My dad is more old school than yours

Looks like Blaine Newnham is trying to out-old-school the M's front office with his profile of Rich Aurlia. Jeff at San Shin has shown in part why so many of us in the blogosphere think it's all a bunch of hooey. Even if you resonate with the old-school philosophy that Newnham is espousing here, then at least dignify it with something more substantive than "Aurilia is pure baseball, with no additives." Seriously now--does that mean anything? Talk about character, grittiness, give us anecdotes about how pure courage helped Aurilia break out a slump or win a game for his team. Old-school doesn't have to mean vapid and inane platitudes.

In his next article, Newnham echoes the sentiment of a lot of people (including Joe Kaiser of Insidethepark.com) that a lot of the Mariner reserves seem to be having a great spring. I'm happy for them and all, but do you really think Hiram Bocachica going 8-15 so far is more significant than him not being able to make the Tigers last year (he played for their AAA club)? Newnham also tries to defend the trade of Colbrunn for McCracken by saying McCracken "has not hit below .290 when given 300 ABs." But how likely is it that McCracken is going to get that many at-bats as a fouth outfielder? Last year, McLemore was the only Mariner reserve to get over 300 ABs, and he played most of his games in the infield, and that was because of the offensive black hole at third named Cirillo. If McCracken hits .230 in 150 ABs, I sure hope Melvin is smart enough to realize another 150 isn't going to transform him back into a hitter.