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The trade deadline is a silly exercise. All day long I tracked the rumors, dinking around on Twitter. I made jokes, spit some snark, speculated, guessed, waited. Laughed at the Royals. Listened to the words "Bud Norris" in succession a thousand times. Being a fan makes us do stupid things, including an expectation that real rumors will leak from this front office, who has time and time again made moves with no warning at all.
Now it's over, and Mariners decided not to do a thing. Despite many rumors about Oliver Perez, Mike Morse, Joe Saunders and Tom Wilhelmsen, the Mariners stood their ground. I don't really think it's a statement that the M's are still planning to go for it in 2013, it's more likely they just didn't feel any of the offers were worth taking.
It's not a total shock. The Mariners had plenty to offer, but not very much to ask for in return. All the expiring contracts weren't likely to bring something of significant value back, and the Mariners chose to hold for now instead of sell for questionable returns. Bet on mentoring, a culture of winning, a happy clubhouse. Frustrating things that might exist, but we can't quantify. We can't quantify what goes on in the clubhouse. Maybe Oliver Perez puts a fun size Snickers on Nick Franklin's locker every day and Franklin can't play without it. Shrugs.
The season is still far from over, and perhaps it's better that the Mariners hold onto some of these chips until August, when they can attempt to complete some waiver trades. There's obvious risk in waiting to trade later and the returns are usually a lot worse, but perhaps somebody will get hurt and a pressing need will arise.
So there's no shiny new prospects to profile, no mistakes to lament, no second guessing to be done, and no praise to be heaped. There's only the probably slew of misguided assumptions about things we can't possibly know. There's no way to know what was on the table, who was available, and what fell through.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little surprised that at the very least Oliver Perez wasn't moved, given that he will likely price himself out of the Mariners future starting this offseason. But the Snickers.
The trading season isn't entirely over, but...exhale.
