15 days until Mariners Opening Day: Previewing #15 Kyle Seager

There are now just 15 days until Mariners Opening Day! So, today we preview the season of the current Mariners number 15, Kyle Seager.

Kyle Seager has had a fantastic 10-year career in Seattle. At the moment, he has a 33.4 career WAR which is 5th among all Mariners positions players behind Ken Griffey Jr (70.6), Edgar Martinez (68.4), Ichiro Suzuki (56.2), and Alex Rodriguez (38.1). He’s won a Gold Glove, appeared in an All-Star Game, and has finished in the top 20 for MVP voting twice.

This is a great resume for someone who has spent their entire career in Seattle, and he certainly has a case for being inducted into the Mariners Hall of Fame as he is the team’s greatest third baseman of all time. Funny enough, we already know that he is going into the M’s Hall of Fame thanks to Kevin Mather leaking this information as one of the more non-controversial things he said when he spoke with the Bellevue Rotary Club.

On the flip side, Mather did call the greatest third baseman in club history “overpaid.” Fellow Sodo Mojo writer Ryota Nishino said this when he wrote about what Mather said: “Kyle Seager has been the heart and soul of the Seattle Mariners this decade and you want to call him overpaid? It’s funny because Mather even acknowledged that Seager would be a Mariners Hall of Fame member, and appreciated his tremendous attitude and dedication to Seattle.”

Seager’s contract situation is now widely known because of this. He is headed into the final year of his 7 year $100 million contract and he has some work to do if he wants his $15 million club option (which could become $20 million based on performance bonuses) to be picked up.

If it is not picked up then Seager may be in his last year in Seattle at age 33. Hopefully, Seattle can work out either a new deal or Kyle performs well enough to get his option picked up, as the future Mariners Hall of Famer deserves to retire in Seattle.