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A season of watching major league baseball, one team, the 2019 Seattle Mariners at least, left some deep impressions.

I've loved the game in it first entered my consciousness, which, my earliest memory suggests was when I was nine, Willie Mays' over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series.  Since then, surely since the 1958 arrival of the Brooklyn Dodgers, in Los Angeles, much of my life has been lived with baseball as a consistent and continuing background.  It is as deeply rooted in who I am as my fanily heritage, religious faith and political affiliation.

I wondered what how an intense look at the game would impact me, in what would become my 74th year, 

I still love it.  There's more there than I realized.  My 65 years of adoration have not been wasted.  And I look forward with great anticipation to the whatever seasons I have left.

I hear the criticisms: the slow-pace of the game, the greedy owners and narcissistic players, the juiced balls, the obsession with analytics.  I even agree with them, although none strongly.  Maybe because when I took a long look at this past season, at least for one team, I saw much more than the speed of the game and the corrosiveness of free-agency.

Maybe because I came to (and into) the game when I was young, the vestiges of first-blush love are still there.  And the basic joy of playing catch with a son or daughter, so perfectly captured in Field of Dreams, is always present, just below the surface.  Maybe these earlier experiences immunize me from the gloom and doom I hear frequently expressed about the game.  And maybe, in the end, I don't care where MLB falls within the media ratings war.  I'm not sure I care if the game survives.  I'm not a big believer in the eternal existence of anything not divine.

I do know the impact the game has had on me and I am confident humans are sufficiently creative and intelligent to invent new ways to experience the joys of common social experience and carefully choreographed play that baseball has provided me.

The many layers of the game still fascinate me and this close-look through the 2019 taught me a lot.  I see more, understand better, the game at the pitch-by-pitch level.  I don’t think this idea that baseball can be seen, understood, enjoyed in terms of a game-inside-a-game-inside-a-game is unique.  Any game, certainly a team sport, can be appreciated from one level of abstraction to the next, but for me these new revelations have been the real joy of the work.

Finally, I appreciate those of you who joined me on this journey.  It was hard on all of us, but we made it through the season.

Time to look at the calendar for the February date in 2019 for pitchers and catchers to report to spring training.  I'll see you then.

189 posts later

I'll keep this blog open and make an occasional post when the need moves me and I may continue daily reports when spring training begins in February, but for now I'm taking a break from the daily affairs of the Seattle Mariners.

And I'm ready to step back from the team for awhile.  I'm tired, not physically, but attentively and not about the game...I am casually watching the playoffs and, depending on the contenders, plan to follow the World Series with real interest.  But I'm tired of the 2019 Seattle Mariners.

Not that there isn't plenty to talk about.  The team is still in the midst of a major rebuild and there's a lot left to do.  My concluding batting and pitching summaries list what I think the Ms should attend to.  I'm sure Dipoto has his own list and it's probably much longer than mine... let's hope so.

I do need, at the end of this run, to comment about the experience of doing this.  My motivation for focusing on the Ms this season came from dual sources.  First, I wanted to follow a single team through a full season, game by game.  Informally I'd done this all my life, starting with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1958, through to the Mariners today.  I wanted to try this with more focus, greater  discipline.

My other motivation was to recreate, as much as I could, the life of a beat writer.  I'd started out to be a journalist in high school.  My career wandered into academia, but part of me still feels like a sportswriter.  I wanted to see what it really felt like to do it as a job.  Obviously there were many differences in the way I covered the Ms from my armchair than the stalwarts who really do this work professionally.  But I got enough of s taste to understand  what the full meal must be like.

So how was it?  What did I learn?  Any surprises?

The beat writer's experience first.  It was work.  No surprise there.  I always known writing was work, but it something I've always enjoyed doing and l'm lucky it comes easily for me.  Not necessarily well or gracefully written, but I can convert thoughts to words on paper quickly, efficiently.  And it was never hard to find a subject.  Indeed, there was plenty more for me to write about than I had time.

I think you could fairly criticize my coverage of team for jumping around, lacking focus.  I wrote whatever came to my mind that morning... a player profile here, a game recap there, an occasional autobiographical piece, a few commentaries on the game.  No real theme, not much focus, but I did keep it about the Ms.  And I did discover, to my surprise, something of an editorial voice which increasingly came down against "bad baseball," which this team offered in abundance in 2019.

