The Most Underachieving Team Ever …
Posted: December 12th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 27 Comments »
First of the BJIP Series — Bill James Inspired Posts.
I love the Bill James’ Historical Abstract. I love everything written by Bill James, of course, and I did before we became friends. But I especially love the Historical Abstract because every page seems to give me at least one idea for a blog post. Bill has one of those incredible minds where a throwaway line by him seems worthy of an entire essay.
I’ve had the Abstract out lately, been flipping through it and scribbling down ideas. We’ll try to write a bunch of these before the end of the year along with a few other random thoughts and essays. After the first of the year — well, we will see what happens then.
The first essay is built around Bill’s question: What team underachieved the most? One answer had been been the Milwaukee Braves of the mid to early 1950s, who managed just one World Series championship and one pennant despite having Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn in their primes along with — in Updike’s famous phrase — “many gems of slightly lesser water,†including Del Crandall (7-time All Star), Joe Adcock (336 career home runs), Johny Logan (four-time All-Star), an aging Red Schoendienst, along with pitchers like Lew Burdette (203 career wins, four-times won 19 or more) and Bob Buhl (twice an 18 game winner). That team could have, should have been a dynasty.
But, Bill suggests — in one sentence — that perhaps we have a more recent team that did less with its talent than any in baseball history. And I’m thinking he’s right.
Introducing: The 1995-1999 Seattle Mariners.
That’s five years of Mariners baseball. In those five years, the Mariners won two division titles — and one playoff series (at least it was against the Yankees). They played 17 games over .500 over those five years, which aint’ much. This, even though for most of that time they had:
– Alex Rodriguez, one of the greatest players in baseball history.
– Ken Griffey Jr., one of the greatest players in baseball history.
– Randy Johnson, one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history.
– Edgar Martinez, who in those five years hit an inhuman .334/.455/.579.
– Jay Buhner, who hit 40-plus homers three consecutive years.
– Jamie Moyer, who joined in 1996 and went 52-24 with a 3.70 in the stretch.
– Russ Davis, who did hit 20-plus homers three years in a row as a third baseman.
– Various other lesser (but not inconsequential) contributors such as David Bell, Freddie Garcia, Paul Sorrento, Dan Wilson, etc).
So you tell me — three of the best players ever — three sure, first-ballot, no-doubt Hall of Famers — and a whole bunch of really good players … what happened? That team NEVER won. Many people remember that the 2001 Mariners did win a staggering 116 games (and lost in the playoffs) but that was a different team — no A-Rod, no Griffey, no Unit, Edgar was 38 — that team was more about Ichiro and a spectacular Bret Boone season and a great bullpen and all that.
No, in those five years — when the Mariners had three all-time greats and lots of near-greats — the Mariners never won more than 90 games. How is that even possible?
Let’s look:
1995 (record, 79-66). This was just before A-Rod hit the scene (he did get 142 at-bats this year, which I would guess eliminated him from 1996 Rookie of the Year status). Griffey was hurt much of the year — he only played in 72 games and got 260 at-bats. But Seattle, carried by Edgar’s monster season (.356/.479/.628, 52 doubles, 29 homers, 116 walks, insane stuff) and Jay Buhner’s 40 homers and Randy Johnson’s first truly extraordinary season (18-2, 2.48 ERA, 192 ERA+, 293 K, 65 walks), managed to come back and win their first ever division title.
They lost to a truly great Cleveland Indians team in the playoffs. And with the injuries and the Mariners’ history (and I had overlooked until reading a comment that they DID beat the Yankees in the playoffs that year), this year was a success. Not an ovewhelming success like the White Sox big year or the Marlins big years or whatever. But it’s really good compared to what’s coming.
1996 (record 85-76). Now, it begins to get confusing. True enough, the pitching was not good. Unit was hurt for most of the year; he only made eight starts. The team did not get Moyer until the end of the season, and Lou Piniella still seemed very interested in putting his old Nasty Boys together in the bullpen (Norm Charlton was closer) and you NEVER want to see a manager trying to reach back for past glory.
Still, this team led the world in runs — 993 of them, the most in baseball since the 1950 Boston Red Sox (the Sox also did not make the playoffs, but at least they won 94 games). Griffey banged 49 homers, Buhner hit 44, the 20-year-old A-Rod hit 36, Edgar hit ANOTHER 52 doubles, hard-hittin’ Mark Whiten hit 12 homers in 140 at-bats. When you have four players (A-Rod, Buhner, Edgar and Junior) drive in 100 runs AND score 100 runs, you know that’s one crazy lineup.
