do we loose him back to the Twins? I would like to see Morrow go to Tacoma as a Starter and we keep Dickey in the pen, if we might loose him.

Predicted Mariner Bench: Bloomquist, Cairo, Norton, Morse, & Reed. On the Bubble players:
LaHair, Jimerson, Balentien, & Chen.

Lets end the discussion on Morrow starting. They are keeping him in the bullpen. He doesn't magically become a starter. For Morrow to start he would need to spend at last half the season in Tacoma working on his non-fastball pitches. This M's management is not going to make that investment.

If I was Morrow i would start chucking pitches into the stand and make them send him to Tacoma. From his perspective how much money does he lose over the course of his career by staying in the bullpen. Its obscene.

Bloomquist, Cairo, Norton....worst offensive bench in the history of baseball???

NB, you got me. I was reaching for Tango's "The Book," trying to figure out what the heck he could have said, amazed that the three authors were over 50, and finally got to your punch line. Of course, I've also got "Major League" on, so my sense of reality is a little warped right now anyway.

I'm sure Batista is fine with this, but it ticks me off. He came through several times when we needed him last year (plus getting thrown out of the Ichiro save-fest solely because he was in Mac's line of sight) and I hoped he was going to get some of that veteran love the M's are famous for. Especially since it really is pretty meaningless in the end.

It wouldn't bother me if I had more confidence in Washburn. Maybe he won't hit that 90-pitch wall this year but it's a little too early to tell that right now.

Worst Bench, maybe??

Cairo BA .253 Last year--BA 286@home & 303 OBP

Willie BA .277 Last year--BA 302@home & 321 OBP

Norton BA .243 Last year--Hurt? 358 OBP
Norton 2006 BA .296 OBP 374 Slug % .520

Will see how the do with live pitching??

Geoff, we're going to have to agree to disagree, since I was the one that said splitting up lefties is overrated.

Going left-right-left from your starters to your bullpen is a much better "illusion" that drives managers crazy trying to find the best match ups to run out to the plate. Give a manager 24 hours to set up those match ups for the next days' starter is a piece of cake.

I love that Batista volunteered to work out of the bullpen on off days. It shows, once again, what a true gamer and great teammate he is. I just don't like that Washburn is getting the extra starts while Miguel works out of the bullpen. Like I've said before, Washburn has been denoted a "project" this year and should take the off days as a #5 starter to work on the sidelines with Stottlemyre on how to be a more effective starter.

All in all, this is just nitpicking. Barring injury, you'll see Washburn with 3-5 more starts than Batista by season's end. Great rotation, it'd be hard to mess it up.

AKMarinersFan 12:24 post

Really? That’s nice to know that you would have the team’s best interests at heart and not your own bank account. Some ball players don’t just care about money, but I am glad we could count on you to be the next Alex.

And another thing, why does Marrow have to be a starter? Did anyone ells see the article about how JJ became our Closer, he was always a starter but the team did not need one so he did what was best for the team, not just for himself. Why dose everybody think Marrow couldn’t do something like that? What if he becomes better than JJ, possibly becoming the next Rivera? Tell me if I’m wrong but that would be worth some big bucks for his bank account too right? But besides all that, he, like JJ before him, is in apposition where there is a need, if he steps up and fills that need there could be no limit to what he can achieve in his career.

Now after saying that I still think he would be a great starting pitcher and that’s probably what we will need down the road so who knows how things will turn out.

Also something to keep in mind is that JJ wanted to play in the bigs even if he wouldn’t be a starter, so why do people assume Marrow wants to be sent to AAA, No one knows what his thinking is on this so we should not make pointless arguments based on what we think he might want when we don’t know.

GO M's
^__^

Get Griffey - I was talking from Morrow's prospective. Each team has 5 starting pitchers. Each team has 1 closer. Doing the math....Morrow has a better opportunity at becoming a starting pitcher. However the same analysis shows the benefit for the team as well....Morrow would be more beneficial down the road as a starter than in the bullpen. The bottom line, in this case, it would be better for the team in the long run if Morrow objected to going to the bullpen and went to Tacoma instead.

Putz does not equal Morrow. Putz quit starting after the 2002 season. He didn't have the endurance to go 7 or 8 innings. He obviously was more suited for the bullpen. Although its probably an overused stereotye but Putz has the demeanor of a closer and Morrow does not.

There is definitely some truth to the idea of trying to keep lefty starters apart if possible. It is, though, less a matter of giving lefties a chance to figure out how to hit lefties than it is not letting the righty platoon guys get too comfortable in their consecutive games.

I agree with the above comment, though, that judging lefty-lefty combos based on Washburn and HoRam is probably reaching a bit too far. Would refer to see the analysis based on pitchers other than cannon fodder types.

Oregongal,

My bad.

Must. Come up. With better. Fake book names! Satire. Is. Suffering.

Quick Question AK M’s Fan. How do you know that Morrow has better longer lasing stuff then JJ did, we have not seen him last long very much. I did say I would rather have Morrow as a SP and I respect the fact you want him to do what’s best for himself.

I like some of our ideas on many topics but your sarcastic comments directed at anything and everything tend to make me respond in kind.

Hence the crack about how you would start throwing games for the sake of your Bank Balance made me thank you for your good character which is something a certain playoff coursed, homer happy, ball player showed he had when he left Seattle.

that should be Your ideas (not our ideas)

Batista has a rubber arm. He can start, relieve, whatever you want. I can't believe he's bounced around so much with how much he adds to a pitching staff. Did you notice how many wins O'Flaherty picked up last year. Maybe Batista working out of the pen from time to time actually gets him a few wins anyway. He can still be a 16-game winner as a #5 starter.

Let's get these games going already!

Morrow will not start a game in 2008, unless he gets sent down. The kid has a great arm, but right now he's not a very good pitcher. My prediction is that IF he turns into a nails setup guy, he never starts. I think he has future closer written all over him. He's young enough that he could still get a trial in AAA as a starter, but he needs a lot of work (like learning to throw at least two more pitches for strikes). If he's effective in late innings, he isn't going down, and if he doesn't go down, he will never be a starter.

Washburn has proven little in his tenure with the Mariners, and submitting to some old school theory about alternating lefties and righties without putting the best starting pitchers in the rotation is silly. I'm glad Batista is a professional and can handle any role given to him. He has earned his way into one of the first slots. I agree with the previous statement that he can miss bats. Considering Silva can't miss bats, either, this doesn't look good. I will be glad to be proven wrong...but Batista makes up for professionalism and grit for whatever he lacks in talent.

Go Mariners!

I imagine each starting pitcher is going into this season thinking they're gonna win 20 games. Once we get rolling things will sort themselves out based on actual production so Batista starting in the 5 spot may not be an issue unless everyone is performing up to expectations - but then that's a nice problem to have now isn't it?