DMZ · June 17, 2003 at 11:02 am · Filed Under Mariners 

It’s a beautiful day here in Seattle, I managed to sneak in a nice bike ride before work, and I’ve got tickets to tonight’s game. So I thought I’d write a happy, balanced piece on everyone’s favorite team’s hot start.

The offense: Boone and Edgar are playing very well, I’m pleased by Cameron and Ichiro, and we’ve gotten decent work out of Guillen (“my breakout season not endorsed by Derek and Jason”). On the flip side, Wilson’s been terrible, and McLemore not much better. If Cirillo keeps hitting, huzzah. Unfortunately, when you look for obvious upgrades, there aren’t many: the M’s have worked their way into a corner, sort of, with their large contracts at C/1b/LF. Only Guillen seems particularly discardable if the team comes across a star shortstop lying around (Alex!).

The pitching: Moyer-Meche have been huge, Franklin’s been pretty good too, Pineiro problematic and Garcia… well, unless this is your first time visiting (and looking at our stats, that’s unlikely), you know all about Garcia. Not a lot of room for upgrades here, either — again, if there’s a star, you’ve got to either give up on Garcia or bump Franklin to the bullpen, neither of which is a particularly good option. On the bullpen side, Carrara has got to go. Matt White is pointless. I’d like to see Soriano used in the Carrara situations, if Melvin insists on having someone fill the “behind by 1-3 runs and saving the other relievers” role, and Carrara given his walking papers. Could use another ace lefty if Melvin’s not going to get over his obsession with L/R matchups — hey, we tailored our bullpen to Piniella’s whims for years, we can indulge Platoon Bob.

Serious needs:

– competent backup middle infielder

– competent backup outfielder

– Carrara, a good length of rope, sturdy tree trunk and some excuse to lure him to Ellensburg so we can tie him to the tree with the rope and force the Mariners to use better relievers

Other than that, I think this is not a team that’s going to make a deadline deal (you’re shocked, I know) unless someone goes down with a season-ending injury. But at the same time, this is a team that would benefit hugely from having someone like Ochoa to fill out the outfield instead of McLemore/Bloomquist, and could also use insurance for Guillen/Boone in the form of someone like… uh… no one comes to mind.

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