Sixteen Years of Mariners Misery

The Buffalo Bills finally made it into the NFL playoffs as a Wild Card. They ended a drought of 17 years with making the playoffs this year. Their last trip was in 1999. The Bills had the longest consecutive stretch without making the playoffs of any major North American sports team. The new owners of that dubious title are the Seattle Mariners.

As a Mariners fan we have been treated to a miserable run of baseball in Seattle. The Mariners haven't made the playoffs since 2001, the same season they won 116 regular season games, but failed to make it to the World Series. The team did put together two solid season in 2002 and 2003 winning 93 games each time, but missing the playoffs, because the AL West was just plain stacked with talent. From 2004 onwards that Mariners have never managed to win 90+ games. The team has been stuck in an epic slump of bad to mediocre results.

Fans blame the playoffs drought on lots of stuff. Over the years favorite explanations for the misery have included ownership not caring about winning, the ballpark suppressing offense, managements refusal to spend money of big time free agents. Each of these has been debunked to various degrees. The Seattle Mariners failure is really just because their General Managers have made an astonishingly large number of bad moves over the last fourteen years and the team has had some really bad luck.

So to honor the end of the Bills streak and the Mariners taking over the top spot on the list for futility I thought it would be interesting to look back at each of the last sixteen Mariners seasons. I plan on breaking this up over several posts, but we will hit each of the seasons, from the lowest low to the highest medium.

2002-2003

As previously mentioned the Mariners won 93 games in both 2002 and 2003. The teams were solid and in almost any other year would have made the playoffs. Unfortunately the American League and the West Division were also having stellar years. In 2002 the A's and Yankees both won 103 games, and the Angels won 99. In 2003 the Yankees won 101 games, the A's won 96 games, and the Red Sox won 95. There were just too many really good teams in the American League in the early 2000's.

The offenses of 2002 and 2003 were anchored by Bret Boone, who was still in his prime. In 2003 he hit 35 HR, batted .294 and drove in 117 runs. The 2002 team saw John Olerud crush the ball at the plate. His triple slash was .300/.404/.490. The 2003 team had a rebound year by Edgar Martinez, who hit .294/.406/.489 in 145 games.

The defenses of both teams had Mike Cameron roaming centerfield and Ichiro Suzuki in right field. They were two of the best defenders of the era. The guys prevented tons runs with their gloves and arms. Homeruns were robbed and baserunners were thrown out.

The 2002 team saw Joel Pineiro put up the best season of his career. He posted a 3.24 ERA in 28 starts and 194.1 innings. The team also had Jamie Moyer put forward another great season with a 3.32 ERA over 34 starts and 230.2 innings.

The 2003 team had the rare luxury of five pitchers (J. Moyer, R. Franklin, J. Pinerio, F. Garcia, and G. Meche) starting 30 plus games. Jamie Moyer was the best of them starting 33 games and having a 3.27 ERA. Impressively the soft tossing Moyer recorded a WHIP of 1.075. Of the starters only Gil Meche didn't record over 200 innings.

Another pitching standout in 2003 was Shigetoshi Hasegawa. The relief pitcher posted a 1.48 ERA over 73 innings. Between June 3rd and August 17th, a total of 25 games, Shiggy didn't give up any runs. He was as dominate a reliever as the American League saw in 2003. Although he didn't strike many batters out he did get half of his outs with groundballs.

All told the 2002 and 2003 teams were very solid. They had good players and should have been able to make the playoffs. The teams could both hit and pitch. Unfortunately they ran into a historically strong American league field. At the time it didn't seem like the Mariners were about to enter a stretch a failure that would lead them to the longest active playoff drought in major North American sports.

Sources: Baseball Reference, Fangraphs