Invest Or Sell?

When you look at any economy there are certain situations in which can be thought of as opportunities. Opportunities in which with the right assets can provide a return upon an investment. Now, within the US economy not many people have much in the way of expendable assets in which to invest and gamble. Same is true when looking at the Seattle Mariners.

The Mariners don’t exactly have a lot of expendable assets going forward.  Which makes it hard to acquire the talent that is needed to compete this summer. I hate being the guy that is the downer of the group but this Mariner team as is isn’t exactly going to compete with a healthy Ranger or Athletics team.

Getting Franklin Gutierrez, Shawn Kelly and then Dustin Ackley (eventually) is only going to help this team and is kind of like making a needed trade. The problem is the true talent of this team with all parts being healthy isn’t 90 wins. It maybe closer to 80 than I had originally thought but it’s still not enough to win the division.

Even if the Rangers and A’s struggle through the next month and a half they both have pieces that can be moved in order to get bet better when and if the time comes. This brings the question: do the Mariners invest in the current roster or do they sell? I suppose you could make a case that there is an “in between” option. But I don’t really see it that way.

The reality of the situation is you’re not going to resign Jack Wilson, Luis Rodriguez isn’t a bad utility guy to have around but he’s going to be non-tendered before you actually let him go to arbitration,  any time you have volatile asset such as Erik Bedard you have to take advantage of any opportunity you have to try and recoup at least some of the value you poured into him back in 2008 and if someone is going to over pay for Jamey Wright with him being a free agent at the end of the year do you think he signs a minor league deal at this point? I’ll bet someone pays him even if it’s just on a 1 year deal.

The point is either you invest in this team or you’re going to deal away these pieces. Now this decision isn’t something that the organization needs to make right now. But it’s something that plenty of people are already talking about.  If they do plan on investing it should be something they decide to do soon.