A week or two ago, somebody linked me to a game recap. It was a game recap from this past season. It wasn't a recap that I wrote, and it wasn't a recap about a Mariners game. It was a recap about an ordinary game between the Indians and somebody else from like the beginning of May. I read it and my first thought was "why am I reading this?" My second thought was "holy crap, that's right, eventually they play games."

The Mariners will play games. They'll start playing games relatively soon - sooner than everybody else. All of this offseason that we've been sitting through is referred to as the offseason because it is the time off between seasons. Seasons of games.

It's easy to forget that, weirdly enough. It's easy to forget that games exist. One hundred sixty-two of them, for each team, plus the meaningless games at the beginning, and the meaningful potential games at the end. During the offseason, you can forget what games are like. During the season, you can forget what the offseason is like. There is lots of forgetting in the lives that we live.

Everything is about the games. During the games, it is about winning the games. During the offseason, it is about preparing to win more of the games. Last year, the Mariners won 67 of the games. The year before that, they won 61 of the games. How are they shaping up for 2012? How many of the games does it look like they're going to win?

Of course, we can't know anything for certain. We can't know how many games the Mariners are going to win. I don't think that we'd want to know how many games the Mariners are going to win, except for one reason. But we can project. We can project the standings to come up with a mathematical outlook.

I've seen two projections recently, presumably based on the latest roster and depth chart information. One comes courtesy of the Hardball Times, using the Oliver projection system. The other comes courtesy of Replacement Level Yankees, using the Marcel projection system.

Over a number of simulations, the former currently projects that the Mariners finish with an average record of 73-89, good for third place in the division. Over a number of simulations, the latter currently projects that the Mariners finish with an average record of 76-86, good for fourth place in the division.

The two projection systems differ on methodology, and so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they differ on a number of teams. For example, one gives the Royals 79 wins, while the other gives the Royals 62 wins. For another example, one gives the Cubs 70 wins, while the other gives the Cubs 83 wins. The correlation between the two sets of projected standings is statistically significant, but it is not incredibly strong.

With that said, they more or less agree on the Mariners. And their statistical projections for the Mariners agree with our subjective projections for the Mariners. I think the majority of people feel like the Mariners are okay, with a shot at .500. That's what these numbers are telling us. They're saying to the Angels "you're good", and then they're saying to the Rangers "you're good", and then they're turning to the Mariners and saying "hey, you're all right" while patting them on the shoulder.

So, nothing too shocking. Something to keep in mind when looking over the Marcel projections is that Marcel regresses pretty heavily, and pegs all rookies to be league-average performers. Hisashi Iwakuma? League-average performer. Yu Darvish? League-average performer. Marcel also doesn't park-adjust. Marcel is just that simplistic. It's frighteningly accurate for something so simplistic, but it's simplistic.

Conclusion: the 2012 Mariners probably aren't going to contend for the playoffs. Even signing Prince Fielder would've left them as significant underdogs. This is news to nobody. Jack Zduriencik said in a publicly-aired press conference, "let's not kid ourselves," 2012 is going to be challenging. The pre-spring training media luncheon is supposed to be all sunny and buoyant. Eric Wedge said he expects his team to contend every March. Jack Zduriencik did not say that.

Two things, though. For one, obviously, the Mariners have a chance of making the playoffs. It is not a very good chance - this chance would require an awful lot of things to happen - but it is a real chance. It is about the same as the chance of, say, Miguel Olivo hitting a home run in a given plate appearance. Not crazy, right? Maybe Justin Smoak blossoms. Maybe Kyle Seager blossoms. Maybe Franklin Gutierrez bounces back, and Ichiro bounces back, and Mike Carp becomes Raul Ibanez, and...

And for two, even if the Mariners drop out of the race, think about what could be coming. Danny Hultzen could be coming. James Paxton could be coming. Also Erasmo Ramirez, and Vinnie Catricala, and maybe Forrest Snow and Stephen Pryor and who knows. One of the things that made 2008 so impossibly terrible is that the team was bad, and there weren't many talented young reinforcements. The Mariners now have the sort of talent that could keep you watching, and keep you wanting to be watching, through to the end. Maybe it doesn't work out that way, but there's the chance. Talented youth is exciting. Come August or September, this team could be dripping with talented youth.

I think the tone of this post is oddly positive. It's weird, because I'm usually not so positive about the Mariners, and I wish the Mariners would've had a more complete offseason. I wish they would've added one more significant piece, somehow. But despite the immediate outlook, there is a lot to be positive about, and besides, who really wants to be negative about sports? What a lame way to follow sports. They're sports! Find something to be happy about, or find something else to do. Boy did this end differently than I thought it would.

