With the rancid Adrian Beltre contract coming off the books and additional $20 million or so in other contracts expiring the Seattle Mariners have some money to play with this off season as it looks to improve on last year’s 85-win season. They are already being linked to some of the bigger names in free agency, but, the big question is will they cut exorbitant checks to over-hyped talent like they did with Beltre and Richie Sexson or will they spend it more wisely?
Based on what is seemingly percolating in the rumor mill these days it seems like it could be a little bit of both. There have been rumors linking the Mariners to Jason Bay, Hideki Matsui, Lyle Overbay, Chien-Ming Wang and John Lackey.
The Mariners’ biggest off season need is finding someone to stick in the starting rotation behind staff ace Felix Hernandez. He and Jarrod Washburn were the only pitchers to make more than 15 starts and log more than 100 innings for Seattle last season and Washburn was dealt to the Tigers at the trade deadline. Erik Bedard pitched well when he was healthy enough to do so. The only problem being he started a grand total of 30 games and threw just 164 innings during his two year stay in Seattle. Bedard is a free agent and is unlikely to be re-signed by the Mariners unless it is contract with a minimal base salary and loads of incentives.
Aside from Hernandez who would anchor just about any staff in the majors, the Mariners rotation is essentially full of a bunch of fourth and fifth starters. If the season were to start today either Ian Snell or Ryan Rowland-Smith would be the number two starter which is not a good thing. Snell has some talent, but, has yet to put it all together at the big league level.
Going after Lackey makes sense as he is probably the most established starting pitcher on the market this winter. When healthy Lackey can give a team 15 wins and 200 innings the only problem with him is he has missed roughly 15 starts over the past two seasons due to injury. Still Lackey is a better option then what they currently have on the roster and the next best options are players like Jason Marquis, Rich Harden, and Jon Garland who have been a mixed bag over their careers.
If he is fully recovered from his shoulder issues Wang is potentially a good acquisition for the Mariners, but, he goes in with the group of potential free agents that have been a mixed bag over the past few years. The best thing about Wang is they should be able to sign him to a deal with a minimal base salary loaded with incentives given his struggles the past couple of seasons. If healthy he would definitely give the M’s a legit number two starter behind King Felix.
After starting pitching the Mariners desperately need to add some thump to the middle of the lineup. Jose Lopez and pending free agent Russell Branyan were the only two players to hit 25 or more homers for the M’s last season. Branyan hit 31 homers but hit just .251 and drove in only 76 runs for Seattle. Going after Bay makes a ton of sense for the Mariners as he would give them a legit clean up hitter allowing them to move Branyan into the fifth spot of the order if they choose to bring him back and give Lopez some more protection at the #3 spot.
Branyan hurt his back towards the end of the season and there is some speculation the Mariners are wary of re-signing him given his desire for a two year guaranteed contract. It has been mentioned that Seattle has had talks with the Blue Jays about the availability of Lyle Overbay. That move would be a bit of a head scratcher given his career appears to have peaked four seasons ago in 2006.
But, the one name that makes little to no baseball sense is Hideki Matsui. It has been rumored that if Matsui hits the open market the Mariners would have an interest in him. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint given the huge Japanese and Aisan population in the Pacific Northwest. What makes one wonder about this potential move is the general consensus around the league is Matsui can no longer play the field on a full time basis, his legs just will not let him, and the team just re-signed Ken Griffey, Jr. to play another year in Seattle. The quandry is Matsui is still a productive offensive player (28 HR/90 RBI) and is the better of the two at this stage of their careers. Matsui would be a great bat to stick behind Bay, were they land him, in the fifth spot of the lineup. It just seems like signing Matsui with the expectation he plays the field is a huge risk.
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