Clement down, Reed up, Mariners still dumb

The best thing that could be happening would be

Ibanez –> DH
Reed –> LF/RF (with Wlad to left)

And the more painful option would be

Reed to bench
Vidro to DH

Updated: Hickey confirms that it’s the more painful option. THANKS MARINERS! Let no win go untreasured there. Why did I even bother considering that they might be making a positive move here?

Clement wasn’t hitting, certainly, but in a way this is just Adam Jones’ callup last year redux: Clement proved his bat was ready for the major leagues and there wasn’t much left for him, offensively at least, to learn in Tacoma. None of that’s changed unless we’re going to argue that failure in the majors gives him a to-do list of flaws to correct (if so, I’d love to know what that is).

To Reed… Reed came over in the Garcia trade, didn’t hit, didn’t hit, and has been stuck in Tacoma ever since.

Right now he’s hitting .349/.413/.557 in Tacoma. Last year he hit .300/.354/.452.

Who knows what to make of that. He certainly plays capable outfield defense, which the team desperately needs even as an outfield sub.

I favored using Reed or Jimerson as a backup OF from the start, but now — this goes to the heart of one of the few basic disagreements I have with Dave and many other baseball people, and I’ll illustrate it with an example where I was totally wrong.

Take Sean Douglass. Baltimore farm system product, racked up some huge strikeout numbers and nice ratios in the minors without having scout-lauded stuff. Then he pretty much sucked in the majors over his couple of years bouncing back and forth.

I’m totally in favor of giving players like that a shot if there’s an opportunity. All players have holes in their games that some people think will keep them from being effective - heck, Minnesota gave up on David Ortiz (released him!) and once you look at them with that knowledge, it’s easy to see it reinforced.

Reed’s 27, these are his peak years, and he’s now gone from really nice prospect to almost inexplicable major league washout (even the wrist thing doesn’t do those seasons justice) to frustrated AAA masher. I don’t have a complicated explanation for the why. I’d just play him and see what happens.

The side effect of this is that when someone like Douglass doesn’t succeed, I have conversations that go
“I told you he didn’t have a major-league quality out pitch.”
“Yeah yeah yeah.”

If Reed can hit and play a corner outfield position, it’s a huge boon for the Mariners.
If he can’t hit and play a quality defensive substitute and be a lefty pinch-hitter and spot starter, that’s a boon for the Mariners.

I’m all for giving him a shot and seeing what happens. The M’s suck right now — they can only improve.

The bad news is that again, the team will have cut someone more useful in order to hold on to Vidro and Cairo, who are both useless players on this roster.

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