Wednesday, January 17, 2018

2005-2007: The Mariners Appear to be Getting Better

Many of you probably don't remember or never knew that Mike Hargrove was the manager of the Seattle Mariners for two and a half seasons. He inherited a terrible team coming off a 63-99 record in 2004 and adds wins each of his seasons at the helm. In 2005 the Mariners won 69 games, they followed that up with 78 wins in 2006 and an exciting 88 in 2007. Strangely Hargrove resigned in the middle of the 2007 season. The team was doing well and it looked like they might finally make the playoffs, so weirdly the manager that suffered through two rebuilding years decided to leave. Hargrove explained to the Seattle Times that it "boiled down to the fact that it was getting increasingly difficult to summon the 100 percent effort he demanded of his players."

In addition to adding Hargrove as the Manager, in 2005 the Mariners added two big name and big money free agents in Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre. Both of these players have a mixed legacy with the Mariners. Sexson spent the end of his career with the Mariners and Beltre the middle, which surely impacted how they are remembered.

Sexson had a 144 wRC+ in 2005. He clobbered 39 HR pleasing fans all over the PNW. In 2006 Sexson's hitting stayed strong. He hit 34 more HR and had a 117 wRC+. The drop off was almost entirely from the decline of walks, which fell from 89 to 64. Sexson also hit 5 Grand Slams in 2006, something that is burned into my baseball memory. Unfortunately for the Big Sexy most fans seem to have 2007 burned into their memories. Sexson's production fell off a cliff in 2007. He did managed to hit 21 HR, but that was about it. His average dropped from the .260's down to .205. His walks dropped to 51. All this resulted in his wRC+ plummeting to 84. In three seasons Richie Sexson went from 44% better than an average first baseman to 16% worse. It was an impressive decline to say the least.

Adrian Beltre came to Seattle from the Los Angeles Dodgers after a season he finished second in the MVP voting. Beltre had already played 7 season with the Dodgers, but was still only 26 years old when he joined the Mariners in 2005. He spent five years in Seattle. If Belte's body followed the normal aging curve they would have been his prime. Instead Beltre somehow got way better when he left the Mariners, dominating the American league in his 30's. We should all be so lucky.

During his whole time with the Mariners Beltre played amazing defense at third base. However, at the plate he was much more disappointing. He never hit 30 homeruns. His highest batting average was only .275, in 2007. His wRC+ topped out at 110 and was below 100, worse than average, twice. During 2005 to 2007 Beltre did manage to improve his hitting stats each year raising his average and slugging in each consecutive year. According to Fangraphs he contributed 9.9 WAR between 2005-2007. Beltre definitely didn't hurt the team, because of his strong defense, but he didn't deliver on the promise of his 2004 Dodgers' season.

Between 2005 and 2007 the Mariners bullpen saw the collapse of Steady Eddie Guardado and the rise of JJ Putz. I think most people think of Eddie Guardado as a bad closer, I know I do. Interestingly though looking back on his 2005 stats shows that Guardado was actually pretty good for the Mariners. He recorded a 2.72 ERA and 36 saves in 41 chances.  He appeared in 58 games. 2006 was a completely different story for Guardado. He gave up 8 homeruns in only 23 innings and blew 3 of his 8 save chances, prompting Manager Mike Hargrove to make a switch at closer to JJ Putz.

Putz was electric in 2006 and even better in 2007. He posted an ERA of 2.30 in 2006 followed by 1.38 in 2007. Over those two seasons he struck out 186 batters and walked 26 in 150 innings. In 2007 his WHIP was a ridiculously low .698. Whenever fans at Safeco Field heard Thunderstruck start to play and saw Putz walking up to the mound you knew the M's were going to win. Putz brought me personally many great memories at the end of games watching opposing hitters be completely flummoxed.

The mid 2000's also saw the introduction of Felix Hernandez to Seattle baseball. In 2005 King Felix impressed in his first 12 major leagues starts. In his third big league game ever Felix pitched 8 inning, gave up 3 hits, 1 runs and struckout 11 Kansas City Royals. He followed that up with another 8 inning gem against the Minnesota Twins (5 H, 2 ER, and 9 K) and fans were hooked. Hernandez struggled a little during his sophomore campaign, seeing his ERA jump up to 4.52. Though the King did throw his first major league complete game shutout that year. It was onAugust 28th against the Los Angeles Angels of Anahiem and unusally both starting pitchers went the distance (the other was Kelvim Escobar). Felix continued to improve in 2007, getting his ERA down to 3.92. He wasn't great in either year, but it is important to remember that ERA in general were higher during the mid 2000's. In both 2006 and 2007 his ERA was below the cumulative ERA of all major league starters (4.69 and 4.63). Although not yet the dominate pitcher fans know today, Felix showed signs of what was to come during all three of his first seasons.


The 2005 through 2007 seasons saw the Mariners climb out of the cellar to flirt with the playoffs. Sadly they didn’t' get the job done in 2007 allowing the now longest playoff draught in Professional sports to continue. These three seasons saw a successful manager quit unexpectedly during a winning season, the addition of big money free agents, and the emergence of a Mariner icon. Overall they were a very memorable set of years.

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