Over this weekend, as the hours passed from a World Series sure to be remembered by many for quite some time, the baseball off-season officially got under way. Which naturally meant that we had to endure our first of the annual "Mariners don't expect to be big players" articles and also meant that certain people no longer were under Mariner control. It turns out there are four such players this year. Josh Bard, Adam Kennedy, Wily Mo Pena and Jamey Wright, all of whom began the 2011 season by signing Minor League contracts and yet ended up with the Mariners, are no longer beholden to those contracts and are free agents.

I wonder if they get to file for unemployment?