Seattle Acquires Jack Hannahan

This is a win for Oakland because Souza has way more potential than Hannahan. Hannahan shouldn't even be in professional baseball. I think Jack Z. just wasted an arm for nothing. We could have made Souza a 3rd or 4th player in a trade to acquire a legitimate bat. This means if they put him on the roster, he'll be the left-handed version of Cedeno without the power. What a waste. Jack could be out there getting a real baseball player but instead he's wasting his time on another Langerhans. Come on guys tell me how great Langerhans is, especially since after last night he dropped to his career averages! Good thing we sat Balentien for this guy. We need a REAL left-handed bat, not a pretend one like Hannahan or Langerhans. Maybe we can trade those two to Japan for something.

Jack Z. if you are listening, get a real bat for SS and for 3B, strip the system a little if you have to and get controlled players so we have time to build the system with the major league club set. Basically if we can get al our core players under team control or signed to contracts for the next 3-4 years, then you can spend those years building the system and in the mean time just save a couple great players who can help the MLB club. Mike Carp at 1B, Michael Saunders OF, Dennis Raben OF (injured, untradeable), Dustin Ackley 2B, Carlos Triunfel IF (injured, untradeable), Alex Liddi 3B, Travis Scott C, Juan Ramirez SP, Michael Pineda SP, Maikel Cleto SU, Josh Fields CP, and the rest trade whatever you have to.

That leaves Phillippe Aumont, Nathan Adcock, Brett Lorin, Steven Hensley, Jacob Wild, Donald Hume, Greg Halman, James McOwens, Joe Dunigan, Adam Moore, Wladimir Balentien, Ronny Cedeno, Garrett Olson, Shawn Kelley, Tyson Gillies, Jharmidy DeJesus, Mario Martinez, Aaron Pribanic, Blake Nation, Ezequiel Carrera, Gabriel Noriega, Denny Almonte, etc.

Plenty of talent in that mix to get a guy like Adam Lind to DH, move Griffey to LF and when Ken needs a rest swap him with Lind, moving Adam to LF and Junior to DH. Get a SS like Hardy, Sanchez, or Phillips. Then get a 3B like Teahen or get Sanchez PLUS Hardy or Phillips, then sort out Sanchez after the season. Maybe we don't resign Beltre or we trade Sanchez, but there are worse things than having Branyan, Lopez, Sanchez, Hardy, Beltre trying to play 4 positions. If we can rest Beltre more by giving him day games off or the night before a day game, with a legit bat, or we have to put Sanchez on the bench as a PH, there are much worse things. Beltre is gone until the rosters expand, so there won't be a 40-man issue.

Trade possibilities...

Garrett Olson, Greg Halman, Gabriel Noriega, and Ronny Cedeno for Freddy Sanchez and John Grabow.

Phillippe Aumont and Ezequiel Carrera for Adam Lind and Scott Downs (salary relief for Blue Jays).

Wlad Balentien, Nathan Adcock, Jharmidy DeJesus, Shawn Kelley, and Brett Lorin for Brandon Phillips (salary relief to some extent) and Arthur Rhodes.

Add players as needed to make the trades work, but by avoiding any superstars and just getting solid players, you can get by with only trading a few blue chip prospects.

Ichiro RF
Phillips 3B
Branyan 1B
Adam Lind DH
Franklin Gutierrez CF
Ken Griffey Jr. LF
Jose Lopez 2B
Kenji Johjima C
Freddy Sanchez SS

Johnson C
Sweeney 1B
Woodward IF
Langerhans OF

Hernandez SP
Bedard SP
Washburn SP
Morrow SP
Vargas SP

Aardsma CP
Downs SU
Lowe SU
Grabow MR
White MR
Rhodes LS
Batista LR

CP - closer, SU - setup, MR - middle relief, LS - lefty specialist, LR - long relief

Jack Z. if you are listening, get a real bat for SS and for 3B, strip the system a little if you have to and get controlled players so we have time to build the system with the major league club set. Basically if we can get al our core players under team control or signed to contracts for the next 3-4 years, then you can spend those years building the system and in the mean time just save a couple great players who can help the MLB club. Mike Carp at 1B, Michael Saunders OF, Dennis Raben OF (injured, untradeable), Dustin Ackley 2B, Carlos Triunfel IF (injured, untradeable), Alex Liddi 3B, Travis Scott C, Juan Ramirez SP, Michael Pineda SP, Maikel Cleto SU, Josh Fields CP, and the rest trade whatever you have to.

