And more mariners call ups.

[JosephC]

According to a tweet by Ryan Divish, Mike Carp, Greg Halman, Matt Mangini, Anthony Varvaro will join the Mariners.

Thoughts?

My first thought is I've seen enough of Mike Carp. The rest I can stand. I am most interested in Matt Mangini after showing a good bat this year.

[clarknova]

Totally agree on Mike Carp. He's a weird looking dude too- looks like there might be an albino in the family tree or something. Although, when JosephC and I were at a Rainiers playoff game the left fielder did a lay out diving horizontal catch that was one of the best defensive plays I've seen at Safeco ever. I look up at the scoreboard and it's frickin' Mike Carp! (which was of course followed by multiple "flying CARPet" puns). Anyway, it was nice to see, I had no idea he had the capability of doing anything other than standing on first base and creeping out the ball girls.

Greg Halman = MEH (for me- lot of K's a few homers maybe...)

Matt Mangini is one to watch for sure, as Joseph said, his bat really emerged and I'm interested to see what he can do against big league pitching. Also comes with the added bonus of a built in nickname- his name is Matt Man Genie.

Varvaro is another I'm interested to see work against top talent.

YOU GUYS! SOMETHING TO WATCH!!!

[JosephC]

I think the one I am MOST interested in is Cortes out of all the call ups. I really want to see if this 104 MPH fastball is true. Like I was telling clarnova, the Angels promoted Jordan Walden because of his fastball which easily hit 100 MPH every time he threw it. So far he's gone 10 innings with a 1.74 ERA and 16 SO. I wanted him on the M's when I saw how he lit up the radar gun.

And Geoff Baker makes a good point why Lueke may not have been called up, beyond the public relations argument.

As for Lueke, his status as a convicted felon on probation through the 2012 season means the Mariners would have needed to apply for permission to have him travel across the border into Canada for the Toronto series and you can't just do that on a whim. Has to be done well in advance.

And finally, Josh Lueke's tweet about it:

Thanks everyone for a wonderful season even tho I didn't get called up it was still a wonderful time and a true blessing that I got to be introduced to a new family and a great group of guys everyone has accepted me and has been awesome to play with or be around I love everything about the #mariners and ill be going to fall ball on Oct 6 so tune in to some of those tweets

[Nateyb24]

I think the one I am MOST interested in is Cortes out of all the call ups. I really want to see if this 104 MPH fastball is true. Like I was telling clarnova, the Angels promoted Jordan Walden because of his fastball which easily hit 100 MPH every time he threw it. So far he's gone 10 innings with a 1.74 ERA and 16 SO. I wanted him on the M's when I saw how he lit up the radar gun.

And Geoff Baker makes a good point why Lueke may not have been called up, beyond the public relations argument.


And finally, Josh Lueke's tweet about it:

That sucks he was one of the more talented guys in Triple A that i wanted to see. Watch him get traded and he becomes a star like we have done with other prospects because the kid made a bad decision. (Kind of like when we traded Derek Lowe with Jason Varitek for a couple of relieve pitchers man did we get robbed in that deal by Boston.)

[Igoe4Mariners]

Good...now I have a legit reason to tell my girlfriend why I'm still watching the Mariners!

[clarknova]

I heard Baker on the radio talking about Lueke and he brought up the Canada issue... Not sure I buy that- It's just a three game series. If they really wanted to they'd call him up. I think they think that if they just wait until next year maybe this will all die down. I don't think that's the smartest thing. I feel like that just drags it out. He earned it numbers wise- he showed great stuff. If he's going to pitch for the M's, let him and let's get it over with. That's how we start to move on. This year was already a circus fire, it's not like Lueke pitching will make it worse.

[Old but Slow]

For this team to improve, they are going to have to begin to develop the young players instead of trading them off for over the hill veterans. It is difficult to know if the players we bring up will be productive, but we certainly know that what we have is not working well. Players like Saunders and Moore have not settled in, yet, but show promise. If guys like Mangini and Halman can be players, we might see this team begin to crawl out of the cellar. We need to see some players who can hit for power, and some who can control the strike zone. A couple of players who can hit .280 and 20 home runs would be huge, in comparison to what we have. Sad, really.

[clarknova]

For this team to improve, they are going to have to begin to develop the young players instead of trading them off for over the hill veterans. It is difficult to know if the players we bring up will be productive, but we certainly know that what we have is not working well. Players like Saunders and Moore have not settled in, yet, but show promise. If guys like Mangini and Halman can be players, we might see this team begin to crawl out of the cellar. We need to see some players who can hit for power, and some who can control the strike zone. A couple of players who can hit .280 and 20 home runs would be huge, in comparison to what we have. Sad, really.

Agree 100%. The only thing I would add is that I'm fairly skeptical about Halman's ability to hit major league pitching at this moment. It's entirely within the realm of possibility that he can be trained to recognize breaking balls and learn to lay off pitches out of the strike zone, but right now he's very much your classic "all or nothing" hitter. He looks like Wladimir Balentien 2.0 to me. Tons of pop and potential, but he'll strike out 4 times for every home run he hits. This season in the minors has actually been an improvement for him in that regard, so I hope to see more improvement because there is NO doubting his power.