Season Salvaging Time
It’s May 4th, and believe it or not, the Mariners season is on the verge of extinction. They currently stand six games behind the Angels (who are winning 4-2, which would push the deficit to six and a half games) with 130 games to play. That sounds like a lot of time until you realize just how large of a hole that really is.
To win the division, the Mariners would have to outplay both the Angels and A’s by a significant margin. To put some context to this, here are the winning percentage pairs from here on out that would lead to the M’s ending up with just one more win then Los Angeles (ignoring the A’s for right now), ranging from 89 wins to 95 wins for the Mariners.
Angels – .527 – Mariners – .585
Angels – .535 – Mariners – .592
Angels – .543 – Mariners – .600
Angels – .550 – Mariners – .608
Angels – .558 – Mariners – .615
Angels – .566 – Mariners – .623
Angels – .574 – Mariners – .631
The Angels have played .594 baseball through their first 32 games without John Lackey or Kelvim Escobar and with Vladimir Guerrero off to the worst start he’s had in years. Even assuming they aren’t going to get Escobar back this year, Lackey takes a while to regain his previous form, and Guerrero doesn’t rebound all the way back to his prime levels of production, it’s still hard to see this Angels team playing much worse than .550 baseball the rest of the way.
A .550 winning percentage is an 89 win pace over a full season, and that’s about what I expected the Angels to finish with before the year started. If the Angels playing .550 ball from here on out, they’ll finish with 91 wins, and the Mariners would have to play .608 baseball to end the year at 92-70. No team has played a full season of .608 baseball or better since the 2005 White Sox and Cardinals won 99 and 100 games respectively.
It’s really freaking hard to play .608 baseball for any sustained period of time, even if you’re a truly excellent team. And let’s be honest, this Mariners team isn’t excellent. For a team of this quality to play .600 ball for five months is almost unheard of.
So, the M’s simply have to start winning, and doing so soon. They need to beat up on Texas, the White Sox, and the Padres, who they play their next 13 games against. They need a 9-4 or 10-3 stretch to make up some ground or else it just becomes too prohibitive to think they can close this gap.
It’s May, but it’s getting late for the Mariners. They don’t have any more time to struggle. They have to start winning, and they have to start tomorrow.
Yikes.
But on the bright side, Richie is gone in 2009. Maybe Bavasi too.
Stick a fork in ‘em, it’s so obvious that even McLaren sees the writing on the wall. We can only hope that this year’s failure will bring a future change in team building philosophy…but I’m not holding my breath.
Yep…looks like it’s back to the 80’s already.
Or, alternately, “The 2008 Seattle Mariners…Is it football season yet?”
Bavasi should be fired immediately before he can do more damage. I realize it would be cruel to do so, in light of the recent death of his father, but this is business. Bavasi cannot be allowed to make another desperate, costly trade.
The problem is that the current regime is just as likely to hire another incompetent GM. That means an entire sweep of the front office, but that probably won’t happen unless the team is sold. That is unlikely.
Who would’ve thought at this point that the NHL Playoffs would be more exciting to watch than M’s/Yankees at The House That Ruth Built.
Let’s not kid ourselves, next year the Mariners need to go all out and get Mark Texiera and a bullpen along with completely changing this front office.
I think everybody would’ve thought that the NHL playoffs would be more exciting to watch than the M’s and Yankees.
It’s crazy to think about how big of a hole the M’s have already dug themselves into. The Bedard trade looks really, really bad at this point in time; even if Bedard continues to pitch like his last 2 starts for the rest of the year, the M’s can’t put up 3 runs to save their lives.
I don’t even know if 10-3 would do it…that’s the scary part.
This team is making me hate baseball.
I agree with number 6 above — it is, however, unrealistic for us to get rid of Bavasi at this point in the year (and as many have you argue, it would definitively hurt our draft). Having said that, I really hope upper management vetoes any potential big trades Bavasi would make. He’s done enough damage as it is. Which is a different side to the whole “Bavasi is an ethical man” talk we had earlier this week (“short-term gains to save my job, at the cost of huge future gains? Sign me up!”
