From the title above, one might suspect this article is intended to be typical Hot Stove fodder. It's not. This is a review of the 2008 Seattle Mariners, (I can almost feel the Seismic shudder from the Mariner masses in just contemplating reliving any portion of the 2008 debacle). But, before one can begin prognostication and hope to build plans for the future, one MUST review and understand, (and most importantly REMEMBER) that past.

I think the term "Off" season is a near perfect label for the 2008 Mariners. Wins were off. Attendance was off. By the end of the season, McClaren and Bavasi were off. See, even in disaster one can still find things to smile about. But, the Mariners also seemed to be "off" their game. Their plummet was precipitous and unimagined before the season started. So, first, let us review the picture BEFORE the 2008 season began, and see if we can uncover any obvious issues that may have been missed that can be considered in the future.

After the 88-win 2007 season there was a lot of optimism surrounding the 2008 campaign in many, (but certainly not all), quarters. The optimists looked at 2007 and saw a team that could have made the playoffs if not for the dreadful mess at the bottom of the rotation. If only there had been competent 4/5 starters instead of HoRam and Weaver, the logic went, "we coulda been a contenda." For 2008, HoRam and Weaver were gone -- replaced by Silva and Bedard. Okay, Silva worried a lot of people, but he had been competent in Minnesota, an AL team, so at least the team didn't have to worry about the cross-league migration problems. And Bedard was a legit ace, who could pair with Felix to become Seattle's version of Unit and Schilling in their Arizona heyday, (except these two aces are still YOUNG and might anchor a dynasty for the next 10 years).

However, there were pessimists, too. The pessimists pointed out that the 2007 Ms finished 9 games over their pythagorean projection, (they should've won 79, but won 88 instead - a VERY flukey result). The loss of Guillen, (replaced by the largely loathed Wilkerson), was viewed as a significant negative for the offense. Sexson's disasterous 2007 was viewed as the end of his career by many, (while the optimists argued that one bad season could easily be a fluke and a rebound by Sexson could potentially make the offense even better in 2008, assuming a passable performance by Wilkerson).

The summary from the extreme views of pre-2008 Seattle would read something like:

Optimists - the 2007 Ms were a legit 88-win team, because the great bullpen and historically bad 4/5 starters screwed up normal pythag math. The improvements to the rotation will be worth 10 wins, and the offense could be even better because there were no really outlandishly great 2007 offensive performances, while a couple of the youngsters could break out, and Sexson could bounce back. But, even if that doesn't happen, the offense should be mostly stable, so even a 2-4 game slide from the offense still means a 94-96 win season and a good shot at the playoffs.

Pessimists - the 2007 Ms were a 79-win team in reality, and pretending they were better than that is just wishful thinking. Bedard is fragile, and Silva isn't much better than HoRam, plus the loss of Sherrill will hurt the bullpen. The pitching will probably be a tad better, simply because it'll be hard for anyone to replicate the carnage of the HoRam/Weaver tandem. But, any gains from the rotation will be offset by a return to sanity for the bullpen, which simply won way, way, way too many games - (in fact, they had an historically off the charts winning percentage). The loss of Guillen will absolutely hurt this team, as Wilkerson isn't an answer to anything - Sexson is in freefall and could be even worse. If one looks at the talent objectively for the 2008 roster, and doesn't get blinded by the skewed results from 2007 - the 2008 outlook is a team looking at a win total in the mid 70s.

The pessimists obviously ended up closer to the truth. But, even the most negative projections didn't paint a picture of 101 losses. Even the dark views for 2008 expected a 100 or more ERA+ for the team, which would fail due to an anemic offense. The 2007 team finished with a 104 OPS+ and a 91 ERA+. The actual results for 2008 was a 91 OPS+ for the offense and an 89 ERA+ for the defense. Objectively, the projections from BOTH camps were drastically off base for the pitching.

What went wrong? Well, early, two things happened that killed the dreams of a fast start. Putz missed 20 days in April, and EOF completely and utterly imploded. While EOF was not supposed to be some kind of bullpen savior, the loss of Sherrill did increase his importance, and he allowed runs in 6 of his 7 appearances. The team lost 6 of the 7 games where EOF appeared with 4 of them being by 1 or 2 runs. During April, the offense wasn't great, (95 OPS+), but the end result was a 13-15 team. By the end of April Putz was back and EOF was gone, so things SHOULD have started getting better.

