For all of us baseball addicts we are ten days away from the opening
of baseball season for the Seattle Mariners. It looks like they are getting
into season form; hopefully they will start the season on good footing instead
of what happened last year.
The infield looks set to go with Danny Valencia starting at
first base instead of Daniel Vogelbach who was sent down to triple A a few days ago. They want him to work on his
defense and hitting before bringing him up. Dipoto and Servais both said that
he is in the same spot that Zunino and Paxton were last year. Depending on how he
does hopefully he will be up in a manner of weeks. The rest of the infield as
expected Cano at second, Segura at short and Seager at third. For the Mariners
to get off on a good start it would be nice if Seager can do well in April. He
generally starts of poorly in April. Although his defensive was OK last year it
wasn’t up to par over previous seasons so I expect that he will look a lot
better this year. Taylor Motter will be
the backup at first base for now along with the other infield positions.
With Vogelbach being sent down it does look like Heredia will
be the fourth outfielder unless Ben Gamel makes a push over the next ten days.
Also the Mariners may start the season with eight relievers. As we expected Jarrod
Dyson will be in left, Leonys Martin in center and Mitch Haniger in right
field. Nelson Cruz will be the primary designated hitter though he will see
occasional action in right field.
The starting pitching will be Felix Hernandez as the opening
starter and number one pitcher. In his last two outings he looked a lot like
his old self. It was announced on Friday by Scott Servais that Iwakuma will be
the number two starter so that means that either Drew Smyly or James Paxton
will be number three and the other will be number four. Gallardo is still
expected to be the fifth starter though his spring training outings haven’t
been that great.
The eight relievers in the bullpen will likely be known in
the next few days. We know that Diaz will be the closer and it looks like Dan
Altavilla along with Nick Vincent though he has given up several home runs in
Arizona and Evan Scribner will be four of the six right handed relievers. Veteran reliever Casey Fien might be the fifth
reliever and the sixth is questionable at this point. Of course the Mariners
could still go with seven total relievers to start the season. Marc Rzepczynski will be the left handed
specialist and Ariel Maranda could be the left handed long reliever out of the
bullpen. This week coming up may tell the story. Three right handed relievers
dealing with injuries Steve Cishek, Tony Zych and Shae Simmons are all coming
along. Not sure who will be ready in ten days. One of them may be the last
reliever picked to be starting the season on the roster. Also would not be
surprised if they all three start on the disable list and then do rehab assignment
as well.
The catching position looks like it hasn’t changed at all
during spring training. Mike Zunino will be the starter and Carlos Ruiz the
backup. Manager Scott Servais would like Zunino though to walk at least one
more time a week. The good news though he has walked more than he has struck
out during training camp. At least early in the season with some off days Ruiz
will likely catch only once a week unless Zunino gets off to a poor start.
So this looks like a pretty good roster to me. Of course
there are some questionable spots as well. It would not surprise me at all if
Jerry Dipoto goes out and makes a trade especially in the bullpen. Go M’s.
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