The Mariners are, by any conceivable timeline, behind. Fans are very understandably desperate for the team to make the playoffs, any playoffs, for the first time since moving a television to another room required offering three friends pizza and beer to come help. Similarly the team, even one that adamantly and (somewhat) understandably has no desire to inherit the failures of its predecessors, is behind its own timeline, which was clearly stated to target 2021. You may consider the team’s first 90-win season since 2003 a technical fulfillment of that goal, my counter argument is that the team’s own actions (or lack thereof) to support last season’s roster at the trade deadline tells you exactly how seriously they were taking that “contention.”

In the past (and most likely in the future) I would here pivot to telling you about how frustrating I find all this but let’s be honest – neither you the reader nor I the author need that crap right now. The sport is locked out. The owner’s avarice for ever-increasing and endless rises in profits could conceivably wipe out the regular season’s first 1-2 months. We can, for now, let the mealy-mouthedness of Jerry Dipoto rest without comment because, by and large, the lockout means he’s not commenting.

Instead of mindless kvetching I want to offer a thought: Even though all creature’s under God’s sky agree that it’s well and past time for the Seattle Mariners to “get off their ass and actually be really damn good for once” their actions say that they have no intention of rushing themselves. In response I am

/PLOT TWIST

/OFF SCREEN SCREAM AND BREAKING OF GLASS*

here to tell you I think it’s the right course of action.*

*Note: any praise to follow of the Seattle Mariners, Jerry Dipoto, John Stanton, The Green Goblin (their secret real owner), etc. is simply a reflection of current realities and not a justification or post-hoc revisionist history attempting to justify their penny-pinching and/or any thumbs that have been consistently sat upon over the past 3-4 seasons.

The Mariners can talk as much as they want about their various commitments and timelines and goals and on and on but any clear-headed analysis of their actions shows that 2022 is not a season the organization views as “win or bust.” The signing of Robbie Ray is a step towards building an AL West-contending roster, but the level of work to be done to finish that job before the season starts is astronomical. Baseball Prospectus has the current roster 15 (!) games behind the Astros. Perhaps an expanded playoff allows the team to sneak in to the postseason with a new third (or fourth) wild card but simply entering an ever-diluting playoff format is not the standard I hold the Mariners to, nor should it be the one they hold themselves.

There is simply too much work to be done this year, in too short a time. Yes the team *could* sign Trevor Story, Seiya Suzuki, trade for Bryan Reynolds and Sonny Gray, watch Julio Rodriguez win AL ROY, and bullrush the Astros for the division crown. But consider that of those five occurrences just outlined at least three would need to actually happen to make such a scenario anything beyond a beautiful dream. The Mariners actions prior to the lockout are consistent with their actions at the 2021 trade deadline and before: This is a team in no hurry to see what the front office believes is a winning long term formula play out, and will give its rebuild the full gestation period prior to making any significant or drastic commitments or direction-altering decisions.

Now, in an ideal situation this is not what I want. I want the Mariners to be good and to be good right now. The fans more than deserve it, for all the on and off-field embarrassment the franchise has inflicted upon them over the years. But while the direction isn’t one I prefer it is, generally, one I can respect. A plan not of my choosing or preference is still a plan, and still more than the organization has had the majority of its history. The Mariners appear to be following their plan largely to the letter.

We all want the Mariners to be good, and the sooner the better. But the cold reality is that the team’s ownership appears unwilling to open the pocketbook needed to accelerate the plan to our satisfaction. Given that apparent reality the future of this franchise sits where they have said it has since 2018: with the farm system. Jarred Kelenic, Julio Rodriguez, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, et al are not going to be ready to take Seattle to glory in 2022, but they very well may in 2023-2024. I am beyond sick of waiting, and we have every right to complain until if and when that glory arrives, but I am willing to let the ship sail a bit longer before lighting the powder cache and blowing it all up. May they find shore and treasure aplenty first.

Goms