On opening day of the 2011 season, the M’s infield consisted of first baseman Justin Smoak, second baseman Jack Wilson, defensive wizard Brendan Ryan at short, and third baseman Chone Figgins coming off a disappointing 1.3 fWAR year. Figgins’ hoped-for bounceback season started well: he went 2 for 5 with a homerun that day, backing a Felix Hernandez complete game win. But by the final game of the season, even Lookout Landing’s focus had moved on from the Mariners. Still, there was hope in the M's lineup that day: Dustin Ackley was ensconced at second and third base was manned by another rookie infielder:

Third baseman of the future

Wait, what? That’s not Kyle Seager at the Hawt Corner. It’s third baseman of the future (of the CBPL and Mexican leagues) Alex Liddi. Kyle Seager did play in that final 2011 game, going 0 for 4 while taking over for the injured Brendan Ryan at shortstop. Before (electronically) scanning all his box scores I had no idea Kyle Seager the last week of 2011 playing shortstop for the M’s. Did you know that he has a career (i.e. 2011) wRC+ of 129 playing short? Man, I hope there’s some video of that floating around somewhere, cause I can’t think of any other shortstops with Kyle Seager’s body type.

Kyle Seager, shortstop

Those are the kinds of scintillating facts that you can glean trolling through "All Kyle Seager’s Boxscores". (The soundtrack that runs through my head is "All Tomorrow’s Parties". I’m weird.). Let’s face it the baseball content is thin with the lockout, so here’s a thin fanpost about the Mariner of the 2010s. Not his stats, or his impact on Seattle, or his fight with the front office, or the time he was fucking ready, but the ever-changing collection of players he shared the field with (non-pitchers for now).

Kyle’s career spanned 3+ distinct eras in Seattle: the Zduriencik rebuild, filled with disappointing young players, the Cano/Cruz era, and the Dipoto rebuild. You’ll see that for the last decade, Kyle Seager was a star of medium brightness, occasionally affected by nearby stars, but mostly orbited by barely visible asteroids or human-sized objects that burned up on contact with MLB pitching.

Here are a few questions I’ll answer in a little bit

• Mini sporcle: What 10 position players were in starting lineups with Kyle Seager for the most games?
• One position player started a single MLB game alongside Kyle Seager. Who was it?
• A second Mariner position player played in only one game with Kyle, getting a single pinch-hit AB. Who was it? (Hint, it happened this year)
• Who started the most games in Left Field in Kyle’s games?

By my count (and Fangraphs’), Kyle Seager appeared in 1480 games as a Mariner, starting 1459. He played 1406 of those at third with occasional turns at DH and intermittent filling in at 2nd in 2012. He appeared at shortstop at least one time after 2011, sliding over after a Ketel Marte injury in 2015. Who took over at third that day? Another Mariners legend, John Hicks, making his MLB debut playing a position he hadn’t played since high school. Oh, this effing franchise.

Kyle was the one constant. Since Kyle’s first MLB game, do you know what player had the second-most starts at third? That would be Ryon Healy, who gamely started 38 games there while Kyle was injured. Second most? Our friend Alex Liddi. Fourteen different players filled in for only one game, including blasts from the past Carlos Triunfel, Tim Lopes, Zach Vincej, and Luis Antonio Rodriguez (who??).

OK, so Kyle had a lock on third. Who did he share the infield with?

Kyle started at third alongside 25 different shortstops, including over 200 games each with J.P. Crawford, Jean Segura, Brad Miller and Brendan Ryan, and one each with Danny Espinosa and Mike Freeman. Kyle played across from 39 different M’s first-basemen, with effing Justin Smoak getting the most starts on the opposite corner. Some of those first basemen I can’t remember (Ryan Court, John Buck) and others I try to forget (Jesus Montero, Mark Trumbo).

During his time in Seattle, Seager grounded into 107 double plays, but on the upside, he was involved in 334 of those plays on the defensive side of the ball, with Albert Pujols being by far the most common victim (14 GIDP to Kyle). Seager to Cano to Morrison doesn’t have the same ring as Tinker to Evers to Chance, but that was the most common trio in double plays started by Seager.

OK, on to that sporcle. Here are the non-pitchers who started the most games alongside Kyle Seager:

The player who started one game? That would be Brandon Bantz, who got of both of his MLB at-bats that day. He put the ball in play once. Kevin Padlo got one pinch-hit at-bat for the M’s this year, but in terms of total MLB plate appearances (15), his career already towers over Bantz.

Here’s a little summary of other starters by position in games Kyle started. Where players changed positions during the game this counts only the position they ended the game playing (due to my laziness, but this content is worth what you paid for it). Do you remember that all of these people played for the Mariners over the last decade?

Links above are to the box-scores for evidence that those players really played that position in games Kyle Seager started. Dee Strange-Gordon actually played a full game at DH. And, yeah, Chone Figgins once started a game in right field. Before you laugh, you should know that the Mariners won that game 21-8, with home runs by Ackley, Smoak and Montero, behind pitching from Blake Beavan. Take that WARdoopie. If only we had run that lineup out more often Kyle Seager probably would have made the playoffs as a Mariner, right?