Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 10-3-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 34: Reviewing the 2019 Mariners Catchers

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

Locked on Mariners host Andy Patton begins an offseason series reviewing each of the position groups from the 2019 Seattle Mariners. He begins with the catchers, Omar Narvaez and Tom Murphy, who combined to post the best season by a Mariners catching duo in franchise history. Will the Mariners keep both veteran backstops in 2020? Will Jerry DiPoto look to unload them for younger talent? When will Cal Raleigh be ready to take over as the team's future catcher? All questions that Andy answers in this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is up Mariners fans? I'm Seattle Sports Media's utility infielder Andy Patton, and you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast, part of the Lockdown podcast network. It's the off-season now, but I could never leave you all. I'm still here. I'm still going to provide you guys some excellent content over the off-season, and we're going to start that by doing some recaps.

Now, I thought about doing original player recaps for each one podcast for each player who played for the Mariners this year and is still on the roster. But let's face it, with the way that Jerry Depoto, to turn over rosters. A lot of these guys probably won't be here come March. So I think I'm going to wait till then, and then we'll do some player recaps and talk about upcoming seasons. So for now, what I want to do is I'm just going to do a segment, or excuse me, a podcast for each position group. Today we're starting with the catchers. So segment one is going to be all about the catching performance last year. Four different guys caught games for the Mariners. We're going to

talk about each of them. And then in segment two, we're going to talk about the future of the position. Will it be the same players? Will it be different players? Are there minor leaguers that might step up as well? We'll talk about that in the second segment. And then, of course, we have eight birthdays to celebrate in segment three, including a former classmate of mine. So stay tuned to find out who that is. All right, this postseason is brought to you by Vivid Seats.

Make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let the Vivid Seats app help you get to your favorite live event. Enter promo code postseason at checkout to receive a discount of up to $100. All right, let's get right into it. The Mariners had, without a doubt, the best season behind the plate in franchise history. There's no other possible way to look at it. The Mariners catchers were the best they've ever had. This is with respect, tremendous respect to Dan Wilson, Dave Valley, Kenji Jojima, Mike Zanino, etc., etc.

The Mariners have not been a bad catching team in their history, but especially lately, they haven't been great. And what they were able to turn out in the 2019 season is nothing short of from Arkansas. The Mariners had four players who caught a game for them last season. The first was Omar Narvaez. He caught 98 games for them. The next was Tom Murphy. He caught 67 games. That was followed by Austin Nola, who caught seven games, and David Freitas, who caught one game.

Now, Fratis is no longer on the team. He went over to the Milwaukee Brewers. That's the last we're going to talk about him. Nola caught seven games, but Nola, while he was a big part of the offense and will be addressed a lot more when we do the infield podcast on this topic, he was not really a catcher anymore. He was a catcher for the Miami Marlins for the majority of the time he was in the minor leagues, and he started catching a lot when he got to the Mariners and the minors, and even when he came up, but I just don't think that's the position for him anymore. I could be wrong, and we'll

address this a little bit in segment two, perhaps if they lose one of Narvaez or Murphy, maybe they will look at Nola as a potentially backup catching option, but I kind of don't think that that's going to be in his future. So that's kind of the last, we're going to talk about him, too, anyway. We're going to focus on Narvaez and Murphy, who combined to blast 40 home runs. They combined to post the highest war in Mariners catching history between the two of them, obviously. They're two of the most successful individual seasons by a Mariners catcher in history, and they were on the same team at the same time.

It's just remarkable what happened last year. We'll start with Narvaez because he was technically the starter. Narvias played in 132 total games for the Mariners. Like I said, he caught 98 of them, so he ended up playing quite a bit as either a reserve or as a designated hitter. He had 22 home runs. He scored 63 runs. He had 55 RBIs.

