Mariners Analysis | "We've made progress"

Another season of employment is only one of the things oft-criticized Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi will be seeking this winter.

Bavasi could also use another starting pitcher or two. Possibly an additional bat to offset the disappointing returns from those he'd already put in place. All of that, of course, will be moot unless team ownership allows Bavasi a fourth season of a contractual mandate he insists is still going according to plan despite what looks like a third consecutive last-place finish.

The one thing Bavasi gives no indication of wanting for 2007 is a new manager to replace Mike Hargrove.

"We've actually come a lot closer to .500 than I would have expected given the injuries we've suffered toward the end of the season," Bavasi said this week. "Given that, Mike and his coaches have done an outstanding job with these guys."

Skeptics will argue that Seattle's season was over even before bullpen injuries to Rafael Soriano, Julio Mateo and Mark Lowe. They will note how an 11-game losing streak in August doomed a team that had hung in the division race largely because of a 14-4 record in interleague play.

Part of the problem when a last-place team finishes as strongly as the Mariners — 20-14 since that mid-August losing streak — is determining the validity of those final weeks. There are judgment calls that can run both ways, just as they will in grading Hargrove and Bavasi.

The team's owners must make those calls.

They'll decide whether the players some claimed weren't responding to Hargrove in August are now doing so. Or whether losing 15 in a row to Oakland and finishing just 34-47 on the road is more telling than Seattle posting around 10 more victories than it did last season.

The owners must decide whether the Mariners are truly on a roll, or doing this simply because it was safe enough to start winning again.

"The players have gotten better," Bavasi said. "It's a young team. No manager likes playing with young players. They don't want any part of young players. And [Hargrove] has accepted them willingly, with a positive attitude. He's made them all better."

But the Mariners didn't start winning until ending their reliance on the aging bat of designated hitter Carl Everett and the faltering arm of veteran closer Eddie Guardado. Until struggling pitcher Joel Pineiro was bounced from the rotation to the bullpen.

Some of that falls on Hargrove. How much will be determined by whether he returns.

"There's a real thin line between being patient and being foolish," Hargrove admitted this week, not naming any specific cases. "And I've learned that, no matter how long you do this, you have a tendency at times to cross that line. It's not always bad that you do. It's just bad if you don't recognize it in time."

Hargrove insists Seattle's "level of talent" is far better than what he had during four losing seasons in Baltimore. He disputes the notion that he lost the team at any point and can't relate to its younger players.

"We show up every day to play," Hargrove said. "At times, we haven't played as smart as I would have liked for us to. But that's just the way it is with most young clubs."

Longtime major-league player and manager Jim Fregosi, with four decades in professional baseball, has a saying: "A manager is only as good as his players. Show me a great manager and I'll show you a manager who has great players."

Hargrove guided a very good Cleveland Indians team to five consecutive playoff appearances and into the World Series in 1995 and 1997. He then couldn't win for a meddling owner in Baltimore and will now post his second straight last-place finish in Seattle.

Could a World Series winner like Lou Piniella work more magic, despite failing to in three terrible seasons with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays? Or do the Mariners already have the right guy?

There were, after all, many who wrote off manager Jim Leyland as uninspiring and out of touch before he took the Detroit Tigers to the playoffs this season. Leyland is 61, Hargrove only 56.

"We're moving down the right road," Hargrove said. "I think we're a much better club now than we were when I first got here. We're a better club than we were to start the season. If there was something telling you we're not nearly as good a club ... then that would be a real red flag.

"But I don't think anybody who looks at this realistically can say that — that this is not a better team."

It's also worth remembering that most pundits picked the Mariners to finish last, meaning perhaps the architect of a team that lived up to its billing deserves more scrutiny than a manager trying to squeeze blood from the proverbial stone. Bavasi feels he may have been a tad optimistic in his own preseason projections.

"We had aspirations of getting back to .500," he said. "We figured at .500, we had a chance to be in the race. That was a pretty impressive goal given the type of club that we had a year ago, or even two years ago."

All the recent mound injuries helped keep a .500 record out of reach. But a lack of first-half hitting by Bavasi imports also scuttled that goal.

Even with second-half surges by Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre — and the DH additions of Ben Broussard and Eduardo Perez — the Mariners are second-to-last in the AL in on-base percentage, 11th in slugging and 10th in runs scored.

Bavasi can take some solace in division rivals Oakland and Los Angeles being just as woeful offensively. And that Seattle's pitching is superior to what Texas has.

Part of that edge is in a bullpen bolstered by J.J. Putz, converted to the closer's role under Bavasi. The arrival of Lowe this season — and a secondary wave of potential big-leaguers — also heralds the start of what the GM hopes will be a parade of young arms progressing toward his club.

Cha Seung Baek and Jake Woods will compete for jobs in a starting rotation that will need bolstering via free agency or trade this winter. Being in a position to plug at least some holes internally was a key part of Bavasi's long-term plan when hired in November 2003.

"It was rebuilding a core foundation of minor-league talent, player development systems and scouting systems," Bavasi said. "It was about us getting deeper in talent."

The jury is still out as to how deep that talent is. Bavasi does have an improved infield defense, solidified bullpen and a potential 20-game winner in Felix Hernandez as building blocks. Seattle will jump from 63 wins in 2004 to near 80 this season, though a fan base weaned on an average 95 victories per year from 2000 to 2003 may dismiss that as mere baby steps.

It now remains to be seen whether Bavasi will be shown the same patience GM Dave Dombrowski was during four miserable seasons in Detroit prior to that team's playoff berth this year.

"We've made progress," Bavasi said. "That's all I'll say on that subject for now. We've made progress."

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286

or gbaker@seattletimes.com