Wednesday, September 24, 2003
GREAT ESPN GRAPHIC
Just sitting here watching the rerun of Baseball Tonight, and they had this graphic (teams after the Mariners omitted).
Number of wins since 2000 (division titles):
1) Oakland 391 (3 div titles)
2) Seattle 390 (1 div title)
DON'T TELL ME THIS IS SUCCESSFUL. Expectations grow, you know. Sure, I expected this team to go 88-74 before this season started. But you know what? You get people to believe that the team can do certain things when they bust out of the gate with a 42-19 record. Surely you don't expect the team to go 48-49 from that point on. That's listless baseball. Sure, the players (namely the lack of clutch from Olerud, Cameron, Ichiro, and to a lesser extent, Boone) deserve some blame here, but what did the brass do about this mediocre brand of play, as well as their glaring weaknesses of having no second lefty in the pen, no pop off the bench, and no third baseman that could hit? They got Sanchez to plug the hole when Guillen went down; an absolute stopgap move which we would be grilling the mgmt for even MORE if something wasn't done about it. So that was a sudden need that presented itself. They made up their own "need" when Nelson was traded for Benitez, who I don't recall ever being used in a true closer role, and given that, you can't tell me Nelson wasn't traded for popping his mouth off (he was right, by the way). Other than that, you heard the same "we'll wait till we get healthy" from Gillick (Sasaki never did get back to form) and "it WILL turn" from Melvin. Other than two 4-game winning streaks which were easily negated by one 6-agme losing streak and four 3-game losing streaks (see post below), it never turned. Gillick's "wait till we get healthy" apporach resulted in Guillen playing third. Sanchez and Guillen did provide a little bit of offensive health down the stretch, but it was nowhere near enough to compensate for the second-half offensive black hole of Ichiro, Cameron, and Olerud. Bottom line: this team sat on its hands and did nothing to spark this team. It's brutally obvious they needed some outside intervention of some sort to get them up. Meanwhile seven or eight left-handed relievers were shuffled at the deadline and the Mariners DIDN'T GET A SINGLE DAMN ONE. Matt Stairs would have been a cheap left-handed option with pop off the bench who anyone would rather have coming off the bench than McLemore or Mabry, and they didn't get him at EITHER deadline. Brian Giles eventually went to San Diego and the Padres DIDN'T have to take Jason Kendall's contract after all. And as for those trades and hypothetical lineups that I was drawing up in class on deadline day, the trades for Tony Batista and Ryan Klesko never happened. And yes, even with how good Garcia has been for the last couple starts, if I can get Ryan Klesko for him (and maybe Blackley. That's right; I'll take that chance) on July 31st, I pull that friggin trigger. And I would have put him at first OR rightfield; John Olerud and Ichiro be damned.
Well, I don't have to tell you that the Mariners' freak 116-win season certainly helps in skewing the correlation between wins and division titles. Of course, if you look at this at a purely statistical standpoint, then one win gets you two more division titles, which is ludicrous but fun to think about. 392 wins would get you 5 division titles, which is impossible in a span of only four years, but yes, that's minutia.
Number of wins since 2000 (division titles):
1) Oakland 391 (3 div titles)
2) Seattle 390 (1 div title)
DON'T TELL ME THIS IS SUCCESSFUL. Expectations grow, you know. Sure, I expected this team to go 88-74 before this season started. But you know what? You get people to believe that the team can do certain things when they bust out of the gate with a 42-19 record. Surely you don't expect the team to go 48-49 from that point on. That's listless baseball. Sure, the players (namely the lack of clutch from Olerud, Cameron, Ichiro, and to a lesser extent, Boone) deserve some blame here, but what did the brass do about this mediocre brand of play, as well as their glaring weaknesses of having no second lefty in the pen, no pop off the bench, and no third baseman that could hit? They got Sanchez to plug the hole when Guillen went down; an absolute stopgap move which we would be grilling the mgmt for even MORE if something wasn't done about it. So that was a sudden need that presented itself. They made up their own "need" when Nelson was traded for Benitez, who I don't recall ever being used in a true closer role, and given that, you can't tell me Nelson wasn't traded for popping his mouth off (he was right, by the way). Other than that, you heard the same "we'll wait till we get healthy" from Gillick (Sasaki never did get back to form) and "it WILL turn" from Melvin. Other than two 4-game winning streaks which were easily negated by one 6-agme losing streak and four 3-game losing streaks (see post below), it never turned. Gillick's "wait till we get healthy" apporach resulted in Guillen playing third. Sanchez and Guillen did provide a little bit of offensive health down the stretch, but it was nowhere near enough to compensate for the second-half offensive black hole of Ichiro, Cameron, and Olerud. Bottom line: this team sat on its hands and did nothing to spark this team. It's brutally obvious they needed some outside intervention of some sort to get them up. Meanwhile seven or eight left-handed relievers were shuffled at the deadline and the Mariners DIDN'T GET A SINGLE DAMN ONE. Matt Stairs would have been a cheap left-handed option with pop off the bench who anyone would rather have coming off the bench than McLemore or Mabry, and they didn't get him at EITHER deadline. Brian Giles eventually went to San Diego and the Padres DIDN'T have to take Jason Kendall's contract after all. And as for those trades and hypothetical lineups that I was drawing up in class on deadline day, the trades for Tony Batista and Ryan Klesko never happened. And yes, even with how good Garcia has been for the last couple starts, if I can get Ryan Klesko for him (and maybe Blackley. That's right; I'll take that chance) on July 31st, I pull that friggin trigger. And I would have put him at first OR rightfield; John Olerud and Ichiro be damned.
Well, I don't have to tell you that the Mariners' freak 116-win season certainly helps in skewing the correlation between wins and division titles. Of course, if you look at this at a purely statistical standpoint, then one win gets you two more division titles, which is ludicrous but fun to think about. 392 wins would get you 5 division titles, which is impossible in a span of only four years, but yes, that's minutia.
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