Better production from your corner infielders
In traditional baseball thinking, your corner infielders are more offensive minded players that generally provide a lot for your lineup. This is true for the Mariners as Ty France and Eugenio Suarez were expected to be 2 key cogs in the middle of this Mariners lineup. Ty France has had a very disappointing year but looked to turn things around in August as the Mariners surged forward.
He had a .272/.412/.435 slash line with 3 home runs and a 17% strikeout rate and a 14% walk rate. He played a big part in the Mariners offense taking off in August, giving them some real depth that they have lacked in recent years. Things looked to be turning around for him, but he has stumbled in September with a .200/.319/.225 slash, he has yet to hit a home run this month, is still walking 10% of the time, but has nearly doubled his strikeout rate with 30% this month. Ty France posesses all of the ability to be a big contributor for the middle of the lineup, and I don't know if he has been hurt, or just struggling, but he has had nearly all of whatever power he did posess, zapped! Maybe it's time to start getting out of the way of those pitches, keep yourself healthy and start tearing the cover off of the baseball.
Eugenio Suarez was a big part of the Mariners success last year as a big surprised as a "throw-in" in the Jesse Winker trade. He is a big stick, that we all know comes with a lot of strikeouts, it's just something that we have come to accept. Geno's power isn't what it was last year, but that was sort of expected.
He is a streaky hitter, but man, he was really good in August with a .271/.371/.430 slash with 4 home runs, a 40% strikeout rate, but an impressive 14% walk rate. Geno made pitchers come to him and punished mistakes that were made. In September, he has been straight up awful. He has slashed .196/.240/.370 with 2 home runs. His strikeout rate remains consistent at 41%, but he is only walking 4% of the time. Geno is a leader of this club house, and he will need to turn things around in a big way to help Julio, J.P. and Teoscar carry this lineup to the playoffs.