Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 9-23-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 28: Which FA should the Mariners pursue in 2021?

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

The Seattle Mariners went 1-2 against the lowly Baltimore Orioles over the weekend. Host Andy Patton talks about the good and bad that he saw from those three games in segment one, and he answers to key questions in his Mariners Mailbag Monday segment: Which free agents could the M's pursue in 2021 (when they hope to contend again) and can the team help salvage Justus Sheffield's changeup and turn him into a bonafide ace on the bump?Link to Sheffield's visual pitching report: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player-scroll?player_id=656954 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 Lockdown Mariners podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast network. The Mariners completed a three-game sweep of the Pirates late last week before going one and two against the Orioles over the weekend. I'll talk highlights over the last four games in segment one, and then in segment two I'm going to answer a pair of fan questions in our Mariners' Mailbag Monday segment. Finally, we have 13 Mariners' birthdays to celebrate from over the week.

weekend, including one of their promising young prospects. Stay tuned to find out who. First, let's talk about Bombas. Bombas are the most comfortable socks in the history of feet. With every pair purchased, a pair is donated. Go to Bombas.com slash locked now and get 20% off your first purchase. All right, the first thing I want to talk about before we recap some of the games from over the weekend is the injury news that came out about Austin Adams.

is going to have surgery on his ACL. The reported missed time is six to eight months. That would put his return sometime in the early part of next year. Possibly, it's possibly you won't have to miss any time if he can recover on the earlier end of that spectrum. I'm not sure how realistic that is. More than likely, he's probably not going to be returning to a big league mound until probably sometime in May would be my guess. This is a bummer. Awesome Adams is having a really good year. He's thrown 32 innings so far in the big leagues this year. 14.91 Ks per 9. That is one of the highest in Mariners history for a reliever, not named Edwin-Diaz in particular.

3.94 ERA isn't great necessarily, but he has a 2.94 Sierra and a 3.13 FIP, meaning he's kind of gotten a little bit unlucky. He does have some walk issues, 4.5 walks per nine. I would definitely be more inclined to talk about Adams as a future piece of this bullpen when they're back in contention in 2020, 2021. but he's 28. Relievers are pretty volatile. There's a chance that this is the best we're ever going to see from him. I hope I'm wrong. I hope he comes back next year and becomes a really big fixture in the Mariners' late-inning bullpen plans

because he's got some really good stuff, but he's got to work on the walks. He's got to get back healthy. And I hope we see it. I really do. But I'm bummed about this. I'm bummed about an injury more than you would expect for a middling reliever to get injured in September when the team is way out of contention. Anyway, wanted to get that out of the way. Hope the best for Austin Adams.

Now, for these next four games, because we don't have an unlimited amount of time, you're all on your way to work right now, most likely. And so we're just going to kind of go through the good and the bad from each of the last four games. I'll give a little bit of details on things that I like, things that I maybe didn't like so much, and then we'll move on. So the first one was the game on Friday last night, or last Friday, excuse me. The Mariners won six to five in that one. The good was the bullpen.

The bullpen threw five innings in that game. They only gave up one earned run. They only gave up three hits. They had a 9-2-strike-out-to-walk ratio. You're going to notice a theme. We'll get through it a little bit. The bullpen was good pretty much this entire weekend. That's fantastic.

It's been really good to see this bullpen pitch well, maybe because they're fresh because there's so many arms. Who knows? But that was a great point for them on Friday. Eric Swanson got his first career save. He had a great outing there. He looks like he might be a guy that the Mariners are considering his future closer. And I really like that.

I think that too often, and this isn't just the Mariners. too often teams stick with prospects as starting pitchers who they're convinced we can make this guy a starter when they should just convert him sooner. The value of a really, really good reliever, especially in this era where we have starters not going as long, we have these shutdown bullpen guys who throw, you know, six, seven from the sixth and seventh on sometimes. We have more openers. Like, I think these guys are more valuable than they have ever been before. And so if you have a guy who you think can succeed in that role and he's maybe not cutting as a starter,

do it now. And I'm not sure the Mariners are going to do that. There's a chance Swanson will compete for a rotation spot next year, but I love him in the bullpen. I love him getting saves. I hope that continues. Other good from that game, Shedlong, three for five with two RBIs. We'll get a little bit more in him later when we're going to talk about the bad.

