Suggested by Chris/Munenori's Espresso Stand, here is a long form version of my thoughts on the debate I and others have been having with ghug and other others over the past few days:

The fanbase's perspective on Jerry Dipoto and his offseason strategies seem to have transformed and diversified of late, now that things appear to be more or less settled, save for an arm or two, some spring training invitees, and potentially someone else to compete with Jesus Montero as the short-side of a first base platoon. At first, the vast majority of us seemed to be on board with the idea of targeting more athletic, on-base oriented players that are a better fit for the ballpark, especially after having to watch the likes of Raul Ibanez, Mike Morse, Nelson Cruz and Mark Trumbo, all who are a varying level of suck defensively, play the outfield over the past few years.

But as time went on, and Jerry continued to make moves, the tone shifted some. It seems that for some, these buy low moves for very specific player types were/are simply underwhelming, or that they haven't quite done enough to improce themselves; there have been a lot of moves without much improvement, in other words. Others don't necessarily care for some of the trades that were made. And some just seem to have had unrealistic expectations that weren't met.

I sympathize with these concerns, and even have some of them myself. I worry about whether there is enough starting pitching depth, for example. It's why I am not too worried about giving up Carson Smith for Wade Miley, but at the same time don't necessarily know that Vidal Nuno and Anthony Bass (and whatever non-roster invitees are brought in to Tacoma) are enough behind the top five of Felix, Miley, Taijuan Walker, Nate Karns and James Paxton. The last two (and really you can toss Tai in there as well) have some injury histories that we have to wonder about, and all three are relatively unproven. Even if they do stay healthy, you still aren't going to get a ton of innings out of them, and it's not hard to imagine a flameout either.

But, few teams are without concerns, and while this team may have more of them than teams like St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles (Dodgers) and other of the league's elite, those teams also started in a much better place. They were all simply better than Seattle when the offseason started. The M's essentially had gaping holes at catcher, center field, one of the corner outfield spots, and in both the rotation and the bullpen. They also seem to be operating on a fairly strict budget of maybe $130-140M. Before making any moves, payroll was sitting around $100M, if not more, based on my quick estimations. This means Dipoto had, at most, $40 million to work with, and probably even less.

After dumping some payroll in the forms of Logan Morrison, Tom Wilhelmsen, and Mark Trumbo, he went on to add Adam Lind for $8 million, Joaquin Benoit for $7 million, Wade Miley for $6 million, Nori Aoki for $5.5 million, Chris Iannetta for $4.25 million, Steve Cishek for $4 million, Leonys Martin for somewhere around $3 million in arbitration, Franklin Gutierrrez for $1.5 million and even Anthony Bass and Justin De Fratus for $1 million and $750,000 respectively. That's about $41 million (without possible incentives) minus around $15 million from Morrison, Wilhelmsen and Trumbo. Payroll now sits close to $130M, probably over when you include all of the 40-man guys that still have to be paid even if they aren't on the major league roster.

That's point one. Dipoto had a lot less to work with than we might have hoped/expected. He didn't add anyone for over $10 million and still managed to get to the $130 million mark just in order to fill all of the holes. There was little chance to get a guy like Jason Heyward, or even an Alex Gordon or Dexter Fowler, and still be able to fill the holes.

Which brings me to the next point, possibly the most important and recently debated one: raising the floor. That seems to be what Jerry was most focused on. Bringing in guys you can count on to be better than last season's counterparts, even if they do require a bounce-back. Some don't seem to like this strategy, saying that raising the floor isn't as helpful as raising the ceiling, and that while this team is less likely to be bad, it is also less likely to be really good.

Now, I'm not even sure I agree with this point. In theory, yes, narrowing your outcome distribution as a middle of the pack-type team does make you less likely to reach a high win total. But for one, I personally don't see what upside they really lost relative to last year, nor do I value upside as much as some do.

Taijuan Walker is still here, with the same upside, but is even closer to reaching it. Karns and Paxton have upside, probably more than a guy like J.A. Happ did last year, and even Wade Miley does too, though maybe less than Hisashi Iwakuma would have. Mike Zunino is still around, but he isn't being counted on to be a 2-3+ WAR catcher. Zunino also illustrates my issue with worrying too much about upside: of course he has greater upside than Iannetta does. He is younger, more talented defensively, and has shown that he has some offensive tools, power in particular. But that doesn't mean he stands a very good chance of reaching it, as we now know, and I will take Iannetta to put up a 2 or 3 win season before Zunino.

