The Forgotten Feat of the 2003 Rotation

Before announcing they would skip the fifth spot in the rotation after Monday’s off-day, the Mariners were headed for the possibility of these five pitchers making consecutive starts: Ariel Miranda, Yovani Gallardo, Chase De Jong, Dillon Overton and Christian Bergman.

That thought is horrifying, but more crucially to my point, it’s not at all what the team planned as recently as six weeks ago. In one turn of the rotation, four guys from the projected Opening Day rotation missed starts, with the assumed fifth starter, Gallardo, the only healthy one.

Sure, the team has been horribly unlucky, but the sky isn’t totally falling in on the season yet. The team enters this off day just two games under .500, and yet if Bergman starts soon he’ll be the eighth man in just over a month to start for the Ners, and that doesn’t even account for Miranda replacing Drew Smyly in the rotation a few days before the season.

The Mariners’ heyday, roughly estimated to be 1995 to 2003, is mostly remembered for its incredible offensive talent. Not many people think of that era’s final groups of starting pitchers, the 2003 rotation, as legendary. But the fact is, that group achieved something truly special never seen in modern baseball before – and something that likely won’t happen again, considering circumstances that fell rotations like this year’s.

The 2003 Mariners starting rotation, consisting of Jamie Moyer, Freddy Garcia, Joel Piñiero, Ryan Franklin and Gil Meche, made every single start. Let that sink in for a second. Those five players started all 162 games of the 2003 season.

For context, that has never been done since Major League Baseball expanded its schedule to 162 games in 1961. And frankly, it’s surprising that it’s even happened once. The sheer dumb luck needed for all five starting pitchers to stay healthy over the course of a six-month season while pitching well enough to stay in the rotation is staggering.

And even that’s not enough to accomplish what that 2003 team did. Eight other teams have had all five starters make 30 or more starts over the course of a season, but none of those rotations made all 162 starts, and some of them came up short because of the smallest of quirks.

The most recent and excruciating example of that comes from the 2012 Cincinnati Reds, who, given how bad the Reds are these days (although they’re starting hot this year), surprisingly won 97 games. The motley crew of Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Bronson Arroyo, Homer Bailey (what a terrible name for a pitcher) and Mike Leake all stayed healthy for a full season and all pitched well enough to stay in the rotation, with the top four all posting <2 WAR seasons and Leake hanging on as the fifth starter.

But still, those five guys only managed to make 161 starts. Their history was undone on August 18, the only day the Reds played a doubleheader during that entire season. With four straight games played before that day and the nearest day off 12 days away, Dusty Baker opted not to start Mat Latos on three days rest and screw up his entire rotation, and called up minor leaguer Todd Redmond to start. Redmond got hit hard and lost, and the rotation resumed as constructed for the remainder of the season.

This isn’t an article about the Reds, but that example just goes to show how difficult it is to do what the 2003 Mariners did. The Reds had every uncontrollable factor go well with their pitchers, but a rainout on May 1 resulted in the August doubleheader that caused everything to go to shit.

So how the hell did the Ners do it? They stayed healthy, pitched extremely well, and avoided unfortunate schedule quirks. They played a doubleheader on June 8 against the Mets, but the unscheduled game was a makeup for a rainout on the day before and June 9 was a day off to travel back to Seattle to face the Expos (RIP) on June 10.

More than anything, Pat Gillick put together a rotation of five pitchers who all had solid (if not pretty darn good) Major League careers in one way or another. In 2003, some shined, some struggled, but the group all made it through the 90-win season together.

"The Aging Ace"

Jamie Moyer

Age: 40

Starts: 33

Record: 21-7

ERA: 3.27

WAR: 4.8

For the slow-throwing Moyer, 2003 was arguably his career year. That’s pretty rare for a 40-year old player. But 2003 was the only time Moyer made the All-Star Game, and he posted career bests of 21 wins and a 3.27 ERA. That said, it was only his fourth best by WAR.

Moyer was undoubtedly the team’s ace. Although Freddy Garcia made the opening day start, his struggles (which we’ll discuss in a moment) and Moyer’s success made this Moyer’s rotation to lead.

The aging southpaw struggled in his first start of 2003, yielding eight runs (six earned) to the A’s and failing to finish the fifth inning. After that though, Moyer ripped off a run of phenomenal starts, including seven straight wins from the start of May through early June. In the second game of the aforementioned June 8th doubleheader, Moyer shutout the Mets over seven innings to improve to 10-2 and drop his ERA to 2.92.

