With the most recent trade of infielder Mike Morse for Washington Nationals outfielder Ryan Langerhans, the question still remains: are the Mariners going to make a push this season or sell off talent to compete next year?
According to Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus, Adrian Beltre has been in the rumor mill all year, but since he'll be going under the knife and won't be playing again until likely after the trade deadline passes, the market on him might be closed.
Of course, Beltre said he hopes to come back to a Mariners team in the midst of a playoff run. With other possible trade targets, namely Erik Bedard, it has to be a question whether the M's will be buyers or sellers.
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Adding to that, if the Mariners plan to trade Bedard, they need to show other teams he has overcome his shoulder problems. That is getting more difficult since the date of his return to the rotation remains uncertain.
Should we pity the Seattle Mariners or envy them? They're two games over .500 but also only 2.5 games out of first place in the American League West. Operating in year one under new management with GM Jack Zduriencik on down, the franchise might actually already be in a position to cash in on the promises that Bill Bavasi's old regime couldn't keep.
Or it might only be a mediocre team in a mediocre division, fighting for the right to be squashed in October by the AL's heavyweights in the East. So Zduriencik and company are left pondering the question posed by existential philosopher Mick Jones: Should I stay or should I go?
Record under the sabermetric microscope
There isn't a lot of joy to be found in assessing the Mariners' record on the sabermetric side of the proposition. They're 37-35 as is, and a straight Pythagorean translation on the basis of their runs scored and allowed gets you to a less-happy 34-38
Take things up a notch and adjust their record on the basis of what they've done and who they've played where -- or what BP's Clay Davenport has termed as "third-order wins" -- gets us to a team that's been good enough to go 36-36.
A 19-13 record in one-run games suggests they've been moderately lucky. Good pitching helps create some of that luck, however.
Seattle boasts the best rotation in the league, having posted a .543 support-neutral winning percentage, and the bullpen trails only Boston's in fair runs allowed (at 3.87) while relying on relative no-names like David Aardsma and Sean White.
Installed in-season as the team's closer, the well-traveled Aardsma has delivered the best relief performance in all of baseball.
Improving the lineup
Adrian Beltre might look good with the Green Monster behind him. We're just saying...
That much good stuff ought to mean a better record than near-.500, but fielding one of the league's worst lineups -- posting a collective .249 Equivalent Average, 11th in the AL -- means that they've got an equally obvious handicap.
Dealing with the now-predictable weak performances from Jose Lopez and Yuniesky Betancourt up the middle, tepid contributions from Ken Griffey Jr., Endy Chavez and Wladimir Balentien from the left-field and DH slots, and horrifically weak contributions from their collection of catchers, they've needed every little bit of offense they've gotten from Russell Branyan's flirtation with slugging .600 and Ichiro Suzuki doing his usual thing.
Fixing an offense by adding an outfield bat can be easier to do than fixing a pitching staff, but are the Mariners' odds so good that Zduriencik can go shopping?
Here again, the answer's not exactly easy, as the Mariners have less than a 20-percent shot at winding up in the playoffs according to both our Plain Jane and our PECOTA-enhanced Playoff Odds Reports.
Add this in: Some of the best commodities on their roster will never be more valuable in trade than they are right now as the deadline approaches.
The trade pieces
Starting pitchers Erik Bedard and Jarrod Washburn and third baseman Adrian Beltre will all be free agents after the season. While all could bring a possible slew of early round draft picks that might help a player development impresario like Zduriencik start recasting the Mariners into a shape more to his liking, they also represent considerable value in trades that might bring more advanced prospects into the organization than whatever they will get out of the draft in 2010.
Beltre, while a brilliant defender, is not the offensive centerpiece he appeared to be in 2004, when he gave the Dodgers a .332 EqA. Delivering a .254 EqA at present isn't pimping his value any.
Oft-injured Bedard can be an ace-worthy hurler, but everyone knows to expect the unexpected where his availability is concerned.
Although he's due back from the DL in time to start on the Fourth of July, that gives the organization just a few short weeks -- interrupted by the All-Star break -- to decide whether to fish or cut bait with the unpredictable lefty.
Put all of that together, and I'd argue that the Mariners would be best off going for it. As much as buyers have outnumbered sellers at the July deadline thanks to the addition of the wild card, it's increasingly rare to pull off deals as impressive as the one the Rangers did with the Braves in 2007 for Mark Teixeira.
Teams prefer to hold onto their best prospects, and in this economy, teams that might be willing to add salary are few indeed.
As canny a judge of talent as Zduriencik is -- he had a record of scoring major successes on draft day for the Brewers -- giving him a shot at making multiple first-round picks (to replace departed free agents) stands a better chance of success than it does for most organizations.
Here's the thing
With Washburn and Bedard backing up King Felix in the rotation, the team has a front three who all rank among the best 20 or so starters in baseball in Support-Neutral Winning Percentage.
That's a platform you can win with now and maybe stand a better-than-hopeless shot in a short series in October, but you have to get them runs. To that end, getting the Indians' Mark DeRosa, a utility supersub who can play anywhere every day, would go far toward giving the Mariners a correct choice for their multiple-guess lineup problems.
Dealing for a free agent-to-be or an arbitration-eligible outfielder -- say, the A's Matt Holliday, or the White Sox's Jermaine Dye, or ringing up the talent-hungry Nationals to see if any of their extra outfielders are in play, especially Josh Willingham -- would be worthwhile.
Maybe a deal with the Nats can involve Ronnie Belliard, letting the former postseason hero get one last shot at some glory before following through on a threat to retire, while also giving the Mariners an infielder who did some good slugging before being banished to the bench.
Regardless, it's a way to make an even better first impression on a disheartened fan base in year one of the Zduriencik Era in Seattle. Let's see if they go for it.
Reach Josh Stilts at nextseasonsports@gmail.com
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