If the departure of Nate McLouth warranted a candlelight vigil in the Pirates clubhouse, you have to wonder how many suicide notes are being written over there in Pittsburgh now that Adam LaRoche, Jack Wilson, Ian Snell, and Freddy Sanchez have all been traded over the past week (not to mention Nyjer Morgan this past month).

Those five players – including McLouth – had been the most recognizable faces of the franchise for a few years now and following their departure, I’d bet that 90% of baseball fans can no longer name you more than three guys on their big league roster. On the surface, this sounds like a terrible setback for a team that has not had a winning season since 1992. But there’s a big difference between getting worse and rebuilding, and GM Neal Huntington appears to have made the decisions necessary to achieve the latter of the two.

Let’s discuss these deals individually:

July 23 – Adam LaRoche traded to Red Sox for Argenis Diaz and Hunter Strickland

The elder LaRoche came to Pittsburgh prior to the start of the 2007 season and immediately became one of the team’s most reliable offensive players. But once you took a step back and compared him to the rest of the regular first basemen around the league, you could see that his overall skillset was below average at the position.

Among the 24 first basemen who have made at least 1000 plate appearances since the beginning of the 2007 season, LaRoche’s adjusted OPS of 113 is 14th, his SLG of .470 is 16th, and his OBP of .339 is 21st. These are numbers that a team could live with if the defense was superb, but this was not the case either. In his time in Pittsburgh (as well as in his entire career), his Ultimate Zone Rating has been in the negatives, meaning that his glove was more likely to hurt you than help you win ballgames.

LaRoche is a free agent at the end of the year and offering a player of his skillset and age (turning 30 in November) a contract extension would have been foolish. And as of this writing, there is no guarantee that a player with his numbers would have garnered the Bucs with any compensatory draft picks. Not only that, there was the fear that he would have accepted arbitration had the franchise gone that route. Once they made the decision that Adam LaRoche was not the player they wanted to play first base in 2010, management did the most sensible thing and traded him away in a salary dump, saving the franchise $3 million in salary. And Pirates fans would be better off considering this trade as just that – a salary dump – because the two minor leaguers they received aren’t exactly “prospects”.

Argenis Diaz is a 22 year-old  shortstop who has never hit at the professional level. His power is nonexistent, doesn’t make much contact and doesn’t walk nearly enough to be an offensive asset. He is, reportedly, quite a good defensive player, but you usually have to have some ability to hit to make it to the bigs even as a defensive replacement. Hunter Strickland’s prospect status isn’t much better. His fastball is average at best and relies solely on control and location to get guys out. And combined with his numbers, his ceiling looks to be as a middle reliever.

Out of the three trades over the past week, this one is my least favorite from the Pirates’ perspective, but I at least still understand why they pulled the trigger. If the choice was between nothing and saving $3 million, I would have taken the $3 million too.

July 29th – Jack Wilson and Ian Snell traded to Mariners for package of prospects including Jeff Clement plus Ronny Cedeno

In retrospect, the writing was on the wall for both shortstop Wilson and double-play partner Freddy Sanchez when both players were offered contract extensions that seemed designed to be rejected. And once they predictably were, the Pirates moved ahead by trading them both in separate deals.

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Few people thought the Mariners would contend this year, yet amazingly, they are only 5 1/2 games out of first place in the AL West at the moment.  With the division looking quite weak this year, I say they should go for it.

M's GM Jack Zduriencik has shown outside-the-box thinking in the past with guys like Russell Branyan. He needs to pull the trigger on some moves right now.

The Angels are not the team they once were, with serious injuries to several pitchers and generalized ineffictiveness up and down the lineup, outside of Torii Hunter, and the Rangers pitching has been lucky so far and is bound to come back down to Earth.

Both of those teams are currently better than the Mariners, but at the same time, both of those teams have less ability to improve themselves than the M’s, with established veterans up and down the roster that would be hard to move.

The Mariners, however, are in a position to dramatically overhaul their entire team, if only they can muster the willpower.

Seattle’s offense has been truly atrocious this season. When Jose Lopez and his .275 OBP has actually been one of your three *best* hitters, you have serious serious problems. A miraculous performance by the pitching staff is the only thing that has kept them on the verge of contention in spite of it all. However, with some injuries beginning to set in for the pitchers, now is the time to upgrade the offense and take up some of the slack from the pitching staff.

Now, I’m not advocating that the Mariners do anything crazy, gambling away the future in an effort to win this season.  But one of the beauties of having such an atrocious offense is that even if you bring in a few guys who are merely replacement level or a little better, you can really improve things, given that so many of your hitters are currently putting up *below* replacement-level production. So the Mariners don’t even have to gamble with the future to improve their team.

Yuniesky Bentancourt has been a disaster at short, both offensively and defensively. Nor does he have a history of strong production. There is absolutely no excuse for him to still be playing at the major league level.  There is also no reason for the Mariners to be carrying three backup catchers on an AL roster.  They should send down the worst of them, Jamie Burke. Reserve outfielder Wladimir Balentien and his atrocious defense and .273 OBP should be sent down as well.

