The Optimist vs. The Pessimist on the Mariners

By Blaidd Drwg

As I was working at 2 AM the other morning and was trying to stay awake watching a file load, I started thinking about the 2011 season for the Mariners and what that is going to look like. I took a “best case” and “worst case” look at the team and eventually it evolved into a discussion with myself. Here is how that broke down:

Starting Pitching
The rotation: Felix, Jason Vargas, Doug Fister, Erik Bedard, Michael Pineda

The Optimist’s Take – this has the potential to be one of the top 5 rotations in baseball. Felix should easily put together another Cy Young quality season, Bedard looks like he regained his form and is ready to be dominating, Vargas is right about in his prime years and looks to have finally realized his ceiling, Fister is a serviceable back of the rotation guy, and Pineda looks ready to be a young Felix. The rotation could be the strength of this team.

The Pessimist’s Take – Once you get past Felix, this rotation has a potential for disaster. Vargas has no track record to show last season was not a fluke; Bedard is as fragile as a china doll and there is nothing in the organization to replace him with (French, Robertson, and a bunch of 4A guys); Fister is a soft tosser that is always playing with fire when it comes to getting shelled; Pineda might be the next coming of Felix, or he might pitch like a 22 year old rookie and find himself back in Tacoma sooner rather than later. There are too many questions to get excited about the rotation right now.

Relief Pitching
The Pen: David Pauley, Brandon League, Chris Ray, Jamey Wright, Josh Lueke, Tom Wilhelmsen and Aaron Laffey

The Optimist’s Take – the pen is going to have to hold together until Aardsma comes back. League should step right in to the closer role the rest of the pen is a nice combination of rookies and vets with some hard tossers thrown in. If they can hang on until Aardsma is back, they should be tough in the 7th, 8th and 9th innings with League – Lueke – Aardsma.

The Pessimist’s Take – this pen is a bunch of has-beens and never will-bees. League is solid and they will hopefully improve when Aardsma comes back, but who bridges the gap between the starters and League. Chris Ray, has a terrible injury history and isn’t a power pitcher anymore. Pauley, Laffey and Wright are all mop up guys and you don’t want them protecting any leads. Lueke throws hard and has all of 17 innings at AAA in his career. Wilhelmsen is a 27 year old rookie who has never pitched above class A. That is not the kind of pen that strikes fear into the hearts of opposing hitters.

Hitters
The Starters: Chone Figgins at third, Brendan Ryan at shortstop, Jack Wilson at second and Justin Smoak at first. Miguel Olivo will start behind the plate. Jack Cust will be the designated hitter. Seattle’s outfield will include Ichiro Suzuki (right field), Ryan Langerhans (center field) and Milton Bradley (left field).

The Optimist’s Take – the lineup can’t possibly be any worse than it was last season. Figgins should be better at 3B than Lopez and will hopefully build off his 2nd half of 2010; Ryan should be better than the Wilson-Wilson-Woodward disaster there last season; Wilson is probably a downgrade at 2B and you have to wonder if there is something wrong with him (you don’t normally move a Gold Glove SS to 2B for a lesser defensive replacement) and hope that Ackley is ready by June; Smoak has a full season under his belt and looks more relaxed; Cust will be better than the black hole at DH the M’s had last season and has the potential for being a legitimate 25-30 HR power threat; Olivo should be more productive then Bard-Moore-Johnson; Ichiro will be Ichiro. The only real potential areas for worse production are CF (until Guti comes back) and LF where it will be dependant on which Milton Bradley shows up day to day.

The Pessimist’s Take – Of course this lineup would be hard pressed to do worse than last year’s ineptitude. In the IF, you have an unknown with Smoak and potentially 4 sub-100 OPS+ guys manning the rest of the IF, with three of those guys, Ryan, Wilson and Olivo possibly posting sub-300 OBP. Olivo didn’t hit last year outside of Colorado, so how far will his numbers drop? Cust is a nice addition, but will he show any power in Safeco? Ichiro will hopefully continue to produce, but Langerhans in center? Really? You aren’t going to win and you need to know if Saunders is going to have anything resembling a decent career so why not put him out there. Either way, I think we are going to find that Guti’s 2009 season was his career year when he gets back from the DL. Bradley should be interesting. I give him until April 20th to blow up again.

The Bench

Luis Rodriguez and Adam Kennedy will act at utility infielders, Adam Moore as backup catcher and Michael Saunders acting as a utility outfielder.

The Optimist’s Take – Not much here to look at; you just hope that they are able to produce something when they are in the lineup.

The Pessimist’s Take – Langerhans should be your backup OF. You are leaving too much potential on the bench.

The Outlook
The Optimist’s Take – if the pitching comes together and the hitting improves, this should be a 73 – 77 win team. Nothing exciting, but not nearly as dreadful as last year,

The Pessimist’s Take – this team isn’t much of an improvement over last season’s crapfest, so they should really end up in the 65 – 70 win range, only because you have Felix and it is really hard to lose 100 games in back to back seasons. The fire sale should take place in about June again.

After the outlooks were written, the following conversation took place:

Pessimist: Hey, O, what kind of sunshine are you smoking, calling this a 77 win team?
Optimist: The pitching is better, the hitting should improve.
Pessimist: You could put me in the lineup and the hitting would improve. Even if the M’s score 100 more runs this season, that will still probably make them the worst offense in the AL. Do you really think this team is going to score 100 more runs?
Optimist: Probably not, but the pitching will probably give up fewer runs and close the run differential gap.
Pessimist: You mean like last season when we had Cliff Lee? What do you do when Bedard can’t make it past the 5th in every start and then goes down with an injury? Luke French time?
Optimist: This team doesn’t exactly have pitching depth.
Pessimist: And the bullpen?
Optimist: Yeah, they really aren’t that impressive.
Pessimist: Ok, let me get this straight – the offense is better, but still among the worst in the AL, the pitching could be great, but is fragile and the bullpen isn’t good. Yet, you think they will improve by 15 wins? Back to my original question, what kind of sunshine are you smoking?
Optimist: Well, since you say it that way, it does sound a little crazy.
Pessimist: Yeah, just a *little*. Then again, this conversation is between me and myself.

There you have it, my prediction is the Mariners win between 65 and 70 games this season.