And they lost out to a stinking Texas team that had a rotation of Ken Hill, Bobby Witt, Roger Pavlik and Darren Oliver (and an ancient Mike Henneman closing out games). The amazing thing is the 1996 Mariners never really put up much of a fight — they only finished 4.5 games out which isn’t terrible, but after April 30 the Mariners were never in first place again. All in all, this is one of the great underachieving teams ever.
1997 (record, 90-72). Well, at least the Mariners won the division and they did win 90 games, inspired by another otherworldly performance by Unit (20-4, 2.28 ERA, 196 ERA+, 291 K, 77 walks). But, again, you wonder how in the heck this Mariners team did not win, like, 110 games. True, Piniella was still insistently using Norm Charlton in 71 games despite his 7.27 ERA. True, after Unit, Moyer (17-5, 3.86) and Jeff Fassero (16-9, 3.61 ERA), the pitching was lousy.
BUT … would you look at this lineup. The Mariners scored 925 runs — again leading the league — and all nine guys in the lineup hit double figures in home runs. Griffey hit 56 home runs and finally won his MVP, Buhner hit 40, Paul Sorrento hit 31, Edgar had another Edgar year (only 35 doubles this time, but 119 walks), A-Rod came down a little bit but .300/.350/.496 for a shortstop is a non-sneezable season.
I think we viewed this team as perhaps a slight underachiever in 1997, but looking back, this should have been their year. Instead they got blistered by the Baltimore Orlioles in the playoffs (losing the first two games by matching 9-3 scores at home). Mike Mussina beat Unit twice and … well, this is as close as the Unit-Griffey-ARod-Edgar teams would get.
1998 (record: 76-85). Inexplicable. Unit went into the tank and got traded to Houston after going 9-10 with a 4.33 ERA (Unit then pulled off the original Randy Moss, “No, I’m not done, I really just wasn’t trying†act and went 10-1 with a 1.28 ERA the rest of the way). Jay Buhner hit the “Outfielders Wall of Despair,†which tends to crush power-hitting outfielders when they turn 32 or 33. He got hurt and never again had 400 at-bats in a season.
Still there was talent galore. Griffey had perhaps an even better year than his MVP season. A-Rod had his incredible 40-40 season. Edgar was Edgar again. David Segui, Russ Davis and Glenallen Hill offered some extra power. Jamie Moyer had another good year. Mike Timlin was good in the closer’s role.
And this team finished THIRD in the incredibly crappy American League West behind an Anaheim team that did not have a single 12-game winner on it (and a lineup led by Tim Salmon’s 26 home runs) and also behind a Texas team that won 88 games despite its staff 5.00 ERA.
1999 (record: 79-83). The character of the team was changing by now — Unit was gone, Griffey was about to be gone, A-Rod was only a year away from leaving, Buhner was playing like he was about 59 years old, etc. Still, they had one more year to disappoint.
Griffey hit .284/.384/.576 with 48 homers and 134 RBIs. A-Rod hit .285/.357/.586 with 42 homers, 111 RBIs and he was a very good defensive shortstop then.
Edgar was Edgar again. The guy never changed. this time it was .337/.447/.554. What a hitter. The Mariners also got a pretty good year out of David Bell. Butch Huskey popped 15 homers in limited time. Jamie Moyer had another pretty good year, Freddie Garcia won 17, Raul Ibanez showed some flashes, etc.
That team finished under .500 again. This time around, the Mariners finished in third place, 16 games back of Texas, and then the team began changing and, perhaps not coincidentally, also began winning.
I’m telling you, I think I know a little something about bad baseball teams — I’ve seen more than my share in my life. Bad baseball teams don’t have three great hitters, two good pitchers and some pretty nice contributing parts. Bad baseball teams have Ross Gload hitting clean-up. There was just something wrong with those Seattle teams. Some of it was probably timing — injuries hit at the wrong time, pitching and hitting never quite meshed (and overall the pitching was pretty bad), etc.
But it’s still hard to believe. You can look through baseball history. It’s not easy to find teams that had three historically great hitters in their primes — as A-Rod, Griffey and Edgar were those years — and one of the best starting pitchers in the history of baseball. Then, you realize they played in a mediocre division in a three-tiered league. And they STILL never made any mark at all.
