Earlier this month, Jamie Moyer told me he was going to pitch again even if – worst case scenario – he needed reconstructive surgery on his now 48-year-old left elbow.

When the quotes were picked up around baseball, there was a lot of head-shaking. Tomorrow, Moyer will undergo ‘Tommy John’ surgery, have the elbow rebuilt and then begin the tenuous process of trying to do what no one has done before – come back at age 50.

The normal rehab for this surgery is 12-18 months, and only one man over 40 has ever returned to the big leagues …

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The Mariners have put together their minor league managers, coaching staffs and roving instructors for the 2011 season, and Daren Brown will be back at the helm in Tacoma – with pitching coach, Dwight Bernard and returning batting coach Alonzo Powell.

Here are the assignments:

Roving Instructors:
Field Coordinator:  Andy Stankiewicz
Pitching Coordinator:   Rick Waits
Catching Coordinator:   Roger Hansen
Hitting Coordinator:    Jose Castro and Rick  Down                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Infield & Baserunning Coordinator:  Darrin Garner
Latin America Field Coordinator:    John Tamargo
Latin America Pitching Coordinator: Nasusel Cabrera
Director, Sports Science & Performance: Marcus Elliott, MD
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For weeks, general manager Jack Zduriencik has been on the telephone and – at the GM meetings earlier this month – in one-on-one conversations about trading Jose Lopez.

For the second off-season in a row, there has been little interest.

If no one pursued the just-turned-27-year-old last winter, after he’d hit 25 home runs, the lack of offers after 2010 is hardly stunning. Below average at second base, adequate at third and passable at first base, Lopez has no position at which he excels. And last year he batted .239 with a .270 on-base percentage – among the lowest in …

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Given the Seattle Mariners are likely to go young in 2011, no matter what else general manager Jack Zduriencik can pull off this winter, it seemed a good time to ask minor league director Pedro Grifol about which prospects in the farm system are closest to big-league ready.

Grifol and his right-hand man, Roger Hansen, laid it out position-by-position.

These aren’t necessarily the best players on the farm, they’re the closest to making the bit-league team. And they come with an asterisk: every minor league director can talk about all the almost-ready talent in his system. If he couldn’t, …

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It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and there are some baseball leftovers worth nibbling on.

The Seattle Mariners are said to be among the teams bidding for the rights to negotiate with Japanese shortstop and batting champion Tsuyoshi Nishioka . Given that the Mariners were supposed to be front runners earlier this month for Japanese pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma – and never made a bid! – I’m skeptical. Either way, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Japanese media sources think the Twins are the favorites to land  Nishioka.

ESPN’s Jayson Stark talks about five teams with too much money on their hands this …

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The Seattle Mariners signed four more players – all with some big-league experience – to minor league contracts, and invited each to spring training, 2011.

The club signed  LHP Fabio Castro, RHP Charlie Haeger - a knuckleball specialist – INF Luis Rodriguez and RHP Chris Smith.

 Some background on each:

• Castro, 25, has  30 major league appearances with the Rangers (2006) and Phillies (2006-07), going 0-1 with a 3.30 earned run average.  He spent last season with the Red Sox AAA team, going  7-9 with a 4.93 ERA  in 31 appearances (15 starts).
• Haeger, 27, made the Dodgers Opening Day roster last

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The American League’s 2010 designated hitter of the year – named the Edgar Martinez Award in honor of Seattle’s great hitter – was given to Texas Rangers free agent Vladimir Guerrero.

A year after the Los Angeles Angels let him go, Guerrero had a marvelous season, batting 306  with 25 home runs and 106 RBI.

Finishing behind Guerrero  in a vote by beat writers and members of public relations staffs was Boston’s David Ortiz and Minnesota’s Jim Thome.

Martinez won the award five times in his career. Another Mariner, Willie Horton, won twice.

Now that the New York Mets have hired Terry Collins, all 30 big-league teams have managers for the 2011 season.

There are recycled managers (Ned Yost, Clint Hurdle),  new managers (Don Mattingly, Kirk Gibson), old managers (Jim Leyland, Tony LaRussa), players managers (Charlie Manuel) and managers like Brad Mills and Fredi Gonzalez who are forced to show ID to ge into ballparks before games.’

For now, every team in the majors has a manager it thinks can improve the product on the field. Here’s the full list, division-by-division. Since it’s November and a slow time of the off season, feel free …

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