Okay, so the collective group of internet users out there that participated in these last year kinda stunk. A data monkey did better than you lot. I don't know what got into you, Josephine, that you had to get all those projections wrong. Were you trying to prove something? Was it a cry for attention? Too bad if it was, you didn't get any and you'll continue to not get any since you are a made up person I created so I could address this in the second person singular. Because as much as I don't mind repeatedly using adopted pluralisms like "y'all" in my verbal communication, I have not yet rid myself of the tendency to revert to the implied plural of "you" when writing. And I don't care that it's currently considered grammatically correct. Grammar is a slipshod slapdash of amalgamated anachronisms overzealously clung to. Yes, I began a sentence with a conjunction; lighten up.

What you should not do is lighten up about these baseball projections! Josephine, and everyone, has to buckle down and hit the books this year. We, and by we, I mean people not including myself, need to do better. Primarily that will involve being more realistic about the Mariners but also includes players employed by other teams, which, let's be honest, nobody holds a worthwhile opinion about. You (dammit) might as well toss random dice to decide what projections to enter for non-Mariners. Here, I'll help you out. Use the following random numbers: six, six, six, 6.6, six, 66, six and 6. Go ahead and combine them in any fashion and order for those players.

The hometown, or not hometown but still favorite for some reason, players are going to be the focus however. The first thing to do is to create a projection line for each player and then immediately slash 10% off it. This is the Mariners, people. Wake up and smell the disappointment. It smells like cinnamon rolls except instead of being baked by your significant other, they're being baked by that jerk of a neighbor who never shares. Moreover, you don't even have a significant other! You root for the Mariners. In fact, forget 10%. Lop 50% right off those projections. Wait, that's still not enough. An innocent child out yonder still has hope. Go with negative infinity in every category; also known as a Franklin Gutierrez.

Go. Go to FanGraphs and enter some projections. Do it now. Or later. But do it now, while supplies last.

This upcoming 2012 season seems dire for hopes that the Seattle Mariners might break their playoff drought. That is in part because of the strength of the Texas Rangers an in part because of the weakness of the Mariners and their current lack of enough funds to rectify all the problems. There've been posts about how some of those faults can be mitigated for 2012, but building a true contender seems out of reach unless several members (Ichiro Suzuki, Franklin Gutierrez) progress in significant ways.

Does 2013 hold any brighter of a chance? Simply by being farther away, it paradoxically does as we're more able to feel cheerful about the far future (check out our 2004 2007 2011 2014 rotation!) than the future right in front of us. However, I do believe that rationally the 2013 season offers a legitimate shot at a playoff-capable squad. It requires an optimistic projection. That is required for every team though since nobody currently assembled is a sure-fire 90-win group two years hence.

What encourages me though is that the level of positive assumptions I have to make to fit the 2013 Seattle Mariners into that 90-win territory are not, to me, extraordinary. There are no "Justin Smoak turns into Prince Fielder" level jumps. It's mostly holding onto gains made or recently seen, which, granted, are still hopeful in nature as we've had first-hand viewing of the frequency and magnitude of some people's collapses.

Still, here is how the 2013 roster could, could!, look given the Mariners' current internal assets.

C: Open, 0 WAR
1: Smoak, 2 WAR, $1M
2: Ackley, 4 WAR, $1.5M
3: Seager, 1.5 WAR, $.5M
S: Ryan, 2 WAR, $4M
L: Carp, 1.5 WAR, $.5M
C: Gutierrez, 3 WAR, $7M
R: Open, 0 WAR
D: Open, 0 WAR

SP: Felix, 5.5 WAR, $20M
SP: Pineda, 4 WAR, $1M
SP: Paxton, 2 WAR, $.5M
SP: Hultzen, 2 WAR, $.5M
SP: Open, 0 WAR

It's a simplistic rundown to be sure but what it assumes is thus. Justin Smoak doesn't crater at the plate (.800 2011 OPS sans July and August). Dustin Ackley gets a little worse (his 2011 season pro-rated full would have been nearly 5 WAR). Kyle Seager (or someone) manages to be passable at third base. Brendan Ryan stays the same. Mike Carp (or Casper Wells or Trayvon Robinson or...) is passable in left field. Franklin Gutierrez recovers enough strength from his illness to become 2010 Gutierrez again. Felix Hernandez gets a little worse. Michael Pineda stays the same but throws a full season. James Paxton and Danny Hultzen (or someone) develop into average starters.

