Is your airplane fare covered yet Jefe?

I promise not to ask any questions below the standard of our illustrious crowd. In all likelihood I will sit silently and bask in the stat-soaked goodness.

I’ll be there.

I’m in. Money well spent, I’d say

would it be possible for someone to bring a digi-recorder and either post the audio or a transcript of highlights? That would be much appreciated.

If this is off the record, I have no intention of spilling anything, but might like to photo bits of the event…don’t mean to sound uninformed, I’ve never been to something like this before….

I’ll be attending my own session with Prospect Insider (Jason & I scheduled dinner together at my place several weeks before this was announced).

Big mudslides on most major roads/highways heading out of Aberdeen have made getting out of here difficult. I wasn’t even able to get to work tonight because the roads are closed off.

If you leave a question in the comments, they will pick what they feel are the best ones, and those will get asked tomorrow.

1) Were you to be in the M’s drafting position in 2006, and you had the 5th overall pick for the Mariners, and the draft order ahead of you were the same, and you were presented with Morrow, Lincecum, and Miller – knowing what was known at the time about these players (and, perhaps, the Mariners’ needs back then) who would you have chosen with that pick?

1) Seeing how defense is now an important consideration, with the idea to move Lopez to first base, wouldn’t it be in the team’s best interest to trade him for some value and move Yuni to 2B? In simple terms, Lopez loses his value being moved to 1B. Why not trade him and see if Yuni can handle 2B?

2) When can we expect Yuni to be traded? (This one isn’t going to be asked and/or answered, but if one of you can work it in on the side in a personal conversation…)

3) Is Bedard healthy?

I’ve got a lot of specific questions regarding players, both at the major league and minor league levels. I think we all do. Try to get as much information possible about any and all players. I am sure they won’t be willing to answer many of the questions and I doubt they know enough about certain players anyway. However, outside of general philosophy, I would like to know more about specific details regarding the players and their feelings toward them. You’ll have to gauge their willingness, obviously. But whatever you can find out, that would be awesome.

Thanks and I look forward to the review of the event.

It’s probably too late to get these in, but …

1. Not to put you on the spot (!), but could you comment on the Mariners blogosphere and how the team views it? Are blogs like USS Mariner and Lookout Landing frequently read and respected, do they sometimes generate ideas, confirm ideas, or are members of the team too busy to read them?

2. When planning personnel moves, to what extent do you need to factor expected fan and media reaction into the move?

3. If you look at today’s team and farm system as a foundation upon which you can build a championship-caliber team, what do you think are the changes that still need to take place to make that happen?

4. Team chemistry is a controversial subject in the blogosphere. How do you view it? Is it important? Is it measurable? Do you need to consider chemistry when making personnel moves?

5. How do you expect Wakamatsu to differ from the last few Mariners managers?

6. What organizations in MLB do you most respect? Are you patterning your organization after any of them?

7. Can you describe how running a baseball team in 2009 is different from running a baseball team in 1999? Or 1989?

8. Is it important that a player be media- and fan-friendly? Is that part of the job description, and if so, how important is it?

How do you balance risk and reward when acquiring players in:
- the draft
- free agency
- trades

Does each path differ in that way?

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The book Moneyball painted a picture of stark disagreement between proponents of scouting and stats-based evaluation. Was that true then, and if so, is it still true now?

I hope to God there is one.

Stellar. I emailed thanks, too, but it deserves to be said again. I actually had a good time, and not everything discussed was over my head, which was nice. Excellently done.

I especially enjoyed seeing Derek scolding/threatening the M’s intern and calling on Jeff hoping he would speak up only to see him shake his head and wave his hands in the air.

But DMZ’s recap is enough to send me through the roof with excitement. I’m still struggling to deal with all the optimism running through me.

GO MARINERS!

You were there? Bummer, wish I would have known, could have put a face to name. (snowlion23 on mariners.com)

Meant to reply to Kermit, my mistake – it’s late….

Thoroughly enjoyed the entire discussion. It was really neat seeing the blend of scout/stat on the panel and you could really begin to see how it would function together effectively. Was particularly impressed with Grifol and how he held forth on our player development.

All in all, a rare treat and I thank the USSM and LL crew for putting it together.

I am officially excited for the ’09 season.