MoViN' on up... In past years, I made various promises as to the visual direction of the site. This would be the year I learned html, or hooked into WordPress, or did something else to get away from the stock grey and black of the Blogger template. The day for that change has finally come, albeit in a roundabout way.

About a week and a half ago, I was approached by some of the people who run Most Valuable Network, asking me if I wanted to take on their Mariners minor league coverage as they expanded into that field. They offered me better hosting, site format, and internet visibility, among other things, so I decided to come aboard. In the past few years, MVN has been steadily growing, acquiring All-Baseball (former host of Mariner Musings) and 360thepitch (podcasts), and while their minor league coverage is currently in the experimental phase, there’s some potential in it all. Plus, they already have one guy in High Desert ready to do some groundwork and another who catches the D-Jaxx on road trips, which is pretty neat.

For anyone out there who might be worrying, whatever the reason, I’ll add this much: I still have creative control, I still have the right to do guest bits or comment in other blogs, I can keep my links, I still have the same contact accessibility (or lack thereof in some cases), et cetera. The only things that have really changed is that I’ve ceded my right to drop f-bombs or write about not-safe-for-work things (not that I really did in the first place) and MVN gets first dibs to my content.

So what this all means is that I’m packing up here and moving into my new digs. With almost 360,000 hits over three years, not all of which were me, I think it’s a decent entry into the M’s minor league picture, and as such, I’m leaving it up for archival purposes. But if you’re looking for the current content, or want to update your outgoing links, I’ll be posting elsewhere from now on.

Mariner Minors – Most Valuable Network |

posted by Jay Y. @ 4:31 PM

  Triu, Phillips in the Times

If you ever needed a sign that minor league baseball and the M's international signings are getting more attention these days, well, this is it. Greg Bishop of the Seattle Times had a write-up today about IFs Anthony Phillips and Carlos Triunfel, centering around them both being born in 1990 (for those curious, Mario Martinez was late '89, and didn't fit the mold). There's more on Triu's baseball skill than Phillips, but both get a little bit of coverage on the daily life back home. It's a good read overall, and the kind of depth that you don't ordinarily see.

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posted by Jay Y. @ 12:31 AM

  Dominican Teen to be Showcased

I don't really know what to say about this. I've been trying to come up with a more clever title for a while and it's just not working. According to the New York Times, the latest Dominican wunderkind is sixteen-year-old outfielder José José. He was just working out at the Mets complex, but word is that his agent it going to be shopping him around, to the Red Sox (who would sign him now if they had the choice, apparently), the Yankees, the Angels, and the M's. The Sox are probably the frontrunners at the moment, but we may hear more should an article ever come up in our local papers.

Picking up this thread from Minor League Ball, I think it's necessary that the joke runs for as long as it can, so we've already seen refernces to Duran Duran, Major Major Major Major, Bhutros-Bhutros Ghali, and Zsa-Zsa Gabore, while I added that he should move to Walla Walla if signed by the Mariners and that his favorite book is William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!". I'm sure there are a few more out there that we could come up with.

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posted by Jay Y. @ 12:49 PM

  Auty Back in the States

There's not much Mariners prospect news going around at the moment, but in former prospect news, Aussie outfielder and friend of the blog Tim Auty has finally found himself a roster spot, this time, with the Evansville Otters of the Frontier League.

Auty hit .352/.424/.519 in over a hundred at-bats in Peoria during the '05 season, but was released following it. He was picked up by the Phillies, but released again after spring training without really being given a chance. Time in Evansville should help him play his way back onto the radar and get another chance in affiliated ball.

Best of luck to him.

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posted by Jay Y. @ 3:30 PM