I like the Rodriguez keep a lot.  I like it even a lot more if it is partially because he is a "Chambliss" guy.  Doc, "veterans" (read: dinosaurs) like me and you remember what a professional hitter...and winner...that Chambliss was.  If Rodriguez brings some of that, hurrah!  I always felt that Chamblis was a "Pro," as well.  Not the same as a professional hitter.  As a "Pro" he brought a manly mature evenness to a team.  Minus Ichiro this team has no lineup holdover who undoubtably brings that. It does have two children (well...last year they were) in the lineup. Chambliss and "his guys" bring something different.  I like that.
Chambliss was a "Big Ed" Bookman type of guy.  Bottom line...he won.
I love the Rodriguez HR video.  That was no fluke.  From the LH side he looks like he can now turn on the bass and drive it.  I even thought he was a bit out in front of that ball...and he still tatered it.
BTW, Kennedy can play a little OF.  I suspect he is #5.
I like a lot of the way this lineup was structured. Not everything.  I still think there was a higher value for Figgins as trade fodder.  I have little confidence in him to play at the level he's getting payed for.  His two standout years were statistical outliers. Won't happen again.
And I greatly dislike the Langerhans keep.  He had a great spring...yes, indeed. But he's the same pokey hitter with no power and almost no upside that he's always been. Midnight infatuations at the bar with the gussied up cougar next to you rarely work out.
We're in one of those now.
Love Rodriguez, though. 
And one month from now...I find a chip in return for Jack Wilson.
Go team!
 

Great post!  Last year's April was actually pretty decent.  But yeah, we stumbled out of the gate, getting swept in Texas.  But we recovered, and entering April 30 last season we were 11-11, holding our own AND now we had Cliff Lee(!) taking the mound.  Ready to make our move:  the hitting, while nothing to write home about, was decent.  Ichiro, Guti, even Milton and Kotchman were stroking the ball well and making it work, more or less.  Our problems seemed to really be guys like RSS and Snell - and the great Lee would take care of that nuisance. 
As it turned out, it was the activation of Lee that immediately preceeded our implosion.  To your point, Doc, had Lee been given just a smidge of offense that glorious first night he took the mound as a Mariner, perhaps things would have been different. 
And we weren't even looking for Branyan bomb, or a Griffey heroic. We were merely looking for a highly regarded benchman named Eric Byrnes to drop a friggin bunt. After all, pitching, good defense and small ball were going to be our meal ticket.  But that, right there, was the moment we lost our confidence. 
The Mariners have had many a good April, and ended up with a real lousy season.  I remember a 7-1 start in 1984 with guys like Phil Bradley, Alvin Davis, Ken Phelps, Jim Presley, Mark Langston, Mike Moore, and Jim Beatty exciting the fan base.  Serious talent.  By the end of May: 4 games below .500 and we were getting ready to deal Spike and Hendu.
Anyway, I love a good April.  But give me a good May!

11 K in 10.0 spring innings, and he got the change working.  I'm one who thinks he'll work out, but we'll see.
The Pineda (forget "super-2"), Lueke (defy PC wisdom) and Wilhelmsen (bump up from A-ball) decisions are each kind of amazing, but collectively they're pretty jaw-dropping.
And, maybe not-so-fast on L-Rod -- Drayer says they'll be scouring the waiver wire for a RH bat that would dislodge either him or Langerhans.

Lueke and Wilhelmsen.  L-Rod is nice, but neither he nor Langerhans are gonna give us potential dominance.
Starting the 2011 season with two extra legit arms in the pen is good.  Neither is especially tested, especially at the big league level, but they are probably more talented than anyone else in the pen.  A few months ago I was afraid that Lueke might not be a part of this org at all, and nobody knew if we were gonna keep Wilhelmsen as a starter in the minors even though he could relieve in the majors right now.
Lueke, Wilhelmsen and Pineda are three examples of the team going for impact youth when it's feasible.
And Ackley is an example of playing for the future when feasible.
I like both responses, and the way we're handling the players involved.
~G

... and good things will happen.
IMO, this has been the problem with the Ms for most of the decade - that too many decisions WERE made based on finance and PR and running preset plans regardless of talent.
You want to develop players?  You do what you believe is best FOR THE PLAYER at each step, (barring those situations where you're forced to do otherwise - mainly injury). 
IMO, the worst thing you can do in a "youth movement" is promote youth just because they're youth.  You promote when you think players are ready to be promoted.  You'll be wrong sometimes, sure.  But, you try and learn and do better next time.
A sign of player-specific development is that it will appear much more chaotic. 

