Here is our take on Luke French.

Mariner Central's reaction to the trade is eerily insightful.

And Geoff Baker, as so often, was one of the first to put his finger on the key factor in the deal.

Cheers,

Dr D

Just as we come down to the last 24 hours, we suddenly hear that the surf for Washburn is rippin'.  At Seattle Sports Insider we say, 1 Yankee is tempting, 2 is a go, 3 is silly.  But Jack's trying to do even better.

Just for fun, here is a 3+ year old POTD on Dellin Betances, who according to Jon Heyman could be a Mariner if we'd sign on the dotted line.  (No, I'm not trying to sell him as the next Joba Chamberlain.)

Here is a pre-TJ report on Andrew Brackman, to give the flavor of what two-three Yankee spects might go.  (Wouldn't be surprised if "otherwise take your pick" meant, pick one.  But we'll see.)

Jason twittered that in Poythress' first two AB's at Peoria, he walked and doubled.  I remember Matt Tuiasosopo going bananas in his first couple weeks, then laboring for a few years, before re-emerging as a blue-chipper.

Among the offensive players available Friday are Nick Johnson, Scott Rolen, and … Adrian Gonzalez?! Don't know if Branyan's back could take it, but Gonzalez and Branyan at the corners (or even at 1B and DH) and suddenly you have an offense.

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SSI loves the win-now attitude, and is excited about the Meche-age.   Geoff Baker's instincts on the deal mirror ours, which has got to be a disquieting thought for him.

Right now we are talking about the upgrade that Jack Wilson gives us over Ronny Cedeno's 2009.

Had Bill Bavasi made this trade, the point of reference would have been Jack Wilson vs. an RLP 2009.

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Mariner Central has the usual Think Tank-style synergy going, led by G-Money.

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At SSI, we marvel at Felix' improv.  The boy has soul in his game.

Jason Churchill on Twitter, whatever that is :- ) says that a scouting friend expects the M's to add a bat and to subtract a starting pitcher. 

Makes sense.  Jason Vargas' 3.81 ERA is lower than that of any AL team other than Seattle, and Minnesota, for example, has only one SP (Blackburn) running an ERA within a full run of Vargas'.

There's no cheering in the press box in cyber-Seattle, but after we're past the "more objective than thou" checkpoint, it's easy to imagine SOME General Manager believing that Jason Vargas could help him.  And a lot.

If Capt Jack parlays Vargas' hot streak into something long-term, then the JJ Putz deal will cascade into some genuinely extra-class GM'ing.  Not that it hasn't already, we say…

At SSI we offer full disclosure:  I'm not a food critic — I just play one on the internet.

At Mariner Central, Pirata Morado quantified the "excitingness" of the Mariners' games this year and found that they're extremely exciting.  :- )   EA's comeback is a classic!

Lower-scoring games will do that for you, of course.  In the logical extreme, a ballclub that scored 82 runs and yielded 82 runs in a full season, max 1 run per game, would have each game hanging on every swing.

Capt Jack's 2-1 games do have the merit of teaching the players to bear down on each pitch.

Cheers,

Dr D

Just for fun, at SSI we post our own argument the the M's should be in the Halladay derby.  No, we don't expect that they will be, and no, we don't expect that anybody else will recommend they be.

Many times, we believe that Rotisserie roster management is key to perceiving the benefits that go along with a Stars & Scrubs orientation.  To me the VORP/$ paradigm is simplistic; the real-life 25-man roster is fluid and dynamic.  You're trying to position yourself to take advantage of the fungibility of low-paid roster spots — and to do that, you need to spend money disproportionately at the top of the roster.

As well, I'd like to see the Angels' faces if the M's rolled out Felix, Bedard, and Doc in a September showdown :- )

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At Mariner Central, they were quick to sniff out a weird situation with Yuniesky Betancourt.  If Frenchy gets Silva'ed, it's one more sign that the Mariners mean business about changing the culture and chemistry.  Standing O, boys.

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At SSI, we wonder what Branyan's terrifying HR distances mean for his HR totals over the next several years.

They don't even talk distance with Branyan.  They talk "hang time."  I wonder what the distance on Branyan's HR Thursday was, if you measured it along the trajectory rather than along the ground?!

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Mariner Central has a thread on Aroldis Chapman.  ESPN's baseball analysts are in all seriousness, calling this guy "the left-handed Stephen Strasburg," simply because he's *reportedly* been clocked at 100-101 mph on occasion.

Not hardly.  Stephen Strasburg's stats in Cuba, given fair umping, would have been about what they were in college.  Chapman's stats are run-of-the-mill there.

Hey, kiddies.  There are pitchers who hit 100.  That is NOT what makes Stephen Strasburg who he is.  Neither D-O-V nor the baseball world are going off Strasburg's sheer velocity when we swoon away over him.

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