It was really fun to not give two shits about the Super Bowl when I lived in San Diego, because everybody else in San Diego gave some shits about the Super Bowl, so the roads were empty and places of business were wide open. It's less fun to not give two shits about the Super Bowl here in Portland, because nobody in Portland gives any shits about the Super Bowl, so everything is pretty much exactly the same. We had to wait to be seated at brunch! I have now successfully made this post in part about food I ate again.

I saw a rumor come by last night. I didn't feel like hitting it then, but I'm going to hit it now because it's an absolutely beautiful day outside so it's not like I have anything better to do. It's a Mariners rumor! The Seattle Mariners! Many have been dissatisfied with the Mariners apparently cutting payroll but look out because those wallets might yet spill open.

Not long ago, Nick Cafardo reported that three West Coast teams had interest in free agent reliever Hong-Chih Kuo. Here's Geoff Baker, yesterday:

Mariners looking closely at LH reliever Hong Chih Kuo. Signing close? FA from Dodgers.

So the Mariners seem to be one of the three West Coast teams. That's not a huge surprise. There are only so many baseball teams on the West Coast. The Angels are probably one of them, since they've expressed an interest in adding one more reliever. I don't know who the third team is, but, again, there are only so many options. I suspect Kuo will make a decision very soon.

Maybe he'll pick the Mariners. Maybe he won't. The Mariners might give him the best shot at making the team. The Angels might give him the best shot at making the playoffs. He might prefer the Angels because he's familiar with the general area. He might prefer Safeco's pitcher-friendliness. He might think anything. Think about all the weird shit you think about. All the weird shit nobody would think that you think about. Everybody thinks about weird shit. Hong-Chih Kuo probably thinks about weird shit, and good luck ever cracking that brain open. Kuo will choose something and until he chooses something, we can only guess based on what we think the average player would think.

The thing about Kuo is that he's extraordinarily interesting. He's probably going to have to settle for a minor league contract, but he's a lot more interesting than most of the other guys who settle for minor league contracts. A year ago, he was an All-Star. Granted, a year ago, Matt Capps and Ty Wigginton were All-Stars, but Kuo allowed 29 hits in 60 innings, with 73 strikeouts. It was his third consecutive year of excellent relief. Then, in 2011, he was bad. He wasn't just bad - he was bad, and he missed significant time due to anxiety. It was referred to as "the yips" by people with no regard for the severity of mental unhealth. It was the second time in three years Kuo had been sidelined with anxiety. He came back, but he wound up with more runs allowed than innings pitched.

Kuo also had offseason surgery on his elbow. It was minor surgery, but Kuo's elbow has been through a lot over the years. It probably wears one of those veteran trucker hats.

In Kuo, we have a 30-year-old lefty reliever with a track record of outstanding success. And in Kuo, we have a 30-year-old lefty reliever with a track record of elbow and anxiety problems. I love that Kuo's FanGraphs page includes 2012 stat projections, as if Kuo were just another normal guy.

There's no telling what Kuo could be next season. Maybe he'll be healthy. Maybe he won't be healthy and this will happen again.

[Kuo] went to the Dodgers' spring-training facility, where he once misfired a pitch during a bullpen session and hit a trainer in the neck. The trainer was walking across an adjacent practice field.

Kuo's no guarantee to be good. If he were, he would've signed by now for money. He's not even a guarantee to be not bad. We don't know how he's going to bounce back, if he bounces back. It's encouraging that Kuo had the season he had in 2010 after fighting anxiety in 2009. He's come back from that issue before, at least temporarily. But stuff like this is a black box. Every person is different, and every experience is different. It's always embarrassing when media members ask coaches about players battling psychological problems, as if the coaches have any idea what's going on.

So Kuo's a mystery. The Mariners don't need him, since (A) no team ever needs any one individual player, (B) the Mariners already have George Sherrill, and (C) the Mariners probably aren't contending for the playoffs in 2012. If the Mariners don't sign Hong-Chih Kuo, things'll continue along, pretty much like they were always going to.

