Seattle Mariners Free Agents: Should They Keep Any?

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The list of the 2014-15 MLB free agents was released Thursday and the clock has started. Teams have an exclusive five-day window to negotiate with their respective free agents before they can begin speaking to other clubs.

On Tuesday November 4th at 12:01 AM, it’s fair game on all remaining free agents.

The Seattle Mariners have eight players that are on that list and you can make the argument that the Mariners should retain none of them.

They are:

Joe Beimel
Endy Chavez
Chris Denorfia
Franklin Gutierrez
Corey Hart– Was designated for assignment and was already granted free agency
Kendrys Morales
Humberto Quintero
Chris Young

General Manager Jack Zduriencik has already stated that if the club were to retain Gutierrez, it would be as a non-roster minor league invite to Spring Training.

Both Beimel and Young have expressed interest in returning to Seattle. I personally would sign Beimel, but wish Young all the best. It’s hard to imagine that he has similar success in 2015. And the way he finished 2014 doesn’t give me much hope.

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Morales has also indicated that he would be interested in a multi-year deal with the M’s. Yeah, I bet he would. He whiffed BIG time in 2014 and won’t garner much interest on the open market. If I’m Jack, I not only let him go, I pack his bags, buy the plane ticket out AND upgrade him to first class.

I can see the appeal to bringing back Quintero and Chavez for veteran depth off the bench. Denorfia could provide that as well. But I would not pay more than “bench level” salaries to retain them.

None of these players really warrant granting a qualifying offer to, but several players that the M’s will be targeting may have offers attached to them.

Teams have until Tuesday to extend the qualifying offer to their players – this year the offer is about $15.3 million. After that, the picture will begin to become clearer.

For a complete list of free agents (pending options being picked up or not) click here. We will update this list as the chips begin to fall.