The bad in this game was, you say, Kikuchi, another rough start for him. Four innings pitched, four earned. Eight hits, only one walk, but only one strikeout. Just not getting it done. He's way too hitable right now. I feel like I'm saying the same three or four things about Yusayakouchi every time I talk about him. And at this point, I think we kind of just got to hope the season ends and he gets through it and that you kind of flush it and try to get to next year.

He's got a 5.55 ERA at this point. That's just not what the Mariners were hoping for, obviously. And hopefully he can make some adjustments over the offseason and maybe get into a spot where he can be a useful bullpen or a useful starting rotation piece down the line. Shedlong, who was a good for this game, was also a bad. he not only got caught stealing, which is never good, he also got picked off first base. So base running issues are going to be something that Long is going to need to work on because he does have speed. And if the Mariners are grooming him to be a leadoff hitter, which he has a three point.

There is a 354, actually, that's updated now. He has a 364 on base percentage on the year, and that is great if you want him to be a leadoff hitter, but not great if he cannot do good things on the bases. So hopefully those are things that will get straightened up for him soon. Game two was Saturday's game. That was a game that the Mariners lost the first game against the Baltimore Orioles. They lost five to three in that one. The good was, again, the bullpen.

They threw three innings pitched in that one. They did not give up a single hit. They had a four to two strikeout to walk ratio. They looked great. The other good in that one was Kyle Lewis. Kyle Lewis hit his sixth home run of the season. He's obviously been talked about numerous times on this podcast. He's having a great first month in his career.

He's still got some strikeout issues, but he's absolutely crushing the ball when he made. makes contact. This was another one of those opportunities for him. So it was really good to see him get another home run. The bad in that one was Felix. Unfortunately, I hate talking ill of Felix Hernandez, but he threw five innings in this one. He gave up five earned runs to the Orioles. They're really bad. They're bad, you guys. That's not good. Five earned to them, eight hits, two walks, three strikeouts. Two of them were home runs. We get another shot at the King at home on Thursday. really, really nothing I want than to see him succeed in that game because that might be it.

Who knows? Maybe he'll be back. I'm not holding my breath that he'll be back. And if he's going to go out, I really hope he goes out on a positive note on Thursday. The other bad in this game was the whole rest of the offense besides Kyle Lewis. They went two for 30 with one walk. That's just not going to get it done. Plain and simple. Not going to get it done. It was against pretty much nobody pitching for the Orioles. Offense was just stagnant in this one. They did bounce back, though. They got themselves a win on Saturday. day, yes. Seven to six. In that one, it went into 13 innings. Malick Smith, campered home, scampered home with the game winner. So that was a lot of fun. The goods in that one were shed long, again. Three for four. He had three runs scored, a double in a home run. He was a triple away

from the cycle, which he got a triple the following game, so that was kind of fun. J.P. Crawford, great game, three for four, excuse me, three for five, two runs scored, four RBIs. He also hit a home run in that one, so he's kind of been a little slow coming back from the injured list a few weeks ago, but he's looked really good lately, and that's been good. And then, again, keeping with the theme, the bullpen was really good in this one. Sam Tui-Valula had a bad outing, and we'll talk about him in the bad, but the rest of the bullpen threw seven innings pitched, because remember this game went into extra innings, they gave up two hits, they did not walk anybody, and they struck out three. Bullpen's just been real good lately. Again, you can't stress enough how cool that

is to see for a bullpen that really struggled for a good chunk of the year to kind of be hitting their stride at this point is good news. The bad, Tuevalula, like I said, one and two-thirds. He gave up two earned runs. He gave up a home run in the eighth inning that ended up tying this thing, and is the reason that it went into 13. So not great from him. He's one of the guys that I think has some of the most potential out of that bullpen,

which is why it was a bummer to see him not succeed. Speaking of potential pitching pieces, just as Sheffield is the other bad. He threw four in a third. He gave up four earned runs on five hits and one walk. He struck out five, which is okay. But, yeah, it's been a little bit up and down for Sheffield. He's had some outings that are really nice. But for the most part, they've been pretty up and down.

