Another two years
and another two terrible offenses. In both 2012 and 2013 the Mariners failed to
have a player hit better than .280, making it four straight years. This is
quite an impressively bad achievement. This utterly bad offense resulted in two
more losing seasons. In 2012 the team went 75-87. They followed that up in 2013
with a 71-91 record.
One interesting
anomaly of a stat in 2013 was the Mariners ability to hit homeruns. They were
second in the AL with 188, despite being second to last in total hits. This
quirk resulted in the Mariners still failing to score runs because nobody was
ever on base when the ball left the yard.
2012 saw some very
large and important roster moves. The biggest being the trade of Ichiro to the
New York Yankees on July 23rd 2012. It looked like the end of the road for
Ichiro, who was having another sub-par season. His triple slash for the
Mariners was only .261/.288/.353. Yet somehow Ichiro has managed to bounce
around the league for another four seasons and is now back with the Mariners
(and may start on opening day if people don't get healthy). Ichiro was a truly
great players for the Mariners for twelve years. He made ten straight All-star
teams to start his career. It was sad to see the end come (for the first time),
but it was the right move for the Mariners.
Another big move was
the trade of Michael Pineda to the Yankees for Jesus Montero. This trade
happened during the offseason and appeared that it was filling a weak spot for
both teams. The Yankees got up and coming pitcher Michael Pineda. After a
strong rookie season, the young man looked set to be future star. Unfortunately
he got hurt and didn't pitch in the big leagues again until 2014. The Mariners
got Jesus Montero, who was billed as a sure-thing hitter. He was a slow as mud
catcher, but everyone was so sure about his bat that they assumed he would
slide into DH. Montero was a failure for the Mariners. Looking back this trade
turned out to be a huge disappointment for both teams.
The final big move
of 2012 was the signing of Hisashi Iwakuma. The pitcher came to the Mariners
from Japan at age 31. In the NPB he had put together a great career, but it is
never a sure thing if it will translate in the MLB. Iwakuma proved any doubters
wrong by pitching great in 2012 and even better in 2013. He pitched so well in
2013 that he finished third in the Cy Young voting.
2012 and 2013 also
saw Kyle Seager cement himself at third base for the M's. In 2012 he hit .259
with 20 HR and 35 2B. In 2013 Seager hit .260 with 22 HR and 32 2B. His wRC+ in
these years were 108 and 116 respectively. Both of these years, while not stellar,
were of major league quality, something the Mariners sorely lacked in the early
2010's. The Mariners front office and marketing staff were quick to jump on
this new not terrible player and started marketing him.
Felix Hernandez
continued his stretch of dominating the AL and had another two great seasons.
In 2012 he had a 3.06 ERA, 223 K, 56 BB in 232 innings pitched. In 2013 he had
a 3.04 ERA, 216 K, 46 BB in 204.33 innings pitched. King Felix made the
All-star team both years. It is still a sad fact to look back and see how
amazing Felix was and how bad his teams where that wasted his talent.
Brendan Ryan pulled
off an impressive feat for the Mariners in 2012. The shortstop had signed with
the team in 2011 and put together an acceptable season at the plate, especially
considering his amazing defense. Then in 2012 his hitting completely fell apart.
He hit .194 with only a .278 slugging percentage. Yet because of his defensive
prowess Ryan managed to record a positive 3.4 wins above replacement (WAR)
according to Baseball Reference. This was tied for the third highest WAR on the
whole team and tied for first with John Jaso for the highest position player.
Think about that, Ryan's defense was so valuable to the Mariners that it
overcame a .194 batting average. Unfortunately for Ryan his hitting remained
terrible in 2013 and his defense dropped off. The Mariners traded him to the
New York Yankees for a PTBNL.
I want to mention
one more interesting thing that happened in 2012. On June 8th 2012 the
Mariner's pitchers threw a combined no hitter to beat the LA Dodgers 1-0. The
score was super apropos because of how terrible the Mariners offense was. The
Mariners used six pitchers. Kevin Millwood started the game and went six
innings. Charlie Furbush, Stephen Pryor, Lucas Luetge, Brandon League, and Tom
Wilhelmsen each pitched in relief. Stephen Pryor, who pitched the worst with 2
BB and only 1 out, earned the win. It was a crazy game.
2012 and 2013 were a
pair of disappointing seasons because the teams still couldn't hit a lick. They
were just terrible at hitting. It was even more unbearable because Seattle
hadn't just suffered through 2010 and 2011, two of the worst offensive seasons
since the 70's. The bad baseball drove frequent movement of players. The
biggest departure was Ichiro, one of the greatest players in Mariners history.
If it hadn't been for the great pitching of Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma
there would have been no reason to watch in 2012 and 2013.
Sources: Baseball Reference, Fangraphs
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