How more than 600 people made it into that .gif museum without making their computers blow up is beyond me, but the masses have spoken, and it looks as if the event deemed the best representation of the season as a whole is Raul Ibanez's very own Lawn Dart.

The message, I think, is pretty clear. Much like Raul in Yankee Stadium, the Mariners began the 2008 season in a competitive field. They had the look of a contender, they were a pretty popular pick to win the AL West, and it seemed as if they were really ready to start playing with the big boys. Regardless of what you thought of their offseason, almost everybody agreed that 2008 would likely be a season played under a lot of pressure in front of a lot of people. And that got the fan base excited.

But for all of their positives, the Mariners, like Raul, came with some sinister drawbacks that didn't get enough attention. In Raul's case, not enough people talk about his bad defense or vulnerability to late-inning lefties. In the Mariners' case, not enough people were talking about the bad defense, the potentially punchless offense, or the delicacy of the pitching staff. It was a roster loaded with upside but littered with downside, and while many chose to focus on the former, few would shed much light on the latter, and when it was mentioned, rarer still were the issues considered significant enough to jeopardize the entire season. They stood as questions without answers. You have to wonder now if the men in charge didn't ask each other those questions because they were afraid of the response.

If the Yankee Stadium field is 2008, then Raul Ibanez is the Mariners: talented but deeply flawed. And as the ball rolls towards his glove - signifying the opportunity to make a move presented when the Angels lost 40% of their rotation - Raul reaches down, seizes the opportunity, and instantly puts his flaws on display for the whole world to observe. It's comical in its feebleness. The degree of ineptitude and the haste with which it reveals itself are mesmerizing. No John Lackey. No Kelvim Escobar. And the Mariners responded by opening 2-5 and standing at 15-26 when Lackey made his season debut. A wonderful opportunity gone to waste because the Mariners couldn't wait to completely and utterly embarrass themselves on a national stage. Embarrass themselves in ways not even previously thought possible. .250 from Ichiro? A total meltdown by the closer? Swept by the Orioles? The Mariners entered the 2008 season ecstatic to have a chance and made it one day before crossing paths with the Shit Parade. One day. Raul's throw flew about two feet.

The final shred of symbolism? The one bit of nutshellitude that really puts this over the top? Not only is Lawn Dart a .gif, but it's a .gif of an instant replay. 2008 wasn't just a nightmare of a season; it was a nightmare of a season that we had to live over and over again with every passing day. Every game was a loss, and every loss felt like the loss before. It was a punishing cycle of agony from which the only escape was to try and find humor in it all, but every time you'd dare to laugh, the cycle would begin again, and the wounds would be opened anew. 2008 took everything you thought could go wrong, ground it up with a mortar and pestle, diluted it in fart juice, and injected it into your stomach. It's amazing as many people made it through as they did. I'd say that this was simply survival of the fittest, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I might have that backwards. It seems like a normal person shouldn't be able to survive something like 2008. It seems like there must be something wrong with those of us who did.

The .gif finally stopped cycling in my window. Apparently they don't go on forever. I guess that's appropriate. 2008 is over. We can finally close the books on the most difficult chapter I personally have ever read and look forward to a better tomorrow. The future may not be bright, and it may not be bountiful, but compared to the past we've only recently been able to escape, it'll be hard-pressed to be any more humiliating.

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You will often hear of a certain event or game that it captured the spirit of an entire season on its own. Today I ask you, the reader, to choose the event that best illustrates everything the 2008 Seattle Mariners were all about. The event that best epitomizes the anguish, the humiliation, and the occasional hilarity of a season gone to waste. There are many candidates, but there can be but a single nutshell, so choose wisely, and take your time. For this is pretty much the most important ballot of the year.

WARNING: many many .gifs to follow. Upon clicking through, please allow time for the images to load. View the images before voting.

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One of the downsides of being me is that, after I post something like the squeeze bunt piece last night, I spend countless hours after the fact second-guessing myself. I always strive to be correct in everything I say, so I put a lot of thought into my posts, but if I took the time to look at something from every possible angle before posting about it, nothing would ever get posted, because I'd spend all my time thinking. Eventually I have to click the button to publish. So I write and I post and I find a way to deal with all the afterthoughts as they come.

Most of the time it works out pretty well. This time, though, I remain unconvinced by my own argument.

