Mariners Tuffy Gosewisch To Become The Next Jesus Sucre?

A couple of weeks before the Mariners GM, Jerry Dipoto, traded away the team’s longest tenured catcher, Jesus Sucre, he had already lined up Sucre’s replacement, Tuffy Gosewisch, whom he acquired in a deal with the Atlanta Braves.

They may not look alike but the Mariners newest catcher, Tuffy Gosewisch, has had MLB career numbers that mirror the M’s old backstop, Jesus Sucre. Even their paths through the minors are fairly similar.

To say that both men are workhorses would be an understatement.

Both Gosewisch and Sucre have played in more than 10 different minor league seasons and have taken any opportunity they could’ve to play ball each participating in foreign and winter league seasons on top of their effort during the standard minor league summer season.

They were both also traded away by the clubs that drafted them despite putting in a handful of seasons of hard work in their early minor league careers.

Once they finally made it up to the big leagues -both making their MLB debut in 2013- their playing times have been inconsistent.

Although Gosewisch stayed at the big league level after he was called up by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Sucre was thrown back and forth between the minor and major leagues with the Mariners, the two have unbelievably similar numbers on the grandest stage.

Through 126 games spread over four seasons with the Diamondbacks, Gosewisch has batted a lackluster .199 with five home runs, 30 RBIs, and 17 doubles. Also scattered about through four seasons but only in 90 contests, Sucre has batted .209 with two home runs, 20 RBIs, and 10 doubles.

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Furthermore, neither man has played more the 55 games in a single year. Sucre once played 52 games back in 2015 and Gosewisch played 41 games in 2014.

With not much to differentiate between the player’s careers thus far, should we then expect that Gosewisch will have a similar, thus, mostly unimportant role with the Mariners?

Gosewisch has made his way onto the Mariners 40-man roster for 2017 but is unlikely to see much time behind the plate in 2017 with Mike Zunino and Carlos Ruiz taking up the majority of the playing time.

Meaning that, when he does get his opportunity(ies)  to prove himself, they will most likely be short stints like he and Sucre have become so accustomed to all of their professional careers.

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Seeing that Gosewisch doesn’t look to be figuring much into the Mariners win-loss record, the most we can hope for is that he becomes as beloved as Sucre was while also providing spurts of hot play to get the fans excited about his arrival in Seattle.