Kyle Seager, Seattle Mariners. (Photo by Laura Smith, via_Flickr)
Kyle Seager, Seattle Mariners. (Photo by Dinur, via Flickr)
The 2020 Seattle Mariners season is officially in the books. It was certainly an up and down ride during this year’s 60-game sprint. But uneven play should be expected from what turned out to be the youngest team in Major League Baseball (26.9-years-old).
Houston swept the Mariners in the first four games of the year. Their poor start continued through August when the team bottomed out at 9-18 on the 20th. Many Mariners fans thought the 60-game schedule felt more like 180 because Seattle was manhandled in so many of their defeats. To the supporter’s delight, the Mariners played outstanding baseball over the final five weeks of the season and going 18-15.
Despite their youth and spotty play at times, the Mariners finished with a 27–33 record. That was good for third in the American League West Division. Better yet, Seattle put themselves in the hunt for a playoff spot, lasting until the final week, but ultimately came up two games short. Their young team got just a taste of what it’s like to battle for the Major League playoffs. A valuable experience that will serve them well in the future.
While there were more losses than wins in 2020, the team instilled hope for a better 2021.
PNWS takes a look back at the season that just ended and previews the next season. We continue our six-part series with the corner infielders.
During the 2020 season, Seattle’s corner infield positions, manned primarily by Evan White at first and Kyle Seager at third, had a good mix of power and defense as well as youth and experience.
Seattle Mariners, Evan White.
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.
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.
Kyle Seager, Seattle Mariners.
Over the last decade, Kyle Seager has been the rock of Seattle’s infield at the hot corner. The power-hitting lefty began the season on fire with a .304 average the first two weeks of the season. During the year, Seager became only the fourth man in Seattle Mariners history with 200 home runs. Additionally, he rose to fourth place in franchise history for RBI and fifth in runs scored.
He slumped in September and saw his season batting average drop from .283 to .232. A final week surge had the veteran fishing up at .244. Seager led the team with 60 games played (first in the American League), 40 RBI (10th), 32 walks (9th), and 12 doubles. He was also second to Kyle Lewis on the M’s with nine home runs.
There have been plenty of rumors in the last couple of years that Seattle is trying to trade Seager. The biggest stumbling block is his contract. Seager has one more season left on the deal; however, the M’s have a $15M option for 2022. If he does move in a trade, the final season becomes a player option, which Seager most likely cashes in.
Say the Mariners do trade Seager in the off-season or during next season; as of now, the internal choices to replace him would be Ty France, Dylan Moore, Tim Lopes, and Sam Haggerty. Moore is the best defensive player of the four. Servais would have to decide if he’d rather have Moore at second or third with France taking the other spot.
The Mariners have two third basemen listed among their top 30 prospects, Austin Shenton is 18th and Joe Rizzo comes in at 23. Shenton, a local kid out of Bellingham, was drafted in 2019 in the fifth round. A left-handed hitter like Seager, he has some pop in his bat. Defensively Shenton is average at best. Although he spent the summer at Seattle’s alternate training site, Shenton is likely headed for High-A or Double-A next season.
Rizzo, who was expected to play in Double-A this year did not get an invitation to the team’s alternate site. He’ll get a chance to show what he can do as part of the Mariners Arizona Instructional League team this fall.
Our series continues later in the week.