The "don't harm the rebuilding plan" argument for Mariners standing pat

Throughout the debate over whether the Mariners should go out and add some bats to rescue a comatose offense, one point of view keeps getting hammered home by the stand-pat crowd. Under no circumstances, they say, should the Mariners do anything to disrupt their ongoing plans to rebuild the ballclub. On its face, this is an entirely reasonable request. After all, we've been told, the Mariners have done untold harm to themselves by "going for it" in the past when they weren't entirely ready to take a shot. The most recent example often cited comes from 2006, when the Mariners traded away infielder Asdrubal Cabrera and outfielder Shin-Soo Choo for bat help in the form of Eduardo Perez and Ben Broussard. These days, Perez is best known as a former ESPN analyst on Baseball Tonight now back in the dugout coaching the Florida Marlins, while Broussard last made news as the brother of a woman who was one of the main recipients of lewd photos from disgraced congressman Anth...