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We’ve seen a lot of rookies get fitted for Mariner jerseys this year, which is what inspired this week and last week’s quiz. The hope is for none of the current gentlemen to end up in this category, which is the unplayable, burn after using category.
As players who came up and were instantly atrocious, lots of these guys are very forgettable. A few turned things around and ended up being serviceable or even above average, although some of the turnarounds were in other teams’ neighborhood.
The group includes two members of the rollicking 2014 bullpen, two people who threw for the 2020 Mariners, and two individuals with deliriously hard to spell last names, which is why we’ve rigged the Sporcle to accept shortened versions of them. There’s also a guy who was in the J.J. Putz trade, a guy who was in the less notable Abraham Almonte trade, and a guy who gave up one of the most memorable World Series home runs of all time.
The minimum amount of innings for this list, which I decided in a completely arbitrary manner, is 30. That leaves off our friend Anthony Vasquez from 2011, who managed to put up a -1.4 bWAR in just 29.1 innings, barely missing the cutoff. Vasquez had a smelly 8.9% K-rate in his rookie season, partially leading to an 8.90 ERA and 9.23 FIP. Not to be outdone, Rob Rasmussen moseyed into town in 2015 and finished 14.1 innings with a 10.67 ERA and -1.1 bWAR, although his 4.39 FIP is much easier to stomach.
The complete list of rookie Mariner pitchers since 2000 with a negative single-season bWAR in at least 30 innings is below. All you have to do is conjure up some of the most unwelcome, deeply repressed sports memories of your life to reveal them!