Via multiple sources, as this was reported hours ago, the Mariners have made several roster moves this morning, despite not making any trades.

Out

• Milton Bradley to the 15-day DL, retroactive to the 27th. Shocking.
• Justin Smoak to Tacoma. While I have previously advocated giving him lots of playing time at the ML level, he has been struggling mightily with the bat since coming to Seattle, and this might be the best thing for him right now. It’ll probably be a 1 month stint, as they give him a little time down there to work on things before the rosters expand in September.

In

• Sean White, who is terrible.
• Matt Tuiasosopo, who is also terrible, though in a slightly less useless way, as he actually has offensive potential.

I’m really, really sick of seeing Sean White pitch, but other than that, there’s not really much I can complain about here. God this season sucks.

The Mariners aren’t going anywhere this season. We all know this. I believe the last few members of the denial party have checked out at this point, so there really shouldn’t be any arguments here. There are 67 games left in 2010, and this team really needs to make the best of them. Here’s a list!

1. Play the kids

Specifically, Justin Smoak and Michael Saunders. These 2 guys, along with a certain second baseman and a certain starting pitcher down in Tacoma, could very well be a huge part of this team’s future core. If as an organization the Mariners are really looking toward improving for the future, Smoak should get a lot of starts at first base, and Saunders should get a lot of stars in left field. I understand that Milton Bradley, Russell Branyan, and Casey Kotchman are still on this team, which makes this a little tougher,  but you have to be realistic about their futures in Seattle. Casey Kotchman will probably be gone before 2010 is even finished, so you can disregard him. As for Branyan and Bradley, one of them MIGHT be back next year, but probably not as an every day player and probably not in the field. Let them split time at DH for the next 2 months and decide in the off season whether you want either of them back.

2. Get rid of the dead weight

I’m talking about the guys that aren’t helping the team now, and aren’t likely to help the team in the future. DFA Casey Kotchman – having him on the roster is overkill at this point, and he’s not a part of this team’s long term plans. There’s no reason to keep him around. As much as I hate to say it, DFA Jose Lopez. Let’s face it – he’s not going to be a Seattle Mariner in 2011, and he’s been absolutely awful this season. Yes, he’s had some bad luck, and yes, it’s nice that he’s played solid defense at third base, but we’re talking about a guy who has a .267 wOBA. There’s just no reason to keep him around at this point – the ship has probably sailed on trading him, and it’s time to cut ties.

3. Stop calling up Sean White

This should speak for itself. Sean White is absolutely terrible. He’s well below average at everything that matters for a pitcher, and I see no reason to believe he’s going to improve any time soon. He’s in Triple-A now, and if you aren’t going to release him, that’s where he belongs.

4. Evaluate what they’re playing for

This one’s more of an off season task, but the Mariners need to decide what their goals are. If they aim to contend in 2011, that’s an extremely tall glass of water. To do so, they’re going to need to make several savvy moves this winter, both in the free agent and the trade market. If not, they can be a little bit more relaxed come this off season. The 2012 free agent class is more impressive anyway, and they’d be able to use 2011 as more of an experience year for their younger players, such as the aforementioned Michael Saunders and Justin Smoak, as well as guys like Adam Moore, Dustin Ackley, and Michael Pineda. They can sit on this one for a couple more months, but a decision will need to be made, and it’s a toughie.

….In that the management doesn’t need to overhaul the roster.  Think about it.

Outfield: Saunders, Gutierrez, Ichiro.  [Changes necessary: zero]

• Saunders could fail completely at the Major League level, but it isn’t likely, as he’s hit 7 home runs and 6 doubles, walked 16 times, put up a 4.0 Ultimate Zone Rating, and posted an ever-improving .718 OPS.  He’s a lock for left field next year barring a huge injury or Carl Crawford signing.

• Gutierrez and Ichiro are awesome.  Both are on pace to be worth around 4 wins above a replacement-level player.  And they’re under contract.  Woo!

