RealGM

Huzzah...

Jason Ellison is going home, and the San Francisco Giants parted ways with the popular outfielder Sunday in the best possible way: dealing him to the Seattle Mariners.

San Francisco acquired left-hander Travis Blackley in the trade and assigned him to Triple-A Fresno to start the season.

"I'm actually extremely excited about it," said Ellison, who lives only about 20 minutes from the ballpark in Issaquah, Wash., during the offseason and played at South Kitsap High School in Port Orchard. "My childhood dream was to be a Mariner. Hopefully it's a good opportunity for me."

Ellison, who turns 29 on Wednesday, will be on the Mariners' 25-man roster and should have quite a contingent of fans for Monday's opener at Safeco Field against the Oakland Athletics. Some even joked he might be able to catch a ride on Oakland's charter plane after the A's hosted the Giants in the final exhibition game for both clubs Sunday afternoon.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2821408

This upsets me for several reasons...

#1. Blackley becomes yet another decently regarded pitching prospect who gets hurt and provides nothing to a pitching rotation that could have used him. It would be nice if some of our pitching talent panned out so we didn't feel forced to overspend for Batista/Washburn or trade stud RP for Ramirez. And no, I'm not blaming Blackley...why not hang on to him?

A couple years back we had Blackley, Nageotte, R. Johnson, Madritsch and Thornton down in AAA...and all we have to show for it is a 29 year old backup OF.

#2. Cue the nauseating Ellison/Bloomquist lovefest stories.

#3. Michael Garciaparra was DFA'd while Ellison makes the 25 man roster. not a huge loss, but after he stalled in the minors he managed to hit .311...which I'd have to take as improvement. No power to speak of but still...

On the bright side, maybe having Ellison on the 25 man roster moves Bloomquist out of the OF and keeps Ordonez off the roster. Or maybe it just means Broussard's number will go down or he'll just be dealt for scraps...

Another highly touted prospect Bavasi deals away for practically nothing.

Yeah, this just reeks of disappointment. Blackley was a decent prospect...too bad he'd been injured for, what, 3 years.

Ellison will probably serve a purpose on the team, as he grades out well defensively (and I loathed seeing Bloomquist in the OF), but it seems so nepotistic. The local boy who lived with the Bloomquists and happens to be a terrific human interest story...there's tons of players who have Ellison's skill set out there, and the this is the player they just happen to acquire.

Ellison offers nothing over Reed...but then again, I didn't want to see Reed riding the pine as a backup OF, so....

#2. Cue the nauseating Ellison/Bloomquist lovefest stories.

I think Bavasi (or Armstrong or whomever) figures that as long as they trade player X for a player who has Seattle roots, that a good number of M's fans will disregard the talent of the player being traded since many of the fans are clueless about baseball. I'm not saying anyone on THIS board feels that way, but I am sure a lot of the "fans" that go to Safeco feel that way.

Nice to see Ellison's dream come true. He is going home and has always wanted to be a Mariner. Hopefully we can utilize some of his speed. He can swipe around 20-25 bases or more with enough playing time.

Ellison is certainly NOT good defensively. He gets poor reads on balls, overthrows cutoff men, and throws to the wrong base a lot.

He's an ultra-streaky hitter and not very patient either. He's fast, but can be a circus on the basepaths.

Well that leaves Clement and Jones as the last of our prospects for bavasi to trade. I LOVE THIS SITE YA.

Ssssh, don't remind Bavasi he still has Truinfel.

Do ya'll think that this wave of AAA/AA injuries is just a string of bad luck on Seattle's part or mismanagement of their rookies? Usually where there's smoke, there's fire...

Ryan Anderson, Gil Meche, Thornton, Bobby Madritisich, now Blackley... I'd restaff my minor leagues at this point.

OaklandReggae wrote:Do ya'll think that this wave of AAA/AA injuries is just a string of bad luck on Seattle's part or mismanagement of their rookies? Usually where there's smoke, there's fire...

Ryan Anderson, Gil Meche, Thornton, Bobby Madritisich, now Blackley... I'd restaff my minor leagues at this point.

Don't forget Clint Nageotte and Roger Salkeld.

Agree with the idea of restaffing the minors, especially since the last amateur draft reeled in three pitchers (Morrow, Butler, Tillman) who project as front-line starters. I shudder to think what could happen to those guys.

OaklandReggae wrote:Do ya'll think that this wave of AAA/AA injuries is just a string of bad luck on Seattle's part or mismanagement of their rookies? Usually where there's smoke, there's fire...

Ryan Anderson, Gil Meche, Thornton, Bobby Madritisich, now Blackley... I'd restaff my minor leagues at this point.

Some of those injuries you really can't blame on the team. Ryan Anderson has several labrum problems and that boils down to anatomy and mechanics. There was only so much the team can do.

There is a matter of preparation and monitoring the team can do to help a pitcher but as some point it just boils down to mechanics and the player himself. They certainly aren't doing Morrow any favors by burying him in the bullpen right now so maybe there is something to the team's craptastic front office. mahalo
~Chach~