With Memorial day fast approaching, it is not too early to begin considering which teams may have already played themselves into “wait ’til next year” mode. This season one need look no further than the West Coast, home of what are easily the two most disappointing teams in baseball: The Mariners and the Padres.
The Mariners are 18-30 as of today; the worst record in the American League. They are 5-15 in May: 2-1 against San Diego, 3-14 against everybody else. They have scored more than four runs only four times all month, and two of those games were losses (by scores of 13-12 and 12-8). The team OBP of .309 is the worst in the league, and the team ERA of 4.60 is third worst in the league. 36 year old Raul Ibanez and 34 year old Ichiro Suzuki are the only really effective hitters, and Fleix Hernandez and Eric Bedard the only two effective starters. The bullpen has been decent, but JJ Putz does not get enough leads to protect to make much of a difference.
In short, the Mariners at this point are the very definition of hopeless, and quite a bit of work needs to be done to get them into rebuilding mode. The trade of potential future star Adam Jones in the Bedard trade is looking like a bad deal. Bedard is not enough to get this team into contention now or in the near future, and Jones will be producing somewhere long after Bedard is past his peak effectiveness.
Things are not much better in San Diego. The team OBP is .304, worst in the majors. The pitching is somewhat better at a 4.40 ERA, but then again Petco Park is known as a good ballpark for pitchers, so 10th in the league is not all that great.
The saving grace for the Padres as compared to Seattle is that there is some decent young talent on the team. Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Kouzmanoff and Khalil Greene are productive regulars under age 30, and starting pitchers Jake Peavy and Chris Young are 27 and 29 respectively. But there is not a lot in the Minor League pipeline, so the team is not super-well positioned for the future. This season is quite a fall from three years of playoff or near-playoff caliber teams.
For two franchises that came into the 2008 season expecting to complete for a pennant, these two teams are in sad shape.
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