Paying close attention to the awful pitches, at bats, plays and games were the hardiest part of the job.  During the worst stretch of the season I just couldn't write about it any more.  To do continue to write about the poor play was boring to do and even more tedious to read.  Worse it became truly depressing. Kathleen will tell you, much to her consternation, my mood will swing with Mariner and Seahawk games... up with a win, down with a loss.  I simply could not separate my general state of mind from the success of the team.

Around mid-August I began to cheat on my roleplay.  I stopped writing after every game.  I simply lacked the appetite or interest in writing about something so badly flawed and unsatisfying.  I could barely watch it, much less find any new to say about the mindless base-running or the pitching decisions that defied commonsense.

My admiration for everyone on the broadcast team only rose as the season slowly fell apart.  Maybe all this poor play advanced Dipoto's process of reimagination, it certainly put to test the ability of Rizz, Sims, Blowers, Hill, Goldsmith and the ex-Ms who added color in the booth along with the folks in the studio and ballpark who handled pre and post game stuff.  I marvelled how they keep me interested in something so fundamentally frustrating.

And I must admit, that I operated without some of the disadvantaged the media covering the team faced on a regular basis.  My exercise lacked many of the unpleasant realities of being a real beat reporter.  I wasn't on the road half the time, I had no pressure of a hard deadline, I didn't need to meet an editor’s stylistic or subject matter expectations.

I did learn that my regard for the folks who actually do this professionally is well placed.  The labor of writing (or broadcasting) on a daily business wasn't that hard for me or, I suspect, for them.  What is hard and what they do consummately well is survive the grind with the all-encompassing nature of the team and the endless stream of personal and team ups-and-downs the game presents.

As for my experience watching the game so closely... watch this space.  I'll post my reflections in the next day or two.

So, in the end...

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.

Batting wrap up

Getting a finger on Mariner hitting is 2019 because they really put up three general offenses.  In the early season the team was all about veteran power.  Then the trades came and they started shedding those older power hitters like Encarnacion and Bruce, relying on new power from Vogelbach.  By the end of season the line up was almost totally new faces.  Add to that injury distorted everything: Seager missed most of the first half of the year, then Haniger missed over half of the backend and, except for the first quarter, Ryon Healy was gone.  Both Gordon and Santana pulled IR stretches, too.
I'm not sure I ever saw a line-up that looked anything like what's hoped gor in 2020.

What we did see was streakiness.  A string of games marked by explosive power, followed by another bunch where they were shut out if not totally shut down.  They were no-hit twice and just missed a season-record breaking third.  The first part of the year they did break records for the most home runs to start the season.  Patterns for sure, but a week of slugfests would be followed by a week of low scoring contests.  Over and over.

So, I'm not sure what the M's have for hitting. Depends on the week I guess.  But here's a closer look at batters starting kind of, in order Servais set on through September.

Lead off:  Shed Long.  Seems to be getting stronger as he works through each challenge.  GOT ood contact line drive hitter, even has some power.  I just don't know about leading off... OBP of .333 not all that impressive, but if Mallex is batting ninth, maybe that's the real top of the line-up as you work through the game.  He's aggressive and confident.  Works for me.

In the two-hole: J.P. Crawford.  He needs to get that BA above .226.  He is impressive with his composure at the plate... just an amazing level of concentration.  Again line drives all over, some power.  A project, but he has a lot of potential.

In third spot right now, Austin Nola, but I expect when he comes back from his injury I expect qnd want to see Mitch Haniger here.  Before he got hurt Haniger, another line-drive hitter with power this time, was having an off season with a low average and lots of strike outs.  He's not a .220 hitter.  I think he was pressing.  Dipoto put a lot on his shoulders when he tapped Mitch (and Marco) as the models for the future.  That's a lot to take on, especially when he's asked to do what Cano and Nelly did in seasons past.  I think he tried to do too much and that affected his patience at the plate.  Average dropped 65 points, OBP 52.  I expect his future to look more like 2018 than '19.

