What They're Saying: Mariners Acquire Cy Young Winner Cliff Lee

Yesterday the Mariners finalized a trade that sends three lower-tier prospects to Philadelphia in exchange for 2008 Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee. Reaction is bubbly.

"THANK YOU SANTA Z!!!"--Seattle Times commenter

"This is, quite frankly, a heist. The Mariners are getting a Cy Young caliber pitcher for some decent-but-not-great prospects. They aren’t giving up Morrow. They aren’t giving up Saunders. They aren’t even giving up Triunfel. And yet, they walk away with one of the five or six best pitchers in baseball."--Dave Cameron, USS Mariner

"The virtues of acquiring a starting left-handed pitcher in his prime with the resume of Cliff Lee are apparent to any attentive Mariners fan. To summarize: JEEZUSRUKIDDINMEDRINKSALLAROUND!"--Art Thiel, Seattlepi.com (It's worth reading the rest of Thiel's thought-provoking column about the national perception of the Mariner franchise.)

"This is about as good as a right left punch can get. It gives me a boost of energy knowing that this is what the team is doing and that expectations are we will go further."--M's pitcher Ian Snell, via KIRO's Shannon Dreyer

"We've acquired a very, very nice piece to help this organization move forward. It will be exciting to watch him pitch at the top of out rotation – him and Felix Hernandez.... I don't think we're done yet."--Jack Zduriencik

"Lee succeeds in the same way that Ben Sheets used to succeed--by just throwing strikes over and over with sufficiently good stuff to maintain a solid strikeout rate. He doesn't miss a ton of bats--his contact rate is actually below-average--but he's consistently ahead in the count, which puts him at a significant advantage. In a way, he and Felix take remarkably different paths towards a similar end result, and it'll be all kinds of fun to watch them BACK TO BACK OH MY GOD."--Jeff Sullivan, Lookout Landing

"Between the Mariners adding Chone Figgins and Cliff Lee, and the Angels losing Chone Figgins and John Lackey, the balance of power in the American League West really does seem to have shifted. Or evened, which is almost as exciting for Seattle and even more exciting for the rest of us."--Rob Neyer, ESPN

"In trading for Cliff Lee, a left-handed pitcher just one season removed from a Cy Young Award, Zduriencik positioned the Seattle Mariners for a run at American League West title contention. And if Lee is gone as a free agent at the end of his contract in the fall...well, so be it. Recession-battered fans will have had a reason to pry open their wallets and buy tickets."--Dave Boling, Tacoma News-Tribune

"The Mariners no doubt hope that (Lee) finds the Seattle situation--the team, the coaching staff, the ballpark--so pleasurable that he winds up signing on with them long-term. But if not, a couple of positive things could still happen, first and foremost being, obviously, that a Felix Hernandez-Cliff Lee tandem at the top of the rotation leads the Mariners into the postseason. ... Even if Lee were to walk after that, he would presumably be a Type A free agent resulting in both a first-round and sandwich pick as compensation. ... Another scenario is the Mariners fall out of contention, in which case Lee would immediately be the hottest pitcher on the market at the trade deadline."--Larry Stone, Seattle Times