His slash line was great. He had 278 with a 353 on base percentage, a 460 slugging percentage. That's good for a 119 WRC plus, which as a reminder, that's wins, runs created plus, which means effectively the league average is 100. So he was 19 runs created better than the league average. That's very good. He had a 1.8 war, according to fan graphs. which isn't great.

And part of that is because of his defensive deficiencies. We'll get to that a little bit. But Narvaea is also at a 9.8% walk rate, which is incredible. A 19.1% strikeout rate, which in this day and age is very good as well. The point is he was a very solid starting catcher. This is exactly why the Mariners acquired him. They went out and they wanted somebody, and I think they were just ready to move on for Mike Zanino. I had nothing against him.

I don't think the front office related either. They just wanted to give him a shot somewhere else. And they went out and said, we need to get an established catcher who's succeeded at the big league level before, who's relatively young, and who we can kind of maybe potentially even build around. And that's what they got in their vise. He's 27 years old, so he's not a baby, you know. He's been, this is his, last season was his fourth big league season, but really it was the most played appearances he's ever had in this season. It was the first top to 100 games played. So it was kind of his first really big season.

But he put up very similar numbers the year before that with the White Sox. He played in 97 games that year. He only hit nine home runs, but he had a similar walk rate, a similar strikeout rate, almost the exact same batting average, a slightly better on base percentage. So it was kind of a lot of the same. And so I think that's what the Mariners wanted. They wanted to bring in a catcher who would put up similar numbers to what he did last year, who can handle the pitching staff and can put up a positive war. And they got that.

Now, I don't think that they expected him to be challenged by the other backup, or the other catcher, Tom Murphy, the way that he was. And so it's kind of hard to talk about Narvaez and his contributions without also talking about Murphy, who was signed right before the season started. He was a minor league free agent. He'd spent parts of four seasons with the Rockies in the major leagues, but he'd never played more than 37 games. So he was a guy who, he kind of looked like your typical quad A guy. He'd played well in the minor leagues, but he had huge strikeout issues in the major leagues. His power, which showed up a lot in AAA, wasn't translating to the big leagues.

And so the Rockies finally moved on. They decided, hey, we're going to go with somebody who's more established. And they let Murphy go, and the Mariners snapped him up and said, hey, we'd love to have you give it a shot as our backup catcher. He was a guy who had some pedigree. So a guy that they thought, hey, maybe we can maximize his skill set. And they did that more than I have to imagine more than they could have thought. Jerry DePoto seems like an optimistic guy, and I don't think that he could have projected the numbers that they got out of Murphy. Murphy played in 76 games for the Mariners.

Like I said, he caught 67 of them. So when he was in the game, he was mostly a catcher. He had 18 home runs in 76 games, which is just absurd. He scored 32 runs. He had 40 IBIs. He even stole a pair of bases. His 6.8 walk rate was not bad. His 31% strikeout rate is pretty bad and did hurt him a little bit,

but it's hard to argue with the rest of his numbers. I mean, he had 273. He had a 324 on base percentage. A 535 slugging percentage. his WRC plus was 126, so a little bit higher than Narvaez, and he had a 3.2 war. That was second on the team. Only Marco Gonzalez had a better war than Tom Murphy. You could have given me a lot of money before the season, and I would never have guessed that Tom Murphy, on a team that at the time had Edwin Incarnation, they had Jay Bruce, they had Domingo Santana, they had Yusei Kikuchi, who I thought was going to be better than he, ended up being, they had Omar Narvaez, you know, I would have never guessed that Tom Murphy

would have been the second highest war player on the team. And part of this is, this is a great thing for Tom Murphy. It's not a great thing for the rest of the Mariners staff. It's not an incredibly compelling sign that he was the second highest war player on the team. But it's hard to ignore what Murphy did at the plate, and it's really hard to ignore what he did behind the plate. He was an incredible defensive catcher, way better than Narvaeus. And I think that this, that more than anything else probably caught the Mariners' attention. It's not that he wasn't a bad defensive catcher, or that he was a bad defensive catcher previous to this.

