40 in 40: A different revolution with Mitch Haniger
Full circle doesn’t always mean things are the same.
I am struggling to write about Mitch Haniger.
The player most emblematic of my own experience here at Lookout Landing, and over the near-decade since college graduation has returned to the Seattle Mariners. He is a source of joy. He is diminished. He has credibility and can be a through line between a clubhouse and a front office and coaching staff that spent too much of last year seemingly out of sync and out of trust. He occupies an opaque location on this current roster, too reputable to be easily diminished to a bench or short side platoon role for the likes of an unproven Dominic Canzone, Cade Marlowe, or Taylor Trammell. Yet he is here again, resilient against the passage of time that labels him 33 years of age, a wizened crone in a player population that averaged just 28.0 years old for position players in 2023, the youngest since 1979 and down from an expansion and steroid-buoyed peak of 29.3 in 2004.
Age is not the most remarkable thing about Haniger, however he is the oldest player on Seattle’s 40-man roster, edging out fellow Mitchell, Mitch Garver, by a few weeks. Baseball is not unique in its capacity for rosy reunions in sports, as Seattle sports fans with even the shortest of memories can recall Bobby Wagner’s return to the Seahawks and Fredy Montero reuniting with the Sounders in recent years. Haniger’s revolution, however, strikes a particular chord with these Mariners, this organization, and this this roster.
Seven years and three weeks ago, I wrote the first 40 in 40 on Mitch Haniger. Because the internet is a false promise of permanence undermined by apathy and greed, many of the clips in that article are no longer viewable. Why should we be able to view that Haniger, however, who soared through the Arizona outfield and gave promise and hope to a franchise clinging to the final hopes of dragging King Félix to the playoffs? That Haniger is gone, his sprint speed fallen from upper 80th percentile to the 30s, his once-sterling outfield defense reduced to a strong arm affixed to a humbled sum of his parts. Why does it matter that Haniger was once an All-Star, the best player on a 2018 club that boasted at least three players who’d entered that season with genuine hopes of induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame one day? If he is not that player now, why should we care that even in his hints of decline, Haniger was a stabilizing force in a Mariners lineup in seasons where little comparable existed? That in 2021’s miraculous 90-win season, Haniger was 77th among 132 qualified position players in fWAR, yet 19th in win probability added? That until Julio Rodríguez, there is arguably no player whose development and performance did more to keep Jerry Dipoto and this front office in a job than Haniger?
It matters because even now, with Haniger having played just 61 games last year due to injuries structural (an oblique strain and back strain that bookended his season) and his more familiar freak (a broken forearm from a hit-by-pitch), Meetch is still expected, hoped, projected even to take on a major role for Seattle, and most systems expect that if given health and time he can be at least an average big league bat. That would place him closer to his 2022 self, a player who missed much of the season with a high ankle sprain and yet still returned late to bolster the drought-quenching run to the playoffs. That Haniger would be enough, even now, to aid an M’s club relying on many of his oft-injured kindred spirits for their playoff dreams once again.
More than that, even, is a club that was the beneficiary of Haniger’s presence in the development of many of its young players in years past, with Haniger a reliable messenger of the organization’s hitting philosophies, as well as his own personal development, just as AJ Pollock once was for Haniger himself. He returns not as the star he became, but still a veteran whose work ethic is well-known, as a trusted and valued complement to the leadership of J.P. Crawford, Cal Raleigh, and of course Julio. So trusted, in fact, that as first reported by Ryan Divish on our Meet at the Mitt Podcast, Raleigh was living in Haniger’s longtime West Seattle home for all of last season. The return of Haniger may not be one of superstardom, but it is one with great capacity to improve the Mariners roster, even as the hope is likely to see some of those improvements yielded beyond the player himself, much as Carlos Santana uplifted the M’s beyond his on-field productivity.
In practice, Haniger will hopefully face left-handed pitchers every time Seattle runs into a southpaw starter. His career numbers demonstrate his brilliance against them with a 129 wRC+ and .275/.349/.490 line against them. If Haniger is truly the player he was between injuries last year, there’s not much to be done, however it’s reasonable to think his performance at something approaching full health, with a winter of rest and a season of merely partial play will yield better results. Not much has changed that Seattle fans won’t recognize for Haniger. He still pulls the ball heavily, still hits it hard, and is back in a place where he’s “always loved playing.” To want to win is paramount in prioritization, certainly, but with players who want to be in this place and have integral roles in the process that has led the club here makes it all the sweeter. The feast of today’s joy tastes magnificent on its own, but when dipped into the swirling umami of nostalgia, their polymerization yields a flavor of decadence unlike any other.
Though there is still time, it’s not likely that the broadcast from this night will be quite proven right.
In a prediction slightly less foolproof than when Mike Blowers and a Tuiasosopo are involved Dave Sims opines that these are the types of games that teams build statues of players for. While I cannot find the clip itself, I am all but certain it’s drawn from this game, and more importantly it is drawn from a season, a career of achievements in spite of obstacles that fate and human frailty have thrown in Haniger’s path year after year. He’s back, and while he may be slightly more statuesque, in 2024 he has the chance to enter the top-20 of Mariners position players all time, and he’ll have company. He’s already been eclipsed by Crawford (17th), while Julio is just behind him (22nd) and Raleigh should make his way in as well with a strong campaign (28th). Haniger has the opportunity to continue building a legacy as one of the best outfielders in Mariners history. Better yet, he has a second chance to relish the foundation he helped lay.