Finally accepting the futility, the Mariners Tuesday night finally cut Chone Figgins, eating the final $8 million on his $36 million deal, one of the great busts in club history.
Author: John Hickey
John Hickey
John is a longtime West Coast-based baseball writer who covered the Oakland As for two decades with The (Hayward) Daily Review and the Oakland Tribune. He headed north in 2000 to cover the Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, starting on the day Ken Griffey Jr. was traded to Cincinnati. After the print P-I closed in 2009, he joined the national sports staff of AOL FanHouse and contributes to Seattlepostglobe.org. He is a longtime baseball correspondent for the Tokyo Chunichi Press. A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) for two-plus decades, Hickey is a Hall of Fame voter. When hes not covering baseball, he has written about pro football, college sports, tennis, golf and winter sports. A University of California grad, Hickey is a fan of rock and jazz music, traveling, reading and cooking. He proved in high school that hes no athlete, but he does like to ski. Hickey and his wife live in Seattle in a house ruled by two magnanimous cats.
No one wearing a Mariners uniform in 2013 has more of an uphill battle than Dave Hansen. A two-time Mariner as an infielder and pinch-hitter, Hansen was named hitting coach Monday, replacing Chris Chambliss, who was let go at the end of another of a series of unproductive seasons for the offense.
Mariners concede the obvious: Safeco is an extreme pitcher’s park. By this winter’s market, cozier dimensions will take one excuse off the table when bidding for free agent hitters.
After another losing season, are you, the Mariners fan, better off than you were a year ago? Do you see change you can believe in? Here’s your voter’s pamphlet and ballot.
Catcher Mike Zunino, the No. 1 draft pick, has torn up the minors, benefiting by a new rule that pushes players and teams to an earlier signing date to get in a summer of pro ball.
Outfielder Sam Fuld could have been grinding his teeth after his Tampa Bay Rays lost a 1-0 decision after Felix Hernandez showed his Kingship Wednesday with baseballs third perfect game of the season. But it would have been little more than screaming into the darkness. Fuld chose to embrace the moment. Felix and (Detroits Justin)
Brandon League, fading in Seattle, goes to the Dodgers for two minor league pitchers; Delabar traded to Toronto, which lost to the M’s 4-1 Tuesday, for OF Eric Thames.
Mariners complete a four-game sweep of the Royals Sunday as Felix Hernandez narrowly avoids serious injury.
As the trade deadline approaches, the Mariners have three pitchers, Brandon League, Jason Vargas and Kevin Millwood, who will likely draw offers from contenders.
The near-shutdown of the Red Sox offense by the Mariners drew the admiration of David Ortiz, who thinks the Mariners are only a hitter or two away from becoming serious.