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I've agreed with the on-field analysis provided so far and the attendant confusion. This caused me to pause...why was a premier think-tank (in this arena) getting stumped? We know Jack Z isn't prone to going loco. What is it that's missing?
I have to assume that what's missing is the off-field stuff. The stuff that we know exists but is not measurable. We know that Wedge was pulling his hair out all last year trying to Y-A-N-K the ship in a certain direction, talking about 'accountability' and 'professional at-bats'. The front office spoke boldly at the outset of the offseason about getting a veteran presence. And we all know that you don't speak aloud an objective without the commitment to obtain it (just mention McDonald's as a possibility for lunch in front of a 4-year-old and see what happens).
Raul is well-known in baseball as a great guy and a hard worker. We know that Wedge likes to depend on a specific subset of players to govern the clubhouse. This move smacks of establishing something in the clubhouse identified early on as not being present.
A leader cannot lead if he doesn't perform qualitatively so expect Raul to get playing time and be given every opportunity to succeed (i.e. platooning) as an expression of his real reason for being there. Make no mistake, Raul was signed to be a living, breathing platonic form of what the team believes a Mariner should be.