How more than 600 people made it into that .gif museum without making their computers blow up is beyond me, but the masses have spoken, and it looks as if the event deemed the best representation of the season as a whole is Raul Ibanez's very own Lawn Dart.

The message, I think, is pretty clear. Much like Raul in Yankee Stadium, the Mariners began the 2008 season in a competitive field. They had the look of a contender, they were a pretty popular pick to win the AL West, and it seemed as if they were really ready to start playing with the big boys. Regardless of what you thought of their offseason, almost everybody agreed that 2008 would likely be a season played under a lot of pressure in front of a lot of people. And that got the fan base excited.

But for all of their positives, the Mariners, like Raul, came with some sinister drawbacks that didn't get enough attention. In Raul's case, not enough people talk about his bad defense or vulnerability to late-inning lefties. In the Mariners' case, not enough people were talking about the bad defense, the potentially punchless offense, or the delicacy of the pitching staff. It was a roster loaded with upside but littered with downside, and while many chose to focus on the former, few would shed much light on the latter, and when it was mentioned, rarer still were the issues considered significant enough to jeopardize the entire season. They stood as questions without answers. You have to wonder now if the men in charge didn't ask each other those questions because they were afraid of the response.

If the Yankee Stadium field is 2008, then Raul Ibanez is the Mariners: talented but deeply flawed. And as the ball rolls towards his glove - signifying the opportunity to make a move presented when the Angels lost 40% of their rotation - Raul reaches down, seizes the opportunity, and instantly puts his flaws on display for the whole world to observe. It's comical in its feebleness. The degree of ineptitude and the haste with which it reveals itself are mesmerizing. No John Lackey. No Kelvim Escobar. And the Mariners responded by opening 2-5 and standing at 15-26 when Lackey made his season debut. A wonderful opportunity gone to waste because the Mariners couldn't wait to completely and utterly embarrass themselves on a national stage. Embarrass themselves in ways not even previously thought possible. .250 from Ichiro? A total meltdown by the closer? Swept by the Orioles? The Mariners entered the 2008 season ecstatic to have a chance and made it one day before crossing paths with the Shit Parade. One day. Raul's throw flew about two feet.

The final shred of symbolism? The one bit of nutshellitude that really puts this over the top? Not only is Lawn Dart a .gif, but it's a .gif of an instant replay. 2008 wasn't just a nightmare of a season; it was a nightmare of a season that we had to live over and over again with every passing day. Every game was a loss, and every loss felt like the loss before. It was a punishing cycle of agony from which the only escape was to try and find humor in it all, but every time you'd dare to laugh, the cycle would begin again, and the wounds would be opened anew. 2008 took everything you thought could go wrong, ground it up with a mortar and pestle, diluted it in fart juice, and injected it into your stomach. It's amazing as many people made it through as they did. I'd say that this was simply survival of the fittest, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I might have that backwards. It seems like a normal person shouldn't be able to survive something like 2008. It seems like there must be something wrong with those of us who did.

The .gif finally stopped cycling in my window. Apparently they don't go on forever. I guess that's appropriate. 2008 is over. We can finally close the books on the most difficult chapter I personally have ever read and look forward to a better tomorrow. The future may not be bright, and it may not be bountiful, but compared to the past we've only recently been able to escape, it'll be hard-pressed to be any more humiliating.

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Ever the showman, Raul will go to great lengths to keep his team's fans entertained.

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Bottom 7th: Oakland

-K Suzuki flied out to left

-C Pennington walked

-B Crosby doubled to deep left, C Pennington scored

-D Barton walked

M Batista relieved B Morrow

A Cunningham hit for J Baisley

-A Cunningham doubled to deep left, B Crosby and D Barton scored

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And we have our latest addition to the sidebar.

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Do it.

(Comments closed to prevent the biasing of results.)

Heyman.

Time expired on Thursday afternoon on waiver claims made on two Mariners, left fielder Raul Ibanez and left-hander Jarrod Washburn. Both players will be remaining with Seattle.

SI.com has learned that the Tigers won the claim on Ibanez and the Twins won the claim on Washburn. However, neither team was able to work out a trade with Seattle within the allotted 48 hours after making the claim.
...
...sources indicate that there were trade discussions ongoing between Minnesota and Seattle. However, the teams couldn't agree on a trade before the Thursday afternoon deadline.

I am going to let this sit and stew for a little while.

Matthew's Addendum: This appears to be confirmed now by the Seattle Times. Our last hope is that the Mariners put Washburn back on waivers this month. Yes, they still can do that. If a player is put on revocable waivers and is claimed, there is two days to work out a trade. If no trade was made, such as in this case, the player can be put on waivers one more time, but is automatically on irrevocable waivers. That is, if Washburn hits waivers again this month and is claimed, that's it. He's gone without even a chance for the Mariners to fuck it up. Please put him back on waivers.

Team sources have indicated that pitcher Jarrod Washburn cleared waivers and can now be traded without fear of a claim to block a move.

Source

This isn't horrible news, because Washburn could still be traded and it is actually good news in that sense since we are now free to trade him anywhere and if we do manage to get something back that person just has to be not part of the team's 40-man roster. However, I might have preferred someone to claim Washburn and have Seattle just say "okay". I want to be Washburn-free more than I want to hold out for something potentially useful far down the line in return. 