I'm convinced the org is moving in the right direction.  Reading the A to majors jump is certainly a plus in terms of organizational flexibility.
But ... what does that say about the aggregate talent at the higher levels?
What does it say about the pre-existing condition of the minors before Z?
What does it say about the pitching outlook for 2012 and 2013?
Is the farm improved from the days when Feierabend and Corcoran were the emergency cream?  Or has Z, having already burned up his French, Vargas, Olson prospects from the Putz trade, (and dumped a lot of lower level arms in the Cliff Lee deal), pretty much sucked what little talent there was out of the rotting corpse that he inherited?
It's easy to forget that French and Olson jumped PAST everyone else on the Ms farm.
Yes ... be happy that guys like Wilhelmsen look good.  But don't forget that a decision to promote a 26 year old pitcher from A ball with a career 7.8-K/9 and 2.7-BB/9 is ALSO a slap in the face of every pitcher at AA and AAA that remains behind.  A plus for organizational gumption - absolutely.  But, a huge minus on the old depth-o-meter for judging the overall state of your farm system. 
This is not a kid who was expected to fan 8 per game, who was running a 13-K/9 rate in A ball with the club seeing that it's judgement was off.  Wilhelmsen is an "old man" (for A ball), that put up decent stats in 2010 and is mostly proving the rest of your farm is worse than he is.
Certainly, there are still plenty of arms that "might" work out down the road, (Robles, Cortes, etc.).  But, I for one, have not forgotten the star struck mass hysteria love for guys like Jaku and RRS, Lowe and Cortes. 

Dunno about that, Sandy.  Wilhelmsen is being moved to the pen because Cortes isn't ready, and neither is Fields.  You're right about that: the other, safer options failed, so they're grabbing the next guy who looks like he IS ready.  They made a call on Varvaro that he was never gonna find the right amount of control and let him get swiped on waivers.
But Wilhelmsen is a talent.  Age is a red herring in that conversation and you know it.  He has 2 years in the minors, was a first round pick, throws 95 and has growth left while making the Ms think he can get out pro players NOW.
Moving him to the pen is a calculated attempt to harness his arm now rather than wait 2 years for him to stretch out as a starter.
It's no different than pinching Sherrill from the indy leagues and letting him into the pen the next season.  It didn't matter how old Sherrill was, he was the best arm option for what we needed.
The Ms do have an upper-minors problem with starters.  They had Pineda who just got promoted and Robles who was on the verge until his arm issues, and could knock off one of our #5 guys next year if healthy.  They added Paxton but he's got a ways to go - seeing as he's never pitched in the pros.  Beavan is knocking on the door, but again as a starter - he doesn't have an arm that profiles in relief.
But the crop of expected pitchers isn't there, like you said.  Tillman and Co were traded for Bedard, and Lorin and Co were traded for the Pittsburgh guys who didn't work out.  Adcock is now making a major league 25 man.
The guys who needed to be there for us to have quality pitching depth in the upper minors got moved.  That rotting corpse you mentioned has been basically worked to the bone.
And picks like Fields didn't work (At least not yet).  That happens.  We have a raft of closers on their way up the ranks that we drafted last year, and we have teenage arms that are gonna hit the low minors like gangbusters this year.
They won't all work out either, but the holes are getting patched.  The farm is DEFINITELY improved from Feier's days. I'm thankful for the trades that are helping to get us through this patch, but Wilhelmsen and Lueke making this team is not a sign of system weakness but of the new regime's better ability to add strength.
Also, if you add 8 guys to your 25 man (Pineda, Smoak, Lueke, Saunders, Moore, Fister, Wilhelmsen and soon Ackley) from the farm in just over a year, then I don't think you can also say the farm is weak.  Maybe a little weaker in upper-minors pitching than you'd want, but there are still guys who can make a difference by next season.
Sure some of them were added from outside the org, but that's the GM's job - to go get what he doesn't have.
He appears to be doing that part well.
~G

