Seattle Mariners Kyle Seager, Perennially Overshadowed

Kyle Seager is one of the thirty better players in the league, but due to a perfect storm of factors, he remains overshadowed and underrated.

For the first time in a long time, the Seattle Mariners have a strong offense, but subpar pitching. They already had a solid core coming into the season, and Jerry Dipoto made some moves to try to sure up the rest of the roster.

When you think of the Mariners offense, two names are likely to come to the forefront: Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Both are top flight hitters, with Cano being one of the better overall hitters in the game for a long time, and Cruz being a premier power threat for the last few seasons.

Third baseman Kyle Seager should be mentioned right along with them, and he certainly is in some circles, but it seems like every time his reputation should be rising to that level, something swoops in and overshadows him.

First, it was his prospect status, or lack thereof. He was drafted in the 3rd round back in 2009, the same year his teammate at the University of North Carolina, Dustin Ackley, was drafted — also by the Mariners, but 2nd overall. Seager has since far overtaken Ackley as a player, but at the time, Seager was an afterthought, and never managed to make top 100 prospects lists (at least not that I ever saw).

So Seager quickly makes his way up the Mariners ladder, spending less than two full seasons in the minor leagues, and eventually finds himself as the team’s starting third baseman in 2012 after a decent showing in 53 big league games in 2011. In his first full year, he posted a 106 wRC+ and 3.6 WAR (thanks to great defensive ratings), which ranked 8th among third basemen and 42nd overall, tied with Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez.

He followed that up with an ever better 2013, bumping his wRC+ and WAR up to 116 and 4.0 respectively. He had shown that he wasn’t a fluke. But the Mariners weren’t any good in either of those seasons, winning just 75 and 71 games. It’s harder to get attention player for a bad team.

In 2014, though, the Mariners weren’t bad. They still missed the playoffs, but they won 87 games and took it all the way to game 162. Seager was a major part of that, taking and even greater step forward, with a 127 wRC+ and 5.5 WAR, the latter ranking 14th in all of baseball.

But also in that year, the Mariners signed Robinson Cano, nationally recognized superstar, who had an even better year at the plate (137 wRC+) and a roughly equal year overall (5.2 WAR). Seager may have been just as valuable, but Cano has the name and the track record.

It was a similar story in 2015 when the Mariners added Cruz. So even though Cano had a down year offensively, the buzz and credit was transferred to Nelson and his 44 home runs, 158 wRC+ and 4.8 WAR. All the while, Seager sat right around 4 WAR once again, a model of consistency. Of course, the Mariners offense was below average for most of this time, so even if there are strong individuals on the roster, they aren’t going to get much credit or attention.

The Cano and Cruz effects still very much exist, but that’s just been compounded by the emergence of his younger brother Corey Seager, one of the most highly regarded prospects in the game over the past couple of seasons who wasted no time in becoming one of the premier shortstops in the game.

He has the 8th best WAR in all of baseball at just 22 years old, showing top notch power, the ability to hit for average, and a better glove than might have been anticipated. Corey is probably superior to Kyle, and he has certainly gotten more buzz, but that doesn’t mean Kyle doesn’t deserve some of his own.