Darrin Beene is entering his seventh year at The News Tribune, having covered the Tacoma Rainiers in 2005 and Major League Baseball for two years before that. Beene, a former assistant sports editor at The News Tribune, also worked for the Los Angeles Daily News and Los Angeles Times. He lives in the South Sound with his wife and two children.
This blog is about baseball in general but specifically the Seattle Mariners and the Mariners’ Triple-A team, the Tacoma Rainiers. It will contain news, analysis, answers to your questions and audio reports.
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Cross the names of pitchers Freddy Garcia and Ted Lilly off the Mariners list.
On Wednesday, both of the starting pitchers landed new homes: Garcia with the Phillies and Lilly with the Cubs.
Garcia, who went 17-9 for the White Sox last year, was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitchers Gavin Floyd and pitcher Gio Gonzalez.
Lilly, a free agent who earlier in the day ruled out returning to Toronto, reached a preliminary agreement on a $40 million, four-year contract with the Chicago Cubs.
The deal for Garcia reconnects him with his former general manager from Seattle, Pat Gillick, who has been working to upgrade the team's pitching staff.
Floyd, who has struggled with control in his brief stints in the majors, was 4-3 with a 7.29 ERA in 11 starts for the Phillies last season before being optioned to Triple-A on June 3.
Lilly has a career 59-58 record in eight major-league seasons with Montreal, the Yankees, Oakland and Toronto. He went 15-13 with a 4.31 ERA for the Blue Jays last season.
Mariners manager Mike Hargrove spoke at the Winter Meetings and the team was gracious enough to provide us with a transcript. It's long, but here you go:

Q. I’m assuming you haven’t had a chance to play with the lineup?
MIKE HARGROVE: I really haven't. To an extent, I did a little bit last night but not anything that I'll be ready to talk about. You know, there's time for that. We're really focused right now on trying to improve our rotation, and that's been pretty much where the energy has been.
Q. Have you played with your rotation as it is now?
MIKE HARGROVE: Not for very long.
Q. If the season started today, who your rotation would be, it's kind of tough to come up with, right?
MIKE HARGROVE: Well, I mean, yeah. The way it is right now and there's no reason to there really is no reason to even name that because I'll be shocked if it's not different. We've got Hernandez and Washburn and Baek and Woods and Feierabend, Pineiro, and we'll see where it goes from there.
Q. Are you pretty sure Pineiro will be back?
MIKE HARGROVE: I'm going to let you ask Bill that.
Bad news, Mariners fans. This just in from ESPN and The Associated Press:
The Dodgers, who lost three players to free agency on Tuesday, reloaded in a big way Wednesday.
Free-agent pitcher Jason Schmidt and the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to a three-year contract worth $47 million.
The team has been in the market for a starting pitcher, especially after losing Greg Maddux to the Padres on Tuesday.
Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti previously worked as a front-office executive while Schmidt was pitching for the Giants.
Schmidt's $10 million option for 2006 was exercised by the Giants, but knew they might lose him as a free agent this offseason. The 33-year-old right-hander seemed ready for a change of scenery from San Francisco, which has endured two straight losing seasons and three in a row out of the playoffs.
Schmidt was the Giants' lone All-Star this season and went 11-9 with a 3.59 ERA in 213 1/3 innings.
Here's a look (and outside of guys named Zito or Schmidt, it's a grim one, folks) at the free agent pitchers still available:
AVAILABLE STARTING PITCHERS
NAME..................AGE..........2006 TEAM
Tony Armas............28...........Washington
Miguel Batista........35...........Arizona
Bruce Chen............29...........Baltimore
Roger Clemens.........44...........Houston
Shawn Estes...........33...........San Diego
Rick Helling..........35...........Milwaukee
Jason Johnson.........33...........Cincinnati
Ted Lilly.............30...........Toronto
Jason Marquis.........28...........St. Louis
Gil Meche.............28...........Seattle
Brian Moehler.........34...........Florida
Mark Mulder...........29...........St. Louis
Tomo Ohka.............30...........Milwaukee
Ramon Ortiz...........33...........Washington
Russ Ortiz............32...........Baltimore
Chan Ho Park..........33...........San Diego
Andy Pettitte.........34...........Houston
Mark Redman...........32...........Kansas City
Jason Schmidt.........33...........San Francisco
Aaron Sele............36...........LA Dodgers
Jeff Suppan...........31...........St. Louis
John Thomson..........33...........Atlanta
Steve Trachsel........36...........NY Mets
Jeff Weaver...........30...........St. Louis
David Wells...........43...........San Diego
Paul Wilson...........33...........Cincinnati
Jamey Wright..........31...........San Francisco
Barry Zito............28...........Oakland
Here's a list of starting pitchers who have already signed and what they got:
NAME.................AGE.....NEW TEAM....................DEAL
Adam Eaton...........29......Philadelphia..........3 years, $24.5 million
Tom Glavine..........40......NY Mets.................1 year, $10.5 milion
Orlando Hernandez.....37......NY Mets................2 years, $12 million
Greg Maddux..........40......San Diego...............1 year, $10 million
Wade Miller..........30......Cubs....................1 year, $1.5 million
Mike Mussin..........37......NY Yankees..............2 years, $23 million
Vicente Padilla......29......Texas...................3 years, $34 million
Kip Wells............29......St. Louis...............1 year, $4 million
Woody Williams.......40......Houston...............2 years, $12.5 million
Randy Wolf...........30......LA Dodgers.............1 year, $8 million
