Seattle Times: Stone: Youth movement is M’s best path to recovery

A Thousand Leaves…and Ichiro too?

There needs to be a thoughtful, baseball-oriented debate by the new brain trust on the pros and cons of trading Ichiro — not because he’s a supposed clubhouse cancer, or somehow overrated. I don’t believe that he’s either.

Rather, the move needs to be considered precisely because Ichiro is such an asset, the strongest the Mariners have, and thus the one player who could bring back the quantity and quality of players they need to hasten the rebuilding process.

It’s a radical prospect. It would be very hard for the powers that be to sign off on this, because Ichiro means so much to the marketability of the team. They’ll need all the drawing power they can get to get through what figures to be another rough season in 2009.

But nothing draws like winning. And the Mariners are going to have to learn to be both selectively daring and agonizingly patient as they try to get healthy again.