Orange County Register

Buster Olney’s latest post includes this hazy projection of the 2010 season:

“A numbers-oriented friend recently ran a 1,000-season simulation of the AL West, and in most cases, it was the Rangers who won the AL West, and in most cases, the last-place team was the Mariners.”

Fascinating! While some know-it-alls are quick to anoint the Mariners the best team in the AL West, the Mariners have some significant question marks. For instance:

• Franklin Gutierrez’ remarkable 6 Wins Above Replacement last year were almost entirely due to his putting up the game’s best defensive stats. While Gutierrez is no doubt an excellent defender, we know that UZR has serious sample size issues over just one season, and CHONE predicts 3.5 fewer wins of value this year.

• Similarly, Chone Figgins was also a 6-win player in 2009, which represents a huge upgrade over Adrian Beltre’s down year. Except that Beltre (thanks to his elite defense) was worth 2.5 wins last year, and Figgins — whose offensive and defensive stats were outliers in 2009 — projects to be worth just 3 wins in 2010, according to CHONE (which should know).

• Cliff Lee is great. Really, can’t say enough about him. He’s liable to put up a 2.70 ERA over 215 innings or so. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what the Mariners got last year out of excised Jarrod Washburn and Erik Bedard. Lee is clearly a much better pitcher than either of them, but his presence is unlikely to be a huge improvement over what the Mariners actually got from BedardBurn.

• David Aardsma took a huge step forward in 2009 and was the third-most valuable reliever in baseball, according to Baseball Prospectus’ relief stats. Except that Aardsma’s huge step forward was largely due to a career-best batting average on balls in play, and an unnaturally low percentage of home runs per fly ball. He still walked more than four batters per nine, and his xFIP — which is generally more predictive than ERA — was just 55th among relievers who threw 50 innings in 2009. CHONE likes him about as much as it likes Jason Bulger this year.

• Then there’s the old Plexiglas principle: Teams that make huge gains one year have a tendency to  regress the next.  The Mariners improved by 21 wins in 2009. They added a lot, but it’s not clear that they were adding to a true 85-win team.

So that’s the case against the Mariners. I’m making it now, because I suspect I’m going to be making the opposite case over the next two months.

The Seattle Times’ Geoff Baker said Casey Kotchman had an early wakeup call planned to fly to Seattle for a physical today. Baker says the deal that brings him West from Boston likely won’t be announced until Thursday or Friday.

Over at U.S.S. Mariner, Dave Cameron writes that, while Kotchman is better than internal option Mike Carp, he hasn’t been a good player over the past two years:

“As a player, he’s kind of like Ryan Langerhans or Jack Hannahan. He’s a good role player, but you could do better. Unless the M’s are just out of money and can’t get any of the better free agents to sign here for what they’re offering, this is a bit of a curious move.”

Buster Olney says they’re close to a deal for Casey Kotchman. They’d give up a minor leaguer.

Kotchman fits the Mariners’ defense-first approach, and if the deal goes through they’ll field players at five positions (1B, SS, 3B, CF and RF) who could contend for a Fielding Bible Award. Kotchman has saved more runs on defense in the past three years than any first baseman except Albert Pujols, according to John Dewan’s plus/minus system. He’s also been a below-average hitter the past two seasons, and well below average for a first baseman. (His .742 career OPS compares to an .832 league average for AL first basemen.)

He’ll get a raise in arbitration, but even at about $3 million he won’t be overpaid. It’s not a thrilling move for the Mariners, but it fills a hole (the present alternative is prospect Mike Carp, who put up just an .818 OPS in the Pacific Coast League last year), doesn’t cost much and fits Seattle’s ethic.