Clearly the A's should have fired Melvin and turned over 20% of the roster when they were 22-30 last year, right?

Mr Grizzly, Moe has made what appears to me to be a series of rational, well-supported recommendations to address the M's current predicament. I get that you may not agree with him, because we are in the realm of opinion. But I personally would find it more enlightening if we could have your suggestions as well as your criticism of Moe's approach. In other words, what would you do, if anything, to improve the M's right now? Just sayin ......

Montero is clearly in Wedgie's Doghouse and has been relegated to playing ~2x / week as back-up catcher to Shoppach. Montero sat yesterday against a LHP, in favor of Smoakamotive's .436 OPS against LHP. To quote Nathan Bishop at LL: "Jesus Montero is not in the dog house. He is not allowed inside at all. He has to sleep outside in the rain." Like all young prospects, Montero needs to play every day to improve. What to do??
I personally see no alternative but to send him down to Tacoma, a la Larry Stone, and replace him with Sucre. The M's have too much invested in Montero, and his success is too important to the Org, to let him rot at the end of Wedgie's bench. I would give Montero a 1B mitt and split his time between 1B (50%), C (30%) & DH (20%), to ensure that Zunino continues to catch. Oh, and I would hire a special framing instructor for all M's catchers, to try to get umpire bias on my side.

Wedge is in the locker room turning over the tables and screaming at people for giving up at bats, for not having a plan at the plate, etc. He wants to win and he wants his players to want to win as much as he does. What does it say about management if the field general is out there screaming "if you even THINK about letting up for ONE SECOND, you will PAY!!!" and then the general at headquarters does NOT replace players who are not buying in? Seriously...I axe you.
Montero is throwing away at bats left and right, slouching behind the plate lately, looking frustrated and confused...having no plan for the pitcher OR the at bat. Ackley is as confused as any many in professional baseball right now...totally passive early in counts...way too aggressive late in counts. In between on all speeds, late on most fastballs, etc. He obviously has no plan at the plate other than "try to work a walk if they'll let me!" Both of those players need to be off the roster right now because they're not buying in.
Ryan DOES buy in...he's not talented at the plate but he's fighting for every at bat. Andino? Not so much.
You get my meaning? The message must be coherent. Montero and Ackley must go down to AAA and new, hungry players must replace them.

Time to move folks about. Well, long past time....but now will do.
Franklin for Andino is such a normal, every-day, makes sense move for every other MLB franchise, why not the M's.
Paxton or Taijuan for me in the #5 slot. Harang? Clearly he's done. Beavan or Noesi are better choices, too.
And, TA DA! I'm bringing up Triunfel, too, I think. And Maybe LIddi, and maybe Tenbrink.Well, not all three....but I'm considering each and every one of them, because they all make us a team with flexability. Would complicate the DFA, but if I thought Bay could be a CF in a pinch, then I'm in with one of the 1st two. Or just call up Tenbrink and let Chavez go. Tenbrink is growing on me. A lot. I love guys that can play every position. Good teams have 'em. And he isn't terrible with the bat for a guy that can. Tenbrink's career AAA numbers (all this year) are .267-.407-.427. Justin Smoak's are .252-.381-.407. I'm not making this up!
Did you know that Romero has played ZERO games in the IF for Tacoma this year. He's started in LF 17 times. Clearly we want him there next year. I'm not calling him up yet. But this year, Sept. probably..
And if we bomb this weekend, I'm letting Wedge go. Sometime you make a decision to go a different way. It will be time. I'm not bashing. He's done a decent job. But something has to change. I have no confidence he's the guy to get us past this level. His success with Cleveland was with a team that rolled the same guys out there every day.....and mashed.
I'm giving it to Brownie or Lennie Wilkins or even G. But I'm going a different direction.....without immediate hints we're moving in the right direction. The M's are battling, granted. But that is less on Wedge and more on resilient athletes. If guys aren't battling then get rid of them. See Bradley and Figgins.
No panic here Doc. It is a long season. But sometimes you change things up.
Ackley and Montero? At some point you have to consider a trip to Tacoma and a refresher course in Mash. As much as I didn't think I would say it, that point is coming quite close, without immediate signs of a pulse.
moe

Coherent messaging is very important part of any well-run organization, which I assume the M's aspire to be. Ackley needs to go down and re-tool his swing and approach at AAA level - very difficult to do that at MLB level. I think Nick Franklin would bring a little attitude as well, which is much needed at the moment.

