Looking Forward to 2008:  Seattle Mariners

Predicting the future is exceedingly difficult.  We all know that.  One of our favorite pastimes as a society is to look at old predictions and laugh at how wrong they were.  Sure, we should all be driving around in hydrogen-powered flying cars right now, but our past prognosticators didn’t count on the political power of Detroit auto manufacturers, did they?  And every baseball writer has lambasted the potential of some team, only to get the ol’ pipe-bomb-in-the-mailbox treatment when that team somehow wins the World Series.

Popular culture of the past is riddled with inaccurate versions of the future.  George Orwell envisioned a 1984 in which war-mongering superpowers and run-amok governments of the once-free world crushed dissent by any means necessary, and treated as criminals those who didn’t think in perfect lockstep with the dictatorial regime that supervised their every move.  In actuality, of course, that didn’t happen until almost twenty years later.  Van Halen envisioned a 1984 in which an extremely attractive schoolteacher miraculously decided to fulfill the wildest fantasies of an adolescent boy.  Again, that didn’t actually happen until almost twenty years later.  And the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” depicted a 2001 in which--well, I haven’t seen it, but I think it involved giant monkeys and talking spaceships.  In any case, it didn’t come true.

There are only two safe ways to make predictions.  One is to make the distant-future predictions, predictions that can’t be disproved until you and everyone who knows you are long dead.  This is known as the “Zager and Evans” method.  Sure, in a distant, dystopian future, some intrepid DJ will try to play “In the Year 2525.” (One thing everyone agrees on is that the future will be a dystopia.  The only question is whether it will be an out-and-out dystopia, where people scrape by like animals in the rubble of a once-glorious society, and the weather forecasts say things like “mostly mushroom-cloudy with a 50% chance of fallout,” or whether it will be a dystopia masquerading as a utopia, where everybody wears a white jumpsuit, enjoys bright sunshine and perfectly manicured lawns, and ignores the disquieting feeling that something’s not quite right.)

Now, this intrepid DJ of the future will wait until January 1, 2525.  He’ll end his DJ patter with an enticing promise: “Hey, you’re listening to Oldies 101.3, playing your favorite hits from the late 25th century, and we’re gonna keep servin’ up your favorites until the machines come for us.  We’re gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, we’ll have something special for you all.” As the ads run ("DRINK PEPSI OR BE DESTROYED. DRINK PEPSI OR BE DESTROYED."), he’ll look furiously for the old 45, before finally consulting with the station manager.

“Hey, you seen the Zager and Evans?”

“Oh, that was destroyed in the Great Purge of 2518, along with all the great philosophical and religious texts.”

“Noooo!  When will we learn?  What must we destroy before we learn?  Our planet?  Ourselves?”

“I fear it is already too late, Howlin’ Hank in the Morning.  Our people have foolishly set in motion a chain of events that will not come to rest until all is lost.  Oh, hey, you’re coming back from break.”

So clearly, the Zager and Evans method is safe.  The other safe way to make a prediction is to predict something that is already happening.  Weathermen are notorious for incorrect forecasts, but when they describe what the weather is currently doing, their accuracy skyrockets to 65%.  That is the method that I will use for this preview, which is why it’s just now being run in late April (or perhaps May or June; we’re not done yet).  It may look like a combination of laziness, apathy, and ineptitude on my part kept this preview from running before the season, but it was actually a carefully considered decision I made to ensure that you, the reader, would get the most accurate information possible and not end up pipe-bombing me.

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In 2007, the Mariners had a very surprising season, winning 88 games after three consecutive last place finishes.  On August 24, Seattle had won the first two games of a series against Texas and found themselves one game out of first in the AL West, and leading the wild card race by three games.  Then the Mariners went into a tailspin, winning just one of their next 14 games, a stretch that included a sweep by the division leading Angels and a series loss to the wild card rival Yankees.  With that, the Mariners were firmly out of contention, though they ended the season with a five game winning streak, and were never in danger of losing their winning record or their second place standing.

