The twelfth in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .274/.346/.465
Actual Line: .227/.295/.360

Disastrous seasons aren't supposed to coincide with a 1.131 OPS in AAA, but I think it's fair to say that a disastrous season is exactly what Jeff Clement had in 2008.

After turning the corner and coming on strong in Tacoma in 2007, Clement kicked off 2008 hotter than vintage Eliza Dushku in a hockey jersey, collecting twice as many walks as strikeouts through the first month and batting nearly .400 on his way to a late April promotion. Having made the move while still hovering around .500, the Mariners intended to use Clement's scorching bat to ignite a slumping offense in need of new blood. Instead, though, Clement struggled to produce, collecting only eight hits in 15 games without a single home run before getting sent back to the minors in May. Whether or not the demotion was justifiable is an open question - at the time, Jose Vidro was just as big a pile of crap - but that's a separate matter, and the bottom line is that, when given his first trial, Jeff Clement didn't take advantage.

So Clement spent another month beating the snot out of the ball in Tacoma. Where his April was partially inflated by a high BABIP, over 109 PAs in May and June Clement slugged a legitimate .670, clubbing nine homers while hitting 50% fly balls. Once again he demonstrated that he had nothing left to learn at the plate in the minors, so once again he got promoted to the big leagues, this time in an effort to introduce more youth to a ballclub going nowhere.

And once again, he struggled. Things weren't quite as bad this time as they had been earlier, but he was still striking out too often, and he didn't hit a home run after July 13th. His .245/.298/.394 batting line over the course of his second extended stint gave him a total .655 OPS on the season, and while there were occasional glimpses of power and discipline, the impression he left was that of a young player in no way shape or form prepared to hit against Major League pitchers. It was a disappointment of a big league campaign that ended with Clement getting a knee procedure for the second time in three years.

I don't know that things really could've gone much worse for Clement in Seattle. Just consider the three elements of his game:

• OFFENSE: Clement's plate discipline disappeared when he got to the big leagues. His swing rate on balls in the zone was below-average while his swing rate on balls out of the zone ranked in the upper fifth. In other words, while Clement was swinging the bat with normal frequency, he wasn't swinging at the right pitches. He went fishing after too many sliders, struggled with changeups, and did his best to simply ignore curveballs. When he made contact, he was able to hit the ball with some degree of force, but neither his home runs nor his line drives showed up nearly as often as his minor league performance would've predicted. It was an all-around bad year for a guy who had the tools to be a whole hell of a lot better.
• DEFENSE: A project behind the plate since the day he was drafted, Clement still didn't look very comfortable this past season. While there's no way for us to quantify how well or how poorly a guy calls a game, Clement had trouble in every other relevant area, from receiving the ball to fielding pop-ups to throwing out runners. His footwork remains all kinds of bad, and while there was improvement, there wasn't enough.
  
• HEALTH: Two knee surgeries in three years. From the press release:
  

  Mariners medical director Dr. Edward Khalfayan will perform the arthroscopic procedure to repair a lateral meniscus tear and a medial meniscus tear in Clement's left knee...It is believed the tears were the result of normal wear and tear, not any one traumatic incident.

  Clement is 25 years old, and he's already had two knee operations to address issues brought about by the wear and tear of his everyday job. It's worse that these tears aren't the result of a traumatic accident, because at least those are accidents. Being  the result of wear and tear is an indication that Clement's body is unable to withstand the rigors of his work.

There can't be a Mariner coach or fan in the world who feels good about Jeff Clement's 2008. The season provided so many more questions than answers, and that's the last thing this team needed from a guy they've been counting on to help pull them out of the cellar. Jeff Clement was supposed to be an established, successful big leaguer by now. Instead, four years into his professional career, he's a questionable bat without a position.

The "questionable bat" is the lesser of Clement's main problems going forward. While there's no ignoring his struggles, it's not fair to evaluate Clement's offensive ability by looking at the poor numbers he's put up in the big leagues so far. He does have a decent eye, he does have good power, and he does have a pretty high ceiling. These are irrefutable facts. It's just that what Clement did in Seattle this year served to squelch the excitement generated by what he did in Tacoma. It's not unusual for even the best young hitters to come up and have some trouble during early exposure, but after seeing Clement look the way he did, it's worth considering that he may be more flawed than many thought. At 25, he needs to start hitting. If it turns out that his peak might be, say, an .850 OPS instead of a .950 OPS, then that's a big deal.

