Now
my look at the Mariners 2016 team edition; I will give a breakdown of each
position however I start with giving my overall grade and that of general
manager and manager. My grade for the Seattle Mariner team is A- because they won
ten more games over 2015. Of course if they had made the playoffs the grade
would have been an A.
General
Manager Jerry Dipoto and Manager Scott Servais I give the same grade as the
team A-. I figure the grade of the team should be matched by the general
manager and manager. There could be a time where the manager grade is higher
than the general manager when the team performed better than expected. In this
case I can’t say that because this was the first year that Servais is a manager
so he was on the job training and Dipoto did give him what he needed. I believe
that Dipoto got players that the Mariners needed for the 2016. He made more
transactions than any team in the major leagues before the season began. Not
all the transactions worked out however he did go after some veterans to
bolster the roster and add depth to the organization. Leonys Martin was
probably the best acquisition that the Mariners made and will return next
season to be in center field once again. What made that trade something was
that the Mariners got him for almost nothing. Not one of the players they sent
to Texas Rangers did anything for them. In fact Tom Wilhelmsen was released by
the Rangers and resigned by the Mariners after going through waivers. Wade
Miley’s acquisition turned out to be the worst and he was traded to the
Baltimore Orioles at the trading deadline. What helped out on that trade the
Mariners were able to get Iwakuma back after the Dodgers decided to veto the
contract he signed with them. Another trade was a salary dump sending Mark Trumbo
for catcher Steve Clevenger which was a bust. The Mariners in the first trade
for Dipoto was getting Nathan Karns from the Tampa Bay Rays. Karns ended up
getting injured about the middle of the season so you could see that as a
failure too however we have to look to see what Karns may do this coming
season. Most likely he will be the fifth starter at best or starting in the
bullpen. I would give a C for his transactions however he had to make moves and
sometimes they just don’t work out.
Scott
Servais I thought did a fine job with what he did with the Mariners. He was
able to get them to ten games above
.500;
ten more wins over last season. What he did most was able to get the players to
play as a team. He wasn’t afraid to make changes when needed like putting Edwin
Nunez in place of Steve Cishek as closer. I thought he could have done more at
shortstop possibly replacing Marte with O’Malley. He may have felt that Marte
needed to play out the season. It may have been a joint decision between
Servais and Dipoto. Sending Mike Zunino to Tacoma to start the season was a
good choice. They had to bring up about half season because of the injury to
Steve Clevenger. I thought the best job he did was putting out the same lineup
almost every day. He had a lineup for right handers and left handers because
the Mariners did not have a regular player to use in left field and right field
along with first base. The question thing I had was using pinch hitters too
much. I know that he was matching up because of platooning but in my mind pinch
hitting should only occur when leading off an inning or there are runners on
base. Hopefully that will change next year. What I like most about Servais is
that at the end of the season he was not satisfied with eight-six wins. He wants
the team to make the playoffs and expects them to do so next season.
I
look forward to where Dipoto can improve the roster and what Servais can do
with those players. It would be nice if the Mariners can add three or four more
wins next season. We will look at that during the off-season.
Coming
up on my next post I will look at catcher and the pitching staff.
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