We've been venturing through the history of each of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, discussing some of the best and worst moments, players, teams, etc. It's more of a fun snapshot for discussion purposes than a be-all, end-all declaration. We continue today with the Seattle Mariners.
The Seattle Mariners are a bit unique in that they are a major-league team created essentially from a lawsuit. The expansion Seattle Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers after just one season (1969), so the city of Seattle sued the AL and eventually landed their Mariners when the league expanded to add two more teams in 1977 (along with the Blue Jays).
The Mariners have since been one of the least decorated teams in MLB, sporting a record nearly 400 games below .500 and having made the playoffs just four times -- with zero World Series appearances. Still, there has been plenty of good. Let's explore.
Best team: 2001
Yes, they flamed out in the ALCS, losing in just five games to the Yankees, but this team was still a very easy pick here. Those 2001 Mariners went an astonishing 116-46 in the regular season, outscoring their opponents by 300 runs.
What's even more fun about this group was they banded together after the departure of phenom Alex Rodriguez, who signed a gargantuan deal with the Rangers the previous offseason. And the Mariners -- behind the likes of Edgar Martinez, Mike Cameron, Bret Boone, John Olerud and AL MVP Ichiro Suzuki -- led the AL in hits, runs, steals, average and on-base percentage.
Behind Jamie Moyer, Freddy Garcia and Aaron Sele, the rotation was solid with the likes of Norm Charlton, Jeff Nelson, Arthur Rhodes and Kaz Sazaki forming a very good bullpen as well. The Mariners pitching staff was the best in the AL in ERA while also allowing the fewest hits.
The consistency was impressive as well, with the Mariners never losing 10 games in a single month. Their worst months were June and July; they went 18-9 in each. They were tied for first after the second and third games of the season and otherwise were alone in first throughout the season, building up a 21-game lead at one point and eventually winning the division by 14 games over a stellar 102-win A's team.
Worst team: 2010
With all due "respect" to some of the early Mariners incarnations, this offense was so pathetic that we have to go with 2010.
The Mariners were last in runs, hits, doubles, triples, homers, average, OBP, slugging and so on. Basically everything.
It's not just that, though. It's how much worse they were than everyone else. The Mariners scored 513 runs. The next fewest in the AL that season was 613 (Orioles). The league average in runs scored was 721. The league average batting line was .260/.327/.407. The Mariners hit .236/.298/.339.
The Mariners collectively had a 79 OPS+. That's a ballpark adjusted OPS of 21 percent worse than the league average. For a reference point, the most recent full-season player to post a 79 OPS+ was Eric Young Jr. in 2013. The 2010 Mariners were basically an entire lineup full of 2013 EYJrs. Brutal.
The offense was so bad that King Felix was awesome enough to win the Cy Young despite having "only" a 13-12 record. The team went 17-17 in his starts and 44-84 in all other games.
There are other arguments, for sure. The Mariners have 11 seasons with at least 95 losses, after all.
Best manager: Lou Piniella
The Mariners actually only have 12 winning seasons in franchise history. Sweet Lou was at the helm for seven of them. Five of their top six seasons in terms of winning percentage came under Piniella and he was the boss for each of the four playoff teams. Easy selection here.
Best managerial tirade: Sweet Lou
Worst Internet dropped ball: I can't find footage of a Piniella Mariners meltdown to embed here. For shame, YouTubers.
Worst manager: Maury Wills
Wills was only on the job for 83 games, but he went just 26-56. There's also this, via Hardball Times:
April 25, 1981: The entire Maury Wills managerial era (or should it be managerial error?) with the Mariners is often considered one of the worst tenures any skipper ever had, but this day provides the signature moment. Before the game, opposing manager Billy Martin notices there's something wrong with the batter's box in Seattle. The umpires inspect and the measurements show that Seattle tampered with the dimensions. They had been enlarged to help Seattle get an edge on breaking pitches from Oakland hurlers.
Enlargegate!
Best player: Ken Griffey Jr.
For a team with such an extensive history of futility, the Mariners have quite the ledger of studly players. There could be arguments for Edgar Martinez or Ichiro Suzuki here, but I'm going Junior.
Junior's initial stint with the Mariners was 11 seasons. After his rookie year -- at age 19, mind you -- he made the All-Star team 10 straight times, winning a Gold Glove every year while taking home eight Silver Sluggers. He finished in the top five of MVP voting five times. His 162-game averages when we toss out the rookie year? .302/.384/.581 (152 OPS+), 35 doubles, 44 homers, 126 RBI, 116 runs, 18 steals.
He'll sail into the Hall of Fame with ease next year and will certainly be the first player enshrined with a Mariners cap.
Worst Hall of Fame argument: Against Edgar
People really need to stop saying that DHs can't be in the Hall of Fame while parroting this "everyone has to field his own position" nonsense from the 1950s. Get off the rotary phones and get him in the Hall.
Best father-son moment: The Griffeys
This has to be the envy of fathers everywhere. What a cool moment this had to be for Griffey Sr.
Worst trade leverage: Junior to Cincy
It's pretty difficult to get a good return on a trade when the superstar openly discusses his desire to only go to one certain place. That's what happened when Junior -- a Moeller (Cincinnati) HS graduate -- stated this desire in the 1999-2000 offseason.
In fact, it's pretty remarkable the Mariners were even able to get as much as they did (Mike Cameron, Brett Tomko and change) from the Reds. They had absolutely zero leverage through which to negotiate.
