Welcome to Seattle Wilson and Snell!

So the rumors about Jeff Clement were true. Seattle traded SS Ronny Cedeño, C/1B/DH Jeff Clement and three minor league pitchers for SS Jack Wilson and minor league RHP Ian Snell.

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Jack Wilson will replace Cedeño as the starting SS for the M's. Wilson is signed through 2009 and has a club option of $8.4 million for 2010 which according to Buster Olney, the Pirates were not going to pick up. Since 2006 Wilson has had the fourth highest fielding percentage among major league shortstops.

Ian Snell is a 27-year-old talented right-handed pitcher who was sent down to AAA Indianapolis at the beginning of the year. During that time he has started six games going 2-2 with a 0.96 ERA striking out 47. Snell recently fell from the graces of heralded prospects in the Pirates organization. Snell was quoted as saying he would rather play for Indianapolis than Pittsburgh and when asked about Snell's contract extension Pirates GM Neil Huntington was quoted saying he made a huge mistake.

Ronny Cedeño was falling out of grace with the Mariners. He is currently stuck in a 0-25 slump and his only saving grace is his defense, which while good, is not spectacular.

Jeff Clement did not have a position on this team. He stopped catching for Tacoma early in the season and when you look at the AAA and MLB roster, there are plenty of left-handed 1B/DH types.

This trade makes sense all-around for the Mariners. Although they don't have any pitching depth in Single-A Clinton as all three minor leaguers are from there. But remember, Jarrod Washburn is still on the team. It will be interesting to see if that's still the case come 1:00 on Friday. Look for another middle infielder possibly?

Bavasi's strengths sucked too!

It looks like by the end of the day two of Bill Bavasi's coveted first round draft picks will be heading to a new organization. Rumors have Jeff Clement all but gone and speculation is that Brandon Morrow might join him.

Why does this matter? How does this involve Bill Bavasi? Why do we keep bringing up that horrible excuse of a General Manager? Well the reason is, for all the things that Bavasi wasn't, he WAS supposed to be a hell of a talent evaluator and was tasked with re-stocking the Mariners farm system. Clement and Morrow were two of Bavasi's first round draft picks and have clearly fallen out of the eye of new GM Jack Zduriencik.

If you pair this with the decision to move Philippe Aumont to the bullpen the report card on Bill Bavasi's tenure with the M's is about as good as the college student who spends his time smoking pot all day rather than going to class. Hell, I think that kid could've done a better job, at least then we'd still have Adam Jones.

If this deal goes through, Bavasi's legacy with the Mariners will be defined as the guy who gave up Adam Jones for nothing and wasted four consecutive first round picks. Two on guys shipped out of town and two as relief pitchers.