The enticing result is how much money is off the books. The above salaries total to $36.5 million. Chone Figgins will still be eating up $8.5 million and I figure another $5 million for the bullpen and that's $50M committed leaving somewhere around $45M free, four open starting spots and a team already pegged around .500 (assuming a league average bullpen and bench). $45 million on the free market should buy them about 10 WAR assuming they can find the right pieces for the open spots.

This does not say the above will happen. I set out to clarify for myself if 2013 represented a reasonable playoff chance and what would be the most favorable path to getting there while staying within the realm of realism. That is all. The Mariners have assembled some stars and some supporting cast who still have greater potential. They need help and this is more unlikely than likely, but I do now think that 2013 is a possibility for the Mariners should they get a couple minor breaks along the way.

(1)
The Baseball Writers' Association of America is set to kick off its official award announcements next Monday, beginning with the AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards. Used to be that we'd first find out about the winners on the BBWAA website, but now the first word's going to come from their Twitter account. The BBWAA has a Twitter account, and many of its members still care about pitcher wins. These times we live in, I tell you.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because SB Nation baseball bloggers did their own awards voting, and here are the AL RotY results:

Congratulations to Michael Pineda for winning an award that does not exist. The AL Rookie of the Year award exists, but it is not awarded by SB Nation, or anybody affiliated with SB Nation. Michael Pineda's award is this blog post, which he can read at his leisure.

(2)
Alexi Ogando was not a rookie.

(3)
I bet when the Baseball Writers' Association of America first expanded from one to two people, the name change was really easy.

(4)
It's interesting to mentally compare these results to the official results we expect the BBWAA to deliver. Here, among a limited selection of baseball bloggers, Pineda is the easy winner. With the BBWAA, it's looking like it's going to be Hellickson or Nova, with Pineda and the position players a step behind. The BBWAA isn't dropping daily clues or anything, but just based on the history, I feel comfortable in my assumption. And I think it's going to be Hellickson or Nova because Hellickson had a 2.95 ERA, and Nova had a 16-4 record.

Pineda, of course, was a much better pitcher than Hellickson, and he was a much better pitcher than Nova. Assuming this ends up the way I think it'll end up, this'll be one of those times that it's really apparent how differently internet writers and print writers think. And if this doesn't end up the way I think it'll end up, then congratulations, Brian Dinkelman. I definitely didn't see that one coming.

(5)
As I understand it, the Rookie of the Year award is supposed to go to the league's best rookie. Consensus seems to be that "best" is some combination of performance and playing time. This is why Brett Lawrie doesn't show up at the top of many lists. But why should playing time be that important? Brett Lawrie came to the plate 171 times and hit .293/.373/.580. That is an outstanding performance. An outstanding performance over a limited sample, sure, but a more outstanding performance than any other AL rookie, as far as I can tell. Why shouldn't he get more consideration for the award? It isn't the AL's most valuable rookie. It's the AL's best rookie. There's room for interpretation. Man, there's room for interpretation with everything.

(6)
I'm having trouble finding the appropriate level of disappointment to feel and express if and when Pineda doesn't win the official award. I'm sure he will have been more deserving than whoever ends up winning, assuming it isn't Pineda, and that's a bummer. But it's an award, so who cares? But Pineda is a Mariner, and I root for the Mariners to win games, so why shouldn't I also root for the Mariners to win awards? But it's an award, so who cares? This award will have absolutely no bearing on the rest of Pineda's career. I guess you could argue that he's so psychologically fragile that not winning would crush him, but then you could argue the opposite and say that not winning would make him more driven. There are two baseless arguments that could be made by stupid people.

If, say, Hellickson or Nova win the award, I think I'll think "aw nuts." I feel like I should care more than that, but I also feel like I should not. In the unimportant world of professional baseball, there are more important things than this.

I don't know if it's fair to say the offseason usually passes by quickly. I'd say the offseason usually passes by at the same rate as any other equivalent period of time. But the offseason definitely passes by quickly, relative to what you think at the beginning. At the beginning of the offseason, you feel like baseball is hundreds of miles ahead, which is stupid in no small part because miles are not a measure of time. But baseball's fairly close, even though it's never further away, and when the games start up, you'll wonder where the winter went.*

* you'll wonder

And about those games - the final game of the 2011 season was Game 7 of the World Series between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals. The game itself was not particularly fantastic, but the context was fantastic, and the story was fantastic.

