Seager-san… the M’s in Japan (2020 Season)

[pauwoo]

It’s been said that Seattle’s Trader Jerry has never seen a deal he didn’t like, that his goal in life, besides mindless disruption, is to pull off one big trade that would forever alter the landscape of the MLB and usher in an era of Mariner dominance. Thus far, any ill-gotten gains Jerry has produced haven’t had the desired effect – the Mariners are still bad, his ‘re-imagining’ effort hasn’t left the faithful with much to daydream about, and baseball in Seattle is on thin ice with the Kraken set to debut on the scene in 2021.

About that, though… Jerry, in his infinite wisdom, found a way to turn the Mariners into a powerhouse. Now, as you well know, finding a way to turn a major league ballclub into a perennial powerhouse and putting yourself on that path are two very different things… and this route to baseball badassery would not be easy to pull off. But, in attacking things with dogged determination and an unrealistic belief in his ability to do so, Trader Jerry and his merry men managed to pull off what some view as the baseball coup of the century.

After a series of backroom deals conducted in dimly lit rooms with some of the shadiest characters you’d ever care to meet, Trader Jerry took the Mariners charter and docked it in the Pacific League of [league redacted]. Well, I’ve oversimplified here a bit, what had happened was… Trader Jerry traded the Seattle Mariners to the *** for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, who will, presumedly, ply their trade in the AL West of the MLB.

The reactions to this development, in and around the PNW, were, decidedly, mixed – but, one thing is clear… if there was one move that could result in a playoff bid and eventual championship for the hapless M’s, this was it. The M’s now have a chance – an opportunity to etch their names into the annuals of time – as they embark on their quest to be a winner, to run roughshod over the ***, and to, hopefully, go down as one of the greatest clubs to ever quest for the championship in Japan.

This, then, is the story of Seager-san, the Seattle Mariners, and their anthropomorphic moose laying it all on the line in the pursuit of their first-ever professional baseball championship.


Side note: After the club was officially moved to the ***, our previous owner sold it to a gentleman named Suzunosuke Watanabe, who, then turned around and hired me (my name, of course, is Max Dubois, pleased to meet you). Don’t worry, I kept Jerry in the fold – he’s my assistant now – we had to take his keys away, so he wouldn’t go trade crazy and mess this up for us.

[stevem810]

Bold, very bold.

[pauwoo]

Interestingly, after entering the ***, re-running the scouting and setting it to 100% accuracy for our purposes here, the Seattle Mariners only have two active position players and one pitcher listed in the top ten of their respective player rankings. Kyle Seager is our top-rated position player at 6th, Shad Long, Jr comes in at 8th, and your boy, Marco Gonzales, is ranked as the 4th best hurler in the ***.

Of note… Jabari Blash who hit 33 trucks for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in 2019 while wearing No. 69 on the back of his kit, and who is currently languishing on the free agent list, ranks 15th on the position player table.

Of course, while individual player rankings are one thing – and can be fun – ball clubs are often only as good as the sum of their parts, and, if the *** preseason predictions are any indication, ours is a fierce, deep, and well-built club that should idle its time by razing every castle on their route to *** immortality.




If nothing else, your boy, Daniel Vogelbach will come through like some puffed up Mechagodzilla at the plate… hitting trucks and chewing on Marukawa Bear Fusen Bubble Gum.

[pauwoo]

The obligatory opening day game report… our opportunity to set the tone for the season during an inconsequential game in the larger scheme of things. Our goal here is to come out like a peak-crazy era Mike Tyson with a microphone shoved into his face.

And, on that note, we didn’t disappoint as the Mariners defeated the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters by a score of 9-4 at T-Mobile Park (soon to be renamed NTT Docomo Park – we’re still working on trying to finalize the financial terms of the agreement).



On a not-so-bright note… Danzilla Vogelbach opened his career as an *** ballplayer with a Golden Sombrero… or maybe it’s a Golden Kabuto – not sure, will have to ask Yusei when I get a chance. Yikes – 0 for 5, 4 Ks, 4 LOB – not the line I dreamed up.

