Time to start worrying about Ackley?

[seahawksfan234]

This was something I briefly mentioned in one of my rants on CBS is that Dustin Ackley has progressively been getting worse at the plate since his rookie year.

His defense has been really solid but for a guy whose greatest asset was supposed to be his ability to be a .310+ hitter at the major league level, his ever-declining average is worrisome.

It's early but am I the only one starting to wonder if Dustin Ackley may be on his way to the Justin Smoak bust train?

 

[blade]

This was something I briefly mentioned in one of my rants on CBS is that Dustin Ackley has progressively been getting worse at the plate since his rookie year.

His defense has been really solid but for a guy whose greatest asset was supposed to be his ability to be a .310+ hitter at the major league level, his ever-declining average is worrisome.

It's early but am I the only one starting to wonder if Dustin Ackley may be on his way to the Justin Smoak bust train?

Ackley's problems are all mental. He may not overcome them. If he does, it might take a change of scenery to kick start it. He arrived in the majors too soon, with expectations too high.

 

[seahawksfan234]

I would consider trading him. Typically you can't fix mental problems. Billy Beane comes to mind. In Moneyball it was discussed how he had all the talent in the world but couldn't put it together because all his problems were in his head.

 

[blade]

I would consider trading him. Typically you can't fix mental problems. Billy Beane comes to mind. In Moneyball it was discussed how he had all the talent in the world but couldn't put it together because all his problems were in his head.

I think they need to pull the plug on Ackley, Smoak and Montero. But this wont happen under Jack's regime. It will ultimately get Jack fired and hopefully the new, incoming GM will get rid of these guys.

Seagar and Saunders are keepers...for now.

 

[SeattleCoug]

Honestly everyone else has been so bad that I have not had a chance to worry about just him.
Ultimately Jack Z will need to go at the end of the year if Smoak, Ackley and Montero all fail. This supposed to be the core of the team and none of them can hit .250.
It does make me glad you bring up Ackley though because I felt like last year people felt he above criticism and were only on Smoak's case. At least Smoak hit 19 homers, Ackley does nothing for you offensively. He has changed his stance what 3 times already this year.

The Saunders injury sucks because I feel like he is our best all around player.

 

[SeattleCoug]

Honestly with those 3 failing. Coupled with the Cliff Lee, Doug Fister and Brandon Morrow trades he should be gone now.

 

[seahawksfan234]

I think they need to pull the plug on Ackley, Smoak and Montero. But this wont happen under Jack's regime. It will ultimately get Jack fired and hopefully the new, incoming GM will get rid of these guys.

Seagar and Saunders are keepers...for now.

I don't know if I'd pull the plug on Montero yet though. He's off to a slow start this year but he has only had a season's worth of ABs in his career and he has been significantly better than Smoak and Ackley.

(162 game avg.)
Montero: 19 HR 75 RBI .263 AVG .305 OBP .396 SLG
Smoak: 20 HR 68 RBI .223 AVG .307 OBP .370 SLG
Ackley: 11 HR 54 RBI .237 AVG .307 OBP .349 SLG

Main difference is that Montero has only played 164 major league games, Ackley has played 259 and Smoak has played 373 major league games.

I say that Smoak has had his time. I would have dumped him before this season. Ackley should be judged as soon as this season is over and Montero has this season, then next to prove himself. Although I'd say he has been average thus far.

 

[seahawksfan234]

Honestly with those 3 failing. Coupled with the Cliff Lee, Doug Fister and Brandon Morrow trades he should be gone now.

Truth be told I would still like Jack kept in the organization because I do feel like he helped build up our minor league system (Which I don't believe in building a team through a minor league system but using them as pawns to acquire established players).

I hated the Brandon Morrow trade from the beginning, as with the Doug Fister trade.

To be fair, a #10ish ranked prospect was around fair value for Lee at the time IMO. It just goes to show how much of a crapshoot prospects are.

I would have liked to seen more money spent but I think Jack Z did have a solid offseason, I feel like Morales for Vargas was fair value and I have a strong feeling that by season's end Mike Morse will have 30-40 HRs with a .270+ average, which was a great deal for John Jaso.

Morales has not dazzled me but I really would love to see Morse retained.

 

[SeattleCoug]

Z is light years better then the guy before him. Ill give him that.

