Three Career minor league lines:
4.38-ERA; 6.6-K/9; 2.1-BB/9; 0.8-HR/9  (421 IP)
3.96-ERA; 6.7-K/9; 2.7-BB/9; 0.8-HR/9 (1225 IP)
3.73-ERA; 5.3-K/9; 1.5-BB/9; 0.7-HR/9 (546 IP)
Many statheads will glance at that and zero in on the K rates.  One guy is clearly underwhelming.  The ERA will get shrugged off - (ERA is only useful if it confirms a given position - not if it contradicts it).
The top line is Doug Fister.  I was never high on Fister because he ran double digit Hits/9 numbers throughout his minor league career, his total upon depature was 10.3.  I was convinced he was simply too easy to hit - and that his HR/9 would balloon (as would his ERA when the competition got tougher).  Still waiting - but without any real hope.  This is a blown call on my part.  Way to do Doc.
The second line is Pauley.  He ran a nearly identical line to Fister, except his H/9 was a full hit LESS than Fister, (9.4).  He walked a half guy more, but gave up a hit less.  Of course, Pauley was still in AAA at age 27, while Fister managed to gain escape velocity at age 25.
The third line, (the one with the best ERA and best walk rate - by a wide margin) is Blake Beaven.  He turns 23 this year.
The thing is, that walk rate isn't simply good.  It's insanely good.  His HR/9 is a smidge BETTER than Fister and Pauley.  Where this is leading is that when you've got a kid fanning 8 guys a game, it's easy to jump on the bandwagon.  But, any low-K guy (and for that, I mean K rate below 7 in the MINORS), it's very easy to dismiss them as nothing special.
In 2011 before the season Pauley was viewed as a meh arm in a pen where the strengths would be: Lueke and Wilhelmsen  (oops).  I don't get to see these guys - so I rely on guys like Doc to fill in the blanks.  But, when a guy goes off the charts, (and a 1.5 walk rate is off the charts), he's in unfamiliar waters.  He doesn't comp well with anyone.  The data pool is too shallow.
But ... if you're able to run a 1.5 walk rate AND a 0.7 HR rate, you must be doing "something" right.  I believe that combo of walk and HR rates screams a phenomenal ability to repeat motion.  That in my mind says this is a kid who has the 'potential' to learn new pitches signicantly beyond that of your average prospect.  To me, Beaven is a kid who could suddenly jump up, add a new pitch, and kick that K rate up over 6 and suddenly you have another Vargas in the rotation. 
Not saying this will happen.  Saying it "can" happen.  He could also be another Kirk Saarloos, a kid with great control, but never quite able to find that out pitch.  But Beaven was the 17th overall selection int the 2007 draft.  Clearly the scouts saw something special.  To me, the thing missed about a guy like Beaven is that because of the low K rate, the tendency is to dismiss the possibility of improvement.  While a guy with a 10 K rate who walks 6 guys a game will immediately be viewed as someone who could be special if they can just get the walk rate down a bit.  I think there is a logical fallacy here.  Lack of control calls into question inate repeatability.  That should make a guy LESS coachable and maleable.
I think the biases of high-K pitchers continue to play a large role in just which pitchers get a 'scholarship' -- an actual shot.  I believe the guys with the low walk rates have a greater chance of learning a new pitch and mastering it.  I think they also have greater leeway in regards to learning how to selectively walk opponents, (walk Pujols ... challenge Figgins). 
In the end, I think the HR rate (which is the proxy for how hard a pitcher gets hit) will be the determining factor for how Beaven does.  Just as I viewed Carp as a hitter capable of adaptation, I think Beaven is a pitcher with the same maleability.  I also believe it would be wise for the analysts, scouts and pundits to reduce their fixation on the K-rate as the primary TTO result for pitcher prospects.

Isn't the issue with Paxton innings? He only logged 95 IP last year. The M's are very cautious with young arms. I can't see them pushing Paxton over 130 IP or so this year. I guess they could do that in an M's uni and just shut him down in July or something but I don't see it happening.
Lonnie has him starting at AA, which is probably reasonable.
 
