Just to recap the roster turnover magic that Zduriencik has accomplished this season and heading into next season, I would like to call your attention to how amazingly young the team he'll likely field in 2010 has gotten.  Here is a list of the players we have right now who will/could (*) see significant playing time in descending order of age:

• 37) Mike Sweeney (DH)
• 36) Ichiro! (RF)
• 34) Kenji Johjima (BC)*
• 34) Russell Branyan (1B)
• 32) Jack WIlson (SS)*
• 31) Erik Bedard (SP)*
• 31) Chris Jakubauskas (RP)*
• 31) Carlos Silva (BLOB)
• 30) Bill Hall (UT)
• 30) Jack Hannahan (IF)*
• 29) Sean White (RP)
• 28) David Aardsma (CL)
• 28) Ian Snell (SP)
• 27) Franklin Gutierrez (DTFT)
• 27) Ryan Rowland-Smith (SP)
• 27) Mark Lowe (RP)
• 27) Jason Vargas (P)
• 26) Jose Lopez (2B)
• 26) Rob Johnson (C)
• 26) Adam Moore (BC)
• 26) Doug Fister (SP)
• 26) Shawn Kelley (RP)
• 26) Garrett Olson (RP)
• 25) Brandon Morrow (SP)
• 24) Matt Tuiasosopo (IF)
• 24) Mike Carp (1B/DH)
• 24) King Felix (CY)
• 24) Luke French (DUCK!)
• 23) Mike Saunders (OF)
• 22) Dustin Ackley (OF/1B)*

That's a remarkable young team...what's interesting about the make-up of this roster is that the 2009 pitching staff led the AL in ERA (aided by great defense of course) despite only having one constant presence - King Felix - in the rotation and three good relievers (Aardsma/Lowe/Kelley with White getting good results despite a bad DIPS line)...Zduriencik has been mixing and matching in the pitching staff all year and darn it all if he hasn't managed to continue to get solid pitching in spite of that fact!

And in spite of concern in some sectors that there's not enough young hitting talent to address our offensive woes, I would argue that we have a very young core of players manning a lot of key positions and showing the ability to man those positions at least adequately - Gutierrez (CF), Lopez (2B), Tui (3B), Carp (1B/DH), Saunders/Ackley (LF), Johnson/Moore (C)-  and that there's significant offensive upside with most of those guys over the production of the older players they're replacing (from 2009 I mean).

This is a team very definitely moving in the right direction...you can tell that because they have continued to play good solid .500 ball as about 19 of their 25 roster spots have been changed out or are in the process of being changed out.  When you can tread water while swapping older guys for youth, you're heading for better days.