Future Outlook
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When I see Vogelbach, I see a lot of Carlos Delgado in his play. Delgado was listed on B-Ref as 6’3″ and 215 pounds, though he likely was 20-30 pounds more than that in his career, but the way they both handle the bat and the position at first base seem very similar to me. Interestingly, Delgado was a lefty hitter and righty thrower as well.
Delgado got very little regard for his defense, but modern review of his defense has shown him to have been very good at preventing errors by his defenders, which is a very good skill for first basemen, and that’s absolutely what I saw out of Vogelbach in the games I watched.
Delgado got his first full-time job at 24 (Vogelbach’s age in 2017), and he had an incredible big league career. I think the Mariners would do back flips if they just acquired a guy who hit .280/.383/.546 over his entire career with 473 career home runs (yet somehow was off the Hall of Fame ballot with less than 5 percent on the first ballot). Vogelbach has similar leverage in his swing, and while Vogelbach hasn’t struck out 100 times in a season yet in his minor league career and Delgado did strike out 100+ times every full season of his career, he also had a good eye in that he walked plenty, so there are similarities in that respect as well.
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The first base position in Seattle is wide open for 2017 with Adam Lind an impending free agent and 34 year-old rookie Dae-ho Lee not exactly the future of the position at his advanced age, so Vogelbach certainly could come into the position as soon as next season. He’s definitely a much better defender than Lee, but the Mariners may ease Vogelbach into the role by platooning he and Lee or some role share like that.