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We had a decade of Griffey, all of A-Rod's club controlled years, half of Randy Johnson's best years, Edgar's whole career, and now 11 and a half years of Ichiro, without so much as a pennant to show for it.
Like you said, since 1990 we've never had a season where one of the 5 greatest players in the game were not on this team. We still have Felix, one of the game's greats and on track for the HOF himself, but he can't lead the offense. Dave Sims said he walked up to Ackley and Smoak after the presser and said, "Well it's your team now." Ackley agreed. I would guess that Smoak curled into the fetal position.
We'd better find some players capable of shouldering that load. It never should have been Ichiro's job in the first place - if we'd given him a Thor to his Captain Japan, then he would have been able to use what he brought to the table to help us win.
Getting bunt base hits with two men on that score no one, only to have the men behind him all fail miserably, just added to the misery. I like Ackley, Montero, Saunders, Wells and Seager. I dunno that any of them are up to the task of carrying this offense and this franchise forward. The shine is definitely off of Smoak. Guti can't stay healthy and with his concussion symptoms who knows when or how well he'll play again (see Morneau's post-concussion struggles for an example). Franklin and Carp are not offensive juggernauts. Are we waiting for a catcher (Zunino) to come and lead this team?
Ichiro is one of the greatest players to step on the field, but he couldn't avert 100-loss seasons. The RJ/Griff/Edgar/Bone Mariners made the playoffs twice. Two times.
I would hope that the Mariners we are building will be deeper than our teams have been for most of the last 2+ decades. I would hope that we can get an offense, a rotation AND a bullpen, all at the same time.
But in the post-roid era putting together an offense requires a lot of money or a lot of luck, and we haven't shown an inclination toward either, while the other members of our division have the pedal to the floor. The Rangers are monsters. The Angels are letting the minotaurs out of the labyrinth. The As are once again the "mess around for 2 months, compete for 4" small market scrappers.
We are... foundering. We have Felix, and an entire stadium full of question marks. I don't want to compete with the Astros for the basement. I want to duke it out for division titles and pennants.
We've been drafting at the top for a decade, so where's our Mike Trout? He's got 6 WAR by JULY for the Angels. Trumbo, who will "never keep this up" is absolutely keeping this up.
The kids have to come through for us, hitters AND pitchers. If the Rangers are gonna drag a Colby Lewis out of Japan and have him be a top-20 starter in the league, then we've got to manage the same, either with a Hultzen or an Erasmo, or a flier like Iwakuma. Because when he goes down with an injury (as he just did) they have other arms who can step in. We don't even have the performing arms the first time around at this point.
We have pieces. We need a spark. The Frankenstein monster Zduriencik is assembling requires a beating heart - right now all the parts are in place, but lifeless. I dunno where to go from here. Ichiro gave us everything that he could, and (until the last coupla years) I enjoyed his time with us, but the teams were not especially enjoyable.
I would be fine with fewer superstars and more wins, but can you put together a successful offense in 2012 and beyond without superstars?
The Orioles are hanging in there with a couple of starting arms, the greatest bullpen around, and an offense powered mostly by one man (Jones) helped out by a few average bats. Is that sustainable, or will they sink back into the muck and the mire next season?
Because the Yankees have a good everything. So do the Rangers. The Angels need a couple of starters to get better and they'll have everything too. The As have an ungodly staff right now compensating for offensive weakness, but their star bats (Reddick and Cespedes) are doing what it was hoped they would do.
Nobody but Felix on this team is really doing what we would hope they do. Okay, Casper Wells (150 ABs) and some of the pen arms are fulfilling our dreams for them, but it's not enough.
The way we play on the road you feel like maybe we're on the verge. And then we come home for a 10 game homestand and all the life leaks right out of the team. That wasn't anything Ichiro could stop - his game is an internal and personal one, and always has been. We need somebody who can have a Network moment, where he just won't take it anymore. That guy does not currently seem to play here.
That particular problem is not going away. I hope we find a fix for it soon, because we have so many of the pieces that would seem necessary for victory, but are so good at snatching defeat from its jaws instead.
If we can't hit, we need to pitch. If we can only hit on the road, then we need to plan better for winning at home. But individual perfection in the form of Ichiro didn't help his 24 teammates at all, so something needs to rally an entire team and have them put their best on the field. I thought that was the manager's job, but we haven't had a manager who could do that in many seasons either.
By the way, Melvin's doing it just find in Oak-Town right now. There's something about this particular club - I can't argue with Baker about that conclusion. We'd better figure out how to fix it before we hold another press conference, Starship Troopers style, where the new person in charge tells us all about how smart they are and how we're gonna get better dancing to the second verse, same as the first.
I'm glad I got to witness so many individual moments of greatness from Ichiro. I'm ready to witness some moments of team greatness now.
Make it happen.
~G