Know Hitter

Kingdome Crossover: The Jason Bay/Casper Wells Post-Conundrum Analysis

knowhitter — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:12:58 +0000

Here’s a piece I wrote over at www.kingdomeofseattlesports.com/ on the Mariners outfield situation. Give it a read.

The Mariners made no secret of their desire to beef up their middle-of-the-order in the off-season. They turned John Jaso into Mike Morse. That transaction, however early it might be, is paying off. They signed Raul Ibanez to hit for power and make sure Morse wasn’t the only new-old Mariner. They also signed Jason Bay.

The Mariners’ outfield was clogged to begin with. Michael Saunders, Franklin Gutierrez, Trayvon Robinson, Eric Thames, Carlos Peguero and Wells were all fighting for a third of the outfield pie. You add the new power bats and some people are going to have to go.

Robinson was dealt to Baltimore and Thames and Peguero are playing in Tacoma, Guti and Grand Torrido (that’s Saunders, you can see my explanation here) are starting for the Mariners.

The final outfield spot, in the end, came down to Bay or Wells.

Bay, six years Wells’ senior who is on an expiring contract and hit .165 in nearly half of a season in New York.

Or Wells, the prototypical fourth outfielder who is controlled by the team longer, is younger and cheaper than Bay.

Wells might be one of the more cynically undervalued players in the league. He played well enough to get more ABs in Seattle, however, due to the crowded outfield (see above,) wasn’t able to get them. Wells is never going to be a mega superstar, but given a decent number of at bats, he could be a very solid contributor offensively and defensively.

Wells, again given decent playing time, is a plus defender who could hit around 20 homers in a full season.

But instead the team went with Bay, who if he plays well, is likely to garner a new contract next year from someone else.

That’s no slant on Bay, but in a situation like this when the spot up for grabs is third string corner outfield/DH position, then you should probably go with the younger, cheaper, longer controlled, better defensive player.

Oh, the travesties of baseball.

(You can see the piece in it’s entirety here.)

Kingdome Crossover- Why Michael Saunders Is the Most Important Player in the Seattle Mariners’ Lineup

knowhitter — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:15:16 +0000

Here is a piece I wrote over at http://www.kingdomeofseattlesports.com/ on why Michael Saunders is the most important player in the M’s lineup. Thought you all might enjoy it.

Big name additions Mike Morse and Kendrys Morales might be viewed as the most important players in the M’s lineup. It might be the development of budding stars Jesus Montero, Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager. Or it could be Michael Saunders.

Michael Saunders who hit .727 (that being 8 for 11 for all of you who didn’t major in some sort of math at MIT) in the World Baseball Classic. Michael Saunders, who I gave the nickname Grand Torrido to despite “Torrido” meaning torrid in Italian and the M’s having one of the more prominent Italian players in the game of baseball in their organization: Alex Liddi. Whatever, Saunders is the most important player in the lineup and this is why.

He extends the lineup.

The M’s current group of hitters, which I so pleasantly outlined for you here, comprises of a lot of power hitters. Or lack of top-of-the-order guys. Dustin Ackley will likely hit leadoff, something he can do, but probably would be slightly better utilized elsewhere in the lineup. Ackley also isn’t a speed demon on the base paths, something the M’s haven’t had since Ichiro.

Even if you hit Ackley leadoff, you don’t have a full time number-two hitter. Morse and Morales will hit in the middle of the order. As will Jesus Montero. Brendan Ryan fits the bottom half of the lineup better. Kyle Seager probably belongs with the first group. That really only leaves Saunders, Guti and Smoak/whoever plays first as your options. Smoak/first base committee is a no. Obviously. After that it’s a tossup of either Guti or Grand Torrido. Guti is well… I don’t know if he personifies a two-hole hitter. That leaves Saunders.

