And we’re off

By Shannon Drayer

Well that didn’t take long. Mike Napoli, off the board.

Napoli has agreed to a three-year, $39 million deal with the Boston Red Sox. So there you have it. It most likely would have taken four years to get Napoli and that apparently is not something Jack Zduriencik wanted to do. This is probably a good thing.

While I did like the bat, the chance for significant decline over a longer contract was there. I wasn’t too crazy about the juggling of positions long term either. The Mariners need a catcher, but not for long. Mike Zunino is coming.

I believe the Mariners were looking at Napoli mostly as a bat. The ideal situation would be to find a guy who could catch and play all over, I was told late in the season. More of a Ryan Doumit or Chris Gimenez type. They weren’t looking to make a big splash at that position. They don’t need to.

A bat has come off the market but it was a bat that would be a less than ideal fit.

To answer a couple of questions from the previous post …

Stevil wrote: Do you think players like Liddi, Carp, and Triunfel are likely to get dealt? Has there been any word on the likeliness of their chances with the Mariners next season?

With Mike Carp being out of options I think there is a good chance he could be dealt, either like Travyon Robinson was, one for one, or being included in a package. With Liddi and Triunfel I don’t think either would be the main target for another club but again, I could see them as part of a package in a trade. Gut feeling is one of the three will be traded.

eleman09 wrote: can’t see the entire Big 3 being made available. That is, of course, unless we get a major haul coming our way in return and even that may require either multiple trades or multiple teams involved in the same trade. I could see one, maybe even two, of those guys traded if it means we get an established bat in return, but not all three.

The 3 are available but as you said, it would be hard to imagine all three being traded this offseason.

clevesside wrote: Every season, without vets for trade bait…do we give up the future now, or later? Shades of Bavasi!

You are on to something here actually. Something that has been overlooked in all this trade-the-prospects talk, and to be clear, they have more now than they did under Bavasi so they can afford to trade some, but something that needs to be taken into consideration here is how much more value could they have next year? How much are you giving up if you make a move now? Impossible to tell but you have to try and find a value and weigh that along with everything else.