After starting the season as a favorite to make it to the World Series, the Seattle Mariners have had one of the most frustrating baseball seasons in 14 years of obscurity.

The team is coming off of its first truly meaningful September since 2007, but they could never get anything going. When the team has hit well, they haven’t pitched well and vice versa.

After this season unraveled, General Manager Jack Zduriencik was fired.

The team has turned the reigns over to former Los Angeles Angels’ general manager, Jerry Dipoto.

Dipoto resigned as the Angels’ GM after a dispute with Mike Scioscia, the longest tenured manager in the majors.

He’s taking over a team that is in a much different position than the constant contenders he led in Los Angeles.

Dipoto’s new task will be to turn around a team with more holes in it than swiss cheese and a fan-base that is clamoring for results.

Dipoto will have to do that without the payroll he was alloted with the Angels.

To start the season, the Angel’s payroll was over $30 million more than the roughly $119.8 million payroll of the Mariners. Even though the team expanded its budget in the offseason, Seattle’s market will never bring in the money Los Angeles can to pay players.

Dipoto will need to start by retooling what was once considered the team’s biggest strength heading into the season—the bullpen.

Last season, Danny Farquhar, Yoervis Medina, Dominic Leone, Fernando Rodney and Tom Wilhelmsen headlined a bullpen full of right-handed power pitchers that locked down opposing lineups in the late-innings and helped in so many close games for a team that was inept on offense, but still only fell one game short of a wild card berth.

This season has seen three of those pitchers, Leone, Medina and Rodney, traded away.   The other two bounce between the majors and minors, all struggling with their command.

To go along with the bullpen struggles and injuries to starting pitchers Hisashi Iwakuma and James Paxton, at times this team just couldn’t score runs. The same problem that has plagued the franchise for the better part of the last six seasons.

Late season surges in 2014 by former number two overall pick Dustin Ackley and first baseman Logan Morrison. To go along with the continued progress of all-star third baseman Kyle Seager, gave hope to the development of a young offense that seemed to take strides with the presence of future hall of fame second baseman Robinson Cano.

Off-season additions of slugger Nelson Cruz and role-playing veterans Justin Ruggiano, Seth Smith and Rickie Weeks were supposed to be just the things this team needed to get their offense over the hump.

Cruz did all he could to keep the offense afloat early, looking like a triple-crown candidate for the first three months of the season. Unfortunately for the Mariners, one man doesn’t make a lineup.

Cano struggled mightily to start the season, Seager uncharacteristically didn’t hit well with runners in scoring position. Ruggiano and Weeks were cut from the team by mid-June, Morrison has struggled to hit for average and Dustin Ackley fell so flat on his face the team finally parted ways with him in a trade with the Yankees.

The season wasn’t all for nothing though. A few players made their case as legitimate big leaguers. Ketel Marte has been consistent at shortstop. Carson Smith, with a bit more seasoning, could be the closer for the next few years and Brad Miller looks like he can play every position on the field. Besides that, few of the questions heading into the season were answered with this team.

In a season in which fans expected to find answers, they were left with nothing but more questions. Will Mike Zunino ever learn to hit big league pitching? Is Brad Miller, the former shortstop of the future, the new center fielder of the future? Will Taijuan Walker or James Paxton be the top-flight pitchers that they were hyped to be in the minors? Is there a spot on this roster for Jesus Montero? Will this team ever hit consistently?

The one thing we do know for sure is that Hernandez, Cano and Cruz aren’t getting any younger and unless they can figure things out this offseason, next season could be another chapter in the ongoing rebuilding plan that is the Mariners’ organization.