He hit a rough patch in late June, losing three straight to the Braves and the Angels twice, but from June 30 on, Moyer went 11-2. He finished at least the fifth inning in every one of those starts and racked up 12 quality starts, including one in all five of his September starts.

You might expect the Ners to give the 40-year-old starter some rest at some point, but Moyer never pitched on more than five days rest throughout the entire season. He only missed his turn in the rotation one time, and that was around the all-star game, in which he threw a perfect fourth inning in his only ever midsummer classic appearance.

Moyer was truly an iron man, and his nearly 5 WAR season put him third on the team in that category, only behind Bret Boone, who hit 35 homers and drove in 117, and Ichiro, who hit .312 (actually not very good for peak Ichiro) and stole 34 bases.

It was Moyer’s last great season with the Mariners, and while he’d win 16 games with the Phillies in 2008, he’d never reach the heights of 2003 again.

"The Nominal Ace" (…who kind of sucked)

Freddy Garcia

Age: 26

Starts: 33

Record: 12-14

ERA: 4.51

WAR: 1.4

Garcia is remembered for a lot of things in Seattle. He was electric as a rookie in 1999, made consecutive all-star teams for the stellar 2001 and 2002 Mariners, and was the Venezuelan precursor to Félix Hernández. What he’s not remembered for is a generally bad 2003 that presaged the end of his tenure in Seattle a year later.

Just a season removed from leading the American League in ERA in 2001, the Ners penciled Garcia in as their Opening Day starter. But Garcia struggled out of the gate, falling to 1-3 with a 5.09 ERA on April 16. After a string of three quality starts, Garcia was shelled at Safeco by the eventual American League champion Yankees, giving up nine runs in less than three innings. By late May, Freddy was 3-6 with a 5.90 ERA and some truly awful starts under his belt.

Garcia appeared to find his form after that, however, winning six straight starts to improve to 9-6 and drop his ERA to 4.28 on June 24. But July and early August completely reversed that, as Garcia lost his next six decisions and his ERA ballooned back to 5.45. He would finish the season with a run of quality starts, but it wasn’t enough to save his season…or the team’s, for that matter.

It would be Garcia’s worst season in his 20’s, and he was traded to the White Sox the next year as the franchise collapsed. In case you were wondering whether that trade was shit, it was! Miguel Olivo, Mike Morse and Jeremy Reed all were bad and I don’t have the mental fortitude to look up their depressing stats.

Garcia would go onto struggle to stay healthy in his 30s, having just one strong season (in 2011 with the Yankees) after 2006. He never made an all-star game or placed in the Cy Young voting after 2002.

"The Rising Young Star"

Joel Piñiero

Age: 24

Starts: 32

Record: 16-11

ERA: 3.78

WAR: 3.1

The 2003 season wasn’t Piñiero’s breakout season. That was 2002, when he nearly hit 5 WAR and forced his way into the rotation from the bullpen in late April. But 2003 was his first season as a full-time starter, and he didn’t disappoint.

Piñiero’s first 10 starts of 2003 were decent. He went 4-4 with a 4.41 ERA to open the season, 4.41 ERA to open the season, never having a truly great start or awful one, always pitching between five and eight innings.

His 11th start of the year turned the tide. On May 30 in the Metrodome, he threw a complete game shutout against the Twins, allowing just four hits, two walks and striking out a season-high 12 batters. It was a flash of Piñiero’s true potential that would continue to crop up of the next two months.

On the back of that May 30 CGSO, Piñiero went at least six innings in every start in the next two months. On July 31, he threw seven shutout innings against the Tigers at Safeco, and left that start at 13-5 with a 3.03 ERA.

That day would be the high point of his season, if not his career. As the Mariners collapsed in August and September, so too Piñiero fell apart. He lost all five of his starts in August and didn’t have a quality start in any of those defeats.

After he broke the string of consecutive defeats in a no-decision Mariners win on Sept. 2, the Ner threw Garcia on short rest on Sept. 7 to give Piñiero seven days off between starts. Garcia lost a close game, but Piñiero appeared to bounce back because of the time off, throwing a complete game to beat the Rangers in his first quality start since July.

Ultimately, Piñiero still won his last two starts of the season, but it was too little, too late for the Mariners, who needed more from Piñiero in his horrid August.

