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Garcia agrees to contract with Seattle

Updated: December 20, 2003, 11:32 PM ET

SEATTLE -- The Seattle Mariners agreed to a $6,875,000, one-year contract with right-hander Freddy Garcia on Saturday night, retaining the services of the workhorse of one of baseball's best rotations.

Garcia has been the subject of trade talks going back into the season.

"As of today, he'd be in the rotation and an important part of the rotation, but I'm not afraid to move anybody to improve the club," general manager Bill Bavasi said. "By our signing, this signals that this guy is pretty darn important."

The team faced a Saturday 9 p.m. deadline for offering the 27-year-old Garcia a contract. If Seattle didn't offer a contract, he would have become a free agent, and if he remained on the roster as an unsigned player, the two-time All-Star would have been eligible for salary arbitration.

Garcia also made $6,875,000 this year after winning in arbitration.

The Mariners also offered contracts to several others, including right-handers Gil Meche and Joel Piniero and catcher Ben Davis.

"All of our players are reserved in one way or another," Bavasi said.

Garcia has averaged 220 innings over the past three seasons, and over his five-year major league career he has a 72-43 record and 3.97 ERA. At his best, he's one of the top pitchers in baseball.

The Mariners need offense at the plate, and a trade involving Garcia was something they considered for months. However, Bavasi said it became difficult to negotiate any deals as Saturday's deadline approached.

Teams indicated to the Mariners they preferred to wait and see if they could land Garcia as a free agent, should be not receive a contract offer.

"The ability to trade him was destroyed by that, but that's OK," Bavasi said. "I don't say that with a complaint."

Agent Peter Greenberg, who represents Garcia, said it was clear during negotiations what direction the Mariners were going.

"They told us they weren't going to pay the same salary," he said. "We said we wouldn't take a pay cut and were looking for a modest increase."

Bavasi said Garcia showed little interest in multiyear offers, planning instead on having a good season and then testing his value as a free agent.

Bavasi said the front office considered making Garcia a non-tender and then trying to negotiate with him as a free agent, but team officials weren't confident they could bring a player of Garcia's caliber back.

Nor did they believe any of their minor-league pitchers could replace him immediately.

"We just kept coming back to same spot, which was, `We're better off letting these kids develop further. We're better off keeping our horse," Bavasi said.

Garcia's inconsistency has been maddening for the Mariners. Garcia slumped to a 12-14 record with a 4.51 ERA last season after going 18-6 in 2001 and 16-10 in 2002.

In May, he lost three straight starts, with his ERA climbing to 5.90. He then rebounded to allow only two runs over a span of 24 1-3 innings, a 0.74 ERA. Then in July and August, he went 0-6 with a 10.03 ERA -- the longest losing streak of his career.

In 2002, Garcia went 11-5 with a 3.44 ERA before making his second trip to the All-Star game, then 5-5 with a 5.66 ERA in the second half.

"When you talk about erratic, it's not that one night he's got stuff and another night he doesn't," Bavasi said. "He's always got stuff. It's just a matter of getting a handle on it."

Bavasi said team officials think highly of pitching coach Bryan Price and believe he can help Garcia.

"We're going to bet that this kid will bounce back and do what he is capable of doing," Bavasi said.

Garcia has been Seattle's opening-day starter for the past three years. He joined the Mariners along with John Halama in the October 1998 trade that sent Randy Johnson to Houston.

Meche went 15-13 last season, becoming the first pitcher since Whitey Ford in 1953 to win 15 games after missing the two previous seasons.

He spent two years in the majors after a July 1999 callup at age 20, then had two shoulder operations made him miss the 2001 season. He spent the 2002 season in the minors.

Piniero is coming off a 16-11 season that included an eight-game winning streak in June and July. He set career highs with 16 wins, 211.2 innings, 151 strikeouts, 32 starts, three complete games and two shutouts.

Davis backed up catcher Dan Wilson, hitting .236 in 80 games with six home runs and 42 RBIss.

This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index

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