Lookit ‘em all!
Well hey now, how about a little positivity after the downer of that last post.
Yesterday morning, mlb.com projected the starting lineups – without pitchers – for every single major league team. That’s thirty lineups. And let’s just say there’s a ton of ex-Mariners out there who are judged to be good enough to start for one of the 29 major league teams that aren’t Your Seattle Mariners. Fifteen position players, to be exact. Let’s say that again.
Fifteen ex-Mariners, not including pitchers, fifteen ex-Mariners will be on starting rosters for other teams come April this year.
Yeah, hard for us to look at too. But it’s all good! Read on!
(baseball-reference.com)
Which leaves us to wonder, if Trader Jerry is that good, doesn’t that mean the Mariners will put an absolutely fabulous team on the field this year, because you trade all those guys away, and you must really be upgrading… what, no?
Take a look. Man, if we could just put these fifteen fellas on the field at the new Pink Palace…
Blue Jays:
Justin Smoak, 1B
Kendrys Morales, DH
Devil Rays:
Mike Zunino, C
Indians:
Leonys Martín, CF
Tigers:
John Hicks, DH
Twins:
Nelson Cruz, DH
White Sox:
Yonder Alonso, DH
Welington Castillo, C
A’s:
Chris Herrmann, C
Mets:
Robinson Cano, 2B
Phillies:
Jean Segura, SS
D-Backs:
Ketel Marte, 2B
Jarrod Dyson, CF
Dodgers:
Chris Taylor, 2B
Rockies:
Chris Ianetta, C
Good God. So we’re a little heavy on catchers, middle infielders, and DH. Easy enough. With a couple marginally realistic reassignments, here’s a starting lineup, with 2018 WAR for each.
(WAR explained here, you’re welcome)
Taylor, LF – 4.1
Segura, SS – 4.3
Cano, 2B – 3.2
Cruz, RF – 2.9
Smoak, 1B – 2.3
Alonso, DH – 1.6
Marte, 3B – 3.3
Martín, CF – 1.9
Zunino, C – 1.9
…which adds up to 25.5, if you’re scoring at home, and you’ve still got six decent guys on the bench. Y’know, in case Robi gets busted again, or Mikey’s heading south of Mendoza… again…
Oh, and by the way, a couple guys we’re not even considering here, but just to keep it honest with so many people leaving town and starting somewhere else, I mean you know these fellas will make an impact…
James Paxton (Yankees), SP – 2.9
Edwin #hisnicknameissugar Diaz (Mets), closer – 3.2
Meanwhile, back at the corner of Edgar and Dave… (T-Mobile)
And now for the part you know we had to get to, and as we type these very words over here at Playin’ in the Dirt HQ we don’t even know what the answer is going to be, but we gotta go for it and do the math. Let’s compare those numbers with the mlb.com projected starting lineup for Your Seattle Mariners, again comforted by the certainty that for sure Trader Jerry dealt those guys knowing that we’d head into 2019 with a number bigger, way bigger if he’s really earning all that dough for himself, way bigger than 25.5… right?
So here we go, set to start for the good guys in just over two months…
Some o’ these guys would be nice… (mlb.com)
Mallex Smith, CF – 3.5
Dee Gordon, 2B – 0.6
Mitch Haniger, RF – 6.1
Edwin Encarnacion, DH – 1.9
Kyle Seager, 3B – 0.8
Domingo Santana, LF – 1.0
Ryon Healy, 1B – -0.6
Omar Narvaez, C – 1.9
Tim Beckham, SS – 0.7
Oh goodness friends, Your Mariners’ projected started batting order looks like it has a 15.9 total WAR, nearly ten points behind all those ex-Mariner starters swinging a bat elsewhere this coming Spring. And even if you acknowledge our man Daniel, Lord Vogelmort, could replace Healy at PLUS 0.2, that’s still, well, yeah. But hey, the future.
Speaking of the future, and we said we weren’t talking pitching here, but someday soon we gotta pick an Opening Day starter… what’ll it be, the actual really good pitching of Marco (2.5 2018 WAR)? …or the ego and the #wtfwegonnadowiththesedamnyellowKCards of Felix (-1.3)… and without a proven big-league setup guy or a closer, we got eleven, count’em eleven, total saves in MLB history by members of the current 40-man Mariner roster (Gearrin 5, Swarzak 6, I’m not making this up)…
Yeah but we’re not talking about that now. For now, pssst, nice job there Jerry… We hear the Ross Eversoles are barnstorming Arizona next month. Maybe you could… never mind.