Top prospect Lazaro Montes' projection as Mariners regular is the bad kind of scary

It just plain feels like Lazaro Montes is going to open 2027 in the Seattle Mariners' everyday lineup. And there actually is a place where you can see it. RosterResource has stripped the team's likely free agents from the projected roster, and there's Montes in the resulting DH opening.

Whether this remains the case depends on what Jerry Dipoto does this winter. A decade's worth of mostly quiet offseasons tempts one to think that disappointment is in the near future. Then again, the cash and the trade capital for a proper offseason flourish are there.

Even so, between Montes and fellow top prospect Michael Arroyo, it's the latter who's probably more on the bubble for 2027. The Mariners don't really know what Arroyo is, as he's clearly a good hitter but not really any kind of natural in the field. Everyone knows what Montes is. He's a 6-foot-5, 250-pounder with dangerous power, and a decent enough glove-arm combo for right field if the Mariners want to go that route.

The 21-year-old has already teased that his power alone can sustain his offensive profile. After hitting 38 home runs in the minors, he hit four more in 21 major league games after getting the call. He only had a .212 average and a .305 OBP, but he finished with a 120 wRC+ anyway.

Why Lazaro Montes may need to be an outlier to find success with Mariners

As for the scary stuff, we all feared the strikeouts would come and they did. Even in a sample size of 59 plate appearances, 24 strikeouts is alarming. That's a 40.7 K%. That's roughly where Evan White was as a rookie in 2020, and we all know how that turned out.

Here's an even scarier number: 71.3.

That was Montes' rate of contact within the strike zone, known as Z-Contact%. For perspective, the major league average was 86.1 percent. For even more perspective, only four hitters who took at least 50 plate appearances had a lower Z-Contact% than Montes.

The fact that Montes wasn't all alone down there is a bit of mercy, but there's a difference between having company and having good company. Hitters with itty-bitty rates of in-zone contact don't tend to see much action, so the real question is whether there's a model for everyday playing time for Montes.

To this end, here's what the bottom of the Z-Contact% leaderboard looks like if you set the plate appearance threshold to 400:

This is a solid group of hitters, but the Z-Contact% column betrays the apples-to-oranges comparison at the heart of it. Munetaka Murakami is the only everyday hitter hanging out in Montes' neck of the in-zone contact woods. It's definitely interesting. It's not exactly encouraging, as it implies that the best comp for Montes is perhaps the most extreme outlier among all the stars in the majors.

Murakami did hit 35 home runs for the Chicago White Sox, but he also ran a 35.4 K% and experienced diminishing returns throughout the year. He was a subpar hitter in August (86 wRC+) and September (96 wRC+), and then went 5-for-27 with 16 strikeouts in the postseason. It all maps onto a pattern of pitchers being more willing to challenge him in the zone, which tells us they were reading the book.

The book on Montes might already tell the same story in big, bold letters: YOU CAN BEAT THIS GUY IN THE ZONE. The risk of an absolute bomb is there, but the reward of a swing-and-miss is more likely. Play the odds and you'll win.

Such is the view of Montes as a piece for the 2027 Mariners right now, anyway. If they're committed to giving him his shot, so be it. He's earned it.

The hope is nonetheless that the Mariners can differentiate between a shot and a job. Maybe Montes is ready. Nobody should assume he is until he proves one of two things: He's either better than an outlier, or good enough to be an outlier.

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