The Bitter Fruit of Disappointment

I haven't been able to bring myself to post anything in a while.

I didn't expect much out of this team, but then when it played well, I got excited, I started to believe. That made the historic collapse of the 2007 Mariners all the more disappointing.

After the Rick White debacle, I just kind of lost interest in this particular group of Mariners, and particularly, this management team.

Reitsma, Parrish, White. All thrown into the 8th and 9th innings of close games, because they were veterans. Because they had experience. Even though every stat you could throw out there said they couldn't get the job done. Even though every time you rolled them out there, they got shelled.

Batista, Washburn, Weaver, Ramirez. All starters signed or traded for in the hopes that they could reproduce their best seasons, or in some cases the best parts of otherwise dismal seasons. With very little in the way of backup should these guys fail, and very little stomach to use what backup you did have. Despite how poorly that rotation has pitched we have given starts to exactly two other pitchers. As an organization we are loyal way past the point of it being a fault.

I fully expect that Bavasi and McLaren will be back next year. Guillen, Vidro, Ibanez in left. Washburn and Batista will be here, probably Ramirez too. We'll sign one veteran starter for way too much money, maybe try and find a taker for Richie and roll 90% of these same guys out next year. Do you think we'll be any more successful? I don't. This isn't a playoff team, it wasn't really ever a playoff team this year and its not going to be a playoff team next year. On a 107 million dollar payroll.

So I'm back to posting. I can't speak for Walt and Jason, but I'll react to news as it comes up. I've got some season in review posts coming up, and then the obligatory, if we were the GM stuff. But expect the tone to be dark for a while. Very dark.