SUMMARY TO DATE:

REPLACEMENT LEVEL: 48.0 W
CATCHERS: 2.4
- Adam Moore: 1.7
- Rob Johnson: 0.8
- Josh Bard / Eleizer Alfonzo: -0.1
FIRST BASEMEN: 1.7
- Ryan Garko: 1.0
- Casey Kotchman: 0.5
- Mike Sweeney: 0.2
SECOND BASEMEN: 4.2
- Chone Figgins: 4.2
- Jose Lopez: 0.3
- Jack Hannahan: -0.3
THIRD BASEMEN: 2.6
- Jose Lopez: 2.3
- Matt Tuiasosopo: 0.1
- Jack Hannahan: 0.2
SHORTSTOPS: 1.0
- Jack Wilson: 0.7
- Matt Tuiasosopo: 0.4
- Josh Wilson: -0.1

The outfield picture is starting to take shape now that Michael Saunders has been demoted and Corey Patterson is falling out of favor (and likely headed very soon to AAA). What we can say with some confidence, regarding how playing time will get distributed is that Ken Griffey Jr. will get essentially no outfield time, that Milton Bradley will require a fourth outfielder behind him who can play on a very regular basis given his tendency to get ejected by umpires with an axe to grind and the minor nagging injuries by which he is constantly hampered. Ichiro and Gutierrez probably won't need much help to man CF and RF, but left field is going to be a job share, and in that context, the most likely man to make the roster early in the season is Eric Byrnes (given his history of mashing left handed pitching, he works into that line-up in the place of Griffey and plays left while Bradley is the DH to spare his legs).

Byrnes has also played fairly well this spring, hitting over .300 with 7 XBH, solid baserunning (though only 1 steal) and some nice defense all around the outfield. Can we expect an upside performance from him offensively? And what of Ryan Langerhans? Will he see MLB action this year? Langerhans does not have minor league options left, but he would likely accept an assignment to AAA since he's not going to get a better shot at cracking a roster anywhere else given the instability in left field here and Zduriencik's focus on defense (the thing Langerhans does better than any of the other candidates). And of course...what of the aforementioned Saunders? The Mariners think highly of him - so highly that they want him to play every day and continue to hone his skills starting in AAA. The Ms even tried Matt Tui in the outfield and came away impressed. The picture is a little murky. The projections will reflect this.

ICHIRO!: .820 (.330/.380/.440)

Every year, a new set of projections come out for Ichiro, and every year, 2/3 of them predict the beginning of the downward slide and the other third project something close to his career averages but with less playing time than he perennially gets because no projection system assumes the starters will get 158+ games. There comes a point when the only correct play for a saber-dweeb is to admit that his tools can only capture players that behave according to the rules that apply to mortal men and that for certain ballplayers, these rules need not apply. Ichiro missed some games in 2009...eight for a bleeding ulcer that probably won't recur and a few more for a tight hamstring that screwed up his baserunning the second half of the season. The hamstring might be the first sign that he's finally starting to feel his age, but I'm not ready to assume that based on him missing a few extra games and stealing only a few bases the last two months of the year. He still managed to post a UZR of +11.3 last year...so he can't be hurting too badly. With Ichiro, I have given up trying to outsmart odds and probability. I project career averages, plus a tiny bit of power (to account for his proclivity to hit for more power during seasons in which the Mariners contend and Ichiro is happy) and minus a tiny handful of steals (to account for the fact that his time to first base has increased from 3.7 seconds when he got here to 3.85 seconds now. You'll notice, when I tally the results below, that I have Ichiro projected to bounce right back to his usual 740 PA. No projection system is going to come up with that. And that's one of the big reasons I think the projection systems fail. Defensively, Ichiro hasn't thus far shown any signs of declining. Until he does, I am not going to project major changes.

FRANKLIN GUTIERREZ: .800 (.265/.335/.465)

Here's where things get interesting. I spent a good long while breaking down Gutierrez' performance in 2007, 2008 and 2009, looking for what to expect going forward. The trends I see in the past data: Guti is getting less aggressive at the plate (his SW% is slowly dropping, from 47% down to 41%), but showing little to no improvement in pitch recognition (he's swinging less at everything, but his O-SW to Z-SW ratio is not changing). He's getting better at hitting out of zone pitches, but this is having essentially no impact on his GB/FB/LD/PU distribution. His power increase in 2009 was predictable...coming mostly from a return to normalcy in his HR/Fly ratio. He also manifested slowly improving contact rates, which support a higher batting average than Doc may have feared prior to last season, but perhaps not as high as .283.

Gutierrez demonstrated the capacity for massive power last year. Some of his home runs traveled well over 400 feet and his bat speed is outstanding. The problem has been that in his attempts to get fooled less often, Gutierrez has had to dial back the aggression, so he doesn't consistently load up and smack the heck out of mistake pitches. This is why he sometimes swings weirdly through centered fastballs. This is a modified version of "Cameron's Disease." Mike Cameron used to get a lot of his Ks on called third strikes deep in counts - especially with runners on base. Gutierrez is good enough at making contact that once he gets to a deep count, he'll swing the bat, but his aggression is toned down enough in pitchers' counts that he might still miss the ball. Same mental cause as Cameron...different look to the statistical record.

