Clearing the Bases: Hargrove Out

Clearing the Bases: going through some of the most notable links from the past week...

If you told me at the beginning of the season, if you told me that Mike Hargrove would not be the manager at the All-Star break, I would have had no trouble believing you. But I would have expected the Mariners to be 15 games below .500, and for Hargrove to be fired along with GM Bill Bavasi. But instead, the M's are 12 games above .500, and Hargrove is quitting, saying he's just burned out. Really strange timing on this; the M's are on an eight-game winning streak, and they're playing better than anybody expected. Rob Neyer had a good article on this yesterday (insider-only, so I'll give you an excerpt:)

Maybe this is the cynic in me, but I can't help but wonder whether there's something we haven't been told yet. I worry that Hargrove's been diagnosed with some serious illness. All we can do is hope that's not the case. Then there's the possibility that he wants to quit while he's ahead. Hargrove's past six teams -- four in Baltimore, two in Seattle -- finished in fourth place, most of them with records well below .500.

But Hargrove's 2007 Mariners are riding high. They're in second place with a 44-33 record. Can they maintain this pace, though? The Mariners have the fourth-best record in the American League, but only the eighth-best run differential. Maybe this particular Mariner knows when it's time to jump ship.

I do get what Neyer's saying - because the M's are playing so far above their head, they're likely to fall back in the next month or so; then, when some team wants to fill their manager job in the upcoming future (Baltimore?), they'll look at the candidates and say, "Hey, the Mariners were great under Hargrove, then they collapsed after he left...maybe he's the one for us!" I'm not saying that's what Hargrove is doing, because that seems really unlikely, but it's at least a possiblity.

Here's U.S.S Mariner's take on the situation...

Remembering Rod Beck.

Here are the All-Star game rosters, for the American League and the National League...

Um...Brian Fuentes? What the hell?

A Brewers prospect threw a perfect game in the minors...

A compelling case for the White Sox to keep Mark Buehrle, although apparently it's not going to happen...

A great article on former Dodgers GM and future GM somewhere else Paul DePodesta.

On Tuesday, we saw the best Joe Morgan chat ever...

Random Video of the Week: Heckling Stephen A. Smith at the NBA Draft. Seriously, watch this. You will not be disappointed.