When we site down to evaluate decisions the Mariners have made this season, we want to place blame. We want to isolate the person who is at fault for not even pretending to contend. We want to figure out who made what decisions, why they were made, and who agreed or disagreed with the decision that was made.

All of this involves rampant speculation on our part. We know little about who made what decisions. We don't know, for example, whether Jack Zduriencik decided to fire Wak, or whether Lincoln and Armstrong delivered that mandate to him. We don't know whether Jack Zduriencik or Chuck Armstrong was the person who decided to bring Ken Griffey Jr. back this season. Even supposing (wrongly) that we knew that Griffey was Armstrong's decision, we don't know whether Zduriencik thought is was a good decision, a bad decision, or a decision that was unlikely to do much for the team either way. 

Even when we can be very confident about who made a decision, we don't know the reasons that they made the decision. We can be pretty sure that Jack Zduriencik and no one else decided to take the package that Texas offered for Cliff Lee over the package that New York offered. Please, let's not pretend our speculations on why he made that decision are knowledge. Perhaps Jack thinks Justin Smoak is a switch hitting Jim Thome. Perhaps he thinks Smoak is less than Montero, but Beavan and Lueke far more than make up for it. Perhaps he wanted a guy who would hit from the left side of the plate. Perhaps he just liked the idea of trading in division because it would hurt a rival long term. Perhaps many of these factors played into his decision. Perhaps others we've never considered did. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

The desire to lay blame is understandable. If you're reading this, there's a great chance you're a Mariners fan who was a little optimistic in March. My genuine hopes of playoffs were slim, but they've been dashed far harder than I ever imagined. I suspect you feel the same way. It's hard not to be angry, and it's hard not to seek a target for our rage. It's hard not to pick one or two decisions, have those be salient in our thought, and imagine that the person responsible for all of this is the person responsible for those one or two decisions.

But we don't know who's responsible for this. We never will know. Some bad decisions were made. Some good decisions were made. And even if we knew who made what decisions, it's hard to know how much the decisions and how much luck factored into this disaster.