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My favorite thing about this offseason?
The M's are behaving like they want to own baseball, for the first time since...  ever.  Really even in the Gillick days, they were making some very savvy moves, but not moves that made the competition quiver. 
The M's moves have evil intent.  Need a #2 starter?  How about let's get one of the best 5 pitchers in baseball over the past couple years.  Let's get players who aren't just good defensively, but the absolute best.  Let's go get a reliever who has nuclear stuff with command.  etc.
The M's have some players in Lee, Hernandez, Ichiro, who can and will on occasion beat the opposition single-handedly. Figgins, Gutierrez, Bradley, Lopez...  all will almost certainly be average or above, and could be serious impact guys.
They have a bullpen that has a few question marks -- it's not Nelson-Rhodes-Sasaki reliable -- but it has a good chance to be as good as that bullpen, or better.
And the stoploss is there too.  There is talent behind almost every player that can step in and be effective if we lose some through injuries.
All in all, it's being built in extremely ROBUST fashion.  Even if it doesn't translate to wins ;-), you gotta admire the coherence and the logic with which it is being put together.