The Mariners' #1 Problem

Saturday night blog post!  "Get a life!" you're saying.  Well, I would have, if i weren't too busy draining vodka shots at 3am with my high school buddies in NYC last night, obnoxiously rambling about what a quality QB Russell Wilson is.  Woke up around 2pm this afternoon, felt tremendous, grabbed a bite... Now here I am, bangin' away on the tablet and gettin' pumped for watchin' the Hawks destroy the New York Giants at MetLife tomorrow.  Who's the loser, now?!  Hahaha!!

Anyways, let's talk about one of the less-obvious reasons the Mariners sucked so bad last year: their outfield defense.

We have ways of quantifying how good, or in the case of the Mariners, terrible, an outfielder is defensively.  UZR is an advanced metric that takes into account a player's range, arm strength, ability to turn a double play, etc., and converts it into a number representing the amount of runs the player saved or cost his team, versus the league average player.  (Here is where you can learn more details about UZR.)

UZR is an unreliable stat unless you have about 3 seasons' worth of data on a player, or alternatively, if you look at a full team's season's worth of outfield play, by all three outfielders (similar sample size).  So, let's do that.

Here's a link that shows you the Mariners' OF defensive value (UZR) over the past 5 seasons: click here

Here is what we immediately learn:

In 2013 the Mariners outfielders were worth an average of NEGATIVE 17.5 runs per season, each, versus league-average.  

That is awful. -15 UZR/150 is considered by the UZR creators as "awful."  The Mariners were worse than that, on average, across all three OF spots!  That was dead last in MLB last season.

-17.5 x 3 equals some number that is approximately 50. (Again, too lazy to think much.)  So the Mariners OF defense cost them 50 runs last year!

Mike Morse and Raul Ibañez were the worst offenders, but not a single player was even rated as average.  Raul's impressive slugging last year was more than wiped out by his horrendous defense.  Sad face.

And check this out - in 2009 the M's OF had a POSITIVE 18 UZR.  So the difference between the OF defensive talent in those five years was 100 runs!  A swing of 100 runs on your run differential can be the difference between a World Series winner and a team that misses the playoffs.  Easily.

So how will the team's OF defense be in 2014?  The short answer is: bad.

Jack Z has mentioned adding a SP, RP and a third catcher.  He hasn't mentioned adding another OF.  So what talent is there today, defensively?

Ain't nobody.

Corey Hart and Logan Morrison don't belong in the OF.  Their UZR's have been solidly negative, historically.

And there is a misconception that Dustin Ackley and Michael Saunders have defensive talent out there, because they are young, or something.  But no, they don't, unfortunately.  They, too, have negative UZRs historically.

Having a healthy Franklin Gutierrez would be HUGE for this team. He has hella range.  But there's no reason to think he'll be healthy this season.  Oh, and he isn't even under contract right now, either.

Nothing else to say on this - just kind of crazy to think about how much the team has fallen in this regard.  Not sure the management knows or cares.  So I as a fan, will choose to not care!

Gonna go party again now, and talk about the Seahawks.