Will the Seattle Mariners Lose 100 Games Again This Year?

I'm reading a lot of articles that basically say that it's extremely unlikely. Not because the Mariners are one whit better than last year, but because they can't possibly be worse. Here's Rob Neyer:

Is there reason for hope? Absolutely. Left fielder Michael Saunders and first baseman Justin Smoak, both of whom have been terrible disappointments, are probably going to show some of the talent that made them top prospects. Newcomer Jack Cust and malcontent Milton Bradley should give the M’s decent production from the DH slot.

Elsewhere – and I really can’t stress this strongly enough – most of the Mariners’ hitters will hit better in 2011 than 2010 simply because 1) they’re very unlikely to hit exactly the same, and 2) it would be very difficult for them to hit worse.

Does all this mean the Mariners aren’t going to lose 101 games again? Yeah, it probably does.

I remain skeptical. While it's hard to imagine them actually hitting worse because it would be impossible, it's very easy to imagine the starting pitching and bullpen being worse while the hitting isn't that much better. They remain below average at every single offensive position except Ichiro in RF. Jack Cust is a fringe major leaguer, though one with significant power. The other relatively big pickup, Miguel Olivo, helps with a catcher situation that was abysmal last year, but that's a very limited gain. Justin Smoak could finally hit well at 1B. Actually I kind of expect he will have real improvement. And that would be huge. But I have no faith in Michael Saunders in LF.

In any case, I need a more convincing argument than, "It's hard to be them this bad two years in a row," to believe in the Mariners to lose less than 90-95 games anyway. If not 100.

Desperation

This is the worst time of the year for me. Football season is over. Baseball season is far off. And Spring Training doesn't cut it for filling the gap. Evidence of my desperation is becoming more obvious every year.

One example--I was following the story of Ross Ohlendorf's arbitration hearing very closely. Ohlendorf, a pitcher for the Pirates, won 1 game last year.

Help!

If I Had a Hall of Fame Ballot

Baseball Hall of Fame voting is this week. If I had a ballot, I'd probably vote for the maximum 10 in order to make up for those who only vote for 1. Here's how I'd vote:

1. Bert Blyleven--this has been so obvious for so long, it's a shame that he isn't in the HOF as it is. He probably will make it this year, his final year of eligibility. The only reason Blyleven isn't in already is that he pitched for terrible teams throughout his career, meaning that he doesn't have 300 wins.

2. Roberto Alomar--one of the best 2B ever, I was really surprised he didn't make it last year, which was his first year of eligibility. Would be surprised if he was denied again. I know he was a jerk, but who cares. It isn't the Hall of Nice Guys.

3. Tim Raines--one of the greatest leadoff hitters ever. Once Blyleven gets in, Raines probably becomes the cause d'celebre for baseball geeks. As well he should.

4. Alan Trammell--a fantastic shortstop for a series of excellent teams. It's a travesty that his double play partner Lou Whitaker isn't even on the ballot, for he didn't get the requisite votes to stay on after his 1st year of eligibility. That's a joke and probably has more to do with Whitaker showing up for the negotiations in the 1994 strike in white limo than his play. Meanwhile, Trammell was only awesome for more than a decade.

5. Jeff Bagwell--I know there are steroid rumors about Bagwell. But there is no actual evidence of this. Bagwell is one of the 2 greatest players in Astros history. He deserves to be in.

6. Edgar Martinez--he should be the Mariners' first inductee. Hurt because his final numbers aren't up to the norm, but that's much more because the Mariners kept him in Edmonton for years because they were sure Jim Presley was their 3B of the future. In a related issue, many go against Martinez because he was a DH for most of his career. OK, although I don't think this should necessarily matter. But again, he would have had at least 1000 more ABs in the field if the Mariners call him up at a decent age.

7. Barry Larkin--one of the great shortstops of my era. One of the great Reds of all time. A clear choice.

At this point, things start getting a touch more sketchy for me. More borderline cases here.