What accounted for the Mariners’ improvement in 2007?  Probably a good bit of luck, for one thing.  The Mariners were outscored by their opponents, and in fact saw only a one game improvement in their Pythagorean percentage over 2006, while winning ten more games.  However, their Pythagorean percentage may have been somewhat deceptive, as they were the victims of numerous blowouts with an extremely lopsided starting rotation.  The Mariners had 33 games in which their starting pitchers allowed more than five earned runs; no one else had more than 27.  Seattle also led the majors with 40 games in which their starters put up game scores of 30 or below.

There were several starters helping the Mariners to suffer large blowouts.  Horacio Ramirez was one, allowing a 7.16 ERA in 20 starts.  Young Ryan Feierabend was another, starting nine times and finishing with an 8.03 ERA.  But perhaps the most notable offender in Mariner blowouts was Jeff Weaver.  Weaver made six starts before going on the DL in May; his ERA was 14.36 after those starts.  The Mariners lost those six games by a combined 41 runs.  Given that they were outscored on the season by 19 runs, it’s not hard to see how much of an impact those blowouts had.  After coming back from the disabled list, Weaver was adequate for the Mariners, with a 4.76 ERA in his remaining 21 starts, including two complete game shutouts.

As much of a weakness as the starting rotation was (27th in the majors in ERA), the Mariners benefited from a capable bullpen, with a very strong closer in JJ Putz and an excellent setup man in George Sherrill.  However, the biggest Mariner improvement from 2006 to 2007 was in offense, as they climbed from 13th in the league in runs scored to 7th, mainly due to an improvement in OBP.

So where are the Mariners in 2008?  Time will tell, but let’s take a glimpse.

It is April 11th, and the Mariners are playing their first game against the division rival Angels.  The Angels won the AL West in 2007 and are the presumed favorites in 2008, so these games are crucial to the Mariners, who hope to compete for the division title.  But the Mariners are 5-6, having suffered a four-game sweep by the Baltimore Orioles.

It is a mild evening in Seattle for April, and with the skies clear, the roof of Safeco Field is open.  On the mound is Felix Hernandez, the young pitcher whose major league career was long awaited by Seattle fans.  In his fourth season, and with 75 career starts already, it is easy to forget that he only turned 22 three days ago.  Felix’s career so far, while not bad by any stretch, has been somewhat disappointing considering the expectations he’s had to meet.  But considering that tonight, he’s making his first start as a 22-year-old, his 30 wins, career 3.82 ERA, and 427 strikeouts seem quite good.  The last person to record 400 or even 300 strikeouts before turning 22 was Dwight Gooden, although he’d managed 744 already by then.

Hernandez is pitching well tonight, as the sixth inning opens, though he’s allowed a home run to Angels backup catcher Jeff Mathis.  That’s his first earned run of the season, in his third start--a fact that allows Mariner fans to become a little optimistic that this is the year Felix is finally crowned King for real.  Of course, the same thing happened last year: In Felix’s first two starts of 2007, he gave up four hits while striking out 18, and allowed no runs over 17 innings.  They turned out to be his two best starts of the season.

But Hernandez was still the bright spot in a dismal rotation for the Mariners in 2007.  That was Seattle’s main focus in the offseason, to improve their starting pitching.  This they did by trading for Baltimore Orioles ace Erik Bedard.  Bedard came at the price of prospect Adam Jones, which is a loss, to be sure (especially for the Mariners, who need outfield help), but not as egregious a loss as some might suggest.  The Mariners lost a few other mixed prospects in the Bedard trade, and also setup man George Sherrill, who was an important part of a strong Seattle bullpen in 2007.  Bedard projects as an excellent starter, and should ease the pressure from Felix Hernandez.  He was named opening day starter, which was a nice symbolic gesture indicating that Hernandez is no longer expected to carry the Mariner rotation.  Bedard, who had two decent starts before landing on the disabled list with a hip inflammation, should be expected to be Seattle’s best starter, but the Mariners are hopeful for a deadly one-two punch.

