Smooth Sailing Ahead
Unknown author – “Ship,” The New International Encyclopædia, v. 18, 1905, plate between pp. 90 and 91.
What do you feel when you look at that image? Overwhelmed? Confused? Like you have no idea what any of those words mean? Sure you know what a sailing ship is and have a vague idea how it works, but you probably don’t know the intricacies or how all the sails and lines work in concert with one another.
Now how does this video make you feel?
Let me hazard a guess. Because you’re a Mariners fan, it gets your heart pumping and you know that Julio needed a clutch moment like that. Because you’re a Lookout Landing reader, you know that David Robertson had no business throwing that inside curveball to a batter hungry to turn on an inside pitch. And because you’re a baseball fan, you can appreciate the elegance in Julio’s swing — in his one-handed follow through, his slow walk out of the box, and his massive bat flip.
Those are your instinctual feels, trained after watching hundreds, if not thousands, of baseball games. And to get a deeper understanding of that moment, you can drill deeper. According to Statcast data, Robertson’s knuckle curve gets hit harder than any other pitch in his repertoire, with an average exit velocity of 90.4. And Julio was starting to see his wOBA rising late in the year, especially on offspeed pitches. Those two factors combined resulted in a swing that gave the Mariners a win late in the season, and it was nearly enough to send them to the playoffs in 2024.
In sailing and in baseball, there are two forces at play driving how we perceive the world. The artistic and the intellectual forces. Baseball and sailing are not unique in this respect, but the forces are overwhelming in both. Despite what some people might tell you, sabermetrics and instincts are not opposing forces in baseball, but they are in tension. Often the prettiest swing is also the most productive for a particular situation. The tension is in creation, in building a roster and developing players. When the team’s keel is laid down, is the ship around it constructed based on what feels right or based on what mathematics dictates? In ideal world, both. And so it was for the Mariners in 2025.
Just as any sailor worth his salt could look at a crank hulk of a vessel and point out its flaws, any baseball fan could look at the Seattle roster at the end of 2024 and identify its largest weakness: hitting. Through a combination of a strikeout heavy roster and playing in what is by far the worst park for hitting, the Mariners simply could not score enough runs to compliment their exemplary pitching. Like a fast ship with no cannons, all they couldn’t so much “win,” as do just enough to avoid defeat.
So when the big offseason additions were players like Rowdy Tellez and Donovan Solano, as well as retaining Jorge Polanco, it seemed like the team didn’t want to buy any cannons, just replace their pistols with muskets.
And yet, it was enough.
The sailing characteristics of a ship are a delicate balance of forces. The pressure on each sail, the changing shape of the hull below the waterline as the ship lists from side to side, the tide constantly pushing the ship in some other direction. During an ebbing tide, it’s possible for a ship to be making it’s best speed through the water, but hardly moving over land. That was where the Mariners found themselves last year. But this year, with a rising tide in their favor, they were on the attack.
A roaring hot start from Julio, J.P., and Rowdy — combined with the persistent excellence of the pitching staff — gave the Mariners a 4.5 game lead by the end of April. They cooled down slightly through May and early June, but were consistently winning series’ — especially against divisional opponents. Polanco was serviceable enough at 3rd base, and Luke Raley earned full-time 1st base duties. Throughout July and August, the M’s went on a rampage, tearing through the American League. The Astros, desperate to reclaim lost ground, tried a risky trade at the deadline for Luis Robert Jr., but he wasn’t used to Daikin (née Minute Maid) Park, and collided hard with the fence in left center and took a long trip to the 10-Day IL. With their closest rival all but dashed on the rock, the M’s seemed in prime position to take the AL West.
But the winds are fickle, and they turned against the Mariners early in September. It was impossible to say what caused it. No one was injured, but at the same time no one was playing to their upside. A three game sweep on the road at the hands of the Rays was the first sign that Seattle had accidentally shot some unseen albatross, and was about to pay the price. A 5-11 stretch set the stage for a late Houston comeback, and the M’s were just 1 game ahead of the Astros when they flew to Houston for a three game set. When they returned to T-Mobile Park, they were tied.
And they remained tied, even after the Mariners swept the Rockies in a three game set. Due to their earlier success, Seattle held the tiebreaker over Houston, but with that little solace. The M’s would have to beat the reigning World Series champions in the LA Dodgers, while Houston had the pleasure of facing the 5th Anaheim Angels.
But as any good seaman will tell you, even the most overwhelming of odds can be overcome as long as you keep your head and read the winds well. The Mariners, in their small sloop could outrun the Dodgers’ unwieldy three-decker, and pummeled LA from a distance, hitting 10 home runs as a team in 3 games. They took 2 of 3 from the Dodgers, while a becalmed Houston could only eke out a single victory in Anaheim.
Champions of the West for the first time in decades, and with the pockets full of prize money, the Mariners sailed straight into the ALDS, beating the Tigers bloody to a run differential of 24-4, taking the series in 4 games. In the ALCS, the Mariners were yet again lined up against the Houston Astros, hungry for vengeance.
It was a back and forth action, fought night and day. Three times the Astros attempted to board the good ship Mariner, and three times they were repelled — but barely. Finally in game seven, Julio lifted his cutlass, and with one swing hit a 3 run home run that finally forced Houston to haul down its flag. For the first time in franchise history, the Mariners had their pennant: flying proudly from the mizzen peak and challenging any who would oppose them.
Alas, while the M’s could harness the winds, they could not create or control them. The WS was a prime example of just how much luck plays a roll in baseball. Seattle’s batted balls in the World Series averaged an xBA of .410. And their actual BA was half that. The Dodgers, because of course it was the Dodgers, had them played perfectly. They took the weather gauge, and ran down on the Mariners with a trained, ruthless efficiency. It was a miracle the Series was 6 games long.
And yet, this overmatched, beleaguered crew had done what no other Mariners had done before. Their ship was constructed just optimally enough, and they handled her with the right amount of daring and skill to take them further than anyone thought possible.
Perhaps next year they would have a frigate. There would be no stopping them then.