The 2020 Seattle Mariners Naughty or Nice List

The 2020 Seattle Mariners Naughty List

Seattle Mariners Bullpen

The Seattle Mariners bullpen was pretty darn bad in 2020, and are at the top of Santa’s naughty list. Yohan Ramirez (the only exception), was the only Mariners reliever to post a sub 3.00 ERA. Taylor Guilbeau and Carl Edwards Jr. also had sub 3.00 ERAs but they barely pitched.

The bullpen was clearly a red flag and Jerry Dipoto has quickly gone to work to bolster it. Also to be fair, the bullpen had a lot of young guys so it was a good learning experience for them.

Yusei Kikuchi

The Seattle Mariners brought in Yusei Kikuchi two years ago and he hasn’t quite found his groove. In two MLB seasons, he holds a 5.39 ERA. Not exactly what you’d expect from a highly-touted Japanese player…

We saw glimpses of elite stuff in 2020, but Kikuchi failed to be consistent, and that is the most important thing. Kikuchi has made some mechanical changes and it seemed to pay off a little. He managed a 1.1 WAR despite his terrible ERA.

Kikuchi is on the 2020 naughty list, and I am hoping he finds himself on the nice list in 2021 and beyond.

Evan White’s Offense

Notice how I wrote Evan White’s offense…. It is no secret that Evan White can pick it at first base, but his hitting was bad. Again, I am not going to bash him because it was his first season in the MLB.

White finished with a .176 average and led the team with 84 strikeouts. This will need to be a major area of focus moving forward if he wants to become a successful Mariners player.

The good thing though was that White was hitting the ball hard when he did make contact. According to Baseball Savant, his average exit velocity was in the 87th percentile in 2020 (higher the better).

There were other poor performances in 2020, but they are not worth highlighting. I expect all three players/groups to join the 2021 nice list, otherwise, the Seattle Mariners might need to make some more changes. Let’s meet the nice list…