Tirico Suave

The Mariners are calling up Jeff Clement and Wladimir Balentien and releasing Brad Wilkerson. You’d think I’d be happy, no? I was, until I saw this little tidbit on the page I linked to from a commenter named ZoinksScoob (that’s a credible source, right Buzz?):

While I applaud the decision to finally use Balentien and Clement on the major league level, it was made a week early. Because Clement and Balentein both spent the entire month of September with the Mariners last season, they had accrued major league service time. If they had held off calling them up until next week, it would have guaranteed that the two could not be free agents until after the 2014 season. Now they’ll be free agents after 2013, unless either one goes down to the minors again. That’s just poor management all the way around. It’s the same thing as the knee-jerk reaction to add Brandon Morrow to the roster last spring; the team had until 2010 to add him to the 40-man roster, much less the 25-man roster, so they started his service time clock much earlier than they needed to.

Rotoworld also mentioned something along these lines, so ZoinksScoob is off the hook if this turns out to be untrue. Incredible. Even when the Mariners improve themselves, they find a way to hurt themselves.