The self-realization of who they were and who they never could become came at different moments for the Mariners’ decision-makers.
Why pretend to be something you’re not?
For the baseball side, that recognition came in the cruel days of August and early September, when a team seemingly destined to snap a postseason drought dating to 2001 faded from relevance, stymied by a stagnant offense and the panic of being passed by the Oakland A’s, a team with equal or less talent and a significantly lower payroll.
The blemishes can’t be hidden. The coldness of analytics only verified what they’d witnessed.