That was something that he had been lauded in the minor leagues, something that had showed up even in his brief time with the Rockies, that he was a good behind the plate, but he posted a 12.5 defensive war, according to fan graphs. That's absurd. For reference, Narvaezes was negative 8.6. So that's about a 20-win difference. That is monster.

Monstrous, monstrous difference. So Tom Murphy was effectively one of the best defensive catchers in the league, and Omar Navas was effectively one of the worst. That's why when I mentioned that Murphy played 76 games and he caught 68 of them, whereas Narvaez played 130 games, 132 games, and caught 97 of them. That's because towards the end of the season, Narvaez was Deaching a lot because they still needed to get his bat in the lineup, but Murphy was just way, way better behind the plate. So it was a pretty remarkable season all across the board.

To only have eight games that were caught by somebody other than Narvaez and Murphy is pretty incredible. To have them combined to post the best offensive season in Mariner's history is obviously very incredible. I'm really excited to see what the future holds for these guys, and that's what we're going to talk about here in segment two. We all love a night out, whether it's seeing our favorite band in person or being there in the crowd to cheer on our favorite team. With the Vivid Seats Rewards Loyalty Program, you can attend the concert. or show of your choice and earn credit toward your next live event. Vivid Seats is the top source for tickets for all live events you want to go to. You can sort by price or look for seats in the section and row of your choice, all in the Vivid Seats app. Go to the App Store or Google Play and

download the Vivid Seats app. Fans are automatically enrolled in the Vivid Seats Rewards Loyalty Program. Every purchase is backed by a 100% buyer guarantee, from the biggest concerts and games to the hottest theater shows and more. Vivid Seats has it all. Download the app and join the Vivid Seeds Rewards Program today. Make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let Vivid Seats app help you get to your favorite live event. Enter the promo code postseason at checkout and receive a discount of up to $100. So we talked about Omar Narvaez and Tom Murphy almost exclusively in segment one and what they were able to do last season in one of the best, not one of the best, not one of the best, Mariners catching season in franchise history. Now we're going to talk about the future.

We're going to start with 2020 and what the position could look like then and then maybe going on a little bit forward. I think this rebuild is supposed to be quick and the Mariners are hoping to contend as soon as 2021, maybe next year, depending on how some of the chips fall. But I want to focus on what the catching situation might look like next year and when they're kind of in that contention window. Now, the nice thing about the catching position is they have some stability here. Omar Narvaez is entering his first year of arbitration. It's unclear exactly how much money he will command. It will be a fair amount, but it's not going to be $10 million.

It's probably going to be $2, maybe $3 million. He's not set to hit free agency until 2023. Now, Narvaez is 27, so it's not like he's going to be, you know, growing with the rest of the young guys, you know, Jared Kellenick and Justin Dunn and Evan White and those guys are quite a bit younger than him. So it's very possible that the team that does win a World Series for the Mariners in the 2020s, probably won't have Narvaeas behind the plate. We'll get to who that might be a little bit later.

But Narvae's, there's no, you know, Jerry DePoto loves to trade people. There's not really a compelling reason to trade Narvaez right now. One of the reasons they went out and got him was because they wanted that team control. They wanted a guy that they can have for the next four seasons and know that his salary will come up a little bit, but it's still not going to be outrageous unless he performs really, really well, in which case they will probably just hold on to him. So I don't see, and I could be wrong, and the most compelling reason that Omar Narvaez may not be on the Mariners next year

is if they're really confident that what Tom Murphy did last year was sustainable, and he should just be the starting catcher. Like we talked about, Narvaeus is not a great defensive catcher. Murphy is. If they believe that Murphy could play 100 games behind the plate, have 450 to 500 plate appearances, hit 30 home runs, and post a positive war because of his defense, then they may look to move Narvaez.

