Over at U.S.S. Mariner, Dave Cameron meditates on Russell Branyan and his refusal to regress to his mean performance. Branyan, who is the best off-season acquisition in baseball on a cost-to-returns basis ($1.4 million this year for .317 avg, 14 HR, .414 OBP and .614 SLG), has seen his batting average decline from .333 in April to .290 in June. However, he’s been rock steady in on-base and slugging percentages because he’s reduced the number of times he strikes out and increased his walk rate to compensate.

The Mariners did not pursue Raul Ibañez, who is having a career year in Philadelphia with 21 HR, .322 avg., .377 OBP and .674 SLG. But Raul is earning $7.2 million this year, more than five times Branyan’s salary. The only categories where Ibañez leads Branyan, home runs (21 v. 14) and RBIs (58 v. 29, which accounts for Raul’s higher slugging percentage, as well) are functions of the batters around them in their respective lineups. Branyan, batting in the two-hole these days, has had fewer opportunities to drive in runs while Ibañez is batting behind Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and is followed by Jason Werth. The Phillies are paying a premium up and down its batting order on which Ibañez is cashing in.

Branyan is delivering more for the money. With this salary and a one-year deal, he’s pretty certain to be trade bait this June and July.

IN OTHER NEWS: Down in the minors, 3B Alex Liddi of the High Desert Mavericks (Hi-A), who played for Italy in the WBC, is tearing the cover off the ball. In 57 games, 234 at-bats, he’s got 15 home runs, 56 RBIs, .333 avg. and .628 SLG. Someone to watch.

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Thank the baseball gods and pass the popcorn, Jack Zduriencik and his scouting team are going for power position players, not pitchers, in the first rounds of the draft. This fills the pipeline with defensive options, some with great power, that can play in Seattle or be traded for proven pitching prospects. It’s a much better strategy than the majority of teams in this year’s draft, the majority of which have gone for pitchers through the middle of round two.

First-round pick Dustin Ackley (scouting report), a UNC outfielder (here’s the UNC paper’s coverage) who projects as an Major League center fielder is a “pure hitter.” Ackley has batted over .400 for the past three years in one of the toughest divisions of college baseball. Ackley holds UNC’s single-season record for total bases, having batted .412, with 103 hits, 80 RBIs and 22 home runs in his senior year. This is a solid fast-track player. He played first base this season after Tommy John surgery, but Zduriencik and Mariners director of amateur scouting Tom McNamara expect him to land in the outfield at Safeco.

Nick Franklin (scouting report), a high school shortstop from Florida, was the Mariners’ second-round pick. A “toolsy” player lauded for being a “real baseball player” by the MLB TV commentators, at just 18, Franklin will be a few years before his real potential can be projected. A catcher, right-handed high-schooler Steven Baron (scouting report) was the team’s third pick, in the compensation round, followed by University of Georgia first baseman Richard Poythress (scouting report) in the second round. Both players seem to be valued for their defensive skills, each reportedly having problems at the plate.

Another UNC player, junior second baseman Kyle Seager (scouting report), was picked with fifth pick. A solid defender who could play second or third, features some speed on the bases and moderate power at the plate. He looks like a potential sleeper, perhaps showing something the Mariners liked, as he wasn’t picked to go in the first 100 picks.

Let the Washington Nationals have Stephen Strasburg, whose “once-in-a-generation” status comes with all the risk of a pitcher in the draft plus overwhelmingly high expectations. On MLB TV today, Tony Gwynn, Strasburg’s coach at San Diego State, is reported to have said there are no comparable pitchers to the 100-mile fast ball pitcher—hopefully for the Nationals, he’ll not follow previous sure-fire pitchers like Rick Ankiel and Mark Prior, both of whom overpitched young to keep up with management’s expectations.

It is difficult to blog about the Seattle Mariners, because the team is like a bug stuck in amber. Sometimes, when you turn it in the light it is beautiful and fun to watch. At others, it is a bug, stuck in time. The 8-run comeback yesterday by the Angels, just when the Mariners were poised to sweep LA and drive the predicted leader of the AL West to .500, Seattle melted down.

Now, the M’s head into June playing .471 ball, 24 – 27, the two catalysts for change available to the club are the draft and the trade market. Both offer solid options, especially if Seattle and its fans don’t get distracted by the fact that Stephen Strasbourg will land with the Nationals—the Scott Boras client is not a lock for greatness, as Rick Ankiel, another pitcher that couldn’t lose, proved a decade ago, before Ankiel stopped pitching, had his shoulder rebuilt and learned to play outfield. Consider this statement about Strasbourg: “not since Mark Prior has there been this kind of buzz about an amateur pitcher.” I agree with John Hickey, Strasbourg going to the Nationals is not the M’s great loss.

