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Errors are probably the most aptly-named baseball occurrence, right up there with the wild pitch. The ball was hit at you, a person whose job it is to field it, and you did not do it. That’s an error. I love it.
20 errors in a season is a tremendous feat of bad at your job-ness. If we assume that a regular, everyday position player appears in 150 games, that’s one error every 7.5 games. Again, the goal is to make an error every 0.0 games. Unfortunately, baseball players are human, and the Seattle Mariners are depressingly human.
The 20-error season has happened, fittingly, 20 times in Mariner history. Sixteen different players have done it, since a few guys liked it so much that they did it again. Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, no outfielders or first basemen made the list. Middle infield and all of its tricky hops lead the way. The 1970s and ‘80s are also well represented.
Seattle has not had a 20-error player since 2016, when they had two, and one of those guys has since mutated into an MVP candidate in his new position for his new team. You will notice that 2016 was not the first time the M’s had two 20-error players patrolling the same infield. It has happened, sadly, four other times. In 1987 the second baseman, shortstop, and third baseman combined for 66 errors.