Was 2007 a success or failure for M's? It's both

What an analytical conundrum this schizophrenic Mariners season presents.

Did they overachieve, or did they collapse? Have they turned the corner, or are they still riddled with deficiencies? Do we come to praise them, or bury them?

The answer, of course, is yes. In certain measures, all of the above.

The Mariners' 2007 season was all of that: ecstasy and agony, progress and regression, triumph and distress.

For nearly five months, the Mariners were a revelation, overcoming the shocking departure of their manager on July 1 to storm into playoff contention. They were 20 games over .500 on Aug. 24 and leading the wild-card race by three games. The whole bunch was being hailed for an astute makeover.

And then, for nearly three weeks, the Mariners were an abomination, dropping nine in a row, 13 out of 14, and 15 out of 17 to plummet right back out of contention.

The Mariners have rebounded to go 8-4 in the 12 games since then. Take a snapshot of their season, and basically a 2 ½-week stretch of epic breakdowns was their undoing.

Should they go 4-3 over their final seven games, the M's would finish 87-75, an improvement of nine games over 2006.

Not too shabby. But those 17 fateful games can't just be swept away. They defined the Seattle season every bit as much as the positive work that preceded it.

More so, perhaps, because the lingering aftertaste of 2007, for both participants and observers, is bound to be tinged with regret and a litany of "what ifs."

Whether the ultimate judgment on the Mariners' season swings toward the positive or negative is an important question, because it could well determine the futures of manager John McLaren and general manager Bill Bavasi.

On the one hand, the season can be assessed through the perspective of their immediate past. The Mariners were coming off three straight last-place finishes, and had similarly low expectations from most prognosticators.

By that measure, they were an unqualified success, putting together a run that sent a buzz through the baseball world. That they made solid and tangible progress is undeniable, and it continues the steady upward climb since the 99-loss disaster of 2004.

On the other hand, you have the preseason words of Mike Hargrove, seemingly reflective of the organizational outlook: "Our goal is to win the American League West. Anything short of that will be a huge disappointment for us, and I'm sure for our fans."

You have the fact that their late-season downfall wasn't just a stub of the toe, an unfortunate stretch-drive slump.

It was a historic collapse. No team in the lead for a postseason berth so late in the season had ever lost nine games in a row. No team 20 games over .500 so late in the season had ever lost 13 of 14 games. That is impossible to write off as a mere bump in the road.

You have the fact that for all the good things that happened this year, the Mariners as constituted still don't have the definitive feel of a team that is poised to take the final step to a playoff berth. Not without the addition of at least one major winner into the rotation, a formidable task in a weak year for free-agent pitchers.

And one more "on the other hand" that has to stick in the craw of Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln: The nine-game (or so) advancement in the standings from fourth to second place was accomplished with a $106 million payroll, the largest in club history and seventh-highest in the major leagues, according to most rankings.

Of the eight teams with payrolls more than $100 million, five are in the playoffs or headed there — in order, the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Angels and Cubs. Those headed home, bang-less for their bucks, are the Mariners, White Sox and Dodgers.

At least the Mariners can take solace that it wasn't the Oakland A's and their small-market payroll that did the schooling this year. The AL West-winning Los Angeles Angels are about $3 million north of Seattle at $109 million; but they have three Western Division titles in four years to show for their largesse.

The A's and Twins have been the recent poster boys for outsmarting the competition with manageable payrolls, but both finished out of the running this year. Yet there are still plenty of examples to be found of teams that won with shrewd utilization of a relatively modest payroll, including the one in town tonight with home-field advantage on its mind, the AL Central champion Indians.

Cleveland, with GM Mark Shapiro at the helm, has 92 wins to show for its $61 million payroll, while Arizona and San Diego could be headed for the playoffs with payrolls at $52 million and $58 million, respectively.

When Lincoln re-evaluates the temperature on his hot seat in the coming days, he has got to wonder why the Mariners' massive expenditure didn't deliver a team with six-month staying power.

The question for him to ponder is this: Was this season about the step forward, or the stumble?

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com