It’s reasonable to believe that Iwakuma may not ever be a valuable major league pitcher. It’s easy to become concerned with the lack of velocity that he has displayed. But watching a bit of MLBNetwork last night and disecting Yu Darvish‘s start they gave some interesting thoughts.

There was a lot to like about Texas’ important and his start against the Reds. The problem being however, that the overall outing was limited and it was hard to get any real future read on him. It’s easy to say that he’s going to be just as good as advertised or being a very valuable pitcher for Texas this year. But as Chris Rose pointed out anyone that can tell that after that few of batters is in the wrong career.

Rose pointed out that we need to give Darvish an entire month and really see what he’s capable of before really putting a label on him. Could we say the same thing about Iwakuma, at this point?

A lot of people have pointed out the lack of velocity coming from Iwakuma but it was consistently in the high 80′s and even touched 90 once. As pointed out there are changes in merely the ball that he’s going to have to become familiar with and it’s hard to say if that’s had any type of impact.

There are a few different right handed pitchers who put together useful starts that average similar velocities as Hisashi Iwakuma. Kevin Slowey, Shaun Marcum and Brett Myers are guys that come to mind. This isn’t to say they are similar pitchers they all do different things, but utlimately they show success.

Of course there are pitchers such as Bronson Arroyo, Joel Pineiro and Aaron Cook who all struggled last year. So there are always two sides of the coin. But the important thing to remember is that there are players who can be successful given their velocity.

Maybe Iwakuma even ends up being the 5th starter on this squad. It wouldn’t strike me as crazy he’s still got some potential and there adjustments that he’s still in the middle of making. It’s not unreasonable to be a little worried and mix that together with some thoughts that we may have jumped the gun with expectations a bit.

That said let’s give Iwakuma more than 10 innings before we start deciding what his future his with the organization. It’s point that many Ranger fans should be learning with Darvish and up north it’s lesson that Mariner fans should be learning with Iwakuma.

There was John Jaso – let’s not go there people, I like him just fine — and then… there was… Chris Gimenez? I mean, okay, so their chasing the Prince Fielder train. But, they’ve hardly been rabid about it. If anything I feel like  It kind of seems like their dancing with every partner that comes along. But, at this point it’s more like they are acting like an indecisive teenager at a Junior High prom. They’re not sure who they exactly want to go after and are trying to see who’s interested in them. Oh, but the catch is that the Mariners are more like one of the AV kid who … no… I can’t even go there. I was going to say that maybe, just maybe, they were the AV geeks who –you know just like every rom-com story like this– would score later on in life. Reality being what it is (and it’s sad) that we’re more like a bench player that never gets any playing time in any one of the “major” school sports that you would choose and no one really knows what to say to us and we just get excited when a girl remembers our name.

Okay, away from all those weird metaphors.

With all the talk about Prince Fielder and now Yu Darvish it’s at least encouraging that the front office at least appears to be willing to spend money to add talent to the roster. Whether that’s the move now or in the future it’s one that is eventually going to be needed and there is a lot of people that seem to be worried about the ownership. The only problem I really have with everything is that it’s all been talk. I mean we all talked about the Marlins and the possibly that their talk about spending money would just end up being a smoke screen, but so far the team holding the “Kevin Garnett: All-I-Do-Is-Talk” award is our own Seattle Mariners. They’ve been in on nearly every free-agent/trade candidate/homeless person available. They’ve even recently been connected Gio Gonzlaez. Between that, the Bailey rumors, Michael Cuddyer also entering the fray (and no out as he signs with Colorado) and the perceived notion that someone is going to give Prince Fielder a 10-year contract. I HAVE no idea what’s going to happen with this club at this point.

I’m not saying that I’m all about a bunch of moves or spending money being the right move, I’m really not. But, I really thought that before the beginning of the new year the Mariners would have for the most part have the majority of their line-up in place and rotation in place and that January would be for putting together the bench and adding to the pile of collected arms  for the bullpen.

So here we are almost a week out from Christmas and we are all left wondering: “What is Santa bringing the Mariners this off-season?”

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF WE GOT DARVISH? I HAVE NO IDEA.

SERIOUSLY CAPS!  SERIOUSLY, DARVISH!

OH, WAIT. NO ONE KNOWS WHO WON THE BID? SO WE DON’T KNOW IF THE MARINERS GOT YU DARVISH?

SO, WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE IS OVER REACTING?

WAIT, YOU ARE SAYING THIS IS TWO DAYS LATE AND EVERYONE HAS ALREADY STOPPED OVERREACTING?

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CRAP…