Mariners Moose Tracks, 1/18/17: Disconnection, FanFest Lineup Announced, and Expansion Team in Seattle

Happy Wednesday everyone! I’ve got a long, busy few days of traveling back to New York and transitioning back to the college life for the semester ahead of me. As such, the wonderful Ethan Novak will be taking care of the links for the next couple of days.

So I’m sure Dipoto will do something totally crazy while I’m in-flight and I won’t find out until I get on the ground several hours later. Given his massive amount of activity, I’m sure you’ve all experienced something like that recently, right?

The closest thing to that for me was when I was coaching tennis camp two summers ago, and Hisashi Iwakuma was throwing a no-hitter when I was about to get off work. I found out about the no-no because one of the kid’s dads knew I was a big Mariners fan and he gave me score updates since I couldn’t check my phone. Thanks to him I knew to rush home after work so I could see that last inning, which was cool.

I also seem to frequently get trade news broken to me by my Mets-loving housemate, who always asks me about random Mariners prospects who got traded. I learned about the Alex Jackson trade to Atlanta, for instance, when he randomly asked me “hey, who’s Alex Jackson?” That’s happened at least three or four times now.

So let me know if you’ve had any experiences like that in the comments. It’s got to have happened at least once. For now, let’s check out the latest from around baseball.

In Mariners news...

• The Mariners have announced their FanFest lineup, which has a lot of really good people in it. I’m definitely excited to watch online.
• Greg Johns profiles starting pitching prospect Andrew Moore, who might see some time in the majors this season if things go right.
• Here’s a video of Jean Segura doing some smooth swinging.

• Apparently Aaron Goldsmith is a pro at calling play-by-play for foosball too.

Around the league...

• As expected, the Rangers agreed to a minor league deal with Josh Hamilton. The outfielder will attempt to make a comeback to the sport after only appearing in a single minor league game last season.
• DRaysBay thinks that newly acquired Ryan Yarbrough should consider adding a cutter to his arsenal, looking at similar pitchers who have done so.
• Do you think you know a lot about this year’s Hall of Fame crop? Test out your knowledge in Jayson Stark’s quiz.
• Braves general manager John Coppolella spoke to Fangraphs’ David Laurila about his most recent deals with the Mariners.
• Alex Rodriguez is planning to host a new reality show about former baseball players. I guess he really couldn’t stay away from the game of baseball.
• Eno Sarris a big fan of the Michael Saunders signing by the Phillies, noting that The Condor has the potential to be a steal for Philadelphia.

Anders’ picks...

• Reports from a couple of days ago indicated that Seattle mayor Ed Murray had been avoiding calls from NBA commissioner Adam Silver about the league’s intentions to expand. Murray denied those claims. The cool thing to me is that expansion to Seattle seems very possible at this point.