Mariners Listening On Sexson

Mariners first baseman Richie Sexson hit a painful .205/.295/.399 last year.  He’s got one more year on his contract at $14MM, and most feel that he can’t help but be better in 2008.  Mariners GM Bill Bavasi recently acknowledged that some teams have inquired about Sexson.

According to the link above, one option could be swapping Sexson for another supposed bad contract, Vicente Padilla.  Padilla makes $11MM in ’08, $12MM in ’09, and has a $12MM club option for 2010 with a $1.75MM buyout.  So he has $24.75MM guaranteed left on his contract.  Padilla had an injury-plagued year but at least came on strong in September.  He’s fairly risky in general, but the fact that he’s crazy is an added burden.  Still, I imagine he’s looking interesting to several teams.

Another place to send Sexson could be Kansas City.  The Royals don’t have a bad contract to swap, so the Ms would have to eat money.  I’m guessing the Royals would take a chance on Sexson if they only had to pay half his salary.

The Giants are one other team that has been linked to Sexson, and they do have the Ray Durham contract to swap.  Durham makes $7.5MM in ’08 in the last year of his deal.