Watch highlights of Mariners’ new slugging prospect, Dan Vogelbach
Jul 21, 2016, 1:00 PM | Updated: 1:31 pm
One look over Dan Vogelbach’s page of highlights on MiLB.com, and it’s easy to see why the Mariners sent Mike Montgomery to the Cubs to get him in a four-player trade Wednesday: power.
The 23-year-old Vogelbach, who has 16 homers in 89 games at the Triple-A level this year, doesn’t just hit ball that scrapes the top of the wall. As you can see in the video above, the left-handed hitting first baseman is a moonshot artist, even against lefties with MLB experience like former Mariners reliever Lucas Luetge.
Sometimes all it takes is a flick of the wrists, too, like in this homer he hit in Tacoma facing his new team. By the way, the pitcher is that video is James Paxton, who is now in the Mariners’ starting rotation and could very soon be Vogelbach’s teammate.
Vogelbach is certainly the kind of hitter who could anchor the middle of a major-league batting order in the future, something Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto noted after the trade on Wednesday. He owns an impressive .318 average, .425 on-base percentage and .548 slugging percentage this year, and he’s walked 55 times to 67 strikeouts. Not bad for a 6-foot, 250-pound wrecking ball.