In fact, I’d like to see Seattle focus on offense in the draft and deal with its pitching needs—three starters and middle relief, since the M’s have Chad Cordero tucked away—through trades. Dustin Ackley, a solid defensive center fielder from the University of North Carolina who hits well, has speed and a surgically repaired elbow, is anticipated to be the first hitter taken in the draft, and he’d be a good fit with the team in a couple years. Because the Mariners also have Carlos Truinfel, an outstanding shortstop prospect who recently had surgery, the team may also want to take a pass on USC’s Grant Green, a toolsy defender with a good batting eye who needs to develop a bit more power to justify the Evan Longoria comparisons I’ve read. 

Seattle should stay away from High School picks this time around, as it needs to see results sooner rather than later, and because the best prep offensive player, Donavan Tate out of Georgia, described here, along with other top prep prospects, will probably end up playing football and baseball in college. Let other teams waste picks on these guys, let these guys go to college. 

On the trade front, Adrian Beltre, Yuniesky Betancourt, Jose Lopez, Franklin Gutierrez, Wladimir Balentien, Russell Branyan, Erik Bedard, Jarrod Washburn, Chris Jakubauskas and Garret Olson should all be considered trade material, for which Jack Zduriencik should consider pitching prospects. He’s shown a good eye in player development over the years, and the Branyan signing has turned into a solid decision that he can exploit, if needed, to bring young arms to Seattle.

But something has to change, because the current state of affairs is too predictably mediocre, largely because the team is still a strong reflection of the Bavasi years. More change will create more opportunities for improvement, for the team that has started to emerge on the field to shift its center to players with the greatest drive to win.

Adrian Beltre, who I suspect is injured, because he is not moving down the baseline with any speed this year, will ride the bench in Moday’s game versus the Angels and two-pitches-and-yer-ejected John Lackey. Beltre has also shown very poor timing on pitches. If anything, his batting eye is getting worse with each passing week.

Being benched did some good for Yuniesky Betancourt last week, who has raised his average by more than 10 points during the past 10 games, but Beltre doesn’t look like he needs encouragement, he looks like he just doesn’t have any presence at the plate. He’s sitting on a .211 average for the season, more than 50 points below last year’s full-season number, when he was playing hurt. The bottom line, though, is that it shouldn’t take a benching to get a major league player on track.

Yesterday’s walk-off win over the Red Sox showed Jason Vargas has some staying power, that Mark Lowe is potentially the closer of the future after all (with David Aardsma in the 8th), and that the bottom of the order can deliver a clutch win. All good signs. Right now, the M’s are being held back by slumping bats in the middle of the order.

Russell Branyan is the best free-agent signing, on a price/performance basis, of the winter. The M’s may have passed on Raul Ibañez, who is tearing up pitchers for the Phillies, but Branyan is delivering huge returns on his much lower salary.

Brandon Morrow returned after giving up the losing hit yesterday to surrender two home runs in the bottom of the ninth to blow a great start by Felix Hernandez (7 innings pitched, four hits, no runs on 6 strikeouts). Chris Davis of the Rangers delivered the coup de gras, walking off with the win. Morrow’s not showing the range of pitches he did at the end of last year, when he was in the rotation. 

Seattle drops to 16-19, third place in the AL West.

When the M’s fail to provide a lot of offense, they are very vulnerable. It’s time for some creative reconfiguring of the roster. Morrow’s three hits and two home runs in four batters was pretty miserable. His ERA appears to be heading north of 10, not the stats Seattle needs from its closer.

Tomorrow night, Tacoma native Jon Lester starts for the Red Sox vs. Chris Jakubauskas for the Mariners.

It’s about time. Yuniesky Betancourt has been benched by Mariners Manager Don Wakamatsu. A couple Sundays back, when Yuni had two errors on two consecutive grounders hit to short, it became clear that the time had come to give up on any dreams of hidden greatness and move on.

Comparing Beltre and Betancourt

While Betancourt did demonstrate some improved plate discipline early this season, it hasn’t delivered great results. His .259 batting average hides how really bad he’s been. There’s no power and little tactical value in his 12 RBIs, four two-baggers and one home run.