The first game of the 2012 season is between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics, in the Tokyo Dome. The second game of the 2012 season is between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics, in the Tokyo Dome.

So to summarize, as if that paragraph needs a summary, the next baseball game you watch could be any baseball game. But the next meaningful baseball game you watch will be a Mariners game.

It's weird, of course, that next season is starting up with the Mariners and A's. You'd think Major League Baseball would want to start with good teams that people like to watch. But then I remembered thinking a few years ago it was weird that a season started with the Washington Nationals. Well, I just checked, and that season didn't start with the Washington Nationals - it started with the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox, days earlier, in the Tokyo Dome. Completely slipped my mind!

And these Mariners/A's games will slip minds, too. Five days pass between the second Mariners/A's game in Japan and the first stateside game of the regular season. Over those five days, most everyone will forget who kicked the season off. But we won't forget, because the Mariners will have a record. Hopefully it isn't 0-2. If it's 0-2 we're going to have an awful lot of time to dwell on the fact that oh shit not again

Many of you are sad that baseball is gone. The offseason is a long dark tunnel with only occasional lights in the ceiling. But the Mariners are there at the other end, and they're even closer than they'd usually be. Unless something horrible happens, the Mariners will be one of the first two teams to come back, and they'll come back before you know it.

I guess it wouldn't have to be something horrible. People always say 'unless something horrible happens." What if something awesome and amazing happens? What if the Mariners and A's don't kick off next season because the Red Sox and Yankees have all their head-to-head games rescheduled for January and they play in a graveyard? Haha, that's so shitty!

Every year I write this post, and every year you eat it up. Simple people. Simple people.

CONTEXT

The Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals will face each other in the 2011 World Series, which begins on Wednesday. The Rangers have advanced this far by defeating the Tampa Bay Rays and the Detroit Tigers. The Cardinals have advanced this far by defeating the Philadelphia Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers. Both the Rangers and Cardinals managed to defeat their opponents by outplaying them in a short series.

KEY PLAYERS

Texas:

Roster

St. Louis:

Roster

Both the Rangers and Cardinals are filled to the brim with possible difference-makers. The 50 listed above will likely be the most important.

KEY QUESTIONS

Can the St. Louis Cardinals outscore the Texas Rangers?

They can.

Can the Texas Rangers outscore the St. Louis Cardinals?

They can.

Will one of the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers outscore the other four times?

Most certainly yes!

X FACTOR

The Cardinals will play a maximum of four games at home, while the Rangers will play a maximum of three games at home. The home crowds may or may not help. I imagine there are also intangibles somewhere.

CONCLUSION

Both the Cardinals and Rangers are good teams. The Rangers are probably better by a tiny bit. If you re-played the World Series a million times, maybe 55-60% of the time the Rangers would be crowned as champions. This World Series will be played once. One of these teams will win four games. The other probably won't. The outcome will mean everything, and nothing.

Maybe that isn't fair. Many of the games could be interesting. Baseball can be interesting. But the schedule? The schedule itself? Seems uninteresting. Just another 162 games against the same old ordinary teams. No exotic travel, no bizarre offdays or triple-headers, no games against warlocks, nothing. Baseball, just.

And here is the schedule, by the way. It was just released this morning. I remember a year ago, the 2011 schedules were supposed to be released one morning, and then a few of them leaked the night before, provoking some kind of stir. How dare you to force us to consider these uninteresting calendars ahead of time! I don't know if any schedules similarly leaked early this time around, but that's mostly because I haven't been paying attention.

So anyway, some key dates and notes:

OPENING DAY

For the third year in a row, the Mariners will open in Oakland, beginning next year on Friday, April 6th. Nothing gets me amped up for a long regular season like a Seattle Mariners series in Oakland. This pretty much guarantees that our first boring baseball game will take place on Saturday, April 7th. Presuming health, Felix Hernandez will start for the Mariners. Presuming health, I don't know who will start for the A's, because you can't presume health with any of them. They're all so fragile! And Billy Beane can't even afford health insurance. Dallas Braden's shoulder surgery was performed by Eric Sogard. Fortunately, Eric Sogard is a trained surgeon.

Also for the third year in a row, the Mariners' second series will be on the road against Texas.

HOME OPENER

Good news! The Mariners will open against Oakland, and then, a week later, they'll open against Oakland! The home opener's scheduled for Friday, April 13th, and though no times have been announced, one can assume it'll get going just after 7pm, as it did this year. There's something to be said for home opener matinees, but there's also something to be said for home openers I can get to without having to take a day off of work.