May is the month the team really fell apart, going 8-20 and falling completely out of contention. My personal belief is the combo of cutting Wilkerson while extending Johjima, (who was at the time the worst bat on the entire team), were a dreadfully bad combination of moves in terms of sending a message to the team about what the team valued. But, the collapse was an across-the-board affair. For the month of May, the offense posted a .240/.292/.367/.660 line (79 OPS+). The pitching staff saw its ERA jump from a very nice 4.12 in April to a horrendous 5.39 in May.

Putz did blow a couple of saves in May, but was generally effective, (ERA dropped from 9.00 on May 1 to 3.71 on May 31st). In truth, the bullpen, which struggled a bit in April (5.25 ERA), was pretty much fixed by May (3.03 ERA). The starters, however, went from a 3.65 April to a 6.95 May. For the month of May, the COMBINED starting rotation was worse than Jeff Weaver had been in 2007.

Felix - 1-4 (4.58)
Bedard - 2-3 (5.09)
Washburn 1-2 (9.30)
Batista 1-3 (6.60)
Silva - 0-5 (11.00)

Felix, Bedard and Wash would all return to expected production levels after May, (until injuries would shut down Wash and Bedard). Batista and Silva never recovered.

It is important here to note something about the meltdown. Basically, I was the only guy around that had been suggesting that Batista was ready to implode. Silva, after a decent June, failed to finish another month with an ERA under 7.00. The Silva problems, the Bedard injuries were concerns by many. The Batista implosion was a concern of my own, (which I essentially handwaved away myself based on the belief that the Ms had superior depth at SP in 2008, and even if they had *A* failure in the rotation, guys like Morrow, Dickey and RRS could pick up the slack as opposed to 2007, when the cupboard was bare behind Weaver and HoRam.

In hindsight, I was nominally correct about the depth -- RRS and Morrow would both fare well as starters, while Dickey was a disappointment, (but still a serviceable #6/7 starter with a 5.21 ERA). It's the 6 and 7 and 8+ ERAs that you cannot survive from your 6/7 SPs. Unfortunately, the season was long over before Morrow got a shot at the rotation. Meanwhile, Batista and Silva continued getting starts they shouldn't have, and Feierabend was again over utilized in the emergency starter role to horrendous effect.

Lost in all of the above analysis is a key ingredient to the pitching woes of both 2007 and 2008. The defense in Seattle has been absolutely horrid for two seasons with no signs of improvement. Basically, the team is utterly and completely inept defensively. Its middle infielders are either lethargic or lazy. The OF defense was even worse, with a defensive "leader" in Ichiro, whose example APPEARS to be one of disinterest. I honestly believe that a significant problem with Ichiro in Center is that since his personal defense "appears" effortless, that the rest of the OF picks up that trait - and actually don't put forth any effort. (The *ONLY* month where Seattle's defense actually spiked upward was immediately after Ichiro moved back to RF, and the young and hungry Reed was patrolling CF. During a 3-week span, the Seattle defense was actually top third in DER, and climbed from 30th to 20th in the majors in DER, before collapsing in the final months.)

In truth, after May, the season was over, with the exception of a brief post-McClaren bounce, (which just happened to coincide with that defensive spike). The pitching/defense was solid in June and July, (3.85 and 3.99 ERAs), but was over 5 for August and September. This actually doesn't suprise me much, because I've noted a history with other teams that defense/pitching tend to sag in the 2nd half AFTER a team is clearly out of the running and has nothing to play for. Offense, however, doesn't typically take the same nose-dive. For Seattle, this holds true, as after the miserable months of May (.660 OPS) and June (.681 OPS), the team posted a .700 or better OPS for the rest of the season, including a best month of .759 in August.

An interesting side note here. Vidro's last game was August 4th, and Sexson was gone long before that. So, the best hitting month for Seattle came WITHOUT either of the beginning of the year 1B or DH. The best month came with Cairo, LaHair and Reed getting lots of playing time. For August, the team posted a 100 OPS+. They would slide back to 86 in September, (but September saw a lot of PT for guys like Hulett, Tuiasosopo, Johnson and Valbuena. September stats must always be viewed cautiously, especially for out-of-contention teams, who may be trying out lots of youngsters, or may be facing lots of youngsters. The mix of opponents faced who are still in contention versus those whose fate is decided can wreak havoc on September totals, (which is why I always take my September stats with a grain of salt).

So, what does all of this looking back at 2008 tell us?

Talent-wise, the team probably was a 70-75 win club. Sexson was awful, Vidro crumbled, Wilkerson flailed and left. Absolutely zero of the near-ready hitting specs helped. The worst fears of Bedard and Silva were realized and Batista imploded in addition. The only nominal upside performances came from RRS, Jiminez and Morrow, (though Morrow was much too slow in getting a chance to start, and was not up to the task of closing). So, if the talent was good for 70-75 wins, how come the team only got 61?

