Around the League in 30 Days: Emerald City Edition

The Mariners have all but fallen off the face of the Earth since disbanding in the early part of the 2k aughts. Superstars like Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, and Ken Griffey, Jr. were shuttled out of town and a new, and less successful era in M's baseball, began. The only problem was that they replaced hit machine Edgar Martinez with hit machine Ichiro Suzuki and there was nothing else done to replace the production from the aforementioned trio of superstars. Last season saw the Kid return to Seattle, albeit a fraction of the player he once was Griffey still put together a quality season in a semi-reduced role.

Ins - Cliff Lee. The M's acquired the big lefty who impressed during the 2009 playoffs in a multitude of stifling starts. Speedy Chone Figgins was signed to bring another solid OBP guy to the top of the order, a good compliment behind Ichiro. Hard throwing Brandon League and Chad Cordero are parts of the bullpen. Eric Byrnes, aka Jayson Werth Light, is here as a 4th OF bumping my man Ryan Langerhans down on the depth chart. 1B Casey Kotchman was acquired via trade from the Red Sox and Ryan Garko was signed as a free agent. Enigmatic Milton Bradley is here but if I were a betting man I'd throw my cash on a mid-season blow up resulting in Bradley's final exile from the MLB.

Outs - Russel the Muscle has joined the Tribe but you already know that since you're an avid OFC follower. His HR output will be missed but his high K totals will not. Adrian "the bust" Beltre is heading East to try to kick-start his flailing career in Boston. Bill Hall, we hardly knew ye - traded for Kotchman. Kenji Johjima is back in Japan after a brief, lackluster run in the USA.

In short, any starting rotation that features King Felix and Cliff Lee is worth paying attention to. Assuming both stay healthy, 60-65 starts should be games that the M's are in the running. The rest of the rotation features converted lefty reliever Ryan Rowland-Smith and Pirates cast-off Ian Snell. Smith has had good success in his brief starting stint in the majors, if Snell returns to form from his early days w/the Pirates, the Mariners could see a good amount of quality starts from their 3rd and 4th starters. Both big ifs, but what if is not a big one? Then there's Erik Bedard. The once promising lefty starter that just does not stay healthy. Getting anything out of Bedard this year is a plus and it's likely a win-win for both parties since Bedard is fighting for his baseball life at this point. All that being said, the M's are better than the '09 version of the team. They'll break .500 with 84 wins, but still will finish the season looking up to the Angels.