100/100 club
I know milestones like this are pretty meaningless, but the loss mark on its own is enough to stop and contemplate.
Going back past the Gillick-through-Bavasi years, you have to really go back to get an M’s team this bad. They have a shot, if they really pull together — and Silva’s re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-injury doesn’t help their chances — to lose out and tie the franchise record of 104 losses in a year, set in 1978, the second year of their existence. More reachable: 1980’s 59-103, or 1983’s 60-102 (two teams with payrolls of approximately $0). Anyway you look at it, this season the M’s took a colossal amount of Nintendo’s money and managed to not only historically less with it but they also managed actively set the state of the farm system back and reached out to slap around future years by committing to waste future Nintendo money in advance, in case they’re not around to sign horrible pitchers to ghastly contracts.
I know I’ve tried to skate through the year a little, not spending too much time staring into the abyss, looking for bright spots like Morrow’s progression, or Ichiro’s play, but I paused after the game tonight and thought about the scope of this disaster for a while. The more I think about it, comparing how the team fell this far that it’s competing with those early expansion years, the more I wonder what I’m doing following this idiocy.
I can’t understand why anyone would want to retain Lincoln and Armstrong’s services, or anyone associated with them or even who knows them after the they put this capstone on the rubble they’ve turned the franchise into these last few years.
I can’t understand why anyone would want to retain Lincoln and Armstrong’s services, or anyone associated with them or even who knows them after the they put this capstone on the rubble they’ve turned the franchise into these last few years.
Because they’ve been there. Baseball really isn’t so different from most other corporate climates. A CEO comes in, runs a company into the ground…and, at worst, he gets handed a $20 million golden parachute when he’s asked to “step down.” A year later he’s in charge of another company.
There’s a constant influx of bright young talent, but for some reason all the credit for their work lands on the middle manager who has been around forever.
The company falls upon hard times and you don’t reduce the salaries of the guys who caused the problem…you lay off half of the guys who actually create the product you sell. They didn’t have any grit or experience anyway…
Do we have any one with baseball knowledge in the orgnization besides Engle and Fontaine.
On another note, Please don’t stop following the M’s Mr. Zumsteg. Your’s and Dave’s analysis is another bright spot on the season.
This momentous historical achievement by the M’s should give all fans a warm fuzzy feeling inside–much like consuming too many Rally Fries all at once.
Nothing like starting the morning contemplating which of my team’s various 100+ loss seasons was brought on by the worst team. Reader content week is over, but a “Degrees of Terrible” post would be a nice cherry on top of this debacle.
Buster Olney has an ESPN article on the end of the Yankees’ post season streak where he pins the failings of the current Yankees team on their poor record of drafting and developing players since 1997. He posts a list of major league teams’ draftees sorted by the number of players who’ve made it to the big leagues, and the Yankees do indeed score very poorly. (Dead last in both hitters and pitchers if sorted by numbers of at-bats or innings pitched)
What struck me most clearly was that the Mariners are nearly as bad over the same time frame – 2nd to last in hitters, 4th from last in pitchers. At least the Yankees have 12 post season appearances, six AL Championships and four World Series during that time span.
what is the split between before & after Fontaine?
the only reason I keep hoping for a 100+ loss season is that it might (might) lead someone to realize finally that there must be changes from the top down.
A truly monumental day. How Come the Nationals win the tie breaker on Strasburg if the Ms and Nats both end with the same record? Please refer me to a previous post if there is an answer there.
In case of a tie, the first round draft choice goes to the team that posted the worst record the year before.
msb wrote:
Yes, time to break out the Siege of Beziers book of organizational management.
All it took was 7 short years to go from tying the record for most regular season wins, to the worst team ever in terms of player salary per win.
That’s simply amazing.
Just wait until next…
err….
decade?
I will be at the game tomorrow with my 100/100 club sign.
well, you have to admit, both are pretty flukey baseball occurences…
Wow, NBCsports reporting teammates considered attacking Ichiro physically earlier this season. Yeah, because Ichiro is how/why you get to 100 losses. Unbelievable.
This is a historic accomplishment. Much of the credit goes to Bill Bavasi but let’s not forget the contributions by Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln. Even owner in absentia, Hiroshi Yamauchi, kicked in with his mandated Jojima contract extension.
Now, I have to admit I was a little worried there towards the end of the season but the Mariners really sucked it up and went on a well executed 12 game losing streak. This streak really showed what a team with great chemistry can accomplish when everyone pulls together.
Way to go M’s! You are the first. Take a bow.
If that Ichiro story is true, the M’s should consider firing everyone in the club house attached to the story and replacing them with minor leaguers. They can’t get any worse on the field.
Yeah, it was a Times story that NBCsports lifted, I guess…I didn’t read it that closely because in all honesty, anyone could have guessed that crap. None of those guys were looking in the mirror to see the problem, just pointing fingers, I’m sure. Either that or some sublime state of denial at which I can only kneel in awe.
@smb, @metz123
I agree with the statement that whomever publicly voiced thier thoughts that Ichiro was “slacking” or “didn’t care”, should be released, fired, demoted, traded.
Ichiro in what could be considered a slow year hitting, STILL managed to break a record for 200+ hit seasons. Who else on this team is as good defensively, and offensively as Ichiro???? Anyone???
Here is the story by NBCSports.com
Does this show how disfuncional and out of control the Seattle organization is? Who is steering the ship? Or is no one minding the store? It is a sad state of affairs.
I see at the end of the NBC piece they finally got to part of the other side of the story that Baker included …
my bet was on Carlos Silva.
I feel compelled to comment again….
If Ichiro is “selfish” and could have gotten to some balls in right if he was healthy, what should they be saying about Rauuuul???? All those “u”‘s aren’t helping him get to 75% of the balls hit to left, and he’s HEALTHY!!!
Yeah, I just wrote that up as a separate post. It’s Silva, for a variety of reasons you can probably figure out.
People physically threatening Ichiro need to be dumped on their useless ass now.
Ichiro is the only good thing on this club.
Bavasi, Armstrong and Lincoln saw to that.
Wonder if it was Bedard? Mr. keep his career threatening injury a secret for two months while pointing the finger at everyone else he could?
How about Carlos “my fat ass had one lucky season in 2005” Silva ? Or that bringer of veteran grit, Jarrod “Throw Jojima under the bus” Washburn?
Whoever it was, I bet those guys were involved. Not worth a damn any one of them.