After reading the main posts on Holiday Cheer and the one on how Jeff is over the Silva signing now (in reverse order), I'm left with this:

What if Bill Bavasi (and the rest of the front office management/ownership) is really so heartless as to cackle away at his most passionate, most literate, most knowledgeable section of the Mariners fanbase.  What if he honestly enjoys reading intellectual and/or statistical blog posts on the values of a decision he has the power to make and then openly chooses against logic time and again.

Bill Bavasi makes plenty of money.  It's not Ichiro-money, but it's a lot.  It's a lot more than  kids in school, it's a lot more than most people in their 20s, and it's likely (I don't research, I just read - which is different) a lot more than 90% of the Mariners fanbase, maybe more.

That gives him a very nice level of F-you status when it comes to decision-making, in regards to common sense.

At this point in his tenure as Mariners GM, I'm of the belief Bavasi is actively trying to sabotage the long-term standing of the team.  And this is not to propose he is actually that intelligent, so much as to say he is reading the blogs, realizing the positives vs. negatives (in so much as any person can do when presented in such an approachable, sensible way)... and then doing the opposite - every time.

The king is dead.  Long live the king.  

Please Welcome Willie Bloomquist, he of the recent one-year contract extension (his contract wasn't set to run out until the end of 2007).

I am thinking that with the way contracts have been going these days, the Seattle brain trust must have only concluded Fast-Willie would be the most coveted player on the market next winter and needed to make sure to ink him to some paper before the rest of the world caught on.

Thank God for Bill Bavasi.

Also, how long until we trade Yuniesky Betancourt and Jose Lopez to St. Louis for So Taguchi, he of 2006 postseason glory?

If the season ended today, and the AL Cy Young winner were selected based on his accomplishments up until now, who would you select?

I've got a buddy who vehemently disagrees with (my) logic; therefore, the poll question below.

The poll options are based on the four best closers in the AL, and the six best starting pitchers, based on my loose statistical comparisons of things like wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA and WHIP.

I am certain someone could make an unconvincing argument someone other than the ten men named below is worthy of the AL Cy Young right now, but for the sake of simplicity, let's go ahead and limit the poll to these ten guys.

In light of the buzz on Jeremy Reed becoming the next potential injection of youth to the Red Sox franchise via Seattle, I think it's only appropriate to recall the swap a few years back of another pair of star-crossed Seattle youth that ended up finding themselves in the Boston mayhem.

Jason Varitek, as i recall, was regarded as a big bat at a key position coming off a nice collegiate career, and Derek Lowe was nearing a turn from a young middle reliever with some sink on his pitches to a versatile starter, who would later become a fine closer, and then a starter once again.

In exchange for those two youngsters, the M's got some guy at the end of his career who played at the end of ballgames and now owns a home right next door to Bret Boone somewhere in Florida.

So if the M's end up swapping an unproven youngster such as Reed for a guy like Clement or Arroyo, both much more experienced, aged, and statistically understood, I wonder whether the M's will finally be considered simply a feeder franchise for the factories back east?