Seattle Mariners

Blessing in Disguise? Mariners Not Sweating Injury to Cliff Lee

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By John Hickey 2/09/2010 2:39 PM ET

It's not like the Seattle Mariners are unconcerned that their biggest offseason addition, former Cy Young Award-winning starter Cliff Lee, had foot surgery Friday, just two weeks before pitchers and catchers report.

They're just not going to make themselves crazy over the removal of a floating bone spur in Lee's left foot.

Manager Don Wakamatsu, for one, had been trying to figure out with pitching coach Rick Adair how they should approach the spring workload for Lee, who pitched a monstrous 272 innings last year when you combine the regular season and postseason.

Conclusion No. 1: If this injury, which the medics say is minor, knocks a few innings off Lee's spring tab, then the surgery could actually turn out being a good thing. Conclusion No. 2: Lee's still expected to be ready for his regular season pairing with Felix Hernandez atop the Seattle rotation.

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By Matt Snyder 2/08/2010 7:15 PM ET

The Seattle Mariners announced that newly acquired starting pitcher Cliff Lee underwent minor surgery on his left foot this past Friday. Lee needed the surgery to remove a floating bone spur in his foot that had recently broken loose from its attachment.

"We decided Lee should have the surgery as soon as possible, rather than try to pitch with the discomfort during the year," Mariners executive vice president and general manager Jack Zduriencik said. "To get it out of the way and have it behind us is important."

Lee won't need a cast or even to stay off his feet. He will continue his upper body exercises while being able to bear weight on the foot for the next 7-10 days. Then, over the next 2-3 weeks, Lee will gradually return to his normal baseball activities. With pitchers and catchers reporting to camp in just over a week, it appears Lee will be a bit behind the normal schedule for starting pitchers.

The Mariners have given no timetable for his return, but it's entirely possible Lee is forced to miss one or two starts as he's working himself back into shape. Considering the alternatives -- Lee pitching in pain all season or being forced to miss time early on in te season -- this seems to be the correct decision.

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By John Hickey 2/06/2010 2:59 PM ET

Erik Bedard may pitch again in May. Or maybe in July. Either way, when he does pitch, it will be again for the Seattle Mariners, and he'll have a chance to make as much money in 2010 as he did in either of his first two seasons with the Mariners.

Not bad for someone who has had two injury-plagued seasons in the Northwest and who had labrum surgery on his left shoulder on Aug. 14 after not having pitched following a here-inning stint on July 25.

The left-hander gets a $1.5 million base and could make as much as an addition $6 million in incentives. In addition, there is an mutual option for the 2011 season starting at $8 million. Bedard made $7.75 million last year.

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By Matt Snyder 2/04/2010 4:00 PM ET

From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

While they have a pretty solid franchise in place and several other stars (including former MVP Justin Morneau), Joe Mauer is the Minnesota Twins. He was born in St. Paul, Minn. His senior year, he was selected by USA Today as the National Player of the Year in both baseball and football for Cretin-Derham Hall High School (St. Paul), in addition to being an All-State basketball player. Then, in the 2001 MLB draft, Mauer was picked first overall by his hometown Twins over more ballyhooed prospects Mark Prior and Mark Teixeira.

It didn't take long for Mauer to reach the majors. He hit .308 in 2004 as a 21-year-old rookie. Since then, he's made three All-Star appearances and won two Gold Gloves and three Silver Sluggers all while racking up a .327 career batting average and .408 on-base percentage. He can run, handle the pitching staff and has added power to his repertoire. In 2009, he won his first AL MVP. And he's still only 26.

Simply put, Minnesota's favorite son is well on his way to a Hall of Fame career. What a shame it would be if he played part of it away from the Twin Cities, a possibility with free agency on the horizon. He's only under contract through 2010 and if the Twins can't lock him up long term before he hits the open market, they'll likely be buried in the bidding process by the Yankees or another large-market team.

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By John Hickey 2/04/2010 1:37 PM ET

Even after trading for Cliff Lee, the Mariners have been talking about the need for adding another veteran starter.

