| By Jason A. Churchill |  | By 11-01-2011 |
The Seattle Mariners made it official Tuesday, announcing the hiring of Chris Gwynn as the club's new player development director. Pedro Grifol, who previously held the post, will manage the High Desert club in the California league.
I am not aware of any further announcements on that High Desert staff, but as I wrote here, those adjustments may be coming this winter.
Pitching notes
David Aardsma became a free agent Monday after the M's removed him from the 40-man roster. This was not a surprise, since the right-hander had Tommy John surgery this past summer and could miss all of 2012.
Aardsma made $4.5 million last season and was set to his arbitration again. There was obviously no chance the club was going to tender an offer, since the most a player's salary can be cut via the arbitration process is by 20 percent, which means Aardsma would have been assigned a salary of at least $3.6 million -- to not pitch.
Aardsma could re-sign with the M's on a minor league deal with a very low base salary and incentives for appearances, but he can also get that from several other teams.
The M's have plenty of young relief arms for 2012, but it might be nice to add an inexpensive veteran or two. if Charlie Furbush is slated for the rotation, the M's could check the market for a left-hander ...
There are some in the industry that believe GM Jack Zduriencik will strongly consider several of the veteran starters this winter, though more like Jon Garland or Chris Capuano, not Mark Buehrle or C.J. Wilson.
I still believe there is a good chance that Jason Vargas is traded, since he could be due as much as $5 million via arbitration after earning just under $2.5 million in 2011. That's a lot of money for a No. 4 starter with little to zero upside ...
Left-hander Danny Hultzen tossed four shutout innings in his last outing in the Arizona Fall League, allowing two hits and striking out five. He sat 90-93 with his fastball and showed a little bit better slider than he's had up to this point. The changeup has been a weapon, probably since birth.
Hultzen will pitch, though not likely for long, in the AFL Rising Stars Game Saturday night. That game will be televised by the MLB Network.
Catchers
Adam Moore is getting back to form, at least physically, but none of the six scouts I have talked to that have seen him in Arizona see a major league player right now.
"He's just a little off, I'd say," said one scout. "He looks like he's still fighting steps." What he means is that Moore looks slow and old. we have to give Moore a bit of a pass because of the knee surgery, however.
Another scout offered this: "I've been watching him closely because if he's not their guy they have to go get someone."
He's right, if Moore isn't the backup to Miguel Olivo, the M's have to go get someone. There are several backup types on the open market, including Ramon Castro, Gerald Laird, Dioner Navarro, Ivan Rodriguez, Kelly Shoppach, Brian Schneider and Jason Varitek. Chris Snyder is also available after having his option declined by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Varitek is an interesting option, if he'd consider playing in Seattle for a year. I assume he will have other interested clubs, including the Red Sox, maybe, but the guy knows catching, he knows baseball and as a seldom-used backup could be productive, at least as a right-handed batter.
Ryan Doumit has been brought up in Twitter conversations on several occasions the past year or so, and the answer is still the same. He's a well below-average defender and the chances he takes a six-figure or very low seven-figure salary to catch 30 times a year are very slim. He's also not a good defender in the outfielder and not a good enough stick to grab and stick at DH to warrant what it would cost in salary to get him.
And yes, I know he's from Moses Lake and might take a tiny bit less to play in Seattle -- I have zero inside knowledge of that -- but that isn't likely to be enough.
aardsma,-gwynn
Comments
The following 6 comment(s) for this article are shown below:
| 1. By: MarinersArmy on 11-02-2011 01:24:16 Agreed with Vargas, but who would take him? |
| 2. By: jgstecker on 11-02-2011 11:15:57 I'm not opposed to dealing Vargas, per se. But we already need at least one SP this offseason; two if you don't want to trust Furbush or Beavan. He'd have to go for something useful. I'm not sure why another team would want to give up anything special Vargas if they could just sign Bedard, or Capuano, or Maholm, or somebody for less money. |
| 3. By: Edman on 11-02-2011 13:30:40 Agree with jgstecker. Seattle is thin on starting pitching at the major league level. Why would they trade for a higher price option, when they could sign someone as a free agent, for less money and get nearly the same results? I think Vargas stays, at least until Paxton, Walker, Hultzen are ready to assume a spot in the rotation. I don't think they'll have that answer until spring training. |
| 4. By: maqman on 11-02-2011 14:04:24 I hope Vargas does stay. I think the twist he added to his delivery the last three starts this past season actually will make him a better pitcher next season, say from a #5 to a #4. Beavan I believe still has some promise and at 6'7" he adds a couple of perceived MPH to his heater. Furbush doesn't inspire confidence in the rotation for me, so he'll probably win a Cy Young Award. |
| 5. By: Mackie on 11-02-2011 20:11:42 @#3, good points, particularly about spring training. I think it should be quite interesting this time around. From among Felix, Pineda, Vargas, Beavan, Paxton, Hultzen, Furbush and a few others the Mariners ought to be able to put together a pretty good rotation for 2012. I don't think Blake Beavan is a bad pitcher. He is not great, but he could be quite useful as a BOR guy. Seems he has more upside than Vargas does at this point too, although I agree a bit with Maq that Vargas started better near the end of this past season. Having average pitchers like both Vargas and Beavan in the rotation, healthy and eating up innings... is probably not a bad thing, at least for right now. |
| 6. By: StandinPat on 11-03-2011 02:08:23 "Why would they trade for a higher price option, when they could sign someone as a free agent, for less money and get nearly the same results?" 1) Who exactly are these someone's that you're certain are better and cheaper than Vargas? 2) How do you know every other team looking for a starter can simply sign someone? Is there a large number of cheap dependable starters on the free agent market that I'm unaware of? |
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