The Case for Watching Ackley and the M's

After suffering from a 17 game losing streak, it became easy for many fans to write off the Seattle Mariners this season. And while they will not be even sniffing the playoffs again for the tenth consecutive season (ouch), there are some things to watch for the last two months.

First at the top of that list is Dustin Ackley. The 2009 second overall pick in the Major League Baseball draft is showing why some are thanking the baseball gods that the Mariners ended up with him instead of the once sure thing in Stephen Strasburg. In 38 games played with the big club, Ackley is hitting .312 with five homeruns and 23 RBI. He has walked 15 times and struck out 20 in 138 at bats. His .377 on base percentage and .942 OPS lead the team. As widely reported by the Mariners writers, he is on pace to challenge and I would guess beat Alvin Davis’s team record for extra base hits in the first 50 games of a Mariner career. Ackley currently has 20 and the record is 26 with 12 games left.

Aside from these outstanding numbers, Ackley proved early on that he is the best Mariners hitter and not afraid to hit with men on base. Manager Eric Wedge decided only after a handful of games to move Ackley to Ken Griffey Junior’s old spot in the order as the #3 hitter. The Mariners searched for years afterwards to find a #3 hitter only to fail repeatedly. Other than Bret Boone’s incredible 2001 season (I wonder how that happened?) and Edgar Martinez at the end of his career in 2002 and 2003, the Mariners have not been able to rely on a pure hitter at the #3 spot. Trying players from Adrian Beltre to Franklin Gutierrez, none have shown the kind of pure hitting that teams covet at that spot. Now the Mariners have a player who will fill that spot for years to come.

So what makes Ackley so good? I don’t consider myself an expert on hitting (as evidenced by my one hit season as a fourth grader – yes I said season), but I study baseball a lot and listen.

What I notice the most is the amount of time Ackley’s bat stays in the hitting zone. While this sounds odd, he seems to stay on the ball a lot longer than most players. If you watch old clips of Edgar Martinez, you will notice that he seemingly has no holes in his swing and it stays level with his head down until the ball rockets off his bat. This is what Ackley looks like to me. I noticed the same thing in Robinson Cano when I watched the Yankee series. While there are other good hitters who don’t seem to keep their bat on the ball longer, they make up for it by being selective and having more power (think Alex Rodriguez or Prince Fielder). Lastly, I notice Ackley’s head and hands stay really still. Every time I read about hitting, good hitters talk about how important that is to hitting. For example, Justin Smoak has struggled for about a month and a half with much of the talk being about his head lifting before he hits the ball. Ackley doesn’t face that issue. He is on the ball until contact. While Ackley has been knocked for lack of power, I don’t see that as an issue. The ball jumps off his bat and he has hit home runs on the road and in Safeco (to straight away center no less). I see a .320-.330 hitter with 15-25 home runs and 80-100 RBI per season moving forward. I think every Mariner fan can look forward to this.