Going the Rounds

By Rick Anderson

For about three weeks, the Seattle Mariners’ season resembled the plot of the movie “Major League.”

In the 1989 comedy, a ragtag crew of Cleveland Indians kept winning despite management attempting to tank.

Briefly owning the best record in baseball, the M’s essentially following suit early in what general manager Jerry Dipoto termed a “step-back” season. In tuning in a Mariner telecast, viewers half-expected to see Willie Mays Hayes patrolling center field or a nearsighted Charlie Sheen striding in from the bullpen (even at age 53, Sheen wouldn’t be much of a downgrade over the current crop of Seattle relievers).

The movie probably wouldn’t have been very popular had it concluded with a string of lopsided losses and a mass exodus via trades of most of their starters.

The Mariners, unfortunately, appear to be following that downbeat script. Although they snapped a six-game losing streak Sunday, the shortcomings demonstrated during that skid make it increasingly likely that their playoff drought — at 17 years, the longest in in major professional sports – will continue and their productive remaining veterans will be shopped for prospects throughout the summer.

That’s disappointing, for a lot of reasons. Had the M’s maintained their early form, Dipoto would have faced a fascinating dilemma at the July 31 trading deadline.

Although the Seattle general manager repeatedly had stressed his commitment to the rebuilding process, he hinted that he wouldn’t break up the team’s core if they stayed in playoff contention deep into the summer.

In that event, Dipoto had the rare opportunity of potentially flipping quality for quality at the trading deadline. With an excess of veteran first basemen (Ryon Healy, Edwin Encarnacion and Jay Bruce among them), the M’s could have swapped one or two of them for relief pitchers — or possibly outfielders capable of catching routine flies.

That type of trade probably won’t materialize if the downward trend continues much longer.

In a previous column, I expressed a dim view of Dipoto’s “step-back” philosophy — a position that put me in a distinct minority of Northwest writers.

My position was that, coming off an 89-win season, the M’s could have made a legitimate playoff push this year had they added a couple of impact players to their 2018 personnel.

I also believed that the “step-back” process was more financially than competitively motivated and less viable than Dipoto and his acolytes would have you believe.

I’m sticking with my position on at least two of those three points.

It’s impossible to determine how the M’s would fare this year had they played add-on during the offseason.

The performances of the departed 2018 regulars with other clubs have been a mixed bag thus far. And one-time Seattle pitching ace James Paxton, now with the New York Yankees, has already suffered the latest of his annual injuries. Note to Yankee fans: Don’t expect Paxton to spring back into action anytime soon.

Nevertheless, many of the 2018 also-rans who invested in high-priced talent during the offseason (Minnesota, St. Louis, Philadelphia and San Diego, to name four) seem to be doing pretty well this year.

The economic part of the step-back equation is so obvious that it’s amazing that it hasn’t been covered more thoroughly.

A rebuilding team that expects to contend in 2021 doesn’t trade away a 25-year-old all-star reliever (Edwin Diaz) under club control. The M’s, however, dealt Diaz to the New York Mets because that was the only way they could also get rid of second baseman Robinson Cano and his mega-millions contract.

Dipoto’s plan seems to be acquiring a legion of prospects who will be major-league ready within two years and surround them with some economically priced role players.

This type of team-building strategy has worked occasionally in the past, most notably with Houston’s 2017 world championship club. The Astros had the foresight and good fortune to develop such all-stars as Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and George Springer at about the same time.

But I don’t see too many Jose Altuve clones within the Seattle farm system. Nor do I think the Mariners will obtain many in exchange for the likes of Jay Bruce.

More often than not, clubs who follow that process will wind up trading their best players for youngsters who may or may not be as good two or three years down the road. If the prospect develops, he too might eventually become trade bait.

That creates a vicious cycle of mediocrity while management exhorts the fan base to demonstrate patience. Mariner fans have the patience part down pat.

I’m open to changing my view on the “step-back” process. All it will take is for Dipoto to eventually pull the trigger on a “step forward” plan and demonstrate the willingness to pay the price, both figuratively and literally, to contend in the current season.

Until he does, the M’s will remain — to paraphrase Bob Uecker’s announcer character in “Major League” — just a bit outside of the playoff picture.