Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 8-20-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 8: The Mariners have a new outfielder, Jake Fraley

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

The Mariners crushed the Rays on Monday night, 9-3, behind two home runs from backup catcher Tom Murphy. Host Andy Patton discusses Murphy's meteoric rise this season, and also talks about new outfielder Jake Fraley, who was recalled on Monday morning from Triple-A Tacoma.Intro: If U Don't Call - SolOutro: One - Ryan Lewis 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, I'm up, Mariner's fans? I am Seattle Sports Media Utilities infielder Andy Patton, and you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. The Mariners' offense exploded against Brennan McKay and the raise on Monday night. We'll talk about that in segment one, and then coming up in segment two, I'll talk about the exciting news of the day, the promotion of Mariners' outfield prospect, Jake Fraley. Finally, we'll continue our daily tradition of celebrating birthdays for former and current Seattle Mariners.

There are six birthdays to celebrate today. Stay tuned to find out who. Before we get into it, fantasy football players, make sure you listen to Vinnie Iyer and the Locked-on Fantasy Football podcast. Vinny gives you the edge with over 20 years covering fantasy football. Don't listen to the same stuff as everybody else. Then you are the same as everybody else. Get the edge from Vinny that will put you ahead on draft day and put you ahead all season long. Locked-on fantasy football is available on your favorite podcast provider.

Man, this stretch of Mariners baseball sure has been fun, hasn't it? Maybe I'm a good luck charm. I started right at the start of the Detroit Tigers series, and the Mariners have been on an absolute tear since then. Clearly, they play the Tigers and the Blue Jays who aren't the best teams, but they took it to the Tampa Bay raise yesterday, who are 73 and 53 on the season. They beat them 9 to 3.

Tom Murphy is cementing himself as maybe. the best backup catcher the Mariners have ever had, but man, he's looking like one of the best single seasons by a Mariners catcher ever. He's got 15 home runs, which puts him in the top eight all time among Mariners catchers. Omar Narvaez has 17 home runs, which I believe ranks seventh. So the two Mariners catchers are in the top 10 for single season home runs in Mariners history. That's pretty amazing. Clearly, their combined numbers are the best of all time. They had a graphic during the game yesterday. I don't know if you all saw it, but the Mariners catchers are combined to basically have every record that the Mariners get,

you know, they're first in OPS, they're first in home runs, their first in RBIs, they're basically, basically without a doubt, the best catching combination the Mariners have ever had. Tom Murphy has a 2.5 war, according to Fangraphs on the season. That's best on the team. That's better than Dan Vogelbach. That's better than D.O.S. Better than Kyle Seeger. Better than D. Gordon.

The best on the team for a backup catcher. It's incredible. It's been an absolutely ridiculous... He had two-home runs yesterday. That's part of the reason we're talking about him. I guess I could have led with that. But it's been an absolutely ridiculous season from Tom Murphy. He'd played 81 career games in the major leagues coming into the season,

and he had a 0.0 war. He's played 53 games this season. He has a 2.5 war. The man is on an absolute tear, and it has been beyond fun to watch. Outside of Murphy yesterday, Aaron Nola, Austin Nola, I swear. I will stop doing that, I promise. Austin Nola went two for four with two runs scored and three RBIs hit a home run as well. He now has seven on the season.

He's been a nice little pickup. He was a catcher for the Miami Marlins in their system. The Mariners signed him as a minor league free agent, decided to turn him into a first baseman, second baseman. He's played a little bit of outfield. He did catch a little bit, but they haven't needed him, obviously, as we talked about the catchers before. But he's hitting 320 now with a 370 on base percentage, seven home runs.

That's really nice. You know, this is one of the fun things about kind of rebuilding teams, as you can go out and find guys like this who, you know, I mean, obviously Miami's a rebuilding team, but they didn't see the value in him, and the Mariners did, and that's been fun. So Malik Smith back in the starting lineup, he went 0 for four with a run. He had a bad play in right field. I don't know.

It's hard to tell from watching the game, and, you know, you don't see everything, certainly, but he just doesn't look particularly interested in playing baseball right now. I don't know if he's just frustrated with his performance lately, if he's frustrated from getting benched, which is understandable. But, yeah, he hasn't looked like himself. He's such a happy, go-lucky guy normally, and it feels like the Mariners are having a lot of fun right now, and he's just kind of not a part of it.

