General Sports Water Cooler

4 questions/hypotheticals to kill some time today

1) Should the Mariners be shopping Felix Hernandez? Seems like he'd be a better version of 2007 Bedard as far as what return they could get.

2) Will the Mariners shop King Felix?

3) Could the O's put together a package including Bundy or Machado (not both) to get Hernandez?

4) Should the O's look into #3 above?

1) Probably
2) Probably not
3) Possibly. Hard to guage what other teams would be in but I think if you're a team with a top 10 prospect you're willing to part with them for Felix.
4) No. His velocity is down 2 mph this season, big red flag.

Why did Andino hit leadoff yesterday? I thought we were done with that?

You know who should start the AS game? Adam Jones and Andrew McCutcheon. If MLB was interested in trying to market the game and certain players to a specific demographic, that would be the way to go.

Velocity down + his change now is not that different from his fastball=bad news. When you look at guys like Hernandez and Lincecum who both rely heavily on FB/Change combo when your FB velocity goes down it effects both pitches because generally speaking your change will stay the same velocity. Hernandez went from 6-7mph difference between FB/Change to now 2.5mph diffrence. Lincecum went 9-10mph difference down to just 7mph difference and now both throw their breaking balls a lot more than they use too.

Not that it isn't necessarily true, but I think it's comical how literally every week there is a new article by a national writer about how the Red Sox are still really good, and how they are still a major WS threat.

No interest in a guy like King Felix, who is hurt and would cost a ton to get.

I'd tread carefully when it comes to us making trades to make a run at this thing this year. It's not like we are going to win the World Series. The team should be building itself toward being a competitive, contending ballclub year in and year out. Don't want to make any mistakes that could stop us from doing that by trying to win this year.

Jeez Buck. How about getting Johnson some work already.

Forecast calling for 101 on Thursday's off day and 95+ for the opener Friday night when the team comes home.

Season is now 40% over. You have to buy in at a certain point, and you pretty much owe it to the players, coaches and fans to go for it.

I just think we would be in big trouble when it came to pitching matchups in the playoffs, although most contenders this year actually don't really feature terrific starting pitching.

You really only need a 4 man rotation in the postseason anyways. The O's are 3/4 of the way there already (Hammel, Chen, Garza when they get him next month).