Not saying it’s a bad idea (I don’t know much about his skills), just that the M’s are surely looking at a different type of player (read: older).

Yeah, that’s the “boat anchors/organizational philosophy” part of my post. Realistically, ditching Sexson for a ham sandwich, picking up Jenkins as an OF, pushing Vidro to the bench and Raul to 1B/DH and sitting against a lot of lefties, fixes most of it… and you forgot Yuni and Johjima, who certainly aren’t BAD players, and you can make a case they are average to above average for their position, if not really All-Star worthy (I could see one of them having a fluke AS year, but it’d be a career year).

The problem with the M’s roster being cluttered with crap wouldn’t be that hard to solve this offseason, given competent management that understood the value of replacement-level talent and could make proper player personnel evaluations. I think it would be tricky, but not impossible, if we had Chris Antonetti or someone like him in here.

The problem isn’t just that the Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers and Indians have less problems to solve; it’s that the Mariners can’t even accurately identify the problems on the roster, so they decide they are an 88 win team just like the Tigers, and all they need is two starting pitchers and for Richie to bounce back, while ignoring the facts that they have a roster cluttered with DHs and that they could improve the team far more efficiently by emphasizing defense and less expensive pitching (Tampa Bay says “Hi, remember us?”).

Given that we have the GM we have and not the GM we want, I GUESS you could say “let him blow it all up”, but given Bavasi’s track record in trades, I don’t think we should think it’s a slam dunk he could do a good job of blowing the team up and laying a foundation for 2009 or later- the sum total of the Guillen, Garcia, Winn, Villone, Moyer, Doyle, and Soriano trades is basically a crippled DH and some marginal and failed prospects. Granted, some of that’s plain bad luck, and a fair chunk of those trades were perfectly defensible… but I could easily see Bavasi’s replacement heading into 2009 and being WORSE off (in terms of talent being ready for the 25 man roster) than Bavasi is heading into 2008. I think I’d rather see him sign Kuroda and Jenkins and hope that he gets lucky at the craps table (and figure if he doesn’t, we get Antonetti in 2009) than watch him dismember the roster and hope he gets better magic beans this time.

The M’s need about 3-4 more all-stars because they’ve got so much crap on their roster that they have to overcompensate for.

SEA All Star Types: Ichiro, Jones, Putz, Beltre, King Felix

Of course, I think we should be properly skeptical that Jones is going to be THAT good next year- plus if you swap Jones for Bedard, you don’t get Jones as a potential All-Star, though you could probably argue Bedard has a better shot at an All-Star game than Jones in 2008 (Jones is probably the better bet for 2009-on, though).

But the chasm doesn’t seem to be a 3-4 player gap; more like a 1-2 player gap if Felix starts performing to his potential, plus the fact that the Mariners have some serious boat anchors in the field (Ibanez, Sexson) and at the plate (Lopez, Sexson) and problems with organizational philosophy.