A lost decade on the good ship Mariner

The Mariners could be looking up at the rest of the AL West for years.

In my lifetime, I've had very little to cheer about as a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The last time the Bucs won was 1992 and things ended in bitter fashion.

But I can say with solace it's probably worse to be a fan of the Seattle Mariners.

With a payroll trending in the upper-crust of MLB, Seattle should see the right side of .500 nearly every year. That's been the exception, not the rule. And as things played out this year the M's were the only other team, aside from Pittsburgh, to lose 100 games or more.

It's been a downward spiral at Safeco Field this decade.

In 2001, the Mariners won a record 116 games but failed to make it to the World Series. The next two years Seattle would finish with 93 wins, but miss the playoffs.

Skip ahead to 2008, the M's would earn the dubious distinction of becoming the first team in history to lose 100 games with a $100 million payroll. And by season's end in 2010, Seattle was experiencing its second 101-loss season in the past three years.

Expectations were unrealistically high entering this year. After 85 W's developing an identity as a defensive team in 2009, the Mariners went all in trying to stop runs, adding an aging Chone Figgins and trading for pitcher Cliff Lee. What the team failed to address in the 2010 off-season was its offensive.

Ex-manager Don Wakamatsu told ESPN Magazine he was surprised by the Mariners 24-game turnaround in 2009, because they had the worst offense in the American League. It didn't get any better in 2010.

Seattle had the worst offensive in all of baseball: 30th in batting average, slugging and runs. The team actually scored the fewest runs (513) for any AL team in a full season since the designated hitter arrived.

Some other humorous and dysfunctional moments that derailed the 2010 campaign: the report of Ken Griffey Jr. sleeping the clubhouse during a game, Griffey's abrupt retirement in June and a dugout fight between a slumping Figgins and Wakamatsu in late July.

It's hard to put a finger on exactly why Seattle's slumped in the standings this decade. But you can point one of those big foam fingers at the front office.

They haven't been able to recognize good talent when it's in the farm system (Shin-Soo Choo, Rafael Soriano). And for every big free-agent decision that worked out (like Raul Ibanez), there's three or four that failed miserably (Richie Sexson, Jeff Weaver, Miguel Batista, Carlos Silva).

Maybe their biggest blunder in this lost decade, was a five-for-one trade which sent outfielder Adam Jones and pitchers George Sherrill, Tony Butler, Chris Tillman and Kameron Mickolio to Baltimore for Erik Bedard.

Bedard has only started 30 games in three years for the M's, while Jones has developed into a solid everyday outfielder for the O's and at age 25 is likely just coming into his prime.

Seattle has holes everywhere, especially on the field. With limited financial flexibility and very few promising prospects there is little hope in the near future.

The Seattle Mariners are writing its own history of futility and its possible another lost decade is about to begin in 2011.