8. Dave Parker--really a dominant OF for a long time

9. Fred McGriff--a classic borderline candidate, I suspect he will slowly gain support over the years, especially considering that there are zero steroid allegations against him, at least that I know of.

10. Dale Murphy--I'm not really sold here but he was the best player in the league for several years in the 80s.

As for the steroid candidates, my rule of thumb is to think about whether I'd vote them in without the steroids. Did their pre-steroid use days suggest they were probably HOF players? Bonds obviously yes. Clemens, probably. McGwire and Palmeiro, both eligible this year, no. McGwire was almost out of the league when he started in. Palmeiro was a solid 1B but clearly no better than that. I have no problem saying no to both.

Also, in an ideal world with more flexibility as to who can be on of off the ballot, I'd add Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich in place of McGriff and Murphy.

Finally, I just can't go along with the idea that Jack Morris is a HOF pitcher. He's the choice of the uniformed voter who strictly looks at win totals and remembers single-game heroics. He was a very good but not great pitcher but benefited from playing on excellent teams throughout his career. How many 9-5 games did he win with Toronto? I remember an awful lot.

Roger Angell

Everyone is sad about Bob Feller's death. He was obviously one of the top 10 pitchers of all time. But I remember him as much as being a right-wing crank as a great pitcher, so I don't have a lot I want to say here.

However, Roger Angell's remembrance is a reminder of just what a wonderful writer Angell is on baseball and everything else.

Pat Gillick, Hall of Famer? Marvin Miller, Not a Hall of Famer?

So the Veterans' Committee elected former Blue Jays GM Pat Gillick to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I have no problem with Gillick. He put together some amazing Blue Jays teams in the 80s and early 90s, including 2 World Series winning teams. In an age before you could just buy a championship, he managed to put together a lineup that had a very good Devon White leading off, Roberto Alomar at his prime hitting second, late-stage but still awesome Paul Molitor hitting third, and Joe Carter batting clean-up, with quality pitchers like Jimmy Key holding down a good-enough rotation.

But to elect Pat Gillick over Marvin Miller? This is a total joke. Outrageous. Marvin Miller is one of the five most important individuals in the history of the game--up there with Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Branch Rickey. Miller brought free agency to the game. For that, the owners still hate him. What's worse, many players don't care about him because they don't like to think of themselves as anything but self-made (Jim Palmer, who is on the Veterans Committee, has specifically had this allegation thrown at him). I would say Bud Selig should simply just name him to the HOF, but Selig, as a former owner, probably hates Miller too.

I am outraged that Bert Blyleven, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, Tim Raines, and Bobby Grich aren't in the Hall of Fame. That's ridiculous. And if there's any real resistance to Roberto Alomar, I'm going to throw a clot. But Marvin Miller--that's just sheer injustice.

The other question coming out of today's vote was where George Steinbrenner would get in--I certainly think he deserves to be, but I don't mind his candidacy waiting a bit. The fact that Dave Concepcion nearly got in is a good sign--I'd probably vote for him, particularly since I believe in the value of great defense.

Worst MLB Game Ever

Today's Cincinnati-Milwaukee game is probably the worst played and slowest major league game I have ever attended. For an NL 9 inning game, it took 3:39 to play it. And that's with a significant quickening in the last couple of innings.

A Friendly Reminder...

...that the guys from Fire Joe Morgan have returned to blogging for today only over at Dead Spin. "Why should I care?," you ask? Well, if nothing else, there's some excellent ragging on the cult of Eckstein, as well as really weird stories about Joe Morgan. But really, every single post is worth reading.

Why There Shouldn't Even BE A Debate Over the AL Cy Young Award This Year

Posnanski has it covered:

When you compare him [Sabathia] to, say, Felix Hernandez in any way except wins, he falls short. He has thrown fewer innings, given up more runs, given up more hits, has a significantly higher ERA, has walked more batters, has struck out fewer batters, has fewer complete games, does not have a shutout. Those advanced statistics that some people love and other people despise make it very clear hasn't just been better than Sabathia - he has been a lot better. Hernandez's WAR is 5.7/5.9 (Baseball Reference/Fangraphs) while Sabathia's is 4.0. Hernandez's fielding independent numbers are all markedly better than Sabathia. Hernandez has also faced better competition, not least because he has had to face the Yankees three times while Sabathia has gotten to face the Mariners three times. And those Mariners are as bad an offensive team as I can ever remember.

