Every year at the conclusion of the season we at LL take a look back at each player’s contributions over the course of the year. In previous years, we’ve done this by position; Last year, we split players by age brackets as a way to explore what contributions were coming from younger players vs. older players. With a much younger roster this year, including players who only had brief cameos as Mariners, that approach doesn’t make sense. However, with this year’s roster busting the seams at an MLB-record 67 players, we obviously won’t be writing up each player individually. Rather, we’ve split players into three categories: the Future, the Fringes, and the Forgotten.
With apologies to Parker Markel and his ilk, we’ll gloss over the majority of the Forgotten players and spend most of our time looking at players Dipoto has specifically named as part of the Mariners’ future, along with touching on those who might find themselves at the fringes of the roster this spring and beyond. In addition to reviewing each player’s season, we’ll also try to take a long-term view of that player’s career in Seattle, including assessing each for trade likelihood. Making predictions about a Jerry Dipoto-helmed team is a fool’s errand, but it’s our hope that this series will provide a solid base from which to evaluate the team needs for 2020 and beyond—a process we’ll get much more deeply involved with over the course of this off-season.