I mean, he has value right now. He was almost a two-war player last year. He had 22 home runs. There's a lot in his stat-cast data that suggests that some of what he did was a little bit lucky. His exit velocity and hard-hit rates are both in the eighth percentile among major leakers, which is not good, obviously. If you're one of those people who feels like, wow, it seems like everybody hit 20 home runs last year, you're right, and Omar Narvias is one of those guys.

He's never had the kind of power to indicate that he should be a 20 home-run hitter. So it's possible that the Mariners will see some of that information, think, you know, that might have been his best offensive season. Let's move on. But there's also a part of me that thinks, because we talked about Narvaez's contract situation, here's Murphy's. Murphy hasn't even reached arbitration yet. Next year will be his first arbitration season. He won't be a free agent until 2024. Now, Murphy is 28, so he's actually a year older than Narvaez.

So the Mariners have two catchers who they have under team control for the next four seasons, but both of them are already probably exiting their primes. Murphy never really got to have a prime. This was his first really good season, but it was very good. So the Mariners kind of have a choice right here. They can keep both these guys, have another great season behind the plate next year, even if these guys both regress a little bit, which they probably will. They should still get 30 combined home runs.

They should still get a combined war over four. and they should still get really solid production. So they can hold on to those two guys. They can try to trade one of them and keep the other one. In that case, Murphy has more value in the sense that he was better last year. He has one more year of team control. His contract is going to be less than $600,000 this year. So again, just to reiterate,

second best player on the team by war costs less than $600,000. On one hand, it's great to keep a guy like that. on the other hand, you might actually be able to get something for him on the trade market. I am very intrigued to see what Tom Murphy's trade value looks like. I'm curious if teams are going to buy into this. There's a lot to suggest that his power is very real. His hard hit rate was through the roof. His exit velocity was excellent.

His barrel rate was a career high. He's always had a lot of power, and he just tapped into it last year. But, you know, there's some suggestion that his really high batting average, I mean, he hit two, 73 last year, that's probably going to come down. He strikes me as more of a 230 type hitter with 230 with potentially 25 home runs and great defense. It's phenomenal. I mean, that's all the Mariners ever wanted Mike Zanino to be and he never quite got there. They might have just found that in Tom Murphy, a free agent who was just laying on the street basically. So on one hand, why get rid of that guy? He was 28. And there's a pretty real chance that was the best season he's

ever going to have in the major leagues. I'm not usually very pest. But come on, I mean, it certainly seems plausible that that's as good as it gets for him. And teams are catcher needy. There's a team that is for sure contending in 2020, and they need a catcher, and they're willing to offer a prospect that the Mariners think they can turn into somebody legit. I can see them making a move there and just holding on to Narvaeas and getting themselves a backup catcher and kind of go into the season that way. Or flip-flop, they trade Narvias, they turn Murphy into the full-time starter. So I'm very curious what they're going to do there. the Mariners don't have a lot of depth beyond them.

The only other catcher who's on the 40-man roster is Austin Nola, and I just don't think that he's going to be a catcher, in part because he played well at first base and he played well at other spots, and in part because I think they won his bat in the lineup next year, and if he's a backup catcher who's only playing every couple of days, they're just not getting enough out of him. So I think he's going to have other roles as he did this year,

and so that way they'll need to find some more catching. The Mariners had six players who played catcher in AAA last year. One of them was Nola. One of them was David Friedas who we talked about. One of them was Jose Lobitone. He's no longer on the team. He got signed by the Dodgers. One of them is Jordan Pacheco, who's a 33-year-old who has a negative 4.1 career war in the major leagues.

So I don't think he's an option. Joseph Odom is a 27-year-old non-prospect who hit 244 in AAA. And then there's Benny Kaleigh-Wehaha. Probably didn't pronounce that right. He's 23, but he hit 194 last year. So I don't think that any of those guys are the future catcher next year. Now, for those of you who pay attention to the Mariners Farm System, you probably know who I'm going to talk about next.