Yes, yes, and yes. It's ridiculous that anybody still needs to say this, but I'll say it again: wins tell us almost nothing. What little useful information we can derive from wins tells us about as much as a team's offensive abilities as it does about a pitcher's abilities. There was a time where wins were a good indicator of a pitcher, but that time is long, long past. Based on any metric, King Felix is this year's AL Cy Young winner, and it's not even close. It's the most open-and-shut case in the Cy Young in a long time.

So of course, don't be remotely surprised if and when the Cy Young voters give it to Sabathia instead.

Ichiro!

Let's hope Frank Deford starts a trend and all major sports journalists write columns about the awesomeness of Ichiro. 

One quote in particular:

The fact is, though, that Ichiro is probably better at the task of putting a bat on a pitched ball than anyone — ever — in history.

Is this true?  It's actually quite possible. Ichiro has 2199 hits in under 10 seasons. If you include his Japanese numbers, he has 3600 professional hits. Perhaps he wouldn't have quite so many if he had played exclusively in America. But it would be pretty close. He started in the U.S. at age 27. If you assume 5 additional seasons averaging 220 hits, which is pretty reasonable and doesn't even include a cup of coffee he probably would have received a previous year or two, that would give him about 3300 hits at the age of 36. 3300 hits alone would make Ichiro 11th in major league history. He will gets 200 hits for the 10th consecutive season this year. Only Pete Rose has 10 200 hit seasons, and they weren't consecutively. If he had 3300 hits now, he'd need less than 600 to be in the top 3 all time. Ichiro almost assuredly has 600 more hits  in him.

Will Ichiro reach 3000 American hits? It's hard to say. He needs another 801 and he is 36 years old. That would mean averaging 200 hits a year into his age 40 season. I don't know if he can do that. But he is a truly remarkable athlete who has already done things no one else has. Maybe he should take a few more walks and maybe he doesn't hit for any power, but he is an amazing player for what he does do and anyone who doesn't vote for Ichiro as a 1st ballot Hall of Famer should have their voting privileges stripped.

The New York Mets, or, Yet Another Way In Which Mr. Trend Was Ahead of the Curve

The Cleveland Indians are and always will be my first baseball team. That said, living in New York turned me into a pretty strong Mets fan, for better and for worse (though being a lifelong Indians fan has made me relatively immune to what Mets fans think is severe suffering). With the Metropolitans as my second team, I quickly invested a decent amount of emotion and energy into them, and ever since the firing of Willie Randolph, I've insisted the Mets need a purging, not so much because I was a major Randolph partisan, but rather because of the fact that Minaya handled it about as terribly as one could. Ever since then, I've never missed a chance when with friends to call for Minaya's firing and the removal of Jerry Manuel (not out of ill will, but out of a desire for a completely fresh start).

Thus, I'm glad to see the major national media finally starting to get on board with what fans have known for a long time: that the Mets need to ditch Minaya, Manuel, and all related personnel, and begin a major rennovation (new ownership would be nice, too, though that's less likely).

Out-of-touch-with-reality Athlete of the Week

C.C. Sabathia, who apparently feels his idiocy at the All-Star game was not enough. It would seem that egotistical, idiot blowhards is one of the few strong exports Northeast Ohio still has.

I Blame Joe Girardi

This never would have happened if only Fausto Carmona had pitched instead of Phil Hughes.

The Boston Red Sox As The Current Democratic Party

I'm still on John Kerry's e-mail list from 2004. I usually just delete the e-mails, but today I received one entitled "Vote for Youk." Knowing he was talking about Red Sox 1B Kevin Youkilis, who is one of 5 players on the ballot for the last AL All-Star spot, I thought I'd take a look.

