Yes, Holt had to go. But why’d it take so long for Sark to pull the trigger. You’d think the head coach would’ve seen this coming and taken steps long before now to shore up a piss-poor defense. Got to wonder if Sark is just an offensive mind lacking the big-picture sense of good head coach. Then again, it seemed so many times this season that the defense had bottomed out and could not possibly get any worse. Alas, we now know better. 

I live in Austin and have to put up with “hook-em” Horns crap all year long.  This was a year that I and several fellow Huskies were going to be able to tell some folks what they could do with those Horns.  Thanks Mr. Holt for showing us why Washington football was soooo bad for so many years.
Basics RULE on defense….. never leave your feet when making a tackle, look the ball carrier in the eye as you size them up, hit hard and drive right through the ball carrier AND wrap them (repeat WRAP) them up as you plant them solidly into the turf.  This game was almost the worst I ever endured as a dog fan.     But…. there are KUDOS for Mr. Price who was not awed by RG3.

YEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

teaching points?  If these kids can’t tackle BEFORE they get to college how the heck did they get there??  It’s called effort and it was lacking on D Holt and do it for them they should be ashamed knowing they caused three families to be uprooted because they couldn’t wrap up and cover

Ownership should have stepped up & said we’ll be responsible for Ichiro’s contract.
Make it separate from payroll and tell “Z” there’s 19M more to spend; Go get Fielder.
We all know ownership is going to want to resign Ichiro this way they could do so without tying managements hands.
Still if we knew we would trade Pineda for a power bat & young good hitting catcher we should have
obviously called the Reds. Gives us the DH, Catcher & starting pitcher + a minor league reliever.4
for 1 one plus Alonzo’s left handed bat is a better fit. Not to mention a
better defensive catcher who might not have as much power but also hit well in the
minors.  Either way I cannot see why M’s did not just say Pineda only and stick to it.  (Yes Z wanted a RH power bat, but still.)
We definately gave the Yankees a no lose proposition.

I’m mostly with you on the Safeco Theorem, except that other teams seem to not have trouble hitting home runs here. This column is dead-on, the only problem with it being that now I wonder why I care at all. I was stoked about the deal but this brought me careening back to Earth. When do we get that NHL team again? *sigh*

Three things:

1. I hate to see Pineda go (no explanation needed), but you have to give something to get something, and what the M’s got is a 22-year-old rated the #3 prospect in Baseball America last year.  Yes, the Yankees WERE willing to trade Montero, but they had to give something, too.  I’ll wait until the end of the season to weigh in whether it was a good deal or not for the M’s.

2. The only reason FIelder would sign with Seattle is for the money.  Period.  It wouldn’t be for those night home games during the balmy months of April and May, nor for the would-be homers that die at the warning track because of the cool marine air from Elliott Bay nor for all those walks he’d get because other teams would rather pitch aorund him to get to the rest of the Mariners order.  That’s not a recipe for success.  And, by the way, why are so many other big spenders passing on bidding for Fielder.  What do they know?

3.  Maybe the organization should be building a team that fits its ballpark instead of trying to fit square pegs into round holes.  Sure, you always want more power, but I think of the great teams Whitey Herzog had in KC and St. Louis (neither of which had hitters parks):  His Royals and Cardinals were built around pitching, defense and speed-speed-speed, and they both were able to compete and win pennants even though neither had true home run threats.  Of course, it helped to have a Whitey Herzog to manage these team and Eric Wedge is no Whitey Herzog.

In the end, we’ll all have to stop hyperventilating and just wait and see.  Pitching is not the problem in Seattle, hitting is, and bringing in a potential .300/30/100 guy like Montero can only help, even at the cost of a great arm like Pineda’s.