[pauwoo]

Dance & Rejoice! RF Jabari “Big Daddy” Blash has found a home with the Orix Buffaloes – the 6’5”, 235lb power bat signed on for 1-year at $1.7M… we’ll get our first look at #69 when we visit the Kyocera Dome on the 28th to kick off a 2-game series.

[pauwoo]

RECORD: 6-3
STANDINGS: 1st (+0.5)
RUNS SCORED: 43 (1st)
RUNS AGAINST: 26 (1st)
DEFENSIVE EFF: .703 (5th)
ZONE RATING: -0.9 (6th)

Our early returns have not been great… at 6-3, we’re leading the Pacific League, sure, but our expectation was that we wouldn’t lose 3 games before the all-star break. Now, obviously, that’s a bit outlandish, but, “think big, get in big”, is our motto, and, so far, we’ve not been living it. We’re also struggling to draw fans so far – down 8.1% YoY with an untenable 23.4% dip in per-game revenue. Winning is important – true – but making money is also at the top of the list and, so far, we haven’t been doing enough of either for my tastes (which veer towards the posh – think beluga caviar and expertly prepared Fugu).

Of course, given that we have kicked things off with a .667 winning percentage so far and that our hitting has been terrible, we’re poised to really take off once we start putting some wood on the ball at an acceptable clip. I mean, 6th in AVG, OPS, bWAR, wOBA, and 5th in trucks just ain’t gonna cut it.


I’ve been spending a lot of time in our Skipper, Jack Elliot’s, office lately… going over game strategy, trying to get him to be more respectful to the Japanese game, and, really, just talking shop. Let’s put it this way – there is the way I want him to use our personnel and then there is the way he is using our personnel. He’ll come around to my way of thinking soon enough, I just need to lead him on the sly so that he thinks he is coming up with all these great ideas himself.

[tehsuigi]

Hey, great minds think alike!

I was completely hands-off with my sim, so good luck with your squad!

[pauwoo]

Originally Posted by tehsuigi

Hey, great minds think alike!

I was completely hands-off with my sim, so good luck with your squad!

That’s awesome! Just read through it, great stuff!

[pauwoo]

We’ve had our first, post-*** move defection as our injured reliever, Austin Adams, has informed the team that he will be taking an indefinite leave of absence to tend to “personal issues”. While Adams didn’t elaborate on what exactly the issues were, the rumor around the clubhouse is that he didn’t want to play in Japan – something to the effect of, “I didn’t work so hard to make the big leagues only to play in a second-rate international league”. Tsk, tsk… so entitled.

[pauwoo]

Look, things are going well, we’re sitting on a 13-5 record, at the top of the pops, and have a comfortable 4-game lead on the second place Chiba Lotte Marines… these are all great things. But I have issues… we’ve not been blowing teams out of the water, in fact, so far this month, 7 of our 9 games have been decided by two runs or less. Our expectation was that we’d run roughshod over all comers – running things like a far east, ‘roided up version of the ’98 Yankees… but, that’s not what we’ve seen so far. And, yeah, you’re right, we’re trending to earn 104 wins which would be a better winning percentage than that club, and, if you’re counting, a better winning percentage than the 2001 Mariners club that crashed, burned, and broke every young baseball fans fragile little heart when they were summarily dismissed from the playoffs.

Really, I shouldn’t complain – I’m being too greedy here – as the offense has started to come around and the pitching has been superb. Our hurlers are ranked 1st in almost every category that matters and must look like a knuckle-dragging, chesty, behemoth straight out of the Maxx comic to each batsman who is unfortunate enough to step in the box against them.

Some early surprises… Taijuan Walker and JP Crawford have each been something of a low-key problem for our opponents thus far. Nice to see Taijuan realizing some of his early promise, even if that realization is happening in the ***.





Also, your boy Jabari Bash took home the JPL player of the week award. #69 put it down last week, hitting .500 with 5 jacks, and 8 RBI over 5 games. At already 1.1 WAR so far, I think that $1.7M Orix is paying the guy will be money well spent. Of course, they are currently 5th in the JPL, so, they need their pitching to meet their #1 ranked offense at least halfway if they are to make any real noise this season.