The really frightening thing is that Adrian Beltre is batting worse that Betancourt. Beltre did add a home run during tonights ongoing game with Texas, but it’s time for some answers: Is Beltre playing hurt?

The 15-inning rubber game of the Mariners-Athletics series this weekend marked an important turning point for The Team No One Believed In. Coming back during the first nine innings to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, falling behind by three runs in the 13th but recovering to win on a Jose Lopez single, the Mariners demonstrated that they have the drive to win, regardless of the circumstances. After 33 innings of baseball this weekend, the team still poured onto the field to congratulate Lopez, who also won Friday’s game with a single in the bottom of the ninth. 

A real team has appeared in Seattle this season.

The Wak Ball of the early games has given way to a more traditional hit-and-run game in the last week, but the M’s are still finding ways to grind out wins. Jason Vargas, who won today’s game after two-and-a-third innings of relief, made his 2009 debut, following the long-absent Denny Stark, whose last pitch in the majors was five years ago. Mike Sweeney also contributed his first home run of the season, as did catcher Kenji Johjima, fresh off the disabled list as of Friday. Franklin Gutierrez and Yunieksy Betancourt have both built their averages up to be consistent bottom-of-the-order contributors. The offense of the team is firing on all cylinders in clutch situations. 

The five-run rule, laid out here, has held up and is essential to the Mariners continuing their winning ways. The team has won all but one of the games in which they scored more than five runs and held the opponent to less than five, 10 games in all (almost exactly the 85% of wins in this situation I predicted, though it was little more than a lucky estimate). The M’s have lost 10 games in which they scored less than five runs. The difference, which accounts for the team’s surprising and pleasing 15-10 record, is the five games in which the the M’s pulled a win out in low-scoring games, when both teams scored fewer than five runs. 

Good pitching has made the real difference. Hernandez, Bedard and Washburn have pitched well. Jakubauskus pitched well today, and he was great in his two-hit loss to the White Sox last Tuesday. 

But there are still some weaknesses. Carlos Silva was horrible again on Friday night. I believe Chris Jakubauskas, today’s starter, would be pitching for wins instead of finding his footing if he’d taken Silva’s place on the roster at the beginning of the season. The good news is that GM Jack Zduriencik has given Silva an ultimatum about his performance, the bad news is that there isn’t a clearly prepared replacement candidate at Tacoma. After Vargas’ promotion, Garrett Olson is the closest to a major-league starter. 

It’s time for Zduriencik to package one of the many catchers he has–Jeff Clement has played better since being sent back to Tacoma–with a pitching prospect in the lower minors to get another quality starter, a number four or five guy to lock down at least 11 more wins this season, which Silva won’t deliver.

Ichiro's move to second

The “new look Seattle Mariners” are a hell of a lot better than the old Mariners. Surprisingly, some of the bad old Mariners, such as Jarrod Washburn, who pitches tonight against Andy Sonnanstine and the Tampa Bay Rays, are showing signs of renewed Major League skills at 2—0 and a .180 ERA on the season. Pitching, however, isn’t the mainspring of Wakball, the game this new Mariners team is playing. The essence of the new style, though, is a kind of small ball that you don’t even see in the National League anymore.

As U.S.S. Mariner pointed out the other day, Don Wakamatsu likes to bunt. The bunt has also come back to bite the Mariners over the weekend, when Detroit countered with its own small ball game. Rule One of Successful Wakball, then, might be “If you bunt, you’d better be able to field a bunt, too.” Bunting, though, is just part of the new game, even if the M’s are currently on track to double or triple the average number of bunts by a team during the year. The team’s continuing defensive development is critical to continuing its early success. 

After watching Yuniesky Betancourt bobble two easy grounders on Sunday, I want to know when Wak and GM Jack Zduriencik are going to make a move to fix the awful hole that has developed between third and second bases. His bat is slightly better than last year, but his defense is downgraded. Time for a change. Would Matt Tuiasosopo be able to move to Shortstop?

Second, Wakball is defined by moving the runner along. Franklin Gutierrez exists to move up a base or to move a runner along. His batting average is .237, which is way up over the weekend, but his Slugging Percentage is .395, which means he’s contributing more than twice as many bases to the team’s progress than times he is getting a hit. Endy Chavez, who has far exceeded his expected production through the first 13 games, is delivering hits (20) with an excellent .293 batting average, but he’s also stealing bases (4) and has a good, though not great, slugging percentage of .471.