I’ve always liked the Mariners, going back to the day Alvin Davis hit me in the foot with a throw and rushed over to apologize. There are a lot of ways for fans to suffer — you can have a really bad and hopeless team for a long time — like in Kansas City, Pittsburgh or Tampa. You can have a heartbreaker team that never quite wins like the Cleveland Indians or 1990s Buffalo Bills. But it’s possible that the worst kind of team is this Mariners team — a team that you KNOW should be better, you know it in your heart, but … just … isn’t.
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1995 was viewed as more than just a success. They came from 11.5 back to win the division (winning a one game playoff to get in), and beat the Yankees in the ALDS after losing the first two in the Bronx. Griffey sliding home to score the winning run in the eleventh of game 5 is probably the single best moment in Mariner history. For a team with only two winning seasons prior to this, it was pretty exciting.
95 was a treasure, as it was so new. Every other year was crushing, in one way or another.
Why? Two words: Bobby Ayala.
Joe-
You bring up tragic memories…. however you miss the point…. they didn’t lose in spite of their 4-5 great players… thye ost because they were a team of 4-5 great players and the other 21 were average to replacement level… it is impossible to win that way…
The blame for this falls on one man – Lou Piniella. The guy consistently used his worst relievers in the tightest spots. In ‘99 he played .231/.277/.300 Brian Hunter as the everyday LF over Ibanez. And they really weren’t that deep behind their 4-5 great hitters and 1-3 good starters. (Russ Davis and Butch Huskey were just average, at best, Joe.)
Well you at least mentioned my Indians. The Mariners had some great players and one dominant pitcher, but the 90’s Indians clearly outmatched them in offense and they have exactly the same number of World Series rings – oogatz.
I’ll give you ARod and Junior and throw in Edgar too, but how about Manny, and Thome and the Alomar brothers, and – oh yeah – the best hitter of the bunch, Albert Belle? And just to add a little spice there’s Lofton and Omar and Baerga before they picked up Roberto. Granted they didn’t have a Unit-type pitcher but how about a guy who lead the league in saves (Mesa)? Along with, arguably, the best bullpen in baseball at the time?
Yep, those boys broke more Cleveland hearts than Art Modell. But you make a good argument for the Mariners, but to me it’s too close to call between them and the Tribe for underachievers of the second half of the 20th century.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/AVgk
There’s your list of the worst ever ERAs by pitchers with at least 60 games in a season. So you’ve got three categories:
a) pitchers who, for obvious reasons, were traded in midseason
b) Colorado Rockies, albeit including the humidor years
c) Norm Charlton and Bobby Ayala
And why did Norm and Bobby pitch so much, year after year? Because the rest of the bullpen was mostly not much better. And the Mariners never had more than 2 or 3 good starters, so the bullpen pitched a lot.
If I may … A-Rod.
I mean, I don’t know what to add. But he’s a common link in underachieving teams. That he hits like no other player in baseball and fields wonderful is clearly masking something. That no one has been able to explain it SABR-ly just means we all aren’t smart enough. But something is up, and something beyond the mere screaming banshees of talk radio.
Joe – I agree that the Mariners of that time period were massive underachievers, but for my money no one tops the Boston Red Sox from 1976 to 1980. They had four actual Hall of Famers on that team (Yaz, Fisk, Eckersley and Fergie Jenkins), a Catfish Hunter-style Hall of Famer (Luis Tiant), an outfield comprised entirely of guys in their respective primes with genuine Hall of Fame cases to be discussed (Rice, Lynn and Evans), plus a string of solid All-Star level contributors (Rick Burleson, Butch Hobson, Bill Lee, Bill Campbell, Bob Stanley, Cecil Cooper, Jerry Remy), yet they won a big fat nothing. Didn’t make the playoffs a single year after teasing everyone with a World Series run in ‘75, then broke up the core of the team through petty bickering and mismanagement in the front office. Everyone thought that team was poised to make a multi-year run of greatness, and it just didn’t happen. Pisses me off to this day. No one will ever utter the words “Haywood Sullivan” in my presence without getting an expletive in return.
Another candidate would be the 60s Giants — Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, and Jim Ray Hart in the lineup, and Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry as half of the rotation, yet only one pennant and no WS.
