by A.J. Coltrane
Every conversation I had about the Mariners this summer seemed to go the same way:
Me: “How about those M’s.. they’re doing ok!”
Them: “The M’s suck.”
Me: “No, they’re really about a .500 team. They’re average.”
Them: “Eh. I’m pretty sure they suck, or they’re going to suck soon.”
Me: “No, the franchise has finally begun to recover from the damage that Bill Bavasi did.”
Them: *Shrug*
(You’ll notice it was always me initiating the topic. That shouldn’t be a surprise, since I’m one of the handful of people that pays attention at all to the M’s results.)
In all seriousness though, they’re not bad. They have some good starting pitching, headlined by Felix. They have three position players that could be the base of a solid team in Cano, Seager, and Mike Zunino. The bullpen was excellent overall this year, though I always view the status of the bullpen as “transitory”.
I’ll be interested to see the Vegas line for wins next year. I’d guess it’s going to be somewhere between 78 and 83 wins. 81 wins would be .500.
That sounds about right to me.
FlatbreadGarden 
They are not good. Zdurensik’s incompetence is covered by the great most of the year that their pitching had – they regressed in August/Septemeber, couldn’t carry the lack of offense and played themselves out of a wild card spot. I forget where I read it, but if the M’s played .500 ball in September, they would have finished in the top wild card spot by 3 games.
The Vegas line is going to be 85-87 wins for 2015. Take the under on that one unless they get at least 2 bats.
Have you actually watched Zunino hit? He can’t lay off a breaking pitch out of the strike zone. It amazes me that he ever gets anything other than that. He is Jeff Clement with better defense.
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If it’s 85 or higher we’ll pool our money and make a big prop bet on the Under when I’m in Vegas. If I had to guess the line today I’d say either 81.5 or 82.5 — probably 82.5.
There are two factors at work there — 81.5 is probably the better “real” number, and more in line with the recent history of the M’s. The flip side is that they just won 87 games and people love to bet Overs.
Though I’d feel most comfortable betting the Under if the actual line is at least 84.
As far as Zunino — assuming the power doesn’t evaporate I’d say we’re set at catcher for a while. I can tolerate plus defense, plus power, low batting average at that position. You can’t have it all, usually.
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We are just starting to finally heal from the gaping wound Bavasi left us. I will take Jack over Bill any day.
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