But if the Mariners do sign Hong-Chih Kuo, that'll be neat, because he's interesting, and, man, he was good not long ago. It has to be noted that players with mental concerns are more unpredictable than players with physical concerns. Physical concerns can be evaluated and addressed more readily. But if Kuo were to sign, and if Kuo were to work out, hey, fantastic. That's value for cheap. Not many things better in baseball than value for cheap.

I am obsessed with transactions that never happened. That's probably a poor choice of words because the dictionary definition of "obsessed" is pretty strong. Transactions that never happened do not dominate my thoughts. I don't have clipped out articles of transactions that never happened taped to my wall. I don't put on a hat and sunglasses and go to the mall so that I can observe transactions that never happened while they talk to their transactiony friends. But I do really like them. I eat them up, every time. They're so interesting!

And today we might have one that's relevant to the Mariners. It seems like it's all that people want to talk about this morning. The Blue Jays held a function Monday night. GM Alex Anthopoulos said that he recently turned down a trade that would have taken a player from the team's Major League roster. Jeff Blair did some digging and came up with the names Brett Lawrie and Michael Pineda.

Now, it's important to understand that this is just a rumor. We can't confirm that the Mariners were offering Pineda and looking to get Lawrie. Headlines reading "Blue Jays turned down Michael Pineda for Brett Lawrie" are presumptuous and unwarranted. There could be more to this than we know, and that needs to be indicated.

But it sure does make sense. The Mariners, obviously, traded Michael Pineda. That wasn't a hang-up of theirs. Jack Zduriencik suggested afterward that there were four young hitters for whom he would've considered dealing Pineda. Jesus Montero was one. The other three haven't been formally identified, but if Montero was one, then Lawrie was probably another one.

Further, the Blue Jays were reported to have engaged the Mariners in talks about Felix Hernandez, and while those didn't go anywhere, it'd be pretty easy to go from talking about Felix to talking about Pineda. That's how it happened with the Yankees. Lawrie's a third baseman so he couldn't be a better fit for the Mariners at this time. Geoff Baker alleges that Tom McNamara practically has a crush on Lawrie after having followed him close.

We don't know for sure that the Mariners and Blue Jays talked Pineda and Lawrie. The Mariners and Blue Jays will never publicly confirm that they talked Pineda and Lawrie. But it makes sense that they would've talked Pineda and Lawrie. Great young pitcher for a great young hitter. The Mariners had a desire. The Blue Jays had a desire. There were the elements of a fit, but ultimately there wasn't a fit.

Let's just say that this rumor has validity. For the sake of the rest of this post, let's assume that it's true. Where can we go from here? Well, for one thing, keep in mind that Pineda might not have been traded for Lawrie straight up, just as he wasn't traded for Montero straight up. The Montero trade involved two other pieces of value. Any Lawrie trade might have involved other pieces of value. Perhaps the proposal was Pineda for Lawrie straight up, but the proposal was rejected.

It's really easy to see this turning into a debate about how the merits of Jesus Montero stack up against the merits of Brett Lawrie, just like how people used to debate about how the merits of Jesus Montero stacked up against the merits of Justin Smoak. That wouldn't be fair. We don't know what it would've cost to get Lawrie. The Mariners didn't turn down Lawrie and go for Montero; the Mariners had Lawrie turned down for them, and then they went for Montero. Lawrie might have been their first choice. If it's any consolation, based on the previous example I guess this means Brett Lawrie will be a Mariner within the next two years.

For what it's worth, I think getting Lawrie instead of Montero would've made the Pineda trade easier to digest initially. People in Washington love Brett Lawrie. There's the Canadian thing, and the Danielle Lawrie thing, and the not-Chone-Figgins thing, and so on. Montero's not an unknown, but I think in the area he's more of an unknown than Lawrie. Lawrie would've been welcomed.

These are a lot of words about a trade rumor. A trade rumor where we don't know for absolute certain whether it's true, and where, if it is true, we don't know how close it came to happening. For all we know the Blue Jays were like "nope" and that was that. But it's an interesting rumor, and I know I'd really like to know the names of those four young hitters. We know one. We might - we probably - know a second. We can try to guess the others. With Montero and probably Lawrie, we have a better idea of what Zduriencik was looking for.