Infield: Smoak, Ackley, Figgins, Wilson, Moore.  [Changes necessary: 0.5]

• Smoak and Ackley are fine young players.  Potential stars.  Let them hit and results will follow.  No issues on the right side of the infield.

• Assuming Lopez is not on the 2011 roster, Figgins will move back to third base.  I really, really doubt that Chone Figgins will have another terrible season.  His career numbers say otherwise.  It’s, of course, possible that he’s on the (incredibly steep) downside of his career, but at 32, I just don’t see it.  Figgins is a nifty option for third base, and his 2010 season won’t persuade me otherwise —- yet.

• Jack Wilson is also back for 2011.  Same deal as Figgins.  He’s been very good, and as long as he isn’t injured for too long, he’ll be fine.

• Adam Moore is the only real question mark here.  I would advise giving him the starting job and refrain from making any serious decisions regarding his future until he’s garnered 350 or so plate appearances of non-sporadic playing.  And he is not Rob Johnson.  God, anyone but Rob Johnson.  Jack Z could end up signing a free agent catcher, but the market is pretty slim this year.  Greg Zaun and Gerald Laird don’t exactly make me shiver.

Starting Pitching: Hernandez, Question Mark, Pineda, Vargas, Fister. [Changes necessary: one]

• Felix is other-worldly.  Moving on.

• Doug Fister and Jason Vargas are cheap and effective.  They make neat fourth and fifth starters.

• Michael Pineda isn’t a known quantity yet in terms of Major League performance, but he’s pretty good at each aspect of pitching.  He won’t put up the strikeout totals he has in AA and AAA, but he’s a good bet to limit walks and miss bats fairly frequently, so the Mariners’ front office would be insane not to pencil him in as their third starter until he proves he’s not ready over a large enough sample size.

• The M’s clearly lack a #2 starter.  Call me crazy, but I’d like to see Jack Zduriencik sign Javier Vasquez.  He’s not had a stellar season this year, and he is 34, but he’s still missing bats and SafeCo would suit him significantly better than the minuscule Yankee Stadium.  If not Vasquez, then Jorge De La Rosa.  De La Rosa is another underrated guy that would fit SafeCo well with regard to his skillset.

• Cliff Lee won’t sign with Seattle when the Yankees will offer him 25 million dollars a year.  Sorry.

Relief Pitching: Shawn Kelley, David Aardsma, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Brandon League, scrubs. [Changes necessary: Relievers are volatile. Who cares?]

• Aardsma isn’t really this bad.  He might even luck into a good season and accrue some trade value.

• Shawn Kelley is good.

• Ryan Rowland-Smith has always pitched well out of the pen.  And he’s left-handed.

• Chris Seddon, Brian Sweeney, Luke French, Garrett Olson are all bad with the potential to be good (although Sweeney’s impressed so far in 2010).  I don’t really like any of them, but I guess they’ll do.

Conclusion: The M’s need a quality starting pitcher and some cheap, effective bullpen arms.  Not too difficult to imagine an 85-win season.

Pretty swing.

The Mariners have officially won the Cliff Lee deal.

Mariners get: 13 starts from Cliff Lee (4.0 WAR in 2010), Justin Smoak (Considered to be the sixth-best overall prospect in baseball), Josh Lueke, Blake Beavan, and Matt Lawson.

Phillies get: J.C. Ramirez, Philippe Aumont, and Tyson Gillies.

Rangers get:13-15 starts from Cliff Lee and a possibly broken Mark Lowe.

