Mariners season record prediction thread *UPDATE*

[soohawk]

Good luck with your season and the American League West. Win em all unless your playing my Jays

 

[kearly]

what makes any of you think we are that much better than last year? coaching yes i think so but i dont think theyve done enough to get offense

i still see serious struggles

They've filled 3 or 4 black holes in the lineup with competent hitters and have stressed a lineup that creates fewer outs by emphasizing OBP. The Mariners are going to bring a lot more hitters to the plate than before, and that should result in more runs scored.

My concern is the bullpen, which is paper thin, and a starting rotation which has massive downside. If the Mariners can achieve league average pitching then I'd expect them to be serious playoff contenders. But it could be just the opposite too. Pitching is a serious question mark.

 

[kearly]

Maybe, but I know this - roughly 4-5 years ago an associate of mine shared a story about the Mariners - given one of my software contacts was going to get a startup I was advising an in with them. He was fairly connected, having worked with Guy Kawasaki and was building AI & analytics engine which his software company decided to use for scouting.

(Now it had already been used to scout QBs for example the #1 quality we found that a college QB had that tended to indicate success in the pros was 4th quarter comebacks against top 25 teams...even given the subjective nature of how a team gets rated #25 and that good teams tend to have less comebacks in general. The # was % success rate on comebacks in that time period vs # of chances. But I digress...)

His analytics engine could reliably identify key characteristics that players that contribute in playoff runs tend to have, and combined with some of the objective data weighing - it was tremendously successful at taking blind submissions and identifying the star players in the mix based on their college #s. The pitch was the Mariners would be able to identify the kinds of players that would lead to playoff runs.

The problem? The Mariners DID NOT WANT to go to the playoffs. Their goal was to be the top 10 in attendance, but did not want to regularly get too far in the playoffs because players became more visible and would be harder to resign - as they became visible (The Seahawks can tell you about this issue now but I think they would still prefer having gotten the SB). Additionally, performance in the playoffs mattered for arbitration. And they were very clear WHY.

Clearly, I don't think he ended up moving forward.

Either way, the Mariners didn't want to win. Maybe they do now, but I really, really doubt it. People at the top of an organization do not stay that long without delivering results. So if the Mariners never produce on the field, you have to ask yourself what the results they ARE producing that allow them to be so steadfastly supported by the organization.

The experiences shared with me, from sources I trust, suggest onfield performance is not at all a KPI for success for the organization. They want tickets sold, seats filled - and don't care how it happens.

Be aware, dancing groundskeepers are cheaper than closers.....

I love the story but the premise is silly. Mariners attendance the year after their first playoff berth was 245% higher the year before their first playoff berth. Mariners attendance stayed strong for years thanks to occasional playoff runs in the late 90s. Mariners attendance peaked in 2002 after back to back ALCS appearances, and then slowly dropped from there the further things got from a playoff run. In recent years, attendance has been the lowest since 1995 thanks to an epic playoff drought.

History shows that making the playoffs creates a huge boon for attendance in the years that follow. If their strategy was to miss the playoff on purpose to save some arb money, then they are far dumber than we ever believed.

 

[Tical21]

Maybe, but I know this - roughly 4-5 years ago an associate of mine shared a story about the Mariners - given one of my software contacts was going to get a startup I was advising an in with them. He was fairly connected, having worked with Guy Kawasaki and was building AI & analytics engine which his software company decided to use for scouting.

(Now it had already been used to scout QBs for example the #1 quality we found that a college QB had that tended to indicate success in the pros was 4th quarter comebacks against top 25 teams...even given the subjective nature of how a team gets rated #25 and that good teams tend to have less comebacks in general. The # was % success rate on comebacks in that time period vs # of chances. But I digress...)

His analytics engine could reliably identify key characteristics that players that contribute in playoff runs tend to have, and combined with some of the objective data weighing - it was tremendously successful at taking blind submissions and identifying the star players in the mix based on their college #s. The pitch was the Mariners would be able to identify the kinds of players that would lead to playoff runs.