The other problems are interrelated, and far more significant. Jeff Clement is not a good defensive catcher. He's not a bad defensive catcher. He's a lousy defensive catcher, and his work there has on multiple occasions taken a toll on his health. There was already a good discussion on this matter two weeks ago, so I won't go into detail, but here's what it comes down to: Clement is way, way more valuable as a catcher than as a first baseman or DH, and if he isn't able to stick behind the plate, then that takes a lot of the shine off the apple. An average defensive catcher only needs to hit like Rickie Weeks to be a 3 WAR asset. An average defensive first baseman needs to hit like Carlos Beltran. A DH needs to hit like Chase Utley. Clement was a high draft pick because he could swing a solid bat as a catcher. His future value rests on the fate of both of those characteristics.

It's also worth mentioning, as Dave pointed out in that earlier thread, that being a catcher may be holding Clement's bat back from further development, which only complicates things even more. It makes sense; the more time you spend trying to make a guy better at a defensive position, the less time he has to work on his hitting. On this matter we can't be certain either way, but it is a distinct possibility, and that clouds the picture.

Looking ahead, Jeff Clement has a lot of work to do. I don't know how the team sees things playing out, but it seems to me that 2009 should be the most significant season of Clement's career. If he wants to preserve his ceiling as a potential star, he needs to improve his footwork behind the plate, put up something at least approximating a league-average batting line, and stay healthy. He needs to prove that he can be an all-around effective player while remaining as a backstop, because that's something he has yet to do, and at 25, he's running out of chances. You can only give a guy so long of a leash before you're forced to go in another direction.

If Clement's able to stick behind the plate, that's awesome. That's great for him and great for the team. If he's not, then that's worse. Unfortunately this is the way things appear to be leaning. Honestly, as much as I'm hoping for improvement, I just can't foresee too many scenarios in which Clement's still a regular catcher in 2010. He's had so much time to get better already that the odds are stacked against him.

Which is all right, I guess, so long as you're able to let go of what might have been. If Clement has to move to first base or DH, he can still be a valuable player. He just ends up with a lower ceiling than he had as a draft pick. Even so, there's nothing wrong with having a good hitter with minimal positional value. Clement would simply have to make sure to bring his bat more often than he did with Seattle in 2008.

2009 could use a good Jeff Clement, and Jeff Clement could use a good 2009. It won't be a season that makes or breaks his career, but it will likely be a season that determines whether or not he ever turns into what we wanted him to be. The organizational outlook is just so different with Clement behind the plate than it is with him at first or DH. Say hello to one of the most important storylines of the year. Jeff, the team has given you everything up to this point. Now it's your move. Prove that you belong.

The eleventh in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .263/.320/.459
Actual Line: .202/.250/.342

Back when the whole Bedard trade went down, a lot of people who were in favor of the move tried to reassure the skeptics by pointing out that, while we may have lost Adam Jones, at least we still had an approximation in Wlad Balentien.

I don't think 2008 was exactly what those people had in mind.

While Jones was off in Baltimore establishing himself as a league average regular with solid defense, Wlad tore through AAA but had all kinds of struggles upon getting promoted, posting numbers that made him arguably the worst player in the Majors among guys who got semi-regular playing time. His first extended cup of coffee didn't go well at all, to the tune of a .611 OPS, and after going down to Tacoma for two more months of seasoning, he came back up and somehow did worse than before. It was a summer of extremes for Wlad, but none of the good ones came in Seattle, and at the end of the year I found myself reflecting upon the fact that, while with the Mariners, Wlad didn't do anything well.

There's not an advertising professional in the world who could sell Wlad's 2008 with the M's as anything other than a total failure. He didn't hit for average. He didn't get on base. He didn't hit for much power. He didn't play good defense. He didn't make contact. He didn't show any discipline. He didn't hit righties. He didn't hit lefties. He did have that big extra innings home run against the Angels, but outside of that longball, I guess you could say that it was a season-long learning experience. Even his prodigious strength only showed up on a handful of occasions, as his HR/FB% wound up around the same level as guys like Mark Teahen and Ramon Hernandez. Wlad showed that he can a few home runs, but after watching him hit 18 in 233 ABs with Tacoma, most of us expected more than seven in 243 with Seattle. I wonder if that wasn't the biggest disappointment of all.

Put simply, it was a season that everyone would like to forget. But at the same time, it was also a season that told us an awful lot about Wladimir Balentien, and how he profiles as a player. While the performance was terrible, the information we were able to glean from it is invaluable.

