The Mariners successfully prevented their opponents from scoring in 2012 — just two American League clubs allowed fewer runs. However, no AL team had more trouble generating offense than Seattle, which finished last in the league in scoring. Will the Mariners swap arms for bats, or will moving the fences in at Safeco Field be enough? GM Jack Zduriencik checked in with MLBTR at the 2012 GM Meetings at Indian Wells, California. Here are some highlights…
- The Mariners have lots of young pitching, and they’re not going to rule out the possibility of trading it to strengthen other areas of the team. “You have to keep your options open,” Zduriencik said. “At this stage people are feeling each other out, people are lining their ducks up in a row. All 30 clubs are doing this and everybody has their Christmas list if you will.”
- Zduriencik will consider trades and free agency as the Mariners search for offense. “You never know what’s going to be out there,” the GM said.
- Early on in the offseason, there’s “an awareness” from free agents that the Mariners will be moving the fences in at Safeco Field in 2013. “It certainly becomes a conversation piece and hopefully it helps us.”
Trading guys like Hultzen, Walker, etc. to upgrade the offense just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Keep the pitching, hope guys like Montero and Ackley develop, and grab a couple free agent bats.
Agree unless we can get Justin Upton in trade and add BJ Upton in free agency.
Justin Upton can’t hit outside of Arizona. Saunders hit better than him on the road. Seriously. Making a big trade for him would be a mistake.
Yes on Justin… hell no on BJ! I have no problem trading Hultzen, Paxton, or Walker for a Justing Upton or Troy Tulowitzki or Billy Butler. But I’d only trade one of those guys.
you can’t expect J. Upton with only 1 pitching prospect.
didn’t say just 1 pitching prospect… I said only 1 of the big three. We have plenty of other prospects to sweeten the deal, but we aren’t sweetening it that much.
true.
I think that in order for Towers to move Upton it would have to be one of the 3 plus Nick Franklin and that may not even be enough. And at that price they are better off keeping what they have
“You have to keep your options open.” Okay…so…Felix….He available?
The run prevention was 90% Safeco. It shaved, like, 150 points off visiting teams’ OPS. Felix was their only pitcher who wasn’t a disaster on the road.
It worked the other way too–the Mainers were 8th out of 30 MLB teams in runs scored on the road (ahead of offensive juggernauts like Texas, St Louis and Milwaukee)
You can guarantee Felix will never be traded as long as he’s happy in Seattle.
I sincerely hope your comment about Felix being traded was a joke. If not, please refer to any of the past 50 quotes from Jack Zduriencik on the chances of a Felix trade happening.
No on both uptons. We need veteran prescense and consistency. To me siging nick swisher makes the most sense and trading for josh willingham or alex gordon. i would even go as far as to say signing ryan ludwick or cody ross would be good. We dont need to go all hog wild on one guy weather its signing B.J or hamilton or trading the whole farm for justin. Work in a bigger margin of error
Moving the fences? Whats this mean