State of the Mariners: Part I

I love Seattle baseball. I just want to say that at the outset. I was 12 years old when Edgar ripped the double down the left field line that changed my life. I howled with delight when Luis Sojo hit his famous broken-bat single. I booed when we traded Randy. I cheered when we said goodbye to A-Rod. I wept in September of 2001 when, after clinching the division with a home victory, Mark McLemore grabbed an American flag and led the team in a victory lap around Safeco, before everyone knelt around the pitcher’s mound in prayer. I skipped classes to watch the Mariners lose in the playoffs. I was sitting along the left field line when Sweet Lou returned to Seattle as a Devil Ray. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, Lou’s included, when he gave his pre-game speech. And we totally kicked his ass that day.

All that said, the Mariners suck. Not the Mariners of my youth, or even the Mariners of last year. The 2008 Seattle Mariners are a bad team. I want to talk a little bit about why. In part two of this series, I will look at the pitching staff. And, because I’m an optimist at heart (or a fool; take your pick,) I’ll spend part three talking about where they need to go from here. Because let’s face it, no one want to root for a loser.

But today, I want to look at the ineptitude of the Seattle offense. The offense is bad. If you’ve seen even one Mariners game this year, you know that. If you’ve seen as many as I have, well, it haunts your dreams. Let’s look at the typical Riggleman-era line up:

RF Ichiro (woohoo!)
CF Jeremy Reed (woo-who?)
LF Raul Ibanez (Thank God the dugout has wheelchair access)
3B Adrien Beltre (too awesome for a silly nickname)
2B Jose Lopez (Joe Slopes: I could devote an entire blog to explaining this nickname)
DH Jose Vidro (The Crappy Jose)
1B Bryan LaHair (“The Hair”)
C Jeff Clement (the UberMensch)
SS Willie Bloomquist (Boom-Boom!)

Ok, one at a time: Ichiro is immortal. He has inside him blood of kings. He has no rival. No man can be his equal. Take me to the future, ONWARD!!!! Umm, if you don’t know why that’s funny, ask your favorite nerd. He’ll explain the joke to you if you explain to him who Ichiro is, or what baseball is.

Number two (appropriately) is Jeremy Reed. Jeremy Reed has really pretty hair. Maybe he and Bryan LaHair should trade last names. In fact, bam, they just did. Jeremy LaHair is an above average defender in centerfield, but he’s a AAA lifer who has never, NEVER contributed to our lineup. At least, that’s the impression I get. Let’s look up some stats.

Career BA/OBP/OPS: .254/.314/.363
Career OPS: .677
Career OPS+: 82
2008 VORP: -1.3

If you’re not a huge baseball stats nerd, none of that makes sense. If you are, you maybe just pooped a little at how bad a hitter Jeremy LaHair is, statistically.

Now, the big guns, hitter number three: Rauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul. Ibanez. He’s a good hitter, maybe the best all-around hitter on the team (except for the “maybe” part.) I won’t bother putting his numbers up (if you can find this blog on the internets, you can find Raul Ibanez’s stats.) What I will do is tell you how good of a hitter Raul would be on the other 13 teams in the AL, keeping in mind that he is unquestionably our number one guy (in terms of his .807 OPS-- I’m not forgetting Ichiro here.)

Tampa Bay: Fourth best hitter.
Boston: Seventh best hitter.
New York: Sixth best hitter.
Baltimore: Fifth best hitter.
Toronto: Second best hitter (and Toronto SUUUUUCKS)
Chicago (WS): Sixth best hitter
Minnesota: Fourth best hitter.
Detroit: Sixth best hitter.
Cleveland: Fourth best hitter.
Kansas City: Third best hitter (better than Guillen: suck it, moneybags!)
Oakland: Second best hitter (see Toronto.)
Texas: Sixth best hitter. (BTW, Milton Bradley is having a helluva year.)
Los Angeles of Anaheim: Fourth best hitter.