In the piece I noted that you could hit Guti second because of his penchant to get extra base hits. Something that looks really good when happening in front of the big boys in the order. But Guti isn’t a big speed guy. Something you need at the top of the order. Ackley, as mentioned, isn’t a huge speed demon, so you need as much extra speed as you can get at the top of the order. Saunders, I will add, lead the team in stolen bases as well as placing second in extra-base hits. That not only plays into his candidacy for the second spot in the order but for hitting down in the order, say in the five spot.

I also wrote about how Saunders lost it with his torrid hitting in the WBC, hitting behind two established, middle of the order guys. I’m not saying Morse and Morales are Joey Votto and Justin Morneau, but the comparison is somewhat plausible. The point is that if you hit Saunders behind two good middle-of-the-order hitters, he will produce.

If you hit him there, he also adds speed in that position as well. Something (speed) that the Mariners need at nearly every position.

Whether you hit Saunders second or fifth, he is going to be an integral part of the M’s. Extending the lineup with his speed or slugging, Saunders is going to be a big part of the M’s this year.

You can see the piece in all it’s glory at kingdome here.

Picking the Field: NCAA Tournament Predictions – And Yes, I Have Gonzaga Winning it All

knowhitter — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:58:29 +0000

Last year I wrote a terribly long essay on my NCAA “Picks to Clicks.” (In hindsight, that title is grammatically screwed up. Alas what a year of writing can do for you’re grammer skills.)

This year I won’t bore you with the reasons why Notre Dame will beat Iowa State (Notre Dame wins the game by the way) or why Louisville will beat Western Kentucky (see Sheen, Charlie: Um… Duhhh.) But I will share most of my latter tournament predictions and such. Which will all end with Gonzaga cutting down the nets in Atlanta.

These are my non-chalk picks in the first round, or the round after 60 teams get a “bye”-

Play-in Winner (11 Seed) over Memphis. Memphis statistically is all ginger peachy with a pass happy team (4^th in the country in assists per game), a solid offense (21^st in points per game) and a decent rebounding squad (39^th in the land in boards per game.) However none of this, or all, not exactly sure, contributes to the fact that the Tigers lost almost every meaningful game they played in. Yes, they beat the living daylights out of Conference USA, but it’s CONFERENCE USA. They get the daylights beat out of them by lots of teams. Memphis’ quality competition this year included Louisville (lost by 9), Minnesota (lost by 9 again), VCU (lost by 12), Xavier (lost by two) and Tennessee (won by 5.) HEY LOOK THEY BEat… oh, that’s right. The Vols were left out in favor of La Salle and Middle Tennessee State. I’m writing this before the play-in game and posting it after. Probably not smart, but I’m picking St. Mary’s to win that one. I’ve seen a lot of the Gaels recently, and they are quite good. Even if Middle Tennessee were to win, I think they stand a good chance to knock out the Tigers.
Belmont (11 seed, again I know) over Arizona (6 seed). Belmont strength: shooting the lights out from three. Arizona weakness: defending the three. Yep.
Colorado (10) over Illinois (7). These games are nearly just as close as the 8-9 games in terms of determining a winner. Colorado’s prowess on the glass should help subdue a small Illini team.
Temple (9) over NC State (8). And the coin landed tails.
Minnesota (11) over UCLA (6). I really do not like six seeds so far. Regardless, Minnesota is a very athletic team that reached nowhere near its ceiling this year. UCLA will have issues. (If you’re counting along at home, Butler is the only six seed left in the field. Woohoo!) (See veiled attempt at sarcasm.)

