End of Short Period of Mariner Optimism subsides; and NFL Picks

I should of known it was too good to be true. Everything was shaping up so well for the Mariners going into the Winter Meetings; I should have taking it as a sign that they'd mess it up somehow. There's just too many morons running the organization, from Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong up top, and down to Bill Bavasi and Mike Hargrove, for this offseason to go perfectly. In the span of a couple days, the Mariners went from rumors of acquiring Manny Ramirez from the Red Sox or Tim Hudson and Adam Laroche from the Braves, to getting Horacio Ramirez from the Braves for one the M's top potential trading pieces, Rafael Soriano, and letting Jason Schmidt walk right by them and sign with the Dodgers. Now, I'm not privy to any special insider info on a trade like this; it may be possible that Soriano's elbow and shoulder will burst into flames six months from now, or that he's terrified to walk on grass since getting hit by a Vladimir Guerrero line drive, or that Ramirez has had a number of bionic limbs installed since his last mediocre season and now consistently throws effortless triple digits strikes for nine innings at a time. Somehow I don't find these scenarios to be that likely. Anyway, if Soriano does have substantial injury concerns, it would appear during his physical and the trade would be voided, and the M's would be stuck with damaged goods. I think it's more likely that Bavasi has once again undervalued one of his players, while simultaneously overvaluing an opponent, and has once again made a very poor trade. The Mariners have shown an ability all offseason long to acquire potential back of the rotation starters for free; they already have Cha Seung Baek and Jake Woods, picked up Justin Lehr as a minor league free agent, traded for Sean White in the Rule 5 draft, could still potentially acquire John Thomson, unless they had an issue with his injury profile. My point is, one doesn't have to give up anything to acquire these kinds of players; to give up a valuable pitcher like Soriano is asinine. Last season, Soriano was about twice as valuable as Ramirez, and only pitched 60 innings to Ramirez's 76. 2005 was the only season in the last three in which Ramirez was as valuable as Soriano was last season; the caveat in this fact is that Ramirez had to throw 202 innings that year to be as valuable as Soriano is in 60 innings. This was just not a good trade. What makes it even worse is the fact that all the information I've heard about Mark Lowe's elbow injury is very scary. There's the possibility that it's career ending, and even if it's not, he'll most likely be out until mid-season. The Mariners went from having one of the best end of the bullpen groups to having a very suspect one. Get ready for another 78 win season.

Here's the NFL picks: Baltimore (+3) over KANSAS CITY, Atlanta (-3) over TAMPA BAY, Minnesota (+1) over DETROIT, Tennessee (+1) over HOUSTON, New York Football Giants (+2.5) over CAROLINA, New Orleans (+7.5) over DALLAS, Buffalo (+3.5) over NEW YORK JETS, Indianapolis (pk) over Jacksonville, WASHINGTON (+1) over Philadelphia, CINCINNATI (-10.5) over Oakland, New England (-3.5) over MIAMI, SAN FRANCISCO (-4.5) over Green Bay, Seattle (-3) over ARIZONA, SAN DIEGO (-7.5) over Denver, and Chicago (-6) over ST. LOUIS. I like the over (43.5) for SF-GB, over (37) for NE-Miami, over (40.5) for Philly-Wash, and the under (42) for Tennessee-Houston.