And while much of the conversation has been about one former Mariner, lefty Jarrod Washburn, talk apparently is heating up that another former Mariner lefty, Erik Bedard, is on the Seattle radar screen.

Bedard would not be a quick fix. He had labrum surgery on his left shoulder on Aug. 14, and the general assumption is that he would be back in July or August, a blog item by MLB.com's Jim Street says that Bedard could be heading back to Seattle with a low-base, high-incentive contract.

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By John Hickey 1/30/2010 12:31 AM ET

Outfielder Eric Byrnes, who has always played baseball with lots of passion, joined the Seattle Mariners on Friday and said that, after a two-year lull, his passion is back.

He signed a one-year deal with Seattle and got no guarantees of playing time, just word from general manager Jack Zduriencik that Seattle could use what Byrnes brings to the party.

"I lost a lot of my passion for the game the last two years,'' Byrnes said after signing his contract. "But I found it again playing a month at Triple-A this year, and then I played in the Dominican this winter, and I felt it again."

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By John Hickey 1/28/2010 7:23 PM ET

The American League West boasted two of the best leadoff hitters in the game in 2009 in the Angels' Chone Figgins and the Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki.

Now they're both in the same lineup in Seattle. What's a manager to do?

Figgins hit .298 last year in Anaheim with a .395 on-base percentage and an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of .788. He hit five homers and scored 114 runs, one shy of the league's best.

Ichiro hit .352, had a .386 on-base percentage and an OPS of .851 while batting first in Seattle. He hit 11 homers and scored 88 runs, which was much more a reflection of the hitters behind him than it was of his own productivity.

Figgins led the league with 101 walks while Ichiro ranked first with 225 hits.

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By John Hickey 1/22/2010 10:31 PM ET

The price of pitching keeps going up.

Asked what he'd be looking for in free agency next winter, Seattle newcomer Cliff Lee set the new limit, saying "a 10-year deal for about $200 billion.''

He was kidding. And laughing. And Mariner general manager Jack Zduriencik, standing across the room after introducing Lee to the Seattle media, laughed too, praising Lee for "thinking big.''

The fact is, however, that the Mariners would be better served if they could postpone Lee's jump into free agency after the 2010 season by getting him to sign a contract extension that would tie him to the club past this season.

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By John Hickey 1/21/2010 10:37 PM ET

Just having Felix Hernandez locked up for five years would be enough to have most teams beaming.

It may be enough to enable the Mariners to keep spending, as well. Seattle general manager Jack Zduriencik would like to add another starting pitcher and another bat before spring training starts in mid-February.

And while Hernandez's new contract will be the most ever paid to a Seattle pitcher – $78 million over those five years, the contract is heavily backloaded and leaves the Mariners with some room under their projected budget limits to continue to add to the roster.

Seattle spent almost $99 million on player payroll a year ago, and Hernandez's contract calls for him to get $6.5 million in 2010 with a prorated portion of his $3.5 million signing bonus.

That total brings the amount of money the Mariners have committed toward the 2010 roster to about $89 million, leaving at least the perception that the club can keep on shopping. The Mariners are known to be interested in lefty Jarrod Washburn and right-hander Ben Sheets to take over in the rotation's third spot behind Hernandez and Cliff Lee, and it now appears the club has the money to sign either, although whether the Mariners will choose either or go in another direction is yet to be seen.

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By John Hickey 1/19/2010 4:30 PM ET

Jack Zduriencik's first calling card came 13 months ago.

Just eight weeks into his appointment as the Seattle Mariners' general manager, he made a big splash at the 2008 Winter Meetings, engineering a three-team, 12-player trade that restocked Seattle's minor league system and provided the big-league club with a star-in-the-making center fielder in Franklin Gutierrez.

Oh, yeah -- at about the same time, Zduriencik also gave up an unknown minor-leaguer for David Aardsma, who blossomed into one of the better closers in the game.

As good as last winter was, the Mariners general manager hasn't found his performance hard to follow. Zduriencik's winter this time around has seen him reinvent the Mariners by adding 2008 AL Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee to the rotation and third baseman Chone Figgins, first baseman Casey Kotchman and left fielder Milton Bradley to a new-look offense.

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