What I've learned from Google News is that the Dutch word for "baseball player" is "Honkballer".

This is separate from Honkbag, which involves swatting a garbage bag full of squeaky toys and bicycle horns with wifflebats.

Pratty: Well, that's sad. Don't really know who this guy was, but he sounds like he was a cool dude. So...R.I.P.

He's been on the fringe of Mariners' prospects for a while, although in 2009 Baseball Prospectus rated him their #1 prospect. He was a slugging CF with a solid arm and enough speed to be a perennial 20/20 guy, but his game was always raw and unrefined-- a hackmaster hitter who didn't have great instincts on defense. (His minor league numbers are here.) He just broke into the big leagues last year for 35 games of part-time duty.

Sadly, he was a 'future potential' guy that would have been exciting to watch develop. Given time, he might have figured out the holes in his game and become a star-level player, or he might have flamed out. If you're a Mariners' fan, that's probably a player you'd really like to see on the 2012 roster, vs. a guy who is very likely to be sort of average.

Side note to this whole situation (which I don't mean to push aside since it's horrible): Why is it that the Netherlands seems to be the only European country that ever produces baseball players? What happened differently there from the rest of the continent?

Geez, two sports-related death stories on the same day?

Tough day to be in sports.

ongbok: FreakinB: Side note to this whole situation (which I don't mean to push aside since it's horrible): Why is it that the Netherlands seems to be the only European country that ever produces baseball players? What happened differently there from the rest of the continent?

I do believe that a lot of the Dutch MLB players come from Curacao, which being in the Caribbean is a hotbed of baseball. But as far as the country it seems that baseball is very popular there. Italy is another country that does produce some MLB players.

Nah I know about Curaçao, I'm leaving them out. But I find it weird that you'll occasionally see guys from the Netherlands (like Halman) but never from England or Germany or France or etc.

As for Italy, I thought their WBC teams were mostly Americans with Italian backgrounds.

Super Chronic: chimp_ninja: He's been on the fringe of Mariners' prospects for a while, although in 2009 Baseball Prospectus rated him their #1 prospect.

Wow. I've been following Mariner prospect lists for many years now but had never seen one ranking him #1 or even as high as top 5 (and any top 5 rankings would have to have been more than two years ago, I'd have thought). I had a bit of a discussion with John Sickels about a year ago after Sickels left Halman off the organization's top 20 list -- I thought you could make an argument for Halman in the 15-20 range, but that's about as far as it would go. His downfall, of course, was strikeout and walk numbers that would have made Preston Wilson blush -- put him in for a full season and you'd pretty much be guaranteed 200 K's. I thought he was marginally interesting because his walk rate was increasing, still not to a level that I would call "good," but maybe indicating he was working on his approach and starting to get it. I could have seen something like a .240/.290/.440 line in his future, which, combined with some speed and the ability to play all three outfield positions pretty well, would have made an adequate fourth outfielder with interesting upside.

Nevertheless, after the team went out and acquired Trayvon Robinson and Casper Wells, and brought Michael Saunders around for another try in September, it was pretty clear Halman wasn't figuring prominently in the team's plans by the end of 2011. Still, this is very saddening.

His value seemed to "spike" before 2009. As you note, his contact numbers looked grim, and he only improved slowly. People were hoping for leaps and bounds, given how athletic the guy was.

At some level, you want your farm system packed with "roll the dice guys", though. You only have 25 MLB roster spots, and even on the Mariners only a few are really up for grabs each spring. Since you have 100+ minor leaguers somewhere in your system, only a few of which are highly likely to become MLB stars, you'd ideally want the rest to be:

1) "AAAA": Guys who can fill in for injured MLB guys, and do at least a "meh" job starting as needed.
2) "Silver bullet": Guys who do one thing really, really well, and have a potential to be a role player. A shortstop with an awesome glove and 30+ steals speed but no bat is a classic example. You wouldn't start him, but that's a good guy to have off the bench.
3) "Roll the dice". Guys who aren't in high demand because they have a high ceiling, but a low probability of reaching it. You can get these guys without giving up the resources you'd need to grab a Bryce Harper type. If they pan out, you got a MLB player on the cheap. If they don't, you probably spent a couple hundred thousand dollars over a couple years to figure that out, and the market will bear that as long as you occasionally luck out.

#3s also help with marketing. A team full of #1s (Hi, most of the current Mariners offense!) is excruciating to watch. A team full of #3s will probably generate a lot of exciting moments in between the "WTF?" experiences.

Too many teams load up on #1s, because coaches and managers tend to be risk-averse. Going 81-81 doesn't get you fired unless you're in a very competitive market, but if gamble a lot and go 96-66 one year and 66-96 the next, there's a good chance you're fired after that second year.

See also: NFL coaches' love of short field goals and punting on 4th and short. Most coach to avoid an embarrassing worst-case scenario, not maximize their chance of winning.

So he was (severely) scratched from the lineup?