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I agree, we could make a decent run at the West with ANY sort of offense.  Our starting pitching 1-5 is ridiculous so far and only seems to be getting better, especially if Bedard can keep it up.
But as a GM, how much do you try to chase that title knowing the severe weaknesses of your team?  Our bullpen is scotch-taped together.  Our lineup is full of underperforming (or inept) hitters.  Our DH has an ISO of .067 and is 3rd on the team in extra base hits (!!), right behind silver medalist Chone Figgins and his .084 ISO.
We have Justin Smoak, and...uh...Ichiro is an average bat right now, but not for his position.  Kennedy is the only other plus hitter at his position, and he won't be at 2B as soon as Ackley comes up (and let's not talk about his inevitable future regression, since this is his highest OPS+ since 2002).
We are last in the AL in batting average and next-to-last in OBP, SLG and OPS. The OPS+ of our worst 5 starters go 67, 61, 59, 54, 46.  Those guys were in the lineup pretty much EVERY day.
Swapping Ryan and Wilson for L-Rod and Kennedy helps the offense, but not a ton.  It gets those two positions from "abysmal" to "not a sucking chest wound."  Sliding Kennedy to third when Ackley gets here might help some as well...but with a minimum of 2.5 years left on Chone's contract when do you want to kick him to the curb?
We have one bat on this team.  One.  Kennedy as a utility man would be of great use, but we need him to hit like this for 500 ABs.  Ichiro will get better, but if he's gonna have a down year he won't get a ton better.  Can't tell yet - Ichiro cannot be judged by his first 4 weeks so we still need to see if he'll crank up the volume as we get into June.
But Smoak, Ichiro and Kennedy does not make the backbone of a team.  Would I call up Josh Bard, who is probably 20 OPS+ points better than either of the guys on the roster at catcher right now?  Sure.
Is adding Bard and Ackley enough to justify trading farm pieces for a short-term solution in LF or wherever in order to try to chase a pennant? 
Our offense is deformed.  If it was a little bent and just needed some straightening, that'd be one thing.  That's not it.  We need massive help at DH, 3B, 2B, SS, LF, CF and C.
If 2B is Ackley and C is Bard, that leaves L-Rod as the SS, Kennedy as the utility man, and 4 more holes.  Unless F-Gut comes back with his gut fully repaired, his strength back and his 2009 form intact, CF's not gonna get a plus bat this year.
If we could climb to 8th or so in the league with the offense, we could have a shot at a pennant with this team.  A league average offense is 3/4 of a run per game above where we are. Last year we were 1 and 1/4 runs below average, so congrats to us!  We've made up half a run so far - all of it with a guy named Smoak.
If I was Jack I would be pissed off that my payroll has been cut by 30-whatever % in 3 years and I can't afford the hitters I need to make this work. And then I'd look at Figgins and the contract I gave him and I'd punch myself in the face a few times for good measure.
The "cheap" committee gave him a bunch of money to go get the shortstop to patch a hole (Wilson) and allowed him to take on even more money on a worthless pitcher to make that deal happen (Snell) and let him trade a sunk hole (Silva) for a more expensive sunk hole (Bradley) and give a leadoff hitter 9 mil a year for 4-5 years in order to not lead off for us (and watched him turn into the worst 3B in the league)...
We can rag on the committee and their penny-pinching ways all we want, but even with a drop in payroll they gave their CFer an extended contract and then saw him come down with the plague.  They paid Felix, and at least that's working out.
I might be frustrated that the Mariners are "cheap" but there has been some flex money in the budget.  We've just wasted it.
Jack has wasted it.  And as much as I love his eye for minor-league talent, it's that wasteful spending that is killing us. When the committee says "The last time we gave you 10 million a year to spend you dropped it on the worst 3rd baseman in the league, so why should we expand the budget and let you do it again?" what is Jack's response gonna be?
He picked a catcher who is a horrible fit for the park, a shortstop who has crumbled and died right there in the hole, another one who is being beaten boldly about the head and shoulders by the paper bag he can't hit his way out of, a 3B who has fought with managers, cried about his demotion and is brutal at the plate, a head-case who has had to be dismissed from the team on multiple occasions, a DH who can't hit even one HR, right after the disaster of Griffey and Sweeney...
Are you really giving him money for the bat of his choice to fix the lineup he built?  Every one of the sinkholes here is his.  This is no longer Bavasi's mess.  Yes, the budget restrictions are mostly a result of Bavasi, but with Bradley now gone, whatever is left is Zduriencik's choice for the position.
Maybe not his first choice, thanks to a budget problem, but it's now his team.
His hand-picked 3B, his FA DH and C, both his trades at SS...
We need offensive help.  With some, we could make quite an interesting run.
But Ackley's gonna have to come up and turn into Smoak 2.0 and Guti is gonna need to channel 2005 Carlos Beltran if we plan to do that this year.  I don't see the committee looking at the budget, and the results spent on that budget, and opting to throw good money after bad.
I just don't.
~G