Mostly, it was probably psychological. The timing of the Johjima extension and Wilkerson cut could not have been worse. The decision to cut Wilky may have been made days before, but when you're cut the day after your best performance of the season, in the same week that the worst player on the team gets rich - it is no wonder that this would have detrimental impacts on player morale and motivation.

McClaren was dreadfully NOT up to the task of managing *THIS* team, and the front office took a poor situation with a weak manager and essentially napalmed him. I don't think any manager could've won under those circumstances, but Mac's responses to too many things simply made matters worse.

The high expectations, followed by the slow start, followed by the front office idiocy turned a team that was in desperate need of motivation and instead disincentivized effort and performance. Riggleman got the typical new manager honeymoon, but after the ASB, the team was basically on auto-pilot, with the vets going thru the motions and trying to keep their personal stats up, and the youth not yet prepared to make the adjustment to the big time.

But, an important thing to understand here is that a major reason that the pessimists were shown to be a bit more on target was that they looked at the 2007 pythag of 79 wins and the result of 88 wins, and did not attempt to convince themselves that the 88 wins was "real". It is important to remember this because the 2008 team had a pythag of 67 -- and to assume the 61 wins is more "real" would be equally errant.

Of course, my assessment is that club had 70-75 win talent, which would "seem" to indicate that I think the 67 pythag is in error. Not exactly. The key is that talent is fluid. It's not just about bodies - but how much they play - how they are utilized AND how much they perform above or below "expected" levels. The pre-season ZIPs projections for Seattle were viewed as too negative before 2008 started. So, how did they turn out?

2008 OPS projection (ACTUAL *FINAL* results)

In truth, ZIPs *over-projected* more players than they underestimated. Lopez was the only player on the entire hitting roster who played significantly over expectation and career performance. That's right -- *ONE* player had a significantly better than expected season. Ibanez was a tad over projection, but not drastically so. Of course, except for Johjima, the guys most severely under projection are all gone, (Sexson, Vidro, Wilky). I personally believe that McClaren's mangement was likely contributory to the depth and length of the production implosions.

The month of September was also sub-par in terms of won/loss (compared to the previous three months), which is when the lineup became glutted with first-time MLBers. If the team had continued playing its "best" lineups in September, they likely would've won 3-5 more games. But, that wouldn't have been optimal for the long-term results. Those extra 3-5 wins in 2008 weren't going to matter -- it's just a case that the final record isn't (by itself), a completely realistic picture of the 2008 team, (or more directly - where they are actually starting from for 2009).

Ultimately, 2008 was a season which exposed some weaknesses in the club that were obscured during 2007. The BIP offense was simply too devoid of power or patience to adapt to improved competitive strategies. The bullpen in 2007 was really not NEARLY as good as their numbers indicated, and pretending they were was no more than wishful thinking. The complete and utter absence of a bench was completely exposed, despite getting thru another season with near perfect health. And finally, (and perhaps most importantly), the defensive woes of 2007 were NOT a flukey result - as 2008 DER confirmed that Seattle is one of the worst defensive teams in baseball.

But, even with the inate weaknesses of the roster and management, the team still underperformed in so many arenas that the final 2008 results 61-101 must be viewed objectively as an "off" season for a team that was more statistically a 67-95 club, and perhaps more realistically a 72-90 club. That's nothing to be thrilled about, certainly. But it does, I believe, more correctly indicate where the current club is starting from.

The human fascination with milestones preordains a fixation on the reality that Seattle lost 100 games during 2008. The perception, therefore, will be that the club is 20 wins away from .500. In truth, the team today is most likely only 10 wins away from .500. The 91 OPS+ and 89 ERA+ were the result of mediocre talent playing below their capabilities. It was, in fact, an "off" season for the bulk of the roster.

This does not mean to imply the 2008 team was a great roster with great players. Mediocrity is the best description for the bulk of the 2008 team. But, because of the high expectations for 2008 and the pain resulting from the results relative to expectation - it certainly FEELS like the 2008 team was simply horrible in every respect, instead of mostly mediocre with a few major problems.

No, Virginia, Seattle is not going to be in the playoff hunt in 2009. But, the hole they must dig themselves out of to return to playoff contention is not as deep as it certainly feels to most Seattle fans. The club may well be able to move from horrendous back to "obviously" mediocre in 2009. A few good moves, and the club should win 75 games with an upside of 81. A few bad moves, and the team could become genuinely dreadful, instead of deceptively dreadful. So, as we wait for Spring to return, take some small solace in that 2008 was in some measure an "off" season.