Trade bait is behind the plate for M’s

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, June 23, 2007

Baseball’s trade deadline is less than six weeks away, and if the Seattle Mariners have one position of strength that gives them some leverage, it’s at catcher.

The organization is awash in major league prospects, with Jeff Clement and Rob Johnson at Class AAA Tacoma topping everyone’s lists.

Clement, the Mariners’ first-round draft pick two years ago, has turned a lot of heads lately after a slow start offensively. He’s hitting .467 in his past seven games and, entering Saturday’s game at Tucson, had 13 home runs, 41 runs batted in and a .276 average.

Scouts have paid close attention to Clement since the day he was drafted, enthused over his power potential as a left-handed-hitting catcher.

“Clement is coming into his own,” Rainiers hitting coach Terry Pollreisz told the Tacoma News Tribune. “He’s getting better pitches to hit and starting to connect.”

There are other catchers in the system worth watching as well.

Johnson is hitting .261 with eight homers and 15 RBI for Tacoma. Luis Oliveros is hitting .287 at Class AA West Tennessee and Adam Moore .302 with 14 homers and 58 RBI at high Class A High Desert.

More discouraging are the numbers being produced at West Tennessee by Rene Rivera, who spent most of last season on the Mariners’ bench as Kenji Jojhima’s backup. Rivera is hitting .186 with four homers and 24 RBI in 52 games.

Elsewhere around the Mariners’ minor league system:

Class AAA Tacoma Rainiers: Outfielders Adam Jones and Wladimir Balentien continued their strong seasons offensively. Jones is batting .316 with 17 homers and 56 RBI and Balentien .322 with 16 homers and 53 RBI.

Balentien, who will play on the World Team in the All-Star Futures Game next month in San Francisco, hit two home runs on Friday at Sacramento.

Left-handed pitcher Justin Lehr ran his record to 7-1 Thursday when he beat Sacramento, and right-hander Jorge Campillo is 5-5 with a 3.75 ERA in 15 starts and leads the Rainiers with 96 innings.

The Rainiers entered Saturday 30-25, 10 games behind first-place Salt Lake in the Pacific Coast League Pacific North Division.

Class AA West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx: Center fielder Charlton Jimerson hit two home runs in a 4-for-4 game Thursday against Mississippi. It gave him 10 home runs for the season, nine of them coming in his four multi-homer games.

Third baseman Matt Tuiasosopo is batting .285.

Robert Rohrbaugh is 7-5 with a 3.28 ERA in 15 starts and Kameron Mickolio is 3-1, 1.82 in 18 relief appearances.

The Diamond Jaxx were 2-3 in the second half of the Southern League after going 31-39 in the first half, finishing seven games behind first-place Huntsville in the North Division standings.

Class A High Desert Mavericks: Center fielder Mike Saunders has a .302 average with 10 homers and 51 RBI, but has batted .400 with five doubles, five homers and 18 RBI in a 17-game stretch in June.

Second baseman Jesus Guzman was hitting .287 with a team-high 12 homers and 69 RBI.

The Mavericks, 1-1 in the second half, finished 31-39 and eight games behind first-place Inland Empire in the California League South Division first-half standings.

Class A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers: The Rattlers’ 22-46 performance was the worst first-half record in franchise history. Still, manager Jim Horner was enthused for the second half of the season.

“I wouldn’t have traded the first half for anything,” Horner told the Appleton Post-Crescent. “I enjoyed teaching them, and I enjoyed the kids that started to get it. It’s almost like your son trying to figure something out. You tell him, you tell him, you tell him. And then they start to get it and you’re like, ‘Yeah.’”

Horner also promised a much better record in the second half.

“I’m not going to go out and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to win the second half,’” he said. “But I can almost guarantee you we’ll be an above-.500 club the second half.”