Why the Mariners Won't Sign Jarrod Washburn

For some strange reason, when Joel Pineiro signed with the Los-Angeles-Angels-of-Anaheim-in-California-USA-planet-Earth, the number of times I saw people asking if and when the Mariners would sign Jarrod Washburn shot up on blogs and twitter and other interwebby places.

Somehow, Pineiro flying off the board created pitching scarcity in people's minds, which is an experimental Psychology PhD dissertation in waiting on it's own.

But I digress...

Why should the Mariners sign Jarrod Washburn? I've read all sorts of doozies:

• Gritty
  
• Left-handed
• Team player
• Gamer
• Nice guy
• Flipper
• "Takes the ball every 5th day and gives you his best"
• Veteran

Why the Mariners won't sign Jarrod Washburn:

• Age: 35. Regression is a bitch
• Health: You're 35 and you have bum knees. You haven't reached 200 innings pitched since 2003. Time to bust out the fishing pole.
• Cost. $5-6 million bucks for a 1-1.5 WAR pitcher is dumb when it bumps a cheaper 1-1.5 WAR pitcher from the rotation. Jack Z isn't dumb.
• Performance. Yeah, his knee was a mess, but holy God the Detroit debacle was funny. If even twice that guy showed up in 2010, that pitcher would still suck. 1-3 and a 7.33 ERA over however many starts is just...well... stinky.
• Jack Z doesn't have emotional short term memory like so many Mariner fans do.

Never again...