That leaves Phillippe Aumont, Nathan Adcock, Brett Lorin, Steven Hensley, Jacob Wild, Donald Hume, Greg Halman, James McOwens, Joe Dunigan, Adam Moore, Wladimir Balentien, Ronny Cedeno, Garrett Olson, Shawn Kelley, Tyson Gillies, Jharmidy DeJesus, Mario Martinez, Aaron Pribanic, Blake Nation, Ezequiel Carrera, Gabriel Noriega, Denny Almonte, etc.
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Dont forget about Matt Tuisasosopo he has good trade value and could be had in a good deal for the mariners but i view them as sellers not buyers this year... i mean david aardsma is going to have to stay solid throughout this playoff push and i dont have enough confidence in him to save the game.

How is hitting below the Mendoza line going to help a soft hitting Mariners team? How is that a good trade for both? We are severly lacking offense and now the left side of the diamond is covered with good to great defensive players that can't hit their body weight. Yeah nothing quite like giving away 9 outs minimum per game. You can afford a Cedeno or a Langerhans if the rest of your team is a tick above average offensively. If your team is a few ticks above average you can take on two headaches, but even the best 6 hitters in baseball can't overcome three soft outs in the lineup.

If we kept Hannahan, Cedeno, and Langerhans at 3B, SS, and LF, upgraded Lopez to one of the best offensive 2B in the game, Branyan to one of the best offensive 1B in the game, Ichiro to one of the best offensive RF in the game, Gutierrez into one of the best overall CF in the game, wait they already are. Lopez may not be the best, but it's hard to find many 2B that can give you 25 HR, 100 RBI potential and he's well on his way. Brayan is one of the best slugging 1B in baseball and probably one spot removed from making the All-Star team, Ichiro is one of the best RF in the game, and Gutierrez has a total assessed value of $13.6MM already this year, which is off the charts awesome. Even with all that, the Mariners can't afford those holes on the left side and Griffey hasn't been the best DH, but he's been league average 750 OPS, give or take 10-20 points and there is just no way to eat that many awful players, this is NOT a good trade.

Obviously you didn't watch the Phillippe Aumont WBC performance where he struck out Pedroia, Youkilis, and another All-Star in the same inning for Canada. He's also a local kid, which the Blue Jays could use as a feel good story if they trade Halladay. The fans would be happy knowing that a kid who's only 20 and touching 98 mph with his fastball is going to be taking Halladay's rotation spot in a couple years to lead a the rebuilding process. Ezequiel Carrera is simply one of the best defensive CF in minor league baseball and has solid hitting skills with big SB potential, like an Endy Chavez only with the ability to take walks and hit closer to .300/.360/.400 with plus-plus defensive skills including a solid to great arm. Downs is owed 8MM over the next 1.5 years. That's a pretty big burden for a setup guy. For his position, he's a salar dump even with his ERA. It's a different economy and Carrera probably gets you Downs straight up without the Lind and Aumont trade. Last I checked a Top 30 prospect who's in AA succeeding at the age of 20 is worth a lot more than a LH DH. Lind's defense makes him suspect and just to remind you all, there was almost an Ibanez for Lind swap last year at the deadline, so no he's not part of their future. He's a bat without a position. Wells is unmoveable and supposing we did take Rios, then we'd maybe have to give up Pribanic for him. His salary over the next few years is just too great for the Jays to get anything for him more than that. He is a salary dump based on his contract and stats.

So let's say you make a package of...

Phillippe Aumont, Steven Hensley, Ezequiel Carrera for Adam Lind, Alex Rios, and Scott Downs.

Then I think you would have to give Branyan a few games off per month with Lind at 1B and Griffey at DH. Branyan can also play some games at 3B to spell Freddy and Sanchez can rotate around to SS to give Phillips days off, and Brandon can even rotate to 2B to spell Lopez. It would be a mess quite honestly, but the Mariners could survive on 10 regulars with the nine guys playing musical chairs to get Griffey in LF or DH.

So the lineup would be like...