Kevin Youkilis of the Red Sox is an All Star in anyone's book. He plays the game the way it's supposed to be played, he hustles, he has a great bat and a glove to match, and he brings with it the kind of intensity we respected for years in guys like Trot Nixon. Youk deserves to be in the All-Star game -- while the team has grinded it out in spite of injury after injury, he's been a rock. But now he needs to win a fan vote to make it to Anaheim next week.

The stakes are also just a little personal: in the fan voting, currently Nick Swisher of the Yankees is in first place. Swisher's having a fine year, but Youk is better in just about every category, batting average, slugging, homeruns, everything and he plays Gold Glove defense to boot. Please don't let anyone say that Swisher beat Youkilis because Sox fans have gone a little soft after '04 and '07. Let's show we're still the most ravenous fans in baseball.

I've proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the New York Yankees are the Republican Party of baseball and are, along with the Republicans, one of the 2 most evil entities in the United States. But is there any question that the Red Sox are equivalent to the modern Democratic Party. They are very rich and privileged, but just not quite as rich as the Yankees. They benefit from free market baseball more than anyone than the Yankees, but like the Democratic Party, we are supposed to believe they are the team of the little guy.

Meanwhile, as the AL ballot battle is a popularity contest between Red Sock Youkilis and Yankee Nick Swisher, the real little guys, Michael Young of Texas, Paul Konerko of Chicago, and Delmon Young of Minnesota, are forgotten about by both parties.

Does Anybody Else Smell Fire?

Let Cleveland's annual fire-sale and dumping of veterans commence. Something tells me this trade won't be quite as good as the "Felix Fermin-for-Omar Vizquel" trade, though.

Vizquel

I was watching a Rangers-White Sox game the other day. The Rangers announcers were introducing the White Sox starting lineup. Omar Vizquel was starting and they introduced him as "former Ranger and future Hall of Famer Omar Vizquel."

I thought this laughable. Does anyone really think Omar Vizquel belongs in the Hall of Fame? Was he ever considered one of the best players in major league baseball at any one time in his career? I know he was an excellent defensive shortstop. And he became functional with the bat.

So I looked at Baseball Reference to see his comparable 10 players. I admit I was surprised to see 7 Hall of Famers. Basically it was a list of the good fielding/average hitting shortstops in the Hall of Fame--Apaircio, Maranville, Ozzie Smith. But I'm still not convinced at all. Vizquel didn't redefine the position like the three ahead of him. He has benefited from playing a very long time, but like with Jamie Moyer, that's not a reason to be in the Hall of Fame.

I'm not sure how many 3 time All-Stars are in the Hall of Fame. I know that's a statistic of limited use, but only 3 times did fans or managers think Vizquel was one of the best players in the game. His 11 Gold Gloves are impressive, but that's a joke of an award. Vizquel may have deserved them, but it's not a useful measurement. He had an OPS+ of over 100 only twice in his career.

My point is that Omar Vizquel is a very good player. And if there were a Hall of the Very Good, Vizquel would be in there along with players like Joe Carter, Don Mattingly, Will Clark, and a lot of others. And there'd be some shortstops in there too--guys who Vizquel very much reminds me of. Dave Concepcion. Tony Fernandez. That's Vizquel's level. Future Hall of Famer? No.

Asshat of the Day

Bud Selig, who apparently believes that it is better to be stubbornly wrong (and to screw one of his umpires for life) than to actually correct an obvious (and easily-correctable) error. Selig's done more wrong than right throughout his life, but this should seal his Lifetime Achievement Award for Asshattery.

Goodbye Ken Griffey

Although it was clearly time, I am saddened by the retirement of Ken Griffey, Jr., also known as the man who saved baseball in Seattle.

