Two weeks ago, the Arizona Diamondbacks released Eric Byrnes, agreeing to pay his $11 million salary for 2010 while he played for another team.  The Seattle Mariners are that team.  They signed Byrnes to a league minimum contract, roughly $450,000 yesterday.  The remaining balance on his salary will come from the D’backs.  Byrnes will become a fourth outfielder if everyone stays healthy, spelling Milton Bradley, or Ken Griffey Jr when Bradley fills the DH spot.

Byrnes came to National prominence a couple of years ago when the Rockies were challenging in the Division series- he was the oldest player on the D’backs and certainly the noisiest.  He always has something to say, good or bad, and that has often been his problem.  Byrnes also has been a bit of a hot dog, making grander plays.  Some might argue that if he knew how to play the outfield he wouldn’t have to dive for as many balls, but not everyone has the best instincts.  What his lack of instincts mean in Seattle though will be interesting to judge.

The interesting thing here is why would the Diamondbacks rid themselves of such an expensive player.  Obviously they tried to trade him, but were unable to.  They have good young players already stationed in the outfield, certainly, and those options are all cheaper.  But Byrnes is still getting paid, so why not keep him until through spring training?  Well, clearly it was a roster issue.

A team can only have 40-men on their major league roster at one time. In the fall, after the World Series and before the winter meetings a team has to make decisions which of its 5th and 6th year minor leaguers it wants to protect from the Rule-V draft.  It adds as many as it can, knowing that once they are added they can’t be removed without going through waivers.  They need to plan carefully, so that they can keep those players and still sign free agents to fill any holes.  When the Diamonbacks signed Adam LaRoche and Kelly Johnson, they filled two holes.  They had a choice, they could send a valuable young player through waivers or they could designate Eric Byrnes, their extra player, for assignment. Its not clear if that was their plan all along, or if its what they got stuck with.  One would think that if they were planning on eating his salary, they could have gotten some piece back for him somewhere along the way.

For more of these types of signings, don’t forget to take a look at the ESPN transactions page.  Always good for finding out about those guys no one writes about.  Like did you know Jose Contreras signed with the Phillies?