December 17, 2005

Seattle Mariners

If you're a Mariners fan, you know it's a bad day when you open up your Seattle Times today, take a sip of your Starbucks, and read "Mariners closing in on 4 year, $40 million deal with Jarrod Washburn".

Seriously? $40 million for Jarrod Washburn? I think Washburn is a nice pitcher, but I wouldn't be handing out $40 million over 4 years to that guy. He's 31, doesn't eat a lot of innings, not a big strikeout guy, and teams hit .274 on him last year.

Very shaky signing in my opinion. This on top of the $64 million that they dropped on Adrian Beltre and the $50 million that they dropped on Richie Sexson. For an organization that seemed to make all the right moves for a stretch there (trading Junior, signing Ichiro, letting A-Rod walk, convincing Bret Boone to go on a steady diet of steroids and horse hormones), they've really gone in the tank the last few years. Sad state of affairs out there.

The only thing going for the Mariners is King Felix himself. Hands down the most intriguing fantasy baseball story of the preseason is where Felix Hernandez will get drafted. I say he's a 5th rounder, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him falling off the board in the 2nd or 3r d round in a lot of leagues.

2 comments:

Matt said...

I tend to agree with you about the washburn signing. But theproblem is, if you want starting pitching now through free agency, you have to overpay ridiculously. Freaking aj burnett set the market so damn high.

A guy i work with is a diehard mariners fan and he is real big on washburn. He could be decent and you put him with king felix, moyer, a rejuvenated pineiro and that is a decent american league pitching staff.

By the way, i'll be one of those guys who takes felix about two rounds too early next year.

Doug said...

Good points. Guess that's the going rate for starting pitching these days.

Jamie Moyer--43 years old and still pitching well. Incredible!

Still, they've committed $164 million over the next five years to Beltre, Sexson, and Washburn. Unless Beltre rediscovers his power, that's a lot of cash for a lot of mediocrity. The Mariners have never struck me as big spenders since they've let so many big stars walk over the years. If they've spent all their surplus cash on those three guys, the M's are in big trouble.