Aumont to the bullpen?
Posted: Mon Apr 6, 2009 4:38 am
Great. After Morrow gets canned as a starter and made a closer, our second best pitching prospect is apparently fast-tracked for the same treatment:
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mariners/index.html#040174
So, we've done well to use our last few high draft picks [Aumont, Morrow, Fields] to create a dynamic bullpen. Too bad our starting pitching will such such violent ass when all three of them are with the Mariners that they'll never see the light of day.
This has nothing to do with the major league team right now. But it could have plenty of impact on the team in the not-so-distant future. The Mariners have abandonned, for now, any plans to have former No. 1 draft pick Phillippe Aumont continue in a starting role. As was the case with Brandon Morrow, a first-rounder from 2006 now serving as a full-time reliever, Aumont has made a swtich to the bullpen.
He'll begin the year in Class AA (actually check that, he's likely to start in High Class A ball first), working out of the bullpen. I asked GM Jack Zduriencik about it earlier today and he confirmed that the plan is to convert Aumont to a relief role full-time.
"We felt that this was a guy, who, if used in a relief role, could be on a real fast-track to the major leagues,'' he said. "And we're talking a real fast track.''
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mariners/index.html#040174
So, we've done well to use our last few high draft picks [Aumont, Morrow, Fields] to create a dynamic bullpen. Too bad our starting pitching will such such violent ass when all three of them are with the Mariners that they'll never see the light of day.