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I think you hinted at this earlier, but you can't just look at Chone Figgins lousy slugging and sub par OPS+ and say, "he sucks".  The thing those numbers leave out is that Chone is one of the premier base stealers in the league.  Those stolen bases turn a lot of singles into doubles (as well as occasionally turning singles into outs).  Now, the easy thing would be to adjust OPS related stats by adding the differential of Stealing/Caught Stealing attempts to the total bases to get a new slugging, but that new OPS would be soft, since the singles that turn into doubles only have the value of single for the purpose of driving in runs. 
Of course, the stolen base threats actually do bring another advantage to the table though, which is to produce the vaunted protection theory, inverted that is.  Everyone pretty much knows how this works, the pitcher works more, wasting energy throwing to first or second base, pitching from a generally less effective position (though of course they do this no matter who is on base), and having a far increased likelihood of throwing a fastball to keep the runner from taking the extra base.  And before someone comes back with, "Well, then why didn't it work?"  I've mentioned several times how this team had the worst luck on BABiP in the league (The Mariners had a team BABiP of .681 on line drives compared to a league average of .715), and when you combine that with an inability to hit home runs, then you're screwed.