Adding Branyan either (a) kills your chances of knowing your young first base prospects are ready to contribute in 2012 or (b) prevents you from making additional moves to add offense in 2011 because Branyan is DHing, Bradley's in left and Saunders has the rest of their playing time, so all you've got is first base (where you're presumably clearing space to try out prospects or use another rent-a-bat to stopgap you to the TRabens and Poythresses.
Point is...there is no good outcome to the Branyan acquisition...other than making Mariner fans stop crying into their beer when the #4 hitter comes up and it's Jose Lopez and we have no real power threats.
I think it's this that I find confusing. We don't HAVE anyone ready for a 1B audition. Branyan won't be holding anyone up in 2010 or 2011. If we decide we want to be players in the Fielder/A-Gone sweepstakes after the 2011 season, it would be a good idea to not clog that position (or the DH position for Fielder if we don't like his glove) and we've done neither with Branyan.
It also buys us time to not NEED to rush Raben or Poythress if they start making the progress we hope they will. If Raben's posting a 1.000+ OPS in AA or AAA in 2011 with an improved BB:K, I'm not crying about whether he needs an audition to prove himself before we get to the 2012 season. Players you should want to add don't need an audition, they just need adjustment time.
Carp and his .750 OPS in AAA needs an audition because you need to see if there really is nothing to see there, move along.
Tui needs an addition because his K rate was so astronomical that his "breakthrough" in AAA might be smoke and mirrors.
You audition the players you don't believe in, not the ones you do.
And if we don't have a player we believe in after the Branyan stall? Then we'd better go get one. But having a season and a half of real production isn't nothing. I still have to watch 2011. Free agents still get to pick what team they want to go to, and "the one with the historically terrible offense in the left-hand corner of the country" might not be a place they want to sign on to.
Felix probably thinks there's a good outcome to adding hitters to the roster, even aging ones, as long as they can help put runs on the board. Nobody enjoys losing 1-0 games and feeling like they'll keep losing them for the foreseeable future. Morale does mean something.
Not relying on Ackley and his doubles swing to carry the offensive load does mean something. Crushing the kids under the weight of expectation doesn't do them any good, and nobody needs Poythress to have to be the savior of the 2011 offense.
Branyan makes the 2010 offense better. For those trying to go for the #1 pick in the draft, this is bad. For those trying to break the Ms losing ways, not as bad. He may be around to make the 2011 offense better as well. Since we failed at that last season this would be an improvement.
"There is no good outcome"? I guess I can't see how that's possible. It's always possible there are bad outcomes, but discounting any potential good that comes from having added what happens to be a good offensive player who was relatively inexpensive to acquire smacks of hyperbole or short-sightedness.
You play to win the game, as a terrible coach once said. 2011 isn't flushed yet. The whole "We probably won't compete anyway" is a farce. The Angels won a world title when they probably shouldn't have, against Bonds and his Giants. The idea is to get to the playoffs and then roll the dice, hope your aces come out to play. With some more offense, there's nothing preventing that chase from lasting longer than May 31st.
I'm not flushing two years of Mariners baseball because we're "probably" not gonna be able to take the West so we should give all the poor AAAA guys a chance to show they can be average.
Branyan is above average. Even if he falls to average that's still two steps above where our 1B/DH situation was, and where our minor league replacements are likely to be. Adding better players for cheap = epic fail is an equation I can't get my head around today, I guess.
Must be early.
~G
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