Moving on to my non-chalk picks in the next round-

Oklahoma State (5) over Saint Louis (4). This one is a massive upset. I mean, talk about Cinderella. Oh, what’s that? Right… A five seed over a four seed. How many times has that happened? Answer — a lot. These games can sometimes be like an 8/9 matchup in the second round, however I think Oklahoma State will come out on top. Really good players have a tendency to carry a team on their backs while shooting the lights out versus their opponents. Synonym: Marcus Smart’s performance in this game.
Butler (6) over Marquette (3). There is just something about Butler. I don’t think they will make it to the Final Four. In fact, I have them losing to Miami in the next round, but Butler has a tendency to play with magic on their side. See the two tournament runs as well as their win over Gonzaga earlier this year.
San Diego State (7) over Georgetown (2). I think Otto Porter, Jr. is a great college basketball player. However I’ve seen A Hoya game or two where he’s the only player on the team in double figures. I like the Aztecs in an upset especially if they can lock down Porter. Georgetown also has the 247^th ranked scoring and rebounding team in the country. San Diego State.
VCU (5) over Michigan (4). Michigan hasn’t won back-to-back games since January. Point VCU.

Non Chalk Sweet Sixteen Picks- None. Just as a refresher, here’s who I have in the Round of Sixteen.

Sweet Sixteen Picks-

Midwest-

1 Louisville over 5 Oklahoma State.

2 Duke over 3 Michigan State.

West-

1 Gonzaga over 4 Kansas State. (Fun fact, GU beat Kansas State by 16 on a neutral floor already this year. Funny.)

2 Ohio State over 3 New Mexico.

East-

1 Indiana over 4 Syracuse.

2 Miami over 6 Butler.

South-

1 Kansas over 5 VCU.

3 Florida over 7 San Diego State.

Final Four Picks-

It’s almost all chalk in the Final Four for me. I have Gonzaga, Louisville, Kansas and… Miami as the last four teams left standing. I’m taking the ‘Canes over Indiana for a simple reason. Indiana struggles against really good defensive teams. The half of the Hoosiers’ losses that weren’t decided by one possession were to Wisconsin and Ohio State. Both good defensive squads. Miami also happens to be a good defensive squad.

In the actual games in Atlanta I have Gonzaga meeting Kansas in the national title game with Gonzaga winning. The Zags went 5-0 versus the Big 12 this year, and the topic of them actually playing Kansas has been broached by many a pundit. Here’s GU’s chance.

Kingdome Crossover- The Mariners Recent Power Surge is a Sign of Good Things to Come

knowhitter — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 21:43:41 +0000

Here is a piece I wrote on my Seattle sports site, http://www.kingdomeofseattlesports.com/. It’s about the Mariners recent spring-training-power-surge. Check it out-

Maybe you have been focused on basketball, whether it be Gonzaga’s run or the return of the Sonics. Maybe it’s the Huskies and Cougars collective mishaps.

But have you seen how scorching hot the Mariners offense has been? Holy vienerschnitzel. The M’s lead every spring training club in homeruns, slugging percentage, total bases and are second in runs scored.

The Mariners also boast two hitters who are tied for second overall in homeruns. Those two would be Carlos Peguero and Franklin Gutierrez. Which is particularly amazing because one of the two will likely hit cleanup for the Rainiers and the other isn’t going to hit in the middle of the order.

Now, spring training is fickle. The game isn’t the same as the regular season. Guys are getting back into their routines. Pitchers shrug off getting shelled for 7 runs in 2 1/3 innings because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.

The batting is also a little different. Every top minor league prospect and their brother are getting at-bats. The love is spread for sure.

Spring training in the end doesn’t have a massive bearing on the season. Joe Saunders has been horrendous the past three spring trainings with ERAs of 12, 8 and 6. His regular season ERAs have been in the 4 ½, 4 and 3 ½ range in the last three regular seasons.

It’s apples to oranges.

But sometimes when Uncle Mo is delivering the apples, it carries over. While spring training is one big warm-up session, momentum is still involved. There is no denying that a team will carry itself better heading into the regular season if they performed well in spring training as opposed to a spring training in which they struggled.

The most important thing of it all is that the M’s offense is flowing. It’s producing home runs; it’s scoring in bunches. They’re making everyone else look pedestrian. With pitching a likely strength it’s nice to see the offense producing. Which is a good thing with Uncle Mo riding shotgun for the M’s.

