Last week, the Seattle chapter of the Baseball Writers of America tweeted their award winners for the 2019 season: 

• Player of Year: Daniel Vogelbach
• Pitcher of Year: Marco Gonzales
• Unsung Hero: Tom Murphy

I responded with the following:

By bWar the best players on the 2019 Mariners are*:

1. Our Pitcher of the Year
2. A .240 third baseman who missed 2 months
3. A backup catcher
4. Our regular catcher
5. A guy we traded in June
6. A pitcher we traded in July
7. An outfielder injured in June
8. A pitcher who missed 2 months and went 4-10
9. Our Player of the Year

* The numbers shifted before the season ended: Our backup catcher is now No. 2 and our Player of the Year is No. 8.

This is not to slam Daniel Vogelbach, whom I love, and who had a much better season than I thought he would. I assumed he'd be a 2019 version of Bucky Jacobsen, another softball-player-looking dude who made a splash for a month or two in 2004, hit 9 homers with 28 RBIs, and then kinda disappeared. This season, Vogey clobbered 30 HRs with 76 RBIs. Both led the team—as did his .341 OBP—and he made the All-Star team. But his second half wasn't good:

• Before All-Star break: .238/.375/.505, with 21 HRs and 51 RBIs
• After All-Star break: .162/.286/.341, with 9 HRs and 25 RBIs

This is not to slam the Seattle chapter of the BWA, either. Who else to give it to—our backup catcher? A guy we traded in June? A guy injured since June? Kyle Seager—who missed the first two months and never hit above .220 in any month save August? There's really no good answer. To me, it's either Vogey or Omar Narvaez. 

No, it's just to point out the kind of year it's been. As if we didn't know. Baseball Reference has a legacy page for each team, even the Mariners, and it includes sortable columns on, say, wins (our best year was, of course, the 116 in 2001), losses (worst: 104 in ‘78), runs scored (993 in ’96), and runs given up (905 in ‘99), as well as most position players used (67, this year) and most pitchers used (42, also this year).

Then there’s a column called Top Player, which is that year's best player by bWAR. Last year, for example, it was Mitch Haniger (6.1) and in 2016 it was Robinson Cano (7.3). In ‘95, a strike-shortened year, Randy was tops with 8.6, while in 2001 it was Bret Boone at 8.8. The best Mariner year ever, according to this measure, was A-Rod in 2000 (10.4). And the lowest Top Player by bWAR? That would be the 3.9 shared by Ichiro and Richie Sexson in 2005. 

Until this year, that is. This year, by bWAR, our best player is Marco Gonzalez with a WAR of 3.4. Only two teams had a best player with a lower WAR: the Blue Jays, whose best player was Marcus Stroman (3.2), a pitcher they traded at the end of July; and the San Francisco Giants’ Jeff Samardzija (2.9), who had no such excuse. 

Well, it's a rebuilding year. We‘re remodeling our bathroom right now so I know a bit about such things. I know it’s inconvenient and there are unexpected delays and it's taking longer than expected. Way longer. The teardown, I know, is the easy part.