Kyle Seager ended batting at clean-up, a no-brainer given the August he had.  His extra-hot bat cooled some in September, but he's still legit in the fout-hole.  The shift means nothing on fly balls. And he seems to be adjusting to the shift.  He missed the first part of the season after an promising spring, restarted cold, exploded, then shifted into normal. He's always been streaky good. Can he be the heart of the line-up?  We'll see.  His contract makes trading him unlikely, his glove is still golden. Let's hope he can be the guy.

If he isn't, Domingo Santana or Daniel Vogelbach seem most disposed to bat fourth, probably as designated hitters.  If not as clean-up hitters either is likely to bat fifth or sixth.  Santana has legit power and drove in so many runs during the first half of the season, he was, for awhile number two in the league in ribbies, then he cooled off and got injured.  Vogie hit mammoth homers up to his selection to the All-Star squad, then he went stone cold for two months.  These guys feel like a lot of unsolved problems.

More likely at fifth is catcher Omar Narvaez or, much to everyone's surprise his back-up, Tom Murphy, or to even more people's surprise, his back-up, minor league vet, Austin Nola.  All three can hit and they all have some power, Nola turned out to be a versatile sub at first-base.  I think he finally got above the radar, albeit late in his career, and could be a handy plug-in tool next year.

Then, except for Dee Gordon, who I am sure will be traded before spring training, there are a bunch of prospects who have shown hope, but not enough long enough to raise hopes a lot.  Interestingly, each did things here and there, but for now Kyle Lewis, despite his dramatic start with six homers in eight games, Brandon Brennan, Tim Lopes, Jake Fraley, Donny Walton and Kevon Broxton all kind of look like the same guy.

Two who don't?  Mallex Smith.  Batting first or ninth, he gets on base and runs well... when he is thinking.  And super-sub Dylan Moore.

I find it hard to conclude much about the Mariners hitting: inconsistent, streaky, some power when it's there, no runs when it isn't.  Vulnerable to front line pitching.

This team needs maturity born of experience and lots of ABs.  I look for next season to be a lot like this one just concluded but with progress and, in cases like Vogelbach, Santana and Healy, some resolution.

Pitching wrap-up

Some promising, much dreadful would be a fair summary of the Mariner's pitching over the 2019 season.  More promise from the starters than the horror presented by all but a couple of relievers.

I've recently written at length about the fine season Marco Gonzalez put together, I won't repeat myself.  He's good and only looks to get better.  And while he is undeniably a leader, I'm not convinced he's an ace.  He's not overpowering or intimidating.  He's smart, wily; he has an arsenal of deceiving pitches, but he doesn't blow anyone away.  He's much more Jamie Moyer, not Randy Johnson.  That's good, with a better bullpen and a little more offense he could have won twenty this year and should next.

Who's #2?  That's the question.  Kikuchi looked like the guy, but he had such an inconsistent season I'm keeping my expectations in check for 2020.  There are lots of theories that try to reconcile a couple of stellar starts with a bunch of stinkers.  Maybe they're all right.  My suspicion since early in the season has been that Paul Davis was the wrong pitching coach to help Yusei make this transition.  He needed a pitching dad, not an analytical college professor.

Felix?  Sorry but he's finished and gone.  Sad, but an inevitable part of the game.  At least it ended well and the organization and fans gave him the grateful send-off he earnec.

Leake?  I'd bring him back in a heartbeat.  A terrific #3, no more, no less.  Out-Moyered Moyer.

Leblanc and Milone deserve thanks for their dependable service.  They are average, very average back of the rotation pitchers.  I don't expect much from either next season.

The new starters, Sheffield and Dunne.  Both showed them good stuff.  Now they need a season of development and all that implies as they discipline their talent to learn how to be frontline starters.  On a limited basis they showed some good stuff.  Sheffield's slider is naaaaassssty.  They aren't ready yet, who knows that they ever will be?  But they are on the right track.

Relievers?  Tuivailala, Altavilla, McClain, Adams, Guilbeau, Brennan, Swanson maybe Magill and Bass, by the end of the season started to look like a real bullpen.  The rest better forgotten.

It's all over

Well, the Mariner's season, at least.  It's too early for my end-of-season really round-up.  I need a couple of days to lay out my final conclusions.  Don't worry, I will.

For now, it's satisfying to look back over my shoulder and reflect, with some, wonder at the significance at a full season taken as a whole.  However it turns out a season is a remarkable thing snd no two are alike.  Even if you started all over again, with exactly the same players, it wouldn't be the same.  It can't be repeated.

