15 games into the season do we know anything we didn't already know, batting-wise?
Let's see where we are:
Cano and Cruz: Big guns, as expected. Of course, there are large-sized career samples of them being big boppers and the last few months of '15 indicated nothing different. Neither do the first few weeks of '16, as it turns out. Both are good enough to carry a team for a while. We might need that: see below.
Smith: Beating up RHP for a living since 2009: .321-.459-.464 this spring. You know what you'll get with Smith. In the small sample of '16, he has 7 BBs and 6 K's. His career vR eye has been .6. C the Z hasn't hurt him at all. May have helped. SSS, of course.
Seager: He's never been a real slow starter until this year. From '12-15 his Mar/Apr OPS was .704, .880, .791, .727. It is .533 right now. Certainly his .146 BABIP is impacting his performance this spring. That number will improve. He's K'ing at a career high rate, walking a bit more than normal, too. He's not seeing more pitches/PA, however. 3.84 in '16 vs. 3.81 over his career. He's in a slump. Such things happen. Nothing to worry about here.
Marte: The worrisome thing about Ketel is that he hasn't had an extra-base hit all year. He had 19 in 219 AB's in '15, ISO'ing .139. Not bad for a SS. This year those numbers are bupkis. The lack of pop is of potential concern. He's not going to hammer many taters, but a spray hitter with wheels should luck into a bunch of doubles. Keep an eye on this. BTW, there is a legitimate question as to whether Sardinas should be in Tacoma and Taylor up here. Sardinas has 20 AB's (no BB's) with Seattle. Chris Taylor is OPS'ing 1.094 down on the farm, with 10 XBH's in 13 games. Just saying.
Lind: He has 13 K's and 1 BB. Over the past 3 seasons he walks 60-70 pts, no problem: not in '16. And his 2 XBH's in 36 vR PA's is a bit concerning. Is there a lingering injury here? I'll bet you dollars to donuts that we see Dae-ho Lee vs. a righty in the next week or so. Takers?
Aoki: I checked his Fangraphs page this morning, he's seeing career high numbers of sliders and cutters and a career low of change-ups. It's early: Is that noise or a trend? Stay tuned. However, 1 BB in 64 PA's for a guy that walks a decent amount is unlikely to be meaningless noise. Something is afoot.
Martin: "I yam what I yam," he says. BTW, that yam is one that is pretty atrocious vs. LHP, regardless of our high hopes. 1-14 for the year vs. southpaws, you understand. Oh, in case you didn't notice, his once Gehrig-like BABIP vs. RHP is normalizing. The key for Martin (and us) is just how must more than "normalizing" he does. He's a nice thing at 90 OPS. At 80, not so much. At 70, gimme Boog or Guillermo Heredia (hitting .353-.429-.472 vs. AA lefties, btw; Can you say platoon?). The Cuban isn't long for Jackson, I think. B-R has Martin at -0.1 dWAR, btw.
Iannetta: This is exactly the Iannetta we paid for. He's a tough out because he will take the BB and he has a bit of pop. Just right, thank you. 40 more games of Zunino mashing might change the equation just a bit.....maybe. Ianetta and Clevenger are a classic catching duo, except that the RH hitter gets most of the PA's for us. if Zunino continues to rake, then Clevenger is a guy who is very expendable.
Guti: Can we please put to rest the idea that he had become a Billy Williams or Hack Wilson? Guti isn't the Guti of '15 and that was a complete outlier season, a slugging anomoly of massive proportions. He's clearly better than he's hitting right now (unless he's tweaked again), but don't expect what he did last year, OK. A tweaked Guti likely gets replaced by Romero.
Lee: I want to see more of him, especailly if the blue funk continues to settle over Lind. How easy is this guy to root for? Can we call him Xombi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xombi
We have three pretty good lefty bats running in low gear right now. If we can get 2 of Seager-Aoki-Lind to warm up, which is a pretty darn good bet, then this offense may get fun to watch.
With all of this, your mileage may vary, of course.
Go team.