The Mariners have Jesus Montero. Be happy about that. Maybe the Mariners could've had Brett Lawrie. It looks like the Mariners tried for Brett Lawrie. But the Mariners didn't say no. The Blue Jays said no. So it'd be super great if we didn't have Montero vs. Lawrie subthreads for the next 18 months.

Sometimes I'll see blog entries with headlines like You won't believe what (sexy celebrity) wore! or What (controversial famous person) said to (other famous person). The headlines are deliberately vague in order to compel the reader to click. The headline above isn't intended as one of those headlines. I just wrote it like that because we don't have any real details.

Jerry Crasnick:

The #Mariners are moving closer to a trade for a young impact hitter, two baseball sources confirmed.

It's a "significant trade,'' says one source. And Brandon League is not part of the return package.

What we know:

• The Mariners are trying to trade for a hitter
• It is not an old, non-impact hitter
• Brandon League isn't involved
• The trade isn't insignificant

Now, since I started writing this post, the idea has popped up on Twitter that the Mariners are on the verge of trading Michael Pineda for Jesus Montero. That's presently speculation, but it's also pretty sensible - the Mariners have a wealth of starting pitching, the Yankees have a dearth of quality starting pitching, Montero would be under club control forever, etc etc etc. I don't know what I would think of such a trade just yet, but there you go, for you to think about.

No trade has been made, as far as I know. A trade could happen soon. Happy Friday night! Good luck leaving your computers!

This is basically a throwaway post on a nothing rumor that isn't even a rumor at all, but I'm in kind of a throwaway mood and I'm hungry to the point of being delirious, which has oddly given me a second wind. Jon Heyman!

#orioles, #mariners, #a's among potential players for damon. if balt or sea get him, thatll make it 7 diff. AL teams for jd

This is not Heyman saying the Mariners are interested in free agent Johnny Damon. This is Heyman saying the Mariners could be a fit for Johnny Damon. Different. So, anyway.

The Mariners might still be in the mix for Prince Fielder. I don't know anything about the current state of the sweepstakes, but I don't think the Mariners have dropped out. The Mariners might sign Prince Fielder. Or they might not. In the event that the Mariners don't sign Prince Fielder, some people have wondered where that money might go instead.

Maybe that money doesn't go anywhere. Maybe it goes to one player. Maybe it goes to a few players. Johnny Damon would be a possibility.

I know it sounds weird. Damon is 38 years old. Last year he posted a .743 OPS. The year before that, he posted a .756 OPS. He's no longer much of anything in the field. On the surface, Damon seems like a bad fit.

But he'd really...well he wouldn't be a horrible fit. Damon has spent the last two seasons in home parks that are tough on left-handed hitters. He could split time with Casper Wells, or he could allow Mike Carp to split time with Casper Wells. Damon would take what's currently Trayvon Robinson's roster spot, and while either Damon wouldn't get a full season, Carp wouldn't get a full season, or neither of them would get full seasons, that would be an improvement. Robinson isn't much.

Dave is really big on Will Venable, and I like the Will Venable idea. Venable has a lot more to offer in the field than Damon does, and he's been solid away from Petco's draining grasp. But I don't know what Venable's price might be, and Damon could be rather affordable. He made $5.25 million a year ago, and then he hit .261 while getting a year older. The market's thin. I'm just saying.

I'm not all about Johnny Damon, but if the Mariners don't sign Prince Fielder and still want to spend that money, Damon wouldn't be a disaster. Incidentally, he's represented by Scott Boras, just like Fielder is, so there's that to consider.

To be honest with you I really just wrote this post so I could use that picture.

Hello and welcome to the latest in our series of PRINCE FIELDER WATCHes. I was going to write this PRINCE FIELDER WATCH last night until I didn't because I wanted to exercise instead. Now I am writing this PRINCE FIELDER WATCH...at this writing...even though it's two in the afternoon and I haven't had a bite to eat for like five hours. You know how children get really surly and short-tempered when they're hungry? The same goes for me, except even moreso. The way I figure, I'm bigger than a child, so the magnitude of my bad attitude is bigger than that of a child. Just in case you can't tell I got my college degree in science. And not one of those shit sciences like biology. A science that makes you think. If fields of scientific study were urban food trucks, biology would be a carpet cleaner company van. (They don't have food.)

