Of course! It was the coaches fault!

Bavasi and McLaren are coming back, but the pesky coaching staff has to go.

Yes, the Mariners have fired most of their coaching staff, keeping only hitting coach Jeff Pentland.

Usual platitudes in the story about what good guys they all are and McLaren needed his own coaching staff, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But they kept Pentland and fired pitching coach Rafael Chaves. Why? Easy! Because they were third in the league in batting average and 10th in ERA! Never mind the uselessness of those stats in evaluating players, let alone coaches. Look at what they had to work with?

I mean, who is Pentland supposed to have helped? Did he coach Vidro into all those singles? Ichiro, Ibanez, Guillen? Beltre? Do you think any of those guys benefited from the hitting coach? Then what about Lopez? And for god's sake, Sexson? To be clear, I'm sure Pentland is a fine hitting coach, but the Mariner's are a hacktastic group of high average, low power free swingers. When they hit for a high average, like this year, they are a mediocre offense (they were only 7th in the AL in runs scored, despite being 3rd in BA, some of that is Safeco of course), but if they only hit say .275 next year (remember average has the most fluctuation from year to year) they are going to be back near the bottom of the league in runs again.

And hom much did Chaves have to do with the ERA? Does he take the fall for Weaver and HoRam? Leo Freakin' Mazzone couldn't help those losers. Felix isn't yet Johan Santana. That's Chaves' fault? What about the bullpen? All the high priced veterans failed, but he managed to keep together a group of kids and castoffs until their arms fell off in September. Who gets credit for that? Bavasi? McLaren? Again, I have no idea if Chaves is a decent coach or not. But I suspect the Mariners are judging the coaches strictly on the ERA's and batting averages, and that's just another organizational failing the next GM is going to have to fix.