This season’s already over, and can’t be saved: the problems are too deep and fundamental to address with quick fixes. Management needs to be thinking about the future. This team needs an overhaul, top to bottom, starting with a complete change not only in personnel but in philosophy in the FO. I think the reason so many of us feel so hopeless is that we know that the failures stem directly from the philosophy, and there’s no sign that anyone in management recognizes this. Hence all the posts about how McL and Bavasi will probably be canned, but then will be replaced with similarly bad choices espousing the same philosophy, and nothing will change. Has anyone done a ranking of team FO’s? I vaguely remember reading something like that on this site before the season started. The M’s’ has got to be near the bottom, made all the more offensive because, unlike some other chronically bottom-feeding franchises, the M’s actually have money. I still think the key is for the fans to stay away and the team to actually lose some money; that’s the only thing I can imagine that might actually lead to some productive soul-searching by management.
“The 2008 M’s: Baseball at it’s most boring”.
If the season continues to go in this direction, is it possible that there would be a fire-sale? Would Bavasi look to move Bedard, Beltre, Raul, or anyone else that might have value at the trade deadline? I’m not for moving Beltre or Bedard, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Management night be in favor of blowing this team up and starting fresh with a new coach and GM.
I’m almost rooting for this team to go down in flames at this point. Anything to get a fire lit under ownership’s butt.
…Only problem is, that’s exactly what happened back in ‘04 — and it still didn’t do a lick of good.
Going into this season my only hope was that the team would do particularly well or particularly poorly.
At this point I am ready to just hope they do poorly, because doing well would not be good enough. Or good enough only to perpetuate mediocrity.
I am enjoying rooting for many of the individual players to excel, but hoping the team overall underperforms enough to force change… starting higher on the food chain than Bavasi.
I know that total failure does not guarantee that the team will start doing the right things… but even limited success seems to guarantee that it will not.
Everybody involved seem like good people… but it’s not working. And worse… it should have been obvious that it was not going to.
A hundred losses or bust.
It’s hard to envision politically how a team would move several of its best prospects for Bedard in the off-season only to trade him for prospects less than a year later. Likewise, this team seems pretty well tied to Raul. Let’s not discuss trading Beltre.
One of the drawbacks of having an old, bad, expensive team is that there aren’t many players with trade value.
Assuming that this management realizes this. Bavasi might, but I’m not convinced people above him do.
#17: Maybe politically it wouldn’t make sense, but look at where politics and loyalty have gotten us so far.
The furthest place we’ve been with Raul is 88 wins, if he can’t play any other position than DH and we already have Clement and Johjima locked in for ‘09, it is time to dump him. As for Bedard, who is the only person on this roster aside from the franchise players we have here (i.e. Felix, Ichiro, Yuni, etc.) that has some trade value, you just have to explore your options and see where there may be a pressing need that couldn’t be filled by a free agent. Then if you shop him around, you just have to see if the trade makes sense.
Blowing up the team? They weren’t in favor of it back in 2004, what makes you think they’d suddenly change their mind now?
They don’t need to blow up the whole roster, but the manager and GM need to be SERIOUSLY evaluated.
17- The team could get away with trading Bedard if they hired a new GM first, I would think.
The furthest place we’ve been with Raul is 88 wins, if he can’t play any other position than DH and we already have Clement and Johjima locked in for ‘09, it is time to dump him.
1) We got basically nothing but high risk prospects for Randy Winn the last time we tried this. Jamie Moyer didn’t fetch much, either.
2) Johjima is no guarantee to be a decent hitter in 2009. Catchers with that many games on the odometer have a tendency to collapse. We should be careful before sending any useful LHB away for scraps… especially when this team’s problem is “not enough left handed batters”.
who is the only person on this roster aside from the franchise players we have here (i.e. Felix, Ichiro, Yuni, etc.)