Allow me to follow up my rather bold statement with the following: I’m generally a pretty pessimistic person.  I get it from my grandfather.  Every time we watch an M’s game together, he’s surprised when anything positive happens and expects a 10-0 loss.  My pessimism is similar, but of a lesser degree; I usually only predict a 9-0 loss.  So, naturally, I was a bit perturbed when I found out that Jack Zduriencik had dealt Cliff Lee to the Rangers.  I wasn’t surprised that Lee had been traded; rather I was surprised about the team to whom he had been traded.  Sure, the Rangers aren’t the Angels, and they almost certainly won’t sign Lee during the off-season, but I had had my heart set on the Yankees’ catching prospect Jesus Montero.  Additionally, on the off-chance that the Rangers should sign Lee, the M’s would have delivered arguably the best pitcher in baseball to an up-and-coming division rival.

So I did a little research on Justin Smoak, and I began to like the guy more and more.  Defensively, Smoak seems pretty comparable to Casey Kotchman.  Fortunately, he profiles much better than Kotch on the offensive side of things. Jon Shields over at ProBallNW wrote of Smoak:

The results haven’t been great, but he’s played better than the numbers would indicate.  Smoak is a switch hitter with power and a great approach at the plate, garnering comparisons to superstars Mark Teixeira and Adrian Gonzalez.  Whether he ever plays at that level remains to be seen, but Seattle now has their first baseman figured out for the foreseeable future.

As long as he's striking out hitters, I don't care what shenanigans he gets into off the field.

Justin Smoak appears to be the Michael Pineda of position players in that he’s pretty good, but not great, at each aspect of the game.  He doesn’t do anything spectacularly well, but he hits, fields, takes pitches, and apparently runs at an above-average rate.  The 20-25 home run power hasn’t arrived yet – and it may never – but Smoak is a safe bet to put up nifty UZR numbers and a batting line around .270/.360/.420 for years to come. And hey, he’s under team control for 6.5 more years since the Rangers seem to have his Major League service time.

As for the other three prospects, two appear to have some definite promise.  I like Lueke a lot (not just because of the gaudy strikeout numbers, but even more so because he has a Twitter account), and the 6′7″ control specialist Beavan could end up as Doug Fister 2.0.  Matt Lawson, however, sucks.  The non-headliner prospects the M’s would have gotten from the Yanks are, in my opinion, a notch better than the ones they actually acquired in the Lee deal, but Jack Zduriencik clearly has an eye for talent and for the time being I won’t question his judgment.

And to our dear friend Cliff Lee, I offer a parting haiku.

His tenure cut short

Cliff a Mariner no more

Strikeouts like spare change

Hypothetically, say we’re not a part of the AL West. If you are the Texas Rangers, would you trade even Justin Smoak alone for Philippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, Mark Lowe, and J.C. Ramirez? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Getting three prospects back is just gravy.

PARTY TIME MARINERS FANS! WOOOOO!!!!!!

Originally reported by Joel Sherman and now confirmed by Ken Rosenthal, the Mariners will send Cliff Lee, Mark Lowe, and cash to the Texas Rangers for first baseman Justin Smoak and three other players. First, please allow me to say, holy shit. I’m not going to bother talking about what we’re giving up, because you’re already aware. Cliff Lee is the best pitcher in baseball, and Mark Lowe is an above average young reliever whose health has become a question mark going forward.

As for what we’re getting, Justin Smoak is really, really good. He’s a switch-hitting first baseman who plays excellent defense and has elite offensive upside. He’s consistently put up eye-popping numbers in the minor leagues, though he’s yet to really put it together at the Major League level. Bottom line: he’s one of the best prospects in the game, and by himself would have been a good return for Cliff Lee. The fact that we’re getting 3 other prospects from one of the best farm systems in baseball is just icing on the cake.

I’ll have more here once there’s more information available.

Edit, 2:10 PM: Looks like the cash amount we’re sending to Texas is $2.5 million

Edit, 2:37 PM: (by Brett) Additional Minor Leaguers are 21-year old RHP Blake Beavan, 25-year old RHP Josh Leuke, 2B/OF Matt Lawson. Beavan is in AAA, the other two are in AA. Beavan was reported to have a 91-96 fastball, and could profile as an MLB starter. Just glancing over Lueke and Lawson, Lueke looks like a high strikeout relief prospect, and Lawson looks like he’s got Utility player upside. Not a bad haul.