[pauwoo]

A week of firsts… we lost our first regular-season set of the year, 2-1 at Hokkaido (with each of the Fighters wins coming in extras – a walk-off single in the first game and a walk-off walk in the third game), lost two in a row for the first time (that last one to Hokkaido was followed up with a loss to the Saitama Seibu Lions), and we scored 15+ runs twice. Basically, we were unable to get over in the close ones and looked unbeatable in the others.

A 16-0 win over Saitama Seibu in the 2nd game of that 3-game set was preceded by this shellacking in the 2nd game of our set against the Fighters… a 22-2 dominate win over the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters that will, undoubtedly, go down as our high-water mark for the season.

[pauwoo]

38-year old CF, Norichika Aoki, hit .417 with 3 HRs, 7 RBI, and 3 runs for the week. For his efforts, the former Seattle Mariner earned himself a swanky little trophy, a press release sent out to all the local and national papers, and this post on the OOTP Fictional Simulation board. In real life, I was a fan – I liked the way he played and saw him at the Safe more than a few times - I will say, however, that he wasn’t always the best fielder and often seemed to take the worst line when trying to chase down a fly ball. Always looked kind of funny from the terrace.

[pauwoo]

RECORD: 22-10
APRIL RECORD: 16-7
STANDINGS: 1st (+5)
RUNS SCORED: 183 (1st)
RUNS AGAINST: 94 (1st)
DEFENSIVE EFF: .727 (1st)
ZONE RATING: +6.1 (2nd)

We put together a nice April, finished the month off on an 8-2 record where each of the 8 wins came consecutively, and have started to put some distance between the competition and ourselves. We’re also ranked 2nd or better in the JPL for all the tracked statistical categories with the exception of strikeouts – essentially, we’ve been really, really good in our first full month as an *** club. Where we’ve stumbled, if you can call it that, is in closely contested games that require extra-innings or are settled by one run… we’re 2-3 in X-Inn games and 3-4 in 1-run games – which, is factoring into our -3 Diff against the Pyt.








Also, your boy, the one & only Jabari Blash took home the PoTM honor in the JPL… for the month he hit .323 with 14 trucks, 27 RBI, and 27 runs to take home the hardware. The guy, in only two years, has quickly made himself into something of a low-key *** legend.

[pauwoo]

Until today, we’ve handled 4 of the 5 teams we’ve faced with relative ease – the lone adversary that has held their own against us has been the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, who, prior to the series we just completed, had a 3-3 H2H record against our club. That changed after today as we swept those jokers under the rug, in their house, over a 3-game series… and it was dominant too as we outscored the Fighters 27-9 over three games. We’re at that point in the season now, where we’ve seen everyone at least once, and are starting to dial in the *** pitching – we knew this would happen, that we would settle into our new environs, and, ultimately, run roughshod over all comers. It does seem that we got here ahead of schedule, a bit, but now that we’ve turned that corner we should, hopefully, start to put some real distance between ourselves and the other clubs on the straightaway here.

25-10, .714 winning percentage, and firmly planted at the top of the pops… the world is our salmon roll.

[pauwoo]

Just a quick note… there have been two no-hitters thrown so far this season – one in each SL. Each earned a game performance score of 98 and, currently, sit at the top of that table. The top M’s on that ranking… Yusei scored an 88 in a game against Chiba Lotte… complete game, 3-hit shutout with 8 Ks – and Taijuan scored an 87 in a complete game, 4-hit shutout where he registered 9 Ks.

The No-Hitters…
04/01/2020: Tomoyuki Sugano - 11 K, 0 BB, and 9 IP versus Hanshin while playing for Yomiuri
05/06/2020: Atsuki Taneichi - 13 K, 2 BB, and 9 IP versus Orix while playing for Chiba Lotte



And, speaking of game performance rankings… Tom Murphy is holding down the number one slot for batters with a 2 for 3 day that included two jacks and 5 RBI that added up to a 93-game score and Kyle Seager makes an appearance at #4, 84 points, 4 for 4 with 2 RBI and 4 runs scored.

[stevem810]

Sugano's not a perfecto, I take it??

[pauwoo]

Originally Posted by stevem810

Sugano's not a perfecto, I take it??

