The Mariners are entering the final weekend of the regular season with their best shot since 2016 at breaking their infamous postseason drought, having gone 18–8 in September and won 11 of their last 13 games after losing a crucial series to the Red Sox mid-month. Earlier this morning, Jay Jaffe took a look at the bigger picture for the Mariners, their negative run differential, and the historic positive turn of their playoff odds. But this climb up the standings wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for some unheralded performances by a number of players on their roster.

From a season-long perspective, the Mariners’ offense has been lackluster, with a wRC+ of 94, ranking tenth in the American League. That went up to 103 in September, but the driving force behind the improved offense has been excellent performance in tight situations. Seattle has the most clutch offense in recorded MLB history (WPA records only go back to 1974), which goes a long way toward explaining the team’s 33–18 record in one-run games this year.

Clutch hitting can take a team far, but it’s not something that can be counted on every night. Luckily, the core of the Mariners’ lineup started hitting extremely well during the final month:

After shuffling through a number of early-season contributors, the lineup stabilized after the All-Star break — something that coincided with Kelenic’s second call-up from Triple-A after his rough debut in May. The hits didn’t start falling immediately after his return to the majors; from July 16 through the end of August, he posted a .181/.263/.315 line (a 65 wRC+) with a 30.5% strikeout rate. But something clicked once the calendar turned over to September, with Kelenic hitting .242/.321/.537, good for a 135 wRC+. His strikeout rate dropped to 25.5%, he launched seven home runs, and more than half of his hits went for extra bases.

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This is the fifth installment of this year’s Team Entropy series, my recurring look not only at the races for the remaining playoff spots but the potential for end-of-season chaos in the form of down-to-the-wire suspense and even tiebreakers. Ideally, we want more ties than the men’s department at Macy’s. If you’re new to this, please read the introduction here.

The Mariners haven’t reached the postseason since 2001, and all season long, our Playoff Odds have strongly suggested that their drought — the majors’ longest active one — will continue. But as we head into the final weekend of the 2021 season, they’re on a 10-1 tear that has interjected them right into the thick of an American League Wild Card race with a decided East Coast bias. With the Yankees sweeping the Red Sox in Boston and then taking two out of three from the Blue Jays in Toronto while the Red Sox somehow dropped two out of three to the Orioles in Baltimore, we now have four teams separated by three games from top to bottom, with just three to play for each:

This is not a drill! I’ll get to the mechanics of how this will be sorted out soon enough, but first, I’m taking the opportunity to spotlight the Mariners’ unlikely run and the trends they’re up against. This isn’t a dive into individual performances; elsewhere on FanGraphs today, Jake Mailhot has a closer look at what’s fueled their September run. Here I’m looking at the bigger picture. But first, an illustration of the Mariners’ Playoff Odds over the course of the season:

It’s been awhile since the Mariners were anywhere close to this position. While they went 89-73 just three years ago before slipping below .500 in both 2019 (68-94) and ’20 (27-33), that ’18 squad fell eight games short in the AL Wild Card race and finished 14 games behind the Astros in the AL West race. They did finish three games back in the AL Wild Card race in 2016, going 86-76 while both the Orioles and Blue Jays went 89-73, but they were a distant nine games behind the Rangers in the AL West. Not since 2003, when they went 93-69 in Lou Piniella’s final year at the helm, have they come as close by both routes to the postseason; that year, they finished three games behind the A’s in the division race and two behind the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card. And not since that 2001 team set a modern record with 116 wins have they qualified for the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry »

The end of the season is rapidly approaching, so approach it in style with another episode ofChin Music. This week, I am joined by our very own Ben Clemens to chat for a couple of hours about baseball (and other things). We begin with a look at the wild Wild Card races, including tangents on Cody Bellinger’s future in Los Angeles, Devin Williams‘ wall punching incident and the Rays’ plans (or ruse) to spend their summers north of the border.

We’re then joined by special guest and life-long Mariners fan Meg Rowley of FanGraphs and Effectively Wild to discuss the team with September’s greatest fun differential. Then it’s your emails on Tyler O’Neill’s performance versus good and bad pitchers, the direction of baseball’s popularity, and The Beach Boys. We finish by catching up with Ben, and discussing board games and multiple personality disorder.

As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

Music by Bad Bad Hats.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

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Episode 942

This week on FanGraphs Audio, we talk to the author of one of our favorite baseball books before welcoming a big-league arm.

• At the top of the program, Jay Jaffe sits down with Fred C. Harris, co-author of The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading And Bubblegum Book, first published in 1973. Like many, Jay loved this book in his formative years, and he shares some of his favorite passages and cards. Meanwhile, Fred reflects on how the book came to be and the numerous versions that have been published over the years, many of which Jay has on his shelf. Finally, Jay shares his ode to Rocky Bridges, and we hear an anecdote about Jim Bouton’s reaction to being in the book. [2:35]
• After that, David Laurila is joined by Cole Sulser, right-hander for the Baltimore Orioles. Sulser talks about going from playing at Dartmouth with Kyle Hendricks to a pair of Tommy John surgeries to his unforgettable major league debut at age 29. David asks Sulser about playing in the Ivy League with players like Matt Bowman and Mike Ford and the Dominican Winter League with players like Fernando Tatis Jr. and Néstor Cortes Jr. Finally, we hear about Sulser’s favorite ballparks and his brother in the Pirates system. [34:10]

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The Brewers clinched the NL Central title on Sunday, becoming the third team to wrap up their division after the Rays and White Sox. The occasion was certainly cause for celebration, but one key player took things too far. Devin Williams, the team’s top setup man, fractured his right hand — his pitching hand, that is — punching a wall and will require surgery that could keep him out through at least the National League Championship Series and perhaps longer.

Renowned for his Airbender changeup, one of the game’s most effective and unhittable pitches, Williams won NL Rookie of the Year honors and Trevor Hoffman National League Reliever of the Year honors in 2020 while posting a 0.33 ERA and 0.86 FIP in 27 innings. A bout of right shoulder soreness, later diagnosed as a rotator cuff strain, kept him off the Brewers’ roster during last year’s Wild Card Series, during which the team was swept in two games by the Dodgers.

Though he did not require surgery, Williams was brought along slowly in the spring, and scuffled early in the season. He missed 10 days in July due to right elbow discomfort and was limited to five appearances in September due to a right calf injury but still posted a 2.50 ERA and 2.81 FIP in 54 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: The final Szymchat has arrived.

12:02

Dan Szymborski: of the REGULAR SEASON.

12:02

Dan Szymborski: The madness will continue.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: No doubt the last two months have been cruel. Like there’s a vengeful god who punishes the unsuccessful at the trade deadline.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Uh, header?

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