10 Things That Make the Seattle Mariners Look Bad

10 Things that make the Seattle Mariners look pathetic

If you’re a Seattle Mariner fan like I am, you know the team has had its struggles. But I’m going to point out what not only makes the team look bad, but makes them look pathetic, especially when you put all of these together.

10. They’ve had one good player this past decade

Ichiro. That’s it. That’s all you get when you list the truly great players of this decade. Boone? Only two good seasons. Edgar? Was getting old and fading. Felix? No accomplishments and only one great season. Only one player has managed to string together 4+ quality seasons with the Mariners, and his name is Ichiro Suzuki. Look back over the Mariners who have made the All-Star team this decade. Ichiro’s in it every year (except for 2000 of course when he wasn’t even playing in the U.S.). And, 2001 aside, only a few other Mariners made it here and there (Putz, Hernandez). In fact, I had to look those two names up because I could not recall any other Mariners besides Ichiro to have made the All-Star team since 2001.

If this team is going to contend again, they’re going to need another nucleus of great players similar to what they had in the 90’s with Griffey, Edgar, Randy, and Buhner.

9. Rally Fries

A guy spills some fries going for a home run ball and thus starts a trend of people begging for free Rally Fries on TV by bringing in oversized signs. They have been routinely featured in Mariners broadcasts and from an outsider’s perspective, you would probably go, “HUH?” It’s an odd, somewhat sad, tradition. Nothing to certainly be proud of.

8. The Mariner Moose

How a moose is connected to the sea and the Mariners is beyond me. I think a moose was selected (for some odd reason) from fan submissions and it stuck. But why? I can think of five better and more appropriate mascots off the top of my head: a fish/shark, a marine (duh), a whale, a beaver, and a freaking walking compass. Mooses (meese? Moose?) have never been associated with the sea, so I don’t see the correlation.

Oh and it once almost injured Coco Crisp riding its four wheeler.

7. Their failures with Free Agents

Over this past decade, the Mariners have been more miss than hit with their free agents. I will now begin to spew out names of players that have been failures as free agents signings this decade, most courtesy of former general manager Bill Bavasi: Rich Aurillia, Scott Speizio, Carl Everett, Pokey Reese, Matt Lawton, Richie Sexson, Jose Vidro, Horacio Ramirez, Jeff Cirillo, Eric Byrnes. Okay, some of those players were acquired in trades, but you get what I mean. I didn’t even mention the possible failure signings in Kotchman, Bradley, and Figgins. But I’m still giving them time, since they haven’t even had a full season yet. What’s so odd is that those players, ALL of them, played better before they got here. But they play terribly in Mariner uniforms. And then they leave. Which leads me to…

6. Former Mariners play better in other uniforms

Yes, once they get out of Seattle, more often than not, they play better with other teams. Some cases, however, we signed players so over the hill they could not revive their careers once playing here, such as Sexson, Everett, Lawton, Reese, and Vidro. But when you look at guys like Scott Speizio, Rich Aurillia, Adrian Beltre, etc., you see that they played well before and after their stints with the Mariners, but not during. Speizio played well with the Angels and Cardinals, winning two World Series rings, one before and one after his stint with the Mariners. Adrian Beltre had an MVP caliber 2004 with the Dodgers and now this year seems to be reviving his career with the Red Sox. And Rich Aurillia seems like he only plays well with the Giants, who he started and finished his career with.

5. High payroll, low result

The Mariners have the 9^th highest payroll in the league. But very little to success to go along with it. Out of the teams higher than the Mariners, only the Cubs could have a comparable amount of misery this past decade. In fact, 6 of the 8 teams higher than the Mariners in payroll have at least been to a World Series this decade. And of course, any Mariner fan knows about the 2008 season where the Mariners became the first team in history to lose 100 games and have a $100 million payroll. The Mariners spend and spend and get little in return. Not what you’d call smart shopping.

4. Constantly falling back on 1995 for good memories

The Mariners have had two feel-good seasons in all of their history. Just two. The Yankees have so many feel-good seasons they can’t even count them. But more often than not, the Mariners are constantly trying to relive memories from 1995, whether it’s wearing those teal uniforms, bringing back Griffey, or having promotions/giveaways that have to do with that season, such as a Griffey bobblehead of him sliding into home in Game 5 of the ALDS with the Yankees.

I’m not saying 1995 should become a distant memory, but we hardly ever reminisce about 2001. Why not? We won 116 games that year. But no, we’d rather reminisce about 1995 when the likes of Junior, A-Rod, and Randy were still here. Speaking of them…

3. Loss of the Big Three

By “Big Three”, I mean Griffey, Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez. Each of them clearly was tired of playing in Seattle by the end of the 90’s, all wanted out and all did get away. Griffey wanted to be closer to home, which is understandable. Randy wanted to be with a contender, again understandable. Alex wanted money and presumably, out of Seattle. But the fact that the Mariners could not hold onto any of these three future hall of famers makes the team look kind of sad. The only Mariner they did hold onto was Edgar, and he might not make the Hall of Fame. Just think if A-Rod, Griffey, and/or the Big Unit was on the 2001 team that won 116 games. Imagine if all three of them were there. Would they have won 120 games? 125? The World Series? With a pitching staff lead by Garcia, Moyer, and the Big Unit, it’s hard to see what they couldn’t win.

2. Even in their best seasons, they couldn’t win it all.

Speaking of winning, the Mariners, as everyone knows, have never won it all. They’ve never been World Series champions. Despite having one of the most magical seasons in the past 20 years, and the best single season record in baseball history, they could not win it all. They couldn’t win it all when they had 3, possibly 4 future Hall of Famers on their team. Can you believe that? The Mariners had three, possibly four future Hall of Famers on their roster, and not just for one year, but for several seasons, and still could not win it all. That would be like the Yankees of the 50’s with Mantle and Berra not winning a championship.

And then in 2001, with the best offense, pitching, and fielding in the majors, they still could not win it all. Sure, they won 116 games, only to be defeated in the ALCS yet again by the Yankees. The Mariners play pretty well in the ALDS, winning 3 out of the 4 divisional series they’ve played in. But they have yet to even win an ALCS, going 0-3. Which leads me to…

1. They’ve never been to the World Series

The Mariners are one of only three… just three, MLB teams that have never been to the World Series, with the others being the Rangers and the Nationals. That means the M’s are in the very bottom 10% of all teams in terms of World Series history. They have none. Their lack of World Series has even been made fun of on the TV sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”. Marshall jokes that inviting an ex to a wedding (i.e. a failed marriage) to a wedding would be like inviting the Seattle Mariners to a World Series game. Yes, a guy from Minnesota who now lives in New York (albeit a fictional guy), knows and jokes about the Mariners struggles. See the video below:



So there you have it. Don’t get me wrong. I am a Mariners fan. I will always be a Mariners fan, no matter what. I just think they can be so awful sometimes, it’s somewhat comedic. Kind of like being a Cubs fan or a Lions fan. You always support them, but sometimes it’s fun to joke about how bad the team is. And the Mariners, unfortunately, have had a lot of bad things happen to them.