If you haven’t figured it out by now, Mr. Know-It-All fancies himself as somewhat of an expert on baseball. He’s Kitsap’s baseball version of Punxsutawney Phil. He comes out of hiding every year about this time of year and he starts spewing statistics and opinions that would make Bill James and other sabermetric seamheads blush.
So here’s his latest post. Today he examines the best seasons in Mariners’ history by catchers, first basemen and second basemen.
We’re gonna break this up over a few days so you can digest all of the info. Hope you enjoy it. And, remember, if you’ve an opinion, chime in. Mr. K-I-A would love to hear from you.
Mariners’ Best Seasons, by Position
Thirty four consecutive years of major league baseball in
Seattle — from 1977 through 2010. It is impolitic to
mention 1969. Bud Selig’s thieving roots are naked to the eye
and geezer anger once invoked is rarely put cleanly back in the
box. What has it all meant? The run of baseball players
from 1977 that have come first to the Kingdome and now Safeco field
encompasses the yin and yang of professional baseball. Labor
strikes and union busting to the sublime performances right here in
town. Roof caving in to the best park in baseball and homage to the
dead ball era.
It is easy to recount all the records that have been broken by
players in the American League during that period. For blogs
sake let us focus a little bit and say what have been the best
seasons by a Mariner in the last 34 years. A lot of those
have happened since 1995, but not all of them. It might be
interesting to describe the best seasons by position, for example
who had the best five offensive seasons of a catcher in Mariner’s
history. Then first base and all the way around to designated
hitter. Then finally who had the top 25 seasons, period.
The criteria used was OPS, which is the sine qua non amongst
overall offensive statistics. Simply it sums onbase percentage and
slugging percentage and is accepted by the cognoscenti amongst
baseball analysts and readers can track online with the upcoming
season.
The last point before jumping into this is to observe that the
Mariners have been bad much more often than not, but they HAVE had
some players, even in the darkest of times, well maybe except for
last year, but let us not spoil this, it is fun.
So here we go. Here’s the best season by catchers and first basemen in M’s history.
CATCHER
The top five seasons for Mariner catchers see three names:
Dan Wilson for 1996 and 1997 with OPS of .773 and .745 and Kenji
Johjima for 2006 and 2007 with .768 and .741. Remarkably similar
grouping. Lastly Dave Valle shows up for his1987 season with a
.724. None of these are spectacular years, although Wilson
had 83 and 74 RBIs in his two years and Joh had 77 and 61.
Valle 51. Valle and Wilson were the number one receivers for many
years each without either hitting much at all. Their value in the
eye of the guy writing out the lineup was in receiving and
throwing. Joh’s demise was as his hitting fell off, the defensive
aspects of his game came under intense criticism from his teammates
on the pitching staff.
During this time period the Mariners traded away the fellow who
might still be on their roster now, Jason Varitek and received a
very bad reliever named Heathcliff Slocumb. Oh, they also gave up
Derek Lowe an above average starting pitcher. Good catchers are
very, very hard to find and or spot as high school players. The M’s
drafted Jeff Clement first several years back passing on a plethora
of all stars to get him. The promise was a player that could
throw and hit lots of homeruns. From the waist down he was
not very athletic which impaired his receiving and throwing and
pitchers have been able to get him to fish at offspeed stuff and
beat him with average fastballs. He is now a first baseman with the
Pirates. I could do the blah, blah on Rob Johnson and Adam
Moore, but Johnson is with San Diego and Moore is buried behind
Miguel Olivo, who in his last dance through town was not good,
hitting .151. He did do well last year.
