{"id":2890,"date":"2018-01-08T22:42:14","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T22:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=2890"},"modified":"2018-01-08T22:42:14","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T22:42:14","slug":"can-mariners-trader-jerry-do-enough-in-the-off-season-to-close-the-gap-on-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=2890","title":{"rendered":"Can Mariners’ Trader Jerry do enough in the off-season to close the gap on Houston?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

JERRY DIPOTO<\/p>\n

By Terry Benish<\/p>\n

Special to The Sports Paper<\/p>\n

The Seattle Mariners saw a team in their division run away from them this past season and ultimately win the World Series. The Mariners in a season fraught with\u00a0injuries and roster turnover won 78 games, a decline of eight wins from the 2016 teams.<\/p>\n

So what way is the franchise going? Up or down?<\/p>\n

Mariners\u2019 CEO John Stanton says up. He committed to the Mariner fan base in October that the team would be in the playoffs in the 2018 season.<\/p>\n

But was he being too optimistic?<\/p>\n

Ten days before that Stanton\u2019s optimism, general manager Jerry\u00a0Dipoto\u00a0said, \u201cWe have a long way to go to bridge the gap from where we are today to where the Houston Astros are. I don\u2019t believe we\u2019re nipping at the heels of the Astros. That\u2019s going to take some time, and frankly, a little bit of luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mariners tried hard shorten the distance between them and Houston by making a serious attempt to acquire\u00a0Shohei\u00a0Ohtani\u00a0the young superstar from Japan. The effort wasn\u2019t enough, though, and the Los Angeles Angels won the bidding war.<\/p>\n

So Dipoto went back to what he does best \u2013 make deals. He is quickly gaining the name of \u201cTrader Jerry\u201d for his many moves as he keeps trying to build a competitive roster that will put them in contention in the American League West with Houston and the rest.<\/p>\n

Two trades he made were for Ryon Healy and Dee Gordon, and one rule five draft and one free agent, Mike Ford and Juan Nicasio respectively. Healy will play first base with Ford, Gordon goes to centerfield and\u00a0Nicasio, a free agent signing from the Pirates will be the apparent setup to closer Edwin Diaz.<\/p>\n

But is Dipoto hitting his head against a brick wall? The Mariners have struggled to field a competitive team since winning a major league record tying 116 games in 2001. They are now the only team in the four major sports \u2013 soccer, football, basketball and baseball \u2013 that has not been in the playoffs in the last 17 years.<\/p>\n

And if you are a long time follower of the Mariners, you probably know the organization is known more for its marketing brilliance then for its baseball expertise.\u00a0 Former Seattle P-I columnist Art Thiel explored that in a book \u00ad\u2013 Out of Left Field: How the Mariners Made Baseball Fly in Seattle \u2011 he wrote in 2000.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the St. Louis Cardinals from CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. down are steeped in baseball operations.\u00a0Dewitt\u00a0learned from his father who learned from Branch Rickey\/ While he has non-baseball reports, DeWitt has John Mozeliak as head of baseball operations along with a new wave general manager (Mike Girsch), who is an analyst specializing in valuing talent, and has a tremendous minor league system and process because they\u2019re a baseball organization that sells some beer and hot dogs as opposed to a team that sells seats and beer and sushi and uses baseball as the lure.<\/p>\n

A few years back I did an analysis of the average duration of\u00a0minor league players \u00a0before they made the major leagues. The Cardinals\u00a0kept\u00a0their players in the minor leagues longer than other teams, expressly so that when they arrive, they are ready to play.<\/p>\n

The Mariners do the opposite of that and historically rush\u00a0players.<\/p>\n

Houston is like the Cardinals as are the San Francisco Giants, the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n

So Dipoto\u00a0is correct when he observes Houston is far better.<\/p>\n

Run differential, the difference between runs scored and runs allowed, is a very simple metric way to compare teams. Usually over a full season the winning team has a large run differential.<\/p>\n

This past season, Houston scored 896 runs and the Mariners scored 750 runs, a difference of 146 runs. The Astros allowed 700 runs while the Mariners allowed 772 runs.\u00a0 So a total of 218 runs separated the two teams. That is a run and\u00a0a third (1.34) runs per game, which is terrible.<\/p>\n

Let us now break down the offense, defense and pitching with one last caveat that should always be in your mind.\u00a0 What is\u00a0different about Houston and Seattle and does it play in this analysis?<\/p>\n

The two parks and\u00a0settings could not be more different. Houston is a small park that plays small and the roof is closed always.\u00a0The park the Mariners play in is a huge park that\u00a0is a\u00a0cold and moisture-laden\u00a0during the spring and fall. So yes\u00a0it might be\u00a0a\u00a0key factor. Keep that in mind when we get to chatting about the Mariner pitching and home runs allowed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERRY DIPOTO By Terry Benish Special to The Sports Paper The Seattle Mariners saw a team in their division run…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2892,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions\/2892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}