What It's Not

Update.--At his request today the Mariners traded Ichiro Suzuki in the last year of his contract to help the Mariners since he didn't plan to resign with the team. Ok, I respect him for that, but what did the team get in return? Two minor league pitchers. Prospects, just hope, and like almost every trade under this GM, it's just hope.

And what about all the other prospects he's gotten for the team? Well, if you say they're minor league players with potential, you're be right, and they're still just minor league players playing in the big leagues. Yes, a very good defensive team, but that's all. They still have to rely on pitching and when that fails, which more often than not, they lose.

Do you think we could trade the Mariner's General Manager?
Original Post.--Looking at the standings, the Mariners are in last place in the American West division, 15 games below .500 plus or minus a few games. But looking at the team statistics, the Mariners can't say it's what it's not. Really.

You see the Tampa Bay Rays, Mariners and Oakland Athletics are the three worst hitting teams in baseball. Not the American Leauge, but both leagues. The Mariners are about in the middle of the pack for pitching, the Rays and A's better but not significantly better.

The Mariners have one of the best defensive teams in baseball. So what it's not? Both the Rays and A's have winning records, both above .500 if only by a few games. The A's are catching the Angels for second place in the AL West. The Rays are in third in the AL East ahead of Toronto and Boston.

Both the Rays and A's are in the fight for one of the one-game playoffs, either tying for the lead for one of the two teams or within a game or so behind. In other words, despite poor hitting, average pitching and average defense, they're in the race for the playoffs.

The Mariners, however, are long out of it, 10 games behind the team for the second playoff spot. And that's what it's not. It's not about statistics. It's not about who's better, as the Mariners have good team stats. It's about the one thing they haven't learned to do yet under Eric Wedge.

They don't know how to win
It's that simple. They're under .500 in one-run and two-run games. They under .500 in extra inning games. They're under .500 in every statistics about winning games. They play tough, hard baseball, but they're showing that's not enough. You can see it in the situations they should do well.

You can see it in the players in the batter's box. Many of the team simply don't know how to hit the baseball. They're paid to be professional players, to play and hit. They do the former well but they do the latter badly. Even a novice knowledgeable fan like me can see they're not professional hitters.

And what's worse is that their triple-A team, the Tacoma Rainiers, doesn't have any better players. The team General Manager have said they're building to the future and have great prospects. But great prospects don't win games, good professional players win games and the Mariners aren't winning games.

It's that simple. And the fault lies with the players who need to get and be professoinal hitters, at least average, say .250 or better batting average, none have a higher average than about .270 so none are threats to pitchers, and hit when it counts, to score runs but mostly hit to win games.

And the fault lies with the management to find and get good players to win games. The current GM hasn't fielded a winning team despite several team managers, so that eliminates the latter as the issue, especially since former managers are managing winning teams.

The current GM simply isn't doing his job too. That's what they, both the players and the GM, are not doing where other teams are doing quite well. In baseball, it's about winning, everything else is just the looking at the off season and hopes of spring training and next year.

And that's the Mariners, again for another season with two months of the season left to play. Their only goal now is not lose 90 or more games for another season. Maybe we can hope for a new GM next year? One who actually knows how to get and put a winning team on the field? And players who will win games?