Matt, it seems to me that Wedgie is presenting a mixed message by his unwillingness to confront umpires who blow calls against the M's. How can Wedgie scream at his players to fight for every inch and then roll over like a dead cat (with no bounce) when the umps blow call after call against the M's? If Wedgie wants to lead by example and present a consistent, coherent message, he needs to haul his sorry backside out of the comfort of the dugout when an ump blows a call against the M's. Your thoughts?

Seems like a simple enough solution. Stop finding so much of the plate. All those K's suggest good stuff. I mean, it beats lots of K's, lots of walks, and lots of HRs. Help me out here, Doc. We're not talking about Bob Galasso. The guy is capable of getting lots of strikeouts, over 8 per 9 innings. His xFIP is 4.25. Matt Moore's is 4.24, and RA Dickey's is 4.30. The stats tell me he isn't washed up. They suggest to me he needs to make adjustments.

Actually MT, I only said that I would bring in 2 players. Franklin and a new #5. Beyond that, I would certainly consider other changes and I suggested players to be considered. I think the Tenbrink for Chavez move makes sense. I would probably do that. I don't know when Guti will be ready.
Melvin was 47-52 with the A's during his stint in '11. Add those first 52 games last year and you get less than one full year. Wedge has had 2+ years. He inherited a mess and got 67 wins out of it in '11. 75 wins last year. If we lose the next three (which was part of my premise), we will be on pace for 72 wins. I'm not sure we're getting better.
I'm not blaming all this on Wedge, mind you. But he happens to be in a high-turnover profession where wins count. He is paid well, btw. Will be if he is fired, too. Perhaps it would be fair to give Wedge a shot with new players, if we bring guys up. But maybe a new clubhouse dynamic helps new guys and old.
I sense a team struggling to find itself. I think it might be better to have a new skipper help us in that process this year. If we win 72 games then Wedge isn't managing the M's next year. I think that is a safe statement. Then, if the M's continue to struggle, his release is going to occur. I don't know if now is better than then. I also don't know that it isn't. But some change, to put a different flavor on this team, seems to be needed.
There are things I don't know. What is Wedge's respect level with the players? Especially critical might be Feliz, Iwakuma, Seager and Saunders. Do the owners have Z's back? Those things would have impact, certainly.
Is this weekend too early? Again, maybe. Maybe the All-Star game is the right deadline. What is your suggestion for the length of leash we give Wedge?
He's not entirely responsible for our struggles (if we continue to do so), but he's part of it. It's time for a lineup change. it may be time for a change in the guy who makes that lineup.

Before he threw the first pitch for Seattle, I said Harang was a mistake.
He was a fading mediocre pitcher last season whose xFIP was already up to 4.95 DESPITE lucking into his best HR avoidance of his career.
Moving to the AL at age 35, when coming off a luck-bloated career year - (and frankly, if your CAREER year is a 3.61 ERA in Dodgerland, you really haven't had much of a career), is just asking for trouble.
I cannot explain the K-rate (opponents playing HR derby so much they're getting themselves out due to greed?)... but according to Fangraphs he throws 5 pitches and ALL FIVE have negative run values. That sort of screams - there is no "fix" here to be had. He's obviously not a rookie with upside that a little experience is going to resolve anything.
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Glad to see Montero sent down. (My guess is - it's the defensive questions that are seeping into his offense preventing growth).
With Ackley, he *finally* (like Smoak), is starting to draw walks like he should. I expect Smoak, now that he's (apparently) getting the lattitude to accept walks will start showing his power in another week or two. Looks to me like Ackley is 2-3 weeks behind along the same basic lines, (put into a deeper hole due to the dreadful new swing experiment).
From a "how is that possible?" stat perspective ... I still find it utterly amazing that while Smoak now has Ackley by 162 OPS, has 12 more bases (51-39) and has reached base 17 more times ... Ackley has scored one more run (16-15) and has the same RBI total (8). I know Smoak is doing better ... but what kind of bizarre statistical dimension has Smoak fallen into where he seems only capable of succeeding when it will have no impact on the scoreboard?!?
I mean, Smoak has essentially caught up to Saunders in OPS (.708 for Michael .704 for Smoak), but Saunders, (in 52 fewer PAs), has 3 extra runs and 5 extra RBI.
I know RBI are not a great stat for lots of reasons ... but Ackley and Ryan are exactly tied with Smoak ... all with 8 RBI.
I really hope this is just some strange statistical fluke ... but this has got to be some kind of record for unproductive productivity.