One of these things is not like the other things, one of these things just doesn’t belong…
Seriously, Yuni’s a decent player, but a SS hitting .290/.310/.400 is a decent player, not a “franchise player”, unless he’s Ozzie Smith in the field, and Yuni’s not.
The bullpen will settle down………I hope.
Sign Barroid and watch the offense get better.
There really isn’t another good choice. With each passing game of offensive feebility, the arguments against seem lamer. It isn’t as if he could make it worse.
Jose Guillen’s hyper-competitive and sometimes confrontational personality also seems to be missed. He would have gotten a bit upset about 6 E’s in two games, I don’t know who in the current clubhouse really assumes that role.
Our starting pitching has been good enough to win far more games.
With each passing game of offensive feebility, the arguments against seem lamer.
The decisive arguments for signing Barry or not signing him are probably ethical, not performance related- “Do we reward a guy whose career has been extended by the cream and the clear with more millions of dollars?” As such, the team floundering at the plate doesn’t have much to do with it.
And to think, he actually wanted to re-sign here!
I would have to think of that as a bare-minimum pre-req, in order to avoid any such nonsense as, per se, Bedard for Vicente Padilla or something else equally as stupid.
next year the Mariners need to go all out and get Mark Texiera
I’ll say it again: WTF is this obsession with Texiera? He’s not as good a 1B as his reputation suggests, and in any case “going all out” to get a free agent 1B is exactly how we ended up with Sexson. DH/1B are the easiest positions to fill, and thus the worst use of your free agent dollars. Blowing a lot of cash on a lot of years for a 1B/DH is the sign of a badly-run team, or at least some very bad decision making (See: Sexson, Vidro, Mo Vaughn, etc). If you luck into a Pujols obviously you lock him up, but he’s young and (even after arbitration) way underpaid. To quote Dave
I think it is obvious Texiera is not the answer here … but it is also obvious if we get of Bedard that would be even worse. You can’t go out and acquire a guy like that for the talent we gave up just to bail on him after one year. I still believe once we get Washburn out of the rotation things will change for the better – keep Felix, Bedard, Silva for sure. That must happen.
As for our hitters? Only one I want to keep is Ichiro.
The decisive arguments for signing Barry or not signing him are probably ethical, not performance related- “Do we reward a guy whose career has been extended by the cream and the clear with more millions of dollars?â€
It may also be “Do we want the team to be at the center of a media hurricane everywhere it goes on the road, and even at home?” And “Do we want the M’s family-friendly ‘brand’ to be tainted by association? Do we want that much attention, of that sort, from the national media, the comish’s office, and everybody else?”
As you say, the on-field performance can have nothing to do with it: strictly as a business decision, ‘ethics’ aside, all those negatives don’t necessarily outweigh the positive of a winning season (which isn’t certain even with Mr Colossal Head on the roster and may still fall short of a division title).
Think I’d still hang on to Beltre as well.
I’m not sure I agree with this. Couldn’t one find a 13-19 stretch in almost any team’s record, playoff contender or cellar dweller? I don’t understand the concept of playing “.608 baseball”. Does that imply a team needs to play 1.000 baseball to win 1 game or 3 in a row? The 2003 Tigers won 3+ in a row 5 times. I’m not sanguine about Seattle’s chances, but I don’t think you can say the season is slipping away yet. That seems premature.
The key word in that entire paragraph was “sustain”. Any team can play 1.000 baseball for a few days or even a week. For five months, to play .608 baseball, you have to be a darn good team.
So no, it’s not premature.
The 2003 Tigers won 3+ in a row 5 times. I’m not sanguine about Seattle’s chances, but I don’t think you can say the season is slipping away yet. That seems premature.
3 out of the 4 AL teams that had qualified for the playoffs in 2007 were already leading their division races by Memorial Day. The Yankees were the exception… except they were well under .500 with a 256-236 RS/RA team, so it was pretty obvious they weren’t a bad team.
