Do the Seattle Mariners have enough hitting for 2018?

Another step for the Seattle Mariners kind. A big giant leap, perhaps?

This coming year’s Seattle Mariners team is projected by Fangraphs to score around 766 runs, a slight increase from the 750 they scored last year.

In 2017, their three worst spots among position players were first base, left field and center field, where Danny Valencia, Ben Gamel, and Jarrod Dyson got the bulk of the playing time. Healy and Gordon were added to replace Valencia and Dyson at first base and center field. Gamel is back in left field.

So how does this year’s offense shape up? Let’s go position-by-position. The total in parenthesis is the projected gain or loss in WAR at that position from all players, with the primary starter included in the comment.

Catcher (-0.8 WAR difference from 2017)—Mike Zunino is coming off his best year ever and is projected to regress a bit. He had a crazy-high .355 Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) that is not likely to be repeated. His career BABIP is .273. His regression is projected to cost the Mariners nearly one win.

First Base (+1.7 WAR difference from 2017)—This is less about Ryon Healy being right and more about Danny Valencia being really, really bad. Valencia cost the Mariners more than a win during his time at first base. A big part of it was the lousy defense.