JABO: Where the Mariners Have Gone Wrong

The Mariners won on Thursday! That’s not uncommon. The Mariners have won a bunch of times, if you think about it. But they haven’t really strung them together. They haven’t won two games in a row since the start of the month. They haven’t won three games in a row since the last week of May. In the Mariners’ best month so far, they went 14-14. Right now they’re hanging around the bottom of the American League, and though the Mariners haven’t yet sold pieces off, the playoffs look like the longest of shots. Maybe a miracle is in the cards. Probably not. Miracles are never probable, or else they wouldn’t be miracles.

Speaking of things that aren’t uncommon, seeing the Mariners toward the bottom feels familiar. They haven’t made the playoffs since Ichiro was a rookie. But this year was supposed to be different. Last year wasn’t bad, and then the Mariners added Nelson Cruz. And Cruz, for the most part, has been terrific. Only a few months ago, the Mariners were the popular pick as division favorites. Now they have to be thankful for the struggles of the Red Sox, Indians and White Sox, as they aren’t the obvious biggest disappointment. This wasn’t supposed to be close to a last-place team.

I’ll admit, when you’re dealing with a last-place team, the last thing most people want to do is look back. And I think a lot of people have some understanding of how the Mariners have gone off track. It’s not a mystery, and of greater concern is where the team goes from here. But I did want to take this opportunity to run some math. To divide blame, if you will, for why the ship has sunk. I think this can be instructive.

We have all the current numbers we need. The Mariners are 44-52. They’re fourth from the bottom in the majors in Wins Above Replacement (WAR). We also have all the old numbers we need. At FanGraphs, before the season, we projected the Mariners to win almost 55% of their games. That winning percentage, over 96 games, would yield a record of about 53-43. So the Mariners are presently about nine wins off the expectation. Where were those wins supposed to come from? Where haven’t they come from? Helpfully, we have all the individual player preseason projections.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.