Six Things We Learned from Italy After the Netherlands Friendly

knowhitter — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:37:53 +0000

(Disclaimer: I don’t profess to know a ton about football. I just love the beautiful game.)

Andrea Pirlo’s genius, pace and the fouls/free kicks he draws. Some people play on a whole other physical level, or a whole other level in terms of speed. The latter is Pirlo. (Also, isn’t it nice that in football/soccer, wherever you’re from, a players is simplified to just one name? Even if he hasn’t shortened his name to one name. Messi is called Messi when his full name is Lionel Messi, etc. Anyways, it lends itself to lazy typers like me, and the rest of the world for that matter.) Pirlo plays the game almost methodically. You know when basketball gurus say that the game has “slowed down” for some players? That’s Pirlo. He slows it down. While the tempo killing can sometimes be hard to watch, the Italian midfield maestro always makes the right pass, even if he has to slow down to do it. Expanding on that, especially in the match against the Dutch, everyone else was going 110 miles an hour (if you will) while Pirlo was cruising at a comfortable 85. The result of this is that a lot of hand checks and fouls that might go un-noticed were noticed as Pirlo drew multiple free kicks by simply playing at the speed he feels comfortable playing. I should also point out his genius. Which he is, by the way. Every game there are about three to four plays where he makes a pass that could open up the defense. If your defense gives Pirlo milk and curds he turns it into Swiss cheese. (Especially if he’s playing against the Swiss.)
Buffon does it again. Where Pirlo makes three or four passes that unlock the defense, Gigi Buffon makes three or four saves that the average Joe keeper wouldn’t make every game. He did this again on multiple occasions against the Dutchmen.
Sub Par? Not to say that the starters were lacking, but the substitutions of Pablo Osvaldo, Alessandro Diamanti, Alberto Gilardino and Marco Verratti certainly changed the game in a positive way.
Slick Whats? The field was very slick in case you didn’t notice. At least half a dozen players hit the turf, one of which quelled a promising Italian attack.
Friendly Strategy. (That faux headline didn’t work, but stick with me.) Cesare Prandelli certainly isn’t using friendlies to get results. The Italy head-man consistently uses friendly games to test younger players and tinker with different pairings and lineups ahead of major tournaments. He’s using this strategy for the upcoming Confederations Cup as well as the Azzurri’s likely World Cup spot in Brazil in 2014.
It’ll Work. Eventually. Italy’s spearheaded attack of Mario Balotelli and Stephan El Shaaraway seemed to be a bit stagnant in the first half. While the Osvaldo/Diamanti/Gilardino trident worked, the former group will likely be the long and short-term options up front. They’ll figure it out eventually, playing together that is. After all they both play for AC Milan. They’ll be tested and ready by Brazil.

If I missed anything from the game that you thought was mention-worthy, tell me in the comments section.

The Celtics Plan Without Rajon Rondo

knowhitter — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:14:46 +0000

This isn’t the kind of injury that you can replace with a game-manager or fill in/expiring contract to replace a starter. This is Rajon Rondo we are talking about. Rondo probably means more to his team than a lot of other stars mean to theirs. Knowing this, it’s going to take someone special to replace Rondo in the short term, and even then the replacement probably won’t be up to Rondo’s par.

Not many players even have the potential to be on Rondo’s level. This trade I’m going to throw out there might fix the Celtics’ problems short term and long term. Let me explain.

(It’s a four-team trade, so you’re excused if it’s confusing. It’s making my head hurt,and I haven’t even written it yet.)

Boston acquires Tyreke Evans from Sacramento and Steve Blake from the Lakers.

Sacramento acquires Courtney Lee and Fab Melo from Boston. Devin Ebanks and Jodie Meeks from LA and Omri Casspi from Cleveland.

Los Angeles acquires Leandro Barbosa and Chris Wilcox from Boston and Tyler Honeycutt from Sacramento.

Cleveland acquires Francisco Garcia from Sacramento and a future second-round pick from Boston and LA.

Now we get to the explaining part.

First off is Boston. The Celtics get two point guards to at least do a half-decent job of filling in for Rondo. Obviously no one is going to replace Rondo, but Evans has the potential to be very good. Blake is one of the more consistent backup point guards in the league.

Boston also gets help long term. Not only would Boston have the option to re-sign Evans before anyone else does in free agency (that’s a huge stretch, but the Celtics would have the option,) but if they feel Evans doesn’t work, then they can let him walk and save the money that they owe long term to Lee. Blake gives them value this year, but also next year as a more-than-appealing expiring contract in a trade.

Sacramento. I have a little trouble with this if I’m the Kings Sonics. And the only problem I have is with Lee, more specifically, Lee’s contract. That is a lot of money long term for a starter-on-a-bad-team-bench-guy-on-a-good-team player. Sacramento Seattle gets another look at Casspi, plus Melo, a high upside big. Meeks’ contract is very team friendly in terms of what he can do. Ebanks is another guy on an expiring deal who could pan out given the chance. Sacramento gets rid of Garcia’s and Honeycutt’s contracts going forward.

The Lakers would love this trade if they made it. The one upside of Blake’s recent injury is the emergence of Duhon as more than just a trade throw in. That and the ever looming Darius Morris make Blake expendable. He’s even more expendable due to the fact that LA wants to save money. Dealing Blake would do that. LA also gets a Barbosa-Nash-D’Antoni reunion. (Side note, how many Phoenix fans envisioned that within five years of each leaving the Suns? The answer is one. That one guy who wants to rebuild and trade away anyone who isn’t 22 with big potential. We’ve all met them.) LA also gets more big-man insurance with Wilcox. Plus the fact that (and I’m no salary cap aficionado) Honeycutt’s contract might be non-guaranteed. Thus the team waves him, or buys him out, keeps a roster spot and saves enough money to buy the whole team lunch for a month or two.

Cleveland gets picks going forward, but also gets an interesting piece in Garcia. Yes, he costs them an extra four million, but has the potential to, like Blake, be a very appealing option as an expiring contract next year in terms of trade value.

I think the smartest thing for Boston to do is to go get Evans. You obviously aren’t going to finish with the best record in the conference, but maybe Evans finally figures it out under the tutelage of Doc Rivers, KG, Paul Pierce and a hobbling Rondo. Maybe Evans stays long term and plays well alongside Rondo in the future. Those “maybes” might turn into something better than a regular season conference title.

Love is Gone: How the Timberwolves Stay Afloat Without Kevin Love

knowhitter — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:11:58 +0000

(Side note, I thought about starting to call Kevin Love “The Klove,” which by the way makes no sense after I found out that it’s an adult contemporary Christian music radio programming service. Yes, that’s right, I actually took the time out of my day to Google “klove.” Laugh it up readers, laugh it up.)

The Timberwolves run on Love. Not to say that they are a gushy team or anything, but you catch my drift. Minnesota stands on four legs. One leg, and the one holding up most of the weight, is Love. Another is Nikola Pekovic, a third is Andrei Kirilenko and a fourth, albeit in a limited role this year due to injury, is Ricky Rubio.

With Kevin Love, Minnesota is a low-seed playoff contender. Without him they are definitely on the wrong side of the number eight seed.

Just to reiterate, Minnesota was 26-40 last year. The worst record in the conference belonged to the Hornets at 21-45. Kevin Love had a win share of 10 last year. Jumble that all together and throw in some math signs + = / to make it look super educated and you get 16. 16 wins the T-Wolves would have had without their sole Olympian and biggest player since Kevin Garnett (sorry Mark Madsen.)

Granted that was last year, and this year is a whole different animal in terms of the season, but the T-Wolves are still in trouble. Kirilenko has carried the team so far, but I have serious reservations about whether he can carry a team for the 8-10 weeks that Love will be out. Let me rephrase that, he can carry a team, but can Minnesota stay competitive if he’s the “Atlas” of the team? Probably not.