So, that took about twenty minutes to look up, and maybe fifteen seconds to read. Point is, our best hitter in terms of OPS would not be the best hitter on ANY OTHER TEAM IN THE LEAUGE, and would only be the second best hitter in the TWO MOST ANEMIC OFFENSES OUTSIDE OF SEATTLE. That’s not to say anything bad about Raul; I hope I can play baseball that well when I’m 72. My point is this: yeesh, how bad is the rest of the lineup?

Cleaning up in the number 4 spot is Adrian “Appeal to First” Beltre. This cat can play some D. I will not speak ill of Adrian, so long as he keeps upping his walk totals and stops skipping morning BP (you’re setting a bad example for the kiddies, Shifty. And yes, I just changed your nickname from “Appeals to First” to “Shifty.” Sue me.)

The man following Shifty in the lineup is the great enigma, the young man who plays like an old man, the only player whose offense has improved at the same rate his defense has regressed. My man Slopes is tearing the cover off the ball, relative to the rest of the infield. But, his range in the field this year can best be described as “arm’s length.” If only baseball would get with the times and let Jose Lopez ride a Segwey, his defensive efficiency might improve from “horrendous” to “tolerable.” Until that happens, the team should consider removing his “free seconds” privileges at the clubhouse buffet.

Batting sixth is Carl Sagan’s favorite player, the living black hole of hitting. Jose Vidro, whom the superior bloggers at USS Mariner have dubbed “Turbo,” is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with the Mariners’ baseball philosophy. Vidro isn’t just the worst hitter on the team. Jose Vidro is the worst hitter in the American League. I wish I were exaggerating. Among the 95 AL hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, Vidro’s .610 OPS ranks 95th. That would make him last. Did I mention that Jose Vidro is the DH, a position that literally anyone on the roster can play? So, not only is he the worst hitter in the AL, he contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING outside of hitting. He doesn’t pitch, he doesn’t play defense, and he’s probably one of those fat, sweaty dudes who will completely destroy the only bathroom on the airplane right before you get into it. I’m just guessing.

Hitting seventh after Vidro (and therefore leading off a lot of innings) is Bryan LaHair, who was gracious enough to give Jeremy Reed his last name. So, let’s call him “Bryan NotSexson.” My favorite thing about Bryan NotSexson is that, um, he’s not Richie Sexson. My least favorite thing about Bryan NotSexson is that even though he’s a career minor-leaguer who projects to never be a serious threat in an AL lineup, he’s decided to go and hit the ball fairly well in his limited time with the ball club. Normally, I approve of minor-league call-ups hitting well. However, the Mariners need to get serious about finding a first baseman in free agency this off-season, and the last thing I want is for the owners and fans to fall in love with NotSexton and keep him around long after he’s regressed to the mean (sort of like the team did with Willie Bloomquist, Jeremy Reed/LaHair, Mike Morse, Bucky Jacobsen, and Ben Davis.)

Number eight is Jeff Clement. I won’t rag on Jeffy, even though the umps are pretty sick of cleaning up that huge shit he takes on the plate every time he comes up to hit. He’s just a kid, and this time next year, he’ll be the best power hitter on the team. So, let’s move on.

Number nine is Willie Boom-Boom, so named by Hall of Famer Dave Niehaus despite the fact that Willie went a CALENDAR YEAR without an extra-base hit. I can’t even say anything bad about Bloomquist. The man went 365 days without hitting anything bigger than a single. I think that says it all. He’s another example of the Front Office’s sheer ignorance; he hit .400 in his first month with the club, FIVE YEARS AGO, and he’s been on the team ever since. He is pretty much the only white guy on the team, so I don’t know, maybe it’s an Affirmative Action thing.

That’s it for part one. I don’t even want to talk about how bad of a year Yuni Beatancourt is having, or Kenji “Do You Still Work Here?” Johjima, or Miguel “Vidro Jr.” Cairo for that matter. Next week, I’ll bring you part two of this series, wherein I will give a double-handy to Felix Hernandez and Brandon “Brenden” Morrow while taking a shit on the rest of the pitching staff. Stay tuned, kiddies.