Top Five Targets for the Mariners once the lockout ends

The lockout (BOO!) is upon us. That puts a freeze on all transactions. It also, hilariously, means that the MLB can’t have players likenesses on anything, making for amazing player profiles and scheduled giveaways. That doesn’t mean that, as fans, we can stop fantasizing and pining for the Mariners to sign certain players once they get back to business.

Although a couple of moves have been made so far by Dipoto and Co, it sounds like they are nowhere near finished. In fact, the Robbie Ray signing wasn’t even one of the two that were mentioned by Dipoto earlier on that day.

That means that they still potentially have two guys on the hook that they are going to be going after, or they went after Ray because a target was signed, either is good news. Personally, I’m going to continue to shoot for the moon in my expectations (believe me, I need something to keep me happy) and think that they are going after two more signings.

WHO I think they are going to sign is a different article than some of the top guys that are available. That’s what I want to look at today. Five players that should be high on the Mariners list to go after once this farce ends.

I am injected a bit of personal opinion into this by going after just hitters. I’ve heard from plenty of fans that they want another starting pitcher. I get that. I like Justin Dunn to be the number five though, so I think the rotation is fine, especially with Brash/Williamson/Kirby/Hancock all waiting in the wings.

The majority of the players I’m going to talk about have been linked to the Mariners, so it isn’t just hopes and dreams on my part. You aren’t going to see anything ridiculous either. I’ve seen plenty of dum dums on Twitter expecting their team to sign Freddie Freeman, Carlos Correa, Trevor Story, Robbie Ray, and Marcus Stroman.

Yeah, ’cause that’s realistic. Let’s just turn off the salary cap mode for that team.

These are five players that I think they should look at, but in no way do I think they are going after all of them. I’d love if they managed to get the first two, but my real hope is that they get one of them, and then one of the latter three.

Let’s get to it. Here are the top five players that I think the Mariners need to get in contact with once the lockout ends.