Tagged: Michael Morse

Mariners News

Tom Wilhelmsen has gotten the save in 6 of the 7 M’s wins this season.

Hisashi Iwakuma has recorded a quality start in his first 4 starts of the season. The M’s have a 3-1 record in Iwakuma’s starts this season with wins against Yu Darvish and Justin Verlander.

The M’s have not been shutout through the first 17 games of the season. Last season, the M’s were shutout 3 times in the first 17 games. The organization made a commitment to approving the offense during the off season, but through 17 games the offense has scored one less run (55) than they did last season in 17 games (56).

Pitcher Hector Noesi has been recalled from Triple-A Tacoma and Bobby Lafromboise has been sent back down to Tacoma. Noesi joined the bullpen for yesterday’s game against the Tigers to be a fresh arm after the 14 inning game on Wednesday night.

Kyle Seager leads the major leagues with 8 doubles this season and Michael Morse is tied for third in the majors in home runs with 6.

Michael Saunders is expected to come off the DL when he is eligible to return on April 26th

 

Tigers,Astros,Blue Jays, Yankees, Mariners and Rockies news

The Tigers have sent down rookie reliever Bruce Rondon to Triple-A Toledo. Rondon was slated to be the Tigers’ closer this season. He struggled mightily this spring against big league hitters (2-1 record with 5.87 ERA and a .327 AVG against in 13 spring training games). The Tigers will start the season with a closer by committee.

Brad Peacock has been named the #4 starter in the Astros’ rotation. Peacock was acquired by the Astros as part of the Jed Lowrie trade to the A’s during the off-season. He had a 12-9 record with an ERA of 6.01 in 25 starts last season for the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats. Peacock had a 0-1 record with an ERA of 3.20 and a .225 AVG against in 7 spring appearances.

J.A. Happ has agreed to a two year contract extension with the Blue Jays. The extension is worth a total of 8.9 million dollars. Happ will be the #5 starter in the Blue Jays rotation. He beat out Ricky Romero for the last spot in the rotation. Happ had a spring record of 1-1 with an ERA of 1.90 in 7 appearances.

The Yankees have released 1B/OF Juan Rivera. Rivera was signed to a minor league contract during the off-season. He became expendable after the club acquired Ben Francisco and Lyle Overbay during spring training.

M’s OF/1B Michael Morse has set the club’s spring training home run record for a player. Morse hit his 9th home run of the spring in 2nd of today’s Mariners/Cubs game off Carlos Villanueva. The Mariners have set a team spring training record with 56 home runs and counting.

Rockies have signed pitcher Aaron Cook to a minor league contract. He was released by the Phillies earlier in the week. This will be Cook’s 2nd stint with the Rockies. Cook had a 72-68 record and an ERA of 4.53 in 206 starts over 10 years with the Rockies. He had a 4-11 record with an ERA of 5.65 in 18 starts for the Red Sox last season. Cook will provide depth in the minor league ranks and can be called upon if one of the major league starters struggles or has an injury.

509 words on the Michael Morse Trade

The Mariners have acquired 1B Mike Morse as part of a three team trade. The team sent catcher John Jaso to Oakland as part of the equation. The Nationals will receive two minor pitchers and a player to be named later from the A’s.

I understand this move from an offensive standpoint by the Mariners. They are a team still starving for offensive production. Over the last two seasons Morse has 49 home runs and 157 RBI combined. In the 2011 season he had career highs in games played (146), at-bats (522), runs (73), hits (158), doubles (36), home runs (31), RBI (95), batting average (.303), on-base percentage (.360), slugging percentage (.550), OPS (.910) and a WAR of 3.1. Last season, Morse hit 18 home  runs and drove in 62 runs in 1o2 games. Morse would have finished 4th in home runs and tied for 2nd in RBI on last year’s  roster.

There are drawbacks to this deal. Morse has had a long history of injures. He has only appeared in over 100 games 2 times in his MLB career. Morse has only reached the 500 at-bat plateau only once in his 8 year career.

The 2nd drawback to this deal is he joins a jumbled group of players at first base/designated hitter. Over the course of this off season the Mariners have acquired Raul Ibanez, Kendrys Morales and Jason Bay to fill one of those roles. Returning players Justin Smoak and Mike Carp also fall into this group. Currently the Mariners have too many players for these two positions. Bay and Ibanez could both play the outfield but neither can play a full season in the field. Morse can also play the outfield but he better suited to play first or DH.

The 3rd drawback of this trade is that Morse is only under contract for this season. It seems like the Mariners gave up too much in order to acquire a bat for one season. John Jaso was under team control for the next 3 years. He was the most clutch hitter on the team last season. The team must think that they will be able to sign Morse to a new contract or that one of the kids on the farm will take over for him next season.

As stated in the last paragraph John Jaso is a huge loss for the team. He come through in clutch situations last season and mashed on  right handed pitchers ( .302/10/47/ .419/.508/.927). Jaso called a great game and had a good rapport with ace Felix Hernandez. Because of this move, the M’s are in the market for a backup catcher.  Jesus Montero is the only catcher on the 40- man roster. The M’s will either sign a veteran free agent or promote prospect Mike Zunino to become the backup catcher.

Hopefully this gamble will payoff.  This move has more drawbacks than improvements. But it does have the potential to improve the offense tremendously. Morse needs to be the impact bat that the M’s have been looking for all off-season. Because if this gamble do not pay off ,the fans can say adios to GM Jack Zdurnciak either during the season or at season’s end.