[nfbwatlk] Felix contract gives M's credibility, swagger

[Mike Freeman]

http://www.seattlepi.com/thiel/414520_thiel22.html

Felix contract gives M's credibility, swagger 
Friday, January 22, 2010
Last updated 3:42 p.m. PT

By ART THIEL
SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM

For those thinking $78 million over five years is a lot for a baseball pitcher, consider that the sum is less than double what NBC is paying Conan O'Brien to not tell jokes on TV for eight months.

Another way to look at the amount is that it's maybe three linear feet of light rail. Or way less than what the Sonics once paid Vin Baker, Calvin Booth and Jim McIlvaine collectively to do impressions of fence posts.

It's all relative, you know?

Still, the Mariners have never paid so much, for so long, for a pitcher. The one and only time they guaranteed as many as four years to a pitcher was Jarrod Washburn, and he gave them three seasons of muck and a half-season of high quality before being traded last season.

So even for one as well regarded as Felix Hernandez, the contract is a big gulp. Perhaps sensing the gravity of the moment, Hernandez began payback almost immediately.

Flashing a smile that rivaled the wattage of his diamond earrings, he said, "We're going to the playoffs, man . . . this is our year."

There it is, Mariners fans -- the first smack of 2010 from the man who can back it up.

Ticket line forms over here.

The biggest transaction of the offseason, and one of the most important in club history, was made official Thursday when the Mariners' farm-raised prodigy was coronated king.

"This," said general manager Jack Zduriencik, "is rare."

Even that understates the significance. Zduriencik understands the club's history, but he's been here only a year and can't really feel it.

For more than a generation, Mariners fans watched, lower lips dragging, as quality players came and almost always went before or during their primes. It is as much a part of the club tradition as Kingdome heat-lamp hot dogs.

Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser once called me during his backup gig as a radio talk-show host to ask what were the chances of the Mariners keeping Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson.

Not great, I said, but I thought they would keep one, probably Griffey.

"Not a chance," said Kornheiser.

Why?

"It's Seattle," he said.

I hate it when he's right.

Too small. Too far. Too cold. Too white.

Pick one or all, the Seattle stereotypes often prevailed when all three major pro sports teams bid for the services of veteran free agents who had choices.

The image took a hit this week.

Hernandez could have played out his old contract, which would have forced the club into its usual survival-mode form of trading him for prospects. Instead, the second-best pitcher in the American League the past season said he wanted to stay.

Obviously, the Mariners gave him plenty of incentive to continue on, so it's not necessarily a reason to salute Hernandez as much as the deal is a breakthrough celebration for a franchise's effort to play with the big boys.

"I hope this sends a message," said Zduriencik, "that this is a good place to play."

Even more than enhancing the chances for the 2010 season, the extension of Hernandez, 23, tells baseball that something is going on here. Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that Latino players would prefer East Coast teams because of larger Spanish-speaking populations and proximity to home countries, Hernandez made the statement that he likes town and team.

"It's far," he said of the distance between here and his native Venezuela. "It's OK. They have to see what's here."

What is here? Why is it different now than when the mid-'90s stars were let out?

"The ballpark," said Bart Waldman, the club's longtime executive vice president who had the lead in the Hernandez deal, as he almost always does in the club's biggest contract negotiations. "This building gives us the wherewithal. And it's a great place to play.

"It is delivering on the promises we said it would."

For players and fans, Safeco Field's 10 years are a huge lift to the franchise's place on the baseball ladder. The fact that the club has failed to turn the asset into a World Series appearance is a function of management misdeeds and not the old, misleading criticisms about park and market size.

Now, management made championship-caliber hires in Zduriencik and manager Don Wakamatsu, committed to a pitching/defense style that fits the asset, and took carefully calculated risks in player acquisition, as opposed to the phrase used by former GM Bill Bavasi when he explained too many deals with "catching lightning in a bottle."

This week, the club executed a plan two years in the making -- a long-term deal with its own premium player who absolutely had to be retained to be credible with their own players as well as all of baseball, and the fan base.

Even more than with the deal that kept Ichiro, which was as much a function of the relationship between player and owner as it was baseball factors, the Mariners have broken with their turgid tradition.

It's enough to make a guy talk a little smack.

© 1998-2010 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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