Seattle Mariners Review: One Last Look At Spring Training

With Mariners Opening Day baseball less than 24 hours away, let’s take one final look at what we saw from this year’s M’s squad in spring training.

Had the Mariners won their final three spring training games or even one of them, they would have had won their first Cactus League title in the last 10 years. Instead, they finished with a top-3 record in spring ball for the 4th time in the past six seasons.

As a team, the M’s showed that they have great speed, plate discipline and hitting ability. They were 2nd-best in baseball with 40 steals, 2nd-best in walks drawn with 142, and were 4th overall in hits with 356.

Of those 356 knocks, only 30 of them were home runs which was 6th-worst during the spring.  What they missed in power they made up with doubles with league 2nd-best 92 and 9th-best in triples with 10.

When it came to defense, the team also struggled in the fielding; they committed the 2nd-most errors with 40 and turned the 7th-fewest double plays with 27.

On the mound, the M’s also had a hard time. They had the 5th-worst ERA at 5.54, the 5th-worst batting average against, and allowed the most home runs all spring surrendering 56.

But, even with the good and the bad, the M’s had their most wins (19) since 2013 when they had 22 victories.

Switching over to individual performances, Haniger and Heredia stole the doubles show. Haniger led the league with 11 two-baggers and Heredia was right behind him in 4th with nine doubles.

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Those two also appeared near the top of the list when it came to batting average and on-base percentage. Haniger was 8th in the league hitting .385 while Heredia smashed .365. Their on-base percentages were 14th and 15th-best but with Heredia beating out his teammate with an OBP of .431 compared to Haniger’s  .429.

Boog Powell had the 5th-best average among all players who took part in at least 10 games (qualified and non-qualified players) hitting .577.

Jean Segura impressed his new teammates batting .341 with two home runs, six RBIs, and five stolen bases.

Mike Zunino gave M’s fans a lot to cheer about as well with his unlikely hitting prowess. Zunino batted .333 and drew more walks (13) than strikeouts (11). He also drove in nine runs and blasted a team-best four homers.

Spring training is usually not a great indication of how the regular season will play out, especially during a World Baseball Classic year, but there were plenty of good things that came out of M’s spring camp.

Next: Ultimate Spring Fan Experience

Now comes the real show, regular season ball where games actually count. If the Mariners can have the same successes throughout the year as they did this spring and they fix their rough patches, this team will do big things in 2017.