Prior to Aaron's implosion Tuesday, his last start was on May 7 - a whole 14 days prior. That day he went 6 innings, gave up 2 ERs on 5 hits and 0 walks. The outing before that - May 1, he went 6 IP against the red hot Orioles (remember, they came in having swept Oakland), and gave up 2 ERs on 4 hits and 1 walk. He's striking out a batter an inning.
So the guy was definitely rusty and got clobbered Tuesday. He looked horrible. Kind of like Phil Hughes did against us, before he immediately went out and gave NY a quality start against the O's. Dust him off, let him get back into the routine, and give him another month of starts. Then, see where you are. The xFIP, which predicts future performance, says he's a back end starter going forward. I'd see if I could steal a couple more quality starts at least, maybe more, before kicking him to the curb..
Nobody here likes Aaron Harang. I get it. I don't either. But, for crying out loud - 14 days between starts? Cut the guy some slack. He's going to give you some good outings going forward.

Doc is right - look at the Oakland A's. And that's just the very latest example, in this era of parity, from just last year. But Dave likes to pronounce teams dead on May 1. It's idiotic. Let's work to get to .500 by the All Star break, and then see what we think is possible. Hey, maybe we can even get a few games over .500 by the break.
This rush to pronounce the Mariners or any team dead on arrival astounds me. I don't even know how anyone can call themselves a baseball fan and pronounce seasons over in May. As a long time fan of the Tampa Bay Mariners, it disgusts me. There are far too many examples of teams succeeding against tremendous odds throughout the history of the game. It's part of being a fan of the game. To go around saying teams are out of it in May is arrogant.
Instead, show a little humility - nobody predicted the Oakland A's would win the AL West last season. One would think the inability to predict so would humble certain writers. But it doesn't. I'm not saying a baseball fan has to always believe his team is going to win the pennant. You can if you want, or you can say "wait and see" or "highly unlikely". But to declare the season over in mid-May - that's just arrogance in the face of history.
Heck I remember when the Seattle Pilots were 10 games out in June, and a local writer was discussing how this could still be a pennant chase - a break here, a break there, make a good trade, etc. The SEATTLE PILOTS! Made for fun reading. Guess we're just too smart for that these days, eh Billy Beane?

It is disturbing to hear the season reduced to a mathematical probability. The thinking is that odds are too small to compete so the Mariners should drop the issue and focus on more important things (like what?). The odds of a post season birth are always small. They start at 1/3 with the two wild cards. This means that baseball is an exercise in failure for most teams most of the time. There are still reasons to cheer. We are left with aesthetic, potential for improvement, individual triumphs, stomping hated enemies, and all of the other little things that make baseball fun. The Mariners have come a long way in the last few years and they still have some good baseball left to play. The pitching crisis won't last forever either. I think that when a young Nicaraguan returns from his sojourn into deep space in search of his lost planet, the season will show remarkable improvement. What will the pessimists say when the Mariners finally do reach the post season? They'll say, "This isn't mathematically sustainable" or some such.

The M's need a prolonged win streak to get back into the WC race, which ESPN now gives the M's a 5.2% chance of making (third worst in the AL after the Lastros and the Jays). To go on a long win streak, the M's have to be able to win extra inning games and 1-run games. To date, the M's are 1-4 in extras and 6-8 in 1-run games. It will continue to be hard for the M's to win close games when the umps are systematically biased against them, as these close games often are influenced by umpire's calls.

1982 - San Francisco Giants were 20-27 on May 28. But did they give up? NO! They fought and fought, so that, by the All Star break, this plunky team got to...42-46. Well, OK, not exactly setting the league on fire, and eleven games out of first. Eventually this team got it rolling. On September 30, they were 86-73, ONE game back, and the town was abuzz.
The Giants that season played .582% ball from that 20-27 start. The day before, they drew 6,187 to see them lose that 27th time. Not bad: they had 5,650 fans the night before, when they lost that 26th game. At 20-27, they were 8.5 games back of the Atlanta Braves, and as you could see, nobody in town cared. The team was really not that good...Yet.

Well, I doubt they expected him to hit like a glove first SS. If he were even a MLB average hitter he'd have been an asset as a part time C.

On May 23, they stood at 20-27. Started kicking it into gear and by the All Star break were at 44-44. They ended at 90-73, having played at a .604 clip since May 23, and lost the NL West by half a game. They did, however, win the wild card and ended up in the World Series.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs were 20-24 on May 23. They ended up winning 87 games and the NL Central, playing at a .560 clip.