Correct... SS Hayato Sakamoto committed a fielding flub that allowed a base runner.

[pauwoo]

For the majority of the season, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks have been ranked at #2 each week on the power rankings, they’ve been solid or better for the entire season, and, at least in the JPL, are easily our fiercest competition. Today, they pulled off something that I’d have said was impossible, especially given the way we’ve been putting it down lately, as they managed to secure a home sweep against us during a 3-game set where they required extra-inning victories in two of them to do it. After destroying us in the first game by a score of 8-0, the Hawks went on to burn us on consecutive, extra-inning, walk-offs to send us back to Seattle a somber, and less cocksure, version of our former selves.

The Hawks have closed the gap on us now… their total points in the weekly power ranking are 116.1 to our 117.7, and they find themselves a scant 2 games off our pace.

It’ll be a tough 10.5-hour flight followed by six straight in our park against the Chiba Lotte Marines and Orix Buffaloes. It’ll be a good opportunity to right the ship as we’ve performed well against these clubs so far.

[pauwoo]

RECORD: 39-20
APRIL RECORD: 16-7
MAY RECORD: 17-10
STANDINGS: 1st (+1.5)
RUNS SCORED: 337 (1st)
RUNS AGAINST: 190 (1st)
DEFENSIVE EFF: .715 (1st)
ZONE RATING: +7.0 (2nd)

Another good, but not great (by our lofty standards anyway), month for the Seattle Mariners… and a month that included our first 4-game losing streak, a 5-game winning streak, and two series losses including the aforementioned sweep at the hands of the Hawks. The team is performing admirably though – we’re in a good position and are nearing the point where our sample size will start to suss out the noise in the data – or so I’ve been told, or maybe I read that somewhere, dunno – and, while our lead over Fukuoka has shrunk to a scant 1.5 games, we’re still in first and playing like a rock-solid, no-nonsense, high-performing outfit that has its eyes on the prize.

There’s a lot of runway left, to be sure, but I’m OK with where we’re at.


Two more things… Danzilla now has 18 jacks which ties him for third on the JPL HR table, and, your boy, Taijuan Walker, won Pitcher of the Month in May after finishing 4-0 in May with 33 Ks over 36 innings of work, an ERA of 2.00, and all while holding opposing hitters to a .190 average.

[pauwoo]

RECORD: 53-28
APRIL RECORD: 16-7
MAY RECORD: 17-10
JUNE RECORD: 14-8
STANDINGS: 1st (+3.5)
RUNS SCORED: 489 (1st)
RUNS AGAINST: 260 (1st)
DEFENSIVE EFF: .712 (1st)
ZONE RATING: +3.2 (3rd)

Things are moving along now, the guys have settled in, and we’re starting to cook – though, even with our uber-impressive +229 RDiff, we continue to struggle in close games (8-13 in 1-Run games) and seem to run out of gas when the games go long (3-6 in X-Inn games). Basically, we’re either blowing teams out or playing them close and when we find ourselves in a closely contested ballgame the result seems to come down to a coin toss. We’re -9 against the PYT while maintaining a #1 ranking in nearly all the major statistical categories – our +9.4 base running is ranked 4th, +3.2 ZR is 3rd, and we rank 3rd in errors with 49. Those three categories certainly don’t tell the whole tale, you have to add some bad luck in the mix to get the unencumbered view, but we should be better in each, nonetheless.

We had some big wins this month – leaving our fans with plenty to feel good about – a 10-1 over the Yomiuri Giants early in June that featured 3 doubles, a triple, and 3 trucks, a 15-0 win over the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters on June 19th in our park, a 15-2 shellacking over the Chiba Lotte Marines (also in our park) that featured Mitch Haniger’s 9th jack of the season (he’s back….), and we closed out the month with a 17-1 road victory over the Saitama Seibu Lions. That’s sort of been our thing – look unbeatable one night, as the biggest, baddest bully on the block, and then follow that up with a ho-hum performance where we allow our opponents to keep it close enough to get a result.

Of course, with all that being said – I expect that July will be the beginning of the end for our rivals in the NPB… the takeover begins – mark my words.