I watched the Sunday pregame show, and Melvin didn’t us “we” when he spoke of the Mariners future. He called it “the organization”. So maybe he doesn’t have any better hunch than we do, but it was interesting.

A couple weeks ago, I was sure he’d get canned, but now I’m wavering a little. That’s probably because I’m afraid of who they’ll bring in next.

I’m basically split on this issue. I think clubhouse chemistry is overrated and agree that the M’s need to look more at on-field talent and less at general niceness, but I also agree that some people just aren’t worth the trouble. Carl Everett is certainly one of those. Is Jose Guillen? I’m not sure, but it seems like a real possibility. He’s now been dumped by Pittsburgh, Cincinatti, Tampa Bay, Arizona, Oakland, and Anaheim in the last 5 seasons. Six clubs in five years have decided he’s not worth keeping around. I think the smoke/fire analogy just may apply with Guillen.

Also, as much as we have bagged on Randy Winn’s defense this year, I think we may need to writeup a post on his improvement throughout the year. Derek and I have commented to each other several times that Winn has gotten quite a bit better defensively as the year has gone on. Yes, he’s still a left fielder playing out of position with a noodle for an arm, but he has more defensive value than Guillen, and most every other corner outfielder, for that matter.

In other words, I’d happily sign a Manny Ramirez, or Barry Bonds, or Roger Clemens, or even a Milton Bradley, but I wouldn’t want a Carl Everett or John Rocker or (going way back) Jimmy Piersall.

And of course I’m just using them as examples, not suggesting that any of them are actually candidates. Except maybe Piersall.

You don’t always get those choices. It’s an imperfect world. If we had done that last offseason, that would have been, what, 40 million? We would have had to have dropkicked Edgar, non-tendered Garcia and Winn, not bothered with Eddie, and our pen and rotation would have been a shambles all year long- though we would have scored some runs. We’d be Baltimore and limping along with 70 wins instead of 60.

And the fact is we HAD the choice to keep Carlos on the team, at 2.5 million…and punted it because we wanted more “character”.

Actually, I don’t disagree with you … I just like any “Confederacy of Dunces” reference. Which is as good a title as any for a future book at the 2004 Mariners.

The fit he threw at Eric Wedge was the final reason he got dumped and I think Wedge qualifies as “on his team”.
Plus, the way it is portrayed, is that he was an jerk to EVERYONE.

The reason why you “bother” is because if you don’t, it means you end up with Ibanez, Wilson, Bloomquist and Aurilia and 60 wins, because you’re never willing to deal with anyone who isn’t a model citizen. You simply don’t always get the chance to have 25 Frank Merriwells on your roster. There are plenty of bad teams with nice guys on them. Concentrate on talent. Does that mean you go out of your way to get assholes? Not unless there’s some reward to it- but Bradley and Guillen are both better players than Winn or Ibanez, and our unwillingness to consider talent, if there’s a HINT that the player attached might not be a Boy Scout who has milk and cookies every night, has hurt the team (see: Guillen, Carlos).