The Mariner’s Offense Sucks, Pass the Blame Around

The Seattle Mariners are sitting at 39-40 and only 2 games behind the Texas Rangers for the AL West lead. They have achieved this record almost entirely because of their pitching staff. This has been much discussed in the Seattle sports seen. The pitchers are truly great. The starting five have a combined ERA of 3.16 and trail only the Phillies and their staff of aces. Once they figured out who was good and who needed to be sent back to Tacoma, the bullpen has also been lights out. Led by Brandon League and David Pauley they have a combined 3.50 ERA.

Despite all this pitching prowess, the Mariners have managed to only win exactly half of their games. This is because the offense is epically terrible. As of Monday, the M’s have a team wRC+ of 79, which means as a whole they are 21% worse than the major league average. The team’s offensive futility can be expressed more traditionally by looking at the AVG, OBP and SLG. In those three categories the Mariners are hitting .227/.295/.338. As a group their hitters deserve a big old FAIL.

When you break the team down and examine the plate struggles more closely you can see that no one position is to blame. Every position on the Mariners has performed below average except, thanks to Justin Smoak, first base. Some of poorly performing players have been publicized quite a bit. Guy’s like Chone Figgins, Jack Cust and Michael Saunders get hammered (or in Saunders case got hammered) by the press and fans alike for their struggles at the plate. However, other failures at the plate seem to go unnoticed, specifically, Carlos Peguero and Miguel Olivo. The situations and solutions related to each are unique; Carlos Peguero’s situation is an easy fix while Miguel Olivo’s is much more complicated. However, one thing is for sure, if the Mariner’s offense is going to improve they are going to have to get more out of the positions these guys play.

Let’s take a look at the Carlos Peguero Situation first. It is less complicated and has a clear fix. I will take a stab at Miguel Olvio and what to do there in the next post.

After the watching Michael Saunders fail miserably at the plate for the first couple months of the season, the Mariner’s sent him down to Tacoma. Taking over for him in left field has been a combination of Mike Wilson (now back in Tacoma), Greg Halman, Mike Carp and most frequently Carlos Peguero. Fans and commentators across Mariner’s nation have become enamored with Peguero. Looking at his massive powerful frame and witnessing his all or nothing swing it is easy to see why many Mariners fans want him to succeed so badly. Peguero shows the signs of someone that might someday turn into a legitimate offensive threat in the big leagues. Mariner’s announcer Dave Sims like Peguero’s approach so much he went as far as to say he looked like a Stargell or McCovey style player (USTN writer Matt ranted on that here). Unfortunately, so far all Peguero has shown is promise. His natural athletic features haven’t translated into baseball success.

On the season Peguero is batting a measly .205 with a wRC+ of 85. On top of not being able to collect many base hits, Peguero doesn’t walk and strikes out all the time. He only has seven walks on the whole season and two of them are intentional. He has struck out 40 times for a staggering 34.2% K%. His biggest strength has been his strength. So far he is slugging .419, which is impressive considering how infrequently he actually gets hits.

At the major league level Peguero is not effective. To replace him the Mariners have two other Tacoma alums, Greg Halman and Mike Carp, currently on the big league roster. In limited major league playing time Halman has a wRC+ of 172 (and, unrelated to the topic of this post, he offers a very noticeable upgrade defensively over Peguero). Mike Carp was on an unbelievable hitting tear, down in Tacoma; in 56 games he had a .353 AVG, 19 HR and 58 RBI. So far in his sporadic major league playing time he is putting up an exactly league average wRC+ of 100. Both of these guys are currently having their playing time blocked by the Mariners insistence on putting Peguero in LF and both would offer offensive upgrade. With 37 games and 127 PA under his belt, Peguero has proven to be way over matched at the major league level. The best solution for both the Mariners and Peguero would be to send him back down to AAA, where he can work on his hitting approach against easier pitching. The guy shows serious potential but he just has not put it together yet.

Sources: Fangraphs, Yahoo Sports