• Wlad's probably never going to be known for his defense. He's not exceptionally slow, and he has a bit of experience playing center field, but his instincts aren't quite there and he runs funny routes. His career upside is probably as an average defensive LF, and it's likely that he spends a lot of time in the red.
• Wlad's probably never going to be known for his ability to make contact. Of this we've been aware for a while, but even during his dual hot streaks in Tacoma, he was still missing the ball with a quarter of his swings. He's going to strike out, and he's going to have trouble when he falls behind in the count.
  
• Wlad's probably never going to be known for his discipline. He may end up somewhere around average, but he's a free swinger at heart, and that can be incredibly difficult to turn around. He'll draw a few walks if he's hitting. If he's not hitting, he'll swing himself into a mess.
  
• Wlad's probably never going to be known for his batting average. The average BA among big leaguers with contact rates at or below 75% last year was .253, and while there were a few exceptions in there, those are guys with remarkable talent, like Ryan Ludwick and Josh Hamilton. I'd be ecstatic if Wlad ever broke .270.
  
• Wlad's game will be his power. If only by process of elimination. But the power is real. He was able to post an above-average HR/FB% in his first season in the Majors, and he doesn't turn 25 until next July. This is a guy who hit 16 homers as an 18 year old in the AZL. Wlad's version of solid contact is entirely different than, say, Willie Ballgame's, and he should be able to settle in as a threat to hit 20-30 balls over the fence, if not a few more.

When you put it all together, you have a variation of the standard slugging corner outfielder skillset, with maybe a little better defense than usual. Which isn't too different from the consensus opinion of him a year ago, except that now people have a better understanding of the risk that always accompanies prospect-related optimism. When you see a guy as young as Wlad hitting well in the minors, it's tempting to look at him and think "future star." Wlad's 2008 season, then, serves to remind us of the folly inherent in evaluating prospects by their ceilings.

So how good or bad of a player are we dealing with, here? Let's say, for the sake of simplicity, that Wlad's true talent is as a -5 run defensive left fielder. Assuming a .335 league average wOBA and 85% playing time, here's what Wlad would have to do at the plate to be worth ~each amount of wins:

0 WAR: .320 wOBA
1 WAR: .340
2 WAR: .360
3 WAR: .380
4 WAR: .400
5 WAR: .420

Keep in mind that 2 WAR is just about a league average player. In order to be league average, Wlad would have to hit like Rick Ankiel or Carlos Guillen. In order to be a solid asset, he'd have to hit like Ryan Braun. In order to be a star, he'd have to hit like David Wright.

How likely are those outcomes? 5%? 10%? 25%? Those are all damn good hitters. Wlad's talented and all, but is he that talented? What if he just ends up hitting like, say, Marcus Thames? Or maybe Wily Mo Pena? Then he's not really helping very much, if he's helping at all. And that's obviously not a guy worth building around.

Personally, I'm just not a big fan of Wlad's type of player. They can have exciting ceilings, but rarely do they get there, because the probability distribution is skewed against them. Most of the time they end up as something less than what people imagined, and while some of them might retain their name value because of high HR or RBI totals, few of them actually contribute very much to the greater cause. Slugging corner outfielders who don't do much else just aren't really as valuable as people think.

So with all that in mind, 2009's going to be a big year for Wlad. Potentially career-defining, if you will. If he wants to establish himself as an important part of the future, he needs to put his struggles behind him and come out of the gate flashing some kind of improvement. I won't ask that he start hitting from the get-go, but he needs to look like he has a clue in April, punish a few breaking balls in June, and get into a groove down the stretch. He needs to hit at some point, and he needs to hit over a sustained period of time, because a young player only gets so long to make excuses, and Michael Saunders is on the way. In short, if Wlad wants to go on to be a good player, he needs to get started next season.

As is the case with Jeff Clement, the time is now for Wladimir Balentien to show what he can do. Prospect sheens don't last forever. Realistically speaking, 2009 won't be the last chance for either player, but it would behoove both of them to treat it as such. Impress me.

The tenth in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .255/.315/.307
Actual Line: .279/.377/.285

And so we can finally put an end to the dreadful grit and hustle jokes that never seemed to stop.

As years go, 2008 could've been kinder to Mr. Ballgame. Never a guy who took much of a shining to his role as a backup, all Willie's ever wanted is more playing time, but playing time he didn't get. His pinch-running job was usurped by Miguel Cairo, which left him scrambling for work in other areas, and while he was able to get a little early time in right field, he started in just ten of the team's first 62 games and didn't get semi-regular action until the season was beyond the point of irrelevance. Then he injured himself running out a grounder in early August and never came back. Willie tried to return, but the team resisted, and come October Willie found himself going into free agency having made the fewest appearances of his career. There are a lot of ways to go into free agency, but that isn't a very popular one among the players looking for cash.