The lack of offensive production from Jose Lopez has easily been one of this team’s biggest problems in 2010. He hit 25 dingers last year while posting a .766 OPS, and was certainly being counted on as a source of middle of the lineup production coming into April. That plan hasn’t gone so well to this point, as now, at the beginning of July, he’s hitting .240 with 5 home runs and a .600 OPS. With such a huge drop off from a young player, you have to assume something’s changed – perhaps he’s swinging at more bad pitches, or hitting fewer line drives. However, with Jose Lopez in 2010, it isn’t so easy to explain. In fact, he’s actually swinging at fewer bad pitches (33.4% compared to 35.8% in 2009), and his line drive rate is right on par with his career average. So are his ground ball and fly ball rates.

For the most part, his 2010 numbers are right there with the numbers he put up in his successful 2009 campaign – except for ISO, BABIP, and HR/FB. Two of these stats are largely driven by luck, while ISO is largely driven by the other two. His HR/FB is at 5%, compared to 11.1% last year and a career average of 7.4%. While his 2009 figure of 11.1 was fairly luck driven, there’s still no reason he shouldn’t at least be even with his career average or 7.4. He also has a BABIP of .256, and both of those things together contribute to a career-low ISO of .089, as fewer XBH are falling, both inside and outside the fences.

Now, even if you regress both his BABIP and HR/FB to league average, he still doesn’t repeat his 2009 numbers, so I’m not saying there hasn’t been a drop-off. However, he certainly doesn’t deserve that atrocious .600 OPS, and even marginally better production up to this point could have made a significant difference to the team. That being said, if you’re still worried about him, don’t be – he probably won’t be here in 2011 anyway.

Good news, Mariners fans! After a dismal first month, Ackley finally got the stroke going in May and June. Sure, he hit for some power, and his BB skills were there even through his slump, but up until now his OBP has been noticeably higher than his SLG. As of June 30, Ackley is now posting a .393 OBP to go along with a .391 SLG. So Ackley is finally getting close to getting over the hump of having a higher SLG than OBP, with a triple-slash of .258/.393/.391!

The thing is, after a god-awfule .147/.289/.227 April, Ackley actually continued to have a higher OBP than SLG in his torird May, in which he put up a gaudy .303/.475/.447, which included 6 doubles, a triple, and his first professional home run. In June, he’s finally showing the isolated power a little more, putting up a .309/.404/.474 line, including a mark of .289/.400/.500 in his last ten games.

What’s amazing to me though is Ackley actually showed decent power in May, but his great approach made it so his uptick in power was hardly noticeable in his overall line. In fact, since running a BB-K of 13-14 in April, Ackley has taken 38 BB’s against only 23 strikeouts in May and June. So essentially, Ackley’s power and walks are up, and his strikeouts are down. I have to wonder if Ackley gets a chance in AAA this year, or if he might even get a September call-up.

Nick Franklin, on the other hand, has seen his power dip a little bit after his awesome start. Not his home run power, which is nice to see. He hit 5 home runs in April, 4 in May, and now has 5 in June. He has, however, only hit 2 doubles and no triples after hitting 10 doubles and 6 triples in the first two months. It’s not a great dip in power, but it’s there. More troubling might be his dip in contact.

Don’t be too scared though, it’s not all bad. His walk rate has remained fairly steady. He has 6 in June (19 games) after having 8 in May (27 games) and 7 in April (21 games) so it’s not like his approach has changed. However, after whiffing only 15 times in April, he struck out 27 times in May and has racked up 20 K’s in May. It’s up to Franklin to make an adjustment to whatever hole in his swing pitchers have found and get back to hitting the ball hard on a regular basis instead of just punishing mistakes and putting them over the fence. If he’s going to succeed at the higher levels, he can’t just live on mistake hitting.

