After all those years of hearing how Felix would eventually get Yanked, if Cano instead became a Mariner?

JayZ has sold Cano on his becoming a cultural 'icon', with the kinds of lucrative endorsement deals that he can only really get if he plays in a major media market. Those 'outside baseball' deals are why Cano dumped Boras and went with JayZ. If all he was interested in was the biggest baseball contract, he would have stayed ith Boras.

Ichiro became a world icon in Seattle. It took a putting a great team around him to do so, but it is interesting that it began almost from the day ARod left town. Anyway, whatever designs JayZ might have, it doesn't mean the Yankees have to play along with them, or are even interested in doing so. They, not Cano, are the deciders here, and I am certain they feel they can win with or without Cano. Maybe the Dodgers will swoop in and play the LA card. But it would be nice to see Seattle get its swagger back. Captains of industry (Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks), we are a locale of world icons. We were once at the top of the baseball world. We are the top of the football world. And we invented both a music form and a fashion in Grunge.

Well, Cano isn't getting a clothing line, a fragrance and a premium liquor endorsement deal playing in Seattle. That's the kind of thing JayZ has sold Cano on.

The Mariners' Suits Have Made Their Bed, now they must proceed while lying in it. Earth to Howard: This whole thiing is bass ackwards. You may not hire a team president until January or February, but you are contemplating making a centerpiece move with the franchise. Thus the man you will hire, who has the unique combination of baseball contacts and savvy and uber-business skills, will have no voice as to the wisdom of such a move. It's immaterial what I think. This is a cart before the horse move from that persepective alone.
Even more so, you claimed to be SO prudent in not overspending in the past, but your team has become so devoid of superior talent and so bad that you contemplate such a move as this in order to overcome the problems YOU have created. There was no need for the team to ever sink so low for so long. But you were being WISE. You were being PRUDENT. You were being CAREFUL. Attendance was down because the team stank? Slash payroll. Bring in a GM who you can force to work against impossible payroll restrictions. Implement a full-orbed extreme youth movement, save a boatload of money while doing it.
Rather than "Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained," you followed a policy of "Nothing Ventured, Nothing Risked."
Now you must retrieve the situation, and you want to make a big splash. My goodness. You should have just practiced your diving all these years.

Not only that, but there is a pattern of behavior here as well. As Cameron said, the fear isn't that they spend $200 million on Cano. The fear is that they spend $200 million on Cano, he "eats all their cookies" for the next five years and the team is Felix, Cano and 23 civics.

A "penny-wise pound-foolish" approach has caught up to the Mariners to such a degree that outbidding the Yankees for Mr. Yankee (next to Jeter) seems the only way to "tilt the world" back in their favor. No one of moment wants to come here without a huge overpay, and many not even with that. How do all those relatively modest sums saved over the years look now?
My concern is that even signing Cano would not change the landscape to the degree envisaged. Would I like to have Cano at second base? Sure. Do I care if Howard spends $200+ million to get him? Only if it strangles the club over the long term, and frankly, that's Howard's choice (subject to committee approval). My point is his organization has proven itself to be inept. He has a GM on a short leash who so far has not proven to be an architect, his President has resigned effective sometime in the new year. He needs a senior architect. So you make your "move of the decade" BEFORE the new architect is on board, while the old one is a lame duck who over the years has proved incapable of steering a franchise into successful on the field? What, is the new guy going to be able to implement his vision when you've already laid the foundation between Felix and Cano?
Personally, I don't think the Cano thing happens, and I would hope some of these considerations dictate against it. I'd much rather have two $100 million dollar players than one $200 million guy, given how much of a talent upgrade the Mariners still require. The other consideration is that you already have good infield talent, what you don't have is outfield talent.

Hey, Cano is clearly an elite hitter. He'll remain so for at least a couple of years, then be good for a couple more. After that, you rolls the dice. If we're just doing Cano + one more (Morales/Butler) then we'll have to dance with the OF's we've got. We would be tough at 3-4-5, however.
If signing Beltran/Granderson or trading for Kemp (subsidized) allows us to add Morales/Butler + one other......then I think I like that move more. As is, Kemp at 6x$21.5M isn't much of a bargain over Cano (8x$25M), for six years anyway. Get $6M from the Dodgers and now you have $10M to spend somewhere else. Is a generally healthy Kemp+ better than Cano solo?
Depending on who the + is, yes, I think.

