i think part of the reason why seattle has failed to produce quality hitters the past few years is because they are focusing on the pitchers too much. yes they failed with clement, but i think he is the last high profile bat that they tried to develop. asdrubal cabrera and choo are having moderate success right now, but definitely not on the level that you were refering to. seattle, however, produced matt thornton, jj putz, brandon morrow, rafael soriano, brian fuentes, george sherrill, felix, fister, lowe, and very soon, pineda. now i am sure that seattle has its own underachieving in bringing up quality hitters, but the list of pitchers that they have coughed up from the minors so far is much, much better than most of the other MLB teams.