Michael Saunders is a Box of Chocolates

Michael Saunders had an infuriating 2014 season. Just ask Jack Zduriencik. Condor was good with the bat, sometimes even great. He played by most accounts superior defense. He did things on second base which children shouldn’t see. He missed time because of a knee hyperextension, shoulder soreness, and spent two stints on the disabled list because of a bad A/C joint in his shoulder and was lost for 50 games with an abdominal strain. All told, he played just 78 games but managed to amass 1.9 WAR and post a 126 wRC+ despite himself.

Since the end of the season, his General Manager has not so subtly criticized his conditioning, his agent had a hissy fit, the Mariners said they’d go out and shop him to other teams, then I kind of had a hissy fit, and then Saunders fired his agent joining Mr. Meister (yep, insert joke about “Broken Wings” and “Condor”) signaling who knows what about his future with the Mariners. And yet as of this blog-thing posting, Saunders is still a Mariner, and he still is as inconsistent a player as you’ll ever want on your team.

And that’s the weird part — you do want Michael Saunders on your team. But I’m not sure what you’re going to get.

In his 263 plate appearances this past season, Saunders hit .273/.341/.450 with eight home runs, 38 runs, 34 RBI, and four stolen bases, good for a 126wRC+. No doubt a good quarter of those at bats were done so while dinged up. His strikeouts were down, power back up to what we saw in 2012, his line drive rate was at a career high as was his overall contact rate. His swinging strike rate was a career low 8.4%, dropping from 11.4% and 10.4% from the previous two seasons. All systems go — except for that pesky part about staying off the trainers table.

If you look back to April 2013, Saunders had just a miserable first half, slashing .225/.303/.364 with a 27% strikeout rate and just a .139 ISO. The context here is that he was apparently playing through a particularly bum shoulder, no doubt trying to shed the injury-prone label that dogged him back to 2010. But once given time to heal up, he returned and looked a lot more like the guy we saw last season. His second half featured a slash line of .251/.350/.440 with a 23% strikeout rate, almost 13% walk rate, .189 ISO, and posted a 121 wRC+.

I wouldn’t say that Saunders has immense potential, but if he could keep his body from acting like it wants to go out and buy a red corvette with T-tops, he’s a candidate to hit 20+ home runs, steal 20+ bags, while batting something in the .260-.280 range with respectable remaining counting stats. That’s a pretty handy player to have around in standard leagues. And frankly, among the Seattle faithful, there are many who think his potential trumps this 20/20 talk — but that’s largely based on his notorious streaks where he goes all Khal Drogo and destroys everything in his path. Not that every player doesn’t go through hot and cold streaks, but check his monthly wRC+ over the past several years:

Now, don’t run out and spend wildly to get Saunders on your squad. But he’s just freshly 28 years old, so a career year could certainly be still in front of him. Still, there’s the possibility that staying in Seattle means a platoon role from a manager and front office who have apparent distrust in Saunders’ conditioning, he could get traded and thrown into the same platoon role, or his body could continue to do the Chevy Vega impersonation. Then again, he could get traded to the Reds or the Rockies and stay healthy and Yahtzee! For my money, I look at Saunders as a bench stash with upside, and I think the upside is considerable enough to be able to contribute as a 2nd or 3rd outfielder in standard formats. And then there’s the possibility that he’s on the waiver wire by May. So, you know, yay baseball.