Other players should be shuffled to the bench. Endy Chavez for example: *great* bench player, *terrible* everyday corner outfielder. Ken Griffey Jr. should also be eased out of an everyday starting role, as he is making the days of Jose Vidro at DH actually look rosy by comparison. And Griffey’s platoon partner Mike Sweeney clearly has nothing left. When you are only batting against the off-handed pitchers you are better at hitting and you are a DH and you are OPS’ing .673, it’s time to hang them up. If he won’t go quietly he needs to be cut.

So how should the Mariners replace these players? Well, the other reason they are in good position to improve right away is not only do they have players who can easily be cut or sent down, but they also have a lot of good options at AAA Tacoma who deserve to be called up.

They should start by calling up corner outfielders Prentice Redman and Michael Saunders, both of whom are shredding Triple-A pitching so far. Even if only one of them sticks in the majors, that would be fine, since the Mariners really only need to replace Endy Chavez in the outfield. Give them both a major-league trial and go with the better one.

The M’s should also install current reserve Ronny Cedeno as the starting shortstop. Cedeno is still only 26 and has a chance to hit if given a chance. In any case he will certainly better Bentancourt’s overall production, as he is a much better defender. Meanwhile the M’s can shop around for another team’s triple-A shortstop, much the way the A’s unearthed Adam Kennedy. Again, when your previous starter was so far below replacement level, you don’t need to get a huge big-name replacement to see a signficant improvement.

Finally, the Mariners should recall DH Jeff Clement.  Every sign points to the fact that Clement will hit in the majors if given a reasonable chance, which the Mariners so far have denied him. Even if he fails to reach expectations, he will certainly provide superior production to that of the awful Griffey/Sweeney platoon.  Clement has nothing left to prove in AAA and should be the everyday DH right now.

With a solid rotation headed by King Felix and a resurgent Jerrod Washburn, backed by a lights out bullpen, the Mariners don’t need a lot of runs to win, as shown by their major league leading mark for victories in 1-run ballgames. All they need to do is up offensive production a bit more, and they can go from fringe contender to serious threat in the AL West.

So far Seattle has been playing with one hand tied behind its back, but it’s time to untie that hand and see what this team can really do.

Three potential difference-makers have just been called up to the Majors from AAA – depending on how your fantasy league works you may be able to grab them already. Even if you can’t, you should probably be hovering over the waiver wire until they become available.

Jeff Clement, C/DH, Mariners – Although Clement has been blocked for years at catcher by the recent extension given to Kenji Johjima (to much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments), he is now going to get a shot to be the Mariners’ full-time DH, thanks to the utter suckiness of current Ms DH Jose Vidro ( .211/.269/.326). Some people are wondering if Clement is going to displace Vidro right away, but I say that he is – I just can’t see the Mariners calling up Clement (and releasing Greg Norton) just to have him ride the pine – and given Clement’s insane AAA line this year of .397/.535/.692, you have to take a chance on him if you at all have space on your roster.

Max Scherzer, SP, Diamondbacks – The DBacks are riding high with baseball’s best record, and had no particular plans or even need to call up Scherzer any time soon, but his insane performance at AAA so far this year – a 1.17 ERA and 38 K in 23 IP – forced them to call him up. Initially they were just going to use him as a reliever, but his stunning performance on Tuesday night, retiring all 13 batters he faced, 7 by strikeout, while hitting 98 mph on the gun, forced the Dbacks to take Edgar Gonzalez out of the rotation to make room for him. He will be starting on Monday, and should be good for strikeouts, and with the Dbacks’ offense, wins, right from the get-go.

Darrell Rasner, SP, Yankees – This may be a less obvious pick, given that Rasner has not been too exciting in previous major league tours, posting a career 4.13 ERA in 52.1 career IP. But with the Yankees finally finding a way to make Philip Hughes disappear (claiming an oblique strain in order to DL him), Rasner looks certain to get the call, and he has been pitching out of his mind this season at AAA Scranton, going 4-0 with a 0.87 ERA in 5 starts, while striking out 27 men in 31 innings. While he is certainly not going reproduce those numbers at the major league level, the 27-year-old hurler looks to have turned a corner this season, and with the Yankees offense behind him he should be good for wins, some strikeouts, and a decent ERA right away, and should be able to help almost any fantasy pitching staff at the back end.

Kenji Johjima’s contract extension (three yeras, $24 million) surprised many, including MLB Trade Rumors’ Tim Dierkes:

I didn’t see this coming; I thought the Ms would hand catching duties over to Jeff Clement in ‘09 despite questionable defense. Instead, they’ll apparently use him as a DH/1B or trade him. He’s hitting .375/.500/.688 in 19 Triple A games.

Neutral observers may be shocked, but the reaction in the Mariners blogosphere is downright despairing. I’d estimate that 50% of the angst is due to Johjima’s struggles, while the other 50% results from the continued blocking of hot-hitting catching prospect Jeff Clement. Let’s go to the blogs:

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