So hopefully he can kind of write the ship a little bit for the next six weeks of the season, especially because of the exciting news we're going to get to in segment two about a new outfielder coming up and how that could potentially impact Malix's playing time down the stretch if he doesn't turn things around. Marco was on the bump yesterday. He's got a career high, 13 wins on the season after getting the win yesterday. He looked okay.

He gave up two home runs, one to Tommy Fam in the first inning on a curveball that just hung right in the middle of his own. Went to Austin Meadows in the fifth inning. Those two guys are good. You know, it's not, no shame giving up home runs to those guys, but it kind of, you know, he finished with three earned runs, five strikeouts, two walks, and five innings. It wasn't great, but it was fine. Eric Swanson looked really good out of the bullpen.

That's about the first time that we've been able to say that this year, so that's exciting. He's ERA's down to 7.01. Taylor Gilbo came in. He threw a scoreless ending in relief as well, and then Cody Gearin finished things off. It's been a really fun stretch for the Mariners. August baseball for a team that's rebuilding that traded away. A lot of assets can be a little draining sometimes, and it's been great to see that that's not the case. August, again, is usually the toughest month because it's the month after everybody gets traded.

and then it's the month before September when all the call-ups happen and you actually get to get a little bit of excitement kind of surrounding the team. But the Mariners, you know, they started the month off rough, but they've been looked in really good lately, and now we're going to get a look at Jake Fraley, which will be really exciting. And in just 10 days, it'll be September. And then all of a sudden we might get to see a few more guys come up and kind of show their, strut their stuff a little bit in the big league. So it's an exciting time to be a Mariners fan.

I don't know that they're going to keep winning two out of three in every series from here run out. You know, the rays are going to be tough going forward. But it's been fun. It's been exciting to see the Mariners kind of kick it into high gear a little bit and give the fans something to cheer for over the last six weeks or so of the season. Coming up, I'll talk about the Mariners promotion of outfielder Jake Fraley and what that means for the team going forward. Guys, let's talk about sex. Good sex. Remember the days when you were always ready to go? Now you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence in bed. Listen up.

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As if the Mariners demolishing the raise wasn't enough, the team is also going to call up exciting outfield prospect Jake Frailey, who they actually got from the race. For those of you who aren't sure how Jake Frealey got here, or who Jake Fraley is, he was the 77th overall pick in 2016 by the raise. He played three seasons with the race. He had okay numbers with them.

He didn't have a lot of power, but he still 33 bases in 2016 when he was with their short season team. Didn't play much in 2017. That's some injury issues. Still 11 bases in 2018. So he looked solid. He hit well, high average guy, but just not a lot of power. The Rays felt confident moving him when they acquired Mike Zanino. That's how the Mariners got him.

And he absolutely exploded as soon as he got to Seattle. The Mariners started him out in AA to start the 2019 season. he played 61 games there. He hit 313 with a 386 on base percentage, a 539 slugging percentage. He had 16 stolen bases, but he also hit 11 home runs. So we had 11 home runs in 61 games when previously he'd only hit 7 home runs in well over 100 games in the minor leagues prior to that. So I don't know if the Mariners made some kind of adjustment to his swing, if he made it himself, but he clearly found his power stroke while in Seattle.

That prompted them to move him up to AAA, and he played 3rd. 38 games of AAA. He had some injury issues, which slowed him down a little bit. I think the Mariners admitted that they would have called him up earlier in the year, but then he he got hurt, and so they had to keep him down for a little bit. But it certainly wasn't because of his performance, because even in AAA, he had 276 with a 333 on base percentage, a 553 slugging percentage. He had eight home runs and six still on bases. Again, that's in just 38 games. So clearly the man is ready to be in the major leagues. Actually, today, the day that he was announced that he was coming up to the major leagues. He also got named the Mariners minor league

player of the year. That is a heck of a day right there for Mr. Fraley. His combined numbers, for those of you who like to look at things that way, 19 home runs, 22 stolen bases, 298, 365, 545 on the slash line. So he's, I mean, 2020, he was a home run away from going 2020 in the minor leagues this year, and that was with some injury issues, slowing him down. So assuming he stays healthy with the Mariners and gets at least one home run, he will have put together a 2020 season across three levels of professional baseball. That's certainly nothing to laugh at. Again, it's a guy who had some prospect pedigree.