That's the wonderful part of it.  Every season is unique.  A set of an events that can never be, will never be, exactly repeated.  For better or worse, the Ms 2019 season is like none that preceded it and any that will will ever follow.

And that is the wonder of it.  We will never see this season again. There may be, let's hope not, some like it, but this odd combination of Vogie and Mallex and Marco, even if they all come back together next season cannot repeat what we just experienced.

Look back.  You'll never see this again.

The last game

I never thought it would be otherwise, but coming to the end of the 2019 season and knowing it's over for the M's, that other teams will play on into October, arrives with a sense of sadness and loss.  94 losses to be exact.  If we watch, and we will because baseball is in our blood, we'll have to see our rivals, the A's and 'stro's play on.  Indeed, I expect to see Houston go all the way.  Their fans went through three seasons of what we just experienced not long ago.  They know the humiliation of 100 gamed lost.  Three of them!  Less than ten years ago.    Believe me, they earned their current success.

So after this afternoon the competitive side of Seattle's operations shuts down for a few months.  I can feel the chill of winter setting in already.  I'm sure of GM Jerry Dipoto will be active in the off-season, there are still plenty of holes to fill, especially in the starting rotation.  I fully expect to see some of the more veteran players I've followed this year fed into the system of trades and waivers.  Best bets to go, sadly, Dee Gordon, Austin Nola, Santana, Leblanc, Tom Murphy, maybe even Vogie.

Sometime in February thoughts, hopes, for the 2020 season will replace the frustrations of this one that ends today.  The game, like life, follows an inevitable cycle, paralleling the seasons, from spring-like renewal through to the slowing days of autumn.  And then, like today, the end.

One more game for us, then farewell to the various memories of 2019 and the breathless prospects of 2020.  I like even-numbered years... or the ones that end in 5.

Marco's turn

Marco Gonzalez' last two starts have been superb, ace written all over them.  14 innings, four runs... unfortunately two losses.  M's offense fell asleep on him both times.  Indeed, his last four starts were all strong, 28 innings, 5 runs.  Yes, that's a 1.60 ERA.

He showed a lot this season and lived up to Dipoto’s expectation as a model for the new Ms.  There were a couple of down moments, a particularly immature midseason meltdown over an ump's bad call that set up a loss, but he apologized for that and settled down and acted like the leader his team needs the rest of the way.

He could have easily notched 20 wins.  Six of his losses were by one-run.  He's not over-powering, but he mixes up his pitches and gets the job done.  He's young to be a veteran, but on this team he is.  This was an important season for him, a time when he was asked to step up, not just as the head of the rotation but as a team leader.  He did just that.

Job well done!

Farewell Felix

Watching Felix' last Mariner game, much like viewing Ichiro's retirement, touched me emotionally.  Win or lose, these players become part of the team's identity and their achievements, over the long haul, provide parallel and supportive narratives to that of the team itself.  The history of the Mariners is inextricably bound up with the unfolding career of any of its players, especially true in the case of Felix.

And Felix went out of his way to invite the fans along on the ride, expressing his emotions openly and freely.  The King's Court, that yellow-shirted section (last night several sections along the left-field line) reacted, as Hernandez did, to each strike, ball, hit and out... most particularly his strikeouts.

Last night Felix prompted tears, laughter, tears and an evening full of sentimentality.

It was something to see him point to the King's Court in acknowledgement of each of his Ks, a most uncharacteristic gesture to fans rarely seen in professional sports, even for Felix.  The mutual love was there for all to see.

I've written about this before: Felix was kind of a hard-luck pitcher.  He had 180+ quality starts but around 50 wins to show for it.  Never enough run support to get him a lead after he had given up only two runs over seven innings.  Too bad, really.

And last night, despite the sentiment and energy, was actually no different.  He struggled a little and gave up three... another home run... the M's pushed across only one.  He walked off the field carrying one more loss in his back pocket.

Is he done?  Probably not.  Odds are some team will invite him to spring training.  I hope he passes up on the opportunity and retires.  He just isn't the pitcher he was and age and I suspect a degree of stubbornness preclude a renaissance.

He did and accomplished much.  Being just one of 24 to pitch a perfect game is a historic achievement. Thanks for the contribution, the effort and the memories.

