Defying the pundits and prognosticators, the Seattle Mariners took their fans on an amazing ride in the 2021 Major League Baseball season; one that very nearly took the team to the playoffs after a 20-year post season drought. It’s been since at least 2001, and maybe the ’95 season, that M’s fans have been treated to such exciting baseball, and there is every reason to think the best is yet to come in 2022 and beyond. Presented here is the Introduction to my upcoming book, “Believe! Revisiting the Seattle Mariners Remarkable 2021 Season,” which should be published within a few weeks. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this initial taste. Go Ms!! MA

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Following the Seattle Mariners 2018 season, a campaign in which the team registered its best record since 2003 with 89 wins, Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto decided to blow up the team and start over. Despite the Mariners record, Dipoto’s logic for doing so was sound. Seattle’s two best hitters, Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano, were 38 and 36 years old respectively, and the team as a whole was the oldest in baseball. Add to this the fact that the M’s play in the AL West Division with the Houston Astros (103 wins in 2018) and Oakland A’s (97 wins in 2018), teams loaded with good young players, and it was obvious to Jerry that to compete for the playoffs and a possible World Series a complete overhaul was needed.

To his credit, once he decided the overhaul was required Dipoto didn’t let his finger falter on the trigger. In the 2018-19 off season he allowed Nelson Cruz to depart to free-agency, and he unloaded his ace but oft injured pitcher, James Paxton, to the Yankees for 22-year old hurler Justus Sheffield and relief pitcher Erik Swanson. In a stunning deal, he convinced the Mets to take Cano, who had 5 years left on his $240 million contract, by packaging Seattle’s phenomenal young closer Edwin Diaz (57 saves in 2018, 1.96 ERA) with the aging 2^nd baseman, getting in return an elite young outfielder named Jared Kelenic and young right handed pitcher, Justin Dunn. He sent shortstop Jean Segura to the Phillies for a struggling former first round pick named JP Crawford; and he unloaded catcher Mike Zunino, who never fulfilled his potential as a hitter in Seattle, to the Tampa Bay Rays, getting in return outfielders Mallex Smith and Jake Fraley. He followed that up in the shortened 2020 Covid 19 season with a trade that sent catcher Austin Nola and some relief pitchers to the San Diego Padres for a talented hitter named Ty France, a young catcher named Luis Torrens, top outfield prospect Taylor Trammell, and a fire-balling reliever we’ll be hearing from soon, Andres Muñoz.

While all this was happening young Mariners draft talent began to arrive at the big league level. During the last few weeks of the 2019 season top prospect, center fielder Kyle Lewis, was called up and made an immediate impact, hitting .268 with 6 home runs in just 18 games. He followed that up in the shortened 2020 Covid-19 season with a .262 batting average, 11 home runs and a stellar .364 On Base Percentage in 58 games played; production garnering him the 2020 American League Rookie of the Year award. Also arriving with the team in 2019 was the earlier mentioned 24-year old shortstop, JP Crawford, who cracked the starting line-up for the last half of the season. He followed that up with a 2020 season in which he hit .255 with a .336 OBP, and was acknowledged for his fielding prowess with the 2020 American League Gold Glove award for his position. In 2020 another first-round draft pick, first baseman Evan White, was the opening day starter for Seattle at that position and played the entire abbreviated season. Though clearly not ready for the majors as a hitter (White hit a paltry .176 in 2020 with a .252 OBP), he was superb in the field, also winning the AL Gold Glove for his position.

Meanwhile Dipoto continued to load his farm system with talent through the draft. In 2018 he acquired young starting pitcher Logan Gilbert in the first round and catcher Cal Raleigh in the 3^rd round. He followed that draft in 2019 with another premium first round pick we’ll be hearing from soon, possibly as soon as 2022, pitcher George Kirby. To all of this can be added another dynamic outfield and hitting phenom who will be in the majors soon, a young player from the Dominican Republic named Julio Rodriguez, who the M’s signed at the ripe old age of 16 in 2017. Now 20 years old, Rodriguez tore it up in the minors in 2021 with a .347 batting average, 13 homers, .441 On Base Percentage and a 1.001 OPS (On base plus slugging)! It’s also possible we’ll be seeing Rodriguez playing in T-Mobile as soon as the upcoming 2022 season.

With all this talent infusion, Dipoto has transformed the Mariners farm system from one of the worst in baseball to one of the best, and, as we’ve seen, by the 2020 season some of that talent was starting to impact the big club with more on the way. Still, going in to the 2021 season, while lauding Dipoto’s work at re-building the team, most MLB pundits thought Seattle a year or two away from contending, pegging them as a 75-80 win team at best.

No pundit yet has ever won a game, however. Wins and losses are determined by the talent on the field, it’s true, but also by other less tangible, or even intangible factors. The phenomena of immensely talented teams “under” performing and less talented teams seemingly “over” performing is an illustration of this. Years of observation has convinced me that a team is not just a group of individual players, however talented they may be. A real team has a culture to it, a kind of élan or life force that is more than the sum of the individual dynamics of the players. How this comes about may seem a bit mystical, but I can tell you that the main factor involved is high agreement between the players, the manager, the coaches and front office people on the team’s goal. In other words, from their own hat, everyone on the team is trying to accomplish the same thing. When this forms the core reality of a team, shared by every teammate, front office person and batboy, something special, almost magical, happens. Not only do the players, coaches, trainers and clubhouse people, united by the common purpose, like each other better; they as players and as a team, become, believe it or not, luckier. They also communicate with each other better. These factors start to manifest to the degree that a team can accomplish this basic agreement amongst its members as to just what they are trying to accomplish as a group. Get this done and an executive, coach, manager and even the players themselves, can take the team they have and start to create out of it a real TEAM.

As the 2021 Major League Baseball season got rolling, we didn’t yet know it, but the Seattle Mariners were on the verge of doing exactly that.

Copyright © 2021

By Mark Arnold

All Rights Reserved