Looks Like Washburn Is Staying

Today, John Hickey of the Seattle Post-Intellegencer reported that the waivers on Jarrod Washburn and Raul Ibanez have expired, meaning both are staying in Seattle through at least the remainder of this season. There is still no report on the team that claimed Ibanez, but Hickey says it was the Twins that put a claim on Washburn. I am pleased to see that Ibanez is staying, but I cannot say the same for Washburn.

Taking a super quick look at Minnesota's farm system, I do not think they were as good of a trading partner as the Yankees. So, it is not surprising at all that no deal was struck. Still, if this report and the reports at the deadline are true, Seattle has now passed up two opportunities to dump Washburn's salary. To me, that borders on inexcusable.

I have never been a big fan of Jarrod Washburn's, so admittedly I am a little jaded. On top of that, I also have to admit that he is far from the biggest problem on the team. However, this team's payroll will be perpetually handcuffed as long as they continue to pay Washburn, Miguel Batista, and Carlos Silva big money to be mediocre pitchers (and combined they aren't even close to mediocre this year). Nobody will trade for Batista because he's been so awful, and Silva's contract is too big for a team to be interested in trying to revive him. That leaves Washburn as the only piece in the trio that could realistically be traded, and the level of interest he has received over the past month gave the Mariners surprising leverage. It should have been a no-brainer to trade Jarrod at some point in the past month.

The Mariners treated Washburn like he is an indespensible part of the team, when in reality he is part of a trio that needs to be broken up. I doubt his value will ever be higher than it was at the trade deadline, though he probably can still be moved in the off-season for something. Once the team starts interviewing candidates for the GM job, I hope they are all asked what they would do with the Silva/Batista/Washburn trio. If a candidate answers with anything besides "try to trade at least one of them," I would cross them off the list immediately.