He carried a hefty .346/.403/.490 line during the first couple months of 2017, but as that was slashed to .226/.263/.359 the rest of the way, breakout hopes for Ben Gamel were equally dashed.
Despite the hard second-half skid, Gamel turned in an admirable performance overall for a first-year player and the Mariners liked him enough to pencil him in for significant playing time on the 2018 roster with the hope that he could blossom further.
Instead, a dreadful start to this season begot some frustrated concern.
Let’s give the guy some credit though.