Well this sucks

This season will continue to be like every recent season until it isn’t.

In writing this blog I can’t help but take a look at what resonates and what does not. What posts tend to “perform” well and what do not. As if these jumbles of meanderings can act in some way.

Y’all like the analytics-driven posts I cull together despite not being even in the same hemisphere as the folks who do this for a living. I appreciate that. But, can you tolerate another random riff on our beloved hometown nine?

We’re gonna riff.

I can’t say my opinions and perspectives are the right ones. I can’t even say they’re good. But they’re what I have and they’re what I can throw your way so we’re doing that.

You know what this is all like, having a ten-game lead in the division and losing it all, and then some? Bear with me.

Have you ever received the worst news you’ve ever heard in your life?

Imagine you’re in a work meeting, you get a phone call from a family member or someone else you care about, you run out, you take the call, it’s bad. You run back.

“I gotta go.”

And everyone understands.

If you’ve had one of these moments, you know. If you haven’t, you will.

It sucks to say “you will” and it sucks more to even think about it but you know in your heart of hearts it will come. Because that’s how time works. That’s how life works.

This is not that. No. This has not been sudden. It’s not shocking.

This is what it feels like when you wake up two weeks or two months after that—after your world’s been turned upside-down. The world isn’t upside-down anymore, it’s just your world now.

The 2024 Seattle Mariners led the division by ten games. They had it in the bag. Our sights were set on Cleveland and the bye.

They blew the lead. They blew the lead in a month. The lead has been blown and now the Mariners are onto bigger and worse things. Like trailing the division by three games.

This is where I’d drop in what the playoff odds were and where the playoff odds are but there’s a very real chance I don’t look at playoff odds until March of next year.

How do you even describe all of this? How do you put into words how utterly soul-crushing this is? Again?

I don’t want to. You probably don’t want to read it.

But I write this to get some words out there to say, yeah, man, this sucks and I’m right there with you.

The most frustrating thing is they can do it so many different ways to end up in the same spot. The exact same spot. It’s all so dull even, every season since 2021 being almost identical. It’s run on so long it really does blur together, this smudge of persistent mediocrity+ stretches across time and you start to think “Actually, this is kind of like 2018 even. Could yet be 2017, geez.”

When Javy Baez stood and stared, Mariners’ fans ears ringing from the contact like Tom Hank on the beach in Saving Private Ryan, I wanted to think it was too on-the-nose to even be real. Like, come on. No way.

Way.

Very, very real. Too real for my taste, even. Absolutely piercing in its realness.

Javier Baéz came into yesterday’s game with a wRC+ of 39. Thirty. Nine.

Jesús Sucre had a career wRC+ of 52. Andrew Romine ran a 42 wRC+ in his 2018 season with the M’s.

Baéz and his 39 tattooed a game-winning two-run homer off a pitcher who last allowed a hit when Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee and Trump’s upper ear cartilage was un-grazed.

After the way the series had gone, the way the season was going, the outcome was surprising only in the creativity of whatever divine demon continues to torment this franchise and the fans who follow it.

Sure, yeah. Javy Baéz no-doubter off Muñoz as the offense sputters and fails against a second consecutive Tigers bullpen day. Of course. That makes sense.

They face Paul Skenes tonight.

So yeah, this sucks. This is not good. I’ve written these posts before, it’s hard to write ‘em again. May as well hit some other quick stuff.

Are they done?

They might be done.

As Goose noted yesterday, it may be more probable that the Mariners finish below .500 than above the Astros. It is August 16th and there is plenty of time left for this to get worse and enough worse that the final week or two of the season may not even matter.

It’s insane to think about, given where they were, but it was insane in 2018, too. Even the 2017 team was in it longer than folks remember.

They also might not. I don’t know. I like baseball and summer too much to check out and shift into fall mode now.

Like I mentioned above, I’m not looking at anyone’s playoff odds. I’m also not going to do the “If the Astros do x-y, then the Mariners need to…” stuff because I hate it.

