Seattle Mariners: Exploring Potential Offensive Targets

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November is still happening, and as expected the offseason hasn’t yet gone fully bonkers. The offseason never goes fully bonkers in November, unless the Marlins trade their whole team to Canada, which actually happened one time. So far there’s been one major free agent move (Brian McCann, true Yankee) and one giant trade (Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler). What there’s been a lot of is teams talking to players, teams talking to teams, and executives getting a feel for what’s out there. This is a month of connections being made, and by all accounts the Mariners have been making a lot of connections. They’ve touched base with seemingly everybody.

It’s no secret that the Mariners need offense. The team would like to add impact arms in the back of the bullpen and front of the rotation, but by all accounts, improving the offense is Jack Zduriencik’s number one offseason priority, again. As usual. Oh, and the defense needs to be improved, but that’s probably a long shot given the front office’s power fetish. The Mariners were a terrible team last year at just about everything but swatting dingers, so the plan appears to be “more dingers.” Right.

Everyone loves lists. Lists! Hey you, stranger, do you like lists? Do you love lists? Hell yes you do! Me too, me too. Here’s a list of likely Mariners acquisitions. The definition of “likely” is extraordinarily loose here, but I’m pretty sure the team has been connected to every one of these guys. The names will be presented in order of my personal preference for the team to acquire them, with the rationale being cost, probable future production, and fit on the roster. Note that Brian McCann would have been at-or-near the top of this list, but the team showed no interest and now he’ll get to star in the Bronx for the next half-decade. Boo hoo.

Continue on to see the 15 most likely targets for the Mariners this offseason…