Mariners Roundtable: Most Surprising Players

I think we can all agree that Felix Hernandez‘s peculiar decision to go blond was the biggest surprise of the spring so far, but tonight we will focus on who has surprised on the field in Arizona. 

Opening day may be the official start to the baseball season, but in recent years, spring training has been watched much more closely by fans. Cactus League games were rarely televised just a few years ago, but now, nearly every Seattle Mariners spring game is beamed back home to fans in the Emerald City. The results of these games do not count, but individual performances certainly do matter.

As in life, there are good surprises and there are bad surprises in baseball. Here at SoDo Mojo we prefer to look on the bright side, thus we will only be discussing which players on the Seattle Mariners have been pleasant surprises. Each of our talented writers has selected one player to focus on in this article.

A number of roster spots are on the line in Peoria, and many of the names in this slideshow are competing for jobs this spring. Unfortunately, we were unable to include all of the M’s excelling right now. Stefen Romero, Donn Roach and Dan Robertson were left off the list, but they are all worthy of honorable mentions.

We will begin by discussing Shawn O’Malley, who has been remarkably impressive this March.

Next: O'Malley is on fire!