A poor month of August may have sunk the Seattle Mariners’ playoff chances. The struggles of the team’s pitching staff certainly didn’t help. Hindsight is obviously 20-20, but the team’s trade deadline activity (or lack there of) may have hurt them.
August was an eventful month for the Seattle Mariners.
And not in a good way.
Seattle finished play in July with a 63-44 record and were just four games back of the defending champion Houston Astros for the American League West lead.
The M’s also had a one-game cushion over the Oakland Athletics in the race for the second Wild Card spot.
Fast forward to today and a poor month of August has all but sunk the Mariners.
Seattle entered the month of September staring up at Houston, having fallen seven games off the pace. They were also a staggering 5.5 games back of Oakland for the second Wild Card place.
Things are even more dire today (11.5 games back of the Astros, 8.5 games back of the A’s and tied with Tampa Bay), but oh the difference a month makes for the Mariners.
Scott Seravis’ squad went 11-15 with a -38 run differential in the month despite (despite) sweeping the Astros in four games in Houston.
What was missing from the month was what had quickly become the team’s trademark—winning close games.
Seattle was only 4-3 in one-run games in August.
For reference, they have a league-leading 35 victories in one-run contests. The Brewers, with 30 such victories, are the only other team with more than 25.
The Mariners had nine one-run wins in May and eight in June, but simply couldn’t keep it up later in the season.
In fact, the team’s pitching staff often times didn’t keep them close in games.
Not Seattle’s Best
The Mariners rotation surrendered 92 earned runs in 145 innings in August.
If you’re doing the math at home, that’s good for a 5.71 ERA, a number that was the fourth-worst in the league in August.
Obviously, ERA isn’t everything where run-prevention numbers are concerned. And while the 4.60 FIP put forward by Seattle’s rotation in August was slightly more aesthetically pleasing, it sagged significantly behind fellow playoff contenders’ rotation FIPs.
Cleveland had a 2.94 FIP, St. Louis’ was 3.14 and Oakland, Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Chicago and Atlanta all had sub 3.95 FIPs.
Even the bullpen, generally Seattle’s saving grace in close games thanks to one Edwin Diaz, struggled.
Yes, the Mariners’ relief corps finished August with a middle-of-the-pack fWAR ranking (tied for 14th with a collective 0.3 metric).
But that was largely propped up by Diaz (0.6 fWAR, 1.71 FIP, 17.18 K.9 in August) and the otherworldly season he’s having.
Take him away and the shoddy house of cards comes crashing down.
Should the Seattle Mariners consider trading Kyle Seager this offseason?
Only two relievers other than Diaz had a positive fWAR in August, and one of them was Sam Tuivailala. Tuivailala’s season was cut short due to an Achilles injury and threw just 3.2 innings in August.
Outside of the duo and Nick Vincent there was near widespread struggle, including rough outings by some of Jerry Dipoto’s recent trade acquisitions.
Zach Duke’s FIP was an unsightly 5.81 in 12 appearances spread over 6.1 innings. Adam Warren’s FIP of 5.01 wasn’t much better either.
And while Alex Colome was useable (1.59 ERA, 4.31 FIP in 11.1 frames) in the month, he wasn’t exactly the insurance policy for, and compliment to, Diaz that Seattle needed in August.
At the time, the moves to acquire Duke and Warren seemed more than sensible. And while the decisions seemed smart at first, the moves to add both has blown up in Seattle’s face.
And with it has gone the ability to shorten games and rely on the bullpen more.
Seattle didn’t address the team’s most glaring need, the rotation, at all at the trade deadline.
The Mariners have utilized 10 different starting pitchers in 2018, and it’s by-and-large a top-heavy group spearheaded by James Paxton, Marco Gonzales and Mike Leake.
Paxton is a bonafide frontline starter with a higher fWAR than Dallas Keuchel, David Price and (although he’s thrown 13.2 less innings than the Seattle ace) Clayton Kershaw.
Seravis could line him up against Justin Verlander, Corey Kluber or Luis Severino in the first game and feel comfortable that the M’s would have a chance to win.
And while Gonzales (3.0 fWAR, 3.46 FIP) and Leake (2.1 fWAR, 4.15 FIP) have been solid and are quality starters, the Mariners need more quality and better options behind Paxton at the top of the rotation if they’re going to strive for being a perennial pennant chaser.
Marco Gonzales and Mike Leake vs other frontline AL starting pitchers
Gonzales: 3.0 fWAR, 145.2 IP, 7.71 K/9, 9.2 SwStr%, 1.67 BB/9, 0.96 HR/9, 4.24 ERA, 3.49 FIP
Mike Leake: 2.1 fWAR, 171 IP, 5.74 K/9, 7.8 SwStr%, 1.74 BB/9, 1.11 HR/9, 4.11 ERA, 4.15 FIP
Trevor Bauer*: 5.9 fWAR, 166 IP, 11.60 K/9, 13.0 SwStr%, 1.62 BB/9, 0.43 HR/9, 2.22 ERA, 2.38 FIP
Gerrit Cole: 5.7 fWAR, 182.1 IP, 12.39 K/9 13.7 SwStr%, 2.91 BB/9, 0.84 HR/9, 2.86 ERA, 2.70 FIP
Carlos Carrasco: 4.5 fWAR, 168 IP, 10.66 K/9, 14.9 SwStr%, 1.82 BB/9, 1.02 HR/9, 3.43 ERA, 2.98 FIP
Mike Clevinger: 4.1 fWAR, 182.1 IP, 9.43 K/9, 12.1 SwStr%, 2.91 BB/9, 0.94 HR/9, 3.16 ERA, 3.44 FIP
Dallas Keuchel: 3.3 fWAR, 185.2 IP, 6.69 K/9, 8.6 SwStr%, 2.33 BB/9, 0.82 HR/9, 3.59 ERA, 3.67 FIP
David Price: 2.9 fWAR, 158.2 IP, 9.19 K/9, 9.6 SwStr%, 2.44 BB/9, 1.13 HR/9, 3.57 ERA, 3.76 FIP
*Bauer has been better than Corey Kluber this year, and pretty much most pitchers in the American League, but given Kluber’s track record he’s still the ace in Cleveland.
Additionally, comparing Gonzales and Leake to some of the game’s elite starters like Bauer, Cole and others might seem unfair statistically, but that’s the nature of the game these days. Clubs have stacked rotations.
That’s the requisite for winning these days.
And the M’s simply don’t have it in spades like the teams ahead of them do.
Consider that Leake is the Seattle Mariners’ third starter. Cleveland trot out Carlos Carrasco after Kluber and Bauer. Houston has Dallas Keuchel as well as Charlie Morton (2.7 fWAR, 10.78 K.9, 3.66 FIP) behind Verlander and Cole.
The Red Sox have Rick Porcello (2.6 fWAR, 3.70 SIERA, 9.13 K/9) after Sale and Price.
Seattle has Leake, Wade LeBlanc (1.4 fWAR, 4.25 FIP) and Felix Hernandez (0.5 fWAR, 3.39 BB.9, 1.48 HR/9, 5.02 FIP) behind Paxton and Gonzales.
Trades
Now, on one hand, Dipoto and company didn’t have the trade capital to go out and get a frontline starter like Chris Archer, Jacob deGrom, Zach Wheeler or Washington native Blake Snell short of trading prized prospects Kyle Lewis, Logan Gilbert and Evan White.
Still, any rotation reinforcements would have helped, especially in August when LeBlanc and Hernandez regressed significantly.
LeBlanc’s early-season form proved to be a distant memory with an uninspiring 5.25 FIP in 39 inning while Felix slumped to a 5.66 FIP and 1.88 home runs per nine innings in 24 innings.
Both had .239 BABIP outlays in August as well.
There were plenty of starters traded in late July and early August from Nathan Eovaldi, J.A. Happ and Cole Hamels to Mike Fiers, Archer and Kevin Gausman.
While many of those starters were certainly out of Seattle’s price range, they could have certainly made competitive offers on Hamels, Gausman or Fiers.
In short, the upgrades were out there.
This is especially true considering rentals like Derek Holland and James Shields were available.
Holland is the owner of a 1.9 fWAR and a 3.87 FIP in 152.2 frames in what has amounted to a resurgent season with the Giants following down years with Texas and Chicago in 2016 and 2017.
Shields, while not having the best year, would still be an upgrade to Hernandez and Erasmo Ramirez with his 4.92 FIP and 1.1 fWAR in 186.2 innings. Given his performances, the price tag probably wouldn’t have been as high.
In Hindsight
The struggles somewhat speak to Seattle’s activity at the trade deadline.
The inability to pull the trigger on a starting pitcher and the flawed bullpen moves have certainly come back to haunt them.
Hindsight is obviously 20-20, but the trades certainly haven’t done the Mariners any favors.
Perhaps things would have been different if Tuivailala’s season wasn’t cut short, but he, Nick Vincent and Diaz couldn’t have done it all themselves. The former would likely have been overworked in trying to build a bridge to Diaz most days.
The lack of a rotation acquisition is particularly glaring considering an additional starter or two would have helped Seattle take more pressure off the bullpen earlier in games.
In August, Mariners relievers used in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings had the fifth-highest FIP in the league at 5.05, and also had the third-lowest strikeout rate and the 10th-highest walk rate.
Even the addition of one innings-eating starter would have helped mitigated the problem.
Moving Forward
Of course, there’s still a minute chance the Mariners can claw back into things, but they’ll have to be pretty close to perfect to get there. And that’s without mentioning catching breaks from teams ahead of them in the standings.
Heading into the offseason, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the Seattle Mariners pursue more pitching help. They could certainly use it.
