Spoiler Alert: This post is for baseball fans, and especially Mariner fans.

Jerry Dipoto has been the GM of the Mariners for five or six years, and is a failure. You wouldn't know that by listening to local sports radio, 710 KIRO, but any GM, who has failed to take his team to the playoffs in that time, would most likely be fired, but the bar is low in Seattle, since the Mariners haven't made the playoffs since 2001, a standout season, and even the whiff of this makes people think Dipoto is great, and how easy for him, but he's not. The first thing that got me into sports radio was how easily the commentators would talk about $5,000,000 contracts for a year, as if it was a steal, and I felt like I was listening to Wall St. reports. Sure, sports is part of being an American, like Wall St., but the casual way they'd dismiss the numbers was amazing, and made me interested. I feel dumb for not having thought this yet, but it's starting to dawn on me that like Wall St., there are short sellers in our sports markets, and they are betting on failure. The Mariners have become one of those teams that fail so regularly that betting on their failure has become a safe bet, just like betting on the Yankees to win has also become a safe bet, and I'm starting to wonder if the markets are rigged. If, in fact, the Mariners are trying to lose, for the equanimity of the market, in the same way the Yankees are trying to win, and I think Dipoto bears this out.

I'm going to start with this season because it may have exemplified just how obvious the Mariners economic strategy has been. Here is Dipoto, with a minor league team that is overachieving, and may actually make the playoffs, in spite of low expectations FROM MANAGEMENT at the beginning of the season. They come off a great series against their division rival, the A's, and then have one of their greatest come from behind victories against the Astros on Monday night, in the first of a four game series. The team hasn't looked this good, since.... I don't know.... but they rarely look this good. The next day Dipoto trades one of the overperformers in the bullpen, and mind you it has been the bullpen that have kept the Mariners solid, and he gets.... not much in return. He promises that this is simply the first part of a bigger trade, after demoralizing almost everyone on the team, but alas, no bigger trade was in the works. He say's he's looking to the long term, but the team is on the verge of reaching their goal for a playoff appearance, let alone a World Series, for the first time in twenty years, and he decides to take a gamble that very few understand. The players are confused because they are too young to fathom how economic markets work, and are only looking to make the Mariners, and thereby themselves, better baseball players, and part of this has to do with being on a winning team. The Mariners were poised for a wild card on July 26th, and by the July 27th the team started a staid and steady decline reminiscent of so many other seasons, so that in the end no one will remember this one. If you're a bookie, and bet against the Mariners, then you are on the winning end again, but this has become a safe bet, like a Fortune 500 company. And I'm starting to think this is by design.

The best player the Mariners got in the trade was a second baseman by the name of Torro, but he may or may not amount to be much different than what they already had, like most players, who don't have all-star seasons, or gold gloves, and goes by the mind. They got a reliever by the name of Castillo but he has been shaky for a couple of weeks, and the bullpen has none of the accidental bravado it had before, and gives a fan no confidence. The only other player they acquired was a thirty-something reliever, who hasn't appeared in my many hours of listening, and may never. The day after the trade even the talk radio hosts were baffled by Dipoto's decision, to trade one of the most popular and successful reliever on the team, for effectively nothing, and voiced their confusion. "I thought all we'd be talking about today was about how the Mariners were on fire and won one of their greatest victories in the last five or six years, but instead we're lamenting a trade." 'Oh, don't worry, there's more to come,' hinted Dipoto, but nothing came, and now the team is almost guaranteed of not making the playoffs for the twentieth straight year, something almost impossible to do. It's easy to sell short against the Mariners.

Will Dipoto be fired for this? Of course not, because he's essentially a mafioso, doing what his masters want him to do. They are all betting on the Mariners losing, and they are getting their way. Even when the Mariners have a bunch of no-names, with a couple of die-hard veterans, they still manage to find a way to screw up an exciting season. Some in the media and on the team were mad that they didn't go after a big name to push them over the top, but in classic Wall St. style they one-upped this critique, and not only didn't go after the big fish, but sold away the little ones for next to nothing. I'm sorry, but the chemistry this club had was exciting, and it wouldn't have taken much to keep it together for ONE PLAYOFF RUN, but that was asking too much for the short sellers. "Castillo is going to give us more in the future," said Dipoto, but he looks like a dud, and never was much to start with, so what's this bullshit? It's short-selling because the fix is in. It makes me feel stupid for wanting to go to their games, but they know there is something enjoyable to watching a loser, and between the short selling, and duping the fans just enough, they'll get people into the park.

The Mariners on the field this year didn't know the rules of the game and they're being punished for it, from one of their relievers being pulled for an illegal substance on the ball, to Dipoto's obvious subversion of a winning team, for no future, that any sane fan can see. I feel like an idiot for not having seen this sooner, but it's clear now.