Add new comment

I'll bet Lou Gehrig really appreciated the presence of Babe Ruth in that lineup as well.
There's a lot of pressure being the savior of a franchise. Some young folks handle it better than others. And when you disappoint, then even when you bring in veterans to help out, the underlying message is not "we want to give you help" but actually "you aren't cutting it."
When Ackley came up, like Seager, anything he did positive was going to be gravy. His confidence was sky high - he was owning AAA at the time. And in fact, nobody thought we were rushing him. Quite the opposite: people wanted him up a lot sooner, but we waited for as long as we did, for financial reasons. So, here's this super confident kid having a great time with his first go round in the bigs. Then, after a couple months, the daily grind of expectations probably began to wear heavy on him. The league is figuring him out. Meanwhile, Smoak stopped hitting, Wells got beaned, Ichiro was having his first poor season, Figgins was a joke. Yikes! Rookie Dustin Ackley now had to carry the team, and he only really had Carp helping him, and Carp was pretty new at this major league stuff himself.
Griffey spoke a lot about how much Jeffrey Leonard meant to him. That always seemed strange to me - Jeffrey Leonard wasn't exactly the kind of guy you thought of as a mentor. But Leonard was a 33 year old vet and a bigger run producer than Griffey. Leonard carried the load. Griffey could enjoy being Griffey that first season. And notice that Griffey did not point to fellow rookie Greg Briley as the guy who helped him adjust.
Maybe Ackley needed such a mentor that first season. Ryan could act as a defensive mentor, and perhaps that was a key to his success there. But really, everybody in our lineup apart from Ackley and Carp was a mess that season, Ichiro included. Figgins? Are you kidding me? So...that's a lot to ask a rookie, to carry the offense, and it only continued the next season, as Ackley was expected to continue to make up for the disaster that was Chone Figgins, and the continuing disappointment of Ichiro. Ackley didn't get the soft spot starting that made Jaso such a fan favorite. He had to be out there, day after day, having people wonder why he didn't hit this pitch, or that pitch. And yes, guys who hadn't played since age 9 (well, 12 anyway) were breaking him down on the internet, and doing a darn good job of it. Pressure, and draining confidence.
Why do the Mariners have such success with pitchers and not with position players? Could the presence of Felix have almost everything to do with it? Pineda & Fister: neither ever had to be The Man.