"Holey dotted line, Batman, let's sign him." That would give us an anchor of 3 quality starters to begin finding our rotation for 2013.

You might call it interesting, but in my opinion, this is pretty unfortunate for the Mariners to have agreed to this contract stipulation when they signed Iwakuma last January. Seattle gets a couple of extra days of exclusive negotiating rights to the pitcher, but basically if they don't sign him by tomorrow, he's going to be playing elsewhere in 2013. Sure, Iwakuma has said all the right things about liking Seattle, but now that he's proven that he's an above average Major League starter, it's hard to believe that he's going to sign a deal with Seattle without seeing what he's worth on the open market. This is a player who rejected a three-year deal from Oakland (for around $11 million) prior to the 2011 season. Now that he has that Major League experience, the Mariners are going to have to offer him at least $6 mil a year and at least a two-year, maybe three-year deal to get him to forego testing the market. In summary, if tomorrow's deadline passes without a contract, I'd say the M's bungled this one. I think Jack Z is a good GM and has a good eye for talent, but if Iwakuma doesn't sign by tomorrow, this has to be a black mark in the ledger. Hopefully he'll sign. But if he doesn't, this off-season isn't exactly off to a roaring start what with the M's having already run off International Director of Scouting Bob Engel (aka the Man responsible for signing Felix Hernandez) by firing his Latin American coordinator. On top of that, the M's inexplicably fired Pedro Grifol, who won Manager of the Year for the first and second half in the Cal League. Don't be surprised when he becomes one of the up and comers in the future. Unfortunately it seems winning and bringing in talent seem to take a back seat to other things in this dysfunctional organization.