Ichiro RF
Rios LF
Branyan 1B
Phillips 3B
Gutierrez CF
Lind DH
Lopez 2B
Johjima C
Sanchez SS

Johnson C
Sweeney 1B
Griffey OF
Woodward IF

Either way the Mariners would have everyone under contract except Beltre, Branyan, and Griffey from the starting 9+1(Griffey), so they essentially only would need to resign 2 of Branyan, Beltre, and Griffey... If they signed all three then they could just ship off Sanchez to some other team like Colorado and get Sean Smith to be the 4th OF.

Jack played his heart out in Oakland. He is a good kid that plays very hard at multiple positions. His bat will come around at some point.

Posted by: Jason Champion | July 11, 2009 at 04:58 PM

No it won't. Just no.

And because of his defense, in spite of his hitting, Hannahan can be a 1.5 WAR player, not a building block for a franchise, but a decent role player, much better than the -1.0 WAR that Cedeno will give us this year. In exchange for a potential ML reliever, that is well worth it.

Does anybody actually ready Iknowalilsomethingaboutsomething's posts? They are long and tedious but they're good entertainment.

Dude, can you at least compress your idiocy into a few sentences? You think you can get Adam Lind and Scott downs for those two? Are you kidding me?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=carrer001eze

Not bad for a 21 year old in AA. Showing good plate awareness and the strikeouts will come down while the walks will go up as well as his power to maybe being a 10 HR guy. He was a good prospect last year, but he's even better this season.

Griffey is awful in the field whether you use UZR, UZR/150, plus minus, or whatever else. That's not debatable. Griffey hasn't had an 800 OPS since 07, although his .230 BABIP this year suggest he will improve on his .752 OPS. Sure Aumont has much more value as a starter than reliever, but that doesn't mean he's expendable. I'd love Lind as much as the next guy, but I don't think he's worth what we'd have to give up. And despite what people want to believe, the upgrade from Ronny Cedeno to someone like Jack WIlson is greater than the downgrade from Washburn or Bedard to Ryan Rowland Smith.

I guess what I should have said is that he has been terrible for 3 days and on the 4th day got a hit and will probably hit a homerun today with a couple hits and all will be forgotten, but taking that 3 game hitless streak into account we should replace him.

Branyan won't sniff 40 homers this season and if the M's don't trade him before the deadline, they are making a huge mistake. He is having an extremely fluky first half.

Yeah Washburn has had 2 previous "fluke" seasons, while Lind is already 3/4 of the way to doubling his career high in HR, but that might not be a fluke either, right? So we should trade the farm and they should brand him untouchable for one good half of baseball? Yeah, that's just as reasonable. As for not being the best in baseball, you realize that if you match Seattle's starters up to Texas and Anaheim spot for spot in the rotation that Seattle's starters are better by atleast 1-2 ER/9 IP all the way down?

Washburn's season isn't a fluke by the way, you should research why he's improved and then see if it's enough to cause an increase in his stats.

1) All his peripheral stats are exactly in line with his career average except for he's walking a little less, striking out a little more, and he's not giving up the long ball as often.

2) He has been talking to his old high school coach about his mechanics since he got hot last season because his old coach saw something he was doing wrong. He changed the mechanical issue and it's been smooth sailing ever since for over a year now.

3) He's added a splitter to his secondary pitches and relied more on his 2 seam fastball. He's no repeating pitches as often and keeping hitters more off balance. His velocity is back up to 91-92 mph occasionally with the tweak to the delivery, whereas he was sitting 89-90 mph at his fastest. Finally, he's changed the grip on his breaking ball and it's got more movement and with the increased velocity, it's got later bite which explains the higher strikeouts when combined with him using the changeup less against lefties.

But yeah, none of that matters and surely coming off a 1 hitter where he retired 27 of 28 he "fluked" his way through a lineup 3 times without them being able to get it out of the infield except for a handful of times. I think when he is creaping up on 20 starts and still has one of the top 7 ERA in the American League it's safe to say that it's more than just a fading streak. Especially when you consider that from June 15th of 2008 until the end of last season he posted a 3.65 ERA so it's been over a year and he's only getting better.

Adair the pitching coach has also done wonders with the whole Mariner pitching staff from Felix to Aardsma, so I'm sure that doesn't matter either. Oh and Washburn's been doing it with a bad back and knees to the point that one of his teammates said he can barely walk between starts, so I'd say that if he can pitch the way he does now through that much pain, he's definitely re-invented himself.

