WFTW Pod Ep. 13 - The Evolution of Fandom

And again, a, a, a question asked to me by a, a, a gentleman I view as a friend from, from On X, Tommy.

He had, he had asked whether or not the handshake at the beginning of the year was the catalyst for what set 2026 on its path, and I don't think it was, primarily because I think that there were multiple things.

The vibes felt wretched from the WBC and did not seem to get better at any point.

There was the eight-game win streak in the middle of the season that seemed to help, but other than that, it was just win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, and no ability to truly put together what the team potentially should have been.

Now, injuries play a part.

Clearly Josh Naylor played through injury throughout the year.

Obviously Cal was hurt.

But so was regression, whether that was Julio's defense, whether that was the entire pitching staff, whether that was the relief corps.

It truly seemed that even when the Mariners found a glimpse of potentially snapping out of whatever funk they were in, something new would pop.

And there are those that will say that they expected this and they believed this, that, that this is all the Mariners truly were ever going to be this year, and to those people, I suppose we can say kudos.

But it's easier, especially in the game of baseball, to predict bad than it is to predict good.

I think what was incredibly deflating for my own personal fandom this year was that we all saw who the Mariners were and were going to likely be likely around the June, July timeframe.

And it was just a matter of whether or not you could get yourself up every day to discuss that.

You know, I have a lot of respect for those who do this as a career, not as a passion project, not as something that they enjoy to do, but they do it to put food on the table, to care for their loved ones.

Because I, I cannot conceive the level of difficulties the second half of this season must have been knowing that every day this is the team that you had to discuss.

Now again, maybe it will change over time, maybe a couple of weeks away from the organization and seeing the day-to-day conversations that either happened online or potentially even the ones that I would see in my DMs.

Maybe stepping away from that from a little bit will make me a little bit more motivated to understanding the future of the Seattle Mariners, which we will discuss here shortly.

But as of right now, the, the, the want to do a positional review, the want to look at the free agents that I know are minimal, the want to identify potential trades, it-- the desire isn't necessarily bubbling over, we'll say.

And I think a lot of you probably feel the same way.

I think there's likely a common thread for a lot of fans right now that the last thing that they wanna understand or see is the potential of what the organization could do to get things back on the right track.

Because for many, the opportunity to do that passed when Jerry Dipoto was the gentleman giving the conversation at the media scrum yesterday.

Or for others, that opportunity passed when owner John Stanton came out and said, "The biggest fear of selling a team is you don't know the wants and needs of the owner who's coming in." As if that is something that impacts the Mariners fandom outside of a very veiled comment about potentially wanting to make sure that the organization stays in Seattle.

Realistically, I think many people are more than prepared to take their extended break from the Mariners.

I just felt like I needed to take mine a little bit earlier.

I do believe that I will have a level of interest in conversations and predictions, and potentially some dive-ins to how I think the organization could get better.