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Kyle Seagar (Seattle Mariners) Announces Retirement
ChillyDawg
Member Posts: 1,469
Seags is one of the very few MLB players to play their entire career with only one baseball team during the modern free agency era. Will go down as one of the legendary Mariners players in franchise history...
Baseball Reference https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/seageky01.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR_P3gBunHk
Seattle Squad: Kyle Seagar Career Highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb66o5Q3LFM
MLB (2020): For the first time in their MLB careers, Dodgers' Corey Seager and Mariners' Kyle Seager played each other! The brothers both had huge games, both hitting homers and getting a handful of hits!
Baseball Reference https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/seageky01.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR_P3gBunHkSeattle Squad: Kyle Seagar Career Highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb66o5Q3LFMMLB (2020): For the first time in their MLB careers, Dodgers' Corey Seager and Mariners' Kyle Seager played each other! The brothers both had huge games, both hitting homers and getting a handful of hits!
Comments
Off-Seager topic, but as good as the 2001 line-up was (Ichi, Edgar, Boone, Olerud, Cameron, et.al), the MVP of that club for me was Mark McLemore, because of his flexibility, letting Lou move guys around for match-ups, and rest. When Guillen went down, Mac was stuck at SS, flexibility gone, World Series hope gone...
I can remember my dad complaining about Beltre, when he went to Boston, "We let them go, THEN they become stars"...Beltre was good for the M's, but he wasn't a 3-hole hitter then. He was pitched to very carefully, because they had no one around him for protection. Got to Boston, put him in the 5-6 hole, he protected Big Papi, got pitched to, and rolled. Buhner's career was made by Jr and Edgar, because they would work around them, and had to pitch to Jay. Different criteria, but same for Dan Wilson.
A "Legend" to me is someone that produces big, no matter who is around them...Jr, Edgar, Ichiro, Felix. Felix got hosed big-time, because people pay attention to W/L records rather than more telling numbers.
Never heard that Seager was lazy, but I remember him changing his off-season program to cut weight and re-shape his body. Dip was probably not happy he had a bloated contract on the books, and directly or indirectly let it be known. Seager took it personally (anyone would) and that was that.
IMO, nothing that Dip or Mather said was inaccurate, but Mather was big-dicking it and let the quiet part out of the bag...I've had a few dealings with Dip, and have friends who have worked with / for him...not many like him, which is OK if you win...
Seager wasn't his guy so I suspect when Dipoto took over, he probably had less tolerance for performance slippage from Seager than any guy he would have brought in. The stupid poison pill in Seager's contract also likely frustrated him to no end because he couldn't trade him to cut salary and get a few decent prospects back to a team that needed a LH bat and a good fielding 3B.
I looked at Seager's splits and he was bad in 2018, not even in the top 12 of WAR for the 2018 team. He was also notably worse hitting at home in his career than on the road.
Anyway, my guess is that the rift opened in spring training of 2018 when he showed up for pudgy for his age 30 season making $19 million and then was probably the difference between making the playoffs and not. I imagine Dipoto never forgave him for that since it was such an important year and everyone knew it heading into 2018.
Last note is that Seager went from 6.7 WAR in 2016 to 3.6 WAR in 2017 to 1.1 WAR in 2018. Massive decline over two seasons and all the M's needed was for Seager to be at 3 WAR for 2018 but he was a 1/3rd of that. He bounced back with a WAR of 3.2 in 2019 but that was during the rebuild and a horrible season so it was too little, too late.
1. You are always looking for the "next guy"
2. The "Next guy" always looks better, from the outside, than the guy you have
3. ...and, that is not always the case. when your guy leaves and the NG arrives
Everyone always says "it's business, not personal"...well, it IS business, and it IS personal, when you are on the receiving end of said business.
The last few years Seager's BA dropped, but his run production increased. Agree about avoiding the payout, but they are gonna pay (or go without) one way or another. Expecting Toro to replace that production is a big reach, as is anyone replacing it in the immediate for under $20mm+...I've told my players for years, "Talk is cheap; runs are expensive"...
Another nice thing about Bryant is that he can play 3B and OF, the positional flexibility is worth a few million per year IMHO.
Lastly, this article from early November has Bryant as the #6 FA and Seager at #30: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-top-50-free-agents/
In fact, one could argue that Seager often occupied the best slot in the batting order. He had good players in front of him to get on base, and thus available to be driven in while then he had Ty France behind him to make sure he saw good pitches.
Probably the worst indictment of him and similar to 2018, he didn't show up when needed most. In September when pushing for a playoff spot, he slashed .200 / .267 / .382 with just 16 RBIs (and 11 runs) in 28 games.
And the highest paid player really needs to be consistent but he only hit .159 / .245 / .329 with in 79 games at home with just 13 HRs and 34 RBIs (and 82 strikeouts). While that is certainly better than I could have done, it is shockingly bad.
This year there will be a pretty legit #2 hitter, and France in the third spot is going to kill it. That's what I hope happens.
The new 2B and Toro for much less than Seager is a net win IMO.
I dont know if it's at all possible, but the Ms top targets right now both play for the As in my mind. I'd be fully on board with risking a couple of good prospects and a regular like Toro if it could bring Chapman and Olson from Oakland. That could be a win now move that doesn't kill the farm system or the payroll.
3rd base is the only position they can add someone without disrupting the direction of the roster as I see it. Adding an outfielder creates a log jam in the event that Kelenic and Haniger continue where they left off, Lewis gets healthy, and Rodriguez proves ready.
Olson only costs about $12 mil per for two years and Chapman something like $18 for one iirc and Oakland wants to get rid of them. That's barely more than they would pay someone like Story or Bryant, for way more production, and neither would stand in the way of the young talent on the roster or in the system. Olson and France could platoon DH/1b. It's beautiful.
Spend any remaining free agent money to upgrade depth or just save it. This roster desperately needs more run producers and the two best fits are not free agents.
I think Kelenic is more of a AAAA player than a quality big leaguer but he will hit 25+ HR’s. The problem is he will probably hit .200 and strike out a ton too.
Mariners have a decent team but they are still the Mariners. A typical Mariners team finishes under .500 after last year’s record. We’ll see.
Chapman would be a rental. Olson has two years of club control and who knows? Maybe he could be extended?
They aren't quite there but they're still in a position to build both for right now and the long term if they do it right. The key is to not get saddled with any aging has-beens for the long term.