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Grizzly sez,

Ken Rosenthal: Speaking of GM’s on the hot seat, Jack Zduriencik is on a mission to win games and save his administration, according to rival executives. The Mariners have been branded as one of the most active teams on the trade market, with Nick Franklin as the most obvious trade asset. Rosenthal notes that the team lacks financial flexibility, which may make it hard to acquire high impact talent.

Well, that makes sense.  The Mariners, with the ink not even dry on their nuclear TV contract, are 18th in payroll.  But none shalt be spent on winning, as such, even in terms of 30% pro-rated player contracts.

Like the other blogs say:  everybody wants to win, up to and including the Tacoma Rainiers.  Like this blog says, sometimes that's the best way to find out what your priorities are, when you're in the middle of a slop-storm.  Well, it certainly is the way OTHER people find out what your priorities are.

Nobody remembers the players who were going to follow Cano in?  ... and the confusion that began to emerge as the Mariners' offers to other players dwindled in their conviction?

A full-throated fight for the pennant, man.  We just want our local shot-callers to care like we, and like their rivals, do.  :: shrug ::

.........

If you just joined us, it was July 2001 that --- > Padna and I watched in disbelief as the 116-win local baseball team chose not to load its side-by-side with .00 guage.  This slop has been going on awhile, know what I'm sayin'?  What is 2014 minus 2001, what's that come to?  What else could we have done with 13 years?

:: shrug ::  The 25 guys in uniform are competing all-out, with the tinfoil on.  Why, it's sort of hard to say.

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Gordon sez,

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The Mariners always place their budget at the highest possible incentive-accounted-for total. So our payroll figure this year includes all of Hart's 7 mil in incentives (which is why I don't think the Mariners GM should ever use incentive-based contracts - they cut into his budget with the only return being that he might save his bosses some money). Hart won't get any of those incentives, so we should have at least that 7 mil to play with at the deadline. That's plenty of cash to get a real player in here.

Emininently logical.

Of course, you could stash the $7M in a sock with Sasaki's $8M.  mwahahahaha

You know, and I know, and Ken Rosenthal knows, that the Mariners could go buy Price and Kemp if they so desired.  It's the other GM's who are frustrated:  They bring up a salary dump and the M's look at them like they've stepped in somethin' brown and unpleasant.

Or so saith the Twittah-sphere.

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Mojician sez,

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Diamondbacks willing to listen on "anybody but Goldschmidt" Padres want "Fire sale". Who is good on the Diamondbacks?

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The more filters you slap on, the harder it is to find a cable channel ... don't want to pay any more salary ... don't want to pay $1.05 on the dollar in prospects ... don't want to trade within the division ... cue up the "we were active, but just couldn't find the right match" PR snippet, perhaps?

In rotisserie, there was nothing I hated more than that one GM who always called to "check my intelligence."  He didn't have a commodity he sought, wasn't willing to give me anything I wanted for it even if I did have it ... he just wanted to know if I'd make a mistake.

That must not be the Mariners.  They're still getting their phone calls answered.  But the twitters are certainly annoying...

.............

Answering the question (after Gordon), those rosters are pretty well into the "Mess" category, ain't they?  ... we could argue about:

• Seth Smith - a Rauuul-level player whose EYE ratio (and OPS+) are thru the roof in a contract drive
• Joaquin Benoit (with aspirations of 2001 in a slimy little minds)
• Quentin, if he's receptive to a few years as a DH
• Is Andrew Cashner available?  If so, he's a lot more valuable than Hammel

Actually, Rosenthal "wonders" if Cashner could be had.  You'd have to give serious consideration to moving him in there ahead of Elias.  Tough call, but you probably would.  Ahhhhhhhh ... probably the M's aren't the right fit for a talented young club-controls RHP.

........

The Diamondbacks are a really tough match.  Chris Owings is cool, but he plays SS, and Miller is coming around.

If Dr. D had to trade with a GM like this, he would try to sell the idea of multiple ML-ready players, in an attempt to get back the best player ...  see if Paul Goldschmidt really isn't available for 4x starting -- right now, starting -- hitters and pitchers (Franklin, Erasmo, Elias etc), but MLB teams, other than Oakland, tend not to do that.  They sit and watch their 100 losses and console themselves in the franchise youngster they're underpaying.

Lot of rainbows and sunshine on SSI to-day, no?  72 hours in sickbed will do that to yer.

James assures us that Archie Bradley wouldn't have been available for any amount of money, gems, or hatchets... If he'd been healthy, which he predictably wasn't.  Baseball is weird.

BABVA,

Dr D