So I'm going out on a bit of a limb...I think the next phase of Gutierrez' offensive development will be to dial the aggression back up to 10...the result will be more Ks, more power, and a lower BA, but a slightly more productive hitter. I think this is why he went out in the off season and added ten pounds of pure upper body muscle. He wants to turn himself into a slugger without screwing up his defense. My projection reflects this...both offensive and defensively. I'm taking the over on 25 HRs and 60 XBH this season.

MILTON BRADLEY: .835 (.280/.385/.450)

The hyper-emotional types tend to, on occasion, do boneheaded things like throw a ball into the stands with runners on base and less than two outs or get themselves tossed in the second inning of a meaningless spring training game because they know the strike zone better than the umpires (LOL). Bradley is not a bad guy...not in the same way that Albert Belle was a horrible human being on and off the field. Bradley is immature - he struggles to keep control of his emotions, but those emotions come from confidence in his abilities (a good thing in sports), a deep desire to win (also a good thing) and what appears to my untrained eye to be a notable learning disability that influences his communication skills. I honestly believe that Bradley has trouble getting what he says to match what he thinks in a way that the media properly understands, and they prey on him CONSTANTLY. Once a man gets a reputation in this business, it can haunt him FOREVER.

But the bottom line for the Mariners, and for Bradley's 2010 season, is how the intrusions will affect the clubhouse view of him and how he'll handle the pressure in this environment. Will the increasing frequency of umpire misconduct (serving no purpose other than to GET HIM!!! and SHOW him WHO'S BOSS!!), media criticism (fair or not), and skepticism about him as a person and a player cause him to press and perform badly the way it did in Chicago? Your projection for Bradley depends entirely on the psychological, because there is absolutely nothing in the skill statistics...no trends, no park factors, no injury-related developments, NADA...to explain why Bradley is a .990 hitter one year and a .775 hitter the next.

Here is what Bradley is - from a strictly numerical standpoint. He's an .840 hitter who gets most of his production from a combination of outstanding pitch recognition and strike zone discipline and a topspin spray hitting approach that leads to extremely high line drive rates and high GB/FB ratios, but also very high BABIP. He's got moderate foot speed that doesn't translate all that well to base stealing (though he does go first to third and the like well enough to be worth 5 runs more than average every year on the bases). For Bradley, his hitting problems always have been and always will be...entirely in his head. As such, my deterministic projection is for a return to career averages with a slight uptick in walk rate (because there is a gradual trend toward more walks and higher BB/K as he ages), but I admit that this is kind of wussy...and that I have less confidence in this projection than any of the other outfielders. Defensively, he's been an above average center fielder his whole career...and when moved to the corners, he continues to be above average, but he was not so good in 2009. Again...this could be mental, or it could be that RF in Wrigley is a pain in the butt to play. I am projecting a return to above average defense in Safeco's spacious left field.

Eric Byrnes: .745 (.270/.325/.420)

A few things of note here. Wakamatsu is going to have to look up the word "platoon" in the dictionary, skip past the military version, and try employing one for once if he wants to get the most out of Byrnes. Byrnes should get the bulk of his playing time against left handed pitching in an ideal world. The offensive projection doesn't match his impressive .850+ OPS against lefties for three reasons.

I don't expect him to get the bulk of his ABs against lefties only. That may be the plan at first, but you get bet on Bradley needing days off at inconvenient times and you can also bet that Byrnes will be coming into lots of close games for defense.

I notice that Byrnes is slowly losing his power. You would expect this for a guy who was never a prolific power bat to begin with and may have been steroidally enhanced the year his ISO'd .210, especially at his age (34). His career .182 ISO doesn't reflect the slow sag in that department.

Although his BABIP was ridiculously unlucky in 2008/2009 small samples, perhaps partially due to injuries and lack of repetition, I don't expect him to hit for a high average, simply because I expect his fly balls to die a painful death at Safeco. Unlike Butierrez and Bradley, both of whom are topspin hitters, Byrnes is an extreme fly ball hitter. I can just hear Safeco laughing at him right now.

Still, with plus defense, solid speed, and occasional power, Byrnes makes a solid 4th outfielder. How the team does will depend heavily on Byrnes STAYING...a fourth outfielder.

RYAN LANGERHANS: .685 (.240/.320/.365)

Langerhans has a very patient approach and a decent eye for the strike zone, but I believe he has a slider speed bat and compounding that problem, I also believe his pitch recognition skills are very weak, which limits his ability to make contact and causes a lot of weird pop-ups and whiffs on hittable balls. I also don't see him getting into any kind of rhythm at the plate without regular at bats, which he won't get even if he eventually rejoins the Mariners. What he WILL do is play gold glove caliber defense (career +17 UZR/150 in left field...LOL), which is not without value, and hit the occasional HR.

MICHAEL SAUNDERS: .660 (.220/.270/.390)

He won't get much PT in Seattle this year, but if he gets a call up later in the year, even with the work he's doing to improve his swing and his approach at the plate, I still think he's a dead-pull hitter who is having a lot of trouble making contact consistently...he needs to hone his contact skill and learn to hit a breaking ball before he's ready to contribute much beyond the occasional lucky pop at the big league level.

WAR Stack (Player: PA, RC, WAR)
- Ichiro!: 740, 105, 5.2
- Gutierrez: 640, 85, 5.0
- Bradley: 330, 50, 2.3
- Byrnes: 280, 30, 0.9
- Langerhans/Saunders: 100, 10, 0.1