Veteran infielder/outfielder Dustin Ackley is headed back to his original organization, as he’s agreed to a minor league contract with the Mariners, according to multiple reports (including Fancred’s Jon Heyman, on Twitter).
Ackley, now 30 years of age, hasn’t appeared in the Majors since a brief 2016 run with the Yankees, where he hit .148/.243/.148 in a small sample of 70 plate appearances. He’s spent the past two seasons with the Angels’ Triple-A affiliate, where he’s gotten on base at a solid clip but struggled to hit for power despite playing in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. In 284 plate appearances last season, Ackley hit .286/.378/.398 with four homers, 13 doubles and a triple.
Selected by the Mariners out of North Carolina with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2009 draft, Ackley was viewed as an advanced college bat who could quickly move through the system. That proved to be the case, as he was in the Majors two years later and hit .273/.348/.417 — good for a 120 OPS+ at the age of 23. However, Ackley’s bat cratered in his sophomore season with the M’s, and he’s batted only .235/.296/.358 over the life of 1971 plate appearances in parts of five big league seasons since that time. Ackley’s addition is a depth move for the Mariners, as he’ll likely open the season in Triple-A Tacoma as he looks to work his way back to the big leagues for the first time in nearly three full years.
Aww man, I threw away my Dustin Ackley bobblehead.
Let’s get the band back together with Smoak and Montero next!
Ahhh remember those days of signing/trading for nothing but first-basemen?
Jeff Clement
“We’re on a mission from God!”
“See. I usually write the check in the car on the dashboard”.
It’s a special check. We both have to sign it.
We’ll talk to Bob.
What’s Danny Hultzen up to these days? Wonder if he’s willing to make a comeback.
Last I heard he was still trying to make it to the show in the cubs system.
Unbelievable.
If he can continue getting on base he could make a decent multi position bench piece
Ball players are generally a superstitious bunch. Ackley has stunk ever since he grew that hillbilly beard. Maybe shave and see if stroke returns, even though it didn’t help with Yankee short stint. If the Ms could have just choked out a loss on the last day of the 2008 season, they would have Steven Strasburg, instead of Jed Clampett.
So true dude! As soon as he grew the bush he went downhill! Haha forgot about that
Ack was ok with us years back. Wasn’t he a former top draft pick ?
He was supposed to be a star with the Mariners.
Yup, second overall pick and ranked in Baseball America’s Top 15 twice. From what I remember, he was considered a very low floor prospect, too, considering how succesful he was at UNC, his work ethic and IQ, baseball background (father played), and his pure, left-handed swing. Looking back at some old scouting reports, Baseball America said “he combines all the necessary ingredients to win batting titles in the big leagues” and “scouts regarded Ackley as one of the most polished hitters to come out of the draft in years”. He actually signed a five year Major League deal after being drafted. He had one of the best AFL performances ever in 2010 (20 games, 28 runs, 19 RBI, .424/.581/.758, 26 walks to 11 strikeouts).
Not sure what went wrong exactly, but just goes to show how unpredictable prospects can be.
Great information! I enjoyed the AFL stats. I hope someone else might have a heads up on what went wrong.
Couldn’t hit the outside pitch the other way, or cover the outside half of the plate, once scouting reports were out.
If that’s true, how did the M’s scouts not pick that up while watching him in college? Seems pretty basic. Another reason to doubt the ability of the Mariners scouting Dept.
It was just from a fans observation. I’m sure there was probably a lot more too it.
Mariners were in the lead for strasburg going into the last 3 games of the regular season. Riggleman decided to play all his regulat players for those 3 games, and the Ms ended up sweeping the A’s. The upshot is that the Nats ended up with strasburg, and the Ms ended up with Ackley.
I couldn’t believe it either.
Thanks Riggleman *eyeroll*
We won the last two games because of two walkoff homers by, of all people, Yuniesky Betancourt. Freakin’ Yuni cost us Strasburg.
Ackley has always sucked an was a horrible draft pick. The Mariners are idiots…cough, cough, I mean lost at sea…with no chance of getting anywhere…
Dude couldn’t even crack a mediocre Angels roster the past two years.
Right!? With all those injuries too!? Not good.
If you can actually explain why not, then go ahead
There are several minor leaguers who haven’t had the chance to show what they’re capable of yet. Bringing this guy back in to our system is meaningless…especially after the young talent we’ve acquired. We know what this guy is already and he’s not getting any better.
