Colby Rasmus

St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Colby Rasmus expressed some displeasure over his playing time this year. Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols responded using less-than-cordial words. The latest news out of Cardinals camp appears to be positive regarding the situation, but who really knows with LaRussa headed out of town. He surely doesn't want to get involved in a feud mere weeks before he hit the massive manager market. Colby Rasmus would look absolutely fantastic in left field for the Mariners. He's really cheap, and productive. Put his left-handed bat in the lower-middle portion of our lineup, and his glove in our expansive left field, and this team has the makings of a real young core. Offer some package of Michael Saunders, Greg Halman, and David Aardsma. Players like Nick Hill, Stephen Hensley, Rob Johnson, Mike Carp, Brad Nelson, Matt Tuiasosopo, David Pauley, Garrett Olson and Luke French are always available to round out a trade. Perhaps I'm underselling Saunders or overselling Rasmus, but I think Rasmus is a star and has already proven so at the major league level. The Mariners need to capitalize on inefficiencies like this random clubhouse spat.

Dave Cameron of USS Mariners and Fangraphs has already lobbied for plucking Kevin Frandsen and Matt Downs from their respective crowded infields, neither of which ended up happening. His ideas were also predicated on exploiting inefficiencies, namely abnormal infield depth. While the Moneyball era of On-Base-Percentage is long gone, the basic tenet of finding the undervalued trait still holds. Perhaps durable pitchers than throw over 200 innings like Jon Garland, Joe Blanton, MarkBuehrle, or Dan Haren, super utility players like Ben Zobrist, Omar Infante, the Izturis brothers, or Felipe Lopez, or relief pitchers with either very extreme or very non-extreme platoon splits are the next inefficiencies. Whatever those inefficiencies are, I hope Tom Tango, Tony Blengino, and Jack Zduriencik will find them first.