The additions of Gutierrez, Endy Chavez, and Ryan Langerhans, and the subtraction of Raul Ibanez have done wonders for Washburn, who is a flyball pitcher. His BABIP is 50 points lower than in previous years. He is striking out more and walking less, while his FIP is lower than previous years, which all do show that he is pitching better this year. But to posit that he's invaluable to this team is to ignore marginal and relative value, and not properly consider larger holes on the team.

The point is that Washburn being on the team doesn't prevent the Mariners from getting another bat and to say one requires the other is rediculous. There is enough talent available for increasing our offense that we can find a trade partner who wants youth and prospects.

B3NG4L,

As for this B.S. about Washburn 34. Lind 25, big difference. No Washburn has been a little better than league average his whole career and at TWO different points and since mid June of last year (being the current 3rd time) he has been great. ADDING A SPLITTER WILL LIMIT YOUR HOMERUNS, THAT'S WHY HE DID IT. CAN YOU CONNECT THE DOTS?! ADD SPLITTER, HOMERUN RATE GOES DOWN! WOAH!!

Alrighty, not even going to read those. You don't deserve a response anymore. Especially when you think Adam Lind is worth those two prospects. Doesn't make sense for the Jays to trade a young, cost controlled hitter who is already performing for prospects who could turn into something.

By the way, I'm not an Angels fan, so I could give two shits about Lackey.

sumthinboutsumthin, slow down dude. It's like you want to play fantasy baseball with the M's. Have a few more drinks and pass out, would ya?

No, I'm just show viable solutions. No different than anyone else. Also, I know that there are a lot of glass is half empty type of people on here, so I defend my statments before people have a chance make stupid arguments. Even stupid arguments add up to a belief change. Similar to how lawyers throw in a bunch of red herring b.s. to sway the jury, none of it matters, but in hindsight people give it a lot more credibility, so if you defend an argument, someone has to work harder to poke holes and it makes more sense, which is why B3NG4L was left saying "Branyan won't sniff 40 HR". Let me guess, you think that Dunn is a better hitter and that explains why Dunn does it regularly? Or would it be because he gets a lot of cheap 450 ft. homeruns that just sneak over the fence?

Did you see the shot in NY?! Seriously did you? Like almost 440 ft. to center at night without the aid of wind. Or the shots in Oakland which are rediculous? Or how about the one in Dodger stadium that had a 7.2 second hangtime. Yeah, he didn't
kill those pitches.

I'm 100% sure he'll get to 40 HR and I'm thinking if he keeps playing well, he could raise it to 45-50 HR with seeing some of these young pitchers a second time. Being a bench guy, he doesn't have the advantage in past years of familiarizing himself with the opposing pitchers except by PH or video.

There are a lot of reasons why he's performing better this year and while he may not hold the .300 AVG, his homerun total is nothing to scoff at.

Lind stats...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lindad01.shtml

Keger25, is that you?

Everyone talking to iknowalilsomething, give up now. Guy's an ignorant toolbag.

If he's who I think he is, of course.

Not a bad move by the M's. Trade a guy that might be something in 3 or 4 years for a guy that can help out now.
Hanahan respectable glove, interdivision ops not so bad
at Oak .706 at Tex .661 at LAA .691 at Sea .916

Seattle knows what they are getting, Oakland gets an arm.

Mariners just got rid of access to gain a glove. Plain and Simple.

Posted by: Bavasi t(^.^)t | July 11, 2009 at 09:26 PM
______________________________
sorry it should be excess*

It's not that he added Hannahan for his glove, it's that it's the 4th Mariner without a bat in the lineup. I'd rather see Betancourt at SS than Cedeno, simply because they are in love with Cedeno's worthless ass and atleast Betancourt they would still be trying to trade, now I think they are actually happy with the team. Even though Langerhans and Hannahan are dead weight at the plate and Cedeno would struggle to hit .300 at short season A ball. Rob Johnson will come around, but I don't think we can expect much for the rest of this season and that means all the pressure is on our 1-5 to sustain the offense. We aren't talking about Beltre coming back in a couple weeks, we have to be without him for the better part of 2 months AND there's no guarantee that he will be back. What happens if we get to Sept. 1st and he's still not on the team and has more therapy before he can get in there again? Then it's like Spring Training all over again during a pennant race, and it takes Beltre a while to find his swing, I want a complete player, not a band-aid at 3B in case Beltre isn't ready to help the club down the stretch and we are in the race.

I know a little something about jackasses. And you're one.

Everyone ignore him. He posts bullshit trades on a different forum and doesn't listen to anything.

