Results from a Seattle Mariners Simulated Season on MLB The Show

One of my favorite things to look at when it’s the start of any professional sports season is the simulations that people run. Now, I don’t have the software to do 10,000, but I thought it would be fun to simulate one season for the Seattle Mariners and see how they do in MLB The Show 21.

If you’re interested in their rankings, you can head on over to the Franchise Rankings that I published earlier on when the game came out. As we go through this, I’ll stop at a couple of places throughout and see if anything stands out.

Whether it is a major injury (please no, even in a simulation), someone who is doing awful, a call-up that is crushing it, or a surprise player who is playing out of his mind, if it’s worth bringing up, I’ll try and do just that. Unfortunately, you can’t set a six-man rotation. So the starters for the Mariners are going to be Marco, Paxton, Sheffield, Kikuchi, and Flexen.

Mariners Simulation Early Season Highlights

The Mariners are 14-21, and Yusei Kikuchi is the lone bright spot in the starting rotation. He sits at 5-1 with a 2.63 ERA, but just 16 strikeouts in 41 innings. Paxton has a 6.94, Sheffield has a 7.20, and Marco a 5.50. The game moved Flexen to the bullpen (low rating) and put Sam Delaplane in the rotation, where he has a 4.28 ERA, but 36 K’s in 33.2 innings. Keynan Middleton is the only good bullpen guy, with 7 K’s in 7 scoreless innings. The Mariners have the worst ERA in the league at 5.40.

They’re hitting okay, which is keeping them in games. 17th in BA, 14th in steals, and 17th in OBP. Not great so far, even with JP Crawford hitting .282, while Lewis leads the team with seven home runs, with Seager and Haniger right behind at six.

Mariners All-Star Game Check-in

Things got rough on the injury front. Evan White missed 2-3 months as did Kyle Lewis, both with broken hands, and JP Crawford messed up his knee and missed a few weeks. If you think that’s bad, you should look at their record. 31-60. Ouch.

Kyle Seager has 13 homers and Haniger has 12. Haniger along with Crawford leads the team in hitting with a .261 Batting Average. It should be no surprise that they lead the team in RBI with 41 each. Kyle Lewis fell back a bit and is hitting just .227 with eight home runs. The team batting average is down to 29th at .237, they’re 28th in home runs, and 29th in OBP. The good news? Kyle Seager was the Mariners lone all-star player.

Good news for Marco fans, as he dropped his ERA all the way to 3.40 with a 1.12 WHIP. Kikuchi is still pitching well with a 2.75 ERA and a record of 8-4. It’s the all-star break, and Kikuchi has over 25% of their wins. Not good at all. Casey Sadler has been dominant in the bullpen, already reaching 71.2 innings with a 3.39 ERA, and Streckenrider is near lights out with a 1.77 ERA through 20.1 innings. As a team, their ERA is better, but still bad at 4.50, 27th in the MLB.

2021 Mariners Wrap-up from MLB The Show

Well, as if it couldn’t get any worse, both Ty France and Justus Sheffield suffered season-ending injuries, a torn hamstring for France, and a torn groin for Sheffield. They actually played near .500 ball after the all-star break and finished at 64-98.

JP Crawford was a pleasant surprise, hitting eight homers with an average of .279, notching 26 doubles, and an OBP of .378. The reigning ROY struggled a bit, hitting just .242 with 17 homers, but an OBP of .330. Seager fell apart, but still led the team with 22 home runs and 76 RBI, alongside a .241 average. Dylan Moore had a solid season, hitting .245 with an OBP of .342, with 15 home runs and 20 steals, which led the team. The biggest surprise was Donovan Walton, who hit .325 in 206 at-bats off the bench.

The biggest surprise of the entire season was Yusei Kikuchi. He finished 13-5 with a 2.49 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP through 195.1 innings. Marco finished off pretty good, with a 3.52 ERA through 204.1 innings. Sheffield struggled mightily before going on the IL, with a 5.34 ERA through 114.2 innings.

What a rough go for the Mariners. Maybe we try this again when they fix the rankings because there is no reason that Dylan Moore should be the highest-rated hitter on the team. Here’s hoping the real-life Mariners do better than the simulation did in MLB The Show 21.