To put this another way, the M’s were 16-16 last year after 32 games, 2.5 games behind the Angels, and we all know how THAT one ended.
You can dig yourself out of a hole, but the M’s would be much better off not starting out in one with 20% of the season gone already. Comebacks are rarer than you think.
Its better this way. Really, it is. We’re moving toward that trade deadline, and if we’re within five games of whoever’s on top, I’m betting Bavasi ends up on the receiving end of a veteran for prospects handoff this season. And we’re better off not doing that this year.
So if now’s a bad time to fire the GM…when’s it a good time? If you wait until November you screw yourself for the free agent period. IMO, I’d rather see the GM replaced just after the draft. That gives the new GM a couple of months to prepare for deadline deals…and even if he does nothing at the deadline it won’t kill you. If you can’t do it right after the draft, then August 1st…right after the deadline…might be the time.
And those rare, historic comebacks rely as much on epic swoon/chokes by the team that was in the lead as on the performance of the team that caught them. You can’t count on your opponent being bad or stupid, but that’s pretty much what you need for one of those great comebacks.
Oh, c’mon…don’t ‘cha just want another go-round with Jose Mesa or some other such Gas Can come August again this year? Where is your team spirit, mon?!
Silva thinks guys just need to keep to a routine, and stop trying so hard to fix things….
well.
Washburn v. Millwood
Batista v. Ponson
Bedard v. Padilla
Felix v. Gabbard or AJ Murray
a split?
39: Hmm…let’s see:
1) L
2) ?
3) W
4) W
…probably.
Stick a fork in the M’s…they are done. If they put on a sprint they could finish third in the division.
Will the M’s jettison their veterans for some prospects, and try and rebuild, or continue the charade that they are really a competitive team?
Bavasi needs to go sooner rather than later. His body of work….Cirillo, Spiezio, Carl Everett, Wilkerson, Vidro, Washburn, Rameriez, Rick White…who did I forget….justify his dismissal.
rcc -
You are forgetting the single worst move of his tenure — Carlos Guillen for Ramon Santiago.
Well… maybe that and Soriano for Horacio are tied.
Uh, that was actually Mr. Gillick’s doing.
…Though maybe you were thinking of Rich Aurilia — who, yes, was equally (if not even more) useless.
#42
Yep, the Guillen deal was the WORST!
We couldn’t use a .300 plus hitting, 20 plus HR, 100 RBI switching hidding infielder could we??!!
The problem with Bavasi is he continually trades away more talent in trades to fill specific needs.
Last year we needed a starter so he traded the much more talented guy in Soriano to fill a need. But Baek would have been better than Haracio. You don’t trade top talent to fill a need when you can fill the need internally.
All GM’s make mistakes but unfortunately there is a track record with Bavasi with trades where the M’s get the short end of the stick.
Sigh…it really is tough being an M’s fan right now.
“switch hitting”
man, I am so dispondent with the losing I can’t even spell anymore.
46 – You mean “despondent”?
45: Thank you. I mentioned that Guillen mess the other day, too, ’cause to this day it still burns me up. If you’re the GM and are going to trade a player because (if amongst other reasons) he no longer lives to up to your expectations of what is deemed “family-friendly”, the least you should do is take a look at what you’re getting in return rather than to just shake hands with the first guy off the street who offers you a case of sunflower seeds. >:(
#47, you are right, “despondent”
LOL!
Like I said, the losing and frustration is making me lose my mind.
Boy when Silva regresses, he doesn’t mess around.
2.79 ERA before today, 4.20 now. I kinda expected it to happen over the course of a few starts… shows what I know.
I think those of us who have followed the M’s for a few decades may be suffering from Post Traumatic Mariners Disorder. I know I am. Here’s proof: I’m reading an innocent golf story and the appearance of a certain name…
…made me yelp out loud. “Aaaaaaaaah!”