Its just extremely hard to be patient because the dedicated fans here have been patient for over 10 years. This team always seems to be year or two away from competing and we hear that every year. So after watching a historically bad offense, its tough to just sit back and pretend everything is ok when you go scoreless in 33 of the last 34 innings and get shut out back to back games.

 

[blade]

Z is light years better then the guy before him. Ill give him that.

Its just extremely hard to be patient because the dedicated fans here have been patient for over 10 years. This team always seems to be year or two away from competing and we hear that every year. So after watching a historically bad offense, its tough to just sit back and pretend everything is ok when you go scoreless in 33 of the last 34 innings and get shut out back to back games.

There's two schools of thought when comparing Zduriencek to Bavasi.

The first one is most obvious. Bavasi spent a shit load of money on bad player investments. The team went from a contender to a cellar dweller under his regime. He fielded the first and (still) only $100 million payroll/100-loss team in history. He ran the farm system into the ground.

That's all true. What generally isn't acknowledged is that he inherited a core group of players who had seemingly grown old overnight and were past their prime. He inherited a manager who was beginning his second year with the team and was clearly incapable of filling the huge shoes of the Lou Piniella legacy. Only one year into his regime and he had to do a major re-loading. To summarize, the deck was stacked against him right from the start. And he tried to re-vitalize the program. In 2005, he signed the biggest fish of the offseason that year (something the mariners had never done before or since). Unfortunately, Beltre, offensively, was not a good fit for Safeco Field.

 

[blade]

Z is light years better then the guy before him. Ill give him that.

Its just extremely hard to be patient because the dedicated fans here have been patient for over 10 years. This team always seems to be year or two away from competing and we hear that every year. So after watching a historically bad offense, its tough to just sit back and pretend everything is ok when you go scoreless in 33 of the last 34 innings and get shut out back to back games.

Z's initial 3-year-plan has become a five-year-plan. From everything I've seen this year, it's about to become a 7-year-plan, or maybe a new GM's new 3-year-plan. Pretty soon they will be telling us that we have to be patient and wait for Stefan Romero, Mike Zunino Nick Franklin and Danny Hultzen. Wait for them to arrive and then wait some more while they get their feet wet.

Ownerships been playing this same game in Pittsburgh and Kansas City for the past 20 years.

You are justified in being pissed. Seattle is not a small market. It's the 14th largest media market in the United States. We should not have a small market mentality and strategy. We need more pissed off Mariner fans and less koolaid drinkers who are willing to let the ownership and upper management off the hook.

 

[blade]

I don't know if I'd pull the plug on Montero yet though. He's off to a slow start this year but he has only had a season's worth of ABs in his career and he has been significantly better than Smoak and Ackley.

(162 game avg.)
Montero: 19 HR 75 RBI .263 AVG .305 OBP .396 SLG
Smoak: 20 HR 68 RBI .223 AVG .307 OBP .370 SLG
Ackley: 11 HR 54 RBI .237 AVG .307 OBP .349 SLG

Main difference is that Montero has only played 164 major league games, Ackley has played 259 and Smoak has played 373 major league games.
.

He only throws out about 20% of would be base stealing. His pitcher handling sucks. Of all catchers in the major leagues, his over-all defense puts him in the bottom five.

Montero is the worse base runner in the major leagues. The power he had in the Yankee farm system is gone. Completely gone. Maybe he needs another cycle, as you say, but for whatever reason, the power is gone. He hasn't even hit a ball on the warning track this year. Smoak has put 5 or 6 on the warning track.

I have no faith in Montero at all. I know that, realistically, it is too soon to give up on him. But, I'm convinced that ultimately that will have to. All he's doing right now is keeping the bench warm for Zunino.

 

[seahawksfan234]

He only throws out about 20% of would be base stealing. His pitcher handling sucks. Of all catchers in the major leagues, his over-all defense puts him in the bottom five.

Montero is the worse base runner in the major leagues. The power he had in the Yankee farm system is gone. Completely gone. Maybe he needs another cycle, as you say, but for whatever reason, the power is gone. He hasn't even hit a ball on the warning track this year. Smoak has put 5 or 6 on the warning track.

I have no faith in Montero at all. I know that, realistically, it is too soon to give up on him. But, I'm convinced that ultimately that will have to. All he's doing right now is keeping the bench warm for Zunino.

You bring up some good points that are difficult to refute. My thinking is that if he can pull off a .260/20HR season his first 162 games he can bring that up to ~25+ and possibly bring up the batting average.

