Christmas is over. Back to work.
Welp, it's official. As of 2:47 PM on Thursday, December 12th, Robinson Cano is officially a Seattle Mariner.
In case you missed the press conference, all you really need to know is that the Mariners video team played stock footage of Cano destroying the Mariners over Jay Z music, Cano gave some stock answers about being excited to play baseball, Lloyd McClendon sat in the corner with a big grin on his face, and Jack Z tried to mention WAR before claiming to be "hip-hopped," after which he talked about rapping with Jay Z, which caused Robinson Cano to clearly, on camera, roll his eyes so far into the back of his head that it left only two hollow caverns below his shiny new Mariners hat.
Cano spent the whole day doing Seattle things, talking on the radio, taking pictures in the cold and the like. And it was fun. Can you honestly remember a day where just about nothing actually happened that made you feel so good as a Mariners fan? But there is still work left to be done, even though the Winter Meetings are over. The Mariners are still going to have to be pretty busy in the next couple of weeks, so we should see what's next on their plate:
1. Sign a starting pitcher.
This has been such a weird offseason. The baseball gods actually seem to be shining favor through the clouds onto the 206 for once--we got Cano, Nelson Cruz isn't a Mariner, and Jack publicly announced that he realized trading Taijuan Walker last year might have been a mistake, so including him in rumors for David Price might be a mista...
#Mariners currently preoccupied with Price talks. #Mets feel they would have to overpay to get Drew; otherwise, he would go back to #RedSox.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 12, 2013ke. Alright, fine. David Price would immediately make the Mariners' starting rotation one of the best in baseball, and as this has all been analyzed to death, I'm not going to go there. But if the Mariners are going to be active on the starting pitcher market, and look for upgrades, it's probably going to be someone like Price, Matt Garza (ugh no), or Ubaldo Jimenez. It sounds like the Chris Sale sweepstakes was pulled as quickly as it was announced, and we still don't have word on whether or not Tanaka is going to get posted. That would be amazing, but lightning doesn't usually strike twice in the same place.
The Mariners could break camp with Felix/Kuma and all the young'uns, but if they fail to pull off a sexy trade or FA signing, they are still going to need a lefty, and probably don't want to break with only Paxton. They need another lefty, and they are huge on Price, probably because he seems to be the most available. Here's what I think is going to happen: if the Mariners don't make a a big splash in the next couple of weeks--FA or trade--then...well...come spring, Logan, you may get your Joe Saunders wish in spirit, if not flesh.
2. Figure out this first base thing.
I don't know, man. But it sounds like the Mariners may be thinking of putting Corey Hart in the outfield:
#mariners have talked to hart about playing OF & DH but not necessarily a lot of 1B. of course they have morrison/smoak too
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 12, 2013Take from this what you will. I guess they have faith his knees are better after missing last year, and while it would be fun to point out they thought Raul and Mike Morse were capable defenders last year, I'm not sure how much that has to do with this situation. Probably a lot, actually, now that I think about it. But shhhhhhhh today is happy fun ice cream.
It feels safe to say that Kendrys is out of the picture now, and as to what they're gonna do with Smoak, Morrison, and Hart, check out posts from Scott and Logan. Then again, it has been announced that the Mariners have made Justin Smoak and Jesus Montero available. While that doesn't actually mean anything beyond letting the guy next to you peek at a few cards, we could know what first base is going to look like soon, based solely on that bit of information. I don't have a strong guess about what they are going to do about this, so instead I'm going to just point out that Jesus Montero is still a Mariner and I pretty much forgot until this morning.
3. Get Logan Morrison a new twitter handle.
The most pressing question of our times, for sure. Aside from his unfortunate tweet last night, which he thankfully deleted, Logan Morrison is known for being pretty vocal on twitter, and Miami fans seem to like him quite a bit. I absolutely don't even want to get into that whole mess again, so let's just look at this little thing going on the twittersphere...
Contest! Come up with my new twitter handle, u will receive 2 tix to the 1st game that we play in your city. Guideline: has to do w Seattle
— Logan Morrison (@LoMoMarlins) December 13, 2013Game on. Until the *award winning* Mariners PR team tells him to cool his jets, it looks like we've got a bit of a competition going on.
"@bejahu: @LoMoMarlins sodolomo" what exactly is sodo?
— Logan Morrison (@LoMoMarlins) December 13, 2013Well, off to a great start already.
@LoMoMarlins I know I already did one but here's another one mackLOMOre
— Ezra Zuckerman (@EZhoneybadger4) December 13, 2013Hm. C-. Good effort, but that road's been traveled before.
@LoMoMarlins LomoLatte
— Catherine (@RoxieKat) December 13, 2013hey did you hear about the coffee in seattle
MakinItRain @LoMoMarlins
— Pedro Gomez (@pedrogomezESPN) December 13, 2013hey did you hear about the rain in seattle
@LoMoMarlins @SpaceNeedleSharkTits or @_SHAWNKEMP
— Zoo With Roy (@zoowithroy) December 13, 2013Makes sense.
@LoMoMarlins @loganmorrisonseattlemarinersbaseball
— Jeff Sullivan (@based_ball) December 13, 2013Yes yes, almost there
@LoMoMarlins We can talk about that handle of yours whenever you're ready.
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) December 13, 2013BUSTED
