Buy, Sell or Stand Pat

It’s easy to get the impression that GM Jack Zduriencik wants to get this team to the playoffs ASAP, which is great.  He’s been smart and aggressive and turned the second worst team in all of baseball into a .500 team and an AL West contender with a handful of well thought out moves.  I have to admit that I’m getting more nervous by the day though with regards to the upcoming trade deadline.

I’d love to see Seattle take a run at it, but as a huge fan of player development and prospects in general I am intrigued to see what Zduriencik might be able to pull in if he allowed himself to have a sell off.  But with Seattle still just 6.5 5.5 behind the Texas Rangers and one game back of the Los Angeles Angels it can’t be easy for an ambitious guy like Zduriencik to pull the plug so quickly.  And in order to get the max return that’s exactly what he needs to do: pull the plug now. Erik Bedard, Jarrod Washburn, David Aardsma, Miguel Batista and Russell Branyan are all pretty close to peak value and there is reason to believe that all of these guys will lose their edge at some point this season.

It’s got to be tempting for Zduriencik to stand pat or even consider becoming a buyer, but if Adrian Beltre and the players above are kept on and allowed to walk it could set the organization back possibly more than a playoff appearance and probable first round exit would push it forward.  I have no way to prove that and am not going to try and calculate playoff revenue etc, but it’s just a hunch.  That would be an interesting debate if someone wanted to put more thought into it than I.  I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if I was way off.

I think Z will air on the side of caution though.  If there’s any doubt about whether the M’s can overcome both the Angels and Rangers I think he will pull the plug and look at 2010 and beyond.  Based on some of the trade whispers I heard yesterday it looks like he’s at very least appraising some of his sell highs.

Whatever happens between now and August with regards to Seattle’s AL West standing is sure to make for an interesting story line.

Garrett Olson, LOOGY?

Back in March and April Lonnie was campaigning in the comment threads for Olson to be placed in the bullpen immediately as a left handed specialist, arguing that he is rubbish against right handers.  I didn’t quite buy in as his splits weren’t consistent year to year one way or another and I liked the idea of holding onto the little bit of starting depth on hand.  That was before I got a chance to see him play a little bit more.  I wasn’t very impressed with Olson initially and still dislike his very low release point.  Now, I’m still not wholly convinced that he stop being developed as a starter but his last couple of outings are helping Lonnie’s case.  In fact, in some venue’s I’ve already proclaimed Olson a bullpen arm who shouldn’t touch the rotation again, before realizing how quick I’ve jumped to that conclusion.

He’s been impressive in his last two outings for sure.  In two consecutive outings he’s sat down a string of good lefties, including two of the leagues best in Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, in high leverage situations.  His fastball hasn’t played up all that much out of the pen, although he was able to hit 92 yesterday and it looks like it has a little more movement, but what has caught my eye the last couple of days has been his ability to pound the zone with sliders, which is the strategy used by most good lefty specialists.

These last two outings don’t negate his previous poor outings, but with Tyler Johnson’s departure I think I can get behind utelizing Olson as a left-on-left guy for the time being, although he may bounce back into the rotation with Ryan Rowland-Smith sticking in Tacoma.