The Greatness of Dustin Ackley

Right now it’s hard to stay in the here and now with this team. It’s hard look at a 13 game losing streak and see the positive. Because frankly things have just sucked, nearly every facet of this team has just plain sucked. There is no candy coating this fact.

The team has had a complete collapse over the past two weeks.But, while it’s hard to see it there are still positives out there. Sometimes it just requires stepping back to get a better perspective.

I like checking up on the Mariners current fWAR every weekend. Sometimes it’s just interesting to take a look and see where everyone’s at. Sure there are some depressing numbers out there but the one person, whose numbers continues to shock me.

Dustin Ackley, who in 111 plate appearances has already accumulated 1.2 wins above replacement.

A fun activity I could spend a couple hours delving into is looking at the Mariners all-time leader boards. I like to compare where Felix is compared to former pitchers such as Freddy Garcia, Jamie Moyer and Randy Johnson in association with Mariner lore and their ages.

Currently, Ackley is on pace to accumulate 7.5 WAR per 700 plate appereances. What’s crazy about that fact is looking at all past Mariner second basemen there are all of 3 players who have accumulated that much WAR during their time in that position for the Mariners. They are Bret Boone, Harold Reynolds and Julio Cruz.

The spreadsheet only includes players who have had at least 50 plate appearances while playing second base. It helps eliminates some outliers.

What is kind of to think about is that while Dustin Ackley has been performing moderately well (and that’s truely an understatement), offensively he can still get better. He’s only driving the ball about 16% compared to the 19% he was hitting the ball down in Tacoma. He’s walking only 8% and while that’s more than say Olivo, Figgins, Ryan or Ichiro, it’s pure pedestrian compared to the 14% walk rate in the minors.

Now, he’s going to obviously have some drop off in other areas. His HR/FB ratio (10.5%) isn’t going to stay that high. Even his 7.7% that he posted down in Tacoma was a bit a high. That said his speed a long with how hard he hits the ball will help him procure plenty of doubles and triples.

His defense is better than advertised so far and while it’s far too early to take the stats serious it has been worth 5+ runs according to DRS, +1.6 runs according to UZR and running a respectable .824 revised zone rating.

All together we are looking at a young player who without a doubt is going to be a staple of this team for at least the next 6 years and could very well in that time become the best second basemen ever to play for this organization.