This Roster Against Lefties

Dave Cameron wrote a post today, explaining why this roster, while improved, still just doesn’t work against RHP, and he’s right. We still don’t have enough flexibility to get away with having both a 7-man bullpen and someone like Mike Sweeney on the team. However, that isn’t the only situation in which this roster has issues – we’ve got a problem against lefties, too.

These are our current lineup options against lefties.

C: Moore/Johnson (doesn’t matter for this)

IF: Kotchman, Figgins, Wilson, Lopez

OF: Langerhans, Guti, Ichiro

DH: Bradley

or

C: Moore/Johnson

IF: Kotchman, Figgins, Wilson, Lopez

OF: Bradley, Guti, Ichiro

DH: Sweeney

or

C: Moore/Johnson

IF: Kotchman, Figgins, Wilson, Lopez

OF: Bradley, Guti, Ichiro

DH: Griffey

Notice any problems? With Byrnes gone, the Mariners not only have just 4 outfielders, but one of them is injury prone, and one of them can’t hit lefties. This issue is magnified by the fact that 2 of our 3 DH options are old, bad, and significant injury risks.

Let’s face it, none of these 3 lineup scenarios look very good. As it stands, every time we face a lefty, we’re either going to be starting Langerhans, Griffey, or Sweeney. Yeah, Sweeney can probably still hold his own against southpaws, but he’s bound to land on the DL if they start giving him more regular time. I mean, we’re less than a month into the season, he’s played in 10 games, and he’s already dealing with some health issues.

It’s really nice to have Ryan Langerhans back, and a real backup infielder on the team, but they aren’t done yet. They need another right handed outfielder, and right now, no one currently in the system comes to mind. This means they need to go out and get someone, which of course means they also need to dump someone. I probably don’t have to tell you who I think it should be.

Get on it, Jack, because as of now this team is going to continue to have problems, regardless of which hand the opposing pitcher throws with.