The team needs something new. Whether that be a trade acquisition, like say shipping Kirilenko, Derrick Williams and Luke Ridnour to Memphis for Rudy Gay. Or getting injured players healthy, and in the lineup again like Rubio and Chase Budinger.

At the end of the day, the Timberwolves aren’t going to be as good as they were with Love. It’s just not going to work. The team is built around “Klove” (that might be the last time you see that on the internet ever.)

What do you think? Will Minnesota be able to stay in contention with Kevin Love, or will they fall out of it without him and never recover? Tell me in the comments section.

New Blog!!!

knowhitter — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 04:23:07 +0000

Check out my newest creation kingdomeofseattlesports.com. A fantastic new site dedicated to Seattle Sports. Lots of content on the Sonics, Seahawks and Mariners.

Fun fact, has been viewed more times than Squatch the Sasquatch (or Bigfoot for that matter) in the last five years. (Although that may change soon…)

Don’t worry though, knowhitter fans. Your favorite David Stern disapproving blogger will still be rolling out new content.

What We Learned From the Seahawks Win, Plus a Playoff Preview and the Great NFL Coaching Purge

knowhitter — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 03:05:17 +0000

Will the record holder for most touchdown passes in a rookie season please stand up?

Russell Wilson continued to scribble out portions of the Seahawks’ record book, and the NFL’s for that matter, and write himself in. Wilson now has tied Peyton Manning for the most touchdown passes thrown in a rookie season. Not something people would have expected for a Quarterback who was selected after five other QBs, one of whom isn’t even starting (Brock Oswiler is Manning’s backup.)

It Doesn’t Come Cheap

(That sounds nothing like any kind of title, it’s mainly there to make my other bolded title look better by default.)

The Seahawks demolished the Cardinals, Bills and 49ers in recent weeks. Maybe you heard. Point is that another blowout probably wasn’t going to be beneficial, at least for the playoffs. The Seahawks had to work for this win. That will be nice when the playoffs roll around and teams won’t be losing by astronomical amounts.

Playoffs

“Playoffs? Don’t talk about—playoffs?! You kidding me?! Playoffs?!”

That would be Jim Mora talking about, you guessed it, the playoffs. Yes, the glorious playoffs are here. We all get to wait and see who delivers the play of the postseason. Last season it might have been Kyle Williams’ muffed special-team handling, maybe Mario Manningham’s Super Bowl catch. The year before that, gave us Marshawn Lynch’s brilliant touchdown run against the Saints. Hopefully this year someone will provide us with a play that belongs in the same breath as the Lynch run or David Tyree’s catch. Because frankly, as much as I just amped up the Manningham catch and Williams’ trouble holding onto the ball, those plays are summed up in one word: anticlimactic.

The playoffs are a different animal this year in the NFC and almost the same relative animal in the AFC. The “National” Conference returns only Green Bay, Atlanta and San Francisco from last years’ playoffs with Seattle, Washington and Minnesota as the newcomers. The AFC meanwhile has the exact same lineup (Houston and Cincinnati played in the 3-6 game last year and will do the same this weekend, they must love playing each other) with the sole difference being Indianapolis taking Pittsburgh’s slot.

In the first round of the playoffs, I think Andrew Luck is going to win many a playoff game in his career, but I can’t see the Ravens losing this game. Not with it being a home game, not with it potentially being Ray Lewis’ last game, not with it being possibly Lewis’ last home game period, win or lose. The Ravens will beat the Colts 33-21.

The Bengals will definitely be more competitive than in last year’s 31-10 romp. That being said, I don’t think the Bengals can keep up with the Texans top-ten ranked offense and defense. Houston wins 24-14 over Cincinnati.