But if I ignore him, I cant make reference to the best television show of all time when I mockingly call him IKnowNothing.

After reading all of this... (and YES I did read all of it. About 10 minutes of time I'll never get back) I think we should change the thread name to "Homer Fan Defends Mariners" and we should change his name from Iknowalilsomthingaboutsomething to IthinkIknowalilsomethingaboutsomething... Kinda reminds me of Guru(for those who understand)

"Kinda reminds me of Guru"

Was only a reader back then, but know who you mean. And sorry to break it to you, but pretty sure this IS the self-proclaimed BaseballGuru.

Everyone ignore him. He posts bullshit trades on a different forum and doesn't listen to anything.

Posted by: Ianyo | July 12, 2009 at 01:43 AM

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By listen you mean "agree" to everything else says because their non-expert opinion is much better than my non-expert opinion? Sorry I've never been one to go with the flow and just "agree" to what everyone else thinks. Does it mean I can't be swayed? Nope, make a good argument. The problem is people like B3NG4L who say "Branyan and Lind are totally different (because I say so)!" While he doesn't say the bracketed part, it's as if he does. There's nothing to show anything concrete about his assertion. Make the assertion, state your facts, show me he's a different player, but don't tell me the difference is this is his first full season all of 85 games into it. That's 4 games more than 1/2, well I guess we should induct everyone into the HOF who has 1500 hits by 31 years old. I mean they are halfway through their career, so based on B3NG4L's logic, we can just give them credit for the second half of their season, career, etc. Let's just take 1/2 a season, multiply it by 2, ignore the potential for fall off, injury, adaptive scouting reports, and just give him a .300/.380/.550 line with 40 HR and 120 RBI, in fact let's just take 3 months off from the season and take the division leaders right now and put them through to the post season and we'll let computers play out the rest of the season stats and box scores according to a set W-L record determined by winning percentage currently.

And you want me to accept this logic as fact? Yeah, I don't think so. I'm looking for someone to make a strong argument. Someone showed Hannahan is a positive defensively and can still post a WAR of 1.5, did that make me want to keep Hannahan at 3B until Beltre returns? Nope. But I'm more willing to look at LF or SS help and tollerate Hannahan at 3B if we can only upgrade one position need. So I do listen and adapt to what people say.

Another blogger said that Seattle would have to eat a bad contract. I said okay, but if they did it would have to be Rios and that there wouldn't be much going back to Toronto based on the years and dollars involved, which is accurate. Look at the packages being sent for star players, they are hardly inspiring. Jake Peavy for Poreda, Richard, and a couple throw in guys?

Yeah, that's AMAZING for a guy that's not even 30 years old and won the pitching triple crown and Cy Young award two years ago. Hmmm, sure bet that Halladay gets more than him at 32, a bigger contract, less consistent success and only a little better durability. You don't have to give away the farm to get good players these days as young prospects have greater value than a couple years ago.

Lind is a super 2 by the way and gets 4 arbitration years, atleast that's what I read, so yeah, he's a candidate to be traded early because after this season, they'll be looking at Fielder type money.

Matt Tuis-whatever should be considered a AAAA player becuase he's not shown anything thru AAA and spent some time last year in the Bigs and didn't show anything

SuzysMan did that already. Go back and read.

How about this, Iknownothing - Lind is 25 and people have been waiting for him to break out. People gave Branyan the chance when he came up, he didn't perform, and just like he has on every other team, he will eventually fade off. Adam Jones and Adam Lind aren't being called terrible because that is the talent they've been predicted to perform at.

No one is calling the Branyan signing a bad deal. I think Jack Z is one of the best GM's in the buisness. But you've got homer goggles on.

Again, enjoy being disappointed.

"So instead of comparing me to some BaseballGuru guy, how about you focus on the topics. Diversion is a good way to avoid the rationalization that your argument doesn't hold water."

Dont kid yourself man, we all know. That guru guy was a long winded Mariners fan that fancied himself a law student or something and would attempt to expand and divert the conversation from the topic at hand by going into nonsensical rants and random attempts at insults. 2 such Mariners fans? I think not - unless there really is something in the water out there.

The funny thing comes in the fact you make another account and almost instantly no one respects anything you say once again. Well almost no one, you have a couple die-hard Mariners fans that might get into the fandom spirit with you. But on a whole, people laugh at you just the same. You should probably take a hint man.

