People who make sweeping statements about baseball teams say you can’t judge a baseball team until Memorial Day. Well, yesterday was goddamn Memorial Day, so it’s time to judge the Seattle Mariners. Let’s do it by really beating this judgment conceit all the way to death, shall we?
On the charge of being a good young pitcher:
Taijuan Walker: INNOCENT for now. Walker is only 22, but everything he’s shown this season suggests he isn’t ready to dominate at the Major League level. Walker’s spring training results were misleading: The fastball is there, but the secondary offerings are too inconsistent to lean on in big league games.
Fortunately, Walker is only 22, and his velocity and movement haven’t dipped even as his results have. Hisashi Iwakuma will be back to take his spot in the rotation at some point, and Walker has the capacity to work these issues out in AAA and be damn good in the not-so-distant future.
James Paxton: INNOCENT on a technicality. Paxton and Walker get lumped together as the pitchers of the future, but Paxton is 26 years old. He’s closer in age to Félix Hernández than he is to Walker. He’s a good pitcher, even if he’ll never have elite control of his pitches. He just isn’t very young. What we see from Paxton now is about what we should expect from Paxton going forward. That’s good! He just isn’t young.
On the charge of making up for a bad bat with your glove:
Mike Zunino: GUILTY. Zunino has looked depressingly lost at the plate for stretches this year. While his power is still there, whatever gains it looked like he had made in terms of pitch recognition in spring training were illusory. That said, Zunino does defend well. He also calls a great game; despite losing Iwakuma for much of the year and having Walker look bad, the Mariners' rotation ranks amongst the best in baseball. Zunino’s pitch framing gets a ton of the credit. So does Hernández's. But Zunino’s made J.A. Happ look like an above-average starter. It’s fun to have many good qualities on a team.
Dustin Ackley: INNOCENT. Ackley is a serviceable outfielder on a team struggling to run three of those out every night, but man, he can’t hit. He just cannot hit. And at a certain point, after years of not hitting consistently, verdicts must be handed down. Ackley will never be a decent offensive weapon, much less the great offensive weapon we hoped we were getting when we drafted him. This verdict makes me sad. Ackley is still a better hitter than I’ll ever be. He can take solace in that. (Actually, don’t. I was a terrible hitter.)
On the charge of finally doing what we expected you to do last year:
Brad Miller; GUILTY in the best way possible. Did you know that Miller is in the discussion for best offensive shortstop in the American League over the past calendar year? It’s true! And he’s a serviceable defensive shortstop who can also (apparently) play all three outfield positions. Miller took a lot of guff last year for the extent to which he disappointed after bursting onto the scene the year prior. Well now he’s rebursted, and it’s great.
The bullpen: GUILTY in the most annoying way possible. Last year we thought the Mariners would be okay out of the pen and Fernando Rodney would give us heart attacks every day. Then they were really good, and Fernando Rodney only occasionally give us heart attacks. Now, with the exception of the great Carson Smith, the bullpen is just okay and Rodney is consistently terrifying. The bullpen could certainly be worse, but it isn’t a strength the team can lean into.
On the charge of being a legitimate threat to our hopes of winning the division:
Mike Trout: GUILTY. Even if the Angels don’t hang around, Trout is going to keep ruining our shit, and it’s going to be a nightmare. Most frustratingly, Trout has a habit of making Félix Hernández look like Jered Weaver, and if you’ve been following Weaver this year, you’d know how sick a burn that is. So sick. (I’m sorry, Félix, I’ll never burn you again. I promise).
The A’s: INNOCENT. What a weird clusterfuck of a season Oakland is having. They always make a run in August, so I refuse to count them out, but aside from Stephen Vogt, no one on their team is playing particularly well. Who is Stephen Vogt? He's a 30-year-old journeyman catcher. I refuse to believe a team can lean on Vogt and make the playoffs.
The Astros: GUILTY. This is weird, but Houston seems legit. They have a handful of real Major League position players, a real ace in Dallas Keuchel, and enough arms behind him in the rotation to win games. They actually are a lot like the Mariners, but with a better defense (and better luck). This is annoying.
On the charge of being the goddamn best:
Félix Hernández: GUILTY. Hernández has spent this year getting a little lucky in terms of stranding runners and a little unlucky in terms of giving up home runs. This has led to Hernández having another Hernándezy spell of Hernándezy pitching that places him near the top of the league in terms of pitching performance. Hernández will always be guilty of being the goddamn best.
Robinson Cano: INNOCENT. This Mariners team is a vintage Robinson Cano performance away from being the team we thought they might be when the season began. The bad news is Robinson Cano has looked anything but vintage this year, unless the vintage we’re talking about is an off-year for Joey Cora. The good news is that Robinson Cano could at any moment start being Robinson Cano again. Sure, it’s possible he’s fallen off a cliff at age 32, but odds are he’ll get better and the team will as well. He probably won’t fall off a cliff for another three to five more years. (We have him signed for 8? Jesus…)
Nelson Cruz: so so so GUILTY oh my god. I was tepidly in favor of Nelson Cruz’s signing when it happened; he’s Richie Sexson 2.0, with the difference being that he’s joining a team that looks like a potential contender. People forget how good Sexson was at the beginning of his Mariners tenure because of how badly it ended. Sexson was really good for a while. And Cruz is so much better. Oh my god is he mashing. Will it continue? Honestly, I don’t care. We bought Nelson Cruz to be good today, and he’s been better than good.
On the charge of being a contender:
The Mariners: HUNG JURY. Sorry guys, I still can’t judge this team. There are so many players under- and overachieving on this roster, that it could shake out a bunch of different ways. Gun to my head, I say we get hot and win 86 games and nab the second wild card slot. But I could, under threat of a second gun pointed at my head, say that definitely will not happen. Let’s circle back on this before July 4th. That’s when you can really judge how good a baseball team is.
