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Doc,
 
The '06 Cards are kind of a weird example....their lineup wasn't a weak as it first appears.  It's true that 4 of their 8 main guys had OPS+ #'s at 80 or below, but one of those guys was SS D. Eckstein, who hit .292 & OBP'ed .350.  His 80 OPS+ become tolerable, especially for a SS, in that light.
Taguchi, Miles and Molina were fairly ugly offensively. BUT their 1st 4 guys off the bench (in terms of PA's), S. Spezio, C. Duncan, H. Luna, and J. Rodriguez combined for 902 PA's (basically more than one fulltime position) and an OPS+ (combined) in the 120 range.
So they had some bats. The lesson, perhaps, is that we need Kennedy and Rodriguez to get maximzed PA's as long as they remain hot. 
But even excluding the bench, the '06 Cards has 5 starters with bats, three without.  The '11 M's have 3 starters with bats, 6 without.
This team can hang around the playoff trail, BUT not with this current day-to-day lineup (or without 2 of these 5 suddenly finding their bats again)....Figgins, Cust, Saunders, Olivo, Wilson, Ryan......Ugh.  Bradley is tolerable right now because he walks 100 points AND is on pace for a 45 x-base season.  But I sense a Bradley meltdown occuring.  He's twice got the boot recently. I think he's hanging on, but just.
Ackley will help, but interestinly, when Ackley comes us the proper move might be to play Wilson as SS.  His bat is much better than Ryan's right now.  The most proper move is to play Rodriguez there as much as possible, with Ackley at 2B. 
If it is me....and we're stuck with Cust in the lineup, then I bat him 2nd, behind Ichiro. Putting him in an RBI position makes no sense. 
Guti...I can't see him playing in May.  I'm not sure he's played in the field in Tacoma, can't hit worth a lick right now and will be of no particular help for quite a while. 
Saunders is just flat out terrible right now.  It is hard to even see production occuring at all this year (or next). I understand the need for decent CF defense...but not at the expense of a 47 OPS+.  Not even the Say Hey Kid, or The Mick, or Motormouth, when they were all young, played defense well enough to overcome a 47.
If you figure we're 20+ games away from Guti (which I think is optimistic) that means we play 1/3 of the season with a guy with which there is almost no modern comparison.  There is no modern OF with more than 450 PA's in a season who performed as dismally as Saunders.  He is setting a record of futility.  Interestingly the best comparison is Paul Blair himself in '76, when he was about done and certainly no longer a great fielder CF'er.  Blair hit .197/.245/.264 that year, in 413 PA's. (John Shelby had 376 PA's in '89 for the Dodgers and is a good comparison, too.  Ditto George Wright, 85 Rangers, 396 PA's).  No other OF in modern history (60+ years) has more than 250 PA's and a line less than .200/.250/.300 (which are all better than Saunders right now).  Essentially, as far as I can tell, Saunders may be the worst (offensively) FULL-TIME OF in modern history (at his current level of production).
For a team that can't score runs....His continued insertion in the everyday lineup, without some effort to identify almost anybody else, is almost indefensible.
Fix the Saunders/Cust hole in the lineup....and this team can hang around for quite a while.  Carp, Wilson, Peguero, Bard, Limonta, Joe Schlabotnik, Barney Rubble, or Pedro Cerrano....Let's try anybody else in those two spots.
Desperate,
moe