Wild Wild West-Seatle Mariners

As I start looking forward to spring training and watching the teams get ready I was thinking about the teams who improved the most or the teams that had the best off-season moves and the first team that jumps to mind, other than the New York Yankees, are the Seattle Mariners.  Last year its fair to say that the Mariners were just about a joke in the worst and least competitive division in the American League.  Other than Ichiro batting .353 and King Felix having yet another impressive year, there wasn't much to talk about when bringing up the team from Seattle.

All that has changed with this past off-season.  Acquiring Cliff Lee could make their rotation the best in baseball, yes that's right the best in baseball.  If Erik Bedard has a good year then this rotation will be lights out to say the least.  Let's just say that Bedard goes out and pitches like he did when he was with the Orioles,  add this to two very well established pitchers in Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee.  Watch out, seriously.  This team has the potential to win the AL West taking down the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim or whatever they call themselves now-a-days.  Not just talking about their rotation right now, but their line-up is very solid.  With the addition of Eric Byrnes, Casey Kotchman, and Chone Figgins basically completes this line-up to make them a contender.

Ken Griffey Jr., Eric Byrnes, and Franklin Gutierrez will have 2 ridiculous guys in front of them in Chone Figgins and Ichiro.  These 2 pests will clearly add speed to any line-up but also they bring professionalism to hitting by working counts and being able to move runners along, oh yea and lets not forget how much they are going to be on base.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Chone and Ichiro are going to work well together and set each other up for success by doing "the little things" coaches always preach about, oh and then they have two possible all-stars and a Hall of Famer waiting to drive them in.  Great.

I guess the Mariners have learned from their past signings, Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson because they went out and acquired some stellar ball players to round out their line-up and rotation.  Watch out American League.