Mariners Sign Joe Saunders

[TheImmortalGoud]

Rotoworld

Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com reports that the Mariners are in agreement on a one-year deal with Joe Saunders, pending a physical.

The financial details aren't yet known. It's a little surprising that Saunders had to wind up settling for a one-year deal given that a handful of teams were interested in him, but perhaps the M's offered a higher AAV. Saunders is a similar pitcher to Jason Vargas, the guy he's essentially replacing, and should give Seattle a solid back-end guy. The fences coming in at Safeco won't help him, though.

[SuperKevin]

Mariners just throwing money around

[Leftwich]

i still wanted him on the Orioles.

[Guest]

i still wanted him on the Orioles.

Me too, but not if he wasn't accepting their terms. We already have a lot of potential starters and Saunders could have found himself the odd man out if someone had a strong spring training (or he had a weak one.)

Chris Tillman
Jason Hammel
Miguel Gonzalez
Wei-Yin Chen
Steve Johnson
Jake Arrieta
Zach Britton
Tsuyoshi Wada
Brian Matusz

I can definitely see Saunders losing a rotation spot there. There isn't a great #1 on that list (unless Tillman can carry over his stellar second half) but it can work like last year.

[TheImmortalGoud]

https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/300021528618233858

Ken Rosenthal @Ken_Rosenthal
Source: Saunders one-year deal with #Mariners is for $6.5M. Can earn additional $1M in incentives. Mutual option for ‘14.

[Guest]

Yeah, I'd rather bank the $6.5 million in that case. Good deal for the Mariners to get a solid starter to eat innings, but that's not what the Orioles needed to spend money on.

[MVPete]

Yeah, I'd rather bank the $6.5 million in that case. Good deal for the Mariners to get a solid starter to eat innings, but that's not what the Orioles needed to spend money on.

Mariners shouldn't be spending 6.5 million on someone to eat innings, they aren't doing anything this year. At the same time I can see why the Orioles wouldn't want to pay that much money to retain this guys services, he's very mediocre for that much money.