2020 record - 27-33, 3rd place in AL West
Key Addition - Rafael Montero
Hear us out before you start yelling at us about why we haven't picked James Paxton for this one.
Paxton is an excellent pick-up for the Mariners. The Canadian national returns to Seattle after spending the last two seasons with the Yankees and Mariners fans will be glad to see him back at T-Mobile Park. He put up some top class numbers in his first go-around in Seattle; a 41-33 record, a 3.42 ERA and 10.9 WAR. Oh, and in 2018 he became pitched the sixth no-hitter in Mariners history.
So why isn't Paxton our pick for their key addition?
In short, there is a lot to like about their rotation.
Marco Gonzalez pitched like a true ace in 2020.
Yusei Kikuchi made significant improvements from his rookie year in 2019.
Justus Sheffield's hit, HR & BB numbers are all notably down.
Chris Flexon had a solid 2020 in the Korean league.
And Justin Dunn has made an excellent start to his young career.
So James Paxton serves to further strengthen a rotation which is already very promising. Their bullpen, however, was something of a concern in 2020. Out of all of their relief pitchers who pitched more than 10 innings, only one - Yohan Ramirez - had an ERA below 4.
Not since Edwin Diaz in 2018 have the Mariners had a lights out closer.
While we don't expect Montero to come close to saving 57 games like Diaz did in 2018, we think that he will be Seattle's closer and will be a good one at that.
Since moving to the bullpen after returning from Tommy John surgery - we seem to be writing that about a lot of players - in 2019, he has been excellent. He has an ERA just over 3, a 10.2 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9 over the last two seasons.
We predict that Montero starts the season as Seattle's closer and finishes the season with 25 saves.
Just missed out - James Paxton
Key Departure - Dee Strange-Gordon
This was another tricky one for us because out of all the players who have left the Mariners during the off-season, none had a particularly strong 2020 or didn't play. Before we focus on Strange-Gordon, let's have a quick look at who else we could have chosen here.
Carl Edwards Jr pitched well in 2020, but was limited to just 4.2 innings in 5 games due to injury. Bryan Shaw had an ERA of 18.00 in an extremely small sample size of 6 innings. Matt Magill had an ERA over 6 through 10.1 innings of work. And Mallex Smith batted .133 with a negative WAR in 14 games.
All of the above left as free agents and are either unsigned at time of writing, or have signed minor league deals elsewhere.
Which brings us onto Dee Strange-Gordon. We've always had a soft spot for him, stemming from 2014 when his stolen base numbers shot through the roof. Maybe we appreciated stolen bases as something of a lost art. Maybe from his home run as a Marlin shortly after the passing of his teammate Jose Fernandez.
But unfortunately, Strange-Gordon underperformed in 2020 for Seattle and as a result, the Mariners moved him to more of a back-up roll in order to give more playing time to some of their younger players.
In 2020, he had a negative WAR for the first time in his career as he played in 33 games. But if you exclude 2020, Strange-Gordon has put up decent numbers for his career. He's averaged .288, 35 extra base hits and 56 stolen bases per 162 games, which is very, very good.
He moves on to Cincinnati, where we hope he makes their roster for Opening Day.
Notable rookie cards - Evan White
Evan White is the sole Seattle representative in the rookie class of 2021 Topps Series 1.
White played in 54 games for the Mariners in 2020 and performed in somewhat of a Jekyll & Hyde manner.
On one hand, he played outstanding defence at first base where he won his first of what will likely be many Gold Gloves. And his hard hit percentage of 51.5% is considerably above the MLB average.
However, White's strike out numbers are also significantly above the Major League Average too. He struck out an enormous 41.6% of the time.
If White can work to bring his strike outs down, then we think that he have a nice season in 2021. We predict that he'll hit .230 with over 20 home runs and 75 RBI as he strives to help Seattle reach the postseason for the first time since 2001.
Predicted 2021 Team MVP - Kyle Seager
Kyle Seager has been with the Mariners all his career and has consistently put up solid - if not spectacular - numbers at third base.