Piñiero would stick with the Ners for another three years, each more excruciating than the next. The Mariners let him go at the end of 2006, a year where he amassed -2.00 WAR and a 6.36 ERA, and while he had a small resurgence in 2009 and 2010 with the Cardinals and Angels, he would never approach the heights of his early 20s again.

"The Future Closer"

Ryan Franklin

Age: 30

Starts: 32

Record: 11-13

ERA: 3.57

WAR: 3.3

Of anyone in this historic start-making rotation, Franklin is definitely the unlikeliest, given what he was before and after 2003.

Before 2003, Franklin had been a nice bullpen piece for the 116-win team as a 28-year-old rookie. In 2002, he started games for the first time, but was still a reliever primarily, making 30 appearances from the bullpen as opposed to just 12 starts.

Franklin’s season is a textbook case of advanced statistics being more effective than wins and losses. While his 11 wins in ‘03 were the least among the five starters, his value to the team was arguably only outstripped by Moyer.

Case and point: while Franklin emerged from April at just 1-2, he threw at least six innings in every start. In fact, for the first three months of 2003, Franklin threw at least six innings in 15 of 16 starts, with the only exception being a May 15 game in Cleveland that was delayed after three innings by rain.

Eating innings was Franklin’s greatest contribution to the 2003 season. He’d get hit around occasionally, and even led the American League in home runs allowed. But not including the rain-shortened start, Franklin fell short of 18 outs just three times. His crown jewel start came on July 23, when he threw a complete game shutout with just two hits to beat Oakland.

Weirdly, 2003 was Franklin’s only good year as a starter. In 2004 and 2005 with the Mariners, Franklin went 12-31, with an ERA hovering around 5.00.

After he left the Ners, Franklin became a full-time reliever once more, never making a start after 2005. His return to the bullpen was fairly anonymous before he seized the closing job for the Cardinals in 2008 and made the 2009 all-star game during a 38-save campaign. Still, by then Franklin was 36, and he was out of the majors two years later.

"The Other Guy"

Gil Meche

Age: 24

Starts: 32

Record: 15-13

ERA: 4.59

WAR: 1.7

What do you remember about Gil Meche? He strikes me as so incredibly average as a Mariner. To be honest, my biggest memory of him is that absurd contract the Royals gave him after he left Seattle without a single 2 WAR season.

The crazy thing about Meche making every start for a whole season is that he hadn’t pitched in the major leagues for two years because of problems with his rotator cuff and AC joint.

Nonetheless, Meche came out of the gates red hot. He had three straight scoreless starts to end April and continued to rack up quality starts into May and June. On June 20, a seven-inning scoreless no-decision bumped his ERA down to 2.89 with a 9-3 record.

Meche’s struggles began in July. From July 6 to July 19, Meche had three consecutive starts with losses and five runs allowed. He hit another rough patch at the same time as Piñiero in August, giving up four, five, and seven runs in consecutive losses.

All that said, Meche’s worst stretch came during his final three starts of the season. The Rangers tagged him for eight earned runs in 2.1 innings on Sept. 16 and he only pitched one inning on Sept. 21, giving up five runs to Oakland. Lou Pinella brought him back three days later and he made it through five innings, but the Mariners didn’t score for him.

Meche would go onto be extremely average for the Ners for the next three seasons, before breaking out with the Royals in 2007 and 2008. Those years included an all-star appearance, 9.2 WAR and 34 starts each year. He retired prematurely before his age-32 season in 2011.

. . .

At the end of the day, this feat is thoroughly impressive, made more impressive by the fact that the 2003 Mariners rotation doesn’t contain any hall-of-famers. Sure, Moyer was fantastic, Garcia was still near his young peak, and Piñiero, Franklin, and Meche all chipped in with seasons that would be above average for their careers.

Additionally, extreme rotation stability like this usually translates to success. Of the nine teams to have all five starters make 30 starts in the modern era, every team won at least 81 games, and seven of the nine won 90 games.

According to Fangraphs, from 2011 to 2013, teams on average needed 10 different starting pitchers over the course of a season, and that sample includes two teams in the 5x30 start club. The 2017 Mariners are well on their way there and could easily get to a dozen given their stockpile of 4A pitchers and talented prospects in the high minors.

With that context, it’s truly stunning to think that five average-to-good pitchers made every start over the course of the ’03 season. As unlucky as the team has been since 2001, this was one time when every bounce truly went its way.

#Pitching #NerNostalgia