But if you wanted to try and reinvent yourself away from the name that is so notorious around here, maybe you shouldn’t have picked a name almost as self-absorbed. “BaseballGuru” to “Iknowalilsomethingaboutsomething” – you are still trying to act like you are knowledgeable, when so clearly you are not. Yet here you are, with you long winded posts no one read trying to give your predictions once again, guaranteeing things like Branyans future production this time around. Unfortunately, it is not unlike the guarantees we got from you previously; like your prediction stating Richie Sexson will hit 300+ with 40+ HR. That was one which came about 2 months prior to his being released, and subsequently, out of baseball.

I remember Hannahan from his time in the Tigers system. Not a very good hitter, but at least plays solid defense and does a lot of the little things right. He has to be better than Cedeno.

By the way, for the fans that were bashing Langerhans, he hasn't really been that bad for Seattle. .750 OPS in 35 AB. That has to be replacement level.

Atkins....Christ no. Guy is completely lost.

1. My name has nothing to do with being "rad" or a "homie." It's my first name and part of my last. Try not assuming things about someone you don't know. Makes you look silly.

2. You know what you're talking about but you say absurd things. You value some players extremely high and others far below where they should be. I remember you saying the Bedard trade was a good thing for the Mariners.

3. Who are you to call me a "bandwagoner?" I've been going to Mariner games since I was able to walk. I went with my grandparents with their season tickets year after year and still watch nightly and attend games often. Again, try not to call someone out on something you have absolutely no idea about.

Posted by: Ianyo | July 12, 2009 at 02:33 PM

1) So you are saying that it's merely "coincidence" that you chose just two letters of your last name and they "coincidentally" happened to be "yo" and NOT FOR ONE MOMENT you thought of the term "yo" like as in cool or an ebonic reference to hello? Yeah, you look like a fool trying to cover that one.

2) I value players way too high and others too low, BUT I know what I'm talking about. That statement is an oxymoron. Additionally, it's called OPINION!!! My OPINION happens to be shared by most of the GMs in baseball, while nothing is 100% and where do you suppose I got my reference point?? From watching the transactions that do go on. I look at Peavy and think he should cost the Mariners Aumont, Balentien, Cedeno, Clement... Based off what Chicago was offering of Poreda, Richard, and two fringe prospects, clearly I have to adjust down my expected loss because nobody else is paying that much for him.

Is it my fault that I go off the value system put in place by the transactions of the current front offices of baseball?? I think Hannahan is a wait of money and roster space. I think the Mariners would be better off trading a bunch of prospects and get a really good bat and instead of being in the position of "searching" for a hitter, be in the position to potentially have to "get rid of" a hitter.

Say the Mariners get Phillips and Sanchez and lose some of their prospects and then Beltre comes back. Well, Beltre will get minimum 1 1st round pick if he walks and we have Sanchez already to play 3B. If they re-sign Beltre, then we open our options up to trade Sanchez as a one-year rental to another team or keep him as insurance as the utility infielder considering he'd be about $8MM for 2010 and $2MM would be paid by the Pirates.

It's called improved flexibility and not having to pay $5.00 for the last roll of toilet paper in the store so you can wipe your ass. The Mariners need a 3B and now there is no going to the bargain bin because everyone knows how bad we need one. I think THAT is why we got Hannahan because they say, we're good with Jack at 3B, so that another team can't negotiate with one hand squeezing our balls.

As for lost prospects... Everyone talks about prospects like it matters how deep a farm system is... How many prospects don't even make the majors? And so we are trading a worthless comodity for a proven comodity. Looking at the Mariners roster our control years are as follows (counting 2010 as the first)...

Ichiro - 3 years
Gutierrez - 3 years
Balentien - 5 years
Langerhans - 2 years
Chavez - 0 years (will come back if we offer a contract)
Griffey - 0 years (will come back if we offer a contract)
Sweeney - 0 years (will come back if we offer a contract)
Beltre - 0 years (worth 1 or 2 top draft picks)
Cedeno - 2 years
Lopez - 2 years
Branyan - 1 year (will come back if we offer a contract)
Carp - 6 years
Tuiasosopo - 6 years
Hannahan - 4 years
LaHair - 6 years
Johjima - 2 years
Johnson - 5 years
Clement - 6 years
Burke - 0 years (will come back if we offer a contract)
Hernandez - 2 years
Bedard - 0 years (will come back if we offer a contract)
Morrow - 5 years
Washburn - 0 years (will come back if we offer a contract)
Vargas - 4 years
Olson - 4 years
Corcoran - 5 years
White - 4 years
Thomas - 6 years
Kelley - 6 years
Jakubauskus - 5 years
Jimenez - 5 years
Feierabend - 6 years
Lowe - 3 years
Aardsma - 3 years
Rowland-Smith - 5 years
Batista - 0 years
Silva - 2 years

Now where is there room in the outfield in the next 3 years for Saunders, Halman, Raben, Ackley, McOwens, Gillies, Carrera, or Almonte?

