Designated What?

Finding a designated hitter is very easy. The skills required to be a successful DH aren’t rare, and there are an abundance of guys with offensive abilities and defensive problems that a team can generally count on getting quality production from the designated hitter spot. Unless, of course, that team is the Seattle Mariners, who simply can’t figure out how to find a guy who can hit and do nothing else. So far, in 2008, their DHs have combined to hit .208/.268/.308, a pathetic .575 OPS that translates into -0.71 WPA/LI. That’s brutal. For comparison, Arizona Diamondbacks pitchers are hitting .242/.292/.333 (thank you, Micah Owings).

The main culprit has been Jose Vidro, whose collapse was the easiest thing to see coming this side of a neon freight train. However, the Mariners haven’t gotten any improvement from switching to Jeff Clement a week ago, as he has struggled to adjust to major league pitching since coming up from the PCL. His problems ran so deep that the team used Willie Bloomquist to pinch hit for Clement in the 9th inning of last night’s game. Willie Bloomquist!

Greg Norton had 11 successful at-bats before he was discarded as a less useful part than Miguel Cairo, a decision so unfathomable that I don’t even know which wall to begin banging my head on.

The Mariners offense has been horrendous the last few weeks, and the lack of production from their DHs is one of the main reasons why. When you have a group of players whose entire value is derived from their offense and they’re getting outhit by another team’s starting pitchers, you’re in trouble. And the Mariners are certainly in trouble.