Cecil's Corner-Seattle Mariners

Cecil’s Corner – Seattle Mariners

Welcome to a new Seattle Mariners blog called Cecil’s Corner- Seattle Mariners.  I am part old school and part new school when it comes to evaluating players and building teams. I am the first one to admit I am no expert on all the sabermetric calculations but I am aware of many of them. Thus I do believe in using both the scouting eye and sabermetrics when evaluating baseball players. With that said, I invite everyone to join me in discussing Seattle Mariners baseball. 

With the playoffs in full swing, I would like to start this blog by giving my opinion on the basic philosophy on how to build a contending baseball team. This can be difficult because I think a successful team during the regular season may not necessarily equate to playoff success. The best example of this is the 2001 Seattle Mariners. While we all enjoyed that record tying season, I remember cautioning my friends that those Mariners were not going to go far in the playoffs. Everyone thought I was crazy! Throughout that year I frequently used the phrase “The Mariners are built for the marathon but not the sprint” What I meant by that was that they had a great regular season roster but not a strong playoff roster. In my opinion a strong playoff roster consist of 2 strong front of the rotation starting pitchers, a strong bullpen and a couple hot hitters who pop some home runs in the playoffs.

The 2001 Mariners had an effective regular season starting pitching staff led by Freddy Garcia and Jamie Moyer but not the 2 horses you need to make a deep run in the playoffs. They did however have a strong bullpen and some power (although many teams had power in the steroid era). I believe you win with pitching and power in the playoffs. The pitching is just too good to play small ball and try and string together 4 or 5 hits in a row to score runs. So many playoff games are won with a 2 or 3 run home run or a couple home runs hit throughout the game. You have to take advantage of the 2 or 3 mistakes that a pitcher will make during a playoff game. If you miss those chances the odds are you are going to lose the game.   

In contrast, the 2001 Arizona Diamond Backs had Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling at the front of their rotation, a good bullpen and timely big hits. The 2004 Red Sox had Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling leading their staff, a good bullpen and power hitters. The 2010 Giants had a staff lead by Tim Lincicum and Matt Cain, a good bullpen and timely homeruns by late season pickups Pat Burrell and Cody Ross among others. Those are some examples of the kind of horses you need at the front of your rotation to win in the playoffs. I am sure there are examples of teams over the last 100 years that had won a world series another way but again this is just my opinion.

Which leads me to how the Mariners have been constructed the last many years and what they should do moving forward which will be discussed in upcoming posts.