Through the first three weeks of the season, the Mariners have gotten virtually nothing from the designated hitter position.
The dream-scenario days of Edgar Martinez and Nelson Cruz are long, long gone.
Heck, the days Wladimir Balentien and Jack Cust feel like a dream compared with the production the Mariners are getting.
Too harsh?
Too early to panic?
Perhaps. But this much is obvious: The Mariners’ revolving-door plan at DH isn’t working.
The Mariners (8-11), who open a three-game series at home against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday, have just seven hits, no home runs and one RBI from the DH spot through 19 games.
They have started six players at DH, and those six have combined to post a .115 batting average, a .206 on-base percentage and a .180 slugging percentage as the DH — all of which rank dead last, by far, among the 30 major-league teams at the position.
The Mariners have a .386 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and a WRC+ of 7 (with 100 being average) from their DHs.
Entering the season, the Mariners planned to rotate hitters through the DH spot. They want flexibility; they want to create the best matchup opportunities vs. the opposing pitcher; and they want to give regular starters dedicated DH days.
That has become a popular trend around MLB. Just 11 teams have employed a full-time DH this season, and just four of those teams are in the American League (the Angels, Guardians, Red Sox and Twins).
Switch-hitter Cooper Hummel has had the most DH starts for Seattle (six). Veteran left-hander Tommy La Stella has started five games at DH, Teoscar Hernandez and AJ Pollock have started three games each, and catchers Cal Raleigh and Tom Murphy have each had one DH day.
It hasn’t been a fruitful strategy.
“At the end of the day you need production, right? It’s the big leagues,” manager Scott Servais said Wednesday. “Some guys get more opportunities than others for different reasons. You play matchups; you play what the projected outcomes are going to be based on who’s pitching and what type of pitcher that particular hitter hits better than others. So there’s a lot that goes into it.
“In a perfect world, you’d like your DH to be a switch-hitter; a guy who hit 35 home runs and drove in 110 runs. In a perfect world, right? And those guys, there’s not a lot of them running around, and if they do they cost a lot of money. “
To be fair, the Mariners have also been the unluckiest team at DH, with a .163 batting average on balls in play (BABIP).
Across MLB, the average BABIP for DHs this season is a whopping .308, so the law of averages suggests that luck should turn at some point for those Mariners hitters.
Injuries have also been a factor.
Sam Haggerty (concussion) is expected to be activated this weekend. And Dylan Moore (oblique), Taylor Trammell (hand) and Cade Marlowe (oblique) all began minor-league rehab assignments this week.
Haggerty and Moore, of course, offer defensive versatility, potentially freeing up starters to get regular DH days.
And if Trammell or Marlowe emerges as a viable option, they could be a factor in left field, which could push Jarred Kelenic to right field more often, which would then free up Hernandez to get more time at DH.
Those are the types of scenarios — and the kind of flexibility — the Mariners covet, anyway.
As they get healthier, the roster depth is expected to fluctuate over the next couple of weeks, and the ripple effect could help provide clarity at DH.
“You’re probably 10 days away from looking like, ‘OK, this setup looks a little bit different now,’ ” Servais acknowledged.
Ultimately, if everyone is healthy, perhaps the Mariners would be better served by having two or three hitters settle in with regular DH at-bats, as opposed to five or six hitters getting sporadic DH at-bats.
Or maybe president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto surprises us all again and swings a trade that adds thump and stability at DH.
Who that bat could be (Carlos Santana again, anyone?) or when a major change happens remains unclear. But this much is obvious: If the Mariners are going to deliver on their potential this season, they need their designated hitter to hit.