It wasn't just the lack of playing time that frustrated Willie, either - there was also the whole bad hitting thing that kind of got on his nerves. Willie's never had the most potent bat in the world, but it was what he did between 7/18/07 and 7/8/08 that nearly got him into the history books. For over this period of time spanning 356 days, 193 plate appearances, and 87 games, Willie went without an extra-base hit. No doubles. No triples. Certainly no homers. All 42 of Willie's hits during that stretch were singles, including one on July 1st that would've easily gone for a two-bagger had it not won the game. Instead it got marked down as a single, as Raul Ibanez was somehow able to outrun Willie in a 60 yard dash. As the games mounted it felt like things were meant to be, and while Willie would sadly get his first extra-base hit nine days later and fall short of the record, that extra-base hit would be his only extra-base hit, and that wound up tying him with Felix Hernandez. Among players with at least 150 PAs in a season, I believe Willie's .006 isolated power is the lowest of all time.

.279/.377/.285. It's comical is what it is. I remember a bunch of years ago I was amazed that Tom Goodwin's OBP could top his SLG. Not only did Willie's OBP top his SLG - it topped it by damn near a hundred points. It was a page right out of the Reggie Willits playbook, except instead of standing still, Willie would swing sometimes and foul the ball off. It was incredible to watch, because here we had one of the most feeble hitters in the league, and pitchers couldn't throw him consistent strikes. That Willie was able to draw his highest walk total while appearing in the fewest games of his ML career is nothing short of miraculous.

That batting line isn't sustainable going forward, of course. Willie's swing rate at balls out of the zone is only slightly better than the average, so his walk rate will come down, and no matter who you are, it's basically impossible for your power to suck that bad, so his IsoP will go up. His true talent at this point is somewhere around .270/.330/.320, sort of the standard line for a player of his ilk. But no matter who he is or what he does from this point on, nothing will ever change the fact that, in 2008, Willie Ballgame posted one of the strangest slash lines in baseball history. So this season wasn't a total loss.

It's hard to believe that Willie turned 31 last month. It's a combination of effects, I think; for one thing, it still feels like his crazy September debut was just yesterday, and for another, in my head white utility players are always little 26 year old balls of spunk. It's weird to think of Willie as being past his prime, whenever the hell that was. But he is, and now that he's a free agent, he gets to try and pitch himself as an experienced jack-of-all-trades who can fill in at almost any position in a flash without embarrassing himself or the team. And while that's all perfectly true, he doesn't possess the most impressive skillset, and he's highly unlikely to ever land the kind of job he thinks he's capable of doing. There just aren't that many teams willing to throw a lot of regular playing time at a 30+ year old career utility guy who's never once demonstrated the ability to not be bad.

For Willie, I wish him the best of luck, since he never played enough to be a real problem. Hopefully he's able to get used to the fact that he'll always be seen as a backup. For us, things are sure going to be weird without our little Ignitor. Say what you will about how much crap we gave Willie over the years, but (A) it was directed more at Willie's irrational supporters than at Willie himself, and (B) it was all in good fun. The whole time, it was all in good fun. I mean, okay, maybe there were two or three instances in which people got really upset with him, but that's nothing compared to some of the seething rage we've seen pointed towards guys like Horacio Ramirez and Carlos Silva. Willie's just always been there for the easy joke when we needed a break from legitimate anger, and now that he's gone, I'm not sure who's going to take his place. Reegie Corona? I guess we'll have to wait for Rick Rizzs' cue.

Willie Ballgame's not a good player. He's never been a good player, and he's never going to be a good player. But for the past six seasons, he's been a constant source of humor through some of the darkest days in the history of the franchise, and for that I couldn't be more thankful. I'm going to miss you, little buddy. You and your laughable talent. The last thing you ever did in a Mariner uniform was get hurt while running your ass off, and I imagine neither you nor I would have it any other way.

The ninth in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .280/.355/.357
Actual Line: .234/.274/.338

If 2008 was the complete opposite of 2007, then Jose Vidro was the poster boy. After benefiting from a run of good luck two seasons ago that gave him the superficial appearance of being decent, last year Vidro's regression arrow overcorrected itself, and in so doing brought its host body back to Earth with a resounding thud, or thwock, or some other funny noise. Vidro came to the plate 308 times last summer, and among the 281 players with at least 300 PAs, his BA ranked 254th, his OBP ranked 278th, his SLG ranked 237th, and his wOBA* ranked 266th. He was 13 runs below average at the plate while logging only a half season of work. He did this as the team's designated hitter. If somebody were to ask you to explain what went wrong with the Mariners last year in 50 words or less, there are countless different directions you could go with your answer, but the easiest and most telling response would be pointing out that our DHs as a unit were out-hit by Paul Bako.

