Nick Franklin: Say Goodbye

Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

Mariners fans, our free agency period has begun! The signing of Willie Bloomquist and Robinson Cano take us right into next week’s winter meetings in the big leagues. I know I say this for everyone but it feels damn good to ride a ‘high’ rather than a ‘low’.

Cano being signed was a great move, hands down. I don’t care about the contract. You all need to understand that $240 million dollars is what it takes for that caliber of talent to come play ball in the rainy Northwest.

I was skeptical at first but we need to take a look at the big picture here; Jack Zduriencik has finally made that big signing happen. We are locked down at 2nd base and have solved the middle of the order problem.

I understand 2nd base was not our issue but sometimes you have to play the person’s hand across the table in order to get the big win.

Let us take time to say goodbye to Nick Franklin. His career in Seattle will not live past this season. I am not a fan of the thought of him moving to shortstop. He is way to valuable as a trade asset.

Back to what I said earlier on playing the other man’s hand; what we did when we signed Cano is gave ourselves a huge trade asset. Nick will be an upgrade for a number of teams, for instance the Tampa Bay Rays or the Kansas City Royals. Can anyone think of a couple of guys from those teams that we want?

Exactly.

I am ready to forget about Franklin only because of Cano. Franklin is going to be a special player somewhere, but that somewhere won’t be Seattle.

I really hope that if we do go after someone like David Price or Billy Butler, we limit ourselves to what we give up from our farm system. I think that Z is moving away from doing that by collecting plug-n-play assets such as Nick Franklin and possibly Dustin Ackley.