ARLINGTON -- The non-waiver Trade Deadline is less than 48 hours away, and Mariners general manager Lee Pelekoudas said Tuesday night that he is not being pressured to make a deal.

"Absolutely not," he said. "The only thing we are concentrating on is trying to make the right deal that makes us better in the future, and that's it. There is no pressure to get it done by the deadline."

Pelekoudas, who replaced Bill Bavasi as the Mariners' GM on June 16, met with Seattle-area reporters covering the team prior to Tuesday night's game against the Rangers. He would not characterize any potential deal as "imminent" and stressed that the organization isn't trying to unload salary.

"First of all, I want to make it clear that just because our record is what it is, we are not in the mode to dump salary. That is not the motive behind any of our moves right now. The motive of our moves is to try to get better, and if we can make trades that make us better now, and in the future, those are the kinds of moves we will make.

"Any characterization that we are moving players to dump salary is not a need of ours, or a directive [from ownership]. That is a misconception that may be out there."

Several recent news reports have indicated that Seattle would like to move left-handed pitcher Jarrod Washburn to remove some, if not most, of the $14 million remaining on his contract.

"All of our players have value, either in moves now, in the future or if they are still on this ballclub," he said.

There apparently won't be a rush to judgment regarding personnel moves.

Pelekoudas called Thursday's 1 p.m. PT non-waiver deadline "artificial."

"You can still make moves after Aug. 1, with certain restrictions, but we also have the offseason," he said. "There is a lot of time to make moves. We are not in any time crunch.

"There is no deadline to get this club turned around in the next two days, the next week, or the next two or three weeks. We have time to do this, and we plan to do it systematically, step-by-step."