The problem? The Mariners DID NOT WANT to go to the playoffs. Their goal was to be the top 10 in attendance, but did not want to regularly get too far in the playoffs because players became more visible and would be harder to resign - as they became visible (The Seahawks can tell you about this issue now but I think they would still prefer having gotten the SB). Additionally, performance in the playoffs mattered for arbitration. And they were very clear WHY.

Clearly, I don't think he ended up moving forward.

Either way, the Mariners didn't want to win. Maybe they do now, but I really, really doubt it. People at the top of an organization do not stay that long without delivering results. So if the Mariners never produce on the field, you have to ask yourself what the results they ARE producing that allow them to be so steadfastly supported by the organization.

The experiences shared with me, from sources I trust, suggest onfield performance is not at all a KPI for success for the organization. They want tickets sold, seats filled - and don't care how it happens.

Be aware, dancing groundskeepers are cheaper than closers.....

I love the story but the premise is silly. Mariners attendance the year after their first playoff berth was 245% higher the year before their first playoff berth. Mariners attendance stayed strong for years thanks to occasional playoff runs in the late 90s. Mariners attendance peaked in 2002 after back to back ALCS appearances, and then slowly dropped from there the further things got from a playoff run. In recent years, attendance has been the lowest since 1995 thanks to an epic playoff drought.

History shows that making the playoffs creates a huge boon for attendance in the years that follow. If their strategy was to miss the playoff on purpose to save some arb money, then they are far dumber than we ever believed.

You said that in a far more PC way than I was going to.

There is zero chance that they don't want to win. Zero. They run it like a business and they want to make money. Winning makes infinite money in baseball. They simply don't know how to win.

I actually have no problem at all with absentee owners. The owner has two jobs. Provide correct funding, and hire the correct baseball people. With the exception of 2001, when they wouldn't approve upping the payroll for another bat, they've provided ample money. However, they haven't hired good baseball people. Bavasi and Jack Z are the reasons we have been terrible, not the ownership. Rather...Montero, Smoak, Ackley, Zunino, Clement, Bedard, Figgins, Beltre, Sexson, Hultzen, Paxton ALL being gynormous busts are the reasons we have been terrible. I can't even blame Jack Z in full for that. Almost all of those had at least a decent chance of working out wonderfully, and every single one of them missed. We couldn't even develop one of them. Not one. That isn't the fault of the owner.

 

[MizzouHawkGal]

Maybe, but I know this - roughly 4-5 years ago an associate of mine shared a story about the Mariners - given one of my software contacts was going to get a startup I was advising an in with them. He was fairly connected, having worked with Guy Kawasaki and was building AI & analytics engine which his software company decided to use for scouting.

(Now it had already been used to scout QBs for example the #1 quality we found that a college QB had that tended to indicate success in the pros was 4th quarter comebacks against top 25 teams...even given the subjective nature of how a team gets rated #25 and that good teams tend to have less comebacks in general. The # was % success rate on comebacks in that time period vs # of chances. But I digress...)

His analytics engine could reliably identify key characteristics that players that contribute in playoff runs tend to have, and combined with some of the objective data weighing - it was tremendously successful at taking blind submissions and identifying the star players in the mix based on their college #s. The pitch was the Mariners would be able to identify the kinds of players that would lead to playoff runs.

The problem? The Mariners DID NOT WANT to go to the playoffs. Their goal was to be the top 10 in attendance, but did not want to regularly get too far in the playoffs because players became more visible and would be harder to resign - as they became visible (The Seahawks can tell you about this issue now but I think they would still prefer having gotten the SB). Additionally, performance in the playoffs mattered for arbitration. And they were very clear WHY.

Clearly, I don't think he ended up moving forward.

Either way, the Mariners didn't want to win. Maybe they do now, but I really, really doubt it. People at the top of an organization do not stay that long without delivering results. So if the Mariners never produce on the field, you have to ask yourself what the results they ARE producing that allow them to be so steadfastly supported by the organization.

The experiences shared with me, from sources I trust, suggest onfield performance is not at all a KPI for success for the organization. They want tickets sold, seats filled - and don't care how it happens.

Be aware, dancing groundskeepers are cheaper than closers.....

