Ken Rosenthal's article resonated far more powerfully than it should have.  There's no cause for panic.  But it's fair to say that there are a lot of scouts who are sounding off along these lines.  Jason published a scout back in January who said, "Shut down their offense and beat up on their 3-4-5 starters.  Nothing to worry about in Seattle," or somesuch.

Our man Geoff Baker summarizes -- we're paraphrasing --  "Why did the Mariners go from chic pick to win the AL West -- to everybody's pick to be the biggest disappointment in the American League?

"That's because when they made the big splash moves -- like Cliff Lee -- we assumed they'd do more.  But this team has slashed payroll by $10m and failed to address its ST problems."

Fair enough.

Note very carefully that the sackcloth and ashes are reactions to the fact that we wanted more this winter.

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=== 30,000 Foot View, Dept. ===

How much more?  An online reader asked Baker what he wanted done?

Just off-the-cuff, Baker suggested Adam LaRoche and Jarrod Washburn. 

Fair enough again, but let's think about that for a second.  We'll pull the WAR arrow out of the quiver here, just to give us a sense of proportion:

• 2.5 wins above replacement = Adam LaRoche (if no NL-AL transition)
  
• 1.0 WAR platooning = Casey Kotchman
• 0.5 or 0.1 WAR platooning = Garko and/or Sweeney
• 2.0 wins above RLP = Jarrod Washburn
• 0 above RLP = Vargas, Fister, French, let's just say

30, 40 runs' difference there, if we'd added both LaRoche and Washburn.  Three-four wins.

When you add those up, do you see the difference between "great winter, frontrunners in AL West" and "fuhgeddaboudit"?

This club would look a lot more glamorous with LaRoche and Washburn.  What an offseason!  But this is one spot when we could benefit from a surgeon's cool. 

I'm using WAR because, in this case, it intersects with good judgment. LaRoche and Washburn are not Adrian Gonzalez and Shawn Kelley.  :- )  You're talking about average ML players with LaRoche and Washburn -- and the M's think they can coach Vargas and Kotchman to 90% of that.

LaRoche was not going to cross over the American League and be a franchise hitter.  Jarrod Washburn's 4k's and 2bb's are reliable but pedestrian.  Neither of those guys are impact players.  They're stoplosses and they are support players (like, unfortunately, the M's entire batting order).

The M's don't think they need stoplosses.  They think Kotchman can play.

Sure, it would have been better to add two more MLB(TM) ballplayers to this transition club.  But the "fuhgeddaboudit" reaction is way over the top.  It's an emotional overreaction.

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Part 2