Seattle Mariners 2020 Review/2021 Preview – Corner Infield
Seattle Mariners, Evan White.
First Base
The Best
The Seattle Mariners are locked into Evan White as their first baseman of the present and foreseeable future. Before the 2020 season, White signed a six-year, $24M contract extension with the club. This, despite never taking an at-bat above the Double-A level.
There is no doubt about White’s talent in the field. He is the best defensive first baseman the M’s have had since John Olerud. Simply put, White makes every other infielder better. The rookie’s ability to save poor throws with his nifty glove work bailed out the Mariners from several embarrassing mistakes. Also, the range White has at first is almost unheard of. He covers so much ground that it allows manager Scott Servais to use a better offensive player, who might be a bit limited in the field, to play second base.
White most likely won’t win the Gold Glove this season, although he deserves to be in the conversation. The way he plays his position, there will be a lot of them in White’s future.
The former Kentucky Wildcats star struggled mightily at the plate in his first Major League season. With a .176 batting average and .599 OPS, White has plenty of work to do to become a legitimate Major League hitter. Making contact would be a good place to start. In 202 at-bats, White struck out 82 times for a rate of 41.6 percent and over two-and-a-half times the amount of hits he had.
On the bright side, White showed some decent power. Of his 32 hits, seven were doubles, and eight more left the park.
The rest
One thing the Mariners have is an abundance of utility players. Surprisingly, only one of them, Dylan Moore, plays first base. Moore could likely be the regular second or third baseman next year, so it would be a rare occasion that he moves over to first. That limits Servais’ options.
Right now, 2020 feel-good story Jose Marmolejos is White’s main backup. A career minor leaguer, he made his MLB debut this year at age 27, after breaking camp with the M’s. Marmolejos struggled the first week and was demoted August 3 with a batting average of .103. He came back on the 27th with something to prove. Over the final month of the season, Marmolejos had a .244 batting average and .801 OPS with five home runs.