The Seattle Mariners are pushing hard to land Japanese free-agent pitcher Hiroki Kuroda, and their pursuit of the 32-year-old right-hander has reached the stage where the team is considering sending a delegation to Tokyo that likely will include general manager Bill Bavasi.

Kuroda has a history of winning games and piling up innings and has shown interest in all things Seattle – from the team to fellow Japanese catcher Kenji Johjima to the pitcher-friendly dimensions of Safeco Field.

A number of teams have expressed serious interest in Kuroda, including the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.

Still, the Mariners history with Japanese players – from Ichiro Suzuki to Kazuhiro Sasaki to Johjima - is an advantage with free agents eager to test major league baseball for the first time.

And Kuroda, who has a 103-89 career record in Japan, has said a West Coast team would keep him as close to Japan as possible.

With starting pitching their most obvious off-season need, the Mariners focused on Kuroda early on, and that’s no surprise. In a shorter Japanese season, Kuroda has pitched 212, 189 and 179 innings in the past three seasons while going 40-26.

Walking away from the final three years and $7.5 million of his Japanese contract, Kuroda won’t come cheap – sources say he’s seeking three to four years and about $11 million per season, but those figures may well be negotiable.

Initial conversations between the Mariners and Kuroda’s representatives have gone well but remain in the preliminary stages. Still, given the weakness of the U.S. free agent market, Seattle is intrigued enough to consider flying to Tokyo for further contract talks.

Scouts say Kuroda has a 96 mph fastball, a slider and forkball – and last season completed seven games in 26 starts.

Kuroda also has an athletic background: his father was a professional outfielder and his mother competed in the 1964 Olympics as a shot putter.

Outfielder Jose Guillen will be asked to talk to MLB’s Mitchell Investigators about his reported use of steroids and HGH, but that committee has no subpoena powers – and Guillen’s value on the free agent market appears unchanged.

Baseball continues to fight itself over the issue of performance-enhancing drugs. In the midst of rumors and accusations, even confessions of HGH use, Cleveland picked up the $7.5 million option on pitcher Paul Byrd.

And the Kansas City Royals say they’re not deterred by the reports of Guillen’s spending $19,000 on similar drugs between 2002 and 2005.

“You’re talking about a period of time in baseball that we all know circumstances like this were occurring,” GM Dayton Moore said. “You’ve got to put it into perspective.”

Guillen’s agent, Adam Katz, couldn’t have said it better.

It’s unofficially official – meaning it’s happened but hasn’t been announced yet – that the Seattle Mariners have a new third base coach and two Gold Glove Award winners.

The team is finalizing a contract with coach Sam Perlozzo, who will complete the coaching staff for manager John McLaren.

And those Gold Gloves? Ichiro Suzuki got his seventh, and first as a fulltime centerfielder – and third baseman Adrian Beltre won the first of his career.

For Ichiro, it’s just a little more bling for the trophy case.

For Beltre, it’s an honor he’s wanted for years – and probably won in part because usual third base winner Eric Chavez of Oakland was injured most of the season.
As for Perlozzo, he returns to the third-base coaching line in Seattle for the first time since 1995. A longtime minor league player, the 56-year-old Perlozzo has coached with the Reds, Mariners, Twins and Orioles and managed Baltimore until being fired last summer.

It used to be certains bars or in the little black books of women who ran escort services – now the last place a baseball player wants his name associated with is the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center.

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Jose Guillen spent more than $19,000 there between 2003 and 2005 – years before he spent 2007 in a Seattle Mariners uniform. And that he spent it on steroids, human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Guillen has never acknowledged using any of that, and last season was outspoken in his criticism of players caught using such drugs.

“They cheat themselves, they cheat the game,” he said.

But now, the Chronicle said, it has the dates, mailing receipts, home addresses and social security numbers of Guillen and at least two other players – including former Giants third baseman Matt Williams – who ordered drugs from Palm Beach.

The report, if true, all but guarantees that Guillen, a free agent, will not return to the Mariners.

The third base coach whose decision to send Ken Griffey Jr. home from first in the ’95 American League Divisional Series – setting up perhaps the most famous play in franchise history – could return to the Seattle Mariners.

Sam Perlozzo’s career wasn’t exactly defined by that play, when Junior scored in the 11th inning and the Mariners won their first post-season series. Since then, he’s been a third base coach, bench coach and, with the Baltimore Orioles, a major league manager.
A coach under Lou Piniella in Cincinnati and Seattle, Perlozzo, 56, has also coached in Minnesota.