I love the story but the premise is silly. Mariners attendance the year after their first playoff berth was 245% higher the year before their first playoff berth. Mariners attendance stayed strong for years thanks to occasional playoff runs in the late 90s. Mariners attendance peaked in 2002 after back to back ALCS appearances, and then slowly dropped from there the further things got from a playoff run. In recent years, attendance has been the lowest since 1995 thanks to an epic playoff drought.

History shows that making the playoffs creates a huge boon for attendance in the years that follow. If their strategy was to miss the playoff on purpose to save some arb money, then they are far dumber than we ever believed.

You said that in a far more PC way than I was going to.

There is zero chance that they don't want to win. Zero. They run it like a business and they want to make money. Winning makes infinite money in baseball. They simply don't know how to win.

I actually have no problem at all with absentee owners. The owner has two jobs. Provide correct funding, and hire the correct baseball people. With the exception of 2001, when they wouldn't approve upping the payroll for another bat, they've provided ample money. However, they haven't hired good baseball people. Bavasi and Jack Z are the reasons we have been terrible, not the ownership. Rather...Montero, Smoak, Ackley, Zunino, Clement, Bedard, Figgins, Beltre, Sexson, Hultzen, Paxton ALL being gynormous busts are the reasons we have been terrible. I can't even blame Jack Z in full for that. Almost all of those had at least a decent chance of working out wonderfully, and every single one of them missed. We couldn't even develop one of them. Not one. That isn't the fault of the owner.

So let me get this straight. You blame the coaching and scouting and not the fool that has been the lead clown in this three ring circus of epic futility for the last 20 years? Gotcha.

Heads up Tical21, this goes to the organizational level and that organization is both rotten and loser at the core level. They don't even draft right and never have. It should be illegal to allow such incompetence but it's baseball and there isn't any salary cap just stupid ownership. In otherwords 79 wins until the end of time. If they do any better I'd still question it whether it's right before my eyes or not until there is an ownership change top to bottom.

 

[Kennedyin92]

62-100

 

[SeAhAwKeR4life]

75 wins, and the race for mediocrity is on today with loss number one, Woohoo Ms.... :roll:

 

[Hawk-Lock]

We are on pace to go 0-162

 

[bevellisthedevil]

The only team I know that can give up one hit and lose 3-2.

 

[CPHawk]

Now the question is, will the Ms get over .500 at all this season?

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

The only team I know that can give up one hit and lose 3-2.

No kidding. Sheesh.

 

[SeAhAwKeR4life]

The only team I know that can give up one hit and lose 3-2.

No kidding. Sheesh.

And with our "best" pitcher on opening day when he's arguably as fresh as he will be all season. It's gonna be another long uninspiring summer for Seattle fans. :34853_doh:

 

[m0ng0]

well he did walk 5 batters......

 

[SeAhAwKeR4life]

Woohoo, tonight we set a pace for 81-81 Might be enough to just miss a wildcard; the excitement mounts!

Gotta admit though, 10-2 is impressive! :mrgreen:

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

You know, if the Ms could just split the season series with the Astros they'd probably get to .500.

 

[SeAhAwKeR4life]

You know, if the Ms could just split the season series with the Astros they'd probably get to .500.

The Astros in the AL West is never gonna sit right with me. When I was growing up they played in the Astrodome and wore orange and were in the NL West.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

UPDATE: Hawk-Lock nails it with Si and kearly only one game off. Unfortunately for Lock I offered no prize cuz I'm cheap bastard. Bragging rights though.

Thought I'd bring this back to the top so folks could see the sports brilliance of Hawk-Lock.

 

[Uncle Si]

UPDATE: Hawk-Lock nails it with Si and kearly only one game off. Unfortunately for Lock I offered no prize cuz I'm cheap bastard. Bragging rights though.

Thought I'd bring this back to the top so folks could see the sports brilliance of Hawk-Lock. ... and Si...

YAY!!!!

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

UPDATE: Hawk-Lock nails it with Si and kearly only one game off. Unfortunately for Lock I offered no prize cuz I'm cheap bastard. Bragging rights though.

Thought I'd bring this back to the top so folks could see the sports brilliance of Hawk-Lock. ... and Si...

YAY!!!!

Wait, wait............unauthorized mod editing alert!

 

[Uncle Si]

Wait, wait............unauthorized mod editing alert!