Since JP Crawford will stay in Tacoma till mid May looks like Ackley will be at 2nd or SS until JP comes. Wonder how Ackley’s Defense is these days?
Probably not good enough for SS
One-time Gold Glove second baseman Dee Gordon was adequate at shortstop last year in a small sample of 65 innings:
fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=8203&posit…
Perhaps Gordon will be the shortstop until JP Crawford comes up.
Dipoto assured us that they were gonna sign a veteran and leave Dee at his natural position. Plus Seattle brought in Dee’s former infield coach. I highly doubt Gordon will be playing regularly at SS. He’s good in a pinch though.
It is an innovative idea. Plenty of veteran SS on the FA market. I bet Dipoto will find somebody. My vote is Jose Iglesias if the money is right. Terrific defense.
Bradthebluefish- Jose Iglesias would be a great fit but it’s going to be difficult to sell him (or any veteran SS) on 6-8 weeks of playing time. I can see Dee filling in at SS, Ackley at 2nd until Crawford comes up from Tacoma then Ackley slotting into that Taylor Motter/utility role rest of 2019. Think about it- Ackley bats LH, plays INF and OF. Provided he can still hit ML pitching of course!!
Well first he’s got to prove he can be a Major League player, which he hasn’t.
I can see him playing 2B, but I don’t see why he’d ever slot in at short. He hasn’t played an inning there during his entire professional career (although he did play in high school). Even in his younger years, he was mostly just an average defender at second. Plus, he’s only played 27 games at 2B in the past three seasons, mostly slotting in at first or in the outfield.
this is why Seattle made self injection sites
Another of those “absolutely can’t miss” future HOFer who just fizzled…….fans of teams searching for Kluber or MadBum should pay attention……
I’ll always gives Ackley credit…always played hard, effort certainly wasn’t the issue….just had a tough timer getting his bat to quality stuff…..and that was necessary, since even in college he was “meh” defensively……
Nobody ever called him a hall of famer.
He was always billed as an advanced bat, which turned out to be true due to his early success. However, his approach got exploited and he couldn’t adjust.
Nah, even at the time he was considered an overdraft. Svcouts saw him as an advanced bat who might turn into a guy like Jody Reed. Of course, even having that career would have been great, but pitchers found some obvious weakness in Ackley’s swing and he apparently wasn’t able to adjust. Happens a lot; baseball’s draft is the most volatile of the major sports, not only because of the huge number of high schoolers who are drafted but also because the transition to wooden bats isn’t always a given. There have been plenty of top-10 draft picks who never even got out of the low minors.
? Really? I literally thought that was sarcasm until you said “I’ll always give Ackley credit…” Then you made me vomit. He sucks. Period. You don’t give anyone credit who sucks.
Please don’t use him in the outfield again
Can’t wait to get that new Ackley bobblehead this year
I’m ok with rebuilding for 2021, but let’s not re-live bad memories in the process…
Hahaha
How is he only 30?
We have to re-live this misery again? Let’s give Danny Hultzen a deal too and see what Jesus Montero is up to.
This guy was so over rated by the media it was laughable …he stinks
Says the guy behind a computer who probably couldn’t hit an 80mph heater if his or her life depended on it. Troll on, scrub.
What scrub thinks 80mph is a heater?
Prove them wrong, make me dig up my many Ackley rookie cards scattered throughout my commons for reprocessing! Best of Luck, for real.
Divish has a good review of Ackley’s history in a story in the Seattle Times.
Why trash the guy? Sure he’s a bust but he’s in the show. We are all arm chair quarterbacks. Hope the best for
Him. He’s a super nice guy in person.
Who cares, he sucks…If you hit below .250, then you deserve to be ridiculed and booed. The slightest hint of praise for anyone as bad as Ackley is nauseating and would make any reasonable person want to literally die.
Purely depth and might I add “player/coach.” Still was a fun guy to watch play when he was healthy.
I’m not sure what you were watching if you thought it was fun to watch him play.
You must think Dave Sims is fun to listen to…My God, Seattle fans are the worst…
Why are Seattle Mariners fans the dumbest idiots in the history of professional sports? Tribal people on some remote island in the South Pacific have better sense when it comes to Mariners baseball than Seattleites do…I’d ask them who Dustin Ackley is and they’d probably get all confused and have no idea what I was even saying…and I’d respond with “exactly.” Cause he always has and always will be a nobody…Signing Ackley is simply demoralizing and would make any reasonable Seattleite want to vomit and die…or move to Houston, where they have a competent organization.