In just over a month’s time, Jerry Dipoto has completely implemented his vision for a remade Mariners team. Gone are the days of the slugger, we’re now entering the athletic, on-base machine era. He’s gone on record many times stating the importance of on-base percentage to this team, and many of his acquisitions adhere to this philosophy.
Last night, our esteemed radio announcer Aaron Goldsmith posted a series of tweets regarding OBP in relation to Mariner teams of yore:
When thinking about some recent hitters acquired, consider this: since Safeco's first full season (2000), #Mariners OBP is T-26th #MLB.
— Aaron Goldsmith (@aaronmgoldsmith) December 10, 2015
It is absolutely possible to use Safeco Field as an advantage. Recent #Mariners moves reflect that idea.
— Aaron Goldsmith (@aaronmgoldsmith) December 10, 2015
That got me thinking about the Mariners recent historical performance and whether or not the roster Jerry Dipoto actually shows any improvement in this area.
I dove into the history books to see how well the Mariners have gotten on base since 2000. I’ve also calculated OBP+ based on the league average OBP for each year. Like other plus stats (wRC+, OPS+), 100 is league average and every point above or below 100 is equal to one percentage point better or worse than league average. Note: my calculation does not take into account park effects, only league context.
Year |
Mariners OBP |
League Avg OBP |
League Rank |
Mariners OBP+ |
Mariners Runs Scored |
2000 |
0.361 |
0.349 |
2nd |
103 |
907 |
2001 |
0.360 |
0.334 |
1st |
108 |
927 |
2002 |
0.350 |
0.331 |
2nd |
106 |
814 |
2003 |
0.344 |
0.333 |
4th |
103 |
795 |
2004 |
0.331 |
0.338 |
10th |
98 |
698 |
2005 |
0.317 |
0.330 |
14th |
96 |
699 |
2006 |
0.325 |
0.339 |
13th |
96 |
756 |
2007 |
0.337 |
0.338 |
7th |
100 |
794 |
2008 |
0.318 |
0.336 |
13th |
95 |
671 |
2009 |
0.314 |
0.336 |
14th |
93 |
640 |
2010 |
0.298 |
0.327 |
14th |
91 |
513 |
2011 |
0.292 |
0.323 |
14th |
90 |
556 |
2012 |
0.296 |
0.320 |
14th |
93 |
619 |
2013 |
0.306 |
0.320 |
13th |
96 |
624 |
2014 |
0.300 |
0.316 |
15th |
95 |
634 |
2015 |
0.311 |
0.318 |
11th |
98 |
656 |
The Mariners haven’t been able to reach base at a league average clip since 2007. In fact, last year was the closest to league average they’ve been since then. For the previous two GM’s, Bill Bavasi and Jack Zduriencik, the difference in philosophy is very stark. Bavasi began his tenure in 2004 and the team immediately dropped from the upper echelons of the league to the dregs. Beginning in 2009, the Jack Zduriencik teams took this aversion to reaching base to new levels. For the first four years of his tenure, and five of his seven years at the helm, the Mariners were last in OBP in the American League.
If on-base percentage measures the frequency with which a batter reaches base, the reverse is the frequency with which a batter is called out. The rosters that were built by Jack Zduriencik made an out 70% percent of the time on average! If you’re looking for a bellwether measurement of the offensive ineptitude we’ve witnessed over the last few years, I think we’ve found it.
In the table above, I also included the amount of runs scored by the Mariners offense in each year since 2000. There have been numerous studies about the correlation of offensive statistics to run scoring and OBP consistently has one of the highest correlations. Here’s a scatter chart showing the Mariners’ runs scored against their team OBP:
What’s the r-squared value for this data set? .9202! There’s almost a 1-to-1 correlation between the Mariners team OBP and the amount of runs they score since 2000. That’s incredible.
So what has Jerry Dipoto done to alleviate this aversion to reaching base? Here’s a position by position look at last year’s OBP and the projected OBP for 2016 (via Steamer):
Position |
2015 OBP |
2016 OBP |
Difference |
C |
0.205 |
0.309 |
0.104 |
1B |
0.301 |
0.335 |
0.034 |
2B |
0.336 |
0.339 |
0.003 |
3B |
0.326 |
0.328 |
0.002 |
SS |
0.310 |
0.306 |
-0.004 |
LF |
0.317 |
0.326 |
0.009 |
CF |
0.318 |
0.300 |
-0.018 |
RF |
0.361 |
0.314 |
-0.047 |
DH |
0.316 |
0.319 |
0.003 |
Overall, the Mariners are projected to reach base at a .320 clip in 2016. That would be the highest mark for the team since 2007. The biggest gain is at catcher where literally anyone else would have been an improvement over last year’s cumulative failure. First base should also see a major increase over last year, as Adam Lind’s projected OBP is far better than whatever Logan Morrison and Mark Trumbo were able to do last year. The biggest projected loss is in right field but that’s due to Nelson Cruz’s career year last year more than anything.
In his interview with FanGraphs, Jerry Dipoto made this statement: "What I’d like to do is make the lineup a little longer at the top, and a little longer at the bottom. I’d like to find a way to boost our ability to get on base. We want balance in the lineup." We’re now looking at a roster that has largely accomplished that goal. There are no black holes in the lineup. The floor for this roster has been raised, which should mitigate some of the failures that sunk the team in 2015. The 2016 Mariners are built to be different than any other Mariner team in the last twelve years. I think that’s a very exciting prospect.