The Yankees have signed McCann and Ellsbury. Now, they may yet sign Cano as well, but clearly THEY prefer, and rightly so I think, to first land TWO guys for roughly the same money it would take to sign Cano. If Cano comes back at a more reasonable amount, so much the better. They now have the posture of, "Well, Robinson, those two guys took some of the cookies, so we have to find the right number here, but you know this place, this lineup, is the place for you."
The Mariners are intent on making a splash. I get it. They feel like the've gotta do it for credibility's sake, to convince the fans and potential FA's they really mean it this time. Gosh fellas, do you NOW realize what you've done the last decade, saving a buck but losing your credibility?
The only way you're going to restore your credibility is to win. Focus on building a winner. Winning is the best splash of all. If it takes a big name signing to do it, then doggone just do it. But don't do it to make a splash. Do it to build a winner. And before you do, make sure you have the right guy(s) at the helm so that your efforts aren't in vain.

My fear is that Jack gets so fixated on Cano that he's left rummaging through the scrap heap in January (again) when the dude inks with the Yankees. If it happens again this off season, Jack needs to go. Too much of a pattern building here.

Nike or Pendleton could still step up :-)
And though the NW isn't much for liquor, I hear some of the Columbia Basin wineries are well respected! And then there's Full Sail and other craft breweries around.
As for fragrance, I'm not sure eau d'papermill would be very popular outside the Northwest (I'm originally from Camas). ;-)

Re: Camas-- Many of our child-rearing years were spent in Vancouver, Washington. Many was the time we took our kids to the Camas public pool, then topped it off with a trip to the burger joint at the top of the hill. Wish I could remember the name of that joint.
But as you suggest if Camas has but one association it is with the stench of that paper mill. In the eastern part of Vancouver, whenever we got an east wind it gave a new and quite contrary meaning to John Denver's lyric, "You fill up my senses..."

My Fair Lady.

you will beat me every time. For that matter, probably in generalities too. Doesn't necessarily make it less valid, it speaks as much to the abilities of the debaters as it does the issues.
But I was speaking specifically in a very, ummm..., GENERAL way! (Figure THAT ONE out!). By that I mean, generally to the point without reference to specific alternatives, but generally regarding the Mariners situation. They have an utter lack of MLB-ready impact OF talent, with an overall roster that doesn't measure up talent-wise with contending teams, and with three (count 'em, Ackley, Seager, Franklin) legit second-basemen already on the roster, I'd rather opt for two quasi impact players, one of them an outfielder, than one big impact player. Funny, I didn't feel the same way about Fielder when they were going after him.
Maybe I'd change my mind if (A) they actually signed the guy, and (B) they truly did not let it stop them from key moves in the future that impacted the payroll significantly. The Yankees just signed the two you mention, and nobody would be shocked if they turned around and STILL signed Cano. And addressed their pitching staff. But if the M's sign Cano, there is a legitimate question about whether that takes care of all the cookies.
I get that Stars 'n' Scrubs dictates that you go after the one uber-guy over the two players that are simply good. I'm just not sure that's the best approach for the M's right now. And what has really driven my numerous posts today is the sense that Howard Lincoln is standing behind Jack Zduriencik shouting, "We've GOT to make a SPLASH!" I'd rather focus on building a winner and let the "W's" build a splash.

drive-in on Everett Street is the one I think you're referring to - just a block or so from the high school I went to (since replaced as Camas has really grown) and just across the street from Crown Park, where the pool is.
As to the "fragrance"; when I was growing up, 3200 people worked at the mill or the research labs in a town of 6000, so it did have its points - but East Vancouver and Washougal got less of the benefits. Just like Detroit and Schenectady and many other company towns, people accepted the downside for the jobs that were available, but one of the environmental movement's godfathers, Denis Hayes of Earth Day, grew up there, too, and graduated from CHS in '62, a few years before me. He's done great things to draw attention to the trade-offs - which has made the area, and other industrial cities like Pittsburgh, Schenectedy, et al, much more pleasant to live in or visit.

In the McCann/Ellsbury scenario there is some built in fail-safe redundancy. Not so in a situation where you have Cano + rookie (hard to find the 2 WAR rookie, by the way).

Top Burger for dinner. We moved from Vancouver to Kent in 1995, just in time to enjoy the best seven-year stretch in Mariners' history.