As we watched Vidro's long and successful career as an everyday player come to a close, there was no last gasp. There was no grand finale. There was only a whimper. Vidro's average never rose above .239, and only twice did he record extra-base hits in consecutive games. And as if his numbers weren't already embarrassing enough, on 13 occasions he was slotted in to bat cleanup, at which point even more attention was paid to his lousy performance. By the time the break came around, it had become apparent to everyone that Vidro was counting numbered days. It wasn't a matter of if he'd be cut; it was a matter of when, and how quickly.

The day finally came in early August. God only knows what Vidro's been doing since he got his release, but he sure as hell hasn't been playing any baseball. Two years ago, Bill Bavasi traded for a bat to help make the Mariners competitive, and today that bat can't find any work. The way the whole Vidro saga played out speaks so many volumes about our old leadership that someone ought to build a memorial library.

For whatever it's worth, Vidro wasn't as bad last year as his raw batting line would suggest. His .245 BABIP in no way did justice to his line drive rate, which remained the same as it was in 2007, and a few more grounders found gloves than one would ordinarily expect. If you apply a little healthy regression, Vidro's line jumps from .234/.274/.338 up to .269/.307/.373, which - well it's a lot better anyway. But here's the problem: not only is that still totally awful, but we also never should've had to watch him struggle that often in 2008 in the first place. Applying the same regression process to Vidro's 2007 spits out a .277/.349/.343 performance, which is down quite a bit from his raw .775 OPS. And that's a much better reflection of Jose Vidro's true talent. Anybody could've seen that Vidro was set for a major statistical decline, and a smarter GM might've braced himself by finding another bat and putting Vidro on the bench, but Bavasi kept on going with his blissful ignorance until his ignorance was no longer nearly as blissful. I know it's hard to reduce the role of someone coming off a .314 season, but when it comes to flukes, you have to be proactive. When Vidro's luck didn't return for a second helping, the Mariner offense was doomed.

At this point, with his regular career dead and buried, all Vidro has left to look forward to are a few years spent scrounging for bench gigs and NRIs. The end is seldom flattering. Meanwhile, we look to close a shameful chapter in Mariners history, a three-year period during which the only competent DH the organization had was assigned to play left field. Carl Everett was a bust, the Ben Broussard/Eduardo Perez platoon was a bust, and Jose Vidro was a bust. And while Vidro chose a strange path to follow, at the end of his time in Seattle, he'd amassed a batting line of .285/.344/.374 over 232 games, which you may recognize as being almost exactly what we expected him to do. Jose Vidro was not a surprise in 2007,  nor was he a disappointment in 2008. Jose Vidro was what we thought he'd be, and while his numbers bounced around in every direction, his underlying skillset remained the same, and it wasn't a skillset built to DH. It was hardly a skillset at all.

Good riddance to you, Jose, and to everything you signified. Our disappointment with the trade was never about Chris Snelling or Emiliano Fruto; it was about you, and how you weren't in any way equipped to do the job you were given. And while we hated the deal at the time, it is only now that we are being run by a competent front office that we can truly appreciate just how stupid of an acquisition you really were. Turns out old, broken-down middle infielders don't make the best DHs after all. Who knew? It's good to learn lessons.

I can't believe we survived this.

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The eighth in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .253/.340/.441
Actual Line: .232/.348/.304 with Seattle, .220/.308/.326 overall

In his rookie season, Brad Wilkerson batted .205/.304/.325. Last year, he batted .220/.308/.326. I'm not saying his career is totally finished, but we are a people who yearn for symmetry, so it wouldn't really come as a shock. That's pretty much the perfect bookend.

I'm not sure what there is to say about Wilkerson. He was here for a month, he sucked, and he went away to suck somewhere else. It's not like we didn't all know from the beginning what we were getting ourselves into. Wilkerson was a low-reward/medium-risk free agent at whom Bavasi only looked because he was one of the last right fielders left on the market when the team had a need. His upside was as a league-average corner guy with decent power and patience, and his downside was as a $3m doorstop. After 68 trips to the plate, it became apparent that he was a doorstop, so he was sent off on his doorstoppy way, never to be thought of again. His only legacies are the expression "Bradtastic!" and a confirmation that Seattle is where careers go to die.

