The Troubled Mind of the M’s Fan
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior
-Catullus
We are, thankfully, a year removed from the acrimonious debates over the Jaso/Morse trade. The past year has probably been kinder to the M’s than to most of their divisional rivals, due to a combination of injury and Robinson Cano. We’ve spent the past four years, or, if you really think about it, the last TEN years, searching for progress. Here, as the 2014 season begins, we have it. We can quibble about the magnitude of the progress, or what it says about management, or any number of things, but the M’s start the 2014 season with a real chance at postseason baseball. After years of doubt, scorn, and apathy, M’s fans must be ecstatic, right? Well, no, not really. Jeff described the psychological state of the M’s fans in his “If It Goes Right” post, and it’s worth repeating: the 2004-2013 Mariners are a classic case of operant conditioning. A decade spent eradicating hope; glimmers of promise felled by a series of misfortunes (Guti) and missteps (Horacio Ramirez). You can argue that this metaphor obscures more than it helps: that a bad trade for a crappy DH either one or seven years ago doesn’t illuminate the 2014 season, it just illuminates your own cynicism. The problem is that you can’t pretend that these moves aren’t linked. If you’ve lamented the direction the team’s gone, you can’t just tell yourself that the moves this FO made in the past have no bearing on the moves they’ll make in the future. If you believe that there’s something fundamentally wrong in how the team assesses pro talent, you probably aren’t convinced that everything will work out now that the stakes are higher.
So here I am, feeling both excitement and dread at the same time. Picking apart every minor move because they seem so haphazard and picking apart every minor move because, for the first time in a while, they might actually matter. Lamenting the missed opportunities and the obvious holes, but looking around the division and seeing obvious holes everywhere. Worrying that way too much is needed from Dustin Ackley, Mike Zunino and Roenis Elias, and thinking that I’d rather have Zunino over JP Arencibia, and Elias over Nick Martinez, and wait, are you seriously starting Josh Wilson at 2B, Texas? The M’s bought the premier player in free agency, and then everyone told them that Cano, on his own, wasn’t enough to change the AL West picture. The M’s stayed put, and then the baseball gods changed the AL West picture for them. And now our brains can’t stop debating it all.
“Chris Young is a great stopgap for the 5th rotation spot. This isn’t about giving an “Ex-All Star” a job based on his name, and it’s not about a good spring training line. Chris Young was broken, and now M’s scouts are convinced he’s not. Thoracic Outlet surgery changes the picture completely, and it has the benefit of being a much easier procedure to rehab from than a labrum or rotator cuff tear. Randy Wolf was bad, and then left when he demanded more security than the M’s felt comfortable offering. Young’s problem has been durability, and now he’s in a position where durability just isn’t a big concern. Young’s been good, and with the 45-day opt out, the M’s can remake the rotation in May if Hisashi Iwakuma’s ready to go.”
“Let the record show that perhaps the best argument in favor of the Young pick-up is that he recently had his third shoulder surgery. I’m told he’s now throwing 88mph again, much better than he showed last year. But this sort of thing is trotted out about as often as “best shape of his life” stories. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that Scott Baker came in amid whispers he was throwing harder than he was last year with the Cubs. He came out in early March and touched *92*. Jeremy Bonderman did this last year. The real reason Young is here is that he signed the 45-day opt out and Wolf didn’t. That’s it. Flexibility is important, and no team wants to just waste $500-750,000. But this kind of flexibility can be overstated. In any event, the M’s are going into the 2014 season projected to be very close to the division’s top teams, and the best they they could do was to see what Roenis Elias was capable AND buy high-ish on Chris Young?
“The M’s OF depth isn’t great on paper, but the M’s will be able to mix and match players and get the platoon advantage while also improving the OF defense overall. Abraham Almonte showed signs that he could be a league-average bat, and using Saunders/Ackley in the corners will give the M’s much more range than they had last year. The M’s OF defense was -17.5 runs by UZR in 2013, 1.5 WINS worse than the Angels’, and 2-3 wins worse than the A’s/Rangers. Push them to average, and the division is basically a toss-up. Against good lefties, they can deploy Corey Hart and/or Stefen Romero. That’s an offense-for-defense trade to be sure, but it illustrates that the M’s have actual options both when they look at pitching probables and for late-game situations. This is the M’s weak point, and the ability to swap players around means that it shouldn’t be a black hole. Their depth in AAA isn’t excellent, but it’s no worse than their rivals. Importantly, it means that if Almonte’s awful, they can just swap him out.”
