The badness: The M’s finished at 61-101, the first team with a $100M+ payroll to lose 100 games. The one time we wanted them to lose, which was at the end of the season to secure the #1 draft pick, they won three in a row to “edge out” Washington.
However, I don’t feel (fully) responsible for this one. The Mariners’ badness is the fault of Bill Bavasi, the General Manager who spent a ton on such questionable acquisitions as Richie Sexson, Jarrod Washburn, Jose Vidro and Carlos Silva. Sexson’s batting average became fixed to a promotion at Norm’s Ale House in Fremont, in which they matched the price of a beer to it (e.g. .172 average = $1.72 Buds, baby!). Washburn is vastly overpaid and mediocre, and sadly was not traded away last season when the M’s might have had the chance. Vidro made a bid at being the worst designated hitter in history… really. Silva reported gained at least 30 pounds during the 2008 season, and has three years left in his contract, during which we can only pray he eats himself out of a job.
Bavasi used the worst reasoning in signing players: rewarding players for past successes, when it should have been obvious that they were about to enter a down slope in their careers. The team actually competed for the division title well into the 2007 season, but it was something of an illusion… the team’s Pythagorean record was far below its actual record, indicating the M’s were actually getting a lot of lucky breaks, as opposed to actually being that talented. Unfortunately, Bavasi was convinced the team was one good pitcher away from the playoffs, and traded away good prospects for starter Erik Bedard, who, as it turns out, is made from papier-mache. Thus, not only is the team awful, its prospects of getting better anytime soon flew out the window under Bavasi.
The James angle: I’ve been following the M’s for a long time, and this is obviously not their first awful season in history. What stings about this one is the amount of money spent, and the likelihood that, with a gutted farm system, they will be bad for years to come. It’s worth noting that I received a Kenji Johjima jersey as a gift after admiring his toughness and clutch offense in 2006. In 2008, Johjima became something of a reviled figure after signing a huge contract extension at the relatively old age (for a catcher) of 31. Sure enough, in 2008 his average fell off a cliff (.227), and Washburn implied in an interview that the language barrier (Johjima is Japanese) was a factor in the team’s bad pitching performances.
The silver lining: Bavasi’s gone, hallelujah. His replacement as GM, Jack Zduriencik, actually seems to know something about other modern mathematical tools for evaluating players. He’s made moves to improve the outfield defense, which should at least make our crappy pitchers look somewhat better on paper. The team isn’t likely to finish about .500 in 2009, but at least they seem to be in more capable hands.
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