How to follow a bad team with a good future

July 2019 represents a profoundly strange time to be a Mariners fan.

A franchise that rarely boasts defined direction and concrete hope for the future finally has just that in a breadth of promising prospects deliberately acquired to avoid another fruitless mid-80s win season. At the same time, precious few of those assets have made their way to (gulp) T-Mobile Park and the on-field product of the team with the longest playoff drought in major American professional sports remains characteristically bleak.

What occurs between those two extremes is a sort of fan purgatory, the kind that can make a nightly perusal of the fantastic @MiLBMariners Twitter and Instagram accounts more validating than watching the big league product or even attending a game. How does one reconcile a baseball team that, despite having one of the most exciting outfield prospects in all of baseball in Jarred Kelenic, continues to play Mac Williamson every day in left field?

Such purgatory leads to a different viewing experience, but one that if executed properly can lead to a bootlegged version of watching a legitimately exciting baseball team. Here are a couple of ways I’m watching the Mariners in a fulfilling way so far this season and plan to for the remaining 70ish games after the All-Star Break. 1. Don’t take Ls too hard, especially those tied to roster deficiencies (read: bullpen) The Mariners have lost a fair amount of games this season because of their second-worst bullpen in baseball by ERA (5.16). It’s important to remember that if this mattered to the team brass and factored into the long-term plan, they would invest in it.

Instead, the team has one reliever (Cory Gearrin) making more than $1 million this year and two relievers (Gearrin and Roenis Elias) making more than the league minimum. This bullpen is predictably terrible, and you could almost call it awful by design. So yes, 18 blown saves in 38 opportunities really sucks, but with the amount of guys that have been DFA’d this season and soon after made a relief appearance for Seattle, it at least shouldn’t be surprising, so try to be patient with it.

Other deficiencies to avoid overreacting to include bad appearances from Wade LeBlanc and Tommy Milone, placeholders for more promising prospects and guys that wouldn’t have as significant of roles on a team deeply invested in its rotation, and errors and poor at-bats from players like Williamson, Dylan Moore and Tim Beckham.

2. Get excited by contributions from reputed members of the Mariners future

This is sort of the opposite of the first one, and I’ve found it especially applicable to watching J.P. Crawford play both at the plate and in the field. Crawford’s acquisition was one of the more head-scratching ones of the offseason because of how much the Mariners gave up to acquire a player that had thus far struggled at the major league level, but he’s been one of the most consistent players on the roster this year.

Another great player for this type of watching is our large dinger-slapping son Daniel Vogelbach. His awkwardness on the MLB All-Star Red Carpet was enough to make Mariners Twitter’s collective heart soar with pride during the break, but every homer he hits not only makes me happy for a player that deserves success but convinces me that he can contribute once this team’s competitive window opens again.

In this vein, it’s better to emotionally invest in starts made by Marco Gonzales and Yusei Kikuchi than Mike Leake. Quality contributions from Mallex Smith, Domingo Santana and Omar Narvaez should outweigh the losses they inevitably occur in.

3. Find individual aspects of players’ performances to focus on and celebrate

For my money, there’s been no more consistently exciting part of Mariners games this year than watching Vogelbach hit. Not only do his at-bats have the highest percentage chance of resulting in a ball battering the Hit-It-Here Café’s windows, his elite understanding of the strike zone almost always leads to a compelling chess match with the opposing pitcher. Nobody likes working tough walks quite like Vogey does and he provides a compelling walk-hunting subplot each time he’s at the plate.

Other individual successes I find myself tracking:

• Gonzales working deep into games

• Kikuchi limiting his walks

• Smith improving his defense in centerfield and causing base running havoc

• Kyle Seager beating the shift

• Austin Adams (get well soon) destroying hitters with his slider

• Crawford making tough plays at shortstop

• Narvaez and Santana hitting to all fields

4. Obsessively track the performances of the Mariners’ top prospects

While it’s been a tough year in Seattle, the organization as a whole has seen successes at all levels. The Arkansas Travelers in particular have been one of Minor League Baseball’s best teams, while the Modesto Nuts have played host to stunning individual performances from Kelenic, Logan Gilbert, Ljay Newsome and Cal Raleigh.

I’ve already shouted it out in this post, but following the @MiLBMariners account has been indispensible this season. Not only do you get essentially real-time updates on the nightly performances of the team’s prospects, but every Raleigh homer, Justin Dunn stellar start and Jake Fraley diving catch provides a jolt of optimism not possible from the current major league squad.

Plus, if you haven’t checked out any recent updates to MLB Top 100 prospects lists lately, some of these young Ners, particularly Kelenic, Julio Rodriguez, Dunn, Gilbert and Evan White, are legit good and have big futures ahead of them. Following their arcs is basically a risk-free source of Mariners optimism.

5. Laugh at the Mets

If all else fails and the on-field product in Seattle gets too depressing, there’s always laughing at the Mets. They gave the Mariners Kelenic and Dunn, got them out of Robinson Cano’s awful contract and picked up Edwin Diaz to shore up their bullpen, and absolutely nothing has gone right.

This week, they indicated that they would be sellers despite making that trade in December. Even Jay Bruce and Anthony Swarzak, the two players the Mets threw into the deal for salary balance, have succeeded since the Mariners moved them back to the NL East. The situation, complete with regular managerial and general managerial tirades, is utterly hilarious.

Maybe that’s appropriate for the whole mood of Mariners fandom right now. Trying to take this team seriously as presently constructed at the major league level is a fool’s errand, doomed for disappointing outcomes. Ultimately, taking a light-hearted approach with an eye toward young talent and future seasons makes being a Mariners fan in mid-2019 a more wholesome, rewarding experience.

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