The Seattle Mariners need to be some of the irritating groups in Main League Baseball to cheer for.
There are positively worse groups and there are definitely worse conditions when it comes to possession, baseball operations and expertise ranges. There are groups and conditions which can be objectively dangerous and even borderline hopeless.
The Mariners are by no means actually in that class.
They’ve some hope, they’ve some expertise and so they typically win sufficient video games to maintain issues attention-grabbing and preserve the staff aggressive.
However they’re by no means fairly adequate to recover from the hump and change into a critical contender. The 2024 season has been one other chapter in that seemingly unending cycle of mediocrity.
The Mariners have been formally eradicated from American League playoff competition on Thursday, lacking the postseason regardless of holding a 10-game lead for a playoff spot at their excessive level for the season in mid-June.
The membership misplaced its division result in the Houston Astros and was ultimately overtaken within the wild-card race by the Kansas Metropolis Royals, Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins.
It doesn’t matter what the Mariners do over their last three video games of the common season they’re going to end with a successful file for the fourth yr in a row — and the seventh time prior to now 11 seasons relationship again to 2014. That’s not a foul run.
However that stretch has additionally solely resulted in a single playoff berth, which appears nearly inconceivable to consider given what number of successful information they’ve compiled.
Simply to place that into perspective, listed here are the highest 15 groups in wins (using Baseball-Reference Stathead) for the reason that begin of the 2014 season and the variety of playoff appearances every has had.
- Los Angeles Dodgers (1,033 wins): 11 playoffs
- Houston Astros (957 wins): 9 playoffs
- New York Yankees (947 wins): Eight playoffs
- Cleveland Guardians (921 wins): Six playoffs
- St. Louis Cardinals (903 wins): Six playoffs
- Tampa Bay Rays (894 wins): 5 playoffs
- Chicago Cubs: (887 wins): 5 playoffs
- Atlanta Braves (887 wins): Six playoffs
- Milwaukee Brewers (886 wins): Six playoffs
- Boston Purple Sox (879 wins): 4 playoffs
- Seattle Mariners (861 wins) One playoff
- Toronto Blue Jays (859 wins): 5 playoffs
- New York Mets (855 wins): Three playoffs
- San Francisco Giants (848 wins): Three playoffs
- Washington Nationals (832 wins): 4 playoffs
Each different staff within the prime 15 in wins over these previous 11 seasons has made the playoffs not less than 3 times — apart from the Mariners, who stay caught on one. 12 of them have made the playoffs not less than 4 instances. That quantity may enhance to 13 groups if the Mets earn a playoff spot this season.
Each staff on that record has performed in not less than one league championship collection throughout that stretch — apart from the Mariners.
10 of these 15 groups have performed in not less than one World Sequence. The Mariners haven’t.
Eight of these groups have received not less than one World Sequence. The Mariners haven’t.
There is a component of dangerous luck at play right here to be so constantly aggressive and never have extra to point out for it. For as aggressive because the Mariners have been, although, they’ve by no means received greater than 90 video games in the course of the house in query, with their successful seasons tending to take a seat between 84 and 90 wins. Good. Not nice. That appears to be the calling card of the Mariners group.