Ding fries are done!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Fries_Are_Done
In response to Pete Ridges; Don’t forget that the Mariners traded for this guy in July ‘97: http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/slocuhe01.shtml. They gave up 2 very good prospects to get him. They could have used either of Lowe or Varitek and gotten much better bullpen help in 2 seperate deals. And we know Boston’s “curse” wouldn’t have been lifted in 2004 without it.
There’s another thing. It makes no sense to list how many runs the Mariners scored without listing how many they gave up. Those teams only seriously underdid Pythagoras once (1998): Exclusing the Unit and Jamie Moyer there were some truly horrible starters to go with the misfiring bullpen.
The 97 pennant winners, for example, were first in runs scored but 10th in runs allowed with a staff ERA+ of 93.
If those Mariners teams just had anybody in the bullpen… And if those Indians teams just had anybody who could win game one…
The saddest part is that in Seattle no one much cares about this. It’s a team marketed to casual fans, who mostly just come to have some garlic fries, to listen to radio announcer Rick Rizzs tell us how hard the team is trying, and to let the scoreboard tell them when to make noise. Sigh. It’s hard to be a real baseball fan here when there are so few of them. And, of the big three, only the Unit was a big-game player.
Was Bobby Ayala just unlikely?
here are his stats for 1998 on the twins and the following year, a 127 era+
1998 28 SEA AL 1 10 62 0 0 0 36 8 75.3 100 66 61 9 26 68 1 4 351 4 0 7.29 4.61 63 1.673
1999 29 TOT NL 1 7 66 0 0 0 21 0 82.0 71 43 32 10 39 79 6 5 365 2 0 3.51 4.48 127 1.341
The strike outs were down a touch, the walks were lower but it looks like hits were just falling in for him. Wonder what it would have been like to be a mariners fan that year…
If you wanna talk about disappointments, the Mets after 1986 have to be mentioned. I know they won a World Series so they technically cant be on this list, but that team had all the makings of a dynasty, and it never even came close. To make things worse, the same guy that built such a balanced attack of young stars and big-time veterans is the same man that tore to team to shreds because he wanted to the team to have more class. If you ever need a good laugh, go look up some of the trades and signings that were made by Frank Cashen after 1986. Lenny Dykstra for Juan Samuel??? Just kill me now
Were the 1968-1972 Cubs mentioned among classic underachievers? At least all the other teams mentioned got to the post-season at least once. That Cubteam had 3 HOFers (Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins, the latter 2 at the peak of their primes), a should-be HOFer in his prime (Ron Santo), All-Stars up the middle (C Randy Hundley, SS Don Kessinger, 2B Glenn Beckert) plus All-Star/ 30 HR man Jim Hickman in RF. In a 4-man rotation, they had Jenkins as the ace (6 straight 20-win seasons, the ‘1971 Cy) Ken Holtzman (who was dubbed as the next Koufax, but had to settle for being an Andy Pettitte-like pitcher), and 20-game winner Bill Hands. Their bullpen included recent “Fireman of the Year” winners Phil Regan and Ted Abernathy.
What the hell happened?
The problem with those M’s was that management didn’t understand that you can build a decent bullpen out of free players. The M’s underachieved in their pen by failing to churn through the bad relievers to find some decent ones in AAA and let go by other clubs. Instead they kept trotting out the same bad pitchers every game in middle relief. They were a fun team to watch because of their offensive productivity but were horrible in the pen and on defense. Griffey and A-rod were spectacular but everyone else was plain old bad. Buhner had no range in RF, the left fielder du jour was always bad, Davis had hands of stone at 3rd, Cora had no range at 2nd and Dan Wilson was anemic offensively and thoroughly mediocre on defense.
The M’s kept trading away good young players during this span to try and fill their holes. Jose Cruz Jr. went for Mike Timlin & Paul Spoljaric (neither were good for the M’s), Lowe & Veritek went for Slocumb (who the Sox were going to DFA in a day or so), the team had already traded Swift, Jackson & Burba away for Mitchell. Nelson was traded away in 96 for nothing.
The M’s never truly understood how to fill the holes around their great players. Maybe because the great players were accidents of being so bad the previous 10 years. Maybe because the front office really didn’t know anything about baseball.
I was there and I cared. And as bad as Bobby Ayala was, there was a bigger culprit. Two words: The Kingdome. Only other wordly pitchers (The Unit) and magicians (Moyer) could survive there. Bullpens were routinely shredded, and it’s tough to win consistently when everyone knows both teams are likely to end up with runs in double figures. Though I have to admit, it doesn’t really explain why they couldn’t beat the Rangers……..
metz: “The M’s never truly understood how to fill the holes around their great players. Maybe because the great players were accidents of being so bad the previous 10 years. Maybe because the front office really didn’t know anything about baseball.”