Has Prince Fielder signed a contract?
No.

Has Prince Fielder signed a contract with the Seattle Mariners?
No.

Is Prince Fielder close to signing a contract?
According to Barry Bloom, whose name reminds me how much I like hiking in August, Fielder will sign with somebody before the start of spring training. At least, that's what Scott Boras says. If Scott Boras is telling the truth, then Fielder is closer to signing a contract than he was the last time we did this. If Scott Boras is not telling the truth because he is Scott Boras, then who the hell knows, maybe Fielder will quit baseball and join a monastery (with a kickass softball team). Fielder has so many options in front of him. Not all of them involve continuing his playing career. Only a very small fraction do!

What does your gut tell you?
That I'm starving. Didn't you read the first paragraph? I'm so hungry I could eat at Arby's somewhere just a little better than Arby's!

What is the latest?
I'm glad* you asked! Yesterday, in the surprise to end all surprises, there were somewhat conflicting reports. One came from Bill Ladson, and the other came from Adam Kilgore.

* not glad

Both Ladson and Kilgore write about the Nationals, which is why they figure so prominently. Ladson led with a sentence stating that there's a "99 percent chance" the Nationals won't sign Fielder. That's a pretty strong sentence. Ladson subsequently softened his lead sentence, saying that the Nationals are only interested in Fielder if his price comes down, which should be obvious. If someone were willing to meet Fielder's current price, he probably would've signed. Ladson passed along word that members of the Nationals organization fear that Fielder could be a DH pretty soon. Not with them, though. Because they don't have the DH. Haha idiots

As for Kilgore, he led with a sentence basically saying "don't mind the Ladson report." A source told him that the Nationals are pursuing Fielder "patiently and aggressively," which are two words that I don't equate with one another. Baseball owners have been meeting in Arizona, and in Arizona, the Nationals' owners met with Scott Boras. Boras is trying to negotiate with ownership, rather than with front offices, so they were presumably meeting about Fielder. The Nationals' owners were not the only owners with whom Boras met.

From all this, per usual, we have learned nothing. One guy told me on Twitter that Peter Gammons said flat-out that Prince Fielder doesn't want to play in Seattle, so take that for whatever it's worth. It's probably worth nothing, but the same could be said of everything else. I think the last report we've had of actual value was Prince Fielder Becomes Free Agent.

The Rangers are supposedly out on Fielder if they sign Yu Darvish. No guarantees. The deadline to sign Darvish is next week. The Rangers will almost certainly sign Yu Darvish. Boras presumably won't allow Fielder to sign until he knows for sure where the Rangers stand. There exists some possibility that Boras gets sufficiently frustrated that he has Fielder sign a one-year contract so as to re-enter the market after the season. This possibility is slim.

Are the Mariners still in the thick of things?
I see no reason to believe otherwise.

There are reports that it could snow in Portland this weekend!
We've all heard that one before. We've all heard that one before. :(

As many of you have already seen - Crasnick:

Two agents say the #Mariners are claiming they only have $3-4 million left to spend on the roster this winter.

According to one of those agents, Prince Fielder-to-Seattle speculation is "extremely overblown.''

This is really pretty simple. Last season, the Mariners had an end-of-year payroll of about $98.1 million. The season before that, it was 93.4 million. The season before that, it was 102.3 million. We've been given no indication that the Mariners are going to lower payroll in 2012. By my calculations, the Mariners currently project to have a 2012 payroll of about 78.2 million.

Give or take a million dollars. Even if you add in some or all of Hisashi Iwakuma and Brendan Ryan's incentives, it doesn't change things. The Mariners aren't limited to another $3-4 million, unless they're in the business of driving fans away faster than they already have, which I can't imagine they are.

