Series Thread: M's vs. KC Royals; June 29 - July 1

[wazzu31]

Will be interesting to see how JD figures out the different options available when Cano returns. Personally, I think the team would do just fine without Cano in any capacity. I sure won't miss him. My biggest concern involves Seager and Zunino. Seager seems to be picking it up a bit- it's about time- half way through the season b4 he starts producing like his salary dictates. But Z is just not cutting it. A bomb once in a while is nice but he needs to start producing base knocks and move runners around. He's great at defense but offense is sucking air. Maybe starts producing?

Thing with Z is, to me, he is a better Dan Wilson who everyone loved. He is better defensively than Dan, and is much bigger threat than Dan was. Dan was more consistent but didn't have anywhere near the ability to change a game like Zunino can.

 

[NWinAZ]

Thing with Z is, to me, he is a better Dan Wilson who everyone loved. He is better defensively than Dan, and is much bigger threat than Dan was. Dan was more consistent but didn't have anywhere near the ability to change a game like Zunino can.

I would take Dan all day long over Z. Z has the long ball factor, but other than that it is Dan all day long for me. Maybe it is just a case of thinking the past was better than it was, but I just thought Dan was the ultimate team player in terms of contribution.

 

[NWinAZ]

Thing with Z is, to me, he is a better Dan Wilson who everyone loved. He is better defensively than Dan, and is much bigger threat than Dan was. Dan was more consistent but didn't have anywhere near the ability to change a game like Zunino can.

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[wazzu31]

I would take Dan all day long over Z. Z has the long ball factor, but other than that it is Dan all day long for me. Maybe it is just a case of thinking the past was better than it was, but I just thought Dan was the ultimate team player in terms of contribution.

Don't disagree with Dan but I don't think Dan was as good of a defensive player, only thing he was better was average. Zunino is just more known than Dan was. Dan was a cult hero because he was like the 8th best player on the team. Just to me looking at it without the goggles that I normally would, I don't think there is really much of a difference between the two guys.

 

[jerseyhawksfan79]

What’s gonna happen with the Cano situation ? Will they actually play him when he comes back knowing he won’t be available in the post season should they make it ? Do they just release him and save the money ?

He needs to play. All hands on deck now since the team is in a pennant race.

 

[WizardHawk]

Don't disagree with Dan but I don't think Dan was as good of a defensive player, only thing he was better was average. Zunino is just more known than Dan was. Dan was a cult hero because he was like the 8th best player on the team. Just to me looking at it without the goggles that I normally would, I don't think there is really much of a difference between the two guys.

Dan Wilson was a solid, but not insanely great, catcher on a team that never made it to a WS.

He was twice the impact with a bat that Z is even without the long ball.

In the 4 post season years for the M's (all of which Wilson was their catcher for which says something) He hit: .278, .270, .235, and .265.

Z's best year in the majors was finishing up .251 last year in 485 PA because he also spent like 3 weeks in the minors at one point due to sucking so hard in batting. He's not even crossed the mendoza line other than that short span. ok ok, technically hitting .214 in '13 was above that line, but really? Not by much. He isn't even hitting .200 this year.

And don't even get me started on the strike out ratios for both. Wilson didn't get half the K's Z does. Like he literally had less than half of the percentage of K's over his career.

Z can't even hold Wilson's jock strap and Wilson wasn't considered a hall of fame catcher or anything.

 

[WizardHawk]

Scott Servais will get haircut to match Edwin Diaz

Nice to see the team is having fun with their good fortune and keeping it fairly light.

Skip is going to have a really funny haircut long before the end of the season barring some kind of freak injury or something.

 

[WizardHawk]

Oh, and only two teams in all of baseball now have less losses than the M's: Boston and NY. The M's are tied with Houston with 31 losses. Boston and the Yankees have 29 and 27 respectively.

Shits getting real again. Real fast.

 

[dude82]

Zunino is the epitome of "all or nothing" on offense. Every time we think he's turned a corner with the bat, he reverts back his "home run or out" tendencies. It's a shame, too, because he was a good hitter before he went pro. It'd be nice to have a better bat in that spot and not settle for the occasional mammoth home run, but unless we can find a veteran who can immediately step in and have the same kind of rapport with the pitching staff that Z has and can supply more than the occasional dinger on offense, I don't think the M's are gonna mess with what works on the pitching side, even if it means playing one of the worst hitters in the league five times a week.

Anyway... it's great to see the M's brush off the first half of that last road trip and beat the teams they're supposed to beat. I know on paper that beating the two worst teams in the league isn't that impressive, but those are the teams that previous Mariner teams weren't beating regularly, so it's nice to see this year's team do that and take advantage of the schedule when it's in their favor.

 

[SeattleCoug]

I don't think we will ever know or be able to calculate the amount of damage the Jack Z regime did to Zunino. The fact that he is still standing may be a minor miracle based on how he was basically hung out to dry.

We look at 2013 when for someone reason they traded their best offensive player the previous year (John Jaso) for Morse because I dunno Jack Z like power and hated OBP. That left Montero, who everyone in baseball knew wasn't a starting catcher, to start all year with no real backup plan. The actual backup that year was Kelly Shoppach who was run into the ground by June because Montero just couldn't be out there and eventually had to be sent down. They pulled I think old man Henry Blanco off the street but there was just no one in the organization to use besides Zunino who wasn't even ready for AAA when he had to play. He hit ok here before he got hurt and that pretty much ended his year.

In 2014 he looked overmatched for the most but with his defense still put up a little under 2 WAR. 2015 was an utter disaster and the Jack Z regime still didn't have a Plan B at catcher. Well actually they did for two weeks when they made a solid trade for Wellington Castillo but immediately erased when Jack Z drooled over another high Power, Low OBP and Poor defense guy in Trumbo that they insisted play OF.

But yeah its unfortunate Z hasn't seem to be able to build and what he was able to provide last year. I still think he will be a top 10 catcher overall when the season ends but maybe not top 5 like last year.

 

[NWinAZ]

 

[wazzu31]

Dan Wilson was a solid, but not insanely great, catcher on a team that never made it to a WS.

He was twice the impact with a bat that Z is even without the long ball.

In the 4 post season years for the M's (all of which Wilson was their catcher for which says something) He hit: .278, .270, .235, and .265.

Z's best year in the majors was finishing up .251 last year in 485 PA because he also spent like 3 weeks in the minors at one point due to sucking so hard in batting. He's not even crossed the mendoza line other than that short span. ok ok, technically hitting .214 in '13 was above that line, but really? Not by much. He isn't even hitting .200 this year.

And don't even get me started on the strike out ratios for both. Wilson didn't get half the K's Z does. Like he literally had less than half of the percentage of K's over his career.

Z can't even hold Wilson's jock strap and Wilson wasn't considered a hall of fame catcher or anything.

Guess we can disagree, IMO, the only thing Wilson "could hold Z's jock" was he was able to put the ball in play more.