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JH's picture

I'm not against using multiple rookies in theory: it depends entirely on the personnel you've got and available alternatives.
Milwaukee, though, is a pretty bad example for 1 reason: of the guys you mentioned, only Fielder and Hardy got the regular job without "proving" himself in the majors first, and they didn't get those jobs in the same year.  Weeks hit his way into the majors at mid-season with a .320/.435/.655 line in triple-A, and then held his own there with a .727 OPS.  Braun, similarly, was called up mid-season and took off in a way we haven't really seen in years. Hart went back and forth between the majors and minors, killed the ball in the minors, then got called up as a reserve.  He didn't get regular playing time until mid-August.
The Brewers didn't just hand jobs to multiple rookies at once.  Hardy got the starting job at the beginning of 2005, Weeks mid-season that year, Fielder at the beginning of 2006, Hart late-2006, and Bruan late-2007.
Nobody doubts that a core of unproven players CAN be a good idea, but very few teams other than Oakland have handed multiple starting roles to rookies in the same season.  Even Oakland doesn't often do it with multiple position players, and the age curve for pitchers is dramatically different.
As far as the Mariners' current personnel goes, I don't think it's a TERRIBLE idea, but it's nowhere near the team's best path towards contention in 2010.

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