I love the suicide squeeze. That much is a fact, and it's also a fact that, in many situations, it's a smart call. It's an underused way to pretty reliably drive home an important run. However, in this particular instance, I'm beginning to think that it may indeed have been wiser to let Aybar swing away.

I've read a bunch of discussions this morning about the bunt, and the people who were against it make a pretty good point. What it comes down to is that, prior to the fateful pitch, Aybar was ahead 2-0 after Delcarmen delivered two straight high-inside fastballs. Clearly Boston was anticipating the squeeze, and clearly because of the two balls Aybar's matchup became more favorable. The average Major League hitter this year posted a 1.004 OPS after getting ahead 2-0. No matter how bad a hitter Aybar may be, at that point he was sitting pretty.

Maybe it really would've been better to give him the green light. Chances are he either puts the ball in play or walks. A hit obviously scores the run. Against a drawn-in infield, a lot of groundballs do the same. Most any outfield fly does the job, since Willits is quick and the Red Sox don't have the strongest arms. A pop-up or ball in play directly at an infielder would be bad, but every gamble has its downside. A walk is fine, since Figgins was on deck and he's hard to double up. And so on and so forth. The risk/reward ratio of letting Aybar swing away shifted towards the latter once Delcarmen fell behind in the count, and that changes the picture quite a bit.

After thinking about this for the better part of a work day, I officially don't know what I would've done had I been in Scioscia's place. The squeeze is appealing, but it's not even close to being as obvious as I thought it was last night. The 2-0 count means more than I gave it credit for. There are upsides and drawbacks to each side of the decision, and honestly, while bunting seems safe, it really isn't; a whole host of things can go wrong when a guy tries to bunt, and the more I think about it, the more a ~70% breakeven rate seems a little daunting. Even for a presuambly good bunter like Aybar. Hell, he blew his one chance. That right there should tell you that bunting isn't as easy as it sounds.

I'm not sure which would've been the better decision to make. All we know is that Scioscia got burned by his, and that now he has all winter to think about it. Whether or not he made the right call, I can't be certain, but I can't imagine having to make these decisions on the fly, and if this is what passes for questionable managing in Anaheim, then that team must be in pretty good hands.

What an entertaining series that was.

I'm not just saying this to rile up unhappy Angel fans. That's a bonus.

There were a lot of factors that ultimately led to Anaheim's losing this series in four games, but their most obvious blunder as a team came in the top of the ninth inning tonight, when - in a 2-2 contest - Erick Aybar attempted to lay down a squeeze bunt, missed, and got Reggie Willits hung up between third base and home. Willits was tagged out, the threat was erased, and just minutes later the Red Sox went on to walk off to the ALCS. Where at one instant it looked as if the Angels were poised to fight back in the series, the next Boston once again had complete control. It was a risky decision that's sure to have people questioning Mike Scioscia's strategy in the morning papers.

I don't think they should, though, and here's why - it seems to me as if the squeeze was the right call. More than that, even; it seems to me as if the squeeze was the easy call.

Let's get right to the math. According to my outdated but generally reliable spreadsheet, with one out and Willits on third, the Angels' win expectancy stood at 66.3%. From this point, a squeeze bunt has two main possible outcomes:

-Success; 3-2 Angels, two outs, bases empty, 78.4% win expectancy (+12.1%)

-Failure; 2-2, two outs, bases empty, 38.4% win expectancy (-27.9%)

Now, obviously, there are other possible outcomes; bunts are crazy. But for the sake of simplicity let's look at the situation in black and white. With the information presented above we can calculate a breakeven rate. That is, the rate above which bunting pays off, and below which bunting does more harm than good. The equation is as follows:

1 - (.121 / (.121 + .279))

The equation spits out a final value of 69.75%. In other words, for Scioscia to justify calling for Aybar to try to squeeze, he had to have at least 69.75% confidence in Aybar's ability to get the bunt down as a success.

69.75%. That doesn't seem too bad, right? Especially against a pitcher who isn't going to be throwing fastballs way up high or offspeed stuff in the dirt, what with the runner on third and all and a 2-0 count. While I will admit right now that I don't have squeeze-specific information at hand, and therefore can't speak to the league-average success rate (and so I might be totally wrong!), it seems to me as if you should be able to rely on Aybar to get that thing down at least 70% of the time. He's a bad hitter. You have to figure he's pretty good at bunting, especially being on the Angels.