FIRST BASEMAN
95 Tino Martinez
1b 0.919
89 Alvin Davis
1b 0.918
2005 Richie Sexson
1b 0.906
2002 John Olerude
1b 0.896
87 Alvin Davis
1b 0.888
84 Alvin Davis
1b 0.886
79 Bruce Bochte
1b 0.882
88 Alvin Davis
1b 0.874
96 Paul Sorrento
1b 0.873
2001 John Olerude
1b 0.873
2009 Russell
Branyan 1b 0.859
97 Paul Sorrento
1b 0.857
2006 Richie Sexson
1b 0.840
2000 John Olerude
1b 0.833
85 Alvin Davis
1b 0.824
90 Alvin Davis
1b 0.818
Yes sir, lookee there! Now there are some hitters!
Did you forget how darn good Alvin Davis was? Six of the top
16 years! Why 16, well there were 16 seasons above .800
OPS. On bag at or above .400 and slug at or above .500.
He played well for a long time, then it was gone, seemingly before
it should have been. You get a measure how hard it is to play day
in and day out for six months. Players take better care now, but
Alvin wrung everything out of his gift. Great players.
The Best year was Tino Martinez’s 1995 season, where he put it all
together on a salary drive which coincided with that great year.
Even when they had a break through, the ownership had no interest
in building a team for the future as time would prove out. He went
on to have five great years with the Yankees and five good ones. In
2005 Richie Sexson had a great year, his first year with the
team.
Then there is Bruce Bochte who had the best year in a 12-year
career. Who can forget his single in the All Star game played
that year in Seattle — a hard bounder over the shortstop’s head.
The Kingdome was rocking, I can tell you. One week later playing in
front of a crowd of 8,000 my seven year old niece sitting with us
in left field would jump up and scream “Hit it out here Bochte!”
Which the whole group of people in the stadium heard.
The year before last Russell Branyan had a very good year, not so
much last year, but not bad. We’re betting the ranch on
Smoak, who looks the part, and had a great September. Light it up
Smoaky!
SECOND BASEMEN
2001 Brett Boone
2b 0.949
2003 Brett Boone
2b 0.899
86 Danny Tartabull
2b 0.837
97 Joey Cora
2b 0.800
2002 Brett Boone
2b 0.798
Five seasons, three Brett Boones, a Joey Cora and a Danny
Tartabull. Brett Boone had a season in 2001 that was so much better
than anybody else in baseball and his own teammate beat him out for
MVP, Ichiro. He had a monster year, just monster. Thirty
seven doubles, thirty seven home runs, 141 RBIs, 118 runs scored,
on bag of .378 and slug of .578. Nobody was remotely close to
that, plus he was at that point a very good second baseman.
Nobody missed A-Rod, at least not yet. One more semi-great year in
2003 and a good year in 2002. Joey Cora was the little engine
that could. 1997 was his reach for glory, it was a year unlike any
of his previous years: 40 doubles, 4 triples and 11 home
runs, he hit .300 and had a .359 on-bag, scored 105 runs.
Who was Danny Tartabull? Here is his career line: .273 avg,
.368 on-bag, .496 slug. Fourteen seasons in the majors.
His rookie year with the Mariners his line was .270, .347, .489 and
an OPS of .839. He played 23 games to start the season at
second base and made 10 errors. He did show a phenomenal
range factor through those games, but new manager Dick Williams, he
of the A’s World Series wins, said off to the outfield where the
M’s were chockfull of outfielders. Harold Reynolds took over for
him and hit .222 his first full year in the bigs. Dick might
have been right, Danny never again played 2b.
How about Harold, how close did he get to this list? His best
four years were from 1988 through 1991. His best OPS was in 1989
with a .728 and 1988 was his second best at .723. Of note for
Harold he did score 87, 100 and 95 runs in the years 1989, 1990 and
1991. Of further note, none of those three years was he a big base
stealer. He led the AL with 60 stolen bases in 1987. Interest, if
flawed career. Did not walk much and in his two best years he
was caught stealing nearly as much as he stole. I would suggest
that as a middle infielder playing on concrete and trying to steal
a lot might have taken a toll on him.
Next: Shortstops and third basemen. Hint. A-Rod and Edgar dominate these positions.
