Analyst: New Mariners slugger Cruz won’t succeed in Safeco

Nelson Cruz: Will he be savior or bust?

The Mariners shelled out a four-year, $57 million contract to bring last year’s MLB home run champ to Seattle, and many see the right-handed slugger as the solution to over a decade of poor production from the team’s designated hitter position.

But not everybody.

Chief among the detractors of the Cruz signing is Dave Cameron of FanGraphs and USS Mariner, who told 710 ESPN Seattle’s “Brock and Salk” on Tuesday that he doesn’t expect Cruz to succeed on a team where he’ll play half his games in the spacious confines of Safeco Field.

“I don’t quite see the upside of Nelson Cruz that I think probably the Mariners do,” Cameron said. “I look at Safeco and I just think as a 34-year-old, power-dependent, bat-only guy trying to hit the ball out to left-center field, it’s going to be a struggle for Nelson Cruz. I think if he hits 30 home runs this year everyone can be ecstatic.”

Cameron doesn’t think Cruz will hit 30 home runs, though, nor does he think his on-base percentage (Cruz has a career .328 OBP) will be high enough to make up for a swoon in power – especially considering he will only be contributing from the batter’s box.

“When you’re a DH and you don’t do anything else besides hit, you’ve got to really hit to be good,” Cameron said, “and I think Nelson Cruz at Safeco Field, 25 home runs with not a lot of walks – he’s always been a lower on-base percentage guy relative to his power – if you’re looking at about a .300, .310 on-base percentage with 25 home runs from a designated hitter, that’s not a very good player.”

That’s not to say Cameron doesn’t see the line of thinking the Mariners had in signing Cruz. But in the end he doesn’t believe the production will be enough to get Seattle to the next level.

“The Mariners DH positions have been atrocious the last few years and I completely understand why they’re trying to get a competent bat in there, and Nelson Cruz will not be an incompetent bat like they had last year. I just don’t think he’s going to be very good,” he said.

Of course Cameron’s stance is not shared with the majority of the baseball media. Cruz is coming off an All-Star year with Baltimore where he hit .271, posted an .859 OPS, smacked a league-high 40 homers and drove in 108 runs, and many are expecting him to produce numbers that at least somewhat resemble those to give the Mariners offense the boost it needs.

Former MLB general manager and current ESPN analyst Jim Bowden, who joined “Danny, Dave and Moore” on Monday, can be counted in that camp.

“Last year (the Mariners) put themselves in a position where they knew that they were good enough to be in the postseason … and they knew they were missing a piece and GM Jack Zduriencik goes out in the offseason and gets that big piece in Nelson Cruz to put between (Robinson) Cano and (Kyle) Seager in the lineup,” Bowden said. “I think it’s gonna impact a lot … There’s no doubt you can’t pitch around (Cano) now that you got Cruz there. And the same thing, you can’t always bring a lefty in to face Cano if you got Cruz sitting there on the on-deck circle.”