Also, you’ll note it’s not a 25-man depth chart, nor is it intended as such, and attempts to call out where uncertainty still exists.

But I am still not sure. Even if we had 26, we still have very little starting pitching (having a disinterested Lee for ONE YEAR! does not make a contender), no first baseman, a catcher who can not hit or throw anyone out at second (you seriously think Moore is going to start?), a left handed DH who hits in the .210′s and was given a raise!, and who “WAK” will insist bats 4th, (a GREAT use of talent was to have Branyan hit 2nd!), and a left fielder who is not certain that he is from earth! Gee, I wonder why the Angels are laughing.

This roster (as it stands) is BARELY better than last year’s! Before passing out praise to “Dr. Genious”, we may want to actually correct a few of the problems from last year. Very little starting pitching would be a start. So what does “Dr.Z” do? Trade one of the few peices that we actually have at SP with HUGE upside! Absolute “Genious”!

I have to end this now. I have to run outside and put up a statue!

I’m not so sure. The Mariners, Angels and Rangers are probably going to end up all mid-to-high 80 win teams on true talent (an assessment of pre-Bradley/League gets them to 84, and I think Bradley at DH and League probably gets them about tied with the Angels), and injuries/breakouts/fallbacks/luck are so random and unforeseeable that I don’t think any one team is head-and-shoulders over the rest, given that.

Adding a 2-2.5 WAR 1B to replace Carp would help push the team past the Angels in terms of true talent, as well as add some hitting depth to the organization. At this point, I think wanting Carp to demonstrate he’s one of the SUPERIOR hitters at AAA is fairly justified, not just able to hit there.

Case in point:

Mike Carp in AAA: .271/.372/.446
Jeff Clement in AAA: .279/.368/.492
Jeremy Reed in AAA: .301/.364/.458
Jose Lopez in AAA: .304/.347/.505

And just for fun,

Michael Saunders in AAA: .292/.359/.504

If Snell doesn’t, in all seriousness, wouldn’t this season be the season to go with a 4-man rotation, Felix/Lee/RRS/the best of the rest, rather than running out the second best of the rest every 5 days? It does cost us the opportunity to chant “Fister, Fister, Fister!” every 5 days in public, but I’d rather win the division and chant privately.

What does everyone make of the comment that Jack Z said today? Zduriencik said he’d envisioned Morrow competing for a fifth-starter role this spring with pitchers like Garrett Olson, Jason Vargas and Doug Fister. Wow I think that sums up what Big Z thought of Morrow and why he traded him.

Ouch – I hadn’t heard that.

I think that tracks with some of the observations from mid-late last season, when Morrow had been sent to Tacoma largely to take in the aroma pick up AAA groupies develop his changeup, and either couldn’t or hadn’t.

Without a changeup, Morrow is a reliever, because he can’t throw Mach 2 with his hair on fire for 200 innings a year.

Do others concur?