Deadline Dead.

The deadline is over. Manny is still Manny and still in Boston. Jason Bay remains in Pittsburgh. And the Mariners have started the rebuilding process by trading Arthur Rhodes.

UPDATE: Ken Rosenthal is reporting that talks between the Red Sox and the...never mind. Those talks are dead now.

This deadline did prove a little anticlimactic. MLB GM's are clearly unwilling to part with young talent and are resisting bringing in marquee names to do so.

UPDATE: The Boston Globe reports that a Manny deal is done. Go figure.

It's surprising that teams like the Dodgers and the Phillies, both teetering between playoffs and legitimate World Series contender, failed to make a big move.

UPDATE: The Dodgers have acquired Manny. Disregard the previous paragraph. Go Dodgers!

To some surprise, the Mariners only managed to deal Arthur Rhodes. Nice house cleaning. I understand keeping Jarrod Washburn and Adrian Beltre. But I don't understand why they wouldn't deal Raul Ibanez and try to sneak Yuniesky Betancourt on an unsuspecting GM.

Up until the last two months, Washburn has been usually mediocre, with a touch of horrendous during his Mariners career. Dumping Washburn's salary doesn't make sense.

It looks like the M's have realized they cannot count on free agency as the answer to their pitching problems. Taking Washburn's salary off the books clears room for them to overpay on another free agent bust. They already inflated the market by signing Carlos Silva and Miguel Batista to ridiculous contracts. Neither pitcher is currently worthy of calling themself a major leaguer.

So unless they could bring back some prospects for Washburn, the Mariners were better off hanging on to him for next year.

The same goes for Beltre. It's clear that Beltre will never approach his 2004 potentially roided out numbers again. But he's still the fourth or fifth best third baseman in the AL. With nobody waiting in the wings to replace him, and no prospect laden offers for him, the Mariners played it safe and kept him.

For as great a Mariner as Ibanez has been, he fell in the same boat as Rhodes - old, productive and a pending free agent. At the worst, the M's could have dealt him for a prospect and re-signed him after the season. Their thought could be that they're better off with the compensatory draft pick and letting Raul walk. But this is the team that gave Kenji Johjima $24 million to be the worst catcher in the baseball. That probably means Raul has a 5-year deal coming to him.

Regarding Betancourt, he has to go. Even if it's for a bag of baseall's and three packs of Big League Chew. YuBet is not the player everyone thought he was. He swings at every pitch, doesn't get on base and plays erratic defense. If the Mariners want to rid themselves of a contract, it should be his.