I mean, you don't get drafted in the top 100 overall unless, you know, there's people who think you're going to be pretty good. So he kind of slipped under the radar when he came over to the Mariners. I know there wasn't a ton of talk about, oh, the Mariners got this great return for Mike Zanino. I think people were, they had some tempered expectations for Jake Freely. and he has surpassed all of them just so far in his time in the Mariners' minor league system. And now he gets a chance to show what he can do in the big leagues. He's 24 years old, so not super young for prospect standards,

but definitely, like we said, ready to be in the major leagues. So I'm curious what this is going to do to the Mariners outfield situation. He came up because they sent Domingo Santana to the disabled list, sorry, the injured list. I'll get used to that as well. So that would be the immediate place to put him. Obviously, Tim Beckham's suspension cleared up some spots in the outfield. Lately they've been playing Tim Lopes and Dylan Moore have been playing a lot in the outfield. And those guys aren't outfielders.

So I think that the goal is to let those guys be more in their natural role as utility infielders, obviously, and then clear up some spots in the outfield. Keon Broxton lives to see another day. In my Mailbag Monday segment, we talked about Keon Broxton and whether we thought he would be on the big league roster a whole lot longer. I still don't think that he is. His numbers have only gotten worse. In a game where the Mariners scored nine runs yesterday, Broxton went 0 for two with the walk,

and you guessed it, two strikeouts. So I believe he has now struck out more than 50% of his abats with the Mariners. And I don't care that he's a great defensive center fielder, which he is. I don't care that he's got speed, that he's got power. If you strike out more than 50% of the time, he walk up to the plate, you're not going to stick around on the big leagues much longer. And I think Broxton's time in Seattle is nearing an end. and I'm curious whether that means they're going to pop Fraley in center field right away.

Malick Smith has not looked good defensively in center field. He just hasn't. He's been playing a lot of right field, which obviously is in place of Mitch Hanigar. And once Hanager comes back, I think he'll reprise his role in right field. I'm curious if that means they'll move Malick Smith over to left field, and they'll let Fraley take over in center field. As long as Santana is out, they don't really have a left fielder. Tim Beckham had been playing out there.

Tim Lopes is who started there yesterday. I'm curious. I'm curious what this means for them. I don't think Friley is going to necessarily start every single day, but I do think there's not really any reason to bring him up if you're not going to play him either. And, you know, the team seems to be pretty tired of Malik-Smith. Keon-Brockston really doesn't deserve to play. Hanneger's not healthy yet. Braden Bishop is not healthy yet. So I think that Fraley is going to have a shot to really play quite a bit. You know, while he was in the minor leagues this last season, he played 18. games in left field. He played 34 games in center field, and he played 30 games in right field.

So he's got the flexibility to kind of play any of those spots. He is considered a good defensive player. There aren't a lot of stats out there that necessarily tell me whether he is a good defensive player or not. We'll have to kind of see when we get him. But the fact that the Mariners are comfortable playing him in center field more than anywhere else, and that's where he played more when he was with the raise as well. Kind of leads me to believe that that's a spot that they hopefully view him as more of a long-term guy. Of course, we'll see what that means when Jared Kalanick comes up and when Julio Rodriguez comes up, we're still a few years away from those guys being up here. But maybe by then, Fraley will move to a corner spot. Maybe he'll,

maybe those guys will move to a corner spot. Maybe Fraley will not be on the team anymore. Who knows? That's, you know, that's down the road. But for right now, I think that there's really no reason for the Mariners not to give this kid a shot in center field with pretty much every day at bats. Once Bishop and Hanager are back and once the team calls up, Shed Long, who will play infield, but that could bump some other guys around. I think we'll see, I mean, September will be interesting because the Mariners, again, should call up six, seven, maybe eight guys because you can have a full 40 man on your active roster,

and the Mariners are not playing for anything competitive at this point. So why not give as many of your young guys a shot to show what they can do as possible? Fraley will certainly be in that mix, and I am really excited to see what he can do with this team. All right, we're going to talk about all six Mariners' birthdays right after this. When you need red wine at 4 p.m., sushi at 9 p.m., a breakfast burrito at 8 a.m. and ibuprofen at 10 a.m., Postmate it. Postmates is your personal food delivery, grocery delivery, whatever kind of delivery service all year round. Anything you're craving, Postmates can deliver. They're the largest on-demand network in the U.S.