I just think that the masses are not really appreciating several things:
1) How bad it really was when Z arrived.
2) That Z worked really hard to get "quick" talent into the pipe, (French, Vargas, Olson, Robles, etc.) - making the picture of the state of the farm seem better in the short term.
3) That Z elected to gut the farm of lower level arms (and Morrow), in order to pull off the Lee trade.  He got back Smoak from that - a good thing - but Smoak is off the farm, too.
My assessment is that Z has done a masterful job of making a rotting corpse look much better than it really was.  But, he leveraged the situation to produce as much talent QUICKLY.  So, (when Ackley is called up), what remains behind is still a rotting corpse.
I think - realistically - it'll take 4 or 5 drafts of high caliber to fix the damage done in the last decade.  I'm sure Z will work to accellerate that as much as possible - but you can only do so much so fast.
I think believing that the farm is suddenly fine is akin to thinking the economy is going to magically go from 10.2% unemployment to 5% unemployment in a couple of years.  It's just not realistic.  One could agree that the economy is improving - but that doesn't mean we're going to have 5% unemployment next week.
Some things take time.

No argument there.
The best thing Zduriencik has done, IMO, is turn useless players into useful ones.  Aumont regressed and looks like he'll never be an impact pitcher, but before he did Jack made him a keystone of the Cliff Lee trade, then swapped out potentially 3 2011 big-leaguers for him including a heart-of-the-order batter and maybe our future closer.
Moves like that are critical.  I hated the Chone Figgins signing because we gave up a first round pick (ie, stole a pick from Jack that he ALWAYS hits on with a productive player) to sign him and overpaid for his production in dollars and years.  Still, Jack took the money he wasn't spending on a first round player and paid over slot for Paxton, Shipers, Taylor, Littlewood, etc to get more talent anyway.
We dove HARD into the international market as well.  If half of those guys work out then it won't be 4-5 drafts because we'll be getting something out of our international investment.
Ji-Man Choi putting up an .850 OPS as a catcher takes the pressure off of Baron to do the same.  If Baron DOES do the same with his re-worked swing then we have a heckuva problem that I'd love to revel in.
95 MPH international arms mean we need fewer domestic ones.  The farm needs to be self-sustaining (every level is stocked every year, like a good fishery, to always produce fine catches) and we're not there yet, I agree.
But with Paxton and Franklin likely to move faster than expected we're getting fill-in from fast movers like Wilhelmsen to patch some gaps.
We aren't at overflow yet by any means.  All the prospects we're making or trying to make are needed internally.  This would be the year to trade off relievers or starters if we had spares, but we don't.  Every arm is needed on the big club.  We can't trade excess bats for arms because we don't have excess bats.
But I don't think excess is 5+ years away either.  The minors is a five year cycle, pretty much - high-school pick to AAA should be 5 years or less barring extenuating circumstances. If it's taking us 5 years from now then we screwed up the first 2 drafts as well as some trades we made. The farm is starting to do its primary job - providing us with quality major league players.
The secondary job, of providing surplus talent to allow us to trade for long-term veteran solutions, isn't there yet - which is why we took a hit to low-minors pitching to force-feed talent to the upper minors / majors in the Lee and Pitt trades.  Jack patched that in the next draft by going crazy on specialty arms that could move fast and fill holes.  He seems very serious about building a self-sustaining pen from within.
But fulfilling its primary function is still a good reason to cheer.  We'll see what this next draft brings, but I'd say we're 2-3 drafts / international free agent classes from surplus, not 5 - which means we should have guys to sell when we're trying to put together pennant runs at the end of Felix's contract.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=...
That talks about the Royals and their situation in 2006 of having basically newly-drafted Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and...nothing else in their system.  From then til now they've traded and drafted like madmen and are stocked with talent.  5 year process.  Now, do they have the right guys?  I dunno.
But we already have several young guys with serious promise who will be on the 2011 Mariners.  3 years from now how many more will be joining them, and how many will be clamoring from the depths of the farm below?
I dunno.  Maybe we won't be there and it will be 5 years instead of the 3 I'm thinking.
All the more reason to hope for great seasons from our tradable commodities, such as they are.  The DL issues for Guti and Aardsma are really killing us in that department, so I'm hoping both of those situations resolve quickly and with full recovery from the players involved.
They're part of our keys to shortening the restock time.
~G