October 14, 2007

M’s coulda, shoulda selected Tulowitzki
JOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE

I love baseball, but these playoffs are tough to watch.

Every time I see the imposing David Ortiz step up to the plate for the Boston Red Sox, a memo is transmitted from the side of my brain that stores useless information to the side of my brain that makes me want to kick something.

The memo reads: “Ex-Mariner!”

(On Aug. 29, 1996, Seattle acquired journeyman third baseman Dave Hollins from Minnesota for a player to be named later – which turned out top be minor leaguer David Arias, known nowadays as David Ortiz. In other words, the player to be named later literally became a player named later. This is the kind of useless information best consigned to a subconscious trash bin, but it’s recycled, every 20 minutes or so, during the playoffs.)

The “Ex-Mariner!” routine doesn’t stop with Ortiz. There’s his teammate and venerable Red Sox captain, catcher Jason Varitek, and Cleveland second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera, and Colorado catcher Yorvit Torrealba, perhaps the least lamented ex-Mariner in the history of ex-Mariners, but an ex-Mariner nevertheless.

Each was considered expendable by Seattle, for one reason or another. Each is starting on one of the four teams still eligible for the World Series.

Lately, an even more bothersome memo has been circulating in my brain. This one reads, “Coulda, Shoulda Been a Mariner!” and it comes to my attention whenever Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki provides a clutch hit, or delivers a spectacular defensive play, or does whatever it takes for the Rockies to sustain their astonishing resurrection from National League West also-rans in the middle of September to overwhelming league championship favorites in the middle of October.

Take Friday night, when Tulowitzki made a terrific backhanded stop and fired an off-balance throw that beat the baserunner to first by a step. Play-by-play announcer Chip Caray (an ex-Mariners broadcaster) informed viewers that Colorado’s rookie shortstop hadn’t been charged with an error in 40 games.

Brain: “Coulda, Shoulda Been a Mariner!”

Me: “Shaddup!”

Tulowitzki briefly had reason to believe he was Seattle-bound in 2005, when scouts ranked the Long Beach State star the second-best college player in the baseball draft, behind Nebraska’s Alex Gordon.

The Mariners owned the third overall pick, after Arizona and Kansas City. The Diamondbacks selected Virginia high school shortstop Justin Upton and the Royals took Gordon, a third baseman whose home-run potential coincided with the franchise’s desperation to land a box-office attraction from the Kansas City-Omaha region.

Then came the Marinerfs, whose preference for a first-round player from college was no secret. A week before the draft, in fact, Baseball America – the scouting industry’s version of the Wall Street Journal – predicted Tulowitzki to Seattle.

“The Mariners will take the best player available, and have a pecking order of Gordon, Long Beach State shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and Upton,” wrote editor Allan Simpson. “The Mariners recognize this as a golden opportunity to get a marquee domestic talent – they haven’t drafted and signed a first-round pick since 1999. They need to get it right because they don’t draft again until the fourth round.”

Despite hinting it would take the best player available – Tulowitzki – the Mariners were intrigued by the more unusual skill set of Southern California’s Jeff Clement, a left-handed hitting catcher with power. Tulowitzki fell to the Rockies at No. 7, behind Virginia third baseman Ryan Zimmerman (who went to the Nationals), Miami third baseman Ryan Braun (Brewers) and Cal State Fullerton right-handed pitcher Ricky Romero (Blue Jays).

In what might have been the most abundantly stocked first round of the past 10 years, all seven of the position players taken among the top 10 picks already have logged major league experience – including Clement, who appeared in nine games, hitting two homers in 16 at-bats, after his late-season promotion from Tacoma.

Thanks to manager John McLaren’s stubborn insistence on writing the same lineup card day after day, Clement’s status for 2008 remains anybody’s guess.

His defense remains a work in progress, and even if he polishes his catch-and-throw technique in the Arizona Fall League, Clement projects to be little more than adequate behind the plate. And while the Mariners could use the pop he brings from the left side, the 24-year-old joins a long line of prospective designated hitter and first-base candidates, especially if Adam Jones replaces Raul Ibañez in left field.

This is not a knock on Clement, an earnest pro who underwent knee surgery in 2006, then was assigned to Tacoma, where he initially found himself overmatched against Triple-A pitching. Clement worked hard, and progressed enough at Tacoma this past season – he finished with 20 home runs, 25 doubles and 80 RBI – to suspect he someday could hit as many as 25 homers a season in the big leagues.

But he’s not Tulowitzki, who overcame a sluggish start to emerge as a NL Rookie of the Year candidate. He hit .291 with 24 homers – a record for NL rookie shortstops – and 99 RBI.

And then there was his defense, which enabled him to lead the majors in putouts, chances, assists, fielding percentage and double plays, all the while realizing Baseball America’s scouting reports about his “intensity and unrivaled passion for the game.”

Rockies third baseman Garrett Atkins recently put it another way.

“Playing with him,” Atkins said, “has made us all better players.”

Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd often refers to Tulowitzki as the catalyst of his club. And though the monster stats of Colorado left fielder Matt Holliday make him a co-favorite for the league’s MVP award with Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins, Tulowitzki embodies the spirit of the award: a catalyst who made his teammates better.

Two-and-a-half years since the Mariners were presented with a “golden opportunity to get a marquee domestic talent,” Clement has a 50-50 shot at making the big-league roster next season. And Tulowitzki? He’s merely the heart and soul of baseball’s most stunning success story.

Oh, well. You win some and you lose some, and when the ledger points to the latter, you justify it with an oh-well shrug.

Tulowitzki the Coulda, Shoulda Been Mariner?

I tell myself they probably would’ve traded him anyway. And then I kick something.