In the sixth inning on April 11th, that prospect is looking good.  Other than the Mathis home run, Hernandez has only allowed three singles and walked two, while striking out five, and the Mariners lead two to one.  But Hernandez has fallen behind Gary Matthews Jr., three balls and a strike.  Felix has faced Matthews more than any other batter, and the results are not pretty--Little Sarge’s career line against Hernandez is .371/.450/.657.  He’s a Mariner killer--while his .302/.405/.635 2007 line against Seattle may not match Vlad Guerrero’s ludicrous .466/.536/.781, it’s somehow more irritating to get your butt kicked by Gary Matthews than Vladimir Guerrero.

Felix strolls around the mound, leans back, sighs.  He throws a fastball, and Matthews does it again; he hits a shot to center field.  Ichiro chases futilely after it, but it clears the 405’ marker in dead center.  It’s now tied at two.  Hernadez looks unfazed.  He now has to face Vladimir Guerrero, whose numbers against Felix are almost as scary as Matthews’s, but Vlad has struck out swinging twice tonight already.  Hernandez opens with a slider, down and away, and Vlad flails helplessly at it.  Felix throws the same pitch again, and gets the same result.  0-2.  Then a fastball outside, which Guerrero fouls off, and then a fastball inside, which he pulls foul.  Hernandez follows with a fastball a little further outside, and Guerrero chases it for the hat trick--his third strikeout of the night, all swinging.

That’s a rare sight for Mariner starters, who by and large, are not a strikeout-throwing group.  In 2007, they were 24th in the majors in strikeouts thrown by starting pitchers, and more than a quarter of those came from Hernandez.  And since then, they’ve added Carlos Silva, whose 3.75 career K/9 is the second lowest among active starters (ahead of Aaron Cook).  Silva has never reached 90 strikeouts in a season, and yet he’s been a capable innings eater.  The Mariners signed him to a four-year, $48 million deal, which may have been overpaying, but he figures to be useful and consistent, which is a huge upgrade for the back end of the Mariner rotation.  He’s off to a good start in 2008, with a 2.79 ERA after four starts.

The other holdovers from the 2007 rotation besides Hernandez, Jarrod Washburn and Miguel Batista, are also low-strikeout pitchers, and like Silva, they are consistently average.  If everyone pitches as they should, Bedard and Hernandez leading a rotation backed by three decent starters in Washburn, Batista, and Silva, will actually be a real strength, a complete turnaround from 2007 where their rotation was their biggest weakness.  Now, everything else got worse… but…

Garret Anderson is now up, and he sends a short fly down the left field line, a sure base hit, and by the time leftfielder Raul Ibañez can get to it, Anderson is able to get in for a double.  The Mariner outfield once consisted of Randy Winn in left, Mike Cameron in center, and Ichiro Suzuki in right--a collection of three centerfielders, making their outfield defense a huge strength.  Now, with Ibañez in leftfield, Ichiro in center, and Brad Wilkerson (or, God help us, Mike Morse) in right field, Mariner pitchers suffer in front of a less capable defense.  Ichiro is still a bright spot in center field, and he chases down a deep fly from Torii Hunter in the next at bat--but even his great arm can’t keep Anderson from advancing to third.

Hernandez gets ahead on Casey Kotchman, but Kotchman lucks out on a broken bat bloop, barely up the first base line.  Felix dives but can’t reach it, and Anderson scores on Kotchman’s infield single.  Maicer Izturis grounds to Richie Sexson at first base and is tagged out to end the inning, but the damage is done, as the Angels have taken a three to two lead.

And so we enter the bottom of the sixth, where the Mariners will send out the top of the order.  Leading off, of course, is Ichiro Suzuki.  Since joining the Mariners in 2001, Ichiro has accumulated 1682 hits, by far the most in the majors in that time.  Juan Pierre is second with 1388, and he’s closer to twentieth than he is to first.  Ichiro has been the platonic ideal of a leadoff hitter, with tremendous speed and a very good on-base percentage.  During Ichiro’s seven seasons with the team, Seattle has had the majors’ highest on-base percentage from the leadoff spot four times.  The Mariners signed Ichiro to a five-year, $90 million extension last season, which is probably a pretty good deal, especially considering it’s roughly the same deal Torii Hunter got from the Angels.  And honestly, I just don’t want to see Ichiro to go anywhere.  He’s a great player and a lot of fun to watch, and I love the idea of him staying a Mariner five more years or more.