Before Griffey arrived on the scene, Major League Baseball's experiment with locating a team in Seattle had been an unmitigated disaster. First there was the one year experiment with the Seattle Pilots before one Bud Selig moved them to Milwaukee. In 1977, Seattle got another chance with the Mariners. And the team was terrible. Just awful year after year. Before Griffey, the team's best players in its history had been the legendary Alvin Davis and Mark Langston. Seattle played in the Kingdome, arguably the worst stadium in the history of the game (though Montreal fans might have something to say about that). No one came to the games. Many people predicted the Mariners would move to Tampa or some other baseball hungry city.

And then along came Ken Griffey, Jr. He was amazing and he was fun. He was 19 years old and a freak of nature. He played center field like a gazelle, making remarkable catches and robbing players of home runs. He had titanic power and a beautiful swing. And he played the game with a smile on his face. All of a sudden, Seattle baseball was fun to watch. Combined with robbing Montreal of Randy Johnson, finally calling up Edgar Martinez from AAA instead of running Jim Presley out there every day, and acquiring a number of other good players, Seattle became a good, if flawed, team.

In 1995, they had a remarkable comeback to take the AL West from the Angels and make the playoffs for the first time in their 18 year history. They faced the Yankees in the first round and came back from New York down 2-0. Thinking the series was over, I went anyway assuming I would watch one game and go home. But then Seattle won. And they won again. And in Game 5, the game went to extra innings. Griffey got on first. Edgar Martinez doubled down the left field line and the speedy Griffey rounded third, scored, and Seattle won the series. It was amazing. Baseball was saved in Seattle. Griffey was in the middle of one of baseball history's greatest careers.

Things didn't stay great forever. Griffey eventually grew a bit distance, felt unloved in Seattle, and wanted to return to his home in Cincinnati. The Mariners agreed and traded him for Mike Cameron. Griffey then proceeded to get hurt year after year. His time with the Reds didn't go well. The Reds didn't win and Cincy fans tended to blame Griffey since he was getting paid so much and was always hurt. Eventually the injuries and the years took their toll. I saw Griffey play CF for the Reds in 2006. It was sad to watch him not come even close to balls he would have snagged in his youth.

Still, I was happy to see him go back to Seattle to close out his career. He shouldn't have come back this year, but that's all forgotten now.

Ken Griffey, Jr. was a great player. He played during the Steroid Era but no one ever accused this freak of an athlete of cheating. When he was healthy, he was amazing. And when he was hurt, he didn't roid up to return. He is the best player I have ever seen on my home team. He will probably be the first person to go into the Hall of Fame as a Mariner (it could be Edgar Martinez but I'm not sure he'll ever have the votes. Meanwhile, Randy Johnson will probably enter as a Diamondback).

I almost feel as though an epoch of my life has now concluded. The greatest player of my high school and college days has left the game. I guess millions of baseball fans have felt the same way as Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays and so many others have retired. Part of being a baseball fan is immersing yourself in the history. That means eventually you become part of the memories of past glories yourself. I never truly felt that way until this moment.

Notes from a Minor League Baseball Game

Seeing your Round Rock Express play the Las Vegas 51s (those bastards!!!) last night, I was disappointed at the lack of major league washouts that you usually see in AAA games. When Yorman Bazardo is the biggest has-been you see, it's not much. Actually Las Vegas, which is Toronto's AAA team, has some pretty fair prospects, including Brett Wallace, who has the potential to be a power hitting corner infielder in the majors.

So given the lack of Timo Perez's and Rick Helling's to see, I was still impressed by 2 things (other than half-price beer night). Which do you think is better?

1. Seeing a guy in a Drew Bledsoe Cowboys jersey
2. Hearing the guy in front of me yell for another beer while he was drinking a Smirnoff Ice

I feel the answer is clearly #2.

It's Lima Time In Heaven

Jose Lima, RIP

Lima really wasn't very good. But he was fun. And certainly memorable.

The Los Angeles Godzilla of Anaheim

Rob Neyer is correct--Torii Hunter giving Hideki Matsui the nickname "The Los Angeles Godzilla of Anaheim" is the best nickname ever.