Yeah Eric sure I will answer your question.

What else do the Mariners need?

Bullpen, Bullpen and Bryce. Oh and new pitching philosophy. Oh, and almost forget, they need to figure out what to do with Felix.

First they need to sign Bryce Harper. It ain't going to happen but every damn team could afford him, if they wanted. So yeah, the Mariners should go do that. It isn't my money.

Obviously the bullpen needs an upgrade, since Jerry said screw it with Eddie Diaz, might as well go get Kimbrel, or maybe trade one of the shiny new prospects for Will Smith or something. I don't know just go get some more arms, maybe some with options.

So yeah one more awesome bat, and figure out where it will fit, and two more guys to shove on the pile, maybe one of them should be really good.

However, what the Mariners need most is to figure out how to maximize the pitching staff. Jerry talked a little about this at the Kikuchi signing press conference. Yet, Jerry is still following teams and not being a leader. The team isn't trying to be innovative, they just look at others work and then try to adapt it. Analytics are always going to be a half step behind, because the good teams are already adjusting. Jerry and the Mariners always seem a full step behind the analytics. So they need to get out in front and figure out how to optimize the talent they have now.

They tried to do this through hiring Dr. Martin, and yeah I know just mentioning this is going to cause issues, but get over it. No mattter what the substance of the case is, no matter what those issues are, they are irrelevant to my point. They hired Dr. Martin to get an edge in health, it failed, it doesn't matter the reasons, it didn't work. However, it may have been a right direction, no matter the issues, it seems the exploration of maximizing health of players didn't work, but the team hasn't said the theory didn't work, just the execution. If the team now goes away from this theory because of the failure of Dr. Martin, then they are continuing to step back. If the team does think the theory isn't worth exploring further than they are also in the wrong because clearly one year of sample isn't enough to know. So they need to hire someone in her place to continue to research the best training and how to maximize health of players.

Next along with that, they need to try to find a way to maximize pitcher innings and usage. With the current rotation, they can either have a mediocre rotation, or try to be like Tampa Bay and maximize it. Did the Rays figure something out with the openers? I am not so sure. Are the best pitchers best used in middle innings? Would a four man rotation of middle guys who eat innings be the best future of starting pitchers? How to maximize the best pitchers to get their best performances with optimal amounts of innings. If they can figure this out, then the improvements can be a lot cheaper and influential than the signing of a big free agent. The Mariners need to hire people to get ahead of this trend and be the leaders rather than trying what others do, half assing it, and then saying "it didn't work for us."

Finally they need to do something we can't think of. The next trend in baseball will be something we don't know yet. Maybe it will be a reaction to the shifts and players beating it. Maybe it will be contact hitters. Or maybe it will be something so crazy we have no idea. That's what the Mariners need to find out, the strategy, or type of player we don't know yet. They need to be smarter. Is Andy McKay's mental skills course the answer, not so far, but maybe that will finally click for the players, or maybe they will all realize on much nonsense baseball is and walk away, I don't know but that is the missing ingredient.

You want players, and roster pieces to fill the holes, and sure the M's can do that, and they will, with underwhelming guys that you either never heard of or think "I remember hearing that name, he was supposed to be good in 2013." But unless they figure out a way to maximize those guys it is going to the same thing as always.

Or they can pull out the checkbooks and add Bryce Harper and Craig Kimbrel and hope to get 8 to 10 wins a year out of that.