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Know this, going in, that Jack Zduriencik has a big dose of Justin Smoak in him. He genuinely does not want to hear applause as he steps into the box; he wants applause as he's rounding third base in a trot. When he steps into the box, he wants to see a lot of texting in the stands.
Zduriencik also has a large "I'll believe it when I see it" streak. He is sincere when he intones, shoulders slumped, that he half-expects another team to be "lying low, playing possum," and to jump in at the last second with a Boras-pleasing deal.
And if that occurred -- if the M's offered Fielder 8/$180 as Dr. D thinks they would -- if the M's had a deal half-done and the Marlins jumped in at 8/$195, then Boras would cackle with glee and take pleasure in leaving the M's at the altar.
Zduriencik, our SSI hero, would have squat to complain about, considering the way he (reportedly) did the Yankees. And so we hear Zduriencik issuing cautions, that the Mariners aren't frontrunners until there were a press conference. He believes that. So does SSI.
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I/O: Mariners are in big on Prince Fielder.
CRUNCH: Dr. D likes to think that he specializes in reading between Fortune-500 lines, and he was quite taken aback by this Monday article.
Johns quoted Capt Jack thusly:
"Sometimes things fall apart and it's not always because of you. It's because the other side didn't buy into it. Those are the unknowns. From our standpoint, to go out and blow your trumpet doesn't do any good."
In Zduriencik-speak, that's tantamount to a flying belly-flop off the tower into a kiddie pool.
He means that --- > some other GM, given his same circumstances in Seattle, would blow his trumpet. He'd say, "We've got the money approved from on high, and it is an offer that can get the job done. We're going after Fielder and we like our chances!"
So the Mariners are finally, at long last, acting like a middle-big market team, one with a $0.5 billion stadium. They're just not talking like it. Dr. D approves of both of these developments.
Other quotes in the Johns article reinforced the same thing. The M's met with Fielder last night, and you would pretty well doubt that they submitted an offer sheet. But it's like Boras goes, "Prince is looking for some long-term security. Pujols got ten years; Cabrera got 8." And the M's suits nod and go, "With Prince, we could probably talk about the longer contract terms rather than the shorter ones. We think he'd be really happy here."
And the finger-trigger games begin, because in expensive negotiations, whoever says the first number loses.
SSI didn't say anything at the time, but then here comes a followup public statement that should signal the beginning of a mini-era ....
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