[ed - Since I was travelling this week, this is coming out on Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday afternoon.  We'll be back to Tuesdays next week.]

Last week, Bill Bavasi was relieved of his duties, and so the obvious question was:

If you were offered the Mariners' GM job, what specific steps would you attempt to take between now and the trading deadline?

Things have been moving pretty quickly in Seattle since Bavasi's departure, and it appears things will continue to be shaken up.  Here's what some Baseball Digest Daily writers have to say:

Geoff Young:

First thing I would do is invent a time machine, get in it, and tell my predecessor not to sign Richie Sexson, Carlos Silva, Miguel Batista, and Jarrod Washburn, and not to trade for Erik Bedard. Of course, I would then create a paradox and probably wipe our planet out of existence. Then again, that might actually be an improvement for the Mariners.

On a less facetious note, I'm not sure there's a lot I could do right now. The most marketable guy who isn't The Franchise is probably a 36-year-old left fielder, and I don't see teams tripping all over themselves to get Raul Ibanez. Getting Jeff Clement into games would seem to be a priority. Maybe run Jeremy Reed out there a little more often, see if he's finally figured out what to do with big-league pitching. I would jettison Vidro -- a DH who can't slug .350 serves no purpose. I would come up with a plan for Brandon Morrow and stick with it.

I would... actually, you said "offered." On second thought, I'd respectfully decline and wait for a better opportunity.

Gordon Berger:

I guess I just got hired, since they just fired their GM.  I would play for next season.  We have the worst record in the majors, so it's time to look to the future.  This season's a loss, so now let's try to mitigate, trim the fat and build for the future.

I'd dump high-priced, underperforming veterans, like Richie Sexon.  I would seek to acquire a package of prospects for the veterans (much in the same way that the Orioles did in trading Erik Bedard to the M's).  Adam was the M's top-rated prospect.  According to Baseball America, the best M's prospect is Jeff Clement, who they ranked at number 42. However, the next best ranked prospect is Carlos Triunfel at number 62.

I'd fire the manager if I felt that he was not motivating or getting the most out of the players, but the M's already did that, so I had the hindsight with that one.

Rob McQuown:

I've thought about this a lot, since Bavasi was canned.  I'd always been somewhat more supportive of him than many in the blogosphere, which probably meant that his moves didn't make me puke, and I wouldn't call him all sorts of insulting names.  As I posted as a follow-up comment on the news blurb about Bavasi's firing, I would view the GM job has having two "stages": the "horse trading" stage, and the "stability and growth" stage.

Regardless of whether I was in "horse trading" or "stability and growth" mode, I would do some obvious things immediately: Get Clement back into the lineup (done), get Wladimir Balentin back in the lineup (moving Ibanez to 1b), keep Ichiro in CF, but get him some rest days (1/wk), reduce Felix's workload.

For the "horse trading" stage stage, I would do the following:

A. Start at a spot most people wouldn't - Yuniesky Betancourt.  I'd have a scout and (statistical) analyst go over every single ball hit anywhere near him the past two years, and determine to the best of my ability whether he is really a good defensive shortstop or not.  To date, he's been much like Jeter - people who see him play consider him to be not just a "good" defensive shortstop, but a "GREAT" defensive shortstop.  Yet, every defensive metric paints him as being ineffective, allowing more balls to go past him than an average defender at the position.  Since Bedard and Felix both have good BABIP's, it's possible that the perceived defensive woes of the M's (and YuBet) are due largely to the ineffectiveness of the other SP.

B. "Bribe" other teams to take Sexson, Vidro, Silva, Bautista, and Washburn off my hands.  These players all have done things which can be spun properly by a good "salesman", and other teams could certainly be convinced that they could use them - the amounts that they are overpaid would have to be considered an asset the M's would be receiving in return for them, and maybe even prospects and/or money would need to be sent along with these players to get them off the roster, but off they must go.

C. Ichiro has been vocal about wanting to play for a winner.  Investigate options to trade him, though it's certain to be all but impossible.

D. Shop Putz and Ibanez aggressively. These are two team roles that a bad team entering a rebuilding phase doesn't need to invest in.

E. See what some of the mediocre pitchers in AAA can do as starting pitchers - R.A. Dickey (done), Ryan Feierabend, Jake Woods, etc.  

F. Bedard has a career ERA of 3.84.  Work with his agent to get an extension in place that pays him for that level of performance.  If it's not possible (I'm sure his agent will start out by insisting on something closer to the value of a 3.16-ERA pitcher, as Bedard was in 2007), shop him aggressively.  An arm of that quality could really help a playoff team, and all the borderline playoff teams are at least talking about acquiring another arm.

G. Unless the team is sure that he cannot handle starting, get Morrow back into the role of a starting pitcher, ala Joba Chamberlain.

"Stability and Growth"

Making the moves above leaves the team with a core of:

C: Johjima and Clement
1b: (void)
2b: Lopez
3b: Beltre
ss: Betancourt (assuming he passes the scrutiny described above)
lf: Reed (probably needs a RH platoon-mate)
cf: Ichiro
rf: Balentien
dh: Clement and (void)

For those two "voids", the M's really need some offensive firepower.  Ibanez wasn't too bad, but the M's need someone with more of their value in the future, not the past.  Fortunately, their talent pipeline isn't empty, and star prospect Michael Saunders looks almost ready.  From a financial perspective, leaving him in AAA until September callups probably makes sense, but it would be surprising if he's not able to take a side OF spot (or even CF, bumping Ichiro?) out of spring training next year.  LaHair isn't much of a prospect, but has always oozed power... he should be given a full-time MLB job the rest of 2008, to see if there's anything there.  Vic Diaz and Charlton Jimerson can fill in the rest of the "voids", along with any advanced talent the M's get in trades.

There's a deep problem with the offense, though.  Starting with Ichiro, there are at least 5 key players who don't walk nearly as much as you'd like.  That means that when Johjima is hitting .229 like this year, or when Lopez hit .252 in 2007, they are incredible burdens to an offense.  For this team to really have a chance to compete, that "void" at 1b is going to need to be filled with an upper-echelon offensive player.  Such guys are - obviously - almost impossible to find.  Mark Teixeira wouldn't be a bad fit at all, and he's a free agent after this season.

SP: Felix, Bedard, Morrow

This trio has a chance to be among the best in the game.  Finding two more almost-league-average SP really isn't as hard (or expensive) as most teams make it out to be.  Maybe Feierabend can be one of these?  Maybe even Jake Woods?  The M's need to add at least one very-high-quality young arm in their trades.

RP: Ryan Rowland-Smith, Sean Green, Mark Lowe, etc.

Rebuilding teams shouldn't be worried about who's in their bullpen, and if Putz is traded, and Morrow moved to SP role, the pen can be used for auditions.