SoDo Mojo » cubs

Farewell, Sweet Lou

Griffin Cooper — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:35:03 +0000

As I’ve become more baseball-educated over the last year or so, I’ve had to deal with finding out a lot of disturbing things. Like that calling someone a “clutch hitter” is just a meaningless cliche, or that ERA is not in fact the be all end all stat of quantifying pitching performance. In a way, I feel like learning more about the game has taken away my innocence, and nothing I’ve learned is a better example of that than learning that Lou Piniella may not have been such a great manager. That seems to be the general consensus in the sabermetric Mariner community, and while I’m not denying that it might be true, it came as a bit of a shock to me. After all, I grew up watching sweet Lou throw bases and kick dirt on umpires. I was a naive fan, and he was the manager of the best baseball teams this city has ever seen. Not only that, but the whole city seemed to love him – how could I not view him as a good manager?

Now, I hear tales of poor bullpen management and bias towards veteran players, and I have to admit, it’s painful. It doesn’t change my feelings toward him, though. I’ll always have fond memories of his tenure in Seattle, and the game of baseball is certainly going to miss his familiar face. So goodbye Lou, and thanks for the ride.

Garrett Olson Career Timeline

Griffin Cooper — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:29:43 +0000

October 18th, 1983

Garrett Andrew Olson is born in Fresno, California. His parents are extremely proud of his beautiful eyes and extraordinarily defined chin.

2005

Olson finishes his final college season at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, going 12-4 with a 2.71 ERA.

June 7th, 2005

Garrett Olson is drafted by the Baltimore Orioles with the 48th overall pick in the 2005 baseball amateur draft, a compensation pick. He spends the majority of the rest of the season in low-A ball Aberdeen, where he posts a 1.58 ERA in 40 innings.

2006

In his first full pro season, after being named the Orioles’ 6th best prospect by Baseball America, Olson finishes the first half with a 3.50 FIP, 77 strikeouts, and only 19 walks in 81.1 innings in high-A Frederick. He is then promoted to double-A Bowie, where he goes 6-5 with a 3.27 FIP, and is named the Orioles’ Minor League Player of the Year.

July 4th, 2007

After a strong first half in triple-A Norfolk, Olson finally gets the shot he’s been waiting for. He makes his Major League debut on July 4th, 2007 against the Chicago White Sox, where he goes 4.1 innings, giving up 2 runs. He goes on to pitch 6 more Major League games in 2007, posting a 5.90 FIP and an even worse ERA.

2008

2008 was Olson’s first full year in the big leagues, and he went on to post a 5.13 FIP in 26 games. One of his strengths as a highly-touted minor leaguer was his ability to throw strikes, but that had seemingly evaporated upon making his Major League debut, as he posted BB/9′s of 7.79 and 4.21 in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Fun fact! In 2008, Olson went to 3-0 on 8% of all batters he faced in 2008 – the highest percentage in the majors.

January 18th, 2009

Olson is traded to the Cubs in a deal that sends Felix Pie to the O’s. Just 10 days later, he is traded to Seattle with slick fielding shortstop Ronny Cedeno, in a deal that sends Aaron Heilman to the Cubs.

2009

Olson starts the 2009 season in triple-A Tacoma, posting a respectable FIP of 3.85. He is called up to make his Seattle Mariners debut on May 6th against the Royals, where he pitches 5 relief innings of 3 run ball (2 earned). He finishes the 2009 campaign going back and forth between Seattle and Tacoma, finishing with a MLB FIP of 6.42, despite posting an extremely low BABIP of .250. Seattle Mariners fans are not pleased.

March, 2010

It quickly becomes evident that Garrett Olson has hit rock bottom. After being a semi-decorated prospect in a good minor league system just 3 years earlier, he is now battling as the long-shot candidate for a long relief role at the age of 26. He has posted an ERA over 20 through two weeks of Spring Training games.

So Much For Ben Sheets

Griffin Cooper — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:17:54 +0000

According to Danny Knobler of CBS Sports, Ben Sheets has signed a one year deal with the A’s, reportedly for more than $8MM. Disappointing, but I’d rather see him end up in Oakland than in Texas, I suppose. We knew that the A’s had money to spend, so this doesn’t really come as a huge surprise, although I know a good portion of us had been holding out hope that he would end up in Mariner blue. Oh well.

Update, 10:56 AM: Both Buster Olney and Jon Heyman are reporting that the deal is for $10MM plus incentives. That’s quite a lot of money. The other piece of news that I neglected to notice, is that Xavier Nady also appears to have agreed to a deal with the Cubs. Meh.