In 2009, the Seattle Mariners selected Dustin Ackley with the second overall pick in the MLB draft. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, one could question the logic of selecting Ackley ahead of arguably the best player in baseball, a 5-tool stud in Mike Trout. But that would be unfair. Several teams passed on Trout before he eventually went to the Anaheim Angels with the 25th pick. And Dustin Ackley was a ‘can’t miss’ prospect in the minds of most scouts and general managers in Major League Baseball. If not for the presence in that draft of college pitching phenom Stephen Strasburgh, Ackley might have been the most coveted player available. He was one of the gems of the draft destined to shine for whatever team was lucky enough to draft him.
By comparison, Kyle Seager was an afterthought. As Dustin Ackley’s University of North Carolina teammate, Seager had a front row seat for Ackley’s acclaimed college career. While Seager’s own college baseball resume was impressive, with a career batting average of .353 and three consecutive trips to the College World Series, he did not generate the same buzz as Ackley, or seem destined to become an elite player. And so when Mariners General Manager Jack Zduriencik drafted Seager two rounds after selecting Ackley, it was without much fanfare. Or expectations from Mariners fans.
What the casual fan didn’t know is that Kyle Seager was projected by MLB scouts to be a better than average prospect. A good fielder and competent hitter, he exhibited all the baseball savvy you would expect from a player whose baseball obsessed parents have raised three professional ballplayers. Kyle, the oldest of the Seager boys, is the type of scrappy, heady player that often carves out a respectable career as a journeyman in the majors. But no one would have predicted that he would quickly become a cornerstone for a team that many national pundits have already penciled in to represent the AL in the 2015 World Series.
If the Mariners are to make the post-season for the first time since 2001, they will need a strong season from Kyle Seager, who has developed into one of the Mariners most skilled and productive players. Despite the adjustment of learning an unfamiliar position, and being burdened with producing runs for an offensively challenged team, Seager is now recognized as one of the best defensive players at his positon in all of Major League Baseball. And an exciting, up-and-coming star at the plate. Feats highlighted by Seager earning his first All-Star selection and Golden Glove Award in 2014, the first of what M’s fans hope will be many more awards and All-Star nods the young third baseman will receive during his career in Seattle. Most Mariners fans will be thrilled if Seager can simply play a leading role in helping the club be yearly contenders in the post-season hunt, rather than the done in June pretenders perpetually searching for an offense.
On a Mariners team that has been tragically devoid of run producers for over a decade, Seager has steadily raised his batting totals each year. In 2012, his first full season in the majors, he hit .259 with 20 home runs and 86 runs batted in. In 2013, he posted .260/22/69 totals in a woeful offense. And in 2014, with the benefit of free agent addition Robinson Cano, those numbers rose to a .268 batting average with 25 long balls and an eye-popping jump to 96 RBIs. All respectable numbers for a young player in the post-steroids era.
In a line-up that now boasts proven run producers in Cano and Nelson Cruz , Seager is no longer forced into the role of trying to carry an anemic, under-performing offense. And with the new addition of the power slugging Cruz to the line-up, a full season at the top of the order from Austin Jackson, and the impressive development of Mike Zunino, Seager’s RBI opportunities and totals should continue to increase. He has proven he can flourish with those opportunities. And so can the Mariners.
While Dustin Ackley remains a player seemingly without a true position who has yet to show the type of consistency at the plate over the course of a full season that the Mariners brass and fans expect him to produce, Kyle Seager has become one of the most popular players among his teammates and M’s fans, alike. Much of the appeal can be attributed to his every working man, lunch pail persona. A true stalwart, Seager has yet to appear in fewer than 155 games since his 20ll call-up season. His dependability in staying in the line-up, along with his physical and mental toughness, certainly played a factor in the Mariners signing him to a 7-year, $100 million dollar contract in December.
So, in retrospect, Kyle Seager was the real gem that Jack Z mined in the 2009 draft. His tremendous talent, leadership in the clubhouse, and his aw-shucks ma’am charisma have earned him the attention and accolades he is now receiving, and justly deserves, from the national media. The Mariners seem to finally have the talent, and even the swagger, to make a lot of noise come this post-season. And one big reason will be an unheralded third round pick who wasn’t even the best player on his college team. But who could become a superstar on the professional stage right before Mariner’s fans eyes. To put it into baseball vernacular, Kyle Seager is a ballplayer.
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