I mean, 5.81 ERA on the season's not what you want. I do think that we haven't seen him pitch as bad as that number indicates for the most part. But at the end of the day, you know, ERA approaching six is not going to get it done. So hopefully he can make some adjustments his next time out if he does get another opportunity and kind of close the season on a high note. Final game happened on Sunday. That was between the Orioles and the Mariners. Again, obviously, 2-1 was the score for Baltimore.

This one was a bummer because, as you may have noticed, in the first three games I talked about, one of the bad all three times was the starting pitcher. And in this one, it wasn't. Marco had a great outing. Seven innings pitched three hits, two earned runs, two walks, four strikeouts. He did give up a home run to Chris Davis, which ended up being the deciding factor. He did not give that up until the seventh inning, so he was looking really good. But the Mariners' offense just could not get anything going.

Marco's now 16 and 12 on the season, which is pretty good. a 4.09 ERA, so I think that that record kind of reflects that pretty well, but this one was not a game he deserved to lose. And that's just a bummer. You know, maybe Felix can maybe talk him down a little bit about that one because he experienced that all too often in his life. I gave the bullpen another good on this one because they only had one guy throw, and it was Art Warren, but he had a good inning. And I wanted to give the bullpen a good for all four games, so they get one. Shedlong also got named as good in this one as well. He went two for three.

excuse me two for four he scored a run he had a triple and a double so he continues to add to his extra base hits the bads were the entire rest of the offense besides shed long he was really the only one who got anything done in this one tim lopes had a couple of hits which i guess is nice but really didn't see a whole lot else from anybody else and then the other bad in specifically is kyle seger not only he went one for four but he also had two airs at third base which is just not going to get it done. Obviously, he's a gold glove winning third baseman in the past, so I would like to think that this is more of an aberration than anything, but still a bit of a bummer. So there you go. Good things and bad things from all four games. The Mariners went two and two

and two out of those four, and hopefully they can close out the season on a good note. All right, we're going to get started with our Mariners Mailbag Monday segment. I've got two questions that I'm going to answer today. The first question is, what free agent pieces should the Mariners be targeting in 2021? Well, there's a lot that could change between now in 2021, obviously. I assume this question is being asked with the assumption that that is the range of time where the mariners are going to start reinvesting some of their money, trying to get a winning team together. You know, by that point, we're assuming that Jared Kellanick and Julio Rodriguez and Evan White and Logan Gilbert and some of their stud prospects and some of the younger guys who are already on the team

are going to be up and ready to go. Obviously, you have to make a ton of assumptions here. You have to assume that all those guys have panned out or are in the process of panning out and that the Mariners are willing to spend money at that time. It's tough because things could change with some of the current guys who are on the team. Obviously, if Kellanick and Rodriguez, if one of them doesn't pan out, they may have a bigger need for an outfielder than they might otherwise. So I'm kind of making some assumption based on who we think's going to turn out,

who we don't think is going to turn out, and kind of what the team needs might be around that time. So I think one of the biggest ones clearly is in the starting rotation. The Mariners have some guys who I think could develop into quality rotation pieces, but even if Sheffield and Justin Dunn and Marco and Kikuchi all pan out, let's say all four of those guys are high-quality rotation pieces, there's still a need for more. Obviously, Logan Gilbert could be up by then,

and maybe they fill out a five-liferation. like that. But I have my doubts about some of those guys. I have a tremendous amount of doubt that all four of them are going to be high enough quality rotation pieces to be on a playoff caliber team. So they're probably going to go out and get somebody. The best way, in my opinion, to build a team is to stockpile a bunch of hitting prospects and then go out and sign already high quality big league pitchers. Look at the Astros. The Astros home grew, George Springer, Alex Breggman, Carlos Correa, Yorda, Yorda, Elvarez, et cetera, et cetera. And they went to and acquired Justin Berlander and Garrett Cole and Wade Miley and Zach Granky.

Clearly it's a process that's working for them. If the Mariners are going to adopt that strategy, some free agents they could look at at this time include two familiar faces in James Paxton and Taiwan Walker. Both of them will be free agents at that time. Obviously Walker, it would depend on his health. But Paxton would be 32. Would be a pretty decent guy to try to bring back when the team's ready to win. Maybe that's something that could work out for him.