“The M’s actions this offseason, particularly regarding the outfield, show that THEY don’t believe they’re contenders. The division is incredibly tight and the M’s all but gave the starting CF job to a guy with a career MiLB slugging percentage of .399, and who wasn’t really a full-time CF until he was pressed into the job due to injuries/promotions/other people failing. The team has more speed in the OF corners, but they have career wRC+ numbers of 89 and 86, respectively. If they couldn’t run, they’d be out of baseball. And running’s nice, but Ackley hasn’t demonstrated great range in the OF. That’s not necessarily is fault, and the tools are there, but he’s learning on the job, as is Romero. If Hart plays significant time in RF, the OF defense could still be a problem. Hart’s progress has been achingly slow, which seems to hurt the group’s chances of adding value offensively. To top it off, Almonte starts the year in the lead-off spot for reasons no one can fathom. The M’s were contenders by default, and their lack of attention to a clear, known weakness will prevent them from taking advantage of it.”
“How can you criticize the M’s for not making more moves to shore up the team when your biggest fear was management making rash moves to protect their jobs? The cynics were the ones lamenting an overpay for Nelson Cruz or David Price or [insert trade candidate here] before they happened; they can’t then turn around and say the M’s didn’t do enough to improve. The division’s tight, and the M’s still have Nick Franklin and Tai Walker in the fold. Walker will be an important part of the M’s rotation and Franklin could either be a factor for the team in the 2nd half or a potentially even-more-valuable trade chip at the deadline. More importantly, the M’s have positioned themselves for 2015 and beyond. They haven’t closed any doors by overreacting to spring training injuries to Oakland/Texas. This means they can actually compete in 2014 while at the same time assessing which players they can count on for 2015. Is Dustin Ackley slow to develop, or is it just not going to work? Is Nick Franklin’s struggles against lefties fixable? Is Mike Zunino making steady progress, or will his contact issues plague him? The M’s have a free year – they’re figuring out who’s going to be a part of the next great M’s team AND they can compete in the short term thanks to Felix/Iwakuma/Cano/Miller.”
“If the only options were “Stand pat” and “make stupid, panic-driven overpays,” we wouldn’t spend much time on baseball. Those are *never* the only options. The M’s shouldn’t have traded the farm for David Price, but they saw Ervin Santana sign a one-year deal and opted to go with Roenis Elias instead. Teams around baseball need help at SS/2B, and the M’s held tight to Nick Franklin, waiting to be blown away by a ludicrous offer that never came. Like Nelson Cruz or Santana, the M’s could’ve adapted to the market, or they could’ve gone for one of the free agents once their market tanked. It’s not enough to say that the M’s can evaluate their youngsters this year when they’ve shown no ability to have contingencies. That’s why they started the season last year with Jesus Montero at C, Justin Smoak at 1B and Dustin Ackley at 2B. Zunino helped them avoid the full effects of Montero’s collapse, but they still need Ackley and Smoak to produce. They’ve had the same “youngsters” for years, and while Cano is a huge upgrade, they’re still surrounded by Almonte/Saunders/Zunino. What, exactly, is going to change next year?”
I’m really glad I’m not anticipating big philosophical arguments with fans of the Morse deal, but all that means is that the big philosophical arguments have moved to my own head. This is a strange, strange 2014, and despite all of the angst and teeth-gnashing, it’s a better version of strange than we’ve seen in a while. How much that has to do with the FO and how much has to do with pitcher attrition elsewhere is still a big question. However you resolve it is up to you, and ultimately, it’s fun that circumstances (“no! prudent management.” “I’ll concede the point only if you can identify the team’s employee who decimated Texas’ clubhouse this spring”) let us have the debate with the gap between the M’s and their rivals smaller than at any point since 2009.
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11 Responses to “The Troubled Mind of the M’s Fan”
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The problem is, our cyncism is built on Homer like tales of epic “losses” and tragedy… Throughout those 10 years we’ve been tormented by the triumphant return of our once hero (Jr.) who comes home only to play the role of Don Quixote, his tired windmill swings fatiguing us as fans when we watched. Our decorated, beloved God, “Our Father, Who Art In the Media Booth” loses so much faith in his disciples he gives up the will to live, remembered only as a statue now for future generations… Relegated to legend and sound bites… Our generals at various times fall on their swords (Hargrove), attempt a mutiny (Wedge), succumb to a mutiny (Wakamatsu), bring various malaise to the dugout, until we have a jolly Lloyd McLendon show up attempting his best Patch Adams impersonation– he makes us feel good, and has soothsaying sage-like mantras, but can he really cure us?
Our struggles have been downright Biblical at times– including a young hero killed at the hands of his brother, a drought in the once fertile fields of “runs scored”, our poetic Jesus (King) betrayed annually by a different group of Judases on the roster. And our late summer, into fall, annual 40 days and 40 nights of Northwest rain, sinking all hope, when the skies of contention show no clearing between the end of July and October… Just dark ominous floods of losing…
You can basically follow each of our free agent pickups over the past decade in Rashomon fashion and see a different perspective of how bad things got, some of their failures obscured by the views of the OTHER’s failures… We had a Trojan rabbit rolled up upon us by the Angels in Chone Figgins (so betrayed were we by that one, we can’t even sign one of the 5 or so best players in baseball, in Robinson Cano, without an incredibly realistic fear that he’ll never hit over .200 again, which having a great Spring somehow only worsened, from watching other supposed heroes have healthy Springs.) It’s almost a given that Robinson Cano will need a walker to take the field by the time he’s 35.
