I guess Jack Z isn’t a perfect GM after all.

We'd better stick with Dayton, then.

… because it was only one year +option. Of course, he probably now wishes he had taken it.

Anyway, the Mariners moved on and picked up Kotchamn, then added Garko.

They wanted Sweeney to come back as a coach, but Sweeney wanted to make one go as a player. As a courtesy to Sweeney they agreed to bring him in on a minor league deai. Everyone understood that he had virtually no chance of making the team; his time in camp was really more about giving him a chance to be picked up by another team that suddenly found themselves in need of someone such as Sweeney.

++++++++++++

The Mariners, of course, are quite familiar with Sweeney. They figured he was done after last year, and they made other plans knowing full well that he was available and what he would and would not bring if he were with the team this year.

Given all of that, if Sweeney truly has a chance of making the team he has most likely has done something to cause people who are already quite familiar with him to change their assessments of him. And I can’t see at all how that would be related to his clubhouse presence or what he might add to team chemistry. Because that hasn’t changed; they already knew all of that before camp. He hasn’t caused anyone to sit up and say, “Wow – I never knew Sweeney could be such a good guy with the other players. I never appreciated that about him before.”

It seems to me that by far the most plausible explanation would be that Sweeney is convincing the team that he still has something left to contribute on the field. He must be convincing some people that they were premature in writing off what he could do as a hitter, and that he’s going to give them everything they were going to get from Garko.

I believe Garko has one more option year, so if the Mariners keep Sweeney on the roster, they’ll likely put Garko in AAA as insurance for when Sweeney does go down.