Guest Post: Joe Kulesza on the Seattle Mariners

In the wake of the Felix Hernandez extension (hooray!), I thought it fitting to finally finish a post I started a week ago.

This past Saturday--January 9, 2009--marked the seventh annual U.S.S. Mariner/Lookout Landing Q&A sessions with the Seattle Mariners front office. More than 540 fans gave up three hours of their spring-like January afternoon to hear their questions and concerns answered by Jack Zduriencik (executive vice president & GM), Jeff Kingston (assistant general manager), Tony Blengino (special assistant to the GM), and Tom McNamara (director–amateur scouting). This was an “off the record” event, so no major media outlets were there and all topics discussed were not to be repeated by those in attendance. Unfortunately for those who did attend, no major news was leaked about Jack Z.’s plans to dominate the AL West now and for years to come, besides wanting to sign Felix Hernandez long term. This active front office made it abundantly clear that any and all moves in their control were made to field a more competitive team and in no way were they “cleaning house” from the previous administration. With that said, I don’t think anyone is going to miss Carlos Silva, and I applaud their efforts to get anything back in return, including the unpredictable Milton Bradley.

The “off the record” topics included: Cliff Lee ("Would you be interested in Cliff Lee?" "Umm, yes."), the Bradley/Silva swap (potential outweighs risk and the Seattle media is more forgiving than Chicago), signing Franklin Gutierrez through arbitration years (great defender for premium price), locking up Felix Hernandez with a long-term contract (hooray!), and the future of 2009 draft pick Dustin Ackley (the 2B experiment).

The only information I feel confident “leaking” is that Dave Cameron (U.S.S. Mariner/Fangraphs fame) and fellow Seattle Mariners bloggers have created a 2010 annual that will be go on sale in March. Read more about the annual at http://ussmariner.com/2010/01/11/the-project. The printing will be done by Massachusetts' own Maple Street Press.

Congratulations go out to the U.S.S. Mariner (Dave and Derek) and Lookout Landing (Matthew, Gram, and Jeff) for putting this event together. Only two of these five bloggers actually live in Seattle. I would like to thank them for changing to a larger venue (after the first 200 tickets sold out in a few hours) to accommodate 300+ more fans. I would also like to thank Jack Z. and the boys for taking the time from their busy schedules--and off season--to give us Mariners fans some face time. I haven’t heard of any other general manager participating in an event like this, so I feel extremely fortunate to have this team and organization in my backyard. Go Mariners!