Soriano for HoRam was worse. It precipitated a whole host of badness. Morrow goes to the pen in ‘07 rather than start in the minors. And since the M’s cannot then even ponder using him in the rotation during 2008, they sign Silva and trade for Bedard.
How about not drafting Lincecum in favor of Morrow.
There are so many GREAT reasons to fire Bavasi, and to do it right now.
I feel I have earned the right to root against the Mariners and so far this year I am having some fun rooting against them.
The ethics argument is malarkey. Management is supposed to strive to win. The Ms need a miracle – a major bat talent that doesn’t cost them talent from their roster. The only conceivable miracle is Bonds.
But, this issue goes beyond the Ms. Bonds appears to have been blacklisted at a league-wide level. The funny thing is that this blacklisting is simply making the league look silly – and certainly doesn’t make them look ‘ethical’.
Yeah the drafts really have hurt. I can’t pretend to know how difficult it is to assess talent and see the future for a player… but Morrow over Lincecum boggles the mind. Especially puzzling when you consider Lincecum was local and the team should have seen his body of work.
I don’t know what Jeff Clement is going to be doing in the long run, but that 2005 draft was insanely talented, with the likes of Zimmerman and Braun going right after Clement, Tulowitzki, Jay Bruce, Cameron Maybin, Colby Rasmus et al. going later. Here’s hoping that Clement is every bit the hitter that he can be, but I would like the team to make better choices in situations like Morrow / Lincecum.
The Baseball Prospectus playoff odds report had the Mariners at ~10% going into today. That seems about right.
Well, there’s always the wild-card. That might only take 91 wins to achieve!
vr, Xeifrank
“For a team of this quality to play .600 ball for five months is almost unheard of.”
Over the last 6 years an average ~3 teams a year played above .600 ball after May 4th (41% of which had a losing record on 5/4). Thus, teams can come back from a rough April, but most of them were pretty good to begin with (arguable much better than the current M’s roster).
2007
NYY–.607 after 5/4 (.444 on 5/4)
2006
MIN–.634 after 5/4 (.393 on 5/4)
NYY–.603 after 5/4 (.577 on 5/4)
2005
NYY–.627 after 5/4 (.444 on 5/4)
CLE–.603 after 5/4 (.423 on 5/4)
STL–.603 after 5/4 (.692 on 5/4)
2004
STL–.674 after 5/4 (.519 on 5/4)
NYY–.632 after 5/4 (.577 on 5/4)
BOS–.610 after 5/4 (.577 on 5/4)
ATL–.606 after 5/4 (.520 on 5/4)
2003
ATL–.618 after 5/4 (.645 on 5/4)
SFG–.603 after 5/4 (.700 on 5/4)
2002
ATL–.667 after 5/4 (.484 on 5/4)
OAK–.659 after 5/4 (.533 on 5/4)
NYY–.654 after 5/4 (.581 on 5/4)
LAA–.639 after 5/4 (.483 on 5/4)
STL–.629 after 5/4 (.467 on 5/4)
The Mariners’ season is quickly becoming like the Pink Pony Chariot … that has plunged into a ditch on the side of the road.
And it’s lying upside down with the wheels spinning, and a dazed, muddy McLaren asking, “What hap…hap… happened?!”
But, but .. this is team carefully assembled with a core of gritty veterans who know how to play the game. The kind of players who don’t panic and get thrown off when things don’t go right. The kinds of players who know how to do the little things to win games.
That the Mariners handily beat their Pythag record last season wasn’t a fluke; it was the direct product of filling the roster with players of character, integrity and veteran savvy. [/sarcasm]
I think the current team situation directly relates to perceptions of last years team. Many fans, and apparently the Mariners FO as well, believed that last year’s team was a valid contender (or almost contender) – that the record at the end of 2007 was a true reflection of the ability of the team. Buying into that notion leads directly to the conclusion that if a few holes are patched (primarily in the rotation) the team is a true contender. Clearly, that’s the way the FO saw the team last winter. I’ve mentioned in several posts over the last several months that the I think the FO viewed the 2007 season as vindication for their thoughts about roster construction, viz. that a roster assembled with the proper intangibles will outplay their true talent level – said team will win more than their “fair share” of games because the will do the things needed to win games and will play as greater than the sum of the parts.