But that would be Mariners Catching Prospect Cal Rally, who had a phenomenal year last year, kind of burst onto the scene as one of the Mariners' prospects. He was a third-round pick in 2018. He is 22 years old. He looked pretty solid in his first shot at the minor leagues in 2018. We only played in 38 games. But this year, he was awesome.

He had 29 home runs. He stole four bases. He hit 261 at High A, where he played 82 of his games. He played 39 games at AA. He didn't hit quite as well there. He had 228 there. So he struggled a little bit. 29% strikeout rate.

It's probably likely that he wasn't quite ready for AA. I mean, he's only a 22-year-old guy who had only played not even 140 games in the minor leagues. So it may have been rushed there a little bit. I suspect he'll start next year out at that level, maybe even high A. But this is the guy of the future. This is the Mariners catcher of the future. Defensively, there's still some question marks. You know, any catcher who's that young, who has that little experience,

there's going to be some question marks. But that's the only position he's played in the field. The Mariners are pretty committed to him being a catcher. And if he proves he can hack it defensively, I mean, you know, he had 29 home runs in 140 games last, not even 120 games last year. So this is a dude who's got pop. He's got good patience at the plate. He drew walks at a really high clip throughout the minor league so far.

Strikeout issues will probably be present. But again, you know, this is what Mariners getchers tend to look like. You know, this is what Narvaez has like without the strikeout issues. But Murphy has them. Zanino has them. I mean, they'll take that. If they get a guy with good defense and 30 home run power, they will take that very happily. And I think that it's very clear that rally is probably two years away.

So we're not talking about a guy in 2020. We're probably not talking about a guy in 2021, except maybe in September if he's ready by then. So the Mariners need to fill those two seasons. They could do it with both Narvaeas and Murphy and have another great year behind the blade. They could also do it with one of those two and then some veteran, a guy like Jose Lobitone.

There's tons of these guys that you can sign in March who are 30-something years old, who've been backup catchers for 10 years, who are just looking for their last team, you know. And if you can get value for either Novayas or Murphy on the trade market, get one of those guys, gut it through a year or two, and then get rally a chance to start catching in 2021. That's the ideal situation behind the plate.

And I really think that that's Jerry DiPoto's vision, and I'm really curious what that trade market's going to look like for those two guys because I think that coming off of this incredible season, the Mariners might actually be able to really turn this into some value. All right, last but not least for today. as always, we will celebrate our eight Mariners' birthdays from yesterday and today. So for yesterday, which was Wednesday, October 2nd, there were six former mariners celebrating their birthdays.

First up was former left-handed pitcher Tyler Olson. Olson played a little bit for the Mariners and then was on the Cleveland Indians, where he still is. Olson is the player I talked about earlier in the podcast. He went to Gonzaga. We were classmates in the physical education program at GU. Really good dude. I'm really happy to see him succeed.

He wasn't great when he was with the Mariners, but he went over to Cleveland and actually had a really great season a couple years ago and has been a pretty reliable left-handed reliever for them since then. So happy 30th birthday to Tyler Olson. Next up, celebrating his 35th birthday is Oswaldo Navarro. Following that is 47-year-old Rafael Carmona, and then 49-year-old Eddie Gordato. You guys may remember Eddie Gordato, who was a longtime twins closer.

Every-day Eddie came over the Mariners. and was anything but everyday Eddie, unfortunately, he suffered from a curse that a lot of Mariners relievers do, where they have one good season and tend to not be able to follow it up the following year. After that, 60th birthday for Dave Beard and 73rd birthday for Bob Robertson. And then for today, Thursday, October 3rd, there was just two birthdays to celebrate. First up is 49th birthday for Manny Martinez. Following that is a 63rd birthday for Bob Kearney. All right, so check back in next week.

we're going to do this same format, but we're going to do it with the starting pitchers and the relievers. All right, once again, I am Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at Andy Patton, S-E-A. You can find the Lockdown Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, and go Mariners.