The Mariners’ Ambitious Offseason Plan

Also world peace, ability to fly, and a pony. RT @Ken_Rosenthal: #Mariners want Ellsbury or Choo plus SP.

— Benjamin Gibbard (@Gibbstack) November 6, 2013

Like other artists of note, Benjamin Gibbard didn’t become a towering figure within his chosen genre (in this case, American indie-rock music) by not suffering. In fact, signs point to him having suffered greatly in this life. The evidence is clear: Benjamin Gibbard is a Seattle Mariners fan.

The reader has perhaps heard of this team. An obscure outfit based in this country’s Oregon Territory, the Mariners have actually been an entirely active participant in the Major Leagues of Baseball since 1977. And while the reader would be excused for assuming that the club had taken one or three sabbaticals en route to the present, the record indicates quite clearly that Seattle’s membership has, in fact, been contiguous since the date of their enfranchisment.

One assumes, given his year of birth (1976), that Gibbard has been afforded a front-row seat to this exercise in woe called the Mariners. Nor, given the substance of his dispatch above, does he appear to believe that change is imminent. “Hope is the thing with feathers,” wrote Emily Dickinson. “The Mariners suck so many balls. Probably, like, a thousand balls,” Gibbard has probably uttered in a largely unrelated, but still factually sound, development.

What Gibbard appears to suggest by way of the Tweet republished here is that Seattle’s offseason demands — if they do, in fact, include some combination of Jacoby Ellsbury, Shin-Soo Choo, and a starting pitcher — tend towards the unrealistic.

Recent findings suggest that Gibbard might, in fact, have more knowledge of the situation than he admits. With all due credit to the reportage of very spry MLB insider Ken Rosenthal, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has today acquired in its entirety the Seattle front office’s complete list of offseason targets — a list which the present author has transcribed below:

• Jacoby Ellsbury
• Shin-Soo Choo
• Kendrys Morales
• Matt Garza
• World Peace
• Ervin Santana
• Kendrys Morales
• A Pony
• Carlos Beltran
• Petals on a Wet, Black Bough
• More Thumbs Than Fingers
• Nelson Cruz
• Princesses, Everywhere
• To Use All Our Illusions, For Real This Time
• Joe Nathans, Plural
• A Golda Meir Sandwich
• Kendrys Morales
• Jello Love?
• The Good Cancer
• To Crucify Boredom, If That’s Possible
• Adult Bar Mitzvahs, For Once
• Fernando Rodney
• Fight: Jad Abumrad vs. Stephen Dubner vs. Robert Krulwich vs. Steven Levitt
• Roberto Hernandez, I Guess
• Kendrys Morales, Jr. (When Born)