The last (home) stand

The hitting woes that started in Baltimore continued into the first game of the Mariners final homestand of the season.  Houston's Derrick Cole is a terrific pitcher and he was calibrated for the post-season soon to come.  He just overpowered the Ms.

One note.  Mallex Smith is beginning to win me over.  He has speed and he's learning how to use it.  I've seen an intensity in him that is impressive and I've watched him work hard all season to improve.  He might fit into the reimagined Ms roster.

Another cup of that yummy Kool-Aid please

Marco looked pretty good shutting out Pittsburgh over seven innings.  No walks!  A 6-0 win, nicely done.

Homer galore.  Think back to the beginning of the season, would you have expected the sluggers to be Narvaez, Nola and Long?  Narvaez?  Maybe.  Long?  That little guy in the swim goggles?  I don't know.  Nola?  Who?

No errors.  No caught stealing,  but Narvy shoots down two of theirs.

Then Tui and MacClain shut the door decisively.

Tui has a 1.86 ERA.  Narvaez has 22 home runs, Nola ten!

And if Lewis had to strike out four times... and we knew he would... this was the game to do it.

A lot to like here.  Much to think about when the future comes.

Sunshine through September showers

If back-to-back walk off wins can't get you excited about the Mariners next season, nothing will.  But the most encouraging thing was Sheffield's start.  I know, he fell apart in the fifth after an error behind him, but up til then he looked good, really good, throwing ace stuff, one of the nastiest sliders I've ever seen.  It's clear he's learning and he got a lot to learn, but the signs are positive.  He has something special.

2020 Spring Training comes early

The last two games, losses to the Reds and White Sox, by big scores, 11 to 5 and 9 to 7, feel different, not that there isn't a lot of resemblance to the previous 86 clobberings the Ms have been given and the fans have endured this season.  There have been the usual bullpen meltdowns and another puzzling start where Yusei just can't get the car in gear.

Maybe it's all the faces and the faint whiff of spring, even as the very first Pacific Northwest autumn rains mark the end of summer.  Even those rains seem unfamiliar, accompanied by the flash and bang of thunder and lightning rarely seen in this reason.  I'm not sure about some of the pitchers, but there were probably a dozen rookies who hit of threw for the M's last night.

This is not last year's line-up.  This isn't even last April’s.  And, if Dipoto's vision for a whole new team is sound, the difference in the line-ups is encouraging news, truly prospects of better things to come.   And our vigilant appraisal of minor-league seasons in Tacoma, Modesto and far flung Alabama (Go Nuts!) suggest even more pleasant surprises over the next couple of seasons.

Okay, okay, I know I'm letting the hot hitting of Kyle Lewis cloud my judgment. I know big league pitchers will soon enough figure out Lewis and have him swinging as wildly and missing as Daniel Vogelbach.  But maybe, just maybe, Vogie and Kikuchi will figure it out and a host of talented Mariner pitchers and hitters will flood the line-up... so many of them that opposing teams will have to constantly scramble to keep up with the parade of fresh, eager players.

I don't miss Zunino of Beckham at all, or Encarnacion  or any of the others, even Cano (maybe Nellie a little), not when I can watch Shed and JP, Kyle and Dylan, or even Narvaez and Murphy.  Maybe a full moon Friday the 13th is omen of good things to come.

Of course

Two words...  Kyle Lewis.  One more word, wow!

Lollipops, rainbows and unicorns... right here!

Maybe, just maybe, the payoffs from the Dipoto led and inspired rebuilding of the Seattle Mariners was seen in last night's victory against the Cincinnati Reds.  Maybe.

This season has seen a lot of major league debuts, but I've really looked forward to Kyle Lewis.  He lived up to the hype.  He hit the ball hard in a groundout in his first at bat, then blasted a home run to left-center for his first hit ever.  He looked comfortable at the plate, less so in the field, but altogether a symbolic and encouraging start.  Only makes me more excited to see Kellenic, J-Rod and Evan White.  Maybe.

Less maybe, more probably, Justus Sheffield made his fourth start and pitched well.  This kid has an mlb slider and he gave up one run in six strong innings.   Each time he looks a little better and it's speculating how high his ceiling may be.  Here's hoping Dunn, who should pitch soon, is just as good.