Don Wakamatsu has a new name for his boss, Seattle general manager Jack Zduriencik.
“I’m going to start calling him ‘The Stork,’ ” Wakamatsu said Monday after the club announced the addition of free agent first baseman/DH Ryan Garko. “He just keeps delivering these babies.”
Garko, at 29, isn’t exactly a baby, but you get the point. On Friday, the club added another right-handed hitter, outfielder Eric Byrnes. Over the course of the winter, third baseman Chone Figgins, left-handed starter Cliff Lee, left fielder Milton Bradley and first baseman Casey Kotchman all have joined the club.
Of the 25 players who made up the opening-day roster last year, 15 are no longer with the team (right fielder Ichiro Suzuki began the season on the disabled list). One of the 10 remaining players, infielder Matt Tuiasosopo, is now an extreme long shot to make the roster, so nine players, or 36 percent, of the 2009 roster is likely to make the team to start 2010.
That’s a lot of turnover. And that’s one of the reasons Garko was interested in the Mariners.
“I have to say how excited I am to join this team,” Garko said Monday afternoon from his home in the Phoenix area. “As I was going through the process, I was studying what teams were doing, and I saw what Jack was doing, and I realized how which I wanted to be up there.
“It’s important to me, because I wanted to return to the American League, and I’ll get a chance to play a role on a team that plays to my strengths.”
The Mariners, who start spring training in just over two weeks, spent the entire winter hoping to add some right-handed punch. In less than a week, the club has added both Byrnes and Garko to plug up that hole.
As Garko put it in seconding Wakamatsu, the Mariners “are having a great offseason.”
Zduriencik has put together a roster based on versatility, and Garko plays into that. A catcher as a collegian at Stanford, he caught through most of his minor league time, and he and Zduriencik talked about the possibility of his moving behind the plate from time to time as needed.
Garko is all for it.
“I caught all the way to Triple-A (in the Cleveland organization) and would have kept doing it, but (Indians catcher) Victor Martinez signed a five-year deal, so I needed to find a new position.
“I think it’s important for us to have a third catcher. I don’t think it’s something I’ll do a ton of ... but I will work hard at catching in spring. I’ll provide some depth to the roster.”
For his part, Wakamatsu said that in addition to adding versatility and some right-handed offense – Garko hit .268 with 13 doubles, 13 homers and 51 RBIs in 118 games last season with Cleveland and San Francisco – the new addition should have a positive effect in the clubhouse as well.
“I don’t know Ryan, but I’ve always admired him from the other dugout for the way he plays the game,” Wakamatsu said. “According to Jack, he really wanted to come here. And that may be a little thing, but it’s a big thing to us. It adds to that clubhouse chemistry.”
