More Thoughts On Seager

I started off the year thinking Kyle Seager was maybe an average player. More of a utility player in the vein of Jamey Carroll. I thought he would be a good player but maybe not an every day player. One that would hit but not for much power while being versatile but not great any specific position.

Seeing him in April changed a bit of my mind.

"I won’t try and skirt the issue. I’ve never been a huge fan of Seager. But he made good contact on a few different pitches. His stance was similar to Tenbrink but I see where people say he doesn’t have the loft. But it wasn’t horrible either.His defense was better than I had expected. He turned a really awesome double play with Carlos Triunfel. His actions were smooth and quick. I didn’t really get too much of a chance to see his arm. But he could be an interesting guy going forward."

This was two short paragraphs. Here is another thought from some of my notes.

"His swing is solid, compact but quick. He makes a great amount of contact with pitches while not compromising the strike zone. He seems like he could have a really good eye and could lead to consistent above-average walk rates at the big league level."

The one thing that I will remain skeptical about is his arm. It’s his one tool that I haven’t seen much of and from most of the talent evaluators within the blogosphere most give it a “Meh” grade. Not bad, but not great either.

What Seager has displayed over the past 4 months and 350+ plate appearances is something special. I still am not sure how much power he is going to be able to produce but at this point I’m pretty certain that he’s going to be able to hit at a big league level and produce at least good amount of doubles with his gap power.

Not to mention that his ability to draw walks and understand his strike zone should put him in the realm of short success.

But, that said I just am not certain that this is the best course of action at this time. I like Seager and in my opinion if the Mariners are looking for a future third basemen him and Liddi are pretty much the only candidates within the next couple of years that I really think are viable.

Seager may very well do fine and I’m not entirely opposed to this move, it just feels a bit fast to me. There are plenty of players that even jumped the AAA level and never looked back. So who knows those two weeks in AAA may be his last of his career. As I previously said he has the tools to succeed similarly to Dustin Ackley.

There is talk that he may even go back down to AAA if things don’t work out. I ultimately don’t understand this move by the organization at this junction. It feels like they are trying to avoid making a trade and still stay in the mix for the AL West. But then again it’s not like the team has a lot of options at third right now and with Figgins continually being awful and Kennedy being old the Mariners needed another option.

I think it’s going to take more than just a Kyle Seager in place to help them over take the Angels or Rangers but it certainly would help fill a hole and more importantly could give the Mariners another hitter who could do just that …. hit.