Seattle Mariners: Latest Arizona Fall League Update Part One

The Arizona Fall League is already racing at full speed. The Mariners on the Peoria Javelinas have helped their AFL team jump out ahead of the pack after the first eight games. Here is where the M’s top hitting prospects stand after the first week and change of the season.

Eight games into a season isn’t enough time to give a real indication as to how a player will do for the year. Remember, Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz were both batting under .200 to start this season.

However, if a player does very well or very poorly out of the gates, we can speculate how that will affect their standing with the club. If it hurts or helps their chances of being a more prominent role on future Mariners squads.

Batters

It should be no surprise to anyone that the supreme Mariners batter in the AFL is Tyler O’Neil. He has hit two home runs and driven in four RBI in the four games since the last AFL update. His two home runs came in back-to-back games and he now has a total of three homers in the AFL so far. He also doubled on Monday for his second of the shortened season.

As of this writing, O’Neil is leading the AFL in home runs with his trifecta of smashes. He also is on top of the total bases list with eighteen. O’Neil’s dominance in the AFL is proving that he is continuing where he left off in his Player of the Year-winning minor league season.

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For the backup catcher, Tyler Marlette, things have not gone as well as they have for O’Neil. Marlette has played in two of the last six Javelinas games. He has underperformed hitting 1-7, but, that sole hit was a double- his second of the season. Only three men in the entire AFL have more than two doubles.

On another positive not, in the three games Marlette has played in the AFL, he has batted .273. That’s is right on par to where he finished the summer minor league season when he hit.277 in that stint. Even more reassuring, over his six years in the minors his batting average is .276. These are ubelivelably consistent numbers.

The Mariners can use these type of  numbers at the catchers position. Marlette’s career .276 average is at least forty points higher than any of Mariners catcher on their roster. Chris Iannetta has the closest career average at .229.

Guillermo Heredia made his AFL debut this past week, and it went very well. He had two extra base hits- a double and a triple. He would start in another game but would be completely shutdown offensively.

Finally, Drew Jackson has particpated in three games since the last update. Jackson has struggled at the plate this week. He went 2-10, bringing his AFL total to 2-16 -that’s a .125 batting average. He also hasn’t helped himself to get on base. He has not drawn a single walk in sixteen plate appearnces.

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So far it looks as though everyone but Jackson is benefitting from playing in the Arizona Fall League. Heredia, O’Neil and Marlette are either living up to expectations or exceeding them. If Jackson doesn’t want to be the odd man out, he’ll have to step up his game. We’ll check back on all these guys next week in the next AFL batters update.