It’s like—there’s six weeks left in the school year. I know I gotta get my grades up. Fast. But I don’t need the daunting math right in front of me. Stuff can happen.

What do we look at? It’s maybe the most #cope thing to point to but the Astros’ schedule is one I’m glad the Mariners do not face. I mean, I’d rather the Mariners had a three-game lead in the division, even with that schedule, but obviously we are not there.

Astros series the rest of the way: CHW, BOS, @BAL, @PHI, KC, @CIN, AZ, OAK, @LAA, @SD, LAA, @SEA, @CLE

Mariners series: @PIT, @LAD, SF, TB, @LAA, @OAK, @STL, SD, TEX, NYY, @TEX, @HOU, OAK.

And unless Houston sweeps that series in Houston in the final week of the season, the Mariners will have the tiebreaker. If the Astros sweep the Mariners in that series, the tiebreaker will absolutely not be mattering anyway, but there you go.

So, that’s what I’m looking at. That’s what I’m thinking on that front.

It’s not great. It’s so not great that I don’t really care to dive into the data because it probably isn’t good.

But hey, like all those other years, there’s a path. It’s pretty unlikely this team doesn’t have another stretch in them to give us hope. It’ll happen. Whether it’s enough, or whether they undo it again, we’ll see.

Okay but if they miss the playoffs there needs to be big changes, right?

I’m going to be really honest with you. Like, as transparent as I can be. And it’ll probably be more annoying than some mealy-mouthed middle-ground fluff about how there’s ups and downs.

There’s a good chance I’ve burned some bridges at the M’s given my continued comments on any number of things, but I go out of my way to not criticize individuals (exception for owners) and especially not individuals I like and that I worked with.

It’s pretty unlikely you’re ever going to see me call for Scott or Jerry’s jobs. I’m just not.

I was a lowly social guy but even in that role you forge relationships with folks. Hell, when I went to Lambeau Field for the first time for a Seahawks/Packers playoff game—a couple months after leaving the M’s and a mere week or so after my mother passed away—I was getting texts from skip about how I should swing by the tailgate he was at. (My dad was cold so we stayed at the bar we were at and naturally my dad ran into him on the concourse and got a picture anyway.)

Scott’s a good guy—and Jerry is, too. I already mentioned it but man, I’m just not going to go from sitting across the table from a guy, talking all things baseball with the GM of my favorite team, and then say any number of years later from my couch that he should lose his job.

Blind spot? Conflict? Yeah. Both. But there you go on that particular point.

The other thing—there will be a time for this, whatever this is. It doesn’t have to be now.

I do want to hit one actual bit of insight on this. There’s a big point folks are kind of missing as they come at this topic from multiple angles.

The question isn’t so much “Should the Mariners make a move on Jerry, Scott or both?” but “Why would the Mariners want to make a move anyway?”

To get to the next level? To be better than a very fringe contender? To win a World Series?

When have they expressed any interest in doing that?

John Stanton said at the beginning of the year that the primary goal was to be competitive all the way through the season. That’s important because when you’re competitive to the end, you’re packing the ballpark as much as you can for all 81 games.

Do Postseason games bring in bank? For sure. Would a World Series reap them untold fortunes? Most likely.

But is it worth it, to this group, to spend $50 million more per year to maybe get a few more home games? Ehhh.

They probably like this setup quite a bit.

So you could have a new President of Baseball Ops come in, but they may say “Hey, we gotta bump the payroll.” Or, they could go the other way and say “We need to trade these prospects for elite talent” and ownership would have to weigh the idea of sending all this cheap labor from the near-future out the door.

When all you’re looking for is exactly what you’ve been getting, why change it up?

For appearances? I guess?

Yeah, so if you thought the micro-view was grim, you can take a step back and see a wider perspective that’s just as bleak.

Back to the here and now, where the Mariners will attempt to not be literally set ablaze by Paul Skenes. Good times.

Go M’s.