Mariner Shortstops Throughout the Years

The other two are Alvin Davis and Buhner?

Sure, Buhner and Edgar stayed past the 2000 season, but A-Rod was one of the big three guys on the team (along with Griffey and Johnson) who were supposed to be the nucleus that finally delivered a World Series to Seattle. Fans loved Edgar and Buhner, but those three guys were the brightest stars on the team and from what I remember, in my opinion were the most popular. When Johnson left the fans still had Griffey and A-Rod to root for. When Griffey left A-Rod was it. Fan frustration over not keeping talent from leaving finally boiled over with A-Rod and he took the brunt of it. I don’t think winning a MVP would have changed that. In fact, I think winning a MVP might have hurt him more because, well he’s A-Rod and somehow I think that would have been used against him.

To be fair to the Mariners, I remember the team offering him a pretty lucrative (at the time) extension while he was still under team control but he passed. However, to be fair to A-Rod, who can blame him? He was putting up monster numbers and watching salaries explode every off season. I’d have wanted to test the market as well.

My mind doesn’t accept that idea and just outright rejects it.

I know A-Rod is a great player, but … that graph is just astounding.

What’s funny is I remember when A-Rod, Jeter, and Nomar all came up – people started talking about how shortstop had changed forever, and the all-glove, no-hit types just weren’t going to cut it anymore. HA! Shows what they knew. We were all just fortunate to see three incredible shortstops all surface at roughly the same time.

Nothing against Brendan Ryan, for sure – I love watching him in the field. But… man, A-Rod was awesome.

the M’s had tried to keep Guillen. While he wasn’t quite as good as we had hoped, we would have gone many years w/o worrying about shortstop. No Aurilia, no Betancourt… And while I love Ryan, it sounds like he doesn’t have too long, either.

rounding error? Something else?

I was a kid right during the Omar/A-Rod transition. I used to tell my dad “I’m going to grow up and be SS for the Mariners” and he used to be like “You can do it!” and then A-Rod took over and I’d say “I’m going to grow up and be SS for the Mariners” and my dad would say “Hmm. Maybe you should learn to play the outfield instead…”

Except for a small handful, elite players always seem to leave in the middle of their peak. It’s just that Griffey and Johnson were traded so we can blame the front office for them and say at least those players told us ahead of time so we could get something for them. A-Rod left as a free agent so there was no one to blame but him and no excuses to make about him leaving.
I don’t think I could ever hate him though, he’s the player that made me want to play baseball.

I classify myself as one of the people that doesn’t like him. I boo him when he comes to town, and I don’t tend to boo players. However, anytime I play a fantasy style manager game like a franchise mode in MLB the Show or the excellent Out of the Park game’s MLB mode, I almost always at least check in on the cost of trading for Alex. I do it less as he ages, but he almost always made a dramatic return to the Mariners for me. So. I’m not sure what that says about me and my opinions on A-Rod.

I didn’t like the way that Rodriguez left. It would have been one thing for him to say he took an offer he couldn’t refuse (Ok) but for some reason I felt he was trying to put down the M’s organization as well. Comments about the money not being the most important thing to him, how professional the Rangers organization was (in contrast to the M’s), and then the disastrous decision to sign the petition to move Boeing out to Texas.

Alex always seemed more worried about his image than anything else, but couldn’t get out of his own way. Plus, he came to the team during the promising years as opposed to Griffey (for example), who fought through many crappy years in Seattle. Liked him as a Mariner, really don’t like him otherwise.

Griffey broke my heart as a kid. I dealt with it. Johnson left and I was sad. Alex left and I was use to it at that point. I still thought they were awesome and loved watching them play after they left. I never was truly angry or bitter. Mostly just felt regret. I did hate the M’s FO. That was most of the focused hatred.

I’m going to go with tOPS+ because it’s easier and available.

1996: tOPS + of 22 with 2 outs and RISP, tOPS+ of 55 in September.
1997: tOPS + of 80 in September.
1998: tOPS + of 80 with 2 outs and RISP.
1999: tOPS+ of 40 in September. tOPS+ of 58 with 2 outs and RISP, Huge splits when ahead/behind (worse when behind.
2000: tOPS+ of 80 in September,

I’m know I’m picking and choosing my stats so I’m not using them to discuss whether he was actually good or bad, but my memory of A-rod was that he wasn’t that well liked when he was here period, even though he was a nice guy, mostly because he always seemed like he was choking in September and wasn’t coming through in clutch situations. I wish there was a way to compare clutch scores in September, but I don’t know how to do it. Then when he left it was just another excuse to hate him more. He did blow ass in September with Seattle, at least compared to his career norms – and even his season norms. He also always seemed (in my memory, not necessarily in actuality) to only hit home runs when the score was out of reach. I doubt that was true but anything and everything clutch related was what caused most of my own hate when I was growing up.

Also his swing, while really effective, was really ugly compared to Griffey’s. I don’t think that was in his favor either.