The Mariners approached Perlozzo last month about becoming manager John McLaren’s bench coach – a spot since filled by Jim Riggleman. Now that Larry Bowa has declined their offer to coach third, signing with the Dodgers instead, the Mariners want Perlozzo.

The team will talk to Perlozzo again late today and likely make him an offer from the GM Meetings in Orlando.

By 9 a.m. here in Orlando – 6 a.m. on the West Coast – general managers representing all 30 major league teams were in their first meetings.

Hours earlier, they were doing what most baseball fans have been doing since the end of the World Series. Talking about baseball.

The biggest topic of discussion was Alex Rodriguez and Scott Boras, and whether any team would cough up more money than the New York Yankees were willing to pay A-Rod before he walked away from them.

Many GMs were amused by Boras, who is here, saying he would be low-key in talking to the media about which teams had interest in Rodriguez.

“I’m not going to go into the laundry list,” Boras said.

Translation: There aren’t that many teams to list.

In stories around the country, for instance, the Mariners continue to be floated as a team ‘intrigued’ by A-Rod. Not true. That ship sailed after the 2000 season and is no longer welcome in Port Seattle.

The concensus here is that the Los Angeles Dodgers may be the most aggressive team in the Rodriguez chase – but that the list of teams willing to offer him as much as he made last season is perhaps three names long.

The Seattle Mariners took their promised course

, declining the 2008 contract options for outfielder Jose Guillen and relief pitcher Chris Reitsma – leaving the door slightly ajar for both players.

Guillen, the 31-year-old who batted .290 with 23 home runs and 99 RBI last season, can still accept a player option on the same contract and return to the Mariners for $9 million next season.

For weeks, however, Guillen said he wasn’t interested in a one-year contract, even if that meant testing free agency.

“I’ve earned the right in my career to stay somewhere I’m happy, and I’m happy in Seattle,” he said. “But I don’t want a one-year deal again. I’ve had those my whole career.”

If Guillen declines his option, the team buyout for that $9 million contract is $500,000. They’ll owe more than that to Reitsma, who gets a $700,000 buyout on what would have been a $2.7 million deal next season.

Injuries held Reitsma, 29, to 26 appearances, during which he was 0-6 with a 7.61 earned run average. Signed as possible setup man to closer J.J. Putz, Reitsma’s right elbow was never sound for long enough to allow him to claim that role.

“If it becomes apparent they’re a goof fit for us in 2008, we can sstill negotiate with them as free agents,” general manager Bill Bavasi said.

In Reitsma’s case, that would involve no more than an invitation to spring training. Will the Mariners pursue talks with Guillen?

With a starting outfield of Raul Ibanez, Ichiro Suzuki and Adam Jones – and a crowd of players who can play first base or designated hitter – the urgency to bring Guillen back on a multi-year deal isn’t there.

If, however, the Mariners sense a trade can be made for pitching from their existing roster that opens room for Guillen, they might well ask him back.

There were those who vilified the Seattle Mariners after the 2000 season for letting Alex Rodriguez go, and when writers said he’d engineered his departure few believed it.

Then he orchestrated his departure from Texas after the 2003 season – three years after he and agent Scott Boras hoodwinked the Rangers into the largest contract in major league history.

And now, A-Rod has pulled the pin on his days as a New York Yankee, stealing attention from the final game of the World Series in the process.

Believe us now?

As Edgar Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Jay Buhner came to realize, A-Rod would often say exactly the right thing - for precisely the wrong reason.

No one who has ever seen him play questions Rodriguez abilities on a field. No one who has spent time around him in a clubhouse or away from the ball park can remember a spontaneous moment.

It was all about the money when he left Seattle, and Boras had Texas believing there were offers nearly as high for his services – so the Rangers ponied up a 10-year, $252 million deal.

No one else had offered Boras more than $186 million.

And now, Alex wants more. Three times in his career, he has chosen where he will play. Franchise loyalties have meant nothing to him, which probably just makes him the players union poster boy.

The man who was once the pride of the Northwest has bailed on three franchises now. His wife has worn a shirt to Yankee Stadium that said ‘Bleep You!’ without the bleep. And he insists he is mystified why he is booed in Seattle and Texas.

Think Yankee fans will boo him in 2008?

Only if they get the chance.

The list of teams in line to bid for the best player in the game is small – and money is only part of the reason. Rodriguez had no friends in the Seattle, Texas or New York clubhouses when he left.

People notice.

Sooner or later, all fans are going to come to grips with an uncomfortable truth. Alex Rodriguez has always been a player without a soul, no more than a baseball mercenary on the field, an empty silk suit off.

Someone will sign him to a lucrative contract this winter. And that team will get a great player and absolutely nothing more.