Thoughts on Cliff Lee, DH

As we all sit and wonder what Jack Z has up his sleeve for next week, I’ve got a few thoughts on the events of the last ~day and a half.

Don’t worry about whether or not Cliff Lee is excited to come to Seattle. Okay, yes, he was disappointed to be traded. Big deal. Just put yourself in his shoes, not only had his family probably already settled into Philadelphia, but he’s also leaving a team that has gone to the World Series two years in a row. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t disappointed to be traded.

However, he hasn’t given any indication that he doesn’t want to come to Seattle – in fact, he has mentioned that he likes the moves the team has been making, and that it will be nice to get to pitch with such a good defense behind him. It doesn’t matter anyway, because he hasn’t even had the experience of playing for this team yet.

As much as we like to downplay the whole team chemistry thing, I have no doubt that the Mariners are a fun team to play for right now. Don’t worry, he’s going to be plenty happy pitching here – and if he’s not, who cares? We probably aren’t going to re-sign him anyway.

Nick Johnson is now off the market after apparently signing a one year, $5.5 million deal with the Yankees, so we’ll have to look elsewhere to land a DH. A couple of options I like, excluding Russell Branyan, are Carlos Delgado and Adam LaRoche.

Delgado’s already 37, so with him it would certainly need to be limited to a one year deal – but he’s still a well above average hitter, and he’d probably come relatively cheap.

LaRoche, on the other hand, is only 30, so it could definitely make sense to sign him to a two or three year deal. Despite being roughly average defensively, he’s still a 2-3 win player, and probably wouldn’t cost much more than $6-7 million a year. He also, unlike Delgado, who is an injury risk, would be a viable option at first base, as well as DH.

That’s all for now.