In reality, the breakeven rate isn't even that high. That's the simple, approximate calculation. But there are other factors to consider that serve to make the bunt look even better:

• Aybar may get the bunt down and still reach base, either because the Red Sox threw home in a futile attempt to get Willits, or because they threw late to first or committed an error
• That calculation assumes that an average team is playing an average team, with 25 average players apiece. This wasn't the case (and never really is). In this particular situation, the switch-hitting Erick Aybar was facing the right-handed Manny Delcarmen in Fenway Park. Aybar is bad and Delcarmen is good. If Scioscia lets Aybar swing away, odds are fairly high that he doesn't drive the runner home from third. Not only because he's bad, but also because a sac fly seemed unlikely; Delcarmen throws hard, fly balls already tend to be hit the other way, and left field in Fenway is shallow. Granted, Chone Figgins was standing on deck, but with the light-hitting Aybar at the plate, Scioscia had to weigh the risks and benefits of letting him swing or ordering the squeeze, and decided on the latter. 

Erick Aybar had nine bunt singles this year, twelfth-most in the Major Leagues despite appearing in fewer than 100 games. He knows how to bunt, and ahead 2-0, with a buntable fastball almost certainly on the way, Mike Scioscia had to believe that his shortstop would be able to get the ball down. Instead Aybar stabbed at the ball and missed it, leaving the runner out to dry and ending Anaheim's threat. Their win expectancy dropped well below 50% and never recovered, as it wasn't long before their season would end.

Scioscia, though, shouldn't be blamed, at least not for this. I think he made the right decision. Scoring that run was of vital importance, and Erick Aybar sucks, so rather than cross his fingers and hope for a miracle, Scioscia got burned for siding with probability. Shit happens, but a bad result doesn't automatically mean it was a bad idea.

When you need a run, I love the squeeze, and I feel like it's pretty underutilized in the game today as a strategy. Probably because of situations like tonight's - regardless of how often it works, when a suicide squeeze goes wrong, it goes really really wrong, and people tend not to forget, because it's embarrassing. And nobody wants to be embarrassed. It's the same as how in football coaches don't like to go for many fourth-and-shorts. When push comes to shove, coaches and managers alike tend to be conservative, because that way there's less risk of them looking stupid. But conservative isn't always the way to go. There's a time and a place for being aggressive, and while it can fuck you over when it fails, a good manager understands that the upsides are worth the occasional downside. And Mike Scioscia's a pretty good manager. He just wound up tasting downside at an awful awful time.

If you've listened to any baseball broadcasts ever, the talking heads would have you believe that the Angels invented smallball a few years ago on their way to the World Series. That their biggest gaffe of the season came on a missed bunt just tickles all the right bits of my heart.

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Simple calculations, assuming every game is nothing but a coin flip:

Dodgers: 22%
Phillies: 22%
Rays: 17%
Red Sox: 17%
White Sox: 8%
Angels: 8%
Brewers: 3%
Cubs: 3%

Obviously not the most accurate way to do it, but considering how closely matched the teams are by this point in the season, coin flips get you most of the way there.

I wonder what, if anything, yesterday is going to do to Sabathia's FA contract.

Edit: skip this post and just go here

It is with grave concern that I bring the following matter to your attention:

The practice of raising bonsai outfielders in miniature glass containers is barbaric and senselessly cruel. We are calling on a good soul to free Jacoby from his keepers and feed him a ham sandwich. Please - please, if there is any human compassion in your heart - take action and rescue this young man while he still has the physical capacity to develop into a normal adult. As a society we cannot in good conscience allow the same unfortunate fate to befall him as we did Brandon Fahey. Such negligence would forever go unforgiven.

That sucked.

As you've probably figured out by now, I'm one of those people who wants to see the Mariners picking first next June. I've made no secret of it. Neither have a lot of other people. Historically, the first overall pick has offered a far greater return than any other in the draft, and being able to select from every draft-eligible player in the world is a position in which I would like the Mariners to find themselves next summer as they look to add talent to the system.

This isn't about being a good fan or a bad fan*. This is about myself and many others thinking bigger-picture than the present day. We're willing to sacrifice whatever joy there is in winning meaningless baseball games in order to see the team end up with that first pick. Forget the name. The name doesn't matter. The position matters. The first pick is the best pick, and it's been the best pick by a wide margin. Landing on top of the list would give this team the opportunity to very rapidly right a lot of prior wrongs.

