This Mariners Situation Is DREADFUL And Needs Help

2024 is drunk, and one of the things we've gotten as a result has been the complete flop of situations between the American League West and Central divisions. Last year, and the last several years, has given the Central a reputation of being as mid as Zendaya, and you didn't have to win many games to win the division while the West had more dominant teams. Now it's the complete opposite in the most extreme way possible. The AL Central is great, while the West has turned into Zendaya. The Mariners for a while had the largest lead by any first place team in the American League, and even the largest in all of baseball for a minute. And that's great and all on the surface, other than nice guys, who doesn't like being first? Yes, but at the same time, this Mariners team has some real issues. Issues that have been going on for a few years now, and it just seems worse than ever. If you're part of the 70% of viewers not subscribed yet, come aboard and join the wonderful people who are subscribed to the channel, as something's going on in Seattle. I've thought about this for the longest time, even dating back to 2021 when the current core this Mariners group has was starting to form. Offensively speaking, the Mariners have had some lows, some highs, but one thing has remained relatively constant, and that's the offense. Or at least the lack of any thump consistently. I kind of felt like I was going crazy for a while because I never really saw anyone else talk about this, but I always felt that Mariners games, more specifically in Seattle, always feature the Mariners struggling to get enough runs across the board. The pitching has been strong for a while now and has only been getting better, being one of the best in all of baseball right now. But I don't know, throughout the years it almost seems like the bats in Seattle are not as strong and the balls hit especially by Mariners players aren't really doing that much. And I don't mean the hitters specifically, like not being strong hitters or something, I mean literally the bats. Like it seems like whatever bats the Mariners are using, especially at home, don't have many balls fly off of them. I hope this makes sense, but I'm basically just saying that I feel like the Mariners in general, especially at home over the last few years, don't have that strong of an offense. Like recently, there was a walk-off hit by Mitch Hanager that I feel perfectly sums up how the Mariners are as an offense. They fight and claw their entire way to score runs, it's a close game most of the way, and then a little bloop into a spot nobody's at wins the game. Even when they hit a walk-off home run or something, like they did here against the Braves, it happened after they had scored nothing the entire game. In the last few years, this Mariners offense has never seemed like one that could ever bust out and score five runs in an inning or something and just go crazy. It's just weak. I mean, look at the one and only home playoff game the Mariners have played in since 2001. They didn't score a single run in those nine innings, oh wait, no, I'm sorry, 18 innings. My god, they played a game older than Bill Clinton likes his females to be, they still failed to cross the plate a single time. And that really is a perfect summary of how the Mariners offense has been, and also what's been holding them back. Shout out to the 2024 Mariners pitching staff. Every single one of those dudes deserves flowers, cake, and a PS5 for what they've done so far in spite of getting no support. These pitchers have been carrying this team harder than LeBron in the 2016 Finals, like it's actually insane. Logan Gilbert has been the ace of the rotation. You could argue the Mariners have three aces in their rotation, but Gilbert's been the ace of the aces. He leads not just the team in innings, but all of baseball with really solid numbers, so pretty clear topside young candidate at the moment. Luis Castillo has been good as expected. He could be a tad bit better, but he's still been good while having the highest strikeout rate in the rotation. Then George Kirby, pretty much the same as expected, really good, barely walks anybody. Bryce Miller, who's in just his second year is improving. I mean, overall, you really can't ask for a much better rotation. Any team would kill to have the innings in production that they've put up. And then comes a good bullpen. Andres Munoz is disgusting. That's always been the case and that hasn't changed, while the rest of the bullpen has a bunch of solid arms. Without this pitching staff, only Lord knows where this team would be at the moment. Although we do know they wouldn't have a comfortable first place lead in the AL West, despite the really disappointing seasons the rest of the division has been having so far. If you look at this Mariners offense, I mean, it honestly is gross and I mean that in the worst way. First off, and I know batting average isn't the most important hitting stat, I get it. But there's still value to having a good batting average. I mean, having a few guys in your lineup not be good batting average hitters who provide other value is fine. But when your entire lineup doesn't have a good batting average, that's an issue. Even the man himself, the face of the franchise, Julio Rodriguez has been bad. He just hasn't been anywhere remotely close to what he should be. I'm not too worried about him overall. I do think he'll be fine, but it's a large enough sample size to show that he really is struggling along with the rest of the offense. Just top to bottom, it's all stuff that'd make Tony Gwynn puke, with the entire team having the 29th lowest batting average in baseball at the time of this video, just ahead of the White Sox in last place. They're bottom tier in pretty much every important team offensive category. 26th in OPS, 25th in on base percentage, and 24th in slugging percentage. But you know what? There is something they're actually number one in offensively. It's... oh, strikeouts. The Mariners have struck out the most times in baseball. They lead the league in that. They have the 28th fewest hits in baseball. I mean, you get it. It's ugly. Really ugly. And the more you realize just how lackluster the Mariners' offense has been, it's almost like it's too bad for the team to be in the position that they're currently in. It's hard to see any pitching staff being able to keep this team winning enough with this lack of support, so it just makes it all the more impressive. But it's also all the more reason why Jerry DiPoto in the Mariners' front office, and ownership, I think you can include too, needs to do something to fix this issue. What the pitching has been able to do is remarkable, but you can't keep fully relying on them to carry the load down the stretch as much as they have to this point. And this is something the Mariners over the last few years haven't really fixed. Like I said, this has been going on for a few years now, and it just looks like 2024 is as obvious as it gets that the Mariners need help offensively. You can make the argument that this was a pretty expected outcome before the season even began. There's not too much to see from the last few years before 2024 to show that this Mariners' offense was suddenly going to become one of the best. They've been at the top of the league in strikeouts for years now, with 2022 being the one year in the last few where they didn't crack the top 10, and they of course made the postseason that year. But they've since gone on a strikeout more than anyone in baseball. They do it so much you'd almost assume it's a strategy for them. And you also have to wonder if there's something going on with the Mariners as an organization with developing hitters. We saw what happened with Jared Kelnick, who was supposed to be the next big thing, only to be unplayable and eventually traded to Atlanta where he's been pretty good this year offensively, so maybe there's something to that as well. But whatever it is, they really need some massive thump added to their lineup as they clearly just don't really have anybody that you can rely on to provide that. But at the same time, as much as they do need help from the outside, which is something some Mariners hitters have publicly said in the past, it also does start with what they already have. Julio needs to be better. Cal Raleigh needs to be better. JP Crawford needs to be better. Same like this is the Mariners' core for a reason. I mean, when your leadoff hitter is hitting 200, that's just not gonna cut it. And this isn't a leadoff type hitter like Kyle Schwarber, where he can get away with having a very low batting average because he hits so many home runs. JP Crawford doesn't hit that many home runs, so what are you getting out of JP being in the leadoff? And that goes back to the fact that JP can be a lot better. Same with his teammates, who do need to improve as much as they do also need outside help. Whether it comes via a trade, which will be what it has to come by during the season, or signing someone in the offseason, the offense just isn't good enough in the shape it's currently in. Another option they could do, which would almost kind of be funny, is just double down on the team they currently have and go out and only make their pitching better in a trade. Just full on 2014 Kansas City Royals style, where they just say to hell with it. Yeah, we have a bad offense. What about it? Our pitching will get us as far as possible. And I guess that could work. But the best thing to do moving forward not only for this year but for years to come is of course to build a much more productive offense. Things may be pretty good now, but all it will take is for Houston or the Rangers to go on a run and now you're in the backseat with a disadvantage. So time will tell what the Mariners do to fix this issue. Let me know your thoughts, thank you for watching, and I'll see you soon.