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Gordon sez,

This ain't how I'd draw it up, but that's why prospecting stinks.  Gold can be a long time coming.  It doesn't mean you stop looking for it and blow up the mine.

Spot on.  The 'failures' of Smoak, Ackley and Montero make a spectacular trifecta of embarrassment; the Mariners expected each of those three kids to become MOTO hitters.

Not "possible" MOTO's.  They paid prices that you don't pay unless you're pencilling them into your 3, 4, and 5 hitting slots.  Michael Pineda, after 2011, was one of the 10-12 best starting pitchers in the American League, and of course he wasn't injured when he was traded.  You don't trade a 9+ strikeout rookie SP, making $450,000, for a batter unless you figure you are getting an impact bat.  The Mariners could have gotten a lot of players for Pineda.

Justin Smoak?  Zduriencik preferred him to Montero, trading the best pitcher in baseball at the time -- Cliff Lee -- to get him.

Dustin Ackley?  He was the 1-2 pick in the collegiate draft, missing out on 1-1 only because of a pitcher with a 102 MPH fastball.  And Ackley was was a 1-1 or 1-2 selection not as a 2B, but as a LF/1B.

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Personally I know what it feels like to play a terrific game of chess, and just have nothing go right.  The fact that things didn't work out does not necessarily mean that you played badly.

But what it feels like, to Mariners fans right now, is that it isn't possible to get a 300/400/500 hitter out of our minor leagues.  Certainly it feels like it would be outrageous to plan on an impact bat out of the minors.  But the Mariner fan's feelings are warped by the Impossible Trifecta.

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Could Nick Franklin, or Brad Miller, or Mike Zunino, or (ahem) Abraham Almonte come up and make a big splash (or two)?  Or are Mariner fans being dense to keep rootin'?

A picture's worth 1,000 words ... here are some rookies from last year, all of whom slugged .500 or better (or otherwise made at least that much impact:

Pull up 2011 rookies?  You get Brett Lawrie with a 158 OPS+ and ten other guys over 120.  Dustin Ackley had a 117 OPS+ in 376 AB's as a rookie.  His regression from there is a huge black eye for the Seattle Mariners organization.

2010 was loaded... aside from Jason Heyward, Giancarlo Stanton, Carlos Santana and Buster Posey, you had a whole bunch of guys like Mitch Moreland, John Jaso, Logan Morrison, etc etc hitting very well right from Day One.  Posey being a catcher didn't prevent him from hitting.  He hit .305/.357/.505 as a 23-year-old rookie catcher.  It wouldn't be strange for Mike Zunino to do that.

Summing up:

• It's not weird for a rookie to, um, deserve rookie of the year votes.  It wouldn't be weird if Nick Franklin wound up deserving them.
• It's not weird for a rookie to slug .500, .600 in his first thirty games.
• It's not weird for a very young player, or a young catcher, to hit right away on joining the major leagues.
• It's not weird for a very high draft pick to struggle.
• It's not weird for your lower picks to be the ones who come through.

Things seem weird in Seattle.  But they're really not, not in the sense that it shouldn't have been Seager and Saunders who came through.  Those things happen.  And do #2 overall picks wind up washing out?  Happens.  All.  The.  Time.   You are talking about guesswork here.  The older we get, the more we value that filter GM's use -- has a guy hit in 150 AB's in the bigs?  (Ackley has, by the way, and so did Montero.*)

Mike Carp, by the way, is hitting .281/.328/.632 (!) in Boston.  He passed the filter here, and then we powerflushed him.

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Do you remember when we were chatting about Michael Saunders being better than Josh Hamilton?  This, right here, this slump of Saunders', is why you gotta be careful with that stuff.  Even three weeks ago, Michael Saunders was a long, long ways away from being Josh Hamilton.  If he has a huge June, he still will be a long ways away from being Josh Hamilton.  Hamilton, and Griffey, are the two most naturally-talented players of the last 30 years.

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Gordon reminds us that prospecting is a crapshoot.  He's right.  Keep rolling the dice.  Nick Franklin could be a star, and an instant star.  Or Miller could.  Or Zunino could.  Or maybe not.  Roll the dice!

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