Marinating in Seattle

Q. When should you alter your three-year rebuilding plan?
A. Definitely not midway through year one.

With their beloved but woeful Mariners above .500 and in the thick of the AL West and wild card races, Seattle fans are asking whether they should be buyers or sellers before the trading deadline. If GM Jack Zduriencik is asking himself that question, he was the wrong replacement for the train wreck that preceded him.

I'm betting that Zduriencik recognizes instead that the Mariners are a long way from contention and should not be mortgaging their future for high-priced rentals. This is a team that has just three good hitters, one of whom is hurt and another of whom is enjoying his career year. (The third, Ichiro, is back to his old magic and stirring in a soupcon of power too.) The team has been swept along on a wave of solid pitching, but finishing '09 with 81 wins would be an achievement.

The best evidence that Zduriencik understands this was his signing of the ghost of Ken Griffey Jr. Playing an injury-addled former great in order to woo fans is a luxury that only a team with no hope can afford. Predictably, Junior is batting .218 and limping around left field. Imagine a team in a pennant race trotting out a baseball card every night and enduring his replacement-level play.

The Mariners have a wonderful opportunity to trade good veterans in their walk years and reap some future gold. Take Russ Branyan, please, and send back a couple of potential sticks. Until the past 300 at-bats, Branyan was a strikeout machine with no position. This year he's hitting .303 with an OPS of 1.009 in a tough-hitting park while playing first base full time. At 33, he won't be around when the Mariners start contending, so they ought to shop him before he hits the discount rack.

Ditto Jarrod Washburn, who can give someone 100 more innings of 4.00 ERA. But at 35, his future is now, and with his contract expiring, Seattle should get some hitting in return. They'd like to do the same for Eric Bedard. Hey, maybe they could convince Baltimore to relinquish Adam Jones, George Sherrill and three minor leaguers for...oh, nevermind. That would reverse the transparently moronic swap engineered by then-GM Bill Bavasi last year. Having milked Bedard for a season-and-a-half of All-Star caliber visits to the Disabled List, the Mariners can only hope now to reel in a fraction of that value for him now. And by "now," I mean "if and when he comes off the DL and pitches well enough to sucker some contender into thinking he can make seven starts in a row."

That win-now-without-talent approach got Bavasi fired and sunk the Mariners to 101 losses in '08. Zduriencik won't make the same mistake. This year, the Mariners are sellers. But if they follow the plan, the future will be brighter.
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Hot Stove Musings

One off-season trade strikes me as a win-win proposition, a concept you don't see in team sports very much. After all, baseball teams are at least indirect competitors and often direct competitors. It's as if two countries fought a war and were both better off in the end.

It's the Orioles-Mariners blockbuster centering around fireballer Erik Bedard. Bedard was a Cy Young contender until he got hurt last season, but keeping him in Baltimore for two years of rebuilding would be like installing mag wheels on a rusting pickup.

Instead, the O's peddled Bedard for a prospect haul to a team that thinks it's in a pennant race. They get back outfielder Adam Jones and four minor league pitchers, at least a couple of whom are highly regarded. Now, I know less about minor league pitching prospects than I know about 15th century Hungarian love songs, but the way to develop a front-line major league pitcher is to have 10 good minor league pitching prospects.

Moreover, the O's get a breakout-ready outfielder for six years of below-market cost who should be entering his prime in synch with the rest of the organization.

The Mariners give up nothing from today's lineup and reap a staff ace who, linked with the emerging Felix Hernandez and a couple of mid-line starters in Jarrod Washburn and Carlos Silva, fronts a formidable mound corps in the Northwest.

The question is whether the Mariners sacrificed part of their future for a present that doesn't exist. Is Seattle really a contender in the AL West, even with Bedard? Look at their lineup: Beyond Ichiro, Beltre and the smoldering ruins of Richie Sexson, there isn't a single tough out. It'll be interesting to see whether pitching and good defense without run support can keep pace with the Anaheim Armada.

The best and worst signings of the year might have both been the work of the Milwaukee Brewers. Inking Mike Cameron to patrol centerfield once his steroid suspension ends dramatically upgrades the team. It moves Bill Hall to third and "The Bratwurst Butcher," Ryan Braun, to leftfield.

As a centerfielder, Hall was a fine third baseman. As a third baseman, Braun was a fine plumbing supply salesman. The NL Rookie of the Year will still turn left into Frankie's Fun Park, but hell, it's only left. The more important defensive positions of center and third will be in far, far better hands. The Beermakers' pitchers should benefit.

But not enough to justify exporting 10 million Loonies to Quebec for the right to get whiplash watching some guy who used to be Eric Gagne surrender gopher balls. Last year Francisco Cordero recorded 44 saves and an ERA of three for the Brewers. A reasonable prediction for Gagne is the reverse -- three saves and a 44 ERA before Derrick Turnbow gets his turn. The Brewers could have bought the entire Pirates roster for that much coin, thrown away the entire team and gotten more value from either Ian Snell or Tom Gorzelany alone.

Fortunately for the Brewers, the NL Central is a wasteland. It's them and the Cubs and run for the pubs in that division.