The real sad thing is as a Mariner fan, the front office still doesn’t know anything about baseball. They seem to trade really good talent for players likely to be released. I dont understand it.
Josh writes:
“If I may … A-Rod. I mean, I don’t know what to add. But he’s a common link in underachieving teams.â€
You’re confusing correlation with causation. A-Rod has been on several underachieving teams, true. But to suggest, despite his way-above-average hitting, defense, and base-running, that he is somehow *still* the cause is silly. Teams win ballgames because individuals produce runs on offense and prevent runs on defense. A-Rod does both very very well.
By the line of reasoning employed in the quote above, the following would seem reasonable. There are a lot of people who live in KY who have lung-cancer. Therefore, KY causes lung-cancer.
Um, probably not.
As a Phillies fan, this piece is a little scary.
Aside from the Gillick connection, the Phils have a great core since ;02 (Abreu, Thome, Abreu, Rollins, Howard, Utley, Hamels, Myers) but have suffered because of fringe players (Bell, Mesa, Abbot, Cormier, Ed and Pat’s bullpen retreads…)
And the Phils have been in the weaker leaguer the entire time. The big 5 are all locked up through ‘09, so they aren’t done, but I’m starting to worry.
It’s impossible for anyone who didn’t watch this team closely (I was living on Orcas Island and caught a couple games a week on tv) to ever fully comprehend how disheartening a lousy bullpen can be on an otherwise great team. Ayala and Charlton were rays of light.
I lived in the Seattle area from 95 – 00 and watched a lot of those Mariners games. I haven’t done any research, but I remember cringing whenever a starting pitcher was pulled. I would like to know how the Mariners bullpen looked during those years. When the brought in Bobby Ayala the stands would start emptying because we knew all was lost.
Look at opening day 1998:
5.2 innings from the starter and he left with a 3 run lead
Ayala gives up 3 earned in 1 2/3 while looking very bad
Fossas walks his only batter and takes the loss
Timlin gives up the 2 run double that gives the Indians the lead and win
It just sucked to watch anyone warming up in the bullpen. Ayala had 62 appearences, 75 innings and lost 10 games. It just broke your heart when the starter was showing signs of wear.
Oh, and I love baseball-reference.com. I was at this game and the stats validate why I felt an impending sense of doom whenever the M’s didn’t have more than a 5 run lead.
Hopefully, this discussion is still going on. According to Phil Birnbaum, the Mariners were very unlucky during the late 90s. Their big problems? The lineup didn’t score as many runs as would’ve been expected from their batter’s stats. If you go by his study (at philbirnbaum.com) the killer was that the pitchers underperformed their expectations.
“Top” ten disappointing seasons on these Mariner squadrons:
1999 SEA AL P Fassero, Jeff -56
1995 SEA AL P Bosio, Chris -25
1996 SEA AL B Sojo, Luis -23
1999 SEA AL P Cloude, Ken -22
1997 SEA AL P Martinez, Dennis -22
1997 SEA AL P Charlton, Norm -21
1997 SEA AL B Rodriguez, Alex -20
1996 SEA AL P Hitchcock, Sterling -18
1997 SEA AL P Sanders, Scott -18
1998 SEA AL P Johnson, Randy -17
“Top” ten disappointing players from that Mariner era:
P Cloude, Ken -29
P Fassero, Jeff -27
P Bosio, Chris -26
P Martinez, Dennis -22
P Hitchcock, Sterling -18
P Hurtado, Edwin -18
P Sanders, Scott -18
B Fermin, Felix -17
P Lira, Felipe -16
P Suzuki, Mac -16
9 pitchers and 1 hitter.
Here’s the flip side:
B Martinez, Tino 14
P Nelson, Jeff 16
B Buhner, Jay 17
P Abbott, Paul 18
B Sorrento, Paul 19
P Halama, John 21
P Johnson, Randy 24
B Martinez, Edgar 35
P Moyer, Jamie 41
Opening day..1996…
Randy Johnson started & was tiring with a lead later in the game….
Bobby Ayala gets up & starts warming up…. The crowd starts booing! Even before he gets in the game.