Mariners Notes: Swisher, Bourn, Prospects

Here's the latest from the Pacific Northwest…

• The Mariners should try something "bold and imaginative" to bring a major hitter to Seattle, such as trading top prospects for a big bat like Curtis Granderson, Andre Ethier, Carlos Gonzalez or Giancarlo Stanton, FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal writes.
• Nick Swisher visited Cleveland earlier today to meet with Indians executives and is headed to visit another city, but CBS Sports' Jon Heyman (via Twitter) reports that "the Swisher tour" will not stop in Seattle.  The M's would have to give up their first-round pick in next year's draft (No. 12 overall) as compensation for signing a free agent who has declined a qualifying offer from their former team.  Heyman tweets that the Mariners aren't willing to sacrifice their pick for Swisher but could do it for "a bigger free agent than Swisher."  Michael Bourn seems to be the only free agent left on the market who fits that criteria.
• If the Mariners had $25MM earmarked for Josh Hamilton, Larry Stone of the Seattle Times points out that the club could use that money to sign Bourn and still have enough payroll left to acquire Michael Morse from the Nationals.
• The trade value of elite prospects seems to be dropping, writes Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times, thus hurting the Mariners' chances of using their top minor leaguers as trade chips to acquire proven big league talent.
• Speaking of those Seattle minor leaguers,  Fangraphs' Marc Hulet runs down his list of the top 15 prospects in the Mariners' system.  "Unlike a lot of the top systems in the game, the bulk of Seattle’s talent is at the Double-A and Triple-A level suggesting better days are ahead for the Mariners and their fans," Hulet writes.