Dustin Ackley is a valuable fantasy player right now. If someone had told baseball experts in 2009 that Ackley would be a solid player in 2013, their response probably would have been, “Of course.”
In June of 2009, the Mariners took Ackley as the second overall pick of the draft, hoping that he would be a homegrown franchise player on the level of Dustin Pedroia; someone who could save a team with an overall OPS of just .652.
Those expectations didn’t seem too far-fetched based on what the left-handed hitting Ackley produced in college at North Carolina. The 25-year old became the first Tar Heel to hit over .400 twice in a career and he holds the all-time record for most hits in the College World Series. All of those accomplishments inspired this scouting report and others like it to gush about Ackley’s superstar potential.
So, what happened? Ackley was fast-tracked to the big leagues; he climbed through three levels in less than two years and had a look at the Show at the end of 2011. He showed enough promise to win the Mariners’ opening day second base job in 2012, which is around the time his career went further off the rails than Miley Cyrus’.
2012 turned into a nightmare season for Ackley; he posted a .226/.294/.328 line with just 12 home runs in his first full season in the big leagues. After a similar start in 2013, the expected franchise savior was sent back to Triple-A to fix his swing in another lost season for Seattle. He struggled so mightily, he even inspired this diatribe against Mariner hitting development.
The North Carolina native returned to the Show on June 25 and hit .243 in July (not impressive, albeit better than he had been doing before he got his demotion) before exploding in August. Ackley has seemingly found his college swing again as he’s raked to the tune of a .400/.438/.567 line in 19 games this month.
Now, admittedly he’s hitting .390 on balls in play this month, but, even adjusting for a league-average BABIP, he’s had a solid month. It is possible that increasing the amount of outside pitches he’s swinging at has helped, or this hot streak could just be an anomaly in an otherwise disappointing career.
Either way, he is certainly a valuable waiver wire player right now. Few experts would have guessed he would take this long to get there, but it’s finally happened. For the sake of Mariners fans, I hope it continues.
Dylan Sinn is a freelance contributor for CraveOnline Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSinn or subscribe at Facebook.com/CraveOnlineSports.
Photo Credit: Getty
