Too little, too late on Mariners spending

The problem isn't that the Mariners spent too much money on Robbie Ray. It's that they've spent too little on other veterans over the past three years, putting too much pressure too soon on prospects.

So Robbie Ray was on the mound Wednesday asked to salvage a shred of Seattle’s dignity.

He struck out 10, which was impressive. He also surrendered two home runs, which was less than ideal. He certainly wasn’t bad, holding the A’s to just three runs in the six innings he pitched, but he wasn’t great, either.

Bottom line: He wasn’t enough, which is — I think — a fair summation of not just this game but the Mariners’ offseason acquisitions not just this year, but years previous. Insufficient.

Every so often they try. There was the year Seattle signed Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson. Or the trade for Erik Bedard. Or signing Robinson Cano and, later, Nelson Cruz. And this offseason, the Mariners went and signed Ray, the reigning Cy Young Award winner to sit at the front of the rotation. Seattle is 5-5 in his 10 starts this season, and Wednesday’s loss leaves Seattle one-half game behind an Oakland team that seems engineered to lose this season.

Yes, there’s a bit of a pessimistic tone to our Thursday newsletter. Hard to much shine on what the Mariners have done recently, but I promise this is going to be more than just wailing about what happened. I’ve come to a conclusion about what Seattle has done wrong over these previous three years and it has nothing to do with signing Ray and everything to do with not paying more money to acquire more veterans like him. Seattle, by cutting back on its big-league spending, has placed too much weight on a select few veterans and the core of young players who are just getting their sea legs at the big-league level.

I supported the Mariners’ rebuild. Or was it a step back? It’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten the specific nomenclature the Mariners hung on their change of direction after the 2018 season. I supported this change because after winning 90 games but failing to make the playoffs, the Mariners decided that they needed to move on from the veteran core they had established and get younger in a hurry.

I believed it was the right decision then, and I still believe that now. The issue is the process in which it was done, and I’m not talking about going back and nit-picking the deals that Seattle made or questioning the franchise’s scouting acumen or development path. Seattle underestimated the importance of preserving competence at the major-league level.

So did I, if I’m being honest. I remember thinking that it was the right move to let Nelson Cruz walk as a free agent, and that Seattle was correct to pretty much completely skip out on spending in free agency after the 2019 and 2020 seasons. A year ago, I remember making a really big deal about how little I cared if they signed Kolten Wong to play middle infield, and while I certainly don’t think that Wong is the difference between a good and bad team right now, I do believe that Seattle’s general reluctance to spend money on competent major-league players over the previous three years is a significant part of the current problem.

The Mariners — once again — have placed all their hope for improvement on a group of young and untested players and big hairy free-agent signing. It’s not enough.