Note To Lee
Jarrod Washburn confirmed that he was told today that he’s been claimed on waivers. This gives the M’s some amount of time between now and Friday (depending on when he was claimed) to work out a deal with the claiming team or pull him back off waivers.
Mr. Pelekoudas, if Jarrod Washburn is pulled back off waivers and is still wearing a Mariner uniform this weekend, we’re going to riot. You have just been given a gift of freedom from one of the many lousy contracts and players your predecessor stuck this franchise with, and it’s time to just cut bait. Let him go. If you can convince another GM to give you something for him, great, we’ll throw a parade for you, but if you fail to capitalize on this gift, your tenure as a GM will be viewed as a failure.
The Mariners don’t need Jarrod Washburn and shouldn’t want Jarrod Washburn. Ridding Seattle of him and his contract is addition by subtraction, and not having him on the team anymore is more than enough incentive to make the deal.
Jarrod Washburn better not be a Mariner on Friday night. Don’t screw this up.
Well there’s that too.
FWIW:
Jarrod Washburn, SP SEA
News: According to the Seattle Times, Mariners SP Jarrod Washburn has been claimed on waivers by the St. Louis Cardinals. Seattle now has 48 hours to try and work out a deal with St. Louis, otherwise Washburn remains a Mariner.
[this is not a board]
For all those who want the M’s to hang onto Washburn until the winter meetings if the claiming team (Twins or whoever) don’t give us back a prospects, what is the value of a prospect?
There is a 100% chance now that the M’s can clear about $12M in salary owed to Washburn for the rest of this season and next without getting any prospects back.
Say the M’s take him to the winter meetings and trade him for a prospect and are able to dump his full $10M in salary. That means the M’s just spent $2M on a prospect who is probably margainal at best. Can’t the M’s use that money to sign Josh Fields, international prospects, over-slot in next June’s draft, etc.? It’s that a better use of $2M than whatever prospect the M’s will get back for Washburn now?
Then what happens if the M’s can’t find a partner to take his full salary at the Winter meetings? If’ the M’s have to pick up $4M of his salary to get back a prospect, you’re now looking at $6M for that prospect.
And I can’t even imagine what would happen if the M’s couldn’t get him moved.
We have more than enough capable starters to get the M’s through this lost season: Felix, Bedard, Silva, Batista, RRS, Dickey, and maybe – but hopefully not for fear of injury – Morrow. It’s not like keeping Washburn around for the rest of the season has any value for the team.
The worst case scenario here is that the Mariners keep Washburn, but trade Ibanez for magic beans, the other team offers him arbitration, he declines, and then the Mariners re-sign him in the offseason and give up the draft picks to get him! (I don’t think this would happen, but if it did the Mariners would be responsible for a lot of heads exploding.)
La laa la la la la, la la la la la…
That was the sound of my head.
GAAAAHHH–
That was the sound of my head in this dark fantasy.
Don’t let it happen Lee.
I don’t think the M’s would have to give up draft picks. You only give up draft picks if you’re above a certain point in the standings. I’m not sure what the point is, but the M’s are below it. The team losing Ibanez would get compensatory picks, but not the M’s picks.
CMC_Stags 54. Excellent presentation. Thank you.
FWIW, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch repudiated the rumor that the Cardinals are the organization that has claimed Washburn (per today’s on-line edition, stltoday.com). That rumor made no sense to me anyway, as the Cards have at least one and probably more then one young pitcher ready to step in and provide what they’d get from Washburn.
#12
Those supposed anarchists from Eugene were in fact Federal Agents doing their job exceedingly well. Google: Problem, Reaction, Solution.