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1) Yes, I'm aware that it's not possible to get precise matches to the Mariners of 2014. That this makes my analysis limited i what it can tell us. A couple of thoughts though:
1) Bullpens are always (that's A-L-W-A-Y-S!) volatile. And I do mean always. Like...every blinkin' time. Axiomatically. DOGMATICALLY. :) Bullpens are volatile. Period. How many of the guys in this current bullpen had years far superior to what we expected coming into the season? Rodney, Wilhelmson, Medina, Biemel (!) - any others? How many of them will repeat that next season? 1...maybe 2 if we're lucky? How many of the guys we rely on for production that we got will have the same good year next year? Maurer has been hittable lately. Leone is nothing truly special. Furbush is erratic, Farquhar is frequently literally brainless up there. This team has lots of good bullpen arms...but our bullp[en ran a 2.50 ERA for the SEASON. If you go into 2015 counting on that again...you ignore history.
2) If our ballpark is such a huge factor for producing lots of awesome pitchers...why have our ERA+ (which are corrected - imperfectly, but still - for park context) been between 91 and 107 every single year except this one and 2001/2003 since the move to the new park? If the context were good for pitching to such an extent that we should consider it a warping factor even in a park-neutralized statistic, why haven't we had consistent success developing pitchers?
3) And yes...the early-2000s As had well above average defense - that was an underreported piece of moneyball. Mark Ellis, Terrance Long, Miguel Tejada, and Eric Chavez were all fabulous fielders, they always had a good game-caller behind the plate and they always run out the hitters when it was a K pitcher and the fielders when it was not.
4) And finally - is our rotation as bulletproof as you make it sound here? I think most heartily not. Iwakuma is a dead man walking IMHO. Elias will probably have sophomore struggles with his command as many lefties of his ilk do (and he wasn't elite in 2014 anyway), we won't get a repeat performance from Chris Young, and don't have any real depth behind the starting five now (Sorry...E-Ram doesn't count and neither does Wilhelmson until he proves it). We'll need Walker and Paxton to be healthy all year with our current rotation or the guy who takes their place will be a disaster.
And finally...there is King Felix - we don't need Felix to get hurt to make us worse...he just had a career year - we know he's good and will continue ot be good...but if he does NOT manage to string together seventeen (17!) UQS in a row...he's worse than he was this year. :) Y'feel me?
Said all of that to say - I actually take umbrage at the notion that my argument was an imperative NOT to try to build a winner. It was the OPPOSITE. The Mariners will be tempted to say "we have a contender now! - let's just keep our guys in house and count on the kids to get better!" And I'm tellig them right now that if they do this...they won't win 80 games next year, let alone the 88 you need to be in the WC hunt. We need to add 100 runs on offense to be competitive in 2015. That is the goal.