U.S.S. Mariner

This isn’t going to show up in the local dailies, and no one in town is going to care, but the M’s have signed a pitcher who has a legitimate chance to help them in 2007.
Justin Lehr.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking - he’s 29 and has a career 5.31 ERA [...]

Two names are on the Hall of Fame ballot this year that have sparked controversy:
Mark McGwire
Jose Canseco
There’s already a media frenzy over McGwire: ESPN’s running an article on their baseball page that says “Time Will Tell” and has an article on how a survey of voters says many won’t voter for McGwire. Jayson Stark’s article [...]

(hah!)
The Blue Jays “rolled out the red carpet” for Gil Meche.
Nick Lachey has joined the Tacoma Rainiers ownership group. I’m not sure why everyone wants us to post about this, but let it never be said we’re not about customer service.
Return of Freddy
The good:
Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi said Tuesday, “I wouldn’t say we’re close” [...]

ESPN purports posted pitcher to put on pinstripes.
And you thought Daisuke’s bid was high. Remaining options for the M’s include…uh… yeagh.

A random sketch of how this off-season remains to be played out, presuming the M’s have about $20m in free agent money to work with this year. Because what with the sun out, I figured you might not be depressed enough.
C-R - Kenji Johjima
1B-R RICHIE SEXSON!
2B-R Jose Lopez
SS-R Yuniesky Betancourt
3B-R Adrian Beltre
LF/DH-L Raul Ibanez
LF/DH-L Luis [...]

Not surprisingly, the bargain of the offseason so far belongs to Mark Shapiro and the Cleveland Indians, also known as The Best Run Organization In Baseball.
The Indians signed David Dellucci to a 3 year, $12 million contract. Dellucci isn’t anyone’s savior, but he’s a very effective LH bat with across the board [...]

Well, he owes us big time for the crap he pulled while he was Mariner GM, but this is a decent first step towards making it up to the Mariners. The Phillies have agreed to a deal with Adam Eaton for 3 years and $24 million.
This takes a local white kid off [...]

Buster Olney at ESPN reports on the talks for Manny Ramirez. The M’s aren’t involved because.. I don’t know. They want to block Snelling with someone horrible to make me even more miserable.
Who’s in the bidding?
• The San Francisco Giants, who might have to involve a third team to become a serious player in this [...]

If you’re still on the fence about whether this offseason is proving that a few major league GMs are just terrible at their jobs or if this is some kind of market correction where players are getting paid what they’re worth, well, the Danys Baez signing should pretty much end that discussion.
Take a [...]

I’m not sure how many readers of this site collect or collected sports cards. Whether that number includes you or not, though, I’ll wager that you may find something entertaining at the Collecting Ichiro site, which documents many of the Ichiro cards made available from 1993-2003.
Besides the photo of a young Ichiro holding up autographed [...]