I really want the feeling of attending a funeral to change next time I go to a game at Safeco. Where the best highlights they show on the massive “tribute video screen” are for players who haven’t suited up in over a decade, or are currently on the OTHER team’s roster…
Being Scottish it’s a deep, known feeling, familiar in an achy ancient way… For those that know the history of Scotland, the legends of being the once proud keepers of the sacred Jewish temples, defeated and then banished to the far away uncivilzed lands of northern Europe… Only to become the pawns, and temporary soldiers of whichever great empire was dominating you at the moment… Forced by the Norse to help them fight the English, then forced by the English to drive out the Norsemen… Our greatest defeat was at a battle (Culloden) where our own clans were pitted against one another, and betrayed in humiliating fashion, on our own soil. All trust and good will gone for centuries, within our own borders.
I could go, but this is too long already… The bottomline being, Hope & Pride (in never abandoning our team) is really all we have at this point. The idea of contending again feels too much like an Oz-like charade/dream being perpetrated by little old men with sportswriter pens behind a curtain. We want to tap our heels, and make it all better, but the ruby slippers disappeared ages ago, and didn’t fit when they were actually here. Quite literally, the Emerald City is nowhere NEAR to Kansas. And the scarecrow (Lincoln) cowardly lion (Armstrong) and tin man (Jack Z) don’t actually possess the powers to save us like we once thought. I’m gonna start calling the Moose “Toto”…
Why or why is it so easy to add an “s” at the end of “True to the Blue_”?
(apologies for the novel)
The funny thing about it is that if the team progresses to good with playoff potential and meaningful September games, the last 10 years will wash away leaving hardly a trace of angst, but with fewer fans.
The fans can return with a new and exciting narrative. Crazy Legs hits his way to being one of the top shortstops. Cano shows no signs of slowing down. The young guns finally start shooting. Walker and Paxton realize their full upside and turn the M’s rotation into the best in baseball.
Or not.
Like Marc said, this is a very strange 2014. For me, because it could so easily be from amazingly good to hope-killing bad. If it goes the bad route, coupled with the past 10 years, it will make it hard to hang on hoping this team will ever contend again. A good season changes everything and would turn the promises of the last 5 years from failure to progress.
The Mariners are realistically in the mix at season’s start, and that’s a nice change.
I’m expecting mediocrity from the Mariners in 2014 – I don’t imagine I’ll be disappointed. 😀
In any case – thank you for another excellent post, Marc.
PackBob-
It really is a “hangs in the balance” sort of feeling. Palpable. Somewhere between desperate and relieved, though neither currently. And, a fear that it won’t get better, abut a little glimmer of (not quite ready to admit) “really, playoffs are a possibility!?” (I still haven’t accepted the BUNCH of folks who do these predictions respectably, who actually have us ending up in the mix…)
Westy-
That’s so NOT fair… The rule is: you have to be EITHER angrily disgruntled and pessimistic, OR unreasonably optimistic that this is the year for our first Pennant. It’s still technically the offseason for the M’s, so common sense doesn’t apply.
Marc-you have perfectly described my schizophrenic fandom as a long time M’s fan. I think I am with Westside guy-but hoping for a little bit better on Opening Day.
Seems appropriate that Jeff Clement retired today. Sheesh.
On a related topic, when does USSM get rid of the “and… sigh.” Its officially time to move on now, right?
Troubled mind…I look at the outfield, and don’t see Adam Jones, or Shin Soo Choo, or the clubhouse, and don’t see any of the other Mariner properties squandered to try to save Bavasi’s job.
Marc… great post, but a few quibbles.
First, Cruz let it known he was not coming to Seattle without Seattle over paying compared to other destinations. This was true with Ellsbury, Fielder and many others… so while over paying is not the ONLY option – it was with certain players.
As far as Santana, or other pitchers, I would definitely rather have a few starts by Elias, and multiple starts by Young and probably Maurer versus giving up draft choice and taking more money out of the budget that Jack already has to grovel for and etc… just to get a mediocre starter for millions of dollars.
Now, if your complaint that Jack waited too long to even start the process – so that Jack could have signed Colon, Kazmir, or other pitchers who did not cost extra millions or draft choices… I am right there with ya..
And the waiting too long also goes for an OF as well, because there were plenty to choose from in November.
“built on Homer like tales of epic “losses” and tragedy”
Partly the issue is: is this Homer as in “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, or Homer as in “doh!”.
Masterful comment though, with references Homeric, biblical, Caledonian, internationally literary (Cervantes Akutagawa), and cinematic (Patch Adams, Monty Python, and Oz). Plus others I may have missed.