Felix Hernandez

Describes motivation process for creativity with emphasis on intrinsic motivation by Corey K Katir

The Mariners have wanted to get Alex Liddi in more games and today, with Mike Carp nursing a stiff shoulder, they have the Italian-born Liddi starting his first professional game as a left fielder.

Liddi actually slipped into left field for an inning last night in a late-game defensive shift, but didn’t get any fielding opportunities. He said he’s excited about the opportunity, but also eager to get his first chance or two out of the way.

“Of course, to read balls is a different perspective from the infield,” he said.

Liddi last played the outfield back home in Italy. But never as a pro.

“You’ve got to break him in at some point in time,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. “No time like the present.”

Wedge said Liddi has looked good in drills but “there’s nothing like game speed and game reaction.”

The toughest thing he’ll face? Wedge said usually it’s going straight back or straight in on balls because of the quick decision-making required.

Kyle Seager is today’s cleanup hitter as Jesus Montero gets a much-needed day off after last night’s hitting and fielding adventures. The toll of catching more regularly appears to be catching up to Montero’s bat as well, now just 3-for-21 on the trip and hitless in the last eight at-bats.

The middle of the order is killing the Mariners, as we saw last night when Dustin Ackley and Michael Saunders kept getting on in the first two spots, but had nobody to drive them home. Ichiro got one run in on a groundout, but that’s not really what the Mariners were looking for when they had Ubaldo Jimenez on the ropes early. Instead, Jimenez somehow made it through six innings.

Of bigger concern with Montero is his catching when used too often. The team has decided to fly Miguel Olivo into Colorado so Wedge can see firsthand how he looks, then send him out to Class AAA for a rehabilitation assignment. Wedge has taken extra time allowing Olivo to come back this year, compared to last spring when he needed only a month to return from a much more serious groin strain.

Wedge admitted this morning that he rushed Olivo back too quickly last season and feels it impacted his on-field performance. In hindsight, he added, he should have given Olivo another two-to-four weeks. So, now, given a do-over, he’s taking his time because based off what he’s seen, he’ll need Olivo around for the long haul to “protect” Montero so he isn’t pushed too hard — as he looks to have been in Olivo’s absence.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the team is flying Olivo in to Colorado to have a one-on-one chat with Montero and maybe some others. The team has dropped five of six and isn’t scoring many runs. We’re at a dangerous point in the season where the M’s are now seven games under .500 and in danger of reverting back to the 95-to-100-loss mode of the past few seasons.

There is a decided lack of veteran leadership in that clubhouse right now among position players, with Chone Figgins relegated to backup duty and not really positioned to have all that much clout. Brendan Ryan is hitting .137 and has never really been the type to offer up a stabilizing presence in the traditional sense. Olivo, when he returns, will be the one everyday player who can help speak to others when needed and offer a calming influence. You can’t have pitchers do that with position guys and pitchers are really the only off-field veteran influence on this team.

But for now, this team is floundering, just fired and missed badly with its one Felix Hernandez bullet, and is in danger of another of those prolonged losing streaks. The pitching has faltered noticeably as well and you have to wonder whether the catching situation has something to do with that.

Wedge spoke today about some of Olivo’s intangibles of being able to get behind the plate five or six days in a row. Montero, as we’ve seen, isn’t at that stage of his career yet and the results — as the “sample size” grows — are starting to show up.

“I wanted to push him through Felix last night and you see what you see,” Wedge said. “And it’s OK. He’s processing a lot right now. And he’s not complaining about it. He’s a good listener. He still has a lot of work to do, but he knows it.

“To ultimately be the catcher that we want him to be and we feel like he’s capable of being, we’ve got to handle him carefully here. And he needs amental day as much as he needs a physical day.”Read more…

Haven’t seen Felix Hernandez get lit up like this since…since…I have no idea when, actually, but it probably involved a trip to Texas back before he became the guy we know today. Back when he was still a talented-but-raw kid prone to listening to blogger advice about throwing too many fastballs etc.

A kid who had an arm, but lacked a real idea. Not the pitcher he is today.

That was a lifetime ago, but I’ll tell you what, I had a bad feeling about this particular start from the get-go. Yeah, I know, I’m saying it now and that doesn’t really count. But hear me out. Two years ago, when Hernandez was on his way to the Cy Young Award and steamrolling everything in his path, he got lit up here in Cleveland and took the loss. It would be the final whupping he took that year. He didn’t actually give up any earned runs, but it was because a lone error wiped six runs off his ledger.

The year before, he got beat here as well. Gave up six runs in that game, but an error there took three off his personal board. He did win last year, but I wasn’t around for that trip, so maybe that’s why I felt this bad feeling tonight. Who knows? Let’s just say that, the past few seasons since Hernandez got real, real good, he’s given up a plethora of runs in multiple games here.