Ichiro swings and hits a grounder just up the first base line, and the race is on.  Infield hits are much of Ichiro’s bread and butter, but this time, catcher Jeff Mathis makes a great play, chasing down the ball and throwing Ichiro out at first.

Next comes second baseman Jose Lopez.  After an encouraging age 22 season in 2006, which saw Lopez in the All-Star Game, Lopez was dreadfully ineffective in 2007, with a .284 on-base percentage and a .355 slugging percentage.  The Mariners have signed both of their young middle infielders, Lopez and Yuniesky Betancourt, to contracts lasting until 2010 and 2011 respectively, plus each has a club option for another year.  Lopez has not lived up to early potential yet, but he’s off to a slightly promising start in 2008, though he should not be hitting second.  And here he pulls a 1-2 pitch deep to left field, over the head of Matthews and off the warning track.  He hesitates as he makes the turn at first, then decides to go for it, which makes the play closer than it should have been, but he is in with a one-out double.

That brings up leftfielder Raul Ibañez.  Ibañez has been a consisted producer in Seattle’s lineup, leading the team in OPS in 2006 and 2007.  He’s never been a star caliber hitter, but other than Ichiro, he’s been the team’s most consistent hitter.  He has already hit two home runs tonight, probably by focusing an entirely justifiable rage at Jered Weaver’s haircut.  Seriously, Jered, long or short, make a decision.  After three unintentional intentional balls to Ibañez, Weaver finishes with an intentional intentional ball, and Ibañez heads down to first.

So up steps third baseman Adrian Beltre.  Beltre was signed after a huge season with the Dodgers in 2004, when he was one of the best hitters in baseball.  Beltre had a disappointing 2005 campaign with Seattle, which led many to view him and his new contract as something of an albatross.  In reality, as market prices for players have continued to rise, and so has Beltre’s production, his deal now looks perfectly reasonable.  He’s one of Seattle’s best hitters (he, Ibañez, and Ichiro are definitely the three key offensive producers at this point), and he plays great defense at third, winning his first Gold Glove in 2007.  He also has a habit of appealing his own check swings, a quirk I absolutely love for some reason.  Here Beltre gets a bit under a fly ball to center, and he’s retired; Lopez advances to third but with two outs.

Jose Vidro is the next hitter, acquired before the 2007 season for Chris Snelling and Emiliano Fruto in a much maligned trade that probably turned out in Seattle’s favor.  As much as fans adored Snelling, injuries genuinely seem to have taken his career completely off-track, and while Vidro is expensive and old and oft-injured and not what he used to be, he’s not too much of any of those things.  He was a useful hitter who did a lot of singling and a lot of walking--enough to manage a .381 OBP, which, even with his lousy slugging, was pretty good.  And he was, by far, the most common number two hitter in 2007, which would be a welcome plan for 2008 as well--he’s a much better choice than Lopez.  He draws a walk from Weaver, and the bases are loaded with two outs for Richie Sexson.

Sexson arrived with Beltre in 2005.  The Mariners expected a good and consistent slugger--not an MVP caliber hitter, but a Paul Konerko type, with a lot of power and always good to have at the plate.  For two years, they got that.  Sexson hit two home runs in his debut for Seattle, and continued to hit, posting his highest career OPS+ in 2005.  He fell some in 2006, but he still hit 34 home runs and drove in 117, leading the club in extra base hits.  Then in 2007, his hitting fell apart completely.  His groundball to flyball ratio rose from 0.96 in 2005 to 1.10 in 2006 to 1.35 in 2007, but surprisingly, his 2007 number is most in line with his career before Seattle.  His pitches per plate appearance fell in 2007 and so did his power, probably because he became too aggressive.  The biggest change was in his batting average on balls in play, which was around .300 in 2005 and 2006, and fell to .217 in 2007.  That might bode well for Sexson, as hitters tend more to rebound from that, but combined with a decrease in power, it could signal real decline.  The likely prognosis is that Sexson will be better than his abysmal 2007, but he’ll probably never again hit like he did in 2005.  So far, his 2008 has borne that out, but it’s early.