On May 23, these losers were 15-29! How on earth they ended up in the World Series is anybody's guess. It must have had something to do with that .627 winning clip that earned this sorry looking team the wild card. Talk about luck!

The Mariners front office has to realize that they would be bringing several young pitchers up this year and next.
Molina a nd Russell Martin were both available this off season, as well as a couple of good catchers ... but the Mariners CHOSE to go with Montero and Shoppach - who are both below average defensively, lack pitch framing, and who will continue to hurt our young pitchers.
There was money to spend they say, but an OBVIOUS need was ignored.
PhxTerry is right, the front office needs to be held accountable.

52 days into the 2013 season, the M's Brain Trust has abandoned a key strategy it adopted for success in 2013 - Jesus Montero as full-time starting catcher. This strategy was followed despite the fact that Montero was known to be a poor defensive catcher and needed to improve his batting.
Based on Montero's known weaknesses and his poor off-season progress, the M's Brain Trust should have adopted an alternative strategy in ST - signing a second Shoppach type, perhaps, and sending Montero to AAA right from ST. Relying on Montero as #1 catcher has turned out to be a disastrous strategy that has contributed to the sinking of the M's 2013 playoff hopes in a year when the Angels were weak.
It's passing the buck for the M's management to call Montero out-of-shape, state that his work ethic is poor, yadda, yadda, yadda. The M's Brain Trust was aware of all these weaknesses in ST. As managers, it's their responsibility to adjust their strategy to the situation. Why did they rely on an un-reliable, lazy kid for a key role on the team? And if they couldn't tell in ST that he hadn't improved, are they qualified to hold the positions they hold? Where is the accountability?

The M's most important position prospect is Dustin Ackley. In 2012, Ackley's hitting went backwards. Yet Ackley was sent away last off-season to work out his swing problems on his own, and he showed up at spring training with his stance and swing so screwed up that the changes just initiated had to be scrapped 41 days into the season. Now he is trying to change his swing on the fly - a very difficult task to accomplish in the heat of an MLB season. Not surprisingly, Ackley is failing miserably and looking more lost each day.
Our intrepid field leader evinces extraordinary concern for the delicate psyche of closer Wilhelmsen, refusing to have him pitch 2 tough innings in a row in a must-win game because that is an unfamiliar situation for poor Tommie. I wish he were as solicitious of poor Dustin's psyche, who has been failing for 21 months. We could very well be witnessing the ruination of Dustin Ackley's confidence, while 2 perfectly good replacements waste away in AAA.
Who ultimately is held accountable for this egregious failure in the management of the M's most important hitting prospect?

