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just benching/batting Figgins 9th.  As easy as it would be to just call it a sunk cost, "Guess we're working with 85 mil a year instead of 95 for a while,"  I don't think you can do that.  It's the same thing as what was discussed when people wanted to DFA Cust at the end of April, if you sign guys to contracts and let them loose when things don't go as a dream scenario (or in this case a couple inches from nightmare), then doesn't that make other free agents a bit gunshy about signing with Seattle?  We already had the bad reputation from a few years ago after "letting" 3 straight super stars walk, Seattle has the most travel time of any team, it's not the most beloved city in the country any way, there's been several real bad seasons and the stadium has a reputation for punishing offensive numbers so forget about that shot at getting one last good contract at the end of this one (unless you can pull an Adrian Beltre [side note:  I did predict that one]). 
What happens when you add to that, "They'll bench you if you for rookies and nobody's if your numbers slouch in the doom stadium."  It's not quite as simple as that, but it would probably play that way for players, just like when Carlos Guillen left saying how the Mariners didn't want to pay for talent when it got expensive.  It ignored the facts of why 2 of the big 3 left, but it held up and saw Bavasi paying more than he should have for Sexson and a premium price for Beltre.