Add new comment

...of what this Mariners pitching staff could put together with a real offense.  Just wipeout, humiliating games for the opposition.  Pauley is one of my favorite pitchers this year.  The Padres announcers were wistful talking about him and how he was a Padre back before the 2004 trade.  He's found his niche and his comfort level, and he's dominant.  They compared his motion and stuff to Derek Lowe.
Anyway...we have a great rotation and potentially a very good pen if League could shore it up and when we get Kelley/Lueke back.  Lueke closed out the game easily again today, and his only - ONLY - wobble was when he'd thrown 2.1 innings and they brought him back out for a third.  April 28th: lucky HR.  May 16th: zeros til his appearance for a third inning of work.  That's it.  That's all his runs in Tacoma this year.  He's still not striking em out like I want, but he's a good pitcher.
Ackley hit another HR.  His callup in a couple weeks is basically inevitable.
And I agree, contention is NOT impossible - but I don't want to push all-in for just this year when Olivo, Ryan, Saunders, Wilson, Peguero, Guti, Cust and Figgins could all swim in the Abyss of Suckitude for months just as easily as they could climb out.  
Last year we thought, "surely they'll climb out."  They never did.
So IF we want to go for it, then IMO we need to pick up multi-year assets to offset what we give away in farm value, because while the pitching this year is setting up to keep us in the race as long as they can, we literally can't afford to be swapping out prized assets for expiring contracts.
We have assets.  I am absolutely okay with trading those assets for pieces of a contender this year AND in future years.  But we can't afford to give away our Choos and As-Cabs (he hit 2 hr today, btw, giving him an OPS+ of 140 for the low price of $2 million dollars) to bolster a team that needs everything to go right in order to contend.
We CAN contend.  But no, I don't bet the farm on this year.  I look forward to seeing what Zduriencik does with the assets he's been collecting and whether we decide to upgrade the offense in June or July, rather than wait for it to waste away and then trade pitching at the deadline.
Does he feel good enough about what he's collected (or with how it's overperforming at some level) to swap it for major league assets?
So I guess what I'm curious about is: Do you believe the roster we have available to us (pros and minors, no trades) can stay in contention all year?
And if not, how much are you willing to swap to improve it to the point that it can?  
Do you stick a toe in the water, look for a Ryan Ludwick patch for an Alex Liddi or something?  That's a sop to "we're trying to compete this year" without either giving up anything or getting an impact player.
Do you pull a Cliff Lee and trade Franklin/Wilhelmsen/Ramirez for 4 months of Jose Reyes or something slightly less for Jason Kubel's second half?  Might get some impact that way, but only for this season, and then you don't have those players to trade for assets in the offseason.
I've already said I would trade for an Ethier (same bat impact as Kubel or the max from Reyes, but here for 1.5 years), or a Carlos Quentin, Hunter Pence, or a Justin Upton.  I'm down with chasing a pennant this year AND for years to come.
That'll cost us better minor leaguers, but return us better players to help now and in 2012-13 to boot.
What would you add to this team to enable its contention this year?  Or do you think they can hang with the rest of the division (Texas gets Cruz and Hamilton back this week) all season?
This rotation DOES look like it wants to go playoff-hunting.  I know this weekend felt great - I LOVED it - but I don't think the offense can hang with the rest of the division without outside help.
~G