But we can't have it all.  Wasn't it just last year that people were screaming that Olivo was getting in the way of Montero's development and that Jesus needed to be given the starter's role? So we did that.  We spent the 7 million per year extra that Martin costs above Shoppach elsewhere (or pocketed it - take your pick).  But if Martin or Molina were here, Montero would not be catching at all.  With DH filled by Morales he wouldn't be DHing either.  We could have demoted him to start the year in AAA, but that's where Zunino is so he's not the catcher there either.
The Mariners did eventually choose to go with Montero as their guy during the offseason, with the idea that he would improve.  Instead, he regressed.  They went with Shoppach, in theory, in order to prevent Wedge from showing too much favoritism toward a vet like Molina or Martin - and who says either guy would come here with maybe the best catching prospect in the minors sitting in AAA and another top prospect already fighting them for the position?  They want to catch full-time, not fend off Montero's clumsy advances and Zunino's ascending star.
They both got paid, and got to catch a lot.  We'd have had to dump either Morales or Montero to add one of those guys, at minimum.  Morales has been pretty useful.
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Montero hasn't, but isn't that what we needed to know?  That he's not a catcher (or at least hasn't shown a track record of producing as a catcher nor of maintaining the position full-time).  More than that, if we're moving him off the position we needed HIM to know that.  Paul Konerko and Carlos Delgado were more than willing to move. Montero has been a weird mix of stubborn and apparently lazy.  Wants to catch, takes pride in it... but doesn't work enough to get good enough at it to make it there.
So now he can catch part-time and either DH or play first.  Hopefully first.  He has plenty of opportunity still to be David Arias (now David Ortiz) or Mike Sweeney is probably a closer comp and explode on the scene later.  Montero has obscene power when he recognizes his pitch and hits it, but now that we've let him fail at catcher (and as a major leaguer in his first go-round) perhaps he'll be more amenable to instruction.
Mike Sweeney was a catcher his first 3 partial seasons in the bigs.  He FINALLY moved over to first after he almost quit baseball in frustration, and then figured it out and became an All-Star and a forever Royal.
Is trying to turn Montero into Sweeney more important than pitch-framing for this season?  I dunno.  It could completely backfire and ruin Montero.  It could get Jack and Wedge fired.
But it's not idiocy to find out once and for all whether Montero can catch. It well and truly was a business decision involving a prized asset and trying to assess how to maximize said asset.
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I guess I don't understand why all decisions made by the derisively-called braintrust are automatically stupid if they turn out to have immediately poor results.
I know the grass is always greener, and that obviously no free agent would refuse to come here because that never happens, so it's not like the Mariners attempted to... oh, wait: "Nov 26, 2012 – Free agent catcher Russell Martin is receiving significant interest from the Pirates and Mariners, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports..."
So Shoppach wasn't plan A.  And we were interested in adding Martin.  And sometimes stuff doesn't go your way and you have to come up with alternate plans. 
And sometimes those plans don't work out the way you want either, and you need other plans.  Which is where we're at now and where we've been at the entire year (Morse and Morales were not plan A, and neither was losing the top-2 young pitching studs to injury and neither was letting Montero be lead catcher and neither was losing a bunch of people to injury or having Ryan continue to implode or...)
So yes, it's Jack's job to make it work.  The ball hasn't bounced our way in several early-season games, and that sucks.  No argument about that at all.
Jack may be wrong about several things, but he's not an idiot or incompetent (unlike our last GM). "Can Jack assemble a winner in Seattle" is something that isn't answered yet.  He HASN'T, not yet, but can he? I dunno.  Is Wedge the man to lead that team?  I dunno.  Will enough of our stud prospects work out to overcome our handicap on the FA market? Dunno.
All I do is watch the games (major and minor league) and wait for the day the Mariners return to prominence.  Hasn't happened for the Royals since the 80s.  Cleveland is just trying to return there now for the first time since, well, Wedge's brief ascent to relevance there.
How long do we have to wait?
As long as it takes, I guess.  Which is way longer than any of us want, Jack included.
~G

G Man - very well said. I had forgotten that the M's had been in the rumor mill for Russell.
However, I think we are now starting to converge on the issues that Jack and his braintrust were up against this off season.
Obviously they chose to ride with Montero - either as Plan A or Plan B, but it was the crux their off season. They made a decision, and it has gone very wrong.
As PhxTerry writes below this, Ackley was not a concern, and really was never addressed. Again, a decision made that has gone very wrong.
Smoak / 1st base was obviously the second concern... and I think they did great really... whether it was Plan A or Plan B.
Outfield must have been third on the list, and ... OK injuries have definitely hurt, but some of those had to be expected... this the lousy roster construction.
Starting pitching was put to bed after signing King and Kuma, and in hind sight with the injuries and messing with Beavan's arm slot... more was needed here, but hard to argue that it was bad to assume someone would be able to step up and do a league average job...
I am sure I am missing a couple minor decisions, but by my count - two wrong decisions, one right, and two decisions that are middle of the road.
Not the worst off season a Gm has had, but we needed better.