Wilkerson was advertised as a guy with two tools, but when a broken-down body sapped him of his power, only the ability to draw a walk remained, and even that started to disappear down the stretch as pitchers came to realize he no longer posed a threat. If he is to find another Major League job, it'll be because his agent pitched him to the Braves as a pinch-hitting alternative to Jeff Francoeur should he ever come up in a clutch situation against Barry Zito. Other than that, I just can't picture an organizational meeting where everyone's kind of sitting around the table quietly and looking at each other and then the assistant GM perks up and says "I know! Brad Wilkerson!" Unless they're playing No-Talent Pile Of Crap Trivial Pursuit. Sometimes meetings are fun.

Brad, you had a nice little run there for a few seasons, but unless something crazy takes place, it would appear that your time as a useful player in the Major Leagues has come to an end. We shall remember you only as a warning for what could befall Russell Branyan. Come 2010, you will mean nothing to us.

The seventh in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .337/.385/.434
Actual Line: .310/.361/.386

Honestly, it wasn't that bad of a projection - the only significant difference is that, instead of going ten points over his career BABIP, Ichiro instead fell twenty points under it, which dragged down his final line. There was also a bit of a discrepancy in the power department, but at the end of the day, four missing doubles and three missing homers aren't really meaningful. Players vary. That's well within the range of error, no matter who you're talking about.

Looking back on everything, it'd be hard to compare Ichiro's year in 2008 to his other seven and not come away thinking that it was the most trying all-around season of his career. For one thing, his slugging percentage was the lowest it's ever been by thirty points, and his overall offensive production was as low as it was in 2005. For another, he got off to a slow start and didn't really get going until the team was out of contention. The fact that the team dropped out of contention as quickly as it did was another factor - Ichiro just wants to win, and the collapse of a highly-touted roster around him must have been psychologically devastating. Like anyone who's either watched or been a part of this team over the years, Ichiro's sick of disappointment, and it couldn't have been easy coming back to the ballpark every day when almost overnight your dreams were dashed.

Those weren't the only things that made 2008 especially difficult for him, though. There were whispers of certain strong opinions of Ichiro in the clubhouse, and whether or not things ever actually boiled over, there was almost undoubtedly some degree of jealousy and resentment present in the room. He was always kind of by himself. On top of that, over time he started to catch flak from fans and the media for not pulling his weight on the field or off of it, and Ichiro gave some of these mouths more material when he made a few uncharacteristic defensive mistakes down the stretch. People were calling him overrated. People have been calling Ichiro overrated since he first broke into the big leagues, but this time, some of those statements were coming from the same fanbase that had previously held him up on a pedestal. By the end of the season, Ichiro seemed less like an icon and more like a target.

It was tough, and it was tough in every single way. It certainly didn't help that Ichiro's favorite manager got fired in June. What did he have to enjoy? What could he possibly have looked forward to? As bad as it was to watch this team, and as torturous as it was to try and write about it every day, I can't for the life of me imagine how beaten down Ichiro must've felt the whole time. It's a wonder people weren't killed.

Fortunately for Ichiro - fortunately for everyone - the season ended. The season ended, and almost as quickly as people started to criticize him for underperforming they tried to erase their memories of the past and turned their eyes to the future as a new and more forward-thinking front office was installed. Brighter days had arrived in the Pacific Northwest just at the onset of winter, and all of the things that had been spoken and published about Ichiro during the season were written off as just part of the crash landing. So 2008 was a rough year for Ichiro. So what? 2008 was a rough year for everyone. Zduriencik knows what he's doing. All hail Zduriencik!

It's funny the way a little splash of optimism can make such a world of difference. Ichiro isn't going anywhere. We know this to be true. He's a Mariner now, and for all intents and purposes he's a Mariner for life. And where last season these reminders were a frequent source of conflict (No! Trade him! Trade him now! While he might still have value!), now by and large we're back to simply taking this knowledge for granted. Ichiro's here for a long time, and people are much more willing to accept that today than they were three or four months ago. Because they aren't as angry anymore. Fans of bad teams may focus their frustrations on the team's best players, but fans of bad teams with a direction tend not to be frustrated. Cooler heads prevail, and cooler heads are able to see through the negative hyperbole characteristic of bad seasons past.

Ichiro's sticking around, and at least for the next few years, I think he's going to be fine. He hit .351 in 2007 and .310 in 2008 without anything really changing. Diagnostically, he was the same player. Same swing rate. Same contact rate. Same groundball rate. Same line drive rate. Same walk rate. It was pretty much the same everything, but for one exception:

2007: .389 BABIP
2008: .334 BABIP

For his career, he stands at .356, so he was about as unlucky in 2008 as he was lucky in 2007. That's all it was. Luck. Even with that midseason hamstring injury, it's not like there's evidence that he got any slower - he stole more bases and he recorded just as many triples and infield hits. So we're left with luck.

