Early Predictions Confirm that Gravity is Still the Law

Yesterday over at the Replacement Level Yankees Blog, SG reported on his experiment running four different preseason projection systems (Diamond Mind, BP PECOTA, ZiPS, and Sean Smith's CHONE) through 1000-season trials in Diamond Mind to project the 2007 results.

As it turns out, not a one of these computer-generated systems give our Mariners a snowball's chance in hell of a .500 record, let alone Chuck Armstrong's pipe dream of a division title. Hey, at least we're better off than the team that's currently paying $55 million to Gil Meche.

I am having the hardest time caring at all about this Mariners team, and in large part I blame that on the roster construction that is simultaneously 1) so ridiculous that predicting even an 82-win season is wild-eyed optimism, and 2) so devoid of any apparent plan that I will have to learn something new and counterintuitive about baseball in the next year or two in order for this franchise to actually succeed at anything other than stealing cash from the wallets of fans.

This confirms the need for some gushing, openly optimistic writing here at Tatonka, and so in the days remaining before the losses start counting, we're going to unveil Tatonka's Favorite Mariners, the players we've loved over the last 20+ seasons. I'll introduce the project properly when we get going. Meanwhile, I'm not going to bother with the annual prediction of doom, because that's pretty much the consensus for this lousy team. (Oh, except for the folks over at D-O-V, but they seem to have lost their collective minds, running off toward a pay-for-blog model that screams Pollyanna. It's good stuff, but I for one remember the rapid destruction of the great M's blog that was Strikethree.com when they decided to milk it for money. Alas.)

Thank goodness for the great players we've had the privilege of rooting for, and for fantasy baseball, in which we can pretend that Bill Bavasi would be punished for his ineffectiveness at...everything having to do with his job except PR. And being bald.

Coming soon...positive, happy, fan-biased memories of the greats.