Hitting The Cutoff Man

Before the season started, the ESPN Magazine baseball preview issue came in the mail, with the Seattle trio of Ichiro, Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee on the cover, flicking popcorn at the camera. "Outs are in -- and so are the Mariners," the headline proclaimed.

The idea was that the Mariners' focus on run prevention -- they led the majors with an incredible 85.8 team UZR in 2009 -- would lead them to the playoffs this season.

But while the M's defense has been solid, if not as spectacular as last year, the team is sitting at 12-19 entering play Tuesday and is in last place in the AL West. Lee's stint on the DL didn't help, but that's not the main problem.

The main problem is that outs are in fact "in." They're always "in" in baseball, due to the fact that avoiding them at the plate is the basis for success in the game. The Mariners have been worse at that than almost anyone this year, ranking 13th of 14 AL teams in OBP and 14th in slugging. Their team's weighted on-base average (wOBA) -- essentially a more advanced form of OPS -- is by far the worst in the AL and second-worst in baseball behind the Astros.

Culprits are not hard to come by, since every Mariners hitter besides Franklin Gutierrez and Ichiro have been well below average. But nobody is more culpable than Seattle's designated "hitters."

During the off-season, the Mariners' front office had any number of options for filling its DH slot, but after picking up Cliff Lee, Chone Figgins and Milton Bradley, among others, essentially decided to try a platoon of Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Sweeney. The main problem with this strategy is that while the DH's only job is to hit, neither Junior nor Sweeney are capable of doing so at the major league level anymore.

The decision to go with the two old guys (Sweeney is 36, Griffey is 40) clearly had something to do with the mystical value of "veteran leadership" and "clubhouse presence." It's understandable, particularly in the case of a Mariners legend like Griffey, but it's also wrong. Everyone knew Seattle needed offense after the team struggled to score runs last season, and management turned over an offense-only position to two guys whose glory days as hitters are long gone and whose days as useful hitters are gone, too. That's far more important than Junior catching some Zs in the clubhouse.

The stats tell the story.

Seattle's wOBA at DH this season (through Monday) is .213, and remember wOBA works on the same scale as OBP. In other words, that's really, really bad. How bad?

-- The White Sox are second-worst this season ... at .284.

-- Last season, the Royals finished last in this category ... at .291.

-- Since 2002, the record for the worst team DH wOBA for a season belongs to ... the 2008 Mariners! Their mark that year was .267.

-- During that 2008 season, Seattle DHs did actually have a month comparable to what they have done so far this season, putting up a .210 wOBA in June thanks to the offensive stylings of Jose Vidro's corpse.

-- To put a .213 wOBA in context: Only one qualified hitter this season, San Diego's Jerry Hairston Jr., has a wOBA lower than that. Last season, the worst wOBA among qualified hitters was .271, courtesy of KC's Yuniesky Betancourt; Mario Mendoza, who inspired the term "Mendoza line" with his weak hitting, had a career wOBA of .231. Six NL teams are getting a wOBA better than .213 so far this season from their pitchers.

-- Some more mainstream stats and the Seattle DHs' AL rank in them this season: .185 batting average (14th), 0 home runs (14th), 8 RBI (14th), 22 hits (14th), 3 extra-base hits (14th), 8 runs (14th). So yes, last in just about everything.

In essence, by sending Griffey and Sweeney out as "designated hitters," the Mariners are doing the equivalent of keeping Bengie Molina on their roster solely to pinch-run.

Now, Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik seems like a smart guy, and this won't go on for forever. It's been suggested Griffey might be on his way out, especially after "nap-gate." Eventually, Sweeney might follow, no matter how good of a guy he is. Reason probably will win out in the long run; Mariners fans will just have to hope it doesn't happen too late.

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