Here's another way of looking at it:

2008

Grounders: .285 BABIP
Fly Balls: .127 BABIP
Line Drives: .634 BABIP

Career

Grounders: .301 BABIP
Fly Balls: .117 BABIP
Line Drives: .701 BABIP

Difference

Grounders: -6 hits
Fly Balls: +1 hit
Line Drives: -9 hits

That's the breakdown, and even if you think Ichiro's less able to single on groundballs than he used to be (with which I wouldn't agree; that BABIP was .368 in 2007), 36% of his line drives were caught last year, compared to 30% for his career. That's not sustainable. Brandon Fahey's BABIP on line drives is .734. Willie Ballgame's is .691. Tom Goodwin's was .733. .634 is unheard of. More than anything else, Ichiro was unlucky with his line drives last year, and that's not going to keep up.

Offensively, I think Ichiro's as solid as he's ever been, and his year to year fluctuation is simply the result of the vagaries of being a ball-in-play hitter. His single-season BABIPs have run the gamut between .319 and .401, and there's no pattern to be unconvered. It's just randomness, or something approximating randomness. The best we can do is say that Ichiro's skillset seems to have remained stable, and that going forward he's as likely to be a tremendous asset as he is to be a disappointment. Odds are in favor of 2009 being a kinder, gentler season.

Defensively, who knows. Plus/minus loves him, UZR hates him, PMR thinks he's okay. I'm comfortable calling him 0 < x < +10 in right field, including a little bonus for his arm. He did make a handful of mistakes down the stretch last year, and those can't be forgotten. On the one hand, I'd like to think those were simply the result of a lack of focus due to it being a lost year, because that's a non-physical explanation. But on the other, I feel like Ichiro has too much pride to give less than his all, so whatever, I don't know. It did seem like his mistakes had more to do with bad split-second decisions as opposed to deteriorating skills, so I think his range is intact. He should be peaches.

Overall, Ichiro's still a heck of a player. He may never again approach the kind of season he had in 2004, but that's not the player we expect him to be, nor is that the kind of player he has to be in order to remain productive. All he has to do is hit .320-.330 while playing solid defense every day, and there's no good reason to think he's any less capable of doing that now than he was three years ago, the last time people thought he might be losing a step. Ichiro's fine. The question shouldn't be whether it's possible to build a winning team around Ichiro; the question should be whether we'll ever be able to surround Ichiro with the winning team he so rightly deserves.

The sixth in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .276/.343/.447
Actual Line: .293/.358/.479

I'm tired of writing the same stuff about Ibanez over and over again so today I give you the illustrated version of what should at this point be common knowledge.

Yes, Raul Ibanez is a good hitter. Over the last three years he's been the best hitter on the team. But hitting is only half of his job, and while he's been able to hold his own in that department for a while, his defense has slipped to the point at which he could leave his glove in the outfield and go get some snacks during play and still provide a reasonable approximation of his physical ability. Overall he's been a below-average player these last two years, and at 36 years old, his best days are behind him, meaning whoever gives him a three-year contract to reward his professionalism and RBI totals will be paying a guy who simply doesn't help the team win. A small drop in his offense going forward will get him pushing the boundary of 1 WAR, and any significant age-related decline will sink his value in a hurry. He's just a bad gamble. Shame on the team that gives Raul the money he's going to get.

Raul, I appreciate all the run production and hard work, but your canonization is a shining example of everything that was wrong with the prior front office. Although I like you fine as a guy and as a role model for some of the younger players, I am beyond ready to move on and replace you with someone who gets more done, so with that in mind, good luck, and thanks for the laughs. Your defense may have contributed to the killing of a season, but your .gifs were what saved it. And that counts for something.

The fifth in a non-alphabetical and irregularly updated series of review pieces for each(?) of the players we predicted last spring.

LL/USSM Community: .288/.340/.506
Actual Line: .266/.327/.457

Healer of sick and slayer of evil, in 2008 Adrian Beltre put in yet another strong and underappreciated full season of work. He flew out of the gate with a scorching first month, almost singlehandedly keeping a bad lineup good enough to remain competitive, and while a lousy May pulled him back down to Earth, he was done in by a .156 BABIP that in no way reflected how well he was hitting the ball. Things started to even out over the rest of the summer, and although Raul Ibanez finished with the numbers, a convincing argument could be made that for much of the year Beltre was making the best contact on the team. And all the while he was doing it with a torn ligament in his thumb, an injury to which he finally succumbed in September so that he can be ready for spring training. 

