A funny thing happened on the way to non-tendering Ryan Franklin....

Funny you should mention the spectre of more horrible moves behind Jurassic Carl, Tad.

Various news sources today report the imminent signing of lefty Jarrod Washburn by the Mariners. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth has ensued at places like the U.S.S. Mariner, so we won't rehash that here. One intriguing feature of that debate, to me, has been the frequent comparisons of Washburn (supposedly to receive something like 4 years/$38M) to our own Ryan Franklin.

How right they were.

You may recall that I pointed you all toward the new, cool site Fangraphs.com earlier this offseason. Well, check out this eerie comparison. You can flip through the graphs showing the histories of Washburn and Franklin, but they essentially look like they were separated at birth, with but two significant differences. Washburn's 2005 ERA is significantly lower, which looks a lot like a result of keeping more balls in the park than should have happened given Mr. Washburn's flyball tendencies. Second, Washburn owns a ring.

There you go: Everett has a ring. Washburn has a ring. These guys are Proven Winners.

Bill Bavasi has but ten months to get his resume in order.