It\u2019s a great take on what went past, just now.<\/p>\n
When you were a kid did you ever count cars on a freight train as they went by? It requires great and steadfast focus to not miss cars and not lose count or double count. One hundred and sixty two games just went by \u2011 while staying in the metaphor\u2011 91 of them were one kind of car and 71 another.<\/p>\n
Having watched and read more game recaps that I care to try to enumerate, I can say that Divish is rare. Good writer, fearless and he actually understands baseball, which has to put him in a rarified place indeed. We once had a twitter fight, but it got ironed out.<\/p>\n
Tom Wilhelmsen did fall apart as Divish recounts, and Texas led the American League in save percentage at 81 percent while the Mariners were fourth worst at 65 percent. The Mariners were fourth in the AL in save opportunities with 66. They converted only 43 of them.<\/p>\n
If the M\u2019s had converted at the same rate as Texas they would have saved 53 games, which would have changed their record to 81 wins. That would have made them almost a .500 team. While that is compelling, three out of five bad starters drove the failure in the pen.<\/p>\n
I came to praise Divish today, for that piece by Divish above includes a significant debrief of Eric Wedge, who knew he was quitting, according to Divish, so he was more open perhaps.<\/p>\n
Buried within Divish\u2019s piece Wedge describes the abject failure from spring training to regular season with some detail. He talks about the failure of Jesus Montero, Dustin Ackley, Michael Morse, Brendan Ryan, Jason Bay, and Franklin Gutierrez and the bad pitching.<\/p>\n
Wedge also laments the difference between spring training and reality just a few weeks later.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we were in spring training and where we were very quickly after that, were two very different things,\u201d Wedge told Devish. \u201cWe were right back in rebuild mode.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I read that I said to myself, \u201cEureka!\u201d Because folks, and I have to hope I still have some readers left, that is what I\u2019d written going into the season.<\/p>\n
I said then that the rebuild was over last winter, that the team\u2019s intent was to win with a bunch of dumpster diving retreads for no money expended.<\/p>\n
So when Wedge says that the geezers all broke down and \u201cWe were right back in rebuild mode,\u201d then that means all other things equal that the Mariners abandoned the rebuild plan in the winter of 2012.<\/p>\n
I asked Divish if he thought it was an important point and he said, \u201cI don\u2019t care!\u201d<\/p>\n
But I care a bit, at least to get to the bottom of things. Or near the bottom anyway, not being a deep-sea diver of note.<\/p>\n
At or near the All-Star game break, one reporter and columnist after another in Seattle began to harpoon Jack Zduriencik for the failure of his rebuilding plan. I think he\u2019s an ok target, but shoot him for the right reasons as it were \u2013 that\u2019s figurative of course, so don\u2019t go buy a gun and let loose on him or anybody else.<\/p>\n
Please don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Let me not pass by that too fast. I\u2019ll type slower. If the team had abandoned the rebuilding plan in the winter of 2012, then it didn\u2019t fail per se in the first week of July. What failed was geezer ball or the ridiculous notion that there are good old players in dumpsters across America that will play for nothing. The kind of nothing I need now, but nothing compared to the high priced guys.<\/p>\n
So when Wedge said they were right back to rebuilding then, which as the Cameron article from yesterday showed, the kids did NOT fail, the geezers did.<\/p>\n
So the year-end comes and we have Wedge\u2019s Last Stand, which the Mariner\u2019s spin was about damned kids etc., and Wedge saying he\u2019s out of dodge. Howard Lincoln comes into focus and says he \u2013 Howard \u2011 saved baseball and it\u2019s all Jack\u2019s deal, the baseball that is, and Howard sees himself as a kind of a docent for baseball in Seattle. That\u2019s a big word. Properly used it is some rich person that learns about a museum\u2019s stuff and teaches and talks about it for no pay.<\/p>\n
![\"Kendrys](\"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Kendrys-Morales.jpg\")
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