Roster looks to have been finalised.
The team is going with a 6 man bullpen and a 5 man bench, which is neat. Let's find out who made it.
Pen: Putz, EOF, Green, Lowe, RRS, Baek.
Not in the pen: Morrow, Dickey, Rhodes, Reitsma, Anderson Garcia.
R.A. Dickey loses out to Baek's option status, but remains in the organisation as the Mariners traded C Jair Fernandez (i.e. a warm body) to the Twins for the rights to his contract. He'll start the year in Tacoma.
I had completely forgotten that we'd acquired Anderson Garcia. So had the Mariners.
Morrow, as many of you know, will begin the year in AA West Tennessee. As far as I can make out he'll be relieving there as he'll be on a throwing program that will see him pitch in back-to-back games. Yes, that is indeed hilarious. Hahahahahafuck.
Lowe's the one filling in for him as our right-handed setup guy, and as long as he's fully healthy (and he's looked it) he should be awesome.
On to the bench...
Bench: Bloomquist, Cairo, Burke, Morse, Jimerson(?!)
Not on the Bench: Norton, anyone useful.
Riiiiiiight. So the big news of today is that Mike Morse will be platooning with Wilkerson in right field. Some of you appear to be happy about this. Three things, however, make this arrangement suboptimal.
1) Brad Wilkerson doesn't need platooning. Seriously. Go look at his splits. Raul Ibanez needs platooning, but we're not going to platoon our #3 hitter because that's how we roll. Awesome.
2) Our outfield defense was a problem last year. Removing Guillen for Wilkerson was a small, but significant, defensive upgrade. One which is completely negated by running Mike Morse out there every time this team faces a left handed starting pitcher. This team is so incompetent at evaluating defense that it beggars belief.
3) Mike Morse is not a good hitter. His career OPS in the minor leagues is .720 over the course of 8 years. The Mariners are gambling that 2007 represents Morse's true talent level. Um.
Bloomquist and Burke were always locks, Cairo gets in because he does a Bloomquist impression, only older and worse. No surprise there.
Jimerson makes the bench over Norton, because the Mariners value... uh. Not having a left handed power bat on the bench I DON'T KNOW.
NB: It's been pointed out in the comments, and I totally agree, that Jimerson (who is out of options) makes at least some sense, whereas Cairo makes none. But seriously, was anyone ever expecting them to ditch Miguel Cairo?
Bullpen Summary: Not too bad. I'd have liked to see Dickey there, but that's mainly because I love watching knuckleballers, and at least we kept him in the organisation. Injury worries aside, this is a pretty strong unit.
Bench Summary: What in the name of all that's holy is wrong with John McLaren's brain?
Matthew's Note: There were three players on the Mariners roster entering this Spring who were out of options: Mike Morse, Cha Seung Baek and Charlton Jimerson. The Mariners don't care about defense, but they clearly care about this.