At this point, the Mariners only have 36. $6.5 million on the books in 2021. Pretty much all of that is committed to Kyle Seeger and you say Kikuchi. They do have a $1 million buyout that they would have to pay D. Gordon. That's assuming they don't pick up his $14 million option, which I'm guessing they will not. They obviously are going to have some guys who are in arbitration who they're going to need to sign at that time. Potentially Domingo Santana, Mitch Hanager, Omar Narvayez, Marco, et cetera. Again, I don't know how all that's going to shake out, but it's a safe assumption that they will have enough money to sign a high-quality pitcher if they needed to.

those are two options. Steven Strasberg and U. Darvish are probably the two strongest pitchers who are going to be on the market at that time, assuming they don't sign extensions between now and then. It would be fantastic to go after one of those guys. I would love to have U. Darvish in Seattle. You know, there's a huge Japanese market that he would thrive in. He would help mentor Yusay Kakuchi, potentially. I think that would be really, really fun.

Darvish has had some up and downs in his career, but if he's a good, kind of the trajectory he's on right now, he will still be valuable at that time and would be a really fun guy to sign. Steven Strassberg obviously has been one of the best, most consistent pitchers in all of baseball. I have a hard time seeing the nationals letting him go, but if you were to hit the free agent market and the Mariners were willing to pay top dollar, he's your best arm that's available. Masahiro Tanaka is available as well. A lot of the same things about Darvish, although I'm not sure Tanaka is quite as reliable as he is,

but if he was available and had come off a solid season, he'd be a fun sign as well. And then the last one I put on there was Julio Teheron. He's had some struggles, but he's, I think, a guy who would pitch really well in a big park. He's not a huge strikeout guy, but he's more of a flyball pitcher, and I think that he could be a really good piece to go get. He'd be 32 at that point, so be more of a three-four type guy. So he'd be more of a guy that I think they would target if they felt really confident in guys like Sheffield and Dun and Gilbert to kind of be potentially rotation stalwarts, and they just needed a veteran guy to kind of plug in towards the other. back. I focused a little bit more on pitching. There are a couple of hitters they could go after.

Third base was really barren. I'm going to do a podcast eventually about what the heck the Mariners are going to do at third base when Kyle Seeger's gone, when we think Kyle Seeger's going to be gone, et cetera, et cetera. But if they are looking for a free agent in this class, they're going to struggle to find anybody. I did find first baseman that I liked, most notably Anthony Rizzo. He would be awesome to have in Seattle as well. He would push Dan Vogelbach over to DH, which I think is kind of the plan as it is. He's a good fielding first baseman. You know, he'd be 32 at this time, but I think is a guy that could be really, really fun to have hitting at Safeco field. Excuse me, at T-Mobile Park. Outfielders, I picked a couple. There's a lot that you could pick from. It kind of depends,

again, a lot on how comfortable the Mariners are with Jared Kellanick at that time, mostly defensively. I do think that Jared Kellanick will be ready to hit in the major leagues in 2021, but I don't know if he's going to be an elite center field right away or not. I did put Jackie Bradley Jr. on this list for that exact reason. If they wanted to bump Kellynick to left or right, Jackie Bradley Jr. is an elite defensive center fielder. I think he will still be an elite defensive center fielder at that time. He's not a great hitter, but he is certainly the kind of player you can have on your team

which you're contending for a World Series because he has been a center fielder on a team that won a World Series. So clearly it can happen. Jack Peterson's another guy I put on there. I really like Jack Peterson. I think he's got a lot of talent. He can field. I don't know that he's certainly not on the level of Bradley Jr.

As a defensive center fielder, but he is solid. He could also move over to a corner if they needed him to. He certainly got enough pop to do that. So those are a couple guys I would consider targeting as position players. We talked about a few of the starters. It's hard to make too many predictions here because so many things will change between now and then. Guys will opt out of contracts. Guys will get extensions.

