On December 15th 2009, Seattle residents wildly rejoiced with the news that the Mariners had just acquired ace LHP Cliff Lee from the Philadelphia Phillies. Baseball analysts around the country predicted that this would be the move that would finally bring Seattle back to the postseason for the first time since 2001. With a bona fide stud pitcher in Cliff Lee to complement No. 1 starter Felix Hernandez, everyone thought that the Mariners would win many more games than already respectable 85-win 2009 season.
What fools we all were.
After a disastrous 2010 which saw the Mariners lose 101 games, trade Cliff Lee at the deadline, fire their head Coach Don Wakamatsu, and have their franchise’s all-time greatest player walk out on them in the middle of the season, Mariners fans are left wondering, “What the heck happened?”
The answer is complicated. The Mariners offense was historically bad in 2010. While this was caused by some players like Chone Figgins and Jose Lopez having the worst seasons of their careers, it also just wasn’t very good to begin with. With absolutely no power to speak of anywhere in their lineup, there were no big bats to drive anybody in. When you struggle to score one run a game, it won’t matter if you have the third best ERA in the league- you’re going to lose a lot.
There was also the disastrous decision to bring back Ken Griffey Jr. for another year. Within a week or two of the season starting, it was completely evident to anybody who was watching him play that Griffey just did not have the bat speed requisite to being a productive hitter in the Major Leagues. The only problem was, Griffey was indisputably the most revered person in the clubhouse by his teammates, so when Don Wakamatsu benched him, the entire team turned against the coaching staff.
When Griffey departed abruptly just two months into the season, the Mariners were hemorrhaging losses and Wakamatsu had lost the respect of his team. Two months after Griffey left, Wakamatsu was fired and the season was officially labeled a complete disaster.
The 2010 Mariners can thus serve as a lesson to the rest of Major League baseball: whenever you have a terrible offense and a complete lack of cohesion in the clubhouse, victories will be extremely hard to come by.
Perhaps the one bright spot in the 2010 season for the Mariners was the performance of Felix Hernandez. Hernandez pitched well enough to be considered as a frontrunner for this season’s Cy Young Award. The fact that he had the lowest ERA in the league and the most innings pitched, while posting a pedestrian 13-12 record, tells the entire story of just how few runs the Mariners scored in support of their pitchers.
So where do the Mariners go from here? With 101 losses in 2010, it’s very hard to them imagine them being even remotely competitive next year. Their farm system is stocked with some great young talent, like 2B Dustin Ackley and SP Michael Pineda, but it would be unrealistic to assume rookies will be able to help the Mariners right away. Perhaps in two years the Mariners could become competitive again if all goes well, but in the meantime Seattle should brace itself for another tough year in 2011.
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Welles Wiley is a native Seattleite who is well accustomed to rough years by all of Seattle’s cherished sports teams. 
Many of the issues (with many teams) stems back to the club house, where inflated egos, personalities and at times, cultural differences, including social and moral issues, can destroy a team on and off the field.
Sometimes it just takes one or two players, that can destroy a team. (it can also be a front office or management issue too).
But most of the time, the fans will never know, what or who is the cancer on the team.