FanPost

List of Free Agents

Outfielders
1 Johnny Damon
2 Brian Giles
3 Preston Wilson
4 Jacque Jones
5 Juan Encarnacion
6 Jose Cruz Jr.
7 Jay Payton

DH
1 Nomar Garciaparra
2 Juan Gonzalez
4 Frank Thomas (probably won't be around)

Top of Rotation Starting Pitchers
1 A.J. Burnett
2 Kevin Milwood
3 Jeff Weaver
4 Jarrod Washburn
Middle of the Rotation Starting Pitchers
5 Paul Byrd
6 Kenny Rogers
7 Matt Morris
8 Brett Tomko
9 Elmer Dessens
Bottom of Rotation Starting Pitchers
10 Kevin Brown
11 Tony Armas
12 Shawn Estes
13 John Thomson
14 Scott Elarton
15 Jason Johnson
16 Pedro Astacio
17 Brian Moehler
18 Ismael Valdez
19 Rick Helling
20 Jamey Wright

I tried to do a quick ranking.  I will try to anticipate problems people will have with the above ranking and explain myself.  I did not rank Jacque Jones very high because if we needed another player with good speed and slap hitting we would have kept Randy Winn.  With DH, I was looking for good hitters with decent value that could provide a little pop in the lineup.  I really would like to see Nomar in our lineup but I know it probably won't happen.  The starting pitching ranking is not very scientific and I basically went with gut feeling.  Weaver is a little higher mostly because he is young.  Kevin Brown is so low because he is not good  (just to make sure people understand that he is not good).  I think Rogers would really be a good pickup for the middle of the rotation on maybe a 1 or 2 yr contract because he would be cheap and is still very good.  The quality at SP is very low this year so I included far more than was needed.

I think everyone would like to see the Mariners pick up a couple FAs that would help the team.  I’m assuming that Jamie Moyer is signed to a 1 yr contract.  If he isn’t the mariners should definitely try to sign another guy.  I don’t think the mariners will trade for pitching because no matter what you think, you can’t trick a team to take mediocre players(ie Meche) for a good one.  I am also hoping that we can find a young pitcher in our farm club that will move up through the year.

The biggest holes:

Starting pitching - We definitly need one really good FA and possibly another decent one that can at least fill a spot for this year.  I think that we only really need one good FA pitching pickup.  We could probably fill the 5th spot with a youthful rotation until we find someone who works.

Left Field and Power(preferably left handed) - We could try to all of this with one player by getting Damon and moving Reed to left but the odds of this happening are ~0.  We could get a good power outfielder or we could get a DH with power and keep Raul in LF.  Its much easier to find a DH with power than a good OF with power in my opinion.  The only bad part about this is that Raul's defense is not excellent but its LF so defense is not as big of an issue as other positions.

I’m going to suggest that we pick up:
One of the following:  Burnett/Milwood/Weaver/Washburn
One of the following:  Byrd/Rogers/Morris/Tomko
One of the following:  Garciaparra/Gonzalez/Thomas
Pickups of Burnett (14mil/yr), Rogers(4mil/yr), and Garciaparra(6mil/yr) would fill all the major holes on the team.  This still doesn’t address the fact that the mariners are weak from the left side of the plate.

Another route is to pick up Giles or Damon instead of Garciaparra/Gonzalez/Thomas and have Ibanez play DH and Reed would move to LF.  This FA market is not very strong and I don’t think that the mariners should sign long term contracts with players that or only marginal.

In my dreams, I see the mariners with:
Hitting
1B    Sexson (continued performance)
2B    Lopez (improved)
SS    Betencourt (learns to hit)
3B    Beltre (doesn’t suck)
C    Torealba/Rivera
LF    Ibanez
CF    Reed (improved)
RF    Ichiro (improved)
DH    Garciaparra
Bloomquist
Strong
Morse
Dobbs

Pitching
1st- Burrnett
2nd- Felix
3rd- Rogers
4th- Pinero
5th- Moyer
Meche (I think he could rediscover himself in long relief)
Sherril
Soriano
Thorton (I still have hope that he pulls his head out of his ass)
Nageotte
Mateo
Closer – Putz

I could see a team like this easily going .500 and having upside for the future if our young pitching ever materializes.