Jeff's brought it up already in some other forms, but it got me to thinking. If I wanted to make a comprehensive list of all the positive or semi-positive things about this year, what would it look like?

1. Raul Ibanez continues to hit *
2. Jose Lopez rejuvenation at the plate **
3. Ichiro shows no sign of slowing down ***
4. Adrian Beltre hit lots of line drives and played very fine defense ****
5. Willie Bloomquist's insane walk rates *****
6. Erik Bedard's first PA to Ian Kinsler ******
7. R.A. Dickey the reliever was pretty effective and fun to watch. ******
8. Arthur Rhodes was decent enough to net us Gaby Hernandez at the deadline. ********
9. Sean Green continues to be a valuable piece out of the bullpen *********
   
10. Brandon Morrow is awesome in relief and awesome in his debut start **********
11. Roy Corcoran comes out of nowhere to become our most valuable reliever. ***********
    
12. Felix Hernandez hit a grand slam off Johan Santana. ***********

* But his continued poor glove robbed almost, if not all, of that positive value away. Amazingly, Raul still played LF after we dumped the monstrosity of Jose Vidro.

** But most metrics agree his defense has fallen off considerably.

*** But his defense is slipping a little bit and he's now moved back to right field.

**** But he's probably going to get traded this winter in 2008's version of the annual retard trade that we know from day -4,077 is dumb.

***** But he also went nearly all season without an extra base hit and finished with but a lone double.

****** But he apparently injured his hip and tore his labrum in that game.

******* But R.A. Dickey the starter got battered around like the self-worth of this guy.

******** But Gaby Hernandez runs shitty ratios even after moving down a level to Double-A upon arriving in Seattle.

********* But he gets overused and becomes ineffective by August.

********** But Morrow's next two starts reveal just how much more work he has to do and dreams of him, Felix and Bedard at the top of the 2009 rotation are dashed by the realization that Morrow will need 2009 as a learning year and Bedard will need 2009 as a rehab year.

*********** But his K and BB rates are bad and he's probably not going to keep limiting line drives to under 9% in the future.

************ Did you hear what I said? He hit a fucking grand slam off Johan Santana! That was mind-numbingly insane!