Throughout his 10 year career, Seager can be pretty much guaranteed to hit around .250 with approximately 25 home runs and 30 doubles. Assuming that he can remain healthy, we think that Seattle can expect similar numbers this season too.
Seager has been inadvertently placed in the headlines before even a spring training game had been played when - the now resigned - Mariners president Kevin Mather called him "overpaid". Mather made some other shockingly insensitive, offensive and downright stupid remarks about other players too which we'll touch on below.
But is Seager overpaid? He signed a 7 year $100m contract in 2015, coming off an All-Star appearance, a Gold Glove and receiving MVP votes the previous season.
He hasn't won another Gold Glove, nor has he been voted to another All-Star game. But both of these are voted for, either by the public or by managers. When you look at Seager's stats, perhaps he hasn't quite pushed on as much as Seattle would have hoped in terms of accolades. But we think that averaging .256, 25 home runs and 87 RBI over 162 games, all to a tune of 33.4 WAR, makes him totally worth his contract.
Just missed out - Kyle Lewis
Player to watch for the future - Jarred Kelenic
We were really tempted to pick outfielders Julio Rodriguez or Taylor Trammell here, both of whom we think really highly of. But we found it impossible to resist choosing, the #4 overall top prospect according to MLB Pipeline, Kelenic here.
Kelenic came across to Seattle from the Mets in the Edwin Diaz & Robinson Cano trade in 2018. Diaz has an ERA of 4.41 in New York and Cano is currently suspended for 162 games due to a 2nd failed drug test. So it would be fair to say that the Mariners won this trade. And that's not even taking into consideration Justin Dunn, who will almost certainly make Seattle's rotation again this year, who was also included.
Kelenic has gradually risen up the top prospect rankings since he was drafted in the first round of the 2018 draft. It could be argued that he doesn't have any one single outstanding ability, but he does do everything very very well.
He has shown good power and speed through the minor leagues, culminating with 23 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 2019 at A, A+ & AA levels. We think that Mariners fans will love his athleticism and reliability when he gets called up.
We think that it is most likely that Kelenic starts the season at AAA Tacoma - potentially in an incredibly exciting outfield alongside Taylor Trammell & Julio Rodriguez. But it probably won't be long before he gets called up to the Majors; we think around the All-Star break and he'll soon be representing Seattle at All-Star games.
Storyline to keep an eye on - Will their 6 man rotation experiment be a success?
There are good arguments for having used an unorthodox 6 man rotation in the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season. But Seattle are planning to continue using 6 starting pitchers in 2021 too.
You can see their logic. They have a group of young starters and they want to carefully manage their workload after a shortened season. They plan to use the additional day between starts for extra bullpen work to help with their development, which certainly could have big benefits in the long term.
Other teams, like the Angels and Tigers, are said to be toying with the idea too. But it's unprecedented over a full 162 game season. How will veteran SP James Paxton respond to having fewer starts? How will the team react if a young starter starts the season really well? Or if one gets injured?
It's an interesting concept, for sure. And likely where the game is heading moving forward. We'll be watching the Mariners experiment closely and with great interest.
Prediction for 2021 - 4th in the AL West
We don't think that 2021 will be the season for the Mariners to break their 19 season streak of not reaching the postseason - by far the longest and most unwanted streak in Major League Baseball.
But we don't think that it will last much longer. Seattle has no less than 6 prospects in MLB Pipeline's top 100 prospect list. Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez are legitimate future stars and there are a host of other very good prospects in their deep farm system.
2021 got off to an awful start for the Mariners, with the idiotic and offensive comments made by then president Mather. It will be interesting to watch how the organisation responds. Will players like Kelenic have their service time manipulated like he said? Or will they go out of their way to prove him wrong?
Seattle have a group of exciting players on the horizon and they'll be back in the playoffs soon, just not in 2021.
Do you agree with our predictions? Or have we got them horribly wrong?
Let us know in the comments or on twitter @gbbaseballcards.
Comentarios