Something about this place. Anyhow, tonight was the worst and he was done just 3 2/3 innings and 103 pitches into a 9-3 loss. He allowed eight runs — six earned — while giving up 10 hits, hitting a batter and throwing a wild pitch. I asked him post-game if he could remember a night like this.

“It’s been a while, man,” he said. “It’s been a while since I had a game like that.”

This was the second-shortest outing he’s had — other than when he hurt his elbow against the Twins in 2007 — since his 2005 debut season. The previous low during that span came on May 7, 2010 when the Angels hit three home runs in one inning off him a Safeco Field.

But even that game didn’t seem as bad, despite Hernandez allowing eight runs — seven earned, one more than tonight — over 3 1/3 innings. The long ball killed him that night. In fact, he only gave up five hits.

Tonight felt worse. Read more…

UPDATE: Mike Carp was scratched for precautionary reasons with stiffness in his right shoulder. We’re told he’s available to pinch-hit and play the field.

For those just tuning in, Felix Hernandez got destroyed tonight, chased after just 3 2/3 innings down 8-3. Hernandez threw 104 pitches and was fortunate the score wasn’t worse, which it might have been had Dustin Ackley not snagged a grounder headed for the outfield back in the first.

As it stands, he allowed eight runs — six earned — on 10 hits with three walks, three strikeouts, a wild pitch and a hit batter.

Shawn Kelley “finished off” the inning by allowing a bloop single and then seeing the runner get hung up between bases tryin to advance. Ugly. Hisashi Iwakuma warming up to come in for the fifth.Read more…

Today was an early morning, as I’m on a train bound from New York to Boston. It’s an early trip so I can arrive in time for an 11 a.m. ET panel discussion on sports beat writing that I’ll be giving with Pete Thamel of the New York Times and Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald at the Associated Press Sports Editors regional conference at the Boston Globe offices.

I’m sure we’ll cover plenty of topics on the challenges facing modern beat writers but one of the ones I’m finding increasingly difficult is relaying to fans exactly why teams behave the way they do in regards to certain player moves and strategy. Part of the reason is the subtlety involved in managing a ballclub, both from a field and front office level. We’ve gone over this before, but I think it bears repeating: there is a difference between running a baseball team that spends close to $100 million annually on player payroll versus running one in a Roto League.

While some will say that, of course, they understand there’s a difference, I’m not sure many realize that the arguments being pushed forward on myriad issues do tend to take the Roto angle versus the actual real life one.

In Seattle, it’s leading to confusion about what the team has done with players on multiple levels, largely because of faux debates and controversies surrounding a “Veterans versus Young Guys” dynamic. Now, I don’t think fans are totally to blame for this. The Mariners, after all, set themselves up for this phony controversy by proclaiming that it’s all about the young guys now as they continue to cut payroll and wait for the bigger contracts of some veterans to run out.

So, what you have now is a confusing situation where it really hasn’t been all about the young guys. At least, not yet. But the reality is, it will never be entirely about the young guys, which is why the average age of every baseball team tends to hover in the late-20s and not the early-to-mid 20s.

No team goes entirely young. Never has been that way and never will be.

When you’re charging big league ticket prices, you need to put a professional product out there and that would be tough to do with 25 different 22-24-year-olds all breaking in at the same time. Think about the growing pains associated with Michael Saunders over parts of two seasons prior to this one. About Jeff Clement. Think of the ups-and-downs of Felix Hernandez in 2006, 2007 and 2008, as dynamic a pitcher as he has become.

There is a learning curve and growth period associated with every young player and it will vary on an individual basis. And while they are growing, they will need to be spelled occasionally — or the majority of the time — by somebody who has already been there and done that.

This really is pretty elementary stuff when you think about it, and yet, it has often gone missing in some of the hysteria surrounding the Chone Figgins and Miguel Olivo “controversies” that have been allowed to frame much of the discussion surrounding the team’s moves. But that’s what happens when you frame everything as a “Veterans versus Young Guys” scenario.

Again, the subtleties of MLB baseball come into play. And thinking about them first will often eliminate much of the mystery involved in understanding why things keep happening as they have. I’ve been among the harshest critics of this franchise, the speed of its current rebuilding plan, its true financial motives and a bunch of other stuff.

But on a daily baseball level, I honestly don’t see that big a mystery as to why things have happened the way they have. Probably because I understand that in baseball, things are rarely black and white. There is often a whole lot of gray involved.

Take the false Olivo and Figgins controversies.

First off, they are two completely different animals. Figgins is on a deal twice as long as Olivo’s and for three times the annual money.

He was playing because teams can’t simply eat $18 million in remaining salary without trying to do all they can to salvage a contract. Just because the Giants, or some other club once did that, or folks toss around economic terms like “sunk cost” doesn’t change all of that. If the Mariners can salvage some trade value for Figgins and get a team to take them off the hook for $9 million in remaining money, then the full $18 million isn’t really “sunk” is it?

