What the heck happened to Chone Figgins this year? After leaving the Angels last season and becoming one of the most sought after free agents and opted to sign with the then-hopeful Seattle Mariners, Figgins ended up playing second base for the worst team in baseball. After winning a World Series in 2002 and being an All-Star in 2009, things have really turned around for the 32-year-old Georgian. Now he’s mulling around a struggling team and playing some of the worst baseball in his career.

Figgins and the ever-reliable Ichiro Suzuki are the only two every day players hitting above .250, and that’s not saying much as it took a 4-for-4 Wednesday game for Figgins to lift his average from .259 to .265. Figgins has 42 steals this season and 72 walks, so he’s not been completely out of character this year. However, his 62 runs scored, 155 hits, 35 RBI and single home run will all be career lows for seasons in which he played more than 116 games.

The Mariners expected big things this season and ended up tanking. After increasing their season wins total by 24 last year, they made a push to take over the AL West by picking up guys like Figgins and Cliff Lee, but it was not meant to be as the offense just could not be offensive; politely putting up some of the worst numbers in the majors. Felix Hernandez, a candidate for the Cy Young, has a 13-12 record when on any other team he could be close to 20 wins.

There’s no reason to think that Figgins can’t get back up again next season. His career numbers indicate that he’s much better than his 2010 totals. His only concern should be that he’s stuck in Seattle for a few more years. There’s nobody else around him to help pick up his runs and RBI totals. Figgins and Suzuki can do as well as they want, but unless the Mariners pick up about seven more players, they might repeat as baseball’s 30th best team.