Seattle Mariners: 2 X-Factors for 2020
Jake Fraley, Seattle Mariners.
Youth
It’s no secret that the Seattle Mariners are rebuilding, we’ve written about it extensively. It will be a very young team that takes the field in Houston on Friday evening. Maybe one of the most inexperienced MLB teams in recent memory.
Among the position players, Jake Fraley (left field), Kyle Lewis (right field), and Evan White (first base) are all rookies and will start. Second baseman Shed Long, and freshly-minted number one catcher Austin Nola barely passed their respective rookie thresholds last season, they are also everyday players. So is shortstop J.P. Crawford, who has a whopping 165 games of major league experience.
Two of the six starting pitchers, Justus Sheffield, and Justin Dunn, are rookies, as are several of the relievers. This season will be two months of on the job training.
One of the beauties of youth is blissful ignorance. A good portion of the Seattle Mariners roster, deep down inside, doesn’t know they’re supposed to lose games this year. They will field a bunch of players who have had success so far their young careers and feel like they can take it to the next level.
To paraphrase Steve Lyons from the movie “For the Love of the Game,” many of the M’s are just young enough and cocky enough to not realize the magnitude of the situation they find themselves in.
Late Addition
This article was supposed to be about two X-Factors, so consider this a bonus. Today, the Mariners announced number one catcher Tom Murphy has a broken bone in his foot and will miss significant time. It won’t be big a surprise if GM Jerry DiPoto trades for a veteran catcher this week. That pending move that has “X-factor” written all over it.
Who or what do you think the Seattle Mariners X-Factors are in 2020? Let us know in the comments section below or on social media.