Worst trade: Erik Bedard
The Mariners have actually made a litany of awful trades. They dealt Carlos Guillen for Ramon Santiago. They didn't get much back at different points for Tino Martinez, Shin-Soo Choo, Rafael Soriano, David Ortiz and Omar Vizquel. They notoriously sent a pair of youngsters named Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek to Boston for 84 games of subpar production from Heathcliff Slocumb, too.
Still, I think the recent terrible deal is worse.
Bedard was shipped to Seattle in February 2008 for highly touted 22-year-old prospect Adam Jones (he has panned out OK, right?), a 19-year-old pitcher named Chris Tillman (he's good, right?), George Sherrill and Kam Mickolio. Sherrill was actually an All-Star in 2008, meaning the Orioles got three All-Stars back for Bedard.
Bedard would only make 30 starts the following three seasons combined for Seattle, as injuries plagued him.
Best moment: Edgar, Junior and the 1995 ALDS
The 1995 Mariners are such a fun story. This was the first playoff team in franchise history, for one. They also trailed the Angels by 12.5 games as late as Aug. 20 that season. In fact, the Mariners had a losing record as late as Aug. 23, when they were 54-55.
From that point forward, they would go 25-11, taking the AL West by one game. They actually entered the final day of the season tied with the Angels and were playing them head to head. The Mariners would cruise, winning 9-1 behind a balanced offensive effort and a complete-game gem from Randy Johnson.
And then, in Game 5 of the ALDS, they entered the bottom of the 11th inning trailing the Yankees 5-4. What happened next would live forever in Mariners history.
Best pitcher: The King
Tough call, right? Let's go to the tale of the tape, using only the time spent with Seattle ...
Felix Hernandez: 125-92, 3.07 ERA, 130 ERA+, 1.17 WHIP, 1,951 K, 2,060 2/3 IP
Randy Johnson: 130-74, 3.42 ERA, 128 ERA+, 1.25 WHIP, 2,162 K, 1,838 1/3 IP
Each of the pitchers won a Cy Young and finished in the top four of Cy Young voting four times with the Mariners (so far, in Felix's case). Johnson played on much better teams overall, but is that really Felix's fault?
They both have a no-hitter, but Felix has the only perfect game in franchise history (the easy pick for "best moment" if I went with a pitching sub-category).
Plus, Hernandez is going to be with the Mariners througout his prime. If he's not yet fully ahead of the Big Unit, he very soon will be. I'm comfortable with this selection right now, though. What say you, Seattle?
Best strikeout artist, pre-Unit: Mark Langston
I wanted to sneak in a little love for Langston. He spent the first five and a half years of his career with Seattle, leading the AL in strikeouts three times.
Best young superstar: Alex Rodriguez
If only we could do that Men In Black memory-erase thingie and just view A-Rod as we did back in 2000. Good lord, he was amazing. From 1996-2000 -- when A-Rod was 20-24 years old, mind you -- he hit .315/.381/.575 (143 OPS+) with 162-game averages of 42 doubles, 42 homers, 129 RBI, 136 runs and 29 stolen bases, all with good defense at shortstop.
It wasn't just the numbers, though. Remember that kid? Beloved by everyone, smiling all the time, oozing charisma ...
He just seems like a totally different person now, you know?
Best trade, pop culture version: Jay Buhner
I may well have seen this 200 times and I still die laughing.
Best use of windpipes: Lenny Randle
Worst signing: Carlos Silva
The Chone Figgins (four years, $36M) and Richie Sexson (four years, $50M) deals are obviously right in the thick of the discussion here, but at least those could have been justified at the time.
The Mariners signed Silva to a four-year, $48 million deal heading into the 2008 season. In 2006 with the Twins, he was 11-15 with a 5.94 ERA, leading the majors in home runs allowed. In 2007, he went 13-14 with a 4.19 ERA in 202 innings. He did post a 103 ERA+, but he only struck out 89 batters. It was a ridiculous signing at the time.
In two seasons for Seattle, Silva went 5-18 with a 6.81 ERA. Laughable. At least they got out of the last two years of the deal, right? In return, Milton Bradley hit .209/.298/.351 in 101 games in 2010-11.
Best signing: Ichiro
The Mariners posted just over $13 million for the right to negotiate with Ichiro. They ended up inking him to a three-year, $14 million deal. So they didn't even lay out $30 million to bring in the 2001 AL MVP and Rookie of the Year.
With the Mariners, Ichiro would lead the majors in hits seven times. He also won two batting titles and led the majors in steals his rookie year. The 10-time All-Star hit .322 with 2,533 hits in his Mariners career and provided countless highlights in the outfield, too, such as showing off his cannon just over a week into his MLB career.
Best ageless wonder: Jamie Moyer
I'm a huge Moyer guy and I just wanted to work him in here. From 1997-2005, Moyer was 133-73 with a 112 ERA+. He finished in the top six of Cy Young voting three times. This all happened from ages 34-42. Well done, Mr. Moyer.
Is the best yet to come? The Mariners still have King Felix in his prime, flanked by Hisashi Iwakuma. They now have Robinson Cano anchoring the offense and added Nelson Cruz. The underrated Kyle Seager is also around and there's some good, young talent in the mix.
What about going back to the likes of Alvin Davis, Mike Moore or Harold Reynolds? There aren't any wrong answers. Add to the list, Seattle.
Up next: Sunday is the day reserved for the Houston Astros, who were once the Colt .45s.
>> Want more franchise bests/worsts? CHC | MIL | STL | CIN | PIT | CLE | DET | MIN | CHW | KC | NYY | BOS | BAL | TOR | TB | MIA | WAS | NYM | PHI | ATL | COL | LAD | SF | ARI | SD | OAK
