SEATTLE – It may take a few months of the 2006 season to determine if Carl Everett truly is the productive hitter who will help turn around the Seattle Mariners.

What seems certain is what Everett, whose in-your-face personality has rankled teammates and opponents over the years, will bring to the Mariners’ passive clubhouse.

Closer Eddie Guardado certainly endorses Everett, who signed with the Mariners on Wednesday.

“No doubt our clubhouse was a little too laid-back,” said Guardado, one of the few opposing players who has gotten to know Everett over the years. “Don’t get me wrong, that’s not saying we didn’t want to win. But we needed a little push, and Carl gives us more of an edge and a lot more fire.”

The Mariners signed Everett to a one-year $3.4 million contract and the team also has a club option for 2007 with a $600,000 buyout. He’s a switch-hitter who is more productive as a left-hander, something the Mariners were seeking this offseason.

The Mariners are continuing efforts to land a starting pitcher – via free-agent signing or trade – and general manager Bill Bavasi hoped to learn soon what those talks will produce.

“I sense things are close one way or another,” he said. “We’ll know if we’re in or if we’re out in a relatively short time.”

Bavasi said the team considered a number of hitters in its pursuit of more left-handed production, but Everett was the clear choice of manager Mike Hargrove.

“We talked with Mike at the winter meetings and laid some names out for him and let him choose,” Bavasi said. “He went for Carl right away. When you talk with people in clubhouses who he’s been with day-to-day, there are great things said about him.”

There’s little doubt, Bavasi said, that the dynamics will change with Everett on the team.

“Our clubhouse was a very nice clubhouse for a while,” Bavasi said. “We don’t expect it to be less nice. But it probably just got a little more hectic, which is good.”

Everett hit 18 of his 23 home runs this year for the White Sox as a left-handed hitter. He drove in one run in every 5.63 at-bats, the 12th-best ratio in the American League.

“I faced him a lot, and he’s not a guy you want up there when the game’s on the line,” Guardado said.

Everett will spend most of his time at designated hitter and, there seems little doubt, he will influence friends and make enemies as he has done much of his 11-year career.

In 2001 with the Boston Red Sox, he got into an on-field dispute with Mariners pitcher Jamie Moyer after Moyer had hit him with a pitch. Everett later homered and, while rounding the bases, spit toward Moyer and grabbed his crotch.

“Now that we’re on the same team, we’ll get a chance to talk,” Everett said. “I don’t talk to players on the other side, unless it’s someone that I really know. If I don’t really know you, I don’t have much to say to you.”

Everett also has said he doesn’t believe man ever landed on the moon or that dinosaurs existed.

“He’s a very intelligent guy who puts a lot of thought into what he says,” Bavasi said. “And he’s not afraid to say what he thinks.”

In a Mariners clubhouse that hasn’t had an abrasive-yet-inspiring personality since Jay Buhner retired in 2001, Bavasi sees the Everett signing as being a plus on and off the field.

Bavasi said the Mariners spoke with several of Everett’s former teammates and managers about how he would fit in the clubhouse, and the responses were positive.

“The testimonials were strong, including players who were with him five years ago,” Bavasi said.

Everett’s personality may be an anomaly for a Mariners organization that has sought good citizens in its clubhouse in recent years. Bavasi said the club approached him with concern, especially in how fans might view a player considered one of baseball’s bad boys.

“The more we looked into it, the more we had people say this guy is a competitor and he’s a great guy in the clubhouse,” Bavasi said.

Everett’s message to wary Mariners fans is simple.

“Come watch me play,” he said.

Everett, 34, says he plays for only one thing: to compete as hard as he can and beat his opponent as badly as possible.

“The game has become a friendly game, instead of just going out there and beating your opponent down,” he said. “This unspoken rule about not running up the score, I don’t believe in that. I want to score as many runs as I can. What I bring into the clubhouse is that if you can score 20 runs, score them. Leave the friendly part until 11:30, take them out to dinner or buy them a drink. Until then, beat them.”

If he needs to challenge a teammate along the way, Everett isn’t afraid of that.

“When you slack and you don’t come to the park every day to play, somebody needs to tell you,” he said. “I don’t have any fear because we’re here to help each other. It doesn’t matter who it is, if there’s something to say, I’ll say it.”

Guardado seems convinced Everett will be a positive influence in the clubhouse despite his negative image.

“Everybody knows Carl’s past, but he’s a winner,” Guardado said. “When things don’t go your way like the last two years here, we need somebody like Carl who will go out and play to win like he does, with an attitude. That rubs off on guys.”