Wow. I've been remiss on this blog trying to get new stuff out. And it's not like I have an excuse either. Sigh.
I was reading a blog from my good friend Dave Schoenfield yesterday about the demise of the Seattle Mariners from 2001 and it got me thinking. I wonder if a single franchise has screwed themselves up as much as this team as has done in such a short time. The M's are about 35 years old and they have more free agent mistakes and bad trades than playoff appearances. Dave did an excellent job recapping the nightmares that happened after the 2001 team bowed out of the playoffs unceremoniously. But it goes back even further than that. Sure, this team traded away Shin-Soo Choo and Asdrubral Cabrera. Sure, they dealt for Erik Bedard. They signed Carlos Silva and then tried to resurrect Milton Bradley. It's just a continuation of a bad trend. This is a team that kept throwing Bobby Ayala in close situations despite his continued efforts to get released. They thought that Healthcliff Slocumb and Paul Spoljaric were viable late-game options. And then there's the Griffey debacle. There are no numbers to back this up, but it seems like most people feel like Seattle almost won that trade since Griffey. That could be a misnomer, but I decided to look it up. While Mike Cameron was at his best with Seattle posting numbers that exceeded his other stops, he still falls short of Griffey's time with the Reds. The amazing thing that I had forgotten is that Griffey had four pretty strong years with Cincy that are often forgotten. At 35 he had a .946 OPS with 35 home runs in 128 games. He beats Cameron numerically in every category, even the percentage ones.
The Mariners have made so many mistakes, and it's not they're the Rays who were willing to be bad and continue to accumulate good draft picks and develop a very long term plan. The M's were often trying to be competitive and failed at it. Things are looking better now, but they have to buck what has been a franchise-long trend of making bad decisions and finding bad luck. I can only hope that is the case, but that will have to wait until at least next year and likely beyond. If only we can find a David Arias who becomes David Ortiz instead of losing him.
Football Thoughts quickly...
-The Huskies looked better against Hawaii, but that defense is still a grave concern. Going against a Cornhusker team that ran wild on them in Seattle last year, this defense better step up in a big way, or no amount of Husky offensive magic will save them.
-Tarvaris Jackson is not a good quarterback. It is an unfortunate fact. But he is not largely to blame for the team's offensive woes on Sunday. The Hawks need stability in the offensive line and until they get it, they look just dreadful. Jackson had no time. When he did have time, he was mediocre, but that was too infrequent. Now they play the Steelers. yay.
-I'll post some more football centric blogs soon.
