Major League Baseball’s All-Star break begins Monday, which makes now an appropriate time to provide an assessment of the Seattle Mariners.
Seattle finds itself in the middle of the American League pack as the All-Star break approaches. Through Friday the Mariners were 44-43, in third place in the AL West and four games back in the Wild Card race. After seeing its playoff odds on FanGraphs.com peak at 75.3 percent on May 26, Seattle was just treading water at 16.3 percent.
With that in mind, here’s some thoughts and observations about the Mariners’ season as we hit the All-Star break:
The Mariners finally have an offense fans have been desperately waiting for.
Through Friday’s game Seattle was averaging 4.87 runs per game, which was sixth among the American League’s 15 teams, and had a team OPS of .771, which ranked fourth.
It’s been a long time since the Mariner bats have produced numbers like that. The last time Seattle averaged more than 4.87 runs per game was 2007, and the last time the Mariners had a team OPS better than .771 was all the way back in the team’s storied 116-win season in 2001.
In the interim Mariners fans had to put up with some historically bad offenses. In the eight seasons between 2008 and 2015 Seattle never finished better than 12th in the league in runs scored and never better than 10th in OPS. Every season from 2009 and 2012 the Mariners were dead last in the league in both categories.
It’s been a different story this season, with the trio of Robinson Cano (20 homers, .917 OPS), Nelson Cruz (23 homers, .906 OPS) and Kyle Seager (17 homers, .890 OPS) giving Seattle one of the league’s most dangerous middle of the orders.
For long-suffering Mariners fans, getting to see a team capable of winning games with its offense has been a long time coming.
Dae-Ho Lee is providing further proof that a player doesn’t need to be in good shape to be a good hitter.
I’ve been in the Mariners clubhouse and I’ve seen Lee without a shirt on. This is no Adonis, rippling with the type of defined muscles that would make a good model for a Renaissance-era statue. Lee actually has something of a gut that spills over his belt. Physically he looks more like he belongs in a beer league slowpitch softball league rather than on a major-league diamond.
Yet Lee has been a genuine sensation. The 34-year-old rookie from Korea was a complete mystery during spring training. He arrived with a hefty 6-foot-4, 250-pound frame and an extensive background of slugging balls out of the park in Korea and Japan. But no one knew if he could replicate the feat in the states.
Well, Lee has performed beyond what even general manager Jerry Dipoto could have expected. Despite being a part-time player he blasted 12 homers and 37 RBI to go along with his .291 batting average through Friday, numbers that if projected to 600 at bats would equal 41 dingers and 127 RBI.
History suggests that hitters will hit, regardless of their physique. And in the tradition of of Greg Luzinski, Cecil Fielder and John Kruk, Lee is another example of it.
Is Felix still the King?
There’s never been a more loyal or dependable servant to the Mariners than Felix Hernandez. Hernandez has been Seattle’s ace for a decade, and he’s stuck around despite a lack of run support that had ESPN.com’s David Schoenfield theorize earlier this year that Hernandez was the unluckiest pitcher in major-league history.
But can the Mariners depend on Hernandez now the way they have in the past? There’s some worrying signs.
First, Hernandez is now 30, which means his body may not be able to hold up under the workload in the same manner as the past. Hernandez has been a horse, never making fewer than 31 starts in his previous 11 full seasons with the Mariners. However, a calf injury has caused Hernandez to miss a significant chunk for the first time in his career. Even if he returns as expected following the All-Star break he will finish with by far his fewest starts in a full season.
Then there’s the analytics. PITCHf/x shows Hernandez’s fastball velocity has gradually declined. It was at its peak in 2005 when he averaged 96.3 mph with has fastball. It slowed to 92.1 mph last season, then took a dramatic dip this season down to 90.1 mph.
Hernandez has shown an amazing ability to adjust to his declining velocity, relying more on his changeup, and despite the velocity dip Hernandez has a 2.86 ERA in 1o starts this season. But how much longer can those adjustments hold up should he continue to lose velocity? It’s a question the Mariners would rather not have to contemplate.
Dipoto’s bullpen experiment has produced mixed results.
Following a recent game, as reporters waited outside the Mariners clubhouse, Seattle Times beat writer Ryan Divish used scoutspeak to describe Seattle’s situation in the bullpen:
“Too many guys, not enough dudes.”
Such is the case when a team assembles a bullpen off the scrap pile. Dipoto completely overhauled Seattle’s bullpen over the offseason, with none of the pitchers who began the 2015 season in the Mariners bullpen on the roster when 2016 began. Dipoto, understanding bullpens are volatile, chose to assemble as many low-cost relievers as possible in the hope he’d unearth enough who could contribute.
For two months Dipoto’s gamble paid off. Steve Cishek was back to being an effective closer, while unheralded names like Nick Vincent, Mike Montgomery and Vidal Nuno were providing effective innings. Dipoto’s bullpen approach was one of the central storylines of a Sports Illustrated article on bullpens that was published in May.
Unfortunately for the Mariners, the bullpen has been unable to sustain its effectiveness. Injuries and ineffectiveness in the rotation forced the bullpen to throw more innings, and the bullpen was exposed under the heavier workload. Through Friday the Mariners had played 31 one-run games, the most in the majors, and Seattle was just 13-18 in those contests. The recent bullpen struggles are a significant part of that.
The Mariners seem to have found one “dude” in the form of fireballing rookie Edwin Diaz, who’s helped stem the tide. But Seattle needs some of those “guys” to get back to being “dudes.”
For more on the Seattle sports scene, follow Nick Patterson on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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