Because the home opener will be the Mariners' eighth game of the season, it'll pit the Mariners' #3 starter against Oakland's #2 or #3 starter. Get ready for, shit, I dunno, Jason Vargas or Charlie Furbush or somebody. Maybe a free agent or trade acquisition, or maybe James Paxton or Danny Hultzen by some miracle. What matters is that it almost certainly won't be Felix or Pineda. I think it'd be cool if the Mariners began with Pineda as the #3 just so he could start the opener, but if the Mariners were interested in getting fans excited they wouldn't have signed Adam Kennedy.

Also, yes, that's a home opener on Friday the 13th. Expect weird shit, like malfunctioning light fixtures, or runs.

RED SOX

Playing the Red Sox is such a big deal that it gets its own section. Yeah, this ought to keep that fan base grounded.

The Mariners get two home sets against Boston: one four-game series between June 28th - July 1st, and one three-game series between September 3rd - September 5th. This means we probably get to have one series where we think the games matter and the M's get to prove themselves against a tough opponent, and one series where the games don't matter and we only root out of blind hatred for the opposition. Note that the M's only play two games in Fenway. It seems unfair that the Red Sox will bring their massive drawing power here seven times, while the M's only take their massive drawing power there twice. The Bostonians will miss out! They'll miss out on the Mariners!

INTERLEAGUE PLAY

The Mariners will take on the NL West, which is how it ought to be. The breakdown:

@Colorado, May 18-20
vs Los Angeles, June 8-10
vs San Diego, June 12-14
vs San Francisco, June 15-17
@Arizona, June 18-20
@San Diego, June 22-24

Colorado's kind of out on its own, in the middle of a stretch of 20 games in 20 days. The rest make for five consecutive interleague series that take up the bulk of June. The jewel, to me, is the three-game home weekend set against the Giants. I think I'm looking forward to that series more than any other series, although maybe that's just because I remember J.J. Putz freezing Barry Bonds with a splitter to win a game back in 2006. I have a more vivid memory of that pitch than like anything that's happened in the last four years. The series will also give us a chance to interact with the awesome McCovey Chronicles, which might be the best baseball blog in the network. Or just the best blog in the network, since I couldn't give two shits about the sports most of our blogs cover. Football is terrible! Players get hurt and die all the time! You are savages!

SECOND HALF

The All-Star Game is scheduled for July 10th in Kansas City, so all those Royals team representatives won't have to travel far. The Mariners then don't resume play until July 13th. That gives them a four-day break in all, where this year, for example, they had three. Those four-day breaks are so important. With a four-day break, it's like, whoa, baseball's back! With a three-day break, it's like, Jesus, baseball's back already? That one day, man. That one day sets the tone for the rest of the year.

CONCLUSION

The optimistic among you will insist that the conclusion to the 2012 Mariners' season hasn't yet been scheduled, since we haven't seen the layout for the playoffs. The other 100% of you will note that the Mariners finish at home with three games against the Angels from October 1st - October 3rd. It'll be the tenth consecutive year that the M's finish at home, presumably because of the roof. But it'll also be the first time in ten years that the M's don't finish against the Rangers or A's. Indeed, the last time the Mariners finished against the Angels was 2002, the same year the Angels won the World Series. I don't think next year is looking so great you guys.

Wallowing in the game today is a needless excuse in being morose. The Mariners lost. So what, really? It sucks that they lost so badly and that practically everyone involved had a game that was discouraging, but it's one game. There are more to come and then more after that, in the long run. The long run is what we should probably focus on since the short run is futile and the long run has not yet become futile. Hail, uncertainty!

To that desire, we are now in the month of September and the rosters have expanded. We have seen the likelihood of all the call-ups we will see except for the re-activation of Chone Figgins, but even then, I wonder how much playing time he will receive. Jeff and I discussed the topic at length, in spurts, on the most recent podcast, but here's a venue for you to sound off. What are you watching for (if you're watching at all) this month? What reasonable monthly trends would you make the most encouraged heading into the winter offseason?

Obviously, we want to see the Mariners gel and rip apart all comers in a scene reminiscent of Gulliver and the people of Lilliput, but that's not realistic. The interesting part is in the ordinal ranking of preferences. If you had to choose, would you rather see a good month out of Dustin Ackley or Justin Smoak? Or Kyle Seager? Maybe Ichiro. Do it in list form if you'd like. Top ten players, in order, that you would like to see have good months in September.