Beware the Dugouts of March: The Seattle Mariners' 2009 Preview

The Dugout continues to meander through every team in the major leagues, stopping briefly to superficially mock each one. On Tuesday we visited the Rangers and their horrible pitching staff. This time around, we visit the Seattle Mariners and their horrible hitting.

The Mariners disappointed on the field in 2008, and the team responded by firing general manager Bill Bavasi, manager John McLaren, and everyone on Earth who has ever heard of the Mariners. Their most celebrated personnel move, though, has been the re-acquisition of Ken Griffey, Jr. Meanwhile, the team's negotiations with Penny Hardaway and the "Dan vs. Dave" guys continue to progress.

Mariners fans, your Dugout is after the jump.

The Dugout

	OnlineHost Welcome to Seattle Mariners Chat!
	WakaMole: Safeco Field, "The House That Griffey Built." It sure was nice of you to build us a stadium right before ditching town.
	ElijahPrice: Hey, the Mariners needed a new stadium.
	WakaMole: What happened to the Kingdome anyway?
	ElijahPrice: it was being rushed by zerglings, so it hovered to somewhere out of the way so it could harvest minerals
	ElijahPrice: Still kind of disappointed this park isn't called Griffey Stadium.
	WakaMole: well, they thought it would be better to name it after an insurance company that would later be dissolved into a larger insurance company, thereby rendering the name "Safeco Field" inherently useless
	ElijahPrice: So basically, this is the stadium about nothing.
	WakaMole: yeah, we were great for most of the decade and then larry david left and now we suck
	ElijahPrice: We suck? Wait, don't we still have Jay Buhner?
	WakaMole: nah, we traded him to an uncharted region of outer space for a handful of prospects
	ElijahPrice: Well, don't we have poor man's Jay Buhner?
	WakaMole: nah, we released richie sexson
	ElijahPrice: Well, don't we have really poor man's Jay Buhner?
	WakaMole: russell branyan shows promise he's tall, he strikes out a lot, and nobody will remember him five years from now
	ElijahPrice: Close enough. Who else do we have?
	WakaMole: Well...basically our strategy is to see whether Ichiro can make it to first on some butcher-boy infield hit, and see if we can get him over to second.
	ElijahPrice: Has he ever been to second?
	WakaMole: Hey Ichiro, you ever been to second?
	Suzuki: /pokes head out of log cabin built on top of first base NO
	WakaMole: so to recap, our lineup will be ichiro, wladimir balentien, another guy exactly like wladimir balentien, you, and five more guys exactly like wladimir balentien
	ElijahPrice: Who is Wladimir Balentien? Did you just make that name up?
	WakaMole: yeah i did, sorry
	ElijahPrice: God. I miss Jay Buhner.
	OnlineHost Welcome to Vast Expanse of Uncharted Space Chat!
	FerrisBuhnersDayOff: /floats aimlessly /flails wildly at infinite void
	FerrisBuhnersDayOff: /misses