Sexson steps in against Weaver, takes a cutter for a ball.  At this point he’s 0-11 career against the right-handed Weaver.  Sexson’s platoon split is not terribly pronounced, but he does hit noticeably better against lefties, especially in 2007.  Given his struggles against Weaver, this likely would have been a situation where the Mariners benched Sexson and used Ben Broussard in 2007.  The left-handed Broussard proved to be a more useful hitter than Sexson through 2007, and while they didn’t play in a true platoon all season--Sexson saw much more playing time--it became one more and more toward the end of the season.  Broussard, who started one game in April, started 19 in September.  Yet when faced with the prospect of Broussard getting a raise from arbitration, the Mariners traded him to Texas instead.  That’s bad news for the Mariners--they now rely on Sexson much more greatly at first base, and lose their best bench hitter--but good news for Broussard, who finally gets to be a regular.

Weaver throws a 1-0 fastball over the plate to Sexson, who takes a swing, but fouls it behind the plate.  Weaver started four times against the Mariners in 2007, and indeed, Broussard started all four games.  In fact, tonight is the first time Sexson has faced Weaver since August of 2006.  With a strikeout and a flyout so far for Sexson, Weaver’s dominance looks like it’s continuing, but Sexson is still a power threat, and Weaver knows the one-run lead could become a three-run deficit with the wrong pitch.  He stays outside on Sexson, being perhaps overly cautious, falls behind, and Sexson draws the walk--an RBI, and a tied game.  Announcers at their next meeting will still cite that 0-11, but Sexson’s earned his first RBI, and his first time on base, against Weaver.

In 2007 this probably would have led to Jose Guillen’s spot.  Guillen had a one-year deal in 2007 that worked out surprisingly well for Seattle, as he hit quite capably.  He had the second most home runs on the team and tied for second in runs batted in (he and Beltre were both stuck at 99 when the season ended) on a very balanced Mariner team.  The 2007 Mariners were one Jose Vidro RBI away from being the second team ever to have nine players with 60 RBI.  They’re still the second team ever to have nine players with 59 RBI, but that doesn’t sound as good.  For a more sabermetric take, consider that the Mariners were one of only three teams to have eight players qualify for the batting title and have an OPS+ over 70 (and no, no NL teams had seven either).  The other two were the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.  They had more players than the division rival A’s and Rangers combined who met those criteria.  And with eleven more plate appearances from Richie Sexson, they would have been the only team in baseball with nine.  The Mariner offense looks bad when you look for the good hitters, but it looks better when you look for the bad hitters, as they are remarkably devoid of lineup holes, with Jose Lopez being the only real exception.

The 2007 Mariners were also one of three teams in baseball with seven players qualifying for the batting title with a 90 OPS+ or higher (and again, you know the other two).  They also had six qualifying players with an OPS+ of 100 or higher, a mark matched only by Cleveland and the Yankees and bested only by the Red Sox, who had seven.  For those who look at Seattle’s lack of great hitters and wonder at their 2007 success, that should help explain it.  There are few highs and few lows in their lineup.  And as a personal aside, let me say that that’s one reason I love the current version of the Mariners so much.  Their lineup, rather than being a collection of stars or a mess of mediocrity, is more cobbled together out of useful parts.  Each player that starts for Seattle has strengths and flaws.  Each is a question mark, a somewhat unknown quantity--they all seem capable of a season that surprises you, for better or for worse.  There’s no one in which to put full confidence--not even Ichiro; will his foot speed decline as he ages and take away the infield hits that are a vital component of his OBP?--nor is there anyone that seems hopeless.