Over in the NFC I like the Vikings to beat the Packers. The Vikings won last week over Green Bay, and nothing says momentum like beating a team and then playing them again. Adrian Peterson could very well have another field day. It will be a surefire win if the Vikings’ 9^th-ranked pass defense can bottle up Aaron Rodgers, Bahia Verde’s (that’s Spanish for “Green Bay” for all you folks at home) 20^th-ranked run offense could stick out like Clay Bennett in Seattle. Minnesota wins 27-21.

The Great Coaching Purge: NFL

It’s being dubbed “Black Monday,” but the day that a good portion of the league lost coaches was mainly due to lack of quarterbacks. Arizona, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, San Diego and Philadelphia all made changes. All of those teams, with the exception of Chicago (Lovie Smith probably got fired for not getting it done in the postseason, or even getting there) and maybe San Diego, have serious long-term questions at the quarterback position.

I’ll check in next week with the divisional round preview. See you then.

The Mariners Really Need to Trade Felix Hernandez

knowhitter — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 21:56:15 +0000

The Upper Echelons of Major League Pitchers-

Justin Verlander
David Price, Felix Hernandez, CC Sabathia, Roy Halladay, Clayton Kershaw, Jered Weaver
Matt Cain, RA Dickey , James Shields, Zack Grienke, Cole Hamels, Gio Gonzalez
Cliff Lee, Stephen Strasburg, Yu Darvish, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, Johnny Cueto
Ian Kennedy, Anibal Sanchez, Jon Lester, Yovani Gallardo, Trevor Cahill, Jordan Zimmerman etc.

Those, in a nutshell, are the top pitchers in baseball. Notice the placement of RA Dickey and James Shields. Both have been traded in the last month, yet both are ranked below (in my estimate) Felix Hernandez. In addition to those two big offseason moves, the Angels signed Josh Hamilton. I say this for one reason, Texas isn’t going anywhere, and Los Angeles just added Hamilton to their team. The other team in the division is Oakland who, I might point out, was probably the second best team in the AL playoffs last year.

Regardless of Seattle’s current talent (meh,) the team is in a stacked division. Anything besides last place is probably a miracle (barring an Angels’ season-long flop.)

The team isn’t going anywhere soon. Thus it makes sense to trade Felix Hernandez, especially since their top two pitching prospects (Taijuan Walker, Danny Hultzen) are ranked fourth and eighth in terms of the top 100 prospects in the game per Jonathan Mayo.

There are two, if not three, (James Paxton could be special as well) potential Hernandez replacements waiting in the system. Yes, the fences are being moved in and the Mariners need to sell tickets, but dealing Hernandez makes sense.

Let’s put a few things out there. One, Hernandez is four years younger than Shields and twelve younger than Dickey. Not surprisingly, King Felix is a much better pitcher than both. The point on Shields, or even Dickey, is that Shields fetched the number three overall prospect (again all this per Mayo,) Wil Myers, who has at least “star” potential if not more. Another prospect that went to Tampa was starter Jake Odorizzi, ranked the 30th best in all of baseball. Tampa also picked up two other prospects who are ranked in the top 20 of their system.

New York got the 11th and 83rd best prospects in the game by selling high on a 38-year old.

What I’m getting at, if you haven’t gotten there first, is that the Rays and Mets got some of the better packages of prospects that the trading market has seen in the past few years. I would think that the Mariners would want to cash in with a haul of that kind.

The Mariners need a hitter to lead them into the next phase of the franchise (hopefully contending.) I’m sure they’d jump at a package of Jurickson Profar and Mike Olt (not that Texas would consider that seriously.) But Seattle needs a corner stone. They need the next Miguel Cabrera or Evan Longoria. They need someone who can carry a team on his backs/bats. Maybe Felix Hernandez is the way to find that player.

Surely if James Shields and RA Dickey can fetch outstanding hauls of prospects, then a younger and better pitcher (Felix Hernandez) can get a better one.

What do you think? Should the Mariners trade King Felix or should they keep him and try to contend?