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The Mariners made all the right moves
By Steve Henson
February 5, 2010
Editor’s note: Yahoo! Sports will examine the offseason of every MLB team before spring training begins in mid-February. Our series is in reverse order of team quality and continues at No. 8 with the Seattle Mariners.
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2009 record: 85-77
2009 finish: Third place, American League West
2009 final payroll: $102 million
Estimated 2010 opening-day payroll: $90 million
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OFFSEASON ACTION
Congratulations, Jack Zduriencik. Your Mariners had the most productive offseason in baseball, hands down. And as a reward, they will begin the 2010 season with the same 0-0 record as AL West competitors the Angels, Rangers and Athletics.
To his credit, Seattle’s second-year general manager is aware that well-received moves in December don’t necessarily translate to victories in September. “I’m cautious,” he said recently. “Fans are excited, but we finished third last year. We won’t know how good we are until we put the team on the field.”
Still, nobody can take away the throng of fans that showed up at last week’s fanfest, double the number of a year ago. And nobody can dispute that Zduriencik traded for ace left-hander Cliff Lee(, talented if unpredictable outfielder Milton Bradley and sure-handed first baseman Casey Kotchman. Or that he signed free-agent sparkplug third baseman Chone Figgins. Or that he sewed up ace right-hander Felix Hernandez for five years and center fielder Franklin Gutierrez for four. Or that he brought back shortstop Jack Wilson and franchise icon Ken Griffey Jr. Or that he was able to dump overpaid pitcher Carlos Silva.
If only one among the lesser additions – Erik Bedard, Ryan Gark, Eric Byrnes, Brandon League – makes a considerable contribution, the Mariners could eclipse the uneven Rangers and sagging Angels.
REALITY CHECK
Despite the widely lauded offseason moves, Seattle is deficient in several key areas: Starting pitching beyond Hernandez and Lee, power and catching. Also, Bradley could blow his stack and be released by June. Even worse, he could be mildly, insidiously disruptive all season.
The rotation is filled out by the unproven and/or hittable likes of Ryan Rowland-Smith and Ian Snell, with Luke French, Garrett Olson, Jason Vargas and , Doug Fister vying for the fifth spot. Bedard, who has had shoulder surgery each of the last two years, could be ready to pitch by late May.
The Mariners were outscored 692-640 last season, meaning their finish eight games above .500 was partially the product of good fortune. No one in their lineup is projected to hit 30 home runs. Second baseman and cleanup hitter Jose Lopez belted 25 last year and is due for a regression. Ichiro Suzuki and Figgins might become the best top-of-the-order duo in baseball, but they might be stranded quite often.
Catcher Rob Johnson had two hip surgeries this offseason and it’s questionable whether he’ll be ready for opening day. Prospect Adam Moore and veteran Josh Bard will get long looks.
Those questions aside, the Mariners were the feel-good story of the offseason, the rare team in a wobbly economy to take risks and aggressively attempt to improve. And they trimmed payroll while doing so. Congratulations, Jack Zduriencik. Now start winning.
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Pinstriped Emissaries Seek Fans in China
By XIYUN YANG
February 4, 2010
BEIJING — Guo Shuofeng, a 10-year-old fourth grader, is serious about baseball. Since joining his school team two years ago, he spends more than 20 hours a week during the season at practice, sacrificing his weekends and winter vacation.
But in China, nurturing his love of the sport is an uphill battle. Guo has never been to a game and when he finds recorded games online, the commentary is in English, which he does not understand. He doesn’t know the names of any American baseball teams, and his parents are confused when they watch him play.
“I have to explain the rules to them,” Guo said. “It’s taken them awhile. But now they usually look stuff up online before asking me.”
Guo and his teammates were among those on hand Wednesday as a Yankees contingent — led by the team’s president, Randy Levine, and its general manager, Brian Cashman — took the World Series trophy to a Beijing shopping mall for a celebration of baseball and the Chinese New Year.
The event was part of Major League Baseball’s efforts to woo a nation whose sports idols play not on baseball diamonds, but at Ping-Pong tables and on badminton and basketball courts. The Yankees were happy to do their part on behalf of baseball — they are on a weeklong trip that includes stops in Japan and Hong Kong — but they are also looking to establish themselves as the team that will most interest future Chinese prospects.
On Wednesday, that meant doing a little bit of everything. Levine and Cashman posed for photos, handed out Yankees T-shirts and hats, painted the eyes of a New Year’s dragon and fielded at least a few knowledgeable questions from bystanders. All this occurred as several girls danced on stage and the final moments of the Series clincher over Philadelphia played on two small screens.
“I was impressed by how much the native Chinese people knew about the Yankees and baseball; it was really great and impressive,” Levine said in a telephone interview afterward. “It was all the same questions that we get in New York.
“ ‘Why aren’t you bringing Matsui and Damon back?’ ” he said in reference to Hideki Matsui, the World Series most valuable player, and Johnny Damon, the veteran outfielder. “It was truly a neat experience to be on the other side of the world and hearing the same questions.”
Cashman said in a separate telephone interview, “There was a lot of confetti, a lot of smoke."
M.L.B.’s goal is to build a base in China like the N.B.A.’s. It broadcasts games to more than 50 Chinese television stations and reaps tens of millions of dollars in revenue from Chinese fans. But baseball has a long way to go: four million people play baseball in China, according to Xinhua, the state news agency, and the country has a relatively meager professional league. By comparison, China has a nationwide basketball league, and 300 million Chinese are said to play the sport regularly.
Moreover, major league teams do not have the equivalent of Yao Ming, the Houston basketball star, to attract Chinese fans. Five Chinese players have been signed by major league clubs since 2001, to little fanfare.
And so efforts to build the sport remain a “one-step-at-a-time approach,” said Leon Xie, the managing director of MLB China.
Baseball has made serious efforts to stir interest since 2003, when the former major leaguers Jim Lefebvre and Bruce Hurst were sent as coaches to China’s national team. M.L.B. has since spent millions of dollars on developing the sport in China.
Play Ball, a program focused on young players and coordinated with the Ministry of Education, organizes tournaments for 120 schools in five cities. In addition, a player-development center opened last fall in the southern city of Wuxi.
Ultimately, however, baseball’s true emergence in China may need the jolt provided by a superstar who makes a big impact in the major leagues.
“Baseball’s Yao Ming is 11, 12 years old,” Xie said. “He exists somewhere in this country. Our mission is to spend the next 10, 15 years finding that kid.”
Levine said: “The dream of kids all over the world is to play in Yankee Stadium. One day that will be a Chinese kid’s dream.”
Based on the questions Levine received at the event, some may already be dreaming. However, others in attendance were more tentative.
“I usually watch Ping-Pong,” said Xu Dacheng, 25, who had been waiting for a friend at the mall when he happened on the event. “I don’t know the details of the game. Just that you hit a ball with a bat.”
Liang Xiao, 27, a self-professed sports nut who has watched a few baseball games online, said: “I seriously had no idea what was going on. I’d love to play, even there are no opportunities in China and I am a little fat.”
Jiang Xiao, 24, said he and every baseball fan he knows were introduced to the game through a popular series of Japanese comics.
Even so, he said warily, he was not overly interested in playing himself .
“That ball is so tiny,” Jiang said, “and the bat is so thin. It looks very difficult.”
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