 

I'm willing to give Beavan the chance to show growth in year-2 while Hultzen and Paxton get a handful of 3-4 inning starts in the minors so they don't leave town on September 12th if we are somehow in a race. 
By the way, does anybody else find it kind of odd that Neither Forrest Snow(23) or Erasmo Ramirez(22) got anything other than "Other guys to watch" notes on any prospect lists for the Mariners even though there has been talk about both of them being options for the starting rotation this year?  I've read a lot of people talking about the stark drop off on our list after the top 5 and how "You never want to see a reliever on the top 10 prospects".  Why don't Snow and Ramirez make top 10s even though they've both got rapid advancement with solid track records and Forrest Snow has pretty decent velocity

I have to think that the Fister as "not one of our best five going forward" sentiment just was a colossal mistake rather than a cryptic statement about the strength of the future rotation.

Unless he stinks in ST, Noesi is in the rotation....Pineda trade, you understand.
Somewhat concerning is that in  his 41 games above AA level, he's giving up more than 10 hits/9 innings. 
Iwakuma's a lock.
And I think the #5 guy on Opening Day is Beavan.  Paxton or Hultzen or both will soon be up. 
And the more I watch Furbish throw, the more I think his arm-slot will drop.  I think he'll become even more of a side-armed slinger...and probably effective, too.
 
moe

I had no problem with trading Fister... Just with the return. Gotta do better than that.

Hurts me.  It hurts me more than the loss of Pineda, honestly, because Pineda brought me back a first-class bat we desperately needed. (aside:  it does kill me to read "Yankees Pineda..." in headlines now)
Fister didn't bring me that great bat.  Yes, he brought F-Mart, but he's an iffy player at best.  Ruffin's a decent pen arm but needs to be a closer to obtain more value - and maybe he will be.  Maybe he'll beat out Wilhelmsen for that role as we figure out who's replacing League (assuming League goes/is traded like I expect).
Wells in CF makes up a huge chunk of offensive WAR to offset Fister.  It was that idea that made me think Jack had something up his sleeve.
But if Wells is on a corner and Furbush is in the pen... they'd both better bring it, AND we'll need some pitcher health going forward.  That wonderful depth we had isn't so wonderful with our #2 and #3 pitchers - under club control for 4 or 5 more years - now pitching for other pennant contenders.
Odds are we're taking another starter with our #3 pick in the draft, though, so again: pray for pitcher health.  We still have the arms for a monster rotation even without Fister and Pineda, but we'll need their elbows and shoulders to stay in good shape.
~G

ALL the deadline deals were.
Jack looked at his underperforming roster and his minor league talent.  His burning questions:
1) If Guti, my prize acquisition, is really cooked, then what in the world are we doing in CF going forward?  And I'm low on outfielders of any stripe after seeing Wilson and Peguero in action.
Answer: Halman scared him and Saunders was looooooost, so he went out and added an emergency CF with power (Wells) AND traded for a truer CFer with some contact issues who was a bit like another Halman in AAA (Trayvon).There was nobody else in the minors to do it and only Ichiro in the bigs, and neither moving him nor paying him were certain things after this year.  Adding Chiang to the OF depth was another move to shore up this uncertainty.
2) My bullpen is sad-sack and needs life, and I have Pineda, Felix, Vargas, Paxton, Taijuan and my newly minted arm from the draft.  The bullpen arms I spent all of last draft acquiring are still a year or two away.  What kind of solution can I make?
Answer: add two good pen arms, one righty and one lefty. The righty has some decently nasty stuff, and as a bonus, the lefty can start (or bridge) so you get flexibility there.
3) My third base situation has been killing this team.  What are my options?
Answer: I don’t believe in Seager at the position and don’t want to place bets on him yet even though I’m rocketing him up the minor-league ladder, Liddi scares me, Figgins and his thousand yard stare is useless… can I help plug this hole so I don’t have to move another SS or 2B over to 3B and suffer there?  Enter F-Mart.
4) I don’t want to trade any of the crown jewels of the system to help patch all these concerns, but Vargas and Beavan have no value.  Pineda only goes for a world-class talent, Paxton on his own wouldn’t bring back multiple major-league ready players...and Fister is pitching out of his mind right now.  Who can I trade to patch the holes?
Answer: The one that annoyed me.
I get why he did it.  I got it at the time.  But yes, I think he'd do it over if he knew that he'd have to bite the bullet on a Pineda trade in order to get a decent offensive force in here over the offseason.
If I tell you now that Carp (whom he'd demoted in irritation at his attitude or whatever already by trade-time) looks like a corner gem, Seager can probably handle 3rd, Guti will be heathy and able to post average CF production (fingers crossed) and we're bursting with pen arms from the offseason...
Then yeah, it seems like some unnecessary convolutions to add depth to this team instead of true talents.
But if we're still scrambling over Guti and Seager and some of our pen arms don't work out...
It makes more sense.  He's got to down-side plan.  Can't just hope for the best results.  Our stoploss players were stopping NOTHING.  I just remember Oakland trading their Big Three and getting lots of returns, and see how smart they were since Zito and Mulder and Hudson all got injured after...
And I see where they are now. I don't want to be Oakland - and at least they squeezed all the juice from that fruit before they traded it.  We just gave up 9 combined years of club control for our #2 and #3 pitchers.  Hultzen and Paxton are very good arms, but are unlikely to exceed what Pineda and Fister were doing.  We're not saving money on the risk either.
So the parts we got back have GOT to be an improvement over what we had. 
A lot rests on Montero, but also on Wells, Ruffin, Furbush and F-Mart.  I need Jack's eagle-eye for talent to be right again - and for us not to be too conservative in deploying that talent.
~G

