Small Sample, Large Take

And Medium Sized Sunday Post (1-2)

This afternoon I got a text from my dad that read “I have an early Mariner take”. 

Alright, okay. Here we go!

My dad, although getting older, (not yet grumpier which I’m grateful for) remains steadfast in his reliability for oracle like hot hitters. Which, mathematically, also come with occasional misses.

So, when I told him I’d call in a sec to listen in, I wasn’t sure which direction we would land.

Echos of the World Baseball Classic

I was hoping to never write about it, and to never hear about it again, but here we are.

Someone tweeted a few weeks back, sometime before the semi-finals, the real losers of the WBC were the Seattle Mariners. After all, Gabe Speier performed poorly for team USA, Josh Naylor provided sluggish production as captain of team Canada, and Geno Suarez, who we let walk in Free Agency became the eventual centerpiece to Venezuela’s well earned championship.

But the real Mariners adjacent storyline of the WBC was the Cal & Randy handshake debacle which, as we’re well aware, was plastered all over national media. We’ll never know exactly what went down, how & why— but we do know it was made out to be a massive deal, whether it actually was or not.

~

I gave my dad a ring.

“Cal doesn’t look right” he said. Not just his timing in the box, but his body language overall.

“And Randy… might be a problem”.

Regarding Cal…

Obviously this early in the season stats do not matter. Cal going 1 for 16 or whatever it may be is not concerning. When it comes to baseball statistics, Cal will be fine. The part I do agree with my dad on is that Cal’s (demeanor, body language, aura, whatever) does not look right. The inside joke in my household right now is that “Cal got the ick about himself” — surely this is slightly embellished, but our eyes do not deceive us.

Regarding Randy…

In Saturday’s early season game against the Guardians Arozarena had 2 noticeable teammate “red flags”. One of them came in the 7th inning when a fly ball hung up in the left center gap. Julio and Randy both drifted over into outfielder “grey-zone” and eventually collided as Julio made the catch to secure the out. Our two Latino kings briefly exchanged some words during the interaction and Randy appeared visibly annoyed at the supposed miscommunication. Annoyed at, from what we know, one of his closest friends on the team.

Later in the game, during the bottom of the 10th inning, Randy was late to post on 2nd base as the assumed ghost runner— resulting in a pitch clock violation on lead-off batter Brenden Donovan, costing a strike before the first pitch was thrown.

Okay… So What?

What to make of this— I’m not sure. I hope it’s still a nothing burger. A 10-2 win tonight could be the start of putting it all to bed. Honestly, I think the guys will be fine. But I also resonate with my dad’s instincts a bit.

If Cal really did tell Randy not to initiate a handshake in the USA vs. Mexico game, it’d be really lame of Randy to hold onto some kind of negative energy (and to say the things he said). On the other hand, I like Randy a lot and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Cal should have handled things differently.

Regardless, anytime we see negativity manifest on the field, even if it’s ridiculously early, or in the form of a large take with a small sample size, it’s certainly worth talking about. At the same time, I hope we won’t have to going forward.

The time to be great is now.

Let’s get after it,

NJB