But the new ballgame ends there. On a stat-by-stat basis, the Mariners do not stand out in any offensive category. The surprising pitching performances so far this year have given the Mariners the advantage more often than not. My “five runs will win” rule, laid out here, has held true in all but two games in which the team has scored five runs (two of the games in Minnesota), because Seattle pitching has held up so well. Tonight’s Washburn outing will be a keystone to the first half of the season. If Washburn continues his excellent performance, Seattle’s will be far and away the best pitching in the AL West and in the top-five among all Major League teams, which is the recipe for at least .500 ball.

Wakball still needs a couple more foundations, but the outlines are pleasing so far.

Does anyone think the Royals or Jays are going to win their divisions?  

Let’s not get too excited, even though last night’s 11-3 drubbing of the Angels, the mighty Angels, will make anyone think the 2009 Mariners are a powerhouse. At 7-2 going into Thursday’s game, the Mariners have the second-best record in the MLB, just behind the Florida Marlins. The difference between those two teams? People are talking about the Marlins being for real and the M’s are still a surprise. Let’s keep it that way, because the first ten games—one sixteenth of the season is behind us—don’t measure the end of any season. 

And the Mariners have always been good when people underestimated them. This is a team that is coming together, learning to play together and could be much better than expected as long as they don’t start taking anything for granted. Don Wakamatsu’s aggressive brand of small ball is fun to watch, whatever the results. These are some good results.

Kenji Johjima is headed to the DL with a hamstring injury. Jamie Burke, who handles the pitching staff very well, replaces him. Jeff Clement begins to look like trade bait, if he can get his numbers up. Burke has started two games to Clement’s five in Tacoma, yet here Jamie is, the “new Pat Borders,” as Mike Snow calls him. 

Sean White joins the team, as well, to shore up the bullpen now that Chris Jakubauskas is in the rotation. The Pullman native will fill in well, but won’t shake the world.

Matt Tuiasosopo goes back to Tacoma, where he will get some much-needed work. After his Spring, he deserves to be with the big club, but he needs to be playing daily. We’ll see him again, soon. 

What’s with Adrian Beltre? His tepid start (.206 average and a paltry .265 SLG with just seven hits in 24 at-bats) suggests he is not fully recovered from off-season surgery. He’s going to heat up soon or, I suspect we’ll begin to hear about his health, again. 

Jakubauskas is pitching sell in the first. He’s thrown 12 of 14 pitches for strikes. Jak strikes out Torii Hunter and Bobby Abreu, after giving up a bloop fly to Chone Figgins and getting Howie Kendrick to ground out. The rookie looks good.

The Mariners lineup tonight, as Jr. and Franklin Gutierrez get a night off:

Suzuki, RF
Chavez, CF
Sweeney, DH
Beltre, 3B
Lopez, 2B
Branyan, 1B
Balentien, LF
Johnson, C
Betancourt, SS

I’ll be at the game Friday. Look for new pictures soon.

What to make of Carlos Silva?

As I noted yesterday, I’m starting to be a believer in the new-look Mariners (click through for Opening Day pictures), but the thrill of Opening Day can do that. Today’s news, that Chris Jakubauskas will join the starting rotation, something he earned in Peoria this March but only came to pass today, gives me more reasons to feel optimism. It suggests that, despite the payroll the best players are going to get time on the field. 

Jakubauskas, who had never made a major league roster in his 29 years until the Mariners brought him north, has pitched well in his four innings this month. He’s running a 4.50 ERA and picked up two strikes while winning a game. He’s performed well under pressure. Ryan Rowland-Smith, who had been tipped for Thursday’s start, will go on the disabled list instead with tendonitis in his triceps, according to U.S.S. Mariner. The move is retroactive to April 11, making Rowland-Smith eligible to return by the 26th, during the next Angels series in L.A.

What to make of Carlos Silva’s pitching yesterday? Some thoughts from one fan: 4 hits, 3 earned runs, one walk, four strikeouts over seven innings. Not bad. On the season, he’s got a still shaky 6.00 ERA, which is much closer to his miserable 2008 mark than when he won 13 games in 2007. He worked himself out of a bases-loaded situation last night, but he also loaded the bases. I’d like to see more starts like Tuesday and another Zduriencik-engineered trade to make more room for young arms, because Silva’s fundamentals are still out of whack.

Tonight’s lineup is:

Ichiro, RF
Chavez, LF
Griffey Jr. DH
Beltre, 3B
Branyan, 1B
Lopez, 2B
Johjima, C
Betancourt, SS
Gutierrez, CF

Starting: Jarrod Washburn, 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA.