Mariners Moose Tracks 11/29/20: Mitch Haniger, Joe Rizzo, Trevor Williams, the Phillies are the New Mets

Crikey, it’s almost December, which means it’s time to start unwrapping those advent calendars, for those of you who partake. This year I think I will get an extra bit of satisfaction in ticking off those days (especially because my advent calendar of choice is full of airplane-sized liquors). Heck, I might make the calendar go all the way up to January first. But before we can start eagerly counting to the end of 2020, first some links:

No, wait, first this: if you’re doing holiday shopping this weekend, BreakingT is having a 15% off sale sitewide with code BIG15 until Monday night. This is an excellent time to pick up a Kyle Lewis shirt of your own or for a friend, and if you use our link, we get a small commission, which we then use to pay things like subscriptions to various sites, or for our podcasting recording platform, or other incidentals. If you can, we’d really appreciate it. Okay, now on to the links!

In Mariners news:

• It’s good to see Mitch Haniger swinging a bat again.

In case you didn’t get a chance to listen to the podcast ep we did with Mitch’s trainer, it was really interesting to hear about the out-of-the-box approach Mitch is taking to his movement training this off-season. I’m betting big on him in 2021.

• Baseball America’s international prospect expert Ben Badler had some warm words for Noelvi Marte:

• A very trim-looking Joe Rizzo, fresh off a bright turn in the fall development league, has some defensive tips for all aspiring players while staying safe at home:

• Mariners prospect Joseph Rosa has joined Julio Rodríguez and Luis Liberato with the Leones del Escogido:

Around the league:

• It’s non-tender season and over at the NY Post, they speculate on a couple of big names in the NY market who might be surprising non-tender candidates. One Steven Matz, please!
• It’s also free agent season and former Pirate Trevor Williams, true to form, has a humorous take on it:

• The Giants (of San Francisco, not Lotte) are reportedly interested in KBO star Dan Straily
• In case you missed it, the Rogers Centre, home of the Blue Jays, is facing demolition, leaving the future of where the club will play its home games in doubt.
• The Phillies continue to become the New Mets:

Kate’s pick:

I love art installations of all kinds, but specifically land art/earthworks, a style that became popular in the 1970s but due to its nature (ephemeral, tied to the land around it) is often short-lived or difficult to see in person. So I have been following the story of this mysterious metal monolith in the Utah desert, presumed to be either the work of or a tribute to the late artist John McCracken very closely. Now, though, just a few short days after it was discovered and reported, it’s gone. No, mysterious metal monolith, I was just getting to love you! At least we still have Walter de Maria’s mysterious installation The Lightning Field, whose location is a tightly-guarded secret. But I liked the mysterious nature of the Utah monolith. Although now I guess I get to enjoy the mystery of wondering where the monolith went, and how, and with whom, and, most frustratingly, why.