I don't want to see him at catcher but I think he could be a good fit at DH for us long term because let's be honest, the Mariners will have to choose between Morse and Morales and I think Morse is the obvious choice.

 

[SeattleCoug]

Just keep in mind the only decent major leaguer produced during the "Z" era, is Kyle Seagar. Im probably stretching to give him credit for that because its early.
Saunders was here before Z.
He can stock the farm system all he wants but if they cant produce at the major league level who cares? I dont care how many AA or AAA league championships we win? Do you?

 

[Mariners_44]

@Blade.....Cotton?

The core-3, not to be confused with the big-3, should very well be on their last leg. Smoak should be done in Seattle, no argument. Ackley looks like any confidence that he may have had is gone, and the chances of turning that around in Seattle are slim to none. I honestly believe that Montero can and will eventually hit, but I'd rather see us move him in a deal as he's probably the one with the most value of the three. Zunino can replace him, Smoak will be the easiest to replaced with the options we have, and Ackley could be replaced with Brad Miller. Ackley bums me out the most because he was so touted out of NC, but who would have ever imagined it would be his teammate that was drafted later who would prosper this early in his career. So far not so good in Seattle.

 

[seahawksfan234]

@Blade.....Cotton?

The core-3, not to be confused with the big-3, should very well be on their last leg. Smoak should be done in Seattle, no argument. Ackley looks like any confidence that he may have had is gone, and the chances of turning that around in Seattle are slim to none. I honestly believe that Montero can and will eventually hit, but I'd rather see us move him in a deal as he's probably the one with the most value of the three. Zunino can replace him, Smoak will be the easiest to replaced with the options we have, and Ackley could be replaced with Brad Miller. Ackley bums me out the most because he was so touted out of NC, but who would have ever imagined it would be his teammate that was drafted later who would prosper this early in his career. So far not so good in Seattle.

Yes Blade is Cotton.

I agree on Smoak and Ackley. For me Ackley is the harder one to give up on since we've been hammering on Smoak for so long and just sort of expecting Ackley to figure it out. I say this is his make or break season, (IMO). Although my opinion was that Smoak's last try should have been last year, the Mariners will likely give Ackley another year.

Still hoping Ackley pulls it together.

As far as Montero goes I am sort of reluctant to trade him mostly because my pessimistic nature when it comes to the Mariners makes me believe that we would not get fair value for Montero.

 

[octagondd]

Hi guys - I am new from ESPN board.

I agree Smoak and Ackley are on their last legs. Not worried about Smoak since we got a shot at a good glove switch hitting 1B for a couple months of Cliff Lee. Ackley bugs me though. Guy was a CF, then pushed to 1b in spite of not having the body for it, then we draft him saying "perfect 2b/number 2 hitter that can hit the gaps." How many times has our management said that about a hitter either drafted or traded. Cirillo? Now, we got lucky with Seager, so that sort of makes up for Hackley.

I will also give Montero this year, but we traded a great arm (at the time), for a non-athletic, bad defensive catcher who will eventually only DH?

I will always be an M's fan because I grew up in the area, but it is so hard to listen to these games year after year. There was even a smidgen of hope this season, and then wham, everyone is hurt, and apparently all the other teams in the league were throwing batting practice to Smoak, Montero and Ackley in ST.

 

[octagondd]

Since Ackley removed all the pre-pitch motion he has hit .250. We will see over the next few weeks if any of that will stick over the lang haul, but there is some small hope for him still.

 

[seahawksfan234]

Since Ackley removed all the pre-pitch motion he has hit .250. We will see over the next few weeks if any of that will stick over the lang haul, but there is some small hope for him still.

Welcome. Since CBS had their boards removed quite a few of us from the Mariners boards over there have begun posting here. Good to have you join us.

 

[unlvmariners]

I think everyone should be happy with the way Ackley has played the last 10 or so games. In my opinion Ackley currently has a swing that makes it easier for MLB pitchers to pitch him. Although after his last 5+ or so games it seems he has figured out what pitchers are doing to him and he has adjusted. I like what I have been seeing from Ackley lately I hope he can keep it up.

Remember guys there are a lot of major league proven hitters right now that are hitting worse than some of our young guys at this point. It is very early in the season and it is easy to get frustrated (I am one of them). Lets see what happens. Granted we don't look like a very good team at this point.