How about in the infield for Tuiasosopo, Carp, Liddi, DeJesus, Ma. Martinez, Noriega, Ackley, Seager, Triunfel, Franklin, Poythress, Clement, Moore, Scott, or Dunigan?

And in the rotation for Ju. Ramirez, Aumont, Pineda, Adcock, Lorin, Hensley, Pribanic, Kasparek, Parker, Cortes, Wild, G. Hernadez, Seddon, Fister, Munoz, Bray, LaFromboise, Venegas, Czyz, Kirkland, Burnett?

Or even in the bullpen for Fields, Thomas, Kahn, Nation, Kelley, Vega, Messenger, Shell, Cordero, Delgado, Stark, Orta, Varvaro, Rivera, Hill, Paredes, Hann, J. Jimenez, Flores, Penney, Renfree, Pullen, Carraway, Esquibel, Cooper?

Where based on our control years is there room for all these players? And these are the GOOD ones. Even if we traded 15-20 of these guys to add a couple bats and some stud lefty relievers, what do we care? We have 3 years of drafts to reload the system, and if we don't sign any of our free agents, we'll have 9 or 10 first round picks. It's simple math, there are 7 farm teams and 1 parent club. If we trade 5 for one then our parent club gets better and 3 of our 8 ball clubs don't even get effected, some of those teams have too many players to get time and it hurts the progression of the fringe prospects, which is why sometimes a great prospect emerges after the farm system gets "stripped" there are only so many innings to go around, so let's get more innings for other guys and have new players like Jakubauskus step up and force their way into the majors.

Sorry if I don't care about the W-L record of the Pulaski Mariners, which in the end is the only team effected. Wherever we trade from will be supplemented from the league below until Pulaski sends someone to Everett and in the end, they are "farm teams".

Famous quote: "those who are always looking ahead, never get to appreciate what's around them."

Let's use our resources to make the team better. A deep farm system helps supplement and fill holes on the MLB team and allows for trades, I just showed there aren't really any holes, so let's start trading!

3) A bandwagoner is not just someone who goes to games or watches them when they are winning. It can also be someone like you who is down on the team and a glass is half empty kind of thinker and then when everything is going great, you are the first one to talk of their excellence. You have to be supportive of them all the time, even when they struggle to be a real fan.

Matt Tuis-whatever should be considered a AAAA player becuase he's not shown anything thru AAA and spent some time last year in the Bigs and didn't show anything

Posted by: Braves for NL East!! | July 12, 2009 at 11:30 AM

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You get labeled a AAAA player because you've had 400-500 AB without the hint of improvement. Tuiasosopo just started to find his power in the last season or two, he's still only 22 by baseball terms (they go by April 1st, he turned 23 in May, but he's 22 for comparative sake), so if he went to collge, he would only be in his second or third development season. Because of his last name and his hype when he was drafted in the 3rd round and paid over slot to stay with baseball over being the starting QB for U of Washington, the microscope has been on him. The fact is that he only played 111 games last year and looks to have legitimate 25-30 HR power and his glove is getting better. Beltre's contract going through 2009 and Tuiasosopo's need to improve his fielding have cost him a chance to make the team coming out of Spring Training as the starter (he did get to be on the roster for two weeks, which was a bad idea by the Mariners), even though he killed it in Peoria. His season this year has been a washout between the wasted two weeks in Seattle and the injury which has sidelined him for most of the year to date.

End result is that Tuiasosopo is built like a taller Beltre and looks like an equivalent talent. I'm not sure he'll ever be better than a .280 hitter, but he's atleast a .265-.270 with 25 HR, 90 RBI potential at the plate. If he goes crazy with his work ethic and really puts in the time, he'll be a .280 hitter, 30 HR, 100-110 RBI guy.

good trade for seattle