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Alas, there is no demand for intense physical analysis of baseball...the people who run the sport think such information will only add confusion to their perspectives on the game and its players...the players think only in terms of working hard enough, for the most part, not in terms of studying their craft.
Golf is definitely more of a learned-man's game to play...and golfers, because they are lone wolves, not team players, are on their own to figure out how to improve. The lack of a team structure to train them makes them smarter at finding the flaws in their game and getting the results on their own. The last great revolution in baseball will be, IMHO, the dawn of individual coaches and training programs and the end of the minor league one-size-fits-few system of coaching and development.
Regarding the Mariners, I think there may be some bad luck, but I also think we are being out-scouted.
The Yankees tracked this batted ball information with much more detail than ESPN does...and, without giving away precisely what they look at, I think it is safe to say that I had access to several years worth of high quality batted ball info...and found, to my grim LACK of surprise, that the Mariners had been the unluckiest team in baseball EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. since record keeping began for this sort of thing (2008).
Every year, they had regular players near the top of the unlucky list when comparing their actual offense to the offense you expected.
In 2013, it was Ackley, Smoak, Seager, Montero (short sample) and Bay (yep...he was a good hitter in 2013 according to our guesses).
In 2012, it was Ackley again, Smoak (to a lesser degree), Montero, Carp, and Casper Wells leading the unlucky pile.
In 2011 it was Seager, Smoak, Olivo and (believe it or not) Ryan.
I assure you...even in 2010, the Mariners were both horrible and ridiculous unlucky.
They're not just bad because theyb lack talent...they're bad because they are one of the "dumbest" teams in professional sports. Not in the sense that they lack intelligent people in their employ...but in the sense that they are constantly being annihilated by their opposition on the matter of advance scouting and adjusting to how other teams try to defeat them.