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Seattle Mariners First Baseman Dan Vogelbach Sent to Triple-A
Major League Baseball

Seattle Mariners First Baseman Dan Vogelbach Sent to Triple-A

Updated Mar. 5, 2020 12:07 a.m. ET

The Seattle Mariners sent first baseman Dan Vogelbach to Triple-A to start the season, making Danny Valencia the full-time starter for now.

In a surprise move, the Seattle Mariner sent first baseman Dan Vogelbach to Triple-A to start the year. Vogelbach was acquired by the Mariners in a trade with the Chicago Cubs last July and was expected to be the left-handed part of a platoon at first base with Danny Valencia. Now, it appears that Valencia will get most of the playing time at first base to start the year, with utilityman Taylor Motter filling in as needed.

Vogelbach was off to a slow start in spring training, hitting .228/.313/.333 in 64 plate appearances. He's known for having good plate discipline and his seven walks in 64 spring training plate appearances (11%) confirms that, but he also struck out 19 times (30%), which is a problem. The Mariners will have him start the season with the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers with the hope that he'll have success and come up to help the big league club make a run for a playoff spot.

With Vogelbach in Tacoma, Danny Valencia will get the bulk of the playing time at first. He's been an above average hitter in three of the last four years and is particularly good against left-handed pitching, with a career batting line of .321/.373/.500 against them. That's a 139 wRC+, meaning he's been 39% better than league average against left-handed pitching when league and ballpark effects are taken into account.

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    Unfortunately, the baseball world has a nearly 60-40 split in favor of right-handed pitchers and Valencia has hit just .251/.297/.416 against them (92 wRC+, 8% below average). The Mariners were hoping Vogelbach would be in the lineup against righties, with Valencia crushing lefties. Instead, Valencia will see more right-handed pitching than the team expected, at least for the time being.

    The most likely backup at first base behind Valencia is the golden-haired Taylor Motter, a utilityman who played every position except catcher and center field last year in 34 games with the Tampa Bay Rays (yes, he even pitched 1/3 of an inning). Motter will start the season with the Mariners because Shawn O'Malley is out 10-14 days after having an appendectomy. Motter is a high-energy player with long, golden locks who has hit well in spring training. He looks like the long lost scruffy older brother in the 90s band Hanson.

    Ideally, Vogelbach will find his groove in Tacoma and be back up with the Mariners shortly. Last season, the M's had catcher Mike Zunino start the year in Tacoma even though he already had parts of three big league seasons under his belt. He hit .286/.375/.521 in Triple-A, then was brought up in early June and had his best-hitting season in the major leagues (.207/.318/.470 in 55 games).

    The Mariners did the same with starting pitcher James Paxton last year. Paxton started 10 games for Tacoma before joining the Mariners in early June. He then had his best season in the big leagues. With the success that Zunino and Paxton had after spending a couple months in Triple-A, it wouldn't be surprising to see the Mariners do the same with Vogelbach.

    Before this announcement was made, Vogelbach was projected by the FanGraphs Depth Charts to get 420 plate appearances with the Mariners this season. That number has to be adjusted down now. Based on how long Zunino was kept down last year, a revised projection would be somewhere around 300 plate appearances for Vogelbach, with Valencia gaining much of that lost playing time. That would be based on Vogelbach returning to the major leagues in early June. Hopefully, he'll find his hitting stroke and come back to help the Mariners end their long playoff drought.

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