About a week and a half ago I got into a rather spirited debate with a couple of people in the sports pit over what happened with the Mariners in 2009. One co-worker stated that the biggest mistake Jack Zduriencik has made so far was that he didn't go all young with the team from the get-go. He tried to do too much in 2009 with the big club and that perhaps the success he had that year slowed the rebuilding process down.

An aside here, contrary to what some who read this blog believe, this team has not been constantly rebuilding since 2001. The rebuild did not begin until Zduriencik arrived. Before that we saw attempts at reloading – spending money on established players but not rebuilding from the ground up and developing their own players. That started with Zduriencik. What did he inherit in 2009? Could he have gone all young then?

No. While the Mariners recently have been finding a good number of their prospects near the tops of different lists, that was not the case in 2009. Prospect lists are not the end-all, be-all when it comes to measuring young talent and I am the first to say don't count your prospects until they are hatched, but the more prospects on the lists the better the chance you will have that at least a few will pop in the big leagues. This is Baseball America's top 10 prospect list for the Mariners in 2012.

1. Jesus Montero, C
2. Taijuan Walker, RHP
3. Danny Hultzen, LHP
4. James Paxton, LHP
5. Nick Franklin, 2B/SS
6. Francisco Martinez, 3B
7. Chance Ruffin, RHP
8. Tom Wilhelmsen, RHP
9. Vinnie Catricala, 3B/1B/OF
10. Phillips Castillo, OF

You most likely are familiar with the majority of those names. That's a good thing. How about the list from 2009? Could Zduriencik have played the kids three years ago? You tell me.

1. Greg Halman, OF
2. Michael Saunders, OF
3. Phillipe Aumont, RHP
4. Carlos Triunfel, SS/2b
5. Juan Ramirez, RHP
6. Adam Moore, C
7. Mario Martinez, 3B
8. Jharmidy DeJesus, 3B
9. Dennis Raben, OF
10. Michael Pineda, RHP

I would give anything to be able to talk about Greg Halman's upcoming breakout 2012 season. That is not getting any easier. That is the first thing that jumps out from the list. The second thing? There is only one full-time Major League ballplayer on that list.

Baseball America has to come up with 10 prospects for each organization and I get the feeling that wasn't easy in 2009. The list appeared so thin that I went back and checked the organizational roster that year to see if they missed anyone. One name, one diamond in the rough if you will stood out. Doug Fister. That is it.

So back to the original argument. Would Zduriencik have been better off if he "played the kids" in 2009? Did he have enough kids to play? No. He did not inherit the talent.

What's to say that the same thing won't happen with the 2012 list? I suppose it could but I have a higher level of confidence in the talent evaluators who are bringing players into the organization now than I did then. Again, BA had to pick 10.

How did the Mariners' list in 2009 stack up against other teams' lists? No other team in the American League had just one big league player with significant experience. Two teams, Chicago and Boston, had two. All other teams had at least three. What did the rest of the division look like?

Oakland A's

Brett Anderson
Trevor Cahill
Gio Gonzalez
Vin Mazzaro
Jemile Weeks

Angels

Hank Conger
Peter Bourjos
Mike Trout
Jordan Walden
Trevor Bell

Rangers

Neftali Feliz
Derek Holland
Justin Smoak
Elvis Andrus
Taylor Teagarden
Julio Borbon

Not too shabby. You can see the impact that prospects, their own prospects, have had on division teams. Never mind what the Rangers spent this year. Prospects and a $65 million payroll in 2010 and $92 million payroll in 2011 were enough to get them to the World Series in those years. What will we see when we look back at the 2009 list three years from now?

One unrelated note: Anthony Castrovince, who wrote the great Chicken runs at midnight story at mlb.com, has found another gem in the story of Cam Perron, a 17-year-old who has tracked down dozens of former Negro Leagues players whose stories to date have largely been untold. It reminds me of the journeys of Lawrence Ritter, who wrote my favorite baseball book "The Glory of Their Times". Incredible stuff. Give it a read if you have the time.

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