That's what we're cheering for. We're not so much cheering for losses as we are cheering for a win in something more important than a game in late September. I know that seems like spin, but it's true. Yes, we take pleasure in seeing the team fail now, but that's only because every failure now brings us that much closer to a shot at major success down the road. Major success that could help get the organization turned around quicker than you might think possible.

Some people watch the Mariners these days because they still want to see them win. That's perfectly fine. Admirable, even, and a little romantic. After all, we watch baseball more than anything else to be entertained, and when you're content to let the longer-term play out as it will, there's nothing more entertaining than victory.

But others of us watch to see the occasional highlight from a young player while the Mariners secure for themselves a higher pick. It's not a worse approach, and it's not a better approach; it's a different approach. But it's an entirely valid approach, as is the other. Which is why I'm kind of getting sick of people on both sides accusing those on the opposite side of being bad fans. It's a silly argument. We might disagree on what we'd like to see happen at the end of the day, but at the end of the year, we all want the same thing. We're all Mariners fans, and we all want to see the Mariners do well. It's just that at least a few of us have to keep an eye on the bigger picture, because not doing so is what got us into this wreck in the first place.

I wish the Mariners would've lost today. The Nationals gave them an opening to build a little cushion, but they blew it by coming back, and so they continue to lead the race by only the slimmest of margins. But as displeased as I was with tonight's turn of events, there are at least a whole lot of people who enjoyed it, and you know what? I'm happy for them. They deserved a rally like this. It's been a long time. I'll just have to suck it up.

It's funny to think about - it required an awful lot in the way of heartbreak and tragedy, but the Mariners have found themselves in the unusual position of being able to make a lot of fans happy every day, regardless of the final score. And really, that's something. If nothing else. What a weird year.

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Ever the showman, Raul will go to great lengths to keep his team's fans entertained.

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Bottom 7th: Oakland

-K Suzuki flied out to left

-C Pennington walked

-B Crosby doubled to deep left, C Pennington scored

-D Barton walked

M Batista relieved B Morrow

A Cunningham hit for J Baisley

-A Cunningham doubled to deep left, B Crosby and D Barton scored

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I'm not going to sit here and bitch about Luis Valbuena being called out at third when he was clearly safe, because there wouldn't be a point, and this team has more to gain from losing than winning anyway. It was a terrible call that, despite Sam Perlozzo's outrage, actually served the greater good, at least as far as the M's are concerned.

But let's pretend this had happened in a different context. What if it were, say, today's Phillies game instead? A game that mattered? In terms of Win Expectancy, the difference between Valbuena being called safe and Valbuena being called out is 35.3%. That is, the WE is 44.5% with a man on third, and 9.2% with one down and the bases empty. The run expectancy difference is 1.2 runs (1.5 to 0.3). That's an umpire singlehandedly robbing a team of the probable tying run with a bad call at third base. If you thought Perlozzo and Riggleman were angry today, just imagine how they would've reacted were the Mariners playing for something.

Why should we have to accept that this sort of thing is just "part of the game"? I know calls have been up to the umpires since the birth of the sport, but instant replay has only been available for a little while, now, and if the purpose of having umpires is to try and get as many calls right as possible, why are people so reluctant to take the next logical step towards accomplishing that goal? Why are people so afraid of instant replay? Given how every baseball fan I've ever talked to has had his share of stories about how his team got screwed by a bad call, shouldn't a more accurate system be, I dunno, universally embraced? Seems like the only people who have a right to hate cameras are the umpires themselves, but even then, I imagine it'd be better to have your bad call overturned than to have your bad call cost some team a run, a game, or even a season. I'd rather look dumb for five minutes than look dumb for a month.

Baseball is a competition between two teams. At the end of the day, the team that makes fewer mistakes will wind up the victor. With that in mind, why would we ever want to allow for some margin of error from a third party? What purpose does that serve? People can talk all they want about how the want to protect the "integrity of the game" or whatever, but I guarantee you they're not talking like that when they lose a baserunner to a blown call.

Just because major bad calls don't happen that often doesn't mean they aren't a problem, or that measures shouldn't be taken to minimize the frequency with which they occur. A call like today's taking place in an important game could very easily mean the difference between a team making the playoffs and watching from home. Doesn't that seem like the sort of thing we should try to prevent before it happens? This isn't a hypothetical. This is probability. And the longer you wait, the better the chances of some baseball team ending up mighty sore.

Choose replay. It's good for the game, and it's good for the soul.