The Mariners will maybe have some hidden gems at positions that they didn't think that they would. Maybe they'll lose somebody. Who knows? But if I was having to make some guesses, those are a few names that I would keep in mind going forward. The second question I'm going to answer today is, can the Mariners get Justice Sheffield to use his change up effectively to be successful? Now, do I know enough about the Mariners coaching stuff to know if they're able to maximize this pitch? Not necessarily.

But I can take a look at some of the things that this pitch has and has not done effectively, and maybe we can make some guesses. Shafel throws his change up about 14% of the time. He's thrown it 83 times this season in the major leagues. There's a lot to like about it, really. He actually, you can tell looking at a chart of where all his pitches is, and I'll link this in the notes on this podcast, but he's really trying to bury it away from right-handed hitters,

low and away. And he doesn't miss all that often, but when he does miss, he misses low. And that's good. You don't want to miss high with a change-up. He's got a few sprinkled up there. that aren't good, but for the most part, he's bearing that thing low and he's bearing it away from right-handers, which is pretty good. The problem is he's just not getting chases. Batters are only swinging at this pitch when it's out of the strike zone 29.8% of the time.

That's just not high enough. He is just, as a result, and he only throws it in the zone about 32% of the time, which is okay if you're getting a lot of chases, but he's not. So effectively, most of the time that he throws his change up this year, it's just landed in harmlessly out of the strike zone for a ball, which is not really doing him any good. he does have a 14.5 swinging strike rate on it, which is good. It means when guys do swing, they miss a lot. So that's a positive sign. So for me, I see a guy who's got a third pitch that he generally has an idea where he wants to locate,

that he doesn't miss high, and that he can get swinging strikes on. So I do feel pretty confident that this is a pitch that he can turn around. They're going to need to make some adjustments. If I knew exactly what kind of adjustments to make, I would probably have a job working for the team, so I can't give you a ton there. But I do think that this is a pitch that has a lot of potential. And I am excited because his slider is already really good

and his fastball is already good enough. And I think that if he can get this pitch just refined a little bit, we're looking at a guy who could be a big league two or three starter somewhere in there. I think that this is kind of the hinge for him right now, is if this pitch never develops to what he needs it to be, he maybe becomes a bullpen guy or a fifth starter at best. But if he can get this pitch to be effective and neutralize right-handed hitters, which is who he's going to face a lot, obviously,

then we're looking at a guy who I think could be really good. So a lot hinges on that pitch. I do think there's enough reason to be optimistic that he will figure it out and get that pitch where it needs to be. 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

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59th birthday. Those are your two from September 20th. September 21st, there were four. First up, Scott Spizio, he was celebrating his 47th birthday, Frank McCormick celebrating his 65th birthday, Gary Gray. It's hard to read his name without mixing them up. He was celebrating his 67th birthday, and then we had Jim Todd, who was celebrating his 72nd birthday. There were five birthdays on Sunday, is September 22nd. First up is current Mariners prospect Justin Dunn, who was celebrating his 24th birthday. Hopefully he will be a much bigger part of the Mariners by the time he turns 25 for them next year. Next up, celebrating his 40th birthday was Charlton Jimerson, followed by Vince Coleman, longtime Cardinals grade, who spent a little bit of time with the Mariners. He turned 58.

Then Wally Backman, who was also a star in the 80s, played for the Mets for a while. He turned 60. and then we had Jeffrey Leonard. He turned 64. Last up is today, Monday, September 23rd, two Mariners' birthdays to celebrate. First up is former third baseman Jeff Sorillo. Jeff Cirillo celebrated his 50th birthday. Then we had Tony Fossis, and Fossus celebrated his 62nd birthday. And I'd be remiss for those of you who know me who are listening to also mention that it is my birthday. On September 23rd, I am turning 29.

I remember as a kid, I intentionally collected Jeff. Cirillo cards when he came to the Mariners because I was excited that we shared a birthday. And then I was disappointed because his career as a Mariners player did not really go as planned. All right, no Mariners game to talk about tonight. So for tomorrow's podcast, I'm going to be taking a deep dive into some minor leaguers while also discussing Eric Swanson's potential value as a closer. Once again, I am Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at at Andy Patton, S-E-A.

You can find the Lockdown Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening and go Mariners.