Seattle Mariners Are Considered a Team of the Future, but They Are Starting to Show Signs They Could Arrive . . . AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

An autograph seeker leaned over the railing near the visitors’ dugout at Oakland Coliseum, hoping to find a ballplayer in an obliging mood.

He did, and he couldn’t wait to report the results to a friend.

“I got Mark Lungst, “ he said.

The happy fan didn’t recognize Mark Langston and couldn’t make out his signature. Langston plays for the Seattle Mariners, solid candidates to become a package deal in a commercial for American Express cards. They certainly wouldn’t have any trouble with their lines: “Do you know us? . . . “

Chances are, you don’t know these guys. Not yet, anyway. But it seems apparent that their anonymity won’t last long.

Take Langston, for example. Two years ago, he was spending his third professional season in Chattanooga, the Mariners’ Double-A affiliate. Last season, he led the American League in strikeouts with 204 and had a 17-10 record on a team that finished 14 games under .500. He was named the league’s Rookie Pitcher of the Year.

Langston is a classic example of how the Mariners’ faith in young players has been rewarded.

Alvin Davis is another. When last season began, he was assigned to the Mariners Triple-A team at Salt Lake City.

He was called up April 7, after Ken Phelps was hit by a pitch and suffered a broken finger.

By season’s end, Davis had played in the All-Star Game and hit .284 with 27 home runs and 116 runs batted in. He was named American League Rookie of the Year, marking the first time the league’s top rookie and top rookie pitcher came from the same team.

The youth movement rolls along in Seattle, and there are early-season indications that there may be more young, unfamiliar faces coming out of the Northwest.

The Mariners, who will begin a three-game series with the Angels tonight at Anaheim Stadium, started the season by winning six straight games in the Seattle Kingdome, the best start in the club’s history. They have since lost three straight at Oakland, but they remain baseball’s surprise team of April.

They have another surprise, rookie third baseman Jim Presley, who is baseball’s brightest spring star.

Presley, a soft-spoken 23-year-old from Pensacola, Fla., has hit six home runs, most in either league, and has 13 RBIs in nine games.

Since beating out Darnell Coles for the starting position at third base during spring training, Presley has made an early bid to become the Mariners’ next Alvin Davis. But Seattle General Manager Hal Keller is wary of expecting too much of someone who entered the season with 99 days of big-league experience.

“Obviously, he’s off very, very well,” Keller said. “But, just as obviously, he can’t keep up at this pace. If he did, he’d hit 100 home runs. I’d like to think that he could do that, but history tells me that he won’t.”

Presley credits Mariner batting coach Deron Johnson for his powerful start.

“He worked with me a lot on my stance and my approach at the plate,” he said. “I hit the ball real well in spring training. I’ve just hit a few more home runs than I expected this early.”

Presley doesn’t have a monopoly on the unexpected. Second-year outfielder Phil Bradley certainly wasn’t expected to start the season the way he has.

He hit .301 in 124 games last season but did not hit a home run. This year, he has already hit three, among them a grand slam with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the Mariners an 8-7 win over Minnesota last Saturday.

Thursday against Oakland, he made a diving catch of Dave Kingman’s line drive in left-center, saving two runs. As Bradley returned to the Mariners’ dugout, he couldn’t resist glancing over his shoulder to see a replay of his catch on the huge screen beyond center field. These Mariners are playing well, and loving every minute of it.

“He’s just starting to feel like he belongs here,” Seattle Manager Chuck Cottier said of Bradley. “That’s the hardest thing about playing in the major leagues. You have confidence in yourself, but you have to get that certain feeling of, ‘Hey, I belong here because of my ability.’ That’s when you really start to produce. That’s when you find out how good a guy really is.”

Cottier is also getting a chance to prove himself. The former third-base coach served as interim manager for the final month of last season after Del Crandall was fired. The fifth manager in the team’s history, Cottier is working on a one-year contract.

He was out of baseball from 1974 to 1976, after being fired as a manager in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league system.

“I was fired because I wouldn’t make out daily game reports for the Pirates’ minor league team,” he said, able to laugh about it now.

“I had never set a goal in baseball to be a major league manager. But I’m happy to be managing this club.”

These days, Cottier is closely monitoring the progress of his young players. And that’s a lot of work. In the starting lineup the Mariners fielded Wednesday against Oakland, there were seven players with less than three years of major-league experience, including pitcher Matt Young. Five of them began their professional careers in the Seattle organization. Only one, designated hitter Gorman Thomas, is over 30.

Keller, who spent five years as the Mariners’ director of player development, said it is no coincidence that the club is so heavily influenced by the under-30 crowd.

“I’ve always been committed--and I think we as a club are committed--to building from within,” he said. “Our success this year, or lack of it, is going to be determined by how well these players mature, and how quickly.”

At 34, Thomas is Seattle’s ancient Mariner. He missed most of last season with a torn rotator cuff, an injury he had surgery for last June. His comeback, like the progress of the Mariners, is ahead of schedule.

Thomas, who led the American League with 45 homers for Milwaukee in 1979, has hit 4 in 32 at-bats this season.

“To be perfectly honest, I was mentally prepared to accept failure early,” he said. “But I’m not having much trouble right now. I’m swinging the bat well, and I’m able to let it fly.”

The injury kept Thomas out of all but 35 games last year. He watched from a distance as his boyish teammates grew up.

“Hell, they were just a bunch of kids last year,” he said. “But they had more than a fair amount of success, and when you have success at a young age and you’re able to handle it without getting too high on yourself, it becomes maturity. And maturity blended with experience can do nothing but improve you.

“This team obtained maturity and experience together last year, and even though we’ve only played nine games this year, I think it shows.”

For now, it appears as if the kids are all right. But Thomas has been around long enough to know that baseballs can take funny bounces that sometimes result in cruel summers.

“It’s easy when things are going well,” Thomas said. “We’ll have to see how we react when times get tough.”