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you need anytime you need it postmate it download postmates and save with code locked on today all right mariners fans it is august 20th and we have six birthdays to celebrate today we're going to go through them a little bit quickly today since we're running out of time first up is aaron taylor aaron taylor is turning 42 today he threw 20 games with the mariners between 2002 and 2004 he had an 8.86 era with more earned runs 21 than strikeouts 19 happy 42nd birthday to Aaron Taylor. Next up is Gene Kingsale. King Sale is turning 43 today.

Kingsale had a little journeyman's seven-year career. He was a center fielder from 1996 to 2003. He played briefly with the Mariners in 2001 and 2002. And by briefly, I mean very briefly, he only appeared in 12 games with the team. He did hit 389 in those 12 games, but that wasn't enough to keep him on the roster. And he ended up appearing with the Padres a little bit in 2002. and then with the very, very futile 2003 Detroit Tigers. So happy 43rd to Gene King's Sale.

After that, we have Jose Paniagua. Jose Paniagua is turning 46 today. You may remember him as a member of the 2001 Seattle Mariners team. He threw 66 innings for that team with a 4.6, excuse me, 4.36 ERA. He had a couple other decent years with the Mariners. I was always just a relievery at a 2.05 ERA with the team in 1998. ended up playing a little bit with the Tigers in 2002, a little bit with the White Sox in 2003, and that was it.

But happy 46th birthday to him. Next up is Mark Holzimer. Mark Holzomer is turning 50 today. Holzmer appeared in parts of six big league seasons, including with the Seattle Mariners in 1997. He had a 6.00 ERA in nine innings pitched. So not the lengthiest big league career, but regardless, happy 50th to him. The last two are a little bit more.

more fun. Happy 52nd birthday to Andy Benez. Andy Benez had a very successful big league career. He was an all-star. He finished top six in Syung voting twice. Wasn't really known for his Mariners career. He played for the Mariners very briefly in the 1995 season, which was a fun year in Seattle. He had a seven and two record, which is very good, but a 5.86 ERA, which is not so good. He was mostly known for his time with the Padres, which is where he was from 1989 to 1995 before he came over to the Mariners. So anyway, it was a happy 52nd birthday to Andy Benaz, one of the best right-handed pitchers in Padres history, certainly.

Last but definitely not least is Mark Langston, happy 59th birthday to Mr. Langston. Langston is one of the best pitchers in Mariners' franchise history. He led the league in strikeouts three times while with the Mariners. He was second and rookie of the year voting in 1984. He was an all-star in 87. and finished fifth in Cy Young voting. He won two gold gloves while with the Mariners' outstanding career in Seattle.

What he is most known for, perhaps, though, as he was traded to the Montreal Expos in exchange for a young wild left-hander named Randy Johnson. So even though Langston went on to make three All-Star games and win five gold gloves while with the California Angels, Mariners fans weren't too upset to see him go because they got the big unit in return. So happy 59th birthday to Mark Langston. Thank you for your service on the Mariners, and thank you for nettingham, Randy Johnson.

because that was one of the best moves in franchise history. The new Locked-on NFL is on fire. Last week, it was one of the most listened to NFL shows. With the expert analysis of former NFL scout Matt Williamson and hosted by Brian Peacock, Locked-on NFL is your daily national podcast on all things NFL, with Matt's unique take on the game. Follow Locked-on NFL now on your favorite podcast provider.

Coming up tomorrow, I'll recap tonight's game and also provide a look around the AOS over the last week as we get closer and closer to playoff baseball. Once again, I'm Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at Andy Patton, S-E-A. You can find the Lockdown Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, and go Mariners.