u·ni·corn [yoo-ni-kawrn] 
noun
1. a mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead: often symbolic of chastity or purity.

slang: your dream person or perfect, unattainable person (because such a person doesn't exist).

Sluggers exist.  We know.  Other teams use them against us with some frequency, so we should be able to attain one (or two or even three).  Morse can hit a ball a long way, if he sticks around.  But assuming for a minute that he doesn't, this post is more in reference to the thing we lack at ALL levels of the Mariners' system, and have been lacking since the 90's: power.

Power shows up more often at some positions than others.  Slugging shortstops are not common, despite what you might have been taught by those 90s and our experience with A-Rod.  Let's take a .500 slugging as a dividing line.  There are good sluggers who don't post .500 slugging seasons, but it's a nice round divider and most good sluggers do it at least once.

# of seasons with a SLG > .500 since 1980:
First base: 247
Shortstop: 46

So - 46 seasons in 33 years for Shortstops (nominal shortstops - Carlos Guillen shows up several times on the list).

TWO HUNDRED more seasons for first basemen in that time frame.  Getting that kind of power out of a shortstop is a great gift (thanks A-Rod) but it's not something you should go looking for.  The odds of finding it are very small.  But that's okay, we're not trying to get our SS or our 2B (thanks Boone) to hit a bunch of homers, right? 

# of catching seasons with a SLG > .500 since 1980: 41 (several by some guy named Piazza).

# of players the Ms have slotted for "slugging roles" as catchers: 2 (Montero and Zunino).

# of slugging first basemen in the system: zero

# of slugging corner players in the system higher than A-ball: one (Peguero).

Maybe we're looking in the wrong places for power hitters (or even just hitters in general - there are 3x more 1B-seasons with an OBP over .360 than there are catcher-seasons).  Just a thought.

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But who needs a slugging first baseman in the system?  We have Smoak, right?  He was a top-20 prospect and the best mature hitter in his draft.

Here's where we get into unicorns.

# of switch-hitting seasons with a SLG > .500 since 1980: 107.  That's not asking for too much then, right?

The names: Beltran, Chipper, Berkman, Howard Johnson, Mark Teixeira, Bernie Williams, Eddie Murray, Chili Davis, Ted Simmons, Robbie Alomar, Carlos Guillen, Carl Everett, Jose Cruz Jr and Kendrys Morales did it once. ... it's a varied list (though there are a lot of HOFers and borderline HOFers there at the top, I notice).

We don't think Smoak is a borderline HOFer, do we? After 1500 plate appearances that look like this? 

Teix: slugged .480 in year 1 and .560 in year 2.
Chipper: .450 in year, .530 in year 2.
Murray: .470 in year 1, .480 in year 2.

Williams and Simmons were both hitting .290, .300 in their early seasons while they waited for power - Smoak isn't gonna hit .300 ever from the looks of things.

So we cross Beltran, Chipper, Teix, Bernie Williams, Murray, Berkman, Simmons etc off the list.

What do the non-HOF-caliber, power-capable switch-hitters look like?

Carl Everett: .270/.340/.460 career, struggled through his first thousand ABs before getting it together at age 27 in Cleveland.

David Segui: .290/.360/.445 career, a good defender who never won a GG, took 1,300 at-bats to become a decent hitter, was caught using PEDs.

Carlos Guillen: .285/.355/.445 career, after 1650 (!) at-bats and a bout of TB, finally started hitting the ball hard. Glove-position hitter, however.

Nick Swisher: .255/.360/.465 career, but hit his stride after one mediocre serason.

Ken Caminiti: struggled through his first 2000 ABs, then found steroids.

etc.

So basically if you aren't a HOF-level switch hitter, your best career is the Carl Everett path where it takes you a few years to find yourself.  Being a switch-hitter is hard.  It takes a lot of time and energy.  Before his dad (who was also his swing coach) died, Justin looked great.  His first April and May in the bigs, there wasn't really a book on him yet, and he had his swing(s) together.  He looked good.

But then Smoak lost it, and except for a week here and there he hasn't found it again.  Will he?  I'm almost certain he'll do what most of the guys above did, and figure it out in another year or two (to whatever level "figuring it" out is - a .780 - .820 OPS most likely).  I don't think he'll get that year or two here if he can't do it by the All-Star break.

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Would I take a hitter instead of a slugger at first base?  Absolutely.  John Olerud was no slugger, and he was great (twice slugged .500+ in his tremendous career).  David Segui could hit and field but I wouldn't call him a crusher (2x over .500 SLG).  Tino was a good hitter with some pop, but never hit 40 homers (did clear .500 slugging 5 times).  You see what I'm saying?  Good first basemen should be able to slug .500 (or at least get close) even if slugging ISN'T what they do.

I expected Smoak to be a .270/.380/.480 kind of guy.  Part of his value is supposed to come from his OBP, not just hit ability to hit the ball 400 feet.  Maybe he's a .260/.340/.440 guy instead.  That would hurt. 

But I would absolutely take that over what Smoak has provided so far: .225/.305/.370.  That's not a unicorn, that's an ugly, one-horned goat.

With Smoak showing far too much warning-track power over the last season and a half, though, and not enough hits period, he's going to have to work hard to reach Carl Everett's career.  It's actually GOOD news to look at the list and see how many decent-to-good switch-hitters took extra time to gel.  Only the HOF guys can switch-hit immediately in the bigs to great and lasting success, it seems.

But unfortunately for us, Smoak is not that sort of unicorn, and relying on him to find mega-success instead of just pulling out a decent career after early years of struggle seems like a long-shot at this point.  It just doesn't seem to happen often.

And now instead of looking for mythical creatures like power-hitting-catchers (thanks Clement) and switch-hitting-MOTO-bats, maybe we should try what other teams try: defense up the middle, offense on the corners.  You know, the places were the majority of player-types reside?

~G