Nothing could be worse for a Seattle baseball fan than the sight of one-time Mariner Tino Martinez winning world title after world title with the hated New York Yankees.
Right?
Well, there was 1998, when Randy Johnson parlayed an underachieving start in Seattle to a trade out of town — only to put up some of the best numbers of his career in a half-season with Houston. Then there was Alex Rodriguez, who left soon after and earned a trifecta of MVP trophies in Texas and New York. Carlos Guillen, Raul Ibanez, Adam Jones and Ryan Franklin became All-Stars after they left Seattle.
And now this.
In perhaps the least-expected Mariner-to-riches story of all time, Carlos Silva returned to Safeco Field this week with the Chicago Cubs, packing an 8-2 record and 3.01 earned-run average.
If there wasn’t enough reason to believe in the so-called “Ex-Mariner Factor,” well, there certainly is now.
Silva, who was originally scheduled to start today’s game but will take the day off to rest a sore hamstring, is the latest former Mariner to have success almost immediately upon trading in the 206 area code for a new set of digits. But before Joe Superfan can rattle off names like Bill Swift, Derek Lowe, Scott Speizio and Shin-Soo Choo, it should be noted that the Ex-Mariner Factor isn’t exclusive to this franchise.
The constant roster turnover of big-league teams makes for some interesting coulda-woulda-shoulda arguments throughout the nation every October.
It’s hard to imagine, for example, that the city of Montreal wouldn’t still have a team had Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez anchored the Expos’ pitching rotation into the late 1990s and beyond. And no fans in baseball had a tougher time watching last year’s Fall Classic than those in Cleveland who used to root for New York Yankees ace C.C. Sabathia and Philadelphia Phillies ace Cliff Lee.
Fans of Silva’s new team have taken it to a new level with the so-called “Ex-Cubs Factor,” which is a long-standing axiom suggesting that the team with the most former Chicago Cubs will be doomed to postseason failure. There are numbers to back up the theory … but then, there are numbers to back up almost any theory if one looks hard enough.
In Seattle, the seemingly annual exercise of watching a former Mariner shine for another team has led to some questions about whether there are higher forces at work. How else to explain how Jeff Cirillo, Rich Aurilia and Speizio — the least likely hero of the Cardinals’ 2006 World Series run — got their grooves back in their first seasons out of Seattle? And why does just about every slow-developing prospect (Choo, Gil Meche, Scott Podsednik — to name a few) seem to hit his stride in other places?
The easy answer is that it happens everywhere, to just about every team. Fans quickly forget the hard-luck stories of players such as Harold Reynolds and J.J. Putz, whose careers flat-lined after their heyday in the Emerald City. Promising prospects like Roger Salkeld, Chris Snelling, Jeff Clement and Brandon Morrow hardly made the M’s rue the day they let them go.
And fans rarely talk about the career years journeymen such as Bret Boone, Mike Cameron and Paul Abbott produced in Seattle.
Still, it’s impossible to ignore some of the names that quietly made pit stops in the Seattle system before finding stardom elsewhere. David Ortiz, Mike Hampton, Jason Varitek and Fernando Vina were property of the Mariners at one time. All-time free-agent busts like Aurilia, Speizio and Silva turned their careers back around immediately after leaving town. And guys like Martinez, Johnson and Alex Rodriguez saw their careers reach even greater heights after getting out of the Emerald City.
And it’s difficult not to watch players like Detroit’s Guillen, the Cardinals’ Franklin and, most recently, Boston’s Adrian Beltre (.340, 10 home runs, 48 RBI through Tuesday) bust out and not wonder whether the retractable Safeco roof put a ceiling on their potential in this part of the country.
It would be hard to argue with the notion that Silva is the biggest surprise of the bunch. He already has won more games in Chicago (eight) than he did in 34 starts with the Mariners (five). Silva’s 5-18 record and 6.81 ERA would have gotten him shipped out of town sooner had it not been for the most frustrating number of all: his $12 million-per-year salary.
When the Mariners dealt Silva to Chicago for the Cubs’ problem child, outfielder Milton Bradley, the prevailing thought in this part of the country was that one Bradley RBI would be enough to give Seattle the edge.
But while Bradley had some predictable personal problems earlier this season — and has struggled at the plate — Silva has exceeded all expectations.
“He’s done a heck of a job, he really has,” Cubs manager Lou Piniella said Tuesday. “He’s been our best starting pitcher, he’s an extremely competitive guy, he works hard, and he’s pitched awfully well.”
Silva said this week that his turnaround is due to myriad factors, the most notable of which have been a more balanced pitching repertoire and the change of scenery. He added that there was more pressure on him in Seattle than there is in Chicago, and he’s contrite when talking about how things worked out with the Mariners.
“I was very honored to play for Seattle,” he said. “I was disappointed because I didn’t do what was expected of me to do. A lot of people say to me: ‘Oh, I bet you feel so good right now because Seattle traded you and you’ve had such a good year.’ But it makes it even worse. I wish I could have done this in Seattle too.”
While Silva enjoyed his time in Seattle, he did have some frustration during his injury-plagued 2009 season. Silva said the Mariners seemed more concerned with his weight than they did his development as a pitcher.
“I was working very hard and the main thing was always: ‘Lose weight, lose weight, lose weight,’” Silva said this week. “They should have been more worried about my stats on the field than getting me skinnier.”
The subject appeared to hit a nerve with Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu, who was unusually terse when asked about Silva’s contention.
“I wish him the best of luck,” Wakamatsu said Tuesday afternoon, avoiding a question about the Mariners harping on the pitcher’s weight.
More than anything, Wakamatsu said, Silva’s turnaround has been a joy to watch — not necessarily a source of frustration because it happened after the pitcher left town.
“From any manager’s standpoint, you want to wish a guy the best of luck,” Wakamatsu said. “A change of scenery, sometimes, is healthy for a lot of people. I’m glad he’s having success, and I wish him the best.”
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