That said, Mariner fans aren’t terribly excited to see Brad Wilkerson, Jose Guillen’s replacement in rightfield, coming up to the plate here.  Brad Wilkerson was once the kind of player sabermetricians love, a young outfielder with a high OBP, capable of playing center or hitting 30 home runs (in 2004, Wilkerson hit 32 home runs and drove in 67 runs, a sad commentary on the final season of the Montreal Expos).  But that was a few years ago for Wilkerson, and while his signing seemed to be a good one--he’s still a useful player, and could easily be a bargain at one year for $3 million--he has struggled mightily for Seattle so far.  As of this writing, he still has just six hits (though eight walks--a .292 OBP never looks so impressive as it does when it’s next to a .150 average).  And he’s being senselessly platooned in rightfield, not facing any lefthanders at all--he’s had three plate appearances against lefties and two were sacrifice bunts--despite the fact that, in his career and in 2007, Wilkerson has hit better against left-handed pitching.  Worse yet, his platoon partner was Michael Morse, who’s almost certain to hit worse than Wilkerson, and who has absolutely no business playing right field.  Morse is injured right now, so Willie Bloomquist, local beloved supersub, is currently the rightfielder versus lefties.  This is probably an improvement over Morse, but platooning Wilkerson at all is probably the most significant black mark against Mariner manager John McLaren so far in 2008.

Weaver being a righty, though, Wilkerson will bat here.  Still looking for his fourth hit on the season, and this would be a good time for it--the bases loaded, two outs, and tied with the Angels.  Wilkerson gets to a 1-2 count--the two strikes on big cuts that went for a foul and a miss--and lays off ball two.  Wilkerson’s discipline is his biggest strength, but sometimes it’s hard to maintain for a hitter who’s struggling so much.  The 2-2 pitch is down but over the plate and Wilkerson drives it toward the gap in right-center.  Hunter is able to cut it off, but two runs score, and Sexson goes first to third.

That Sexson does so, of course, will not prevent his being pinch-run for in the eighth.  McLaren’s most notable managerial tendency--by far--is pinch-running.  The New York Times featured an article about a researcher named Steve Wang who applied a method called Chernoff faces to major league managers’ tendencies.  The idea is that different tendencies are represented graphically by different facial features.  For the most part, McLaren ends up looking like a pretty hands-off manager, with one exception: pinch-running is represented by upturned hair, and McLaren looks like Krusty the Klown being electrocuted.  It might be a small complaint, but it can be frustrating when a good hitter is removed in a close or tied game, when his spot is likely to come up again.

Weaver is pulled, and in comes reliever Darren O’Day to face Kenji Johjima.  Johjima has been a wonderful addition to the Mariners.  This is his third year with the team, and the first two were arguably the two best offensive years the Mariners have ever had from a catcher.  He’s also spent more time in the lineup than the Mariners are used to.  During Johjima’s two seasons in the league, only Jason Kendall has started more games at catcher.  He’s not one of the great hitters at catcher that seem so popular nowadays, but he is a catcher who can hit consistently at a league average level, which is very useful.  Johjima comes in to face O’Day after a very bad start to his 2008 season.  His batting average entering the game was at .071, with only two singles so far.  A double in the eighth of this game kicks off a hot streak for Johjima, incidentally, which may keep backup Jamie Burke from taking more of a role.  This is Burke’s second year as Johjima’s backup and he’s hit pretty well in that role so far.  But at age 36, that’s probably the most Burke can hope for at this point.  The Mariners still have to reconcile Johjima’s role with up-and-coming Jeff Clement.  Clement is currently hitting .396/.522/.717 for AAA Tacoma.

Johjima draws a walk against O’Day, and the bases are loaded again for shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.  Betancourt’s reputation coming up was that of a superb defensive player, with the only question being whether he could hit enough to justify his job.  In the majors, however, defensive statistics have yet to be wowed by Betancourt, but he’s hit capably for a shortstop.  He’s a good young player and I like having him in the lineup.  Here Betancourt hits the first pitch sharply up the middle--it should be a base hit, but shortstop Erick Aybar makes an outstanding play and gets the fielder’s choice.

That ends the sixth inning.  The Mariners send their starting lineup, one to nine, to the plate, and come away with three runs.  It turns out to be the pivotal inning in the game, as the Mariners lose their lead and fall behind in the top half, but regain it, not to be lost again, in the bottom half.

