Saturday Recap

• Mike Wilson - cut. Everyone remembers Wilson for leading the league in home runs last spring, and that's how everyone will continue to remember him until he retires.
• Tommy Everidge - cut. The first ball Everidge hit between the lines this spring went for a grand slam, which in retrospect may not have been the best idea.
• Brad Nelson - cut. Can't cut one fat oaf and keep the other.
• Greg Halman - cut. Intrasquad strikeout rates just plummeted through the floor.

By "cut," of course, the Mariners aren't actually letting these players go. They're all just being sent to minor league camp, where they'll prepare for the minor league season by working out with lower-level competitors instead of big leaguers like Garrett Olson. It's always disappointing to get cut, no matter who you are, but then one gets the feeling that our roster has pretty much been set in stone for weeks, with little in the way of open positions, so if Mike Wilson is disappointed about getting cut, maybe he should've tried not hitting .196 last year.

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Some good Erik Bedard news floating around. Turns out he's been throwing long-toss for ten days now without incident, and is tentatively scheduled to throw a bullpen on March 23rd. I don't think I need to caution anyone about the danger of claiming that Bedard is "ahead of schedule," since he could give at any time, but living in fear of bad news is better than living with actual bad news, so this is a positive. Maybe he's had so much of his body fixed that it's like resetting the meter. Erik Bedard: factory recertified!

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Doug Fister had another not-as-bad-as-it-looks-but-still-pretty-bad outing today. He's clearly behind Jason Vargas, here. However, as Wak mentions, the starters haven't really been stretched out yet, so while Vargas is out in front, he doesn't have a significant lead, and things could turn around in a hurry once guys start getting up there in innings. Based on nothing, nothing at all, it is imperative that you understand this isn't based on anything, but rather on the opposite of anything, I'd say we're looking at 60% odds for Vargas, 35% for Fister, 10% for Luke French, and -5% for Olson.

Michael Saunders went deep, which I believe is his first-ever home run in a Mariner uniform. Nice to get that monkey off his back. WIth the pressure relieved, Saunders should start hitting an automatic .400 in no time.

Finally, Chone Figgins made a pair of errors today, which I think gives him four in three games. Wak, though, isn't concerned. Wak's never concerned. It doesn't matter what these guys do. Play good defense? Great. Play bad defense? Great. It doesn't make sense. You can't put a positive spin on everything. Put a positive spin on everything and you cause atomic chaos.

Jose Lopez apparently made a really good play behind third base, for whatever that's worth. When I was a kid, if my brother was in a good mood, I'd be in a bad mood, and if my brother was in a bad mood, I'd be in a good mood. Interesting to see that Lopez and Figgins' gloves share a similar relationship. Before you know it one of the coaches will have to step in when Lopez's glove starts looking out of Figgins' glove's window in the car.