The Mariners announced today that Jarrod Washburn has cleared waivers, meaning he can now be freely traded to whatever team wants to take on his massive salary. There's no real surprise here, as it's doubtful any other team would want to take on his bloated $9.85M salary. So the failure of Seattle to deal him before the deadline isn't so awful, except that his value seemed to have peaked at that point for a couple of reasons: (1) he'd pitched really well to that point (4 ER in 19.2 IP in the three starts before the deadline, (2) his value diminishes with each day that passes, since that means less time he can spend with a contending team (e.g., the Yanks) starved for starters, which leads to (3) the team in question being more likely to go in another direction.
The first point seems particularly relevant, as Wishy-Washburn has reverted to his more typical high-ERA ways. In the two starts since the deadline, he's 0-2, giving up 9 ER in 10.2 IP. For a moment there, either because he was buoyed by the thought of playing for a contending team, or because of the ups and downs of statistics, he was pitching pretty well. Now he doesn't look even like the average innings-eater he's always been.
But with the Yanks recently losing Joba Chamberlain for a few weeks, they might be a bit more desperate. Seattle certainly should be, since we're stuck with him if we can't pawn him off on some poor and desperate saps. Let's hope passing him through waivers is a sign of back-office movement and that someday soon we'll be able to say goodbye to one of the last of the Bavasi Bunch.
Seattle's still been playing inspired baseball, taking two out of three from the Twins and four out of their last five before an exciting heartbreaker to the Tampa Bay Rays last night. Though we dropped the game 5-3, Wladimir Balentien uncorked a two-run bomb, showing the Ms that they were wise to bring him up and dump the punchless Jose Vidro.
Things are still in a state of flux with Balentien in the mix for CF starts, pushing Reed to play some first base (he DHed in last night game, an interesting choice) and hopefully diminishing the time that utilityman Willie Bloomquist takes away from the younger players.
But for a team firmly in rebuilding mode, it's still good to see some motion in the rosters and lineups, and one would hope that there is more pitching baggage still to toss out before the train gets lighter. Washburn, for his part, looks to be signed and sealed--let's just hope he gets delivered soon.
