Mariners put finishing touches on season of ineptitude (mama said knock you out edition)

Fig Jam

The Seattle Mariners have officially lost 100 games.  Nice work fellas.  No team has underachieved more than this group, or displayed a greater penchant for mismanagement and blatant disregard for competing on the highest levels.  Let’s review the following:

1.  Pitching Staff

No pitcher on the Mariners staff will finish the season with 10 wins.  Not even Felix Hernandez.  Erik Bedard is a worthless POS who has pre-emptively quit on the team for next season already.  His trade will go down as the greatest waste in the history of the club.  His numbers were gawdy when the team made the deal, and I can’t fault management for leveraging a lot of talent to get an ‘ace,’ but I can’t help but think that his trade will set the standard for an in depth interview with all future potential acquisitions.  If for no other reason, to ask the question, “If things don’t go great, are you going to throw your teammates under the bus, complain about the Seattle media to reporters in a different city, fall off the map in terms of visibility, and then opt for surgery with a year long recovery period at the end of your first season, effectively ending your second season?”  Bedard deserves to be punched in the nuts for how he behaved this season.  Oh – and it turns out that Putz had a terrible season as well.  I’d suggest an off season of getting into shape for the portly closer.  Can’t help but wonder how good he could be if he bothered to take care of himself.

2.  Offense.

Terrible.  No power to speak of,  traded away marginally productive players for reasons that were never explained, and never demonstrated an ability to consistently generate runs.  They are 13th out of 14th in the AL in runs, 13th in slugging, and 12th in Home Runs.   

3.  Defense

Mediocre.  6th out of 14 in the AL in terms of Errors.  That does not reflect, however, the number of balls that Jose Lopez failed to chase down, or the number of double plays that were not turned when they should have been.

4. Management 

Embarassing.  Flat out embarassing.  Bavasi is gone, but management still let Bedard get away with his BS, let Ichiro continue to ignore the American media, and generally just displays a total disregard for the Seattle fanbase that continues to support the team (or maybe just show support for their love of SafeCo field).  Someone needs to take control of this ship and show the good citizens of Seattle that change is coming… Change we can believe in! 

Fun Facts:

1.  Ichiro is the only player on the team batting over .300.  However, according to the Seattle Times and Geoff Baker, he is  hated in the clubhouse and there have been  instances throughout the course of the season where physical violence against him was contemplated by his teammates.  A quote from the article: 

“I just can’t believe the number of guys who really dislike him,” said one clubhouse insider. “It got to a point early on when I thought they were going to get together and go after him.”

The coaching staff and then-manager John McLaren intervened when one player was overheard talking — in reference to Ichiro — about wanting to “knock him out.” A team meeting was called to clear the air.

That is just outstanding. I’d love to see the memo about that team meeting.  Item #1 – do not knock Ichiro out.  Thank you. 

The guy claims not to be able to speak enough english to do an interview, but still manages to piss off his teammates enough that they are actually organizing a beatdown IN THE CLUBHOUSE.  Where is LL when you need him?

2.  .225.  This is the batting average of Kenji Johjima, the catcher that the Mariners signed for 3 additional years during the course of this season. 

3.  #19.  This is what number the Mariners were this year in attendance.  Not bad considering they will be dead last, or second to last in terms of performance.  According the ESPN.com, Seattle averaged just over 29,000 per game.  In 2007, they were #16, averaging just under 33,000 per game.  15th in 2006 (although lower attendance #’s), 12th in 200, 10th in 2004, 2nd in 2003, and first in 2002.  See any trends?