A list of current Mariners who are free agents at the end of the season:
David Aardsma: Currently lighting it up in the closing role. Legit sale piece. (Update: Aardsma is not a free agent at year's end. He is, however, still possible trade bait.)
Miguel Batista: Owed money and been merely average out of the pen.
Erik Bedard: Started off excellent, petered out a bit and currently is about to hit the one month mark on the disabled list.
Adrian Beltre: Even with his offense as horrid as it has been, his defense was still stellar and on pace for about 2.5 to 3 wins. He might have still fetched some interest at the deadline. And now he's on the shelf for two months.
Russell Branyan: Awesome. Legit sale piece.
Endy Chavez: Outstanding defense and expected level of offense would have made him a possible package piece to a team valuing outfield defense. Out for the year.
Ken Griffey Jr.: hahaha.
Mike Sweeney: hahaha.
Jarrod Washburn: Shiny ERA! Shiny ERA! Get him quick, other teams. Seriously, he's owed quite a bit of money still and his numbers are starting to slip. Compounding that are some balky back and knee issues. Fantastic.
Losing Beltre and the extended absence of Bedard makes this team much more unlikely to contend, even in the weak AL West. And if this team tanks over this difficult stretch of schedule and the front office decides to sell off their short term assets, they are now left with just a few pieces, Aardsma and Branyan, that might fetch much of anything somewhat valuable back in return.
Buy or sell was an interesting discussion a few weeks ago. Now it looks like the team is unlikely to be in position to do either. Well played, Scrappy. Well played.