M's

Everyone seems to be applauding the Figgans signing by the Mariners. I suppose the contract itself isn't so bad, he is a good player after all. Actually, let me remedy that: in a vacuum, the contract isn't so bad. But this is clearly a win now move. They give up their first round pick for this guy. The AL West should be weak again next season. The M's have sucked for a while now. They want to win, I can understand this. I fucking hate this move though.

Figgans is going to be around for a while now, and he isn't young at all at this moment. The M's have a very middling roster. There isn't much talent on it outside of Ichiro, Felix, and now Figgans. Their farm system also, from what I can tell, is crap. Pretty much how I see it is that the M's are paying Figgans this long contract for a shot at next year, and that's it. I don't see how they can realistically compete after 2010. Ichiro is great, but must get old someday. Felix is great, but will get expensive as fuck sooner rather than later. Figgans is good, but old and comming off a fluke good season. Gutierrez is a fine player, but he also had a fluke good season last year. The big league team is mediocre at best, and the minor league system is crap. They just gave up their first round pick in the next draft for an old player comming off a career year.

Compare now to the rest of the division. Angels, pretty much always good, and have the money to maintain their roster. Plus they've been gifted first round picks like halloween candy recently thanks to free agent compensation, their system is improving. Rangers had an encouraging showing this year, and their system is still comparable to anyones in the bigs. A's, while we all know I'm biased in their regard, also having encouraging signs at the bigleague level, as well as an incredibly strong farm system. Bascially, by 2011, we are looking at 3 very strong contenders. Not contenders like we have now, these have the potential to be really strong teams, I'm thinking 90+ game winnners.

What I'm saying here is that the M's cannot compete in this cycle. They should not be signing type A free agents. If I am Zduriencik (...spelling?), I am looking to trade not just Felix, but Ichiro as well. Felix has immense value, even heading into arb I bet he could land a Haren-esque package. Ichiro is old and expensive, but some team will bite, given he still has that superstar label. Rebuild is what I am getting at here. The roster simply lacks talent, and unless they think they can compete with the big guys in the free market, this roster needs to be blown up.

I have not been impressed with this Mariner front office at all. They make encouraging moves (acquireing Branyan, Gutierrez, under valued folks like that), but they make quite a few short sighted retarded moves as well. Griffey comes to mind. That one actually isn't even shortsighted, just plain retarded. It screams emotional attachment, the quality I want absolutely least in my GM. I don't care if Ichiro is the face of the franchise, he needs to be traded before his value goes to shit. I don't care if Felix is a super prodigy and the only exciting player you have, he needs to be traded before his arm falls off/costs 100 mill a year. Putting your hopes into a few fluke season/luck with run differential is not the way to win your division. The other 3 teams in the AL West seem to have a very strong plan at getting that title, the Mariners, in my mind, are simply treading water, and in the shallow end of the pool.