He also has a pretty sizable platoon split. As a right-hander, batting against lefties he has just a .678 OPS and .140 ISO. Batting as a lefty against the righties of the league he has a .946 OPS and a .269 ISO. Franklin is just in A ball, and it’s an extremely small sample size, but I have to wonder that if this continues into the next year or two if the Mariners might ask him to give up hitting right-handed. It’s premature to ask him now, as he’s only 19-years-old, but it’s something to think about.

Regardless of Franklin’s terrible June, where he hit only .208/.291/.429, he’s still running a .290/.346/.529 season line as a 19-year-old shortstop with enough defensive value that he may stick at the position. Now it’s all a matter of adjustments for Franklin.

Regardless of Franklin’s downward trend, it seems that the Mariners have a pretty solid looking middle infield of the future. For the first time in a long time, M’s fans can look at their minor league system with hope for developing impact position players. Sure, prospects are never a sure thing, but these two are closer than we’ve had in awhile.

*DISCLAIMER: I don’t claim to be a scout or anything of the sort, I’m just looking at available minor league numbers that are more process oriented like K rate, walk rate, ISO, etc.

I know I haven’t written in awhile. And the biggest reason for me has been…what is there to write about? Yeah, Josh Wilson has still hit all right. Yay, my hunch was semi-right there. Thus far, anyway. What else has happened?

Bradley has continued to struggle, trading a few good games for a three or four game stretch of hopelessness.

Figgins has continued to slowly move his average and OPS up, and then have the occassional 0-4 that drives the casual fan crazy, making them think he hasn’t been improving.

Guti’s managed to put a few multi-hit games together to keep his overall season numbers looking average or slightly above, but his slide has gone largely unnoticed, mostly because this team is so boring, no one wants to watch.

I mean, I’ve been going to the home games and catching the road games when I can, but holy crap, there is just nothing exciting going on on the field except when Cliff Lee or Felix pitch. On those days, you know you may have a shot of seeing a complete game win, or a high strikeout performance, or no walks. On the other days you know you’re going to get decent pitching, good defense, and most likely no offense. Though, as Jeff Sullivan over at Lookout Landing points out, they’ve been playing .500 baseball since their big losing streak in May, they’re just generally a snooze fest. I mean, tomorrow is July and your team home run leader is Franklin Gutierrez with 7. Yeah, Branyan has 10, but none as a Mariner.

But that makes a fan have to grasp onto things that get that passion burning again. I don’t know how anyone else felt, but for those first two games against the Cubs, when all those bandwagon losers came in cheering for the Cubs and left the stadium feeling sad and dejected, that was an emotional high for me as a fan. Being able to yell to the masses of people in Theriot shirts “HA HA! Your team lost to the MARINERS!” is a good feeling. Also, being able to see sad Yankee fans walking out of the stadium after Cliff Lee yet again made them their bitch on a night without anything close to his best stuff is another small emotional high for a fan of a bad team.

The thing is, that’s really it. We haven’t had a team to watch that provides us with exciting, dramatic moments. Sure, there have been some dramatic situations, but it’s hard to feel the drama when you see Rob Johnson stepping into the batters box and psychologically it feels like there’s a 100% chance he’s going to bounce into an inning ending double play, and probably on one of the first two pitched of the plate appearance.

I think there’s hope for enjoyment the rest of the season, however. I really don’t believe Lopez, Bradley, and Figgins will end the year with OPSes in thelow .600s. I also think Branyan is going to provide some excitement, with long, towering home runs. We also get to watch Michael Saunders’ continued improvement. Finally, while one piece of excitement will be going away in Cliff Lee, he’s not going away for nothing. Whatever the return for Lee is, we will be able to watch that player try and develop into a star, getting his first real chance to succeed at the Major League level.

So while the first half has been boring enough to make me want to shoot myself between the legs and then in the head, I think the second half should provide M’s fans with a little bit more excitement.