What about Ramirez?

I think Jack might take it back if could. I hope he would. Maybe not in the sense that he would necessarily keep Fister, but that the targets might have been different. Also, there was no reason he had to be traded at the deadline. As you note, it's early, and we did go for quantity over quality, but it just seems llike those trades were out of character (eg obtaining young, controlled MLB ready talent) by going for a lot players that are pretty much risky dice rolls with severe flaws. Hopefully some will work out.
We traded Fister, Bedard, and Pauley. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me that that should have brought back something pretty studley. Two TOR starters (one with 5 years of control and cheap) and a solid BOR/BP asset? I sometimes wish we had offered all three to one team as a package. Might have brought back a beast, and really tweaked the Yankees in the process!

Signed for 4.5 million with The Pirates this offseason, he can get an extra 500K.  David Pauley was a journeyman longman having a good year.  Doug Fister had posted 2 seasons of slightly above average starting pitching and was having a good season but still didn't strike anybody out.  And don't forget, they all pitched in Safeco, other teams know how it plays.  What happened when they were traded?  Erik Bedard was frail, David Pauley pitched like a guy who struggles to strike out 5/9IP, and Doug Fister pitched out of his mind in a way that he will not replicate.  10 pitchers since 1901 have pitched 150 innings+ with less than 1, 3 managed less than .75, 2 pitchers have managed a K/BB ratio above 10.
If you look at Doug Fister's season as a whole, I think that's about the best you can hope for going forward, and that's a great, 5-6 WIN pitcher.  If Furbush can pitch like Ricky Romero (3 WAR) and Casper Wells can hit like Preston Wilson (3 WAR), then we're even no matter what we get from Ruffin and Martinez, and we're going to get something out of Ruffin this season.  And they can be better than that, we don't know how good any of them will be after 2 months of playing time, but we know exactly how good what we gave up was.

Oh, I agree that they were not all at top value.  However, my preference would have been to convert a cub controlled cheap TOR starter, a decent dice roll at one of the top 5 pitchers in the AL (which Bedard is when healthy), and a servicible cheap #5 SP/BP assett into some concentrated WAR at a position of need (eg exactly what we obtained with the Pineda trade).  Again, I understand that it is early, but it seems right now that we still have OF weakness, 3B is a major questionmark, Furbush and Ruffin might not even make the team, etc.  I also agree that if those guys we received hit high on their projections, then the trade will work out nicely.  It just doesn't look (to me) like that will happen... right now.  All those guys have major, glaring weaknesses (strikeouts, contact issues, diabetes, arm mechanics, etc).  It just would have been nice to get something more like a future bedrock than a bunch of lotto tickets.  Maybe that was all that was available at the time... but I still say there was no reason to trade Fister at the deadline rather than in the offseason.  Maybe they thought he would collapse at any minute and this was their best chance to sell high?  If so, they seem to have been quite wrong in their assessment there.