Comments on: What the Mariners Owe Griffey

By: bowie

bowie — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:59:58 +0000

The mariners have been so bad that keeping Griffey at this point isn’t going to make things much worse. If Figgins, Lopez, Kotchman, Wilson, and Johnson don’t get their collective OPS about 150 points higher very soon, they have no chance, with or without Griffey. And I think there’s little chance of that.
Might as well keep Griffey and avoid compounding the losing with an ignominious departure of a franchise icon.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:49:35 +0000

B, I was referring to the home run chase. The Giants rode him until he passed Aaron, then cut him loose. And I fully agree he could have helped an AL team in ’08.

By: B

Tue, 18 May 2010 19:08:38 +0000

“once the Giants decided they couldn’t make money off of him anymore”

Well….let’s at least be accurate here. Bonds was still a good hitter when he was shown the door. The Giants could still make money off him, and teams employing a DH (coughRayscough) could have gained a nice bat in the lineup, too. What we have here is a case of collusion. Unproven, of course. :)

By: JoeyO

JoeyO — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:33:02 +0000

oh, so he hasnt pitifully been trying to hold onto this idea he can still play?

Look, they want to keep him happy and with the organization for the betterment of both; he can be the face of the club well after retirement. But Griffey, instead of being realistic, keeps acting as if he can still play the game like he used to. When he is saying he wants to play, should they have then said “no you cant play anymore” and let their face walk away from the organization; possibly with hard feelings? That is where it gets to the question of, is he that clueless that he think he’s helping the Mariners by sticking around?

The Mariners are between a rock and a hard place – trying to keep their franchise’s face happy and his refusal to do anything other then weigh down a roster.

By: NEPP

NEPP — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:02:10 +0000

Maybe they simply don’t want to toss the greatest player in their franchise history out the door quite yet. Maybe they look at it as a sunk cost and want to keep him around in a “player-coach” type role. Maybe they realize they suck either way and keeping him helps them out on a PR front.

Nobody but Seattle’s FO knows the answers to these questions.

By: cje

cje — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:00:16 +0000

Griffey did not refuse to go away. The Mariners decided they wanted him back for 2010 and offered him a contract. He signed it.

By: don

don — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:37:42 +0000

Bonds was something less than stellar at cultivating the media, so is it really shocking that they didn’t rally behind him?