Jack Zduriencik says Mariners unlikely to be major players for Josh Hamilton

Mariners president Chuck Armstrong told Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com earlier this week that the club was weighing making a run at free agent outfielder Josh Hamilton, but general manager Jack Zduriencik downplayed the possibility yesterday.

Zduriencik has spoken to Hamilton’s agent and isn’t ready to say the Mariners are out of the bidding, but he told Greg Johns of MLB.com that his contract demands “might surpass where we’re going to be.”

“You have to be realistic about how you’re going to allocate your dollars,” Zduriencik said. “Some of these things drag out and if you’re sitting there waiting on one chip, other chips in front of you might go away and you end up with nothing.”

“There are a lot of great things to like about several of these guys on the market, and we’re doing our homework,” he said. “But when you hear what players expect and the years involved, that’s a lot to consider. At the end of the day, when you gauge the market, you have to be realistic about where it will end up. And there’s a strong possibility that one will exceed where we’re at.”

This is pretty typical GM-speak, so it’s hardly a declarative statement about their intentions. Hamilton is a unique free agent and carries unique risk, but this isn’t unlike what we have seen with other top free agents in recent years, at least in the early days of the Hot Stove. It seems like nobody wants to be perceived as the front-runner right now.