A Long Season Over

Well, the Seattle Mariners finished 67 wins and 95 losses, the 6th losing season in the last 8 years, and all but one with over 90 losses. And Ichiro didn't get 200 hits for the first time in his 11-year US major league career. The team played hard and well but they were simply overmatched most of the time, even with Felix Hernandez pitching.

And while it's nice to say there's always next year, and Eric Wedge did a good job as manager considering all the young players the team had, it's clear the problem is more upstairs. Not their heads but the head of the Mariners, namely the General Manager and the President, but most the former who orchestrates the trades, acquistions (players) and contracts.

He's clearly not up to the job because he keeps buying older players who fail to perform for the team, but then do far better with other teams, eg. Eric Bedard, Shone Figgins, Casey Kotchman, etal. And building from prospects and minor league players, the so-called "from within the organization" only goes so far as we saw this year. And to give the GM a new 3-year contract, it's a, "What are they thinking?", except to keep putting less than a top winning team on the field for the next three years.

Ever since the record setting team of 2001 who won 116 games, losing only 46 and winning at least 20 games every month but one, they have only had two winning seasons and both times finished second in the National League West. We have hope and a future, but then it all went south as they say and we've been going that direction since then. Thats shows it's not the players so much as who puts the team together to get top players who don't perform to their career level.

But that's all games gone by and all we have now is next spring when the 2012 season starts. I'll still be there but this time, like all the fans, we want a pennant and nothing less. And we don't want a GM who short-sells the time on quality players, young or old. Many young players did well, but you can't build on that alone, look at the 2001 team roster to see it.

For now it's just hope and speculation.