Poll Question: Dustin Ackley or Michael Saunders?

I had a question posed recently to me by a friend of mine in one of my classes: Would you rather have Dustin Ackley of Michael Saunders?

For me, this is quite the challenging question. The Mariners have spent quite a lot of time developing both of these players, and during the latter part of the 2014 season both showed that they can be effective parts of a squad, improving vastly in both batting and fielding.

My initial reaction was that I would get rid of Ackley, but he showed that he was a valuable asset during the last month of the season, always seeming to come in clutch when it came to hitting in runs.

On the other side of the coin, Michael Saunders has been doing the same thing, albeit at a little bit slower clip due to him being injured seemingly constantly. Yes, I’ll admit to that.

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I wrote an article two weeks about the benefit of keeping Saunders around, and in it I basically said that Saunders was a valuable asset at the plate due to his being a power hitter. Yesterday, I wrote that Evan Gattis would make for a better player than Saunders, because Gattis had more power than Saunders has, and while that is true, I worry that Gattis would not mesh with the brand of baseball the Mariners seem to be building, which is similar to the one that the Royals took all the way to the World Series this year.

Saunders has been a statistically better than Ackley over the past season, and I think Saunders will remain healthy throughout next season, and show how much of an asset he will be for a full season.

Ackley, having hit a lot better over the last season, would be good trade bait in an attempt to get Gattis, or anybody else the Mariners are looking at in the offseason.

Unfortunately, it looks like Saunders is getting shopped around, and my claims may fall on deaf ears.

That’s my opinion, but I want to hear from you. Who would you rather keep?