At least they were smart enough to put him on waivers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Asked earlier this year about what he expects in the off-season, he said he wanted a four-year-contract, and though he’s likely to get an offer or two in that range, a three-year deal seems more like what Seattle would request.

For how much? The bidding for a man coming off three consecutive 100-RBI seasons – and being a good citizen and clubhouse force, to boot – would probably start in the $10-$11 million a year range.

Source

Anyone still think Raul might accept arbitration? He won't. And while you're down there praying for the Ms to trade Washburn you might as well tack on an extra one that the Mariners do not hand Raul a 3Y/$36MM (my prediction since back in February) contract.

And so it's upon us. The big story is, of course, the whole saga with Manny Ramirez, but Pelekoudas shouldn't be worrying about that, because he's got a lot of work to do, and - as of this writing - less than twelve hours to do it. It's going to be a busy day. I don't think he'll be sleeping in.

If the Mariners are to get any value in return for Jarrod Washburn, today's the day it's going to happen. Not only would waiting until August reduce the amount of difference he could make for another team, but waiver rules make anything other than a simple salary dump highly unlikely. Waiting until the offseason wouldn't make much sense in this regard, either, since there'll be so many other arms floating around. Now's the last chance for Pelekoudas to try and turn Washburn into something useful for the future. I wish him luck. And I do think he can do it, provided he backs down from his unreasonable previous demands. Although I should take this opportunity to re-state that all I really want is for Washburn to go away. I just want his salary and roster spot to be available going forward. So I'll try not to flip out too much if he isn't moved today, just because it won't be our last chance to dump him.

Arthur Rhodes should be shipped away for the best offer. Hands down. No point in keeping him.

Raul Ibanez is drawing interest, but Pelekoudas has affixed a high price tag, and for good reason. Not because he's a good player, but because the Elias free agent rankings think he's a good player. If he gets moved, it's because another front office caved at the last minute.

Adrian Beltre is drawing interest, but there's maybe a 1-in-25 chance that someone out there ponies up enough to pry him loose.

JJ is drawing interest, but Pelekoudas isn't about to sell at a value trench, so he'll only get traded if another GM pays as if he's been pitching effectively.

Not much else going on. But being that we possess two of the most highly sought-after players on the market, today should be anything but dull.

Just don't do anything stupid, Lee. It's all I ask.

UPDATE 2: This team steadfastly refuses to complete trades in a timely fashion.

UPDATE: Jarrod Washburn has been traded to the Yankees. Not yet sure on the return.

Go to town.

Baker:

We're headed to the eighth inning, with Seattle down 8-3, but on the bigger news front, we're hearing buzz that Jarrod Washburn might not make it to tomorrow with the M's. A trade with the New York Yankees appears imminent. We're trying to peer into the dugout to see whether he's still there. We'll have an update after the game.

FSN's reporting a Washburn/Vidro for Cabrera/Igawa rumor.

Jayson Stark:

Even Ibanez may not be affordable, however. Seattle hasn’t asked interested teams for specific names yet. But the Mariners are one of many clubs saying that, because Ibanez projects as a Type A free agent, they would want the equivalent of a first-round pick and a sandwich pick for him.

I decided to run some numbers to figure out the impact that each team's offense, pitching, and defense is on pace to have over the course of a full season. Results are in the table below. This may not be the absolute best way to do it, but it was the easiest, and this is my lunch break. Let me know if I did anything wrong.

OFFENSE: |R/G - lgR/G| * 162
PITCHING: |FIP - lgFIP| * 162 (assumes 9 inning games, which is ~average)
DEFENSE: |THT +/- rating * 0.8| * 162/GP (GP = games played; +/- rating and GP from May 14th, as THT hasn't updated its Team page for some reason)

Note that these are absolute values. So, for example, San Diego's offense is on pace to be 207 runs away from the league average, while its pitching is on pace to be 50 runs away, and its defense 32 runs away.

The key bit of information is that last line in the table. Offense is set to be the most variable of skills across the league, followed by pitching, followed by defense. I don't think anyone will find that particularly surprising. However, while the impact of defense may be the smallest, it's still significant. The average team's defense is on pace to end up 34 runs away from the league average (that's confusing), which is somewhere between 3-4 wins in the standings. Toronto is on pace to be 14-15 wins better than Pittsburgh on defense alone. 14-15 wins! To say nothing of how much better they were than Tampa Bay and Florida a year ago in the field.

Defense. Defense defense defense. I talk about it all the time to compensate for the fact that so few other people seem to pay it any mind. Just because it's not the most important thing in the world doesn't mean it's not important, and it's so ridiculously easy to upgrade that there's zero excuse for not doing so if you're given the opportunity. It'll make a difference. It may not be as obvious to the naked eye as a home run or a strikeout, but it'll help far more than most people understand.

Let's pretend, for the sake of simplicity, that Jeremy Reed's offense = Jose Vidro's offense (Reed's better, but anyway). Putting Reed on the bench and leaving Raul in left field instead of putting Reed in left field and sliding Raul to DH would be roughly equivalent to leaving Chad Billingsley in AAA so you can keep Adam Eaton in the ML rotation. Do you think people would stand for that? Of course they wouldn't. And neither should we stand for this.