Playing through injuries is nothing new for this team. Much to my chagrin, it seems like half the guys have done it. But the difference is that, where the Silvas and Batistas and Ibanezes of the world either directly or indirectly used their injuries to explain away ineffectiveness, Beltre downplayed his pain and somehow managed to sustain around the same level of performance as before. The discomfort was obvious whenever he caught a line drive or got jammed by a pitch, but he never talked about it, and he never made excuses. He just went out there and played, celebrating his triumphs and accepting responsibility for his mistakes. If you're determined to play through an injury, this is the way to do it. Make sure it doesn't kill your performance, and then don't talk about it. If people play through pain to look tough and heroic, pointing it out all the time kind of negates the whole idea. In this sort of circumstance, the strongest leader is the silent one.

It wasn't just Beltre's offense that he managed to keep up despite the injury - for five and a half months, his defense was absolutely out of this world. And I mean that. Just look at what he did:

UZR: +29 runs
PMR: +17 plays
RZR: +32 plays
+/-: +32 plays

Altogether, those stats paint the picture of a guy who was 20 or 25 runs above average for his position in the field last year. 20 or 25 runs. Now obviously that isn't his true talent level, since that would be borderline insane, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. While Adrian Beltre's offense was hurt by a little bad luck in 2008, he made up for it in the field, and the overall package came together to make him the best player on the team. Which I understand is kind of damning with faint praise, but it's true nevertheless. Beltre was better than Ichiro, he was better than Lopez, he was better than Felix, and he was better than Ibanez. In 2008, Adrian Beltre was the greatest Mariner.

As of next April, he's in line to be the greatest Mariner once more. Or he might be ~tied with Ichiro and Felix. But the point remains. Beltre may not repeat as the +29 run UZR third basemen he was in 2008, but he's established a true talent somewhere between +10 < x < +20, and his offense should get a boost from a healthy left hand and a BABIP that improves on last year's .279. Put it all together and you've got a 3.5-4 WAR star player, a guy who'd be worth a good $17m or so on the open market. Adrian Beltre may not get his results in the most obvious way, but he still gets his results, and he's set to be a hell of a value, just as he's been for the last three years. Which answers the question of why we love him so much. We don't love him because he's funny, or because he has weird little ticks. We love him because he's one of the best baseball players this team has had in a good long time.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what puts him front and center this offseason. As maybe the best player on the team, Beltre stands as one of our most marketable assets, and when you're looking to rebuild an organization, desirable veterans with one year left under contract tend to be the first to go. And why wouldn't they? Veterans generally don't want to stick around and re-sign with a rebuilding franchise, so if they're going to leave down the road anyway, you might as well make them available, just to see. It only makes sense.

As painful as it is to think about, the front office needs to make a decision on Beltre, and they need to make it soon. Either they want him to be a part of this team's future or they don't. If they want him to stick around for the long run, they need to approach him, make their rebuliding intentions clear, and ask him if he'd be willing to re-sign. If he were to say yes, they'd need to start negotiating an extension before he has time to change his mind. If he were to say no (or maybe), they'd need to deal with it the same way they should if they didn't want him to stick around in the first place - make him available, take some offers, and pull the trigger on the best one if the return is better than whatever compensation picks they could get after the year. Because if Beltre doesn't want to re-sign with a project, it doesn't really do us that much good to keep him.

Assuming that we're getting ready to tear things down and start over, I can't imagine that Beltre has much interest in staying. He wants to win. He's only been in the playoffs once - for four games - and a player only has so many opportunities to pick a new team while he still has something left to contribute. So while I'm not going to draft my tearful goodbye just yet, I'm preparing myself. I expect to hear Beltre's name surface in a new rumor pretty much every morning. I expect to hear at some point that discussions are intensifying. And before too long I expect to hear that a deal went down. There're no guarantees, but given enough demand that there's a good enough return on the table, it seems like the best course of action for all parties involved. Including me. Even if it feels like someone ripping my heart through my ribs.

I guess I shouldn't get ahead of myself. As of this writing, Adrian Beltre's still a Mariner, and he's one of the best Mariners we've got. But because that may not last much longer, all I ask is that with every passing day, each and every one of you appreciates him. That each and every one of you appreciates the shit out of him. If only because somebody has to, and one man can't do it alone. No matter how fucking insane he might be.