During an interview with Jim Moore-on May 24th-Eric Wedge made the claim that the team had improved from his first season to his second season, and that they would improve from last season to this season as well. Now, if you were to just look at the teams win loss record from 2011 and 2012 you would see a massive improvement in wins that would make you agree with the skipper.

That’s fine and dandy, but there is more to a baseball team than just wins and losses. Remember how the M’s had winning records in 2007 and 2009? Do you also remember how they followed those seasons with 101-losses?

As I said, the records really only matter in the standings. They don’t tell you about how the team is actually doing and/or performing. So to actually see if the M’s are improving under Eric Wedge.

To do this we are going to take a look at several statistics from the three areas of baseball-batting, fielding, and pitching-and then I am going to assign an “improvement grade” to each section (on an A to F scale); and from there we will figure out the cumulative improvement GPA. A GPA of 2.0 or higher means that I think the M’s have-or are-improving at a satisfactory rate.

Offense

Year Games SO% BB% OBP SLG OPS wOBA BABIP BA 2011 162 21.4% 7.3% .292 .348 .640 .283 .283 .233 2012 162 20.8% 7.7% .296 .369 .665 .291 .276 .234 2013 50 20.2% 7.6% .311 .414 .725 .315 .285 .240

Under Eric Wedge, the Mariners have seen a reduction in their strikeout rate, and as a result they are getting on base more. Also, it is interesting to note that their batting average has been steadily increasing during his tenure as well. That being said, several of these 2013 numbers need to be looked at carefully due to the fact that the Safeco Field walls have been move it; those numbers are: SLG, wOBA, BABIP, and OPS.

Now taking in all of the stats above, the M’s have improved slightly on offense with Wedge as the manager and I am kind of surprised by that. Now, if that is all due to him, the fences, or guys like Kyle Seager lighting the world on fire (or acquisitions like Morales and Moorse)…I’ll leave it up to you.

Improvement Grade: C+

Pitching

Year Games K/9 BB/9 HR/9 K/BB BA BABIP FIP xFIP 2011 162 6.83 2.74 .091 2.50 .248 .285 3.84 3.92 2012 162 7.20 2.77 1.03 2.60 .244 .282 4.00 4.09 2013 50 8.37 2.56 1.27 3.27 .251 .297 3.95 4.01

One thing I learned going through these stats, the 2012 staff was not nearly as good as I originally thought. That staff had the highest FIP and xFIP of any of the staffs under Eric Wedge, and it makes you think that the staffs actually didn’t improve that much with him at the helm.

For the most part, that conclusion is pretty true. Outside of an increasing K/BB ratio, everything for the pitching staff has pretty much gotten worse. The pitchers are allowing more home runs, more hits, and more runs each season since Wedge took over. Your offense can improve, but if your pitching is giving up hits and runs…well, you are in a lot of trouble

Improvement Grade: F

Fielding

Quick side note; fielding is really hard to statistically quantify…so we will be using just UZR, because that’s the only defensive metric I really trust!

Year Games UZR 2011 162 9.1 2012 162 27.7 2013 50 -7.1

You want to know what happens when you sacrifice defense for offense? Well, the 2013 Mariners are going to show you.

That being said, there was a massive improvement from year one of Eric Wedge to year two; and I feel like judging this year’s defensive issues completely on him would be unfair….okay…maybe not; how do you have Raul Ibanez as an every day left fielder for the first month of the season?

Improvement Grade: C-

Wrap-Up

Well the are improving offensively, allowing more runs via pitching and defense.

That being said, some of the young guys had really improved going into the end of the 2012 season; and those improvements seemed continue into Spring Training. Unfortunately, poor roster construction and a weird stance adjustments have doomed a couple of the youngins back to Triple-A Tacoma. So we shall see what happens by the end of this season; but as of now, the M’s are not improving very much under Eric Wedge…and my improvement GPA will show that.

Improvement GPA: 1.33