Ain't over 'til it's over, and we haven't begun

Milton Bradley is getting ejected every other day. Cliff Lee got suspended, but it doesn't matter anyway with his abdominal strain. Doug Fister got drilled by a line drive. Jack Hannahan won't be ready for the start of the season. All Chone Figgins does is walk and boot more balls at second base than any of us are comfortable with. Jose Lopez isn't making anyone forget about Adrian Beltre at third base, either.

Where did all the optimism go?

It shouldn't be tempered as much as it is right now. There are all sorts of reasons to be excited for this team and its potential - or at least a whole bunch of reasons to not have a drastically different opinion after the past week or two of spring training.

First of all, the injuries are getting blown out of proportion. Jeff Sullivan over at Lookout Landing did an excellent job calming nerves about the Jack Hannahan situation. If Hannahan had pulled his groin in May, I'd be shocked if people reacted like they have right now. He is a utility infielder gone for a couple weeks, and he isn't the only utility infielder the M's have. Depth is as much about having guys you can limp along with when little things pop up as having guys as good as each other. This team can limp along with whoever takes Hannahan's spot.

Copy and paste that last paragraph for the Doug Fister's little injury, though I think in the end he will be ready anyway, and I'm not sure he makes the roster even if he is totally healthy.

Cliff Lee's abdomen is more troublesome. Not only is Lee a critical piece, but it wreaks of an injury that could linger. However, have we forgotten about the 2009 Angels already? Remember how they started the year without Kelvim Escobar or John Lackey, and everyone wondered who would step up in their rotation? Then, on top of that, Nick Adenhart DIED a couple weeks into the season? Kelvim Escobar never came back for the Angels, but John Lackey did, and at the end of the year the Angels were among the best teams in baseball.

Does an abdominal strain to the number two starter sound as bad as what the Angels faced last year? I know I am glossing over significant personnel differences, but the point is that nobody had the Angels pegged as a premier team coming out of spring training last year. People (including myself) looked at their injuries and said "no way," but yet there they were. There is freedom for things to happen when games are decided on the field, regardless of what might be expected.

Lastly, here and there I see some fretting over Griffey's lack of production in the spring, and the errors accumulating at second and third base. These worries could be prophetic. I'm not going to say they don't matter. However, if we are worried about spring performances, guys like Eric Byrnes and Casey Kotchman can't be conveniently ignored. Both look pretty darn good. Their performances have as much of a chance to be prophetic as anyone else's.

It is too easy to lose sight of the big picture in spring training. Production only becomes a story when it is connected to some pre-existing assumption. People already wondered if Griffey could produce, and already wondered if the Figgins/Lopez position switch would work too. Injuries are magnified because they upset the all-important opening day roster. From a player's perspective, I don't doubt that it's a big deal to break camp with the big league ballclub. From an organizational perspective though, injuries should be assumed. Losing a guy for a week or two is unfortunate, but it happens, and it's a week or two out of a six-month season whether it happens in early April or the middle of June.

A couple weeks ago, I thought this team had a chance to win the division, and a pitching staff with the potential to carry it on a deep postseason run. Nothing has happened since then to change this team's potential. We haven't learned much about this team in the past few weeks that we didn't know a couple months ago, Cliff Lee's abdominal pull notwithstanding. That's not enough for me to lose my optimism, especially with how young the season is. There is no good reason to think much of anything different yet.

New Day, New Deal - Hannahan Acquired

As virtually everyone anticipated, Jack Z was not done with just the Betancourt deal. However, still no trade with Pittsburgh despite their top scout floating around Safeco Field. Today, the M's made a deal with division rival Oakland for third baseman Jack Hannahan. In exchange, the Mariners gave up pitching prospect Justin Souza.

Souza is not a huge loss. I took a quick look at him when I reviewed the Diamond Jaxx earlier this week, and he is what he is. He has decent control, but he's more of a fly ball pitcher and does not work deep in to games. He is a servicable reliever waiting to happen if he pans out, though major leaguers may hit fly balls off Souza harder and farther than AA hitters.

Then again, Hannahan is not a huge gain. He will be in uniform for tonight's game (which probably means Josh Wilson is getting the boot), and he will likely will take most of Chris Woodward's playing time at third. Hannahan is a good defender, but not much of a hitter, and at 29 years old that's who he is going to be.

This is not as exciting as the Betancourt deal yesterday, or even the one for Ryan Langerhans. However, Hannahan is an upgrade over Woodward. Also, Hannahan and Ronny Cedeno combined are probably about as good defensively as Beltre and Yuni were, so the defense overall is back to what it was.

Offensively, this may not work out so bad either. There is no doubt that Adrian Beltre is a far superior hitter to Jack Hannahan when healthy. But, with the bum shoulder, Beltre's OPS was a very replacable .665. Hannahan's career OPS is .659, though he's not even close to that low standard so far this year.

The point is that Jack Hannahan is no long-term solution, but he's a cheap one right now. Moreover, he may come surprisingly close to replacing what was lost when Beltre went down, thanks to other moves the M's have made.

UPDATE (6:21 PM PDT) - It's Brandon Morrow going down to Tacoma to make room for Hannahan. Morrow looked real bad last night against Texas, and he may finally get the chance to work on his secondary pitches. The M's only need four starters for a couple weeks after the all-star break, and were planning to have Jason Vargas work in Tacoma to stay fresh. Perhaps they call Vargas back up, and hope a few starts in Tacoma are enough for Brandon Morrow to find a feel for his off-speed offerings. I'm sure Wakamatsu and Zduriencik will say more about the move.