No, it isn’t.

Which is why the Mariners played Figgins for a month at the leadoff spot. They gave him time to demonstrate he could handle the role and certainly, when he started to work counts and hit the ball more squarely, they were encouraged. When he began striking out too much, they gave him time to see whether he could work out of it. Players go into slumps all the time. You don’t chuck them after a week or two. But Figgins continued to struggle and — very importantly — the Mariners had a guy in Dustin Ackley that they felt could take his place.

So, after a month — a reasonable chance — he was dropped as a full-timer. What happens now is largely a question mark, but he’s done as the leadoff guy. He may have started off well, but the situation changed and that was it.

No controversy there. It’s just how things played out. The team tried something, it worked for a bit and then it did not.

On to the more complicated Olivo situation.

Read more…

The Mariners have dropped five of six games, scoring only 14 runs total, on their current road trip.

1. In todayas Post, I wrote this column about how the Matt Cain extension impacts the Yankees. Hint: More and more teams are signing their best young starters long term, which means fewer elite starters are reaching free agency in their prime, which means you better be developing good starting pitching. This is especially true now for the Yankees, who have gone frugal at a time when more and more teams have shown a willingness to spend big.

That trend is likely to continue since the Yankees are trying to drop under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold in 2014 to gain financial benefits that are part of the new collective bargaining agreement. Meanwhile, fueled by local TV money, in particular, more teams are becoming part of the big-spending brotherhood.

For example, it is no longer outlandish that more than $330 million could be guaranteed in a day a as it was yesterday a and the Yankees have nothing to do with it. Cincinnati gave a 10-year, $225 million extension to Joey Votto and the Giantsa extension for Cain covered five years at $112.5 million.

When Mark Teixeira signed his eight-year, $180 million contract with the Yankees after the 2008 season, he was the highest-paid first baseman in history by both total dollars and average annual value ($22.5 million). Now he has the fifth-highest annual value behind Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Votto. Those last three a Pujols, Fielder and Votto a have joined Alex Rodriguez in the $200 million club. International stars Yoenis Cespedes and Yu Darvish signed with hardly a peep from the Yankees.

There was a time when the Yankees had signed four of the five largest contracts ever given (A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Teixeira and Sabathia) and traded for the fifth, the original 10-year deal signed by A-Rod with Texas. Now the deals for Pujols, Votto, Fielder and Joe Mauer are mixed into the top nine.

The Yankees, of course, remain a financial heavyweight. But they no longer are in a class by themselves when it comes to spending.

2. Next yearas free-agent starting pitching class is not particularly good with Cole Hamels and Zack Greinke standing out. A very unscientific survey of executives thought it was much more likely Greinke would stay put in Milwaukee than Hamels would stay in Philadelphia.

What will be interesting is how intact subsequent free-agent starting classes will remain. Right now, Chris Carpenter, Dan Haren, Josh Johnson, Tim Lincecum and Adam Wainwright can all be free agents after the 2013 campaign.

But the one to really keep your eyes on is the class that would have their walk year in 2014, which would be highlighted by arguably the three best starters in the game in Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander with a pretty good secondary group of Josh Beckett, Justin Masterson and James Shields. Now, with new, rich ownership, the Dodgers will probably make a big pitch to keep Kershaw long term and Detroit owner Mike Ilitch has shown he is willing to spend to go for championships. Thus, he probably would do what is necessary to retain Verlander, though the righty had shown an affinity for bright lights and might want to try life outside of Detroit.

Here is where this is interesting for the New York teams. For the Mets, will they have the financial house in order enough to make a play for a dynamic ace? Their current two big-ticket items, Johan Santana and Jason Bay, will have had their contracts expire by then and the Mets will have had to make a long-term decision on David Wright.

As for the Yankees, at minimum, they want to get under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold in 2014. There are other benefits if they do it longer. But if they do it in just 2014, it would mean rather than pay a 50 percent tax on every dollar spent above the $189 million, their rate would fall to 17.5 percent in 2015 if they went over the threshold. In other words, they could go after one of those big starters (if they are truly free) and go over the threshold and not be punished nearly as severely.

3. As part of todayas column, I wrote that the season within the season was to watch how Phil Hughes, Ivan Nova and Michael Pineda did in the majors, and close-to-the-majors prospects such as Manny Banuelos, Dellin Betances, David Phelps, Adam Warren, Graham Stoneburner and Brett Marshall did in the minors. Because the Yankees need several of those cost-effective youngsters to come through as a way to keep from having to delve into spending big on starting pitching.

There will be one other season within the season having to do with the Yankee older starters: Freddy Garcia, Hiroki Kuroda and Andy Pettitte.

If any or all of them pitches well this year, the Yankees wouldnat mind bringing back one or more on a one-year contract. Because one year mitigates risk. It also keeps the Yankees from spending any long-term money as they keep the 2014 luxury-tax threshold in mind.

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