This season can be viewed as a test of that notion. Many here (myself included) saw that belief as a misperception; the Mariners were not as good as their record and that they Pythag record was a better indication of the teams true talent level. I will gladly eat crow if I am wrong, but so far this season would seem vindication.
Argh, so much Ichiro! going to waste…
Ichiro’s running wild this year. I’m sure it’s a function of the team looking to manufacture runs, but he’s on pace to have more stolen bases than he’s had any other year in MLB so far.
Well the magic number is 124, kind of early to be looking at that but it’s time to stick a fork in the season. I am a MLB TV subscriber but lucky for me I have been at sea with the exception of a week home in April. I was was able to catch one M’s game online, but I’m just thankful I haven’t witnessed any of the recent games and the current tailspin. I’ve read about it and the skipper of my air squadron is also an M’s fan, he told me he didn’t want to hear from me unless they won, that’s been a few days. O found DMZ’s book at the Navy Exchange before we left…might be team to start reading and stay away from the M’s for a bit, since it’s been aggravating to read about it.
I’m not one for rosterbation but what about Dmitri Young? He’s about to head to extended spring training to start hitting again since his back sprain and hip flexor pain are not much of an issue. No timetable on when he’ll be ready.
Someone give me a good reason why investing in Mark Texiera isn’t a good idea when all he does is produce RESULTS? Seriously.
Maybe the contracts of Richie Sexson, Mo Vaughn, etc. at first base didn’t turn out well because maybe they weren’t really superstar players?
#65: Actually, scratch that about Mo Vaughn.
65- Because there’s no MLB player named Mark “Texiera.”
/giggle
Acquiring Mark Texeira is exactly the kind of bonehead move that got us into this fix in the first place.
“But,” says Steve Kelley, “It’s not McLaren’s fault.”
I think the key is how “team of this quality” is defined. The point is how likely is it that a roster of guys who project like the Ms will be able to play .600 ball for 4/5ths of a season.
Sure teams can start slow and dig themselves out of a hole. Good teams can that is….
That was supposed to contain a link.
The sad thing is they will probably crawl back up towards .500 over the rest of the season — which will be duly interpreted as some sort of hopeful sign by the FO going into next year.
Hotstove anybody?
Jayson Stark has just noticed that maybe the Ms weren’t constructed to win, after all.
You know, looking forward, there is some hope for the future. Our biggest weaknesses are the easiest holes to fill — 1B, DH, corner OF. Move Ibanez to DH where he belongs, and we’re three journeymen away from an average offense.
The sad thing is that to do this we’re relying on the team that assembled the worst 1B-DH-RF-LF I think I have ever seen.
I attended yesterday’s game at the stadium…painful experience.
I was confused as to why silva came back in the fourth after getting rocked in the third, the bullpen actually did a nice job the rest of the game.
I was wondering while enduring yankee ovation after ovation, if I prefer this to the power lineups of the mid-90s being destroyed by a weak bullpen…all things considered, I think this variation has a better chance of winning.
I agree with the overall thesis of today’s post, but hold out hope that the m’s can get hot, and other teams can run into trouble…although it’s clear at this point the m’s need the help of other teams (being considerate and losing)in addition to them winning.
Baseball’s a phenomenally streaky sort of enterprise (especially with the travesty of home-and-home snoozer series that the current administration has saddled us with).
Last year, we wrote off the M’s several times, at which point they would go on a seven game tear.
(And then we wrote them on, and they would play down to their level of talent for a few weeks.)
This season isn’t nearly over – though the M’s might be better off if they acted as though it were.