The Seattle Mariners are a team designed to have zero margin of error this season.
Instead of making any significant offseason additions to an offense that set a record for strikeouts last season, the team chose to resign infielder Jorge Polanco, and then bring in a new designated hitter/first baseman platoon in Rowdy Tellez, who was signed to a minor league contract after sitting unsigned all winter and Donavan Solano, a 37-year-old journeyman on a one-year 3.5 million dollar contract.
The pair has performed as one would expect a pair of bargain bin additions, combining for three hits in 38 trips to the plate so far.
To be fair to both, at the start of the season, they were expected to be tossed into a rotating cast of characters at designated hitter, including backup catcher Mitch Garver, starting catcher Cal Raleigh when he was not catching, and Polanco when he was not playing third base. However, just two weeks into the season, they lost right fielder Victor Robles for at least the first half of the season with a shoulder injury. That pushed the first baseman, Luke Raley, to start in right field, which increased the playing time for both Tellez and Solano. To make matters worse, the team lost starting second baseman Ryan Bliss for the season earlier this week, meaning that the team’s already thin offensive depth is going to be tested further.
Through the first two weeks of the season, the team has been living by a simple equation: “Was Mariners pitching essentially perfect?” If yes, they won. If not, they probably lost.
One of the lone exceptions to that rule came Wednesday against the Astros, when the team looked lifeless through seven innings, only for outfielder Randy Arozarena to lift the team on his back and hit a grand slam to pull within one run and then get the win with a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth. However, such heroics have been far too uncommon this season for the Mariners. They are continuing last season’s trend of high strikeouts and failing to drive in runs. They are currently batting .129 with runners in scoring position, by far the worst in the major leagues, and are in the top ten in the league in strikeouts.
The Mariners knew this would be a problem. It was a problem last season, and the team did nothing to fix it beyond shuffling some deck chairs and hoping that players who had down years last season would bounce back. To this point, it hasn’t worked. The team does have an amazing pitching staff, and it only figures to get better when starting pitcher George Kirby and ace reliever Matt Brash come back off the injury list. However, offensive reinforcements will have to wait. Top prospects Harry Ford and Cole Young both started the season in Triple-A Tacoma, but they are both off to cold starts. First baseman Tyler Locklear is also hitting well in Tacoma, but is running a 30 percent strikeout rate.
Much of this could have been prevented with a few small investments in the offseason, but the team is built to win 54 percent of its games. Winning 88-90 games gives them a good chance of grabbing a wild card spot. To be fair to the Mariners, they are not alone in this strategy. The addition of the third wild card spot a few years ago, instead of causing teams to spend to try and make the playoffs, made most mid-market teams realize that they don’t have to spend as much as the Dodgers or the Mets. Those teams are spending in excess of $300 million this season and can easily win 100-110 games. If you can get close to a wild card spot at 90 wins, you can achieve 80-90% of the results of those teams and commit 30-50% of the resources. If you are a major league baseball owner looking to rake in the cash, that’s a no-brainer strategy.
It’s certainly the strategy the Mariners are pursuing. They don’t need to spend a dollar more than necessary, and with Astros maybe finally coming back to earth and the Angels and A’s in perpetual rebuilds, they have a decent shot at finishing first or second in the division. However, they are already four games behind the Texas Rangers, and their -15-run differential is the fourth-worst in baseball. Last year, they had an early surge into first place in the division before a second-half collapse saw them once again miss the playoffs by one game. However, they stayed competitive to the end, which is what ownership wants to see for a solid bottom line.
This year though, their miserly ways may be coming back to bite them early.
If their bats don’t get going soon, they may not even get a chance to free-fall to the bottom of the division – they will already be there.
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