That’s not to say that it’s smooth sailing the rest of the day.  Hernandez gets two outs in the seventh but allows a fourth Angel run on a Guerrero single, and the game is handed to the bullpen.  In 2007, the bullpen was a key strength for Seattle, especially in the first half, but the 3.85 ERA they posted that year has turned to 5.56 this year.  Part of that is sample size, part of that is that some players pitched above their heads last year, and part of it is different personnel.

The center of the Mariner bullpen is closer JJ Putz, and normally, you’d expect him to appear in a close game against the Angels, but he’s been out with a rib cage injury almost the entire season.  Putz should continue to be outstanding, as long as he’s healthy.  But his absence has really stretched an already weakened bullpen.  He should be back soon.

The second-best reliever the Mariners had in 2007 was George Sherrill, who was an outstanding setup man for Putz.  He was lost in the Bedard trade.  And Brandon Morrow, who pitched well in a setup role last year, didn’t make the club out of spring training.  It looks more and more like Morrow will continue as a reliever and not a starter, but his strikeout to walk ratio sits at 67:50 in the majors.  That will absolutely have to improve for him to be effective--his early success last year didn’t last, as a sub-two ERA swelled to 4.12 by season’s end.

Morrow has since joined the big league club again, but for the April 11th game, only three holdovers from 2007 are on the roster.  Australian lefty Ryan Rowland-Smith was a nice success story in 2007.  And half of his relief stints lasted longer than an inning, including one that spanned four.  Young Washingtonian Eric O’Flaherty is a middling option on the lefthander depth chart, and Sean Green did a (somewhat peripheral-defyingly) good job in middle relief.  Of these players, I like Rowland-Smith’s prognosis the best; he’s left-handed, he has good endurance, and his peripherals were quite good with more strikeouts than innings and a 42:15 K:BB ratio.

But here McLaren opts for Green, who should continue to figure heavily into the middle relief mix, probably higher on the depth chart than in 2007.  Also in the bullpen mix is right-hander Roy Corcoran, who’s off to a good start, but his 9-2/3 innings are already a career high--notable, considering this is his fourth season in the majors.  His minor league numbers are decent, but really, he’s still an unproven quantity in the majors, which isn’t a good sign for a guy who’s almost 28.  And the Mariners have Arthur Rhodes back in the pen.  The team’s best reliever ever until Putz came along, Rhodes was a standout on the great Gillick-era Mariner teams a few years back.

Closing the game out against the Angels is Mark Lowe, earning what’s still his only save of the season, despite seeming to be the number one choice in Putz’s absence.  Lowe won Mariner fans over with 15 appearances and a 1.93 ERA in 2006, then missed the rest of 2006 and most of 2007 recovering from arthroscopic surgery.  His return to the bullpen full-time has been long awaited, but there’s not much to suggest he’ll stay at the level he established in 2006.  Nevertheless, he’s worth taking a chance on, and other than a leadoff double to Guerrero, he has no trouble closing out this game.

There are a few Mariners who may play a lesser role on the team: knuckleballer R.A. Dickey has been signed as a spot starter, though I still prefer Cha Seung Baek, who has shown himself to be capable of doing an adequate job.  The Mariner starters have not been particularly injury-prone, so with any luck, there should be little need for these starters anyway, but each has made a start during Bedard’s current stint on the disabled list.  The remaining hitters on the bench include veteran Greg Norton, who should actually be a decent pinch-hitting option, and Miguel Cairo, who’s been used mainly as a defensive sub at first (and also a pinch-runner for Sexson in the April 11th game).

Those are the 2008 Mariners, and the big question is, of course, will they compete for the playoffs?  I believe the answer is no.  I believe the 2007 Mariners needed a lot of luck just to fall well short of the playoffs, and I believe their bullpen and offense will be worse, even as their starting rotation is much improved.  I will root for them to stay in contention, I will be thrilled if they do, but I will not expect them to.

But that’s okay, because either way, there will be plenty of games like the April 11th win over Los Angeles, and every game is a self-contained contest with a beginning and an end, a winner and a loser.  Each game exists in its own right, and to its own end.  After all, 29 teams come up short in the quest for a championship every year.  It’s good that baseball games are still worth watching for those fans.  And this edition of the Mariners has been one of my favorites, so here’s to another fine season.