I think I'll make a thread about this later, but this offseason, what was the problem?  Was it pitching? Our ERA+ was 100 and our OPS+ was 90.  We kept the best pitchers from last year (Felix, Iwakuma, E-Ram) and traded Vargas and his road woes to get a decent MOTO hitter.  We replaced Vargas with Saunders, who is a similar pitcher for a similar price. And we left a slot open for the best of the Big Whatever to fill, and that wound up being Maurer (maybe by default, maybe not).
Would a pitch framer help them? I'm sure he would.  Were the Ms hoping to get an offensive catcher out of Montero instead of a black hole? You betcha.  If Montero was OPS+ ing 110 would we be having this pitch framing convo?  Nooooooooo.
Ackley was a THREE WAR 2nd baseman last year (B-R figures) after being a pro-rated SEVEN WAR player the year of his callup.  The number of players who struggle in their sophomore year is large enough to deserve the term "sophomore slump," but even so, I would not say that Ackley has been "failing for 21 months" as terry says. Ackley's 2.8 WAR last year puts him 9th out of 20 qualified second basemen, and solidly in the middle-of-the-pack alongside Neil Walker and Omar Infante, and above "luminaries" such as Ian Kinsler who benefits from his bandbox home park.
I hate to point this out, but Ackley is still considered a positive WAR player this year so far by B-R (14th of 19 qualified 2B). Maybe that's an indictment of WAR. Maybe it just says that even at his WORST Ackley is still not the worst thing to happen to the Mariners, and that if he gets to his best... wow.
How does he get to his best, or at least back to mediocrity? Maybe it's a demotion.  Maybe he just has to work himself out of it.  Maybe we put KFC in his locker.
But again, in the offseason the plan was that Ackley's talent would come through and he'd go back to his first-year self, AKA the 7 WAR player.  And this would help the offense, because the offense was the major reconstruction of the offseason.  That the young hitters would regress further and the young pitchers would go on the DL wasn't the plan... but if we'd blocked them off with more Ibanez-types how loud would the howls have been then?
It's a no-win situation.  Jack's been Kobayashi Maru'ed. And if I make that post it'll be what the position was for the franchise in the off-season and their choices as well as their reasonable options. I'm with you, TR, I don't think Jack aced the offseason and has been plowed under by freak accidents, but I don't think he failed it either by any means - not when a couple of hits (or correctly called pitches) on this last road trip brings us home with a + .500 record instead of being 7 games under.
~G

Funny thing is, this blog among others was actively promoting Montero for the full time catching job in the off season. Recall the "he hits better when he's catching, just look at the numbers from 2012" meme. It was a constant refrain from the smartest, most baseball savvy folks on SSI like Doc & Matt, IIRC. So I'm sure that if we went back to those posts, the folks calling for Jack's head now for the decision must have put themselves on record then, right? Nah...much easier to criticize from the cheap seats.
I'm with G. The team HAD to find out if Montero could catch. There was some evidence that he hit better when he was behind the dish. There was some evidence that his CERA was quite good. And with Zunino 12 months out or so, there wasn't much of a window. Now we know. The dude cannot catch, at least not at 23. Now we need to know if he can hit.
Let's hope he gets his bat on track in Tacoma, comes back up when Morales is traded and sticks at DH/1B/emergency catcher.

The Montero we were watching this season bore little resemblance to the one we watched last season. I frankly think we should leave him at DH and catcher in Tacoma. Maybe play a little first base, just to get his feet wet and improve his marketability. AAA seems like a good place to learn what it takes for a catcher with two years at AAA and a season plus in the bigs to learn first base. Take all the pressure off him, and let him figure things out in a less scrutinized environment. Make the game fun again. I remember when Smoak and Carp and Halman were leading the Rainiers into the AAA championships. They seemed to be having a good time. So, let him throw out some AAA guys, just to remind him he can do it. The demotion worked for Smoak last season. It worked to a lesser extent for Carp before that, and it seems to be working for Ruffin. And it could work for Montero (and Ackley). It may be the one thing in development the M's could actually do right - see if the kids can tread water, and if not, send them back down with a plan on how to improve.
The Mariners should be sticking with their belief that Montero can become a major league catcher. If the Mariners give up on him catching, after making an informed decision over the last two years that he can catch, then this smells a little like panic. Not that there wasn't any reason to panic regarding Montero as a catcher in 2013. They could just decide to make him a DH, and maybe that should be his overall focus, learning how to sit on the bench and take four at bats a game. But he can learn some things defensively in the meantime - mainly, that this game is fun, even when you work hard at it.

When Jack decided to go with Montero and a hit first catcher - which may have been the back-up plan if jack signed Russell or someone else - then it was imperative that the Mariners get very reliable and good back up in Seattle (Shoppach?? maybe), but the brain trust also needed to have someone in Tacoma or elsewhere that could also step in. Now maybe Paulino was supposed to be it, and he did not cut the mustard, or maybe Sucre is the man... but I guess I have a hard time believing that the braintrust fully believed that Montero and Shoppach were the only catchers that would be needed this year.

nevermind, see above.

I remember Jack on the radio going on about how well Sucre was doing in AA a year or two ago. He seemed to really like him. Failing that, probably someone from the same place he found Endy Chavez. I can't believe Jack figured Saunders and Franklin were the only CFers we'd need this year. You can always go get a replacement player if things fall to pieces. They're freely available, right? :-)
Heck, Quiroz has a 113 OPS+ for the Giants as we speak.