If the Mariners are limited to another $3-4 million, which I guess isn't impossible, okay, but people wouldn't respond very well to that. In fact, a lot of them would be pissed off. The Mariners can't afford to piss people off right now. What's more likely is that the Mariners haven't been completely honest with the agents, or that the agents are trying to use the media for some selfish purpose. Baseball's big business. Honesty does not run amok. Honesty sits locked in a trunk in the attic, used when absolutely necessary, and no more often than that.

I don't know how involved the Mariners are in the Prince Fielder sweepstakes. Very few people do. The way they've conducted their offseason suggests that they're very much in the mix, but that's me speculating. Maybe the Mariners get him. Maybe they don't. Whatever the case, I have to believe the Mariners have more available money than these agents suggested. The Mariners can trim payroll, but only if they believe Safeco's seats are painted a magnificent shade of green.

Earlier Saturday, the following passage from MLB Trade Rumors caused something of a stir. In jotting down notes from Buster Olney's latest column:

The team most interested in Fielder -- and most willing to pay big -- is the Mariners. The question is whether or not he wants to play in Seattle.

Wow, that is very interesting! We haven't heard anything like this before. The Mariners might have a better shot than we've thought. Just to confirm, though, I pulled up Olney's original article. The following blockquote comes from behind the Insider pay wall, which I don't like to do, but hopefully nobody minds in this instance. Quote:

Only Fielder's agent, Scott Boras, knows what offers have been made for the first baseman, but the most interested team -- the team most willing to pay big -- might be the Seattle Mariners. Whether Fielder wants to play for the Mariners is a separate question.

And now we see the difference. And there is a huge, huge difference between "might be" and "is". Olney might have been speculating. He stopped short of declaring anything as fact. MLB Trade Rumors took his idea and declared it as fact, which significantly warps the message.

I'm not going to sit here and accuse MLB Trade Rumors of being sloppy. They're constantly pushing new content, and this is an easy mistake to make if you're rushing. But there's a difference between what they reported and what Buster Olney reported, and Olney's was the original report. The Mariners might be the team most committed to signing Prince Fielder. But they also might not be, and so we don't know any more today than we did yesterday, or the day before.

Practically from the very beginning of the offseason, we've heard that Jack Zduriencik and the Seattle Mariners wanted to add a veteran to the starting rotation. Thursday, the team signed Hisashi Iwakuma to a one-year contract. But presumably implicit in the word "veteran" is "Major League veteran", and Iwakuma's only ever pitched in Japan. So it stands to reason that the Mariners haven't shut the door on bringing in another arm. Ken Rosenthal:

Sources: #Cubs, #Orioles, #Mariners, #RedSox on Paul Maholm. #Pirates also in touch, but "highly unlikely" per @Dejan_Kovacevic.

#Mariners, even after signing Iwakuma, open to adding another veteran at right price.

Those things would look so much better without the Twitter formatting, but I'm leaving them as is so you can better appreciate what has become of us as a society. We should be ashamed of ourselves, but there's no one to hold us accountable. Lions could probably hold us accountable, if they were present in greater numbers. Judgmental lions.

So for those of you who have wondered whether Iwakuma means the M's are out on the Maholms and the Millwoods and the Francises of the world, the answer is no. Iwakuma reduces the odds of the M's signing a free agent starter, just because now there's less of a need, but those odds aren't 0%, or anywhere close. The team's fifth starter right now is Blake Beavan or Charlie Furbush. Beavan struck out 42 batters in 97 innings. Furbush allowed 12 homers in 12 starts. It wouldn't be the worst idea in the world to improve on them and give them more time in triple-A.

Plus, signing another free agent starter would give the M's more flexibility to trade Jason Vargas, were they so inclined, and were Vargas to have a market. I don't know if either is true.

It might seem weird for the Mariners to be looking at starters, since they have enough starters, and could really use a bat. But they might not sign another starter, and even if they do, someone could get hurt, or someone could get traded. No one will get blocked. If Danny Hultzen or James Paxton or Erasmo Ramirez or whoever looks ready, the Mariners will make room. That's not something to worry about.

So the Mariners finished with a horrible offense, a year after finishing with a horrible offense. They signed a starting pitcher. They're thinking about signing another starting pitcher. This should be received well by the general audience.