| The Seattle Times SEATTLE -- This is a bad deal. A white-flag-waving, SAVE MONEY ON TRAVEL DEALS deadline-day punch in the gut.
At least that was the emotional, early Friday morning, knee-jerk, reaction to the Jarrod Washburn trade.
One of the great pleasures in this surprise Mariners' season has been watching 34-year-old Washburn resurrect his career. He has morphed into the hottest pitcher in the game. Throwing his newfound dolphin pitch that dives out of the strike zone and drives hitters crazy, Washburn has been virtually untouchable the past two months. But he also is tasty trade bait. Washburn is exactly the kind of pitcher a pennant contender is looking for at this time of the year. He's a difference maker, a veteran who has made two World Series starts. Sure, at first blush it appears the Mariners should have gotten more for him. Where were the New York Yankees on Friday? Didn't they have top-of-the-farm-system prospects like outfielder Austin Jackson and catcher Jesus Montero? Couldn't the Mariners have gotten more for Washburn that two prospects from Detroit, neither of whom started the season on Baseball America's top 10 list of Tigers' prospects? That's the first reaction. These are the first questions raised by this trade. And, maybe if Bill Bavasi had made this deal, all of the fear and anxiety and anger surrounding the loss of Washburn would be legitimate. But we're still in trust mode in Seattle. Until further notice, we have to believe that general manager Jack Zduriencik and his scouting staff, know what they're watching. We have to believe they've done their homework on the two left-handed pitchers, Luke French and Mauricio Robles, they got in exchange for Washburn. Step back a moment and you realize this is exactly the kind of levelheaded deadline deal this team should be making as it pulls itself out of the Bavasi morass. The Mariners are building for a long, rich future. They're building to make a run in 2011, or more likely 2012. Washburn isn't part of the future. Even though he often said this season that he wanted to stay in Seattle, he wasn't coming back. He was pitching for his future and he knew his future wasn't here. This is another crystal-ball trade. French is 23. Robles is 20. Look into the future. See what they could become. French is a back-of-the-rotation soft-tosser who, as he gets more experience, could become an innings eater. He is 1-2 with a 3.38 earned-run average since getting recalled by the Tigers. The Mariners liked what they saw from him in his 5-1/3-inning start against them last week. He could get as many as 12 starts with them in these next two months, a legitimate audition for next season. Turns out team president Chuck Armstrong was right for nixing a Washburn trade to the Yankees last year. This is a better deal. And let's be honest, the Mariners are out of the race. Even with their upgrade trade Wednesday for shortstop Jack Wilson, they are done for 2009. At the time of the Washburn trade, they were 8 games out of the American League West lead and 6-1/2 behind Boston for the wild card. The starts Washburn would have made for the M's wouldn't have made the difference in a pennant race. The Mariners need pitching depth and the gem of this deal is Robles, who has emerged this season to become one of the Tigers top-five minor-league prospects. And he is the second top-of-the-line pitching prospect Zduriencik has acquired this month. Earlier in July he traded Yuniesky Betancourt to Kansas City for Dan Cortes. It is possible both Cortez and Robles could be in the Mariners' rotation sometime in the middle of 2011 or the start of 2012. They represent two giant steps up for an organization that was thin on quality arms. The Mariners' scouts love Robles, a hard-throwing lefthander who has 111 strike outs in 91-1/3 innings this season. Talent evaluation is Zduriencik's strength. If he says Robles is a diamond, believe it. Venzuelan baseball officials thought enough of Robles to put him on their World Baseball Classic roster, heady stuff for a 20-year-old. And, after struggling in his first two starts with the Mariners' Class AA team at West Tennessee, Cortes threw six shutout innings Tuesday. As he promised when he got here, Jack Zduriencik is rebuilding the Mariners' fallow farm system. Sure, Friday's trade will hurt in the short run, but this is the kind of pain teams have to endure as they slowly get better.
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