Probably 40 games into the season I began to wonder if choosing 2019 was the worst or best year to chronicle the Mariners in a blog. I had wanted to do this since I was a kid, follow one team through every game, starting with the first in spring training all the way to, it was hoped, the last out of the World Series. And I did, although the last out came with game 162... no post-season games for a team that struggled to record just 68 wins, 13 shy of break-even, 19 short of the wildcard, 39 back of the division-leading Houston Astros. A long season with many more losses than wins.
Now, here at the end I'm still not sure if my choice wasn't remarkably wise or dumb. Clearly 2019 will go down as the end of one era (Cano, Cruz and Hernandez) and the beginning of... . Of? What? Something started this year. I have no idea what it will become or where it will end. I do know I decided to follow a team through a season that marked, at least, a rebuilding, at most, what GM Jerry Dipoto has called, a reimagining.
So? How did it turn out? No question this was a new team. The 2018 Ms, winners of 89 games, just 8 short of the wildcard, performed much better than their 2019 brothers. But most of them were gone by the middle of this season. Only ten of the players on the 40-man roster played for the Ms in 2018. The slate was pretty much wiped clean. Indeed, during the course of this season another 27 players were listed on the 40-man roster. They were traded or waived or sent back to the minors or released outright... that's 27 players, a full team in its own regard.
Except for September teams only have 25 players on their active roster. That means 2019 provided the opportunity to follow 67 players, nearly three teamfuls. Give me a break. Looking back over the list I barely recognize some of them. And, to tell the truth, at some point I pretty much stopped caring. If they didn't make an immediate good impression, they were gone in my mind (as they were soon enough in reality).
But some stuck and some, like Crawford and Nola, did the kind of things that make me love the game and those who work so hard to master it. I'm a sucker for line-drive hitters. I can't get enough of them.
I waited this long to write my last piece about the team (there's one more autobiographical piece in the waiting) because I wanted to read what the rest of my more learned colleagues had to say. Having reviewed their conclusions, all in high agreeance, I'm confident I saw what they saw. An ugly season of rebuilding with lots of unfinished business. Too early to tell if Dipoto has collected the right pieces. More rebuilding next year with hopes for greater progress.
It would have been great to see more things fall in place.
A couple of other reflections. Following this team so closely caused me to learn some things about the game. I expounded on them at the time, I won't bore you again. But the power of strikes and the damage of balls really caught my attention. And the impact of opportunities, lost, taken, given or received, right down to a specific pitch in a particular at-bat, caused me to see the game differently. And to respect pitchers, hitters, fielders and base-runners in a new light.
I am an analytics guy, a follower of Bill James before the word sabremetrics was coined. But this season's long intimate look at the game left me less impressed with the numbers than with the moments. It is a given player's reaction in that moment that left the deepest impressions. And my favorite moment this season?
Dylan Moore provided it. And I bet if you watched Felix' last game you remember it, too. Felix was, once again, struggling. Behind in the score, pitch count mounting, runners in scoring position. The inevitable and ugly end just peeking over the outfield fence. The batter hits the ball sharply on a line to left-center... where Moore is filling in as he has at almost every position this year.. The same Moore who made four errors at third in one inning earlier in the season.
Moore takes off, tracking the ball. He's running hard to his left, following the flight of the drive over his right shoulder. It's a race. The ball looks headed for the gap, a sure run-scoring double. He and the ball converge, his glove poised in front of his face turned sideways. He bends back. He's over-run it. The ball is actually headed behind him.
Still running full speed, he bends backwards, stretching out with his backhanded glove, his arm across his face.
He makes the catch. He saves Felix' inning. Dylan Moore is a baseball player.
Except for September teams only have 25 players on their active roster. That means 2019 provided the opportunity to follow 67 players, nearly three teamfuls. Give me a break. Looking back over the list I barely recognize some of them. And, to tell the truth, at some point I pretty much stopped caring. If they didn't make an immediate good impression, they were gone in my mind (as they were soon enough in reality).
But some stuck and some, like Crawford and Nola, did the kind of things that make me love the game and those who work so hard to master it. I'm a sucker for line-drive hitters. I can't get enough of them.
I waited this long to write my last piece about the team (there's one more autobiographical piece in the waiting) because I wanted to read what the rest of my more learned colleagues had to say. Having reviewed their conclusions, all in high agreeance, I'm confident I saw what they saw. An ugly season of rebuilding with lots of unfinished business. Too early to tell if Dipoto has collected the right pieces. More rebuilding next year with hopes for greater progress.
It would have been great to see more things fall in place.
A couple of other reflections. Following this team so closely caused me to learn some things about the game. I expounded on them at the time, I won't bore you again. But the power of strikes and the damage of balls really caught my attention. And the impact of opportunities, lost, taken, given or received, right down to a specific pitch in a particular at-bat, caused me to see the game differently. And to respect pitchers, hitters, fielders and base-runners in a new light.
I am an analytics guy, a follower of Bill James before the word sabremetrics was coined. But this season's long intimate look at the game left me less impressed with the numbers than with the moments. It is a given player's reaction in that moment that left the deepest impressions. And my favorite moment this season?
Dylan Moore provided it. And I bet if you watched Felix' last game you remember it, too. Felix was, once again, struggling. Behind in the score, pitch count mounting, runners in scoring position. The inevitable and ugly end just peeking over the outfield fence. The batter hits the ball sharply on a line to left-center... where Moore is filling in as he has at almost every position this year.. The same Moore who made four errors at third in one inning earlier in the season.
Moore takes off, tracking the ball. He's running hard to his left, following the flight of the drive over his right shoulder. It's a race. The ball looks headed for the gap, a sure run-scoring double. He and the ball converge, his glove poised in front of his face turned sideways. He bends back. He's over-run it. The ball is actually headed behind him.
Still running full speed, he bends backwards, stretching out with his backhanded glove, his arm across his face.
He makes the catch. He saves Felix' inning. Dylan Moore is a baseball player.
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