The case for doing a whole lot of not much

This article comes by way of Maqman. A friend of many Mariner community blogs and a frequent, if not daily, commenter on this blog as well as many others around the sphere.

He offered this piece up and being that we’ve been a little lite on content I could hardly refuse him, not to mention it was a perfectly written post about a subject I’ve given a lot of thought to over the last week. I hope you enjoy it and give him his due.

So far I haven’t seen any denizen of the Mariner’s blogworld suggest they try and sign Pujols, this indicates that there are some rational thinkers out there.  However when it comes to thumpers like Prince Fielder and Joey Votto or hopefully reconditioned stars like Grady Sizemore, Jamie Moyer or Ryan Doumit or wannabe star baseball abusers like Jesus Montero then far too many M’s fans have a temporary disconnect from reality.

What’s with the Fielder fixation? Nobody is ranting we should go for Pujols, probably because they know it ain’t happening. However he makes about as much sense as Fielder, who of course doesn’t make any sense.  Some believe we can sign Fielder for only $20MM and just four or five years and that he would love to work about as far away as possible from his Florida home and family and be happy to just DH.  Maybe in some parallel universe such things are possible; I can’t prove they are not possible.  However, being a betting gent I’d like a little of that action.

And who could say no to Joey Votto as an M.  Well how about the Reds GM and 99.9 percent of their fans, plus Joey Votto.  We don’t have to take no as an answer you say, all we have to do is offer them, Pineda, Ackley, Paxton, Walker, Hultzen and Smoak.  That should do the trick, if not throw in the rest of our top 10 prospects.  ‘Cause all we need to succeed is a genuine MOTO thunderstick and we’ll win ‘em all!  Can I get an amen Brother Bavasi?

We could have all put on long white coats and hung a stethoscope around our necks and advise a re-re-recovering genuine star like Grady Sizemore he’s be best off recovering near home in one of the proven worst hitter’s ballparks in the world so he could prove he is indeed still a genuine star and then go on to sign a rich contract with the Rangers.  Or, he could have signed with the Rangers or the Yankees or Phillies just because they are contenders with bandbox ballparks.  Where’s the challenge in that, you say.  What would that prove?  That he has an IQ with multiple digits for one thing.  No matter, he has slipped through our hands and re-uped with the wigwam crowd.  Ryan Doumit wasn’t about to wait for us to work our wiles on him and signed with a team that actually had a worse record than the M’s, despite being a Moses Lake guy.  As for Jamie Moyer I doubt if he will make a sentimental journey to what used to be home if he can sign with a contender (the Phillies are interested and maybe the Yankees or Texas).  At his age (49) he’s closer to a Social Security pension than a championship in Seattle, but we might consider drafting one of his grandchildren.

As for Montero he can hit, or at least he has in the past.  He can’t catch but hey we still have Olivo and Moore, who just might be a legit prospect, to do that.  That would weld him to the DH slot so that Carp can do LF and Smoak 1B.  Unless we have to trade one of them plus one of Hultzen, K-Pax or Walker and maybe a stocking stuffer like Seagar or Catricala to the Yankees to get a Northwest Green jersey on him.  The Yanks have been inflating his value for so long they might even believe it themselves, but that doesn’t mean we should sing their song.

Whatever we want to get we have to give big bucks or legitimate prospects to get.  The problem is that there are still some questions to be answered about who are the genuine prospects and the maybe babies.  Do we really want to take a chance on trading away another Shin-Soo Choo or Mike Morse for somebody that some other team is willing to give up?  Maybe, if Z really thinks we’re getting back a piece we need.

However there are worse things than holding on to what we have and just adding a few cheap bits that can contend to fill some existing holes in the team.  It may not be sexy and won’t start a stampede for season tickets but there is real value in not doing some deals just to show the team is moving on up.  Our best move may just be to do a whole lot of not much.