The real career ERA leader for the Seattle Mariners

From time to time, I’ll find myself looking around at the all-time stats for the Mariners. Whether it’s just because I love looking at Edgar’s stats, or being curious about where JP Crawford’s 2021 2B total ranked all-time for the Mariners, I’ll end up there every once in a while. Earlier this offseason, I noticed something that I swore was a mistake on the Mariners pitching records.

Have you taken a look at the Mariners career leaders in ERA? You would think that, with such a volatile stat like ERA, that there would be one person at the top of the list. Seriously, it should be pretty tough for there to be a tie there, right? I wouldn’t have thought that there would be two people tied at the top of the list.

Well, I was right. There isn’t a tie with two people at the top of the list. There is actually a four-way tie at the top of the list! What’s also funny to me is that all of them have thrown a no-hitter, with one of them throwing a perfect game.

The Mariners have a four-way tie for best career ERA on the team for qualified pitchers

James Paxton, Felix Hernandez, Randy Johnson, and Hisashi Iwakuma all have a 3.42 ERA. It’s mind-boggling every time I think about it. The fact that four people, all over 500 career innings, could come to the same number in ERA.  It’s about to get crazier too when you see just how close it is and was to the tie being broken.

What I wanted to do was break it down further. Push those decimal points out, and see who the true ERA leader was in Mariners team history. Let’s get started and check out how the tie was almost broken in 2021, and instead, was further cemented.

#4: James Paxton: Innings Pitched: 583.2, Earned Runs: 222, 3.423187 ERA

It was Paxton, but his lone start in 2021, he went 1.1 innings and gave up one run. This right here, this proves how insanely close this list is. Before he walked to the mound that day, Paxton had the best ERA in team history at 3.41557. When he left the mound that day after his injury, he was now 4th all-time with an ERA of 3.423187.

One scoreless inning. That’s all it would take for Paxton to jump back to first place with the Mariners. One out and he would go to third, two outs and he would stay put at third, and getting a third and final out would jump him past second and back into first. Hundreds of innings, even thousands for some of these pitchers, and it all comes down to a single out.

If that’s not baseball, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Of players to come through Seattle, Paxton has to be up near the top for players I really wanted to see stick around and stay healthy. He seemed like a great guy, was a lot of fun to watch, and could talk to birds.

He’s actually the Mariners career leader in FIP with a 3.13, T-2nd in adjusted ERA+ at 117, 2nd in WHIP, and 2nd in K/9. He was so close to becoming the team leader in ERA, but unless something changes and he comes back after being in Boston, Paxton will go down as 4th in ERA in the history of the Mariners.

#3: Hisashi Iwakuma: Innings Pitched: 883.2, Earned Runs: 336, 3.422105 ERA

This one surprised me a bit. I think Iwakuma might actually go down as one of the most underrated players to ever be on the Mariners. He was the first miss on the best contracts handed out by the Mariners this millennia. Setting aside his best season, which I’ll get to in a minute, he was extremely consistent the rest of his time in Seattle. He had a 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, and a 2.4 WAR in four of his first five seasons with the team.

If you can get a stretch like that from anyone other than your ace, you’ve got a darn good pitcher on your hands.

After starting the season in the pen for the Mariners his rookie year, Iwakuma moved to the rotation halfway through the season and never looked back. That first full season as a starter in 2013 was special, and a big part of the reason that Iwakuma is tied for the career ERA lead on the Mariners.

He made every start that season, throwing 219.2 innings across 33 starts. Anytime you can get 6.2 innings from your starter on average, you know you’ve got a good one. The 2.66 ERA was super impressive, as was the 1.006 WHIP. He even led all American League Pitchers in WAR, beating out Cy-Young winner Maz Scherzer, who had a 6.5 compared to Iwakumas 7.0.

The hope was the Mariners could strike gold again with another international signing when they brought on Kikuchi. Instead, he ended up as one of the worst deals the Mariners ever signed.

#1: Randy Johnson: Innings Pitched: 1838.1, Earned Runs: 698, 3.417226 ERA

Talk about a candidate for What-if Wednesdays. Can you imagine what could’ve been if Randy Johnson would’ve stayed with the Mariners and put together something similar to what he did with the Diamondbacks?

I’m not saying he would’ve won a title with the Mariners (again, maybe we could cover it in a what-if article) but The Big Unit turned into an entirely different animal once he left Seattle.

He got to Seattle back in 1989 during the Langston trade. He was a menace on the mound, but was pretty wild. From his first full season in 1990-1992, Johnson led the league in walks with 416 in 631.1 innings, for a rate of 5.9/9. He still had just a 3.79 ERA over that span, but starting in 1993, things would change and you would see him start to turn into the truly dominant presence we remember him to be.

He never had over 100 walks in a season again, dropping his rate from 1993-1997 to 3.3/9. He would also strikeout over 290 hitters three different times in that span, and post a K rate of 11.6/9. His ERA (2.86), FIP (2.82), and WHIP (1.102) were all incredible during that stretch and saw him turn into a true Ace on the mound.

If not for a rough start to 1998, where he had a 4.33 ERA (but just a 3.35 FIP), Randy easily would’ve had the best team ERA in history at 3.33. Alas, we can only cut stats when we are trying to prove a point, not when it comes to the record book. If he would’ve given up one more run, he would actually fall back to 3rd. For now, and the foreseeable future, Randy Johnson takes the rightful title as the Mariners all-time ERA leader in their history.

Regardless of which one of these four pitchers are your favorite, or which one you would prefer to see on the mound, the Mariners were lucky to have all of them. Now, you have a random bit of sports knowledge as well to try and stump people when it comes to trivia.