First base probably has similar upside, but also more certainty. Second base is the same, and while Cano is a year older, he will likely (hopefully) not have such an awful first half this time around. Kyle Seager is Kyle Seager. Nelson Cruz is Nelson Cruz, but I wouldn't expect a repeat. Smith and Guti will be in the same role as last year, so no real change there. Nori Aoki may have less upside than the Ackley/Weeks platoon did, but again, relying on Ackley to finally bust out, and Weeks to know what left field is were not ideal. Center field went from Austin Jackson (and garbage) to Leonys Martin, who might be a bit of a wash. Jackson isn't a good hitter, but he is better than Martin, but Martin is elite defensively, compared to just slightly above average. Not a major difference there, as Martin still has 3.5 win upside if he hits like he did in 2013-14.

The only place that seems like a surefire downgrade in both expected performance and upside is shortstop, with Ketel Marte officially taking over for Brad Miller as Shortstop of the Future. While I expect Miller to be the better player going forward, and Marte being a 2-3 WAR shortstop next year is shaky at best, there is still upside there. This is a 22 year old who managed 1.7 WAR in his cup of coffee. There is still talent there, and plenty of time to reach it.

All of that is to say, yes, they did raise the floor, but that doesn't guarantee they lowered the ceiling. I see a bunch of washes, in terms of ceiling, when I break it down. I just don't see where the idea comes from. Could I buy the ceiling going down a win or two? Sure. But the ceiling went up far more than that at the same time.

But, say we do buy the idea that the upside fell a meaningful amount. I still don't know that Jerry's decision to raise the ceiling with proven veterans and bounce-back guys is so bad. This part might just come down to a difference of opinion. Like I said above with Zunino, upside only means so much when they aren't likely to reach it.

Beyond that, I personally like the idea of having a team with a median projection of .500 or better (I personally would peg it at about 84 wins, feel free to disagree) that is likely to stick right around that for the duration of the year, keeping themselves in it throughout the season. That allows the team to not only go out and fill any remaining holes at the deadline, but it also gives them the chance to benefit from some friendly luck and sequencing.

More goes into wins and losses than things like WAR (note: this is not an attack on WAR. It is a good stat), or other methods of describing actual performance, or how many games a team should have won (pythag, basruns, etc.) Not only is there a significant margin for error within those numbers, it can't account for things sequencing. Baseruns says the Mariners "should have" won 79 games last year, and instead they won 76, for example. I like the idea of building a team that, while having a more narrow spectrum of potential outcomes, has a higher chance of reaching each win total within said spectrum, rather than having a team that could lose 95 as quickly as it could win 95.

For me, winning 94 95+ games isn't all that important, and maybe that's why a higher upside isn't as meaningful to me as it is for others. Of course it would be nice, and winning the division is better than winning the Wild Card, but I just want the playoffs. I think this team has a better chance of finding their way in, or at the very least playing meaningful baseball in to September, even if they also aren't likely to go crazy and win 95.

In addition to all that, I trust Jerry. Maybe that's foolish, but I just do. I like what he has said, I like his background and philosophy, and I like that he is a Hot Dad. We have to assume he knows more than we do, and maybe (probably) some of that suggests the team is better than Steamer or other public projection systems think. He said in his time on the Hot Stove League show on 710 last night that OBP not only plays better in Safeco, but plays whether you are "on the moon or in the depths of Hell."

That doesn't guarantee that he is right about whatever it is he thinks, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. In particular, I have wondered a lot about how building a team to the park might help more than WAR and other public numbers can understand. Maybe Jerry has something that better considers that. Also, I would suggest reading Jeff Sullivan's piece on avoiding negative players, it might lend a little bit more weight to raising the floor.

All in all, give me a low chance of falling apart, and a high chance being somewhere in the mid-to-upper 80's, even if it does come with a similarly low chance of being dominant. That mindset, along with the fact that I don't think the ceiling has fallen much, if at all, and it's pretty clear why I stand where I do.

This was real long and probably a bit rambley (ramblesome?), but it's a pretty complicated issue that has a lot of pieces to it. I invite anyone who disagrees to write up a fanpost with their argument, or to just stroll into the comments and relay your disagreements there.