The Mariners rake in revenue and can sustain nine-figure payrolls without much strain.

Problem is, when so much of it is devoted to slop – Ichiro, Adrian Beltre, Silva, Washburn, Batista and Johjima will make a combined $67.35 million this season – it handcuffs Zduriencik.

But maybe big Z knows something we don’t?

I’m hoping that Z is just waiting for the rest of the teams to fill their LF and DH slots and see who is left in the cold of the Dunn, Ramirez, Burrell, and Abreau camp and then get them for a cheap 1 or 2 year deal.

2. SS and 2B makeover. While Amezaga gives us some quality IF fielding, the problem is pretty deep with both Betancourt and Lopez needing to be replaced.

I agree with you on Yuni. He’s well below average defensively as a SS while being below average offensively as well. While a move to 2B would make him look better defensively versus his new peer group, he still doesn’t hit enough. He’s also probably finished maturing as a player and what we now see is what we’re likely to keep seeing for the next few years. He turns 27 this month.

On the other hand, Jose is fine. He’s at or just below league average with the glove while being a league average or above hitter. He’s also just turned 25 last month. For perspective:

Jose Lopez is…
95 days younger than Jeff Clement
125 days younger than Rob Johnson
269 days younger than Tug Hulett
276 days younger than Franklin Gutierrez

I think most people here think that all of the above players still have room to grow and improve as players as they are still young. Why don’t we afford Jose the same growth potential?

Also, though I know it’s Winter League, Jose is tearing it up, .349/.427/.596 with 13 Walks to 12 Ks.

1. There are 17 names on it. Assuming a 12 man pitching staff, that leaves room for only 13. So 4 names have to go. Hulett and Burke seem most likely to start the season in Tacoma. If you add Johnson, then Shelton seems destined for Tacoma, since otherwise you’d have 3 first basemen (4 if you count Lopez). Similarly, if you add Amezaga, then either Balentien or Morse probably won’t be on the roster.

2. SS and 2B makeover. While Amezaga gives us some quality IF fielding, the problem is pretty deep with both Betancourt and Lopez needing to be replaced. Adding yet another first baseman makes the position crowded even if Shelton does start in Tacoma.

In any case, how do we know what the M’s are or are not interested in? The lack of rumors doesn’t mean anything, since the national press is all agog at the Yankees and the local press has other things to do. Plus it’s the holidays and bowl week and all that. This time a year a lot of front offices are like ducks in a current, not appearing to be doing much on the surface but paddling like crazy underneath (and often not getting anywhere).

Of course, that’s a great reason to go to the USSM event in a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t expect to get a question about a particular FA answered directly (unless he’s signed by then) but I’d hope we’d get a pretty good sense of the philosophy the FO is using to (re)build the team — from which we can infer which players they might be more or less interested in going forward.

But maybe big Z knows something we don’t?

It would be a fun little exercise to build the same roster using the other projection methods to see how it turns out.

Actually, that would be a really cool feature for Fangraphs: the Rosterbation page, where you pick players to fill out the positions on a team and it does the rest of the calculations for you.

Sign Barry Bonds. Heck, I bet he’d take an NRI at this point. We have a DH slot for him.