Projecting the 2023 Mariners lineup with player comps

Yes, we are still waiting for the Seattle Mariners and the rest of MLB to start playing again. But this hasn’t stopped us from thinking about the future.

The Seattle Mariners have one of the best farm systems in baseball. While that is all well and good, the only thing that matters is how good the players in the system will be at the big league level, and how quickly they’ll reach their plateau. Which brings us to a question: if these players do hit their projected level, what could that team look like?

Well, instead of trying to paint a picture using numbers and a projection analysis, maybe we should simplify things. So instead, let’s lay out a potential starting lineup for Opening Day 3 years from now but use current MLB players as stand-ins to represent where Seattle could be at that time.

These comparisons to current big leaguers are nothing more than educated guesses. Like any group of young players, the spectrum for final results will be vast. Some will outperform their projections, some will underperform. Some will be “as expected” while others will come in just above or just below what we expected.

But for our purposes today, we are focused just on what we think is the 75% ceiling for these players. So we aren’t looking for what they can do if everything goes well, but assuming they beat their 50% potential comps.

If you’re confused, I can’t blame you. It may be better to just jump in and start going so you’ll see exactly what I am talking about. But with that in mind, let’s go over some quick ground rules. First, I won’t be projecting a free agency going forward. We can’t fathom who might sign in the winter of 2020, let alone 2023. No trades either. We can only use players who currently are club control through 2023.

Now, let’s go ahead and just get started. But one final note before we begin: of course this won’t be accurate. That isn’t the point. The point is to have fun and slap some comps on current Mariners youngsters to give us a better idea of what we may be looking at. Now, we can officially get started.