Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 9-5-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 18: Remembering when Mariano Rivera almost got traded to the Mariners

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

The Seattle Mariners were off yesterday, so host Andy Patton instead recaps the Arkansas Travelers - Seattle's AA minor league affiliate - and their playoff match against the Tulsa Drillers. He gives reports on high-profile Mariners prospects who played in the game, including Kyle Lewis, Jared Kelenic, Evan White and Cal Raleigh.Then, Patton dives into Throwback Thursday with a look at the spring of 1996, when the Mariners nearly struck a trade to send infielder Felix Fermin to the New York Yankees for Mariano Rivera. Patton discusses how that could have altered both franchises, and how lucky Rivera would have been to never have to face Edgar Martinez. 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. The Mariners had an off day yesterday, so the Arkansas Travelers, the team's AA affiliate, played on TV tonight in their place. They won the first game in a five-game playoff series against the Tulsa Drillers. I'll recap that game and then talk about the future for many of the studs that are on

that team in segment one. And then coming up in segment two, I'll host my throwback Thursday. segment, where I will discuss the time that Mariana Rivera, yes, that Mariana Rivera, was almost, almost a member of the Seattle Mariners. Instead of constantly struggling against Edgar Martinez, he could have been playing with Edgar Martinez. We'll talk about that. And then finally, we have just one former Mariners birthday to celebrate today. Stay tuned to find out who. Bombas are what feet daydream about. With every pair of socks purchased, one pair is donated. I know all you Seattleites could use some new socks with the cold weather coming soon.

Buy your bambas at B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash locked and get 20% off your first purchase. So normally when the Mariners have an off day, I usually use that first segment to talk about the upcoming team that they're playing and maybe give like a preview of them and maybe what to expect from the Mariners. But the Mariners are about to start a series against the Astros, and it's already been a kind of depressing week for the Mariners, and I really didn't think that spending the next seven minutes talking about how good the Astros are and how this might be a challenging series. I didn't really want to bum everybody out.

So I figured we can talk about the Arkansas Travelers, and instead of being negative, we can be really optimistic because this team is really good, and there's real possibility that the vast majority of this team's lineup could be starting for the Mariners in two or three years, and that's fun. That's exciting. It doesn't always work out perfectly, and there's definitely some guys on this team

that I would be surprised to see them starting for the Mariners in their future, but when you have a lineup that has Jared Kellenick and Evan White and Cal Raleigh and Kyle Lewis, I mean, this team is fun and it was a treat to get to watch them on TV. For those of you who are not local, Root Sports shows almost every single Mariners game, and since it was an off day in that slot where they would normally have the Mariners game on, they instead had the Arkansas game. Arkansas was playing the first game of a five-game series. It's the semifinals of the Texas League Championship.

So if they're able to win two of the next games, they will advance into the finals. So it was a fun opportunity to get to see some minor league guys. It was still called by the same crew. So it kind of felt really had like a major league vibe to it, which is fun. I know the minor leagues have been really stringent this year on letting their content be shared. So unless you have MLB-TV, it can be really hard to watch video of prospects. So you'll hear me and you'll hear every other pundant just raving about Jared Kellenick and you want to go watch him. and you don't always get opportunities to do so.

So yesterday you did, and I'll be honest with you, it wasn't the most exciting baseball game in the world. I definitely would have wished to see some more from some of these guys. It was good pitching on both sides. Ricardo Sanchez threw for the Mariners. He's not a really high-profile prospect, but he had a good game. He's having a decent season. He's kind of been fun to watch, but yes, every Mariners fan wanted to see Logan Gilbert.

Logan Gilbert was the first overall pick, first round pick, excuse me, for the Mariners last year he got shut down. He'd already crossed the innings limit that they had given him and he'd had some fatigue issues with the bullpen. So he just decided to not not risk throwing him in the playoffs, which I totally understand. That's absolutely the right decision. They won the game anyway, but imagine throwing Gilbert out there to try to win a playoff game in the minor leagues and having him hurt his arm and have to go through Tommy John's shirt. I mean, it's just not worth it at all. So they made the right decision there. It is a bummer because Logan Gilbert is having a monstrous season. Well, you had a monstrous season. He made 26 starts in the minor leagues for the

Mariners across three different levels. He had a 10 and 5 record with a 2.13 ERA. His strikeout to walk numbers were just ludicrous. He had 165 strikeouts compared to just 33 walks. It's absolutely ridiculous to watch him pitch for those of you who have gotten to see him. I'm typically pretty negative about pitching prospects. I think almost the vast majority of them, even the ones who are really good, I worry will end up as bullpen pieces. I've said that about Justice Sheffield in the past, and I still think that that's potentially true. Gilbert is a guy that I've watched a few times,

and I really think he's going to stick in the rotation. He's just all of his stuff is good. He's durable. He's a big guy. That always helps. He's 6'6, 225 pounds. I'm really excited about him, I think. When that Mariners team is ready to be in the playoffs,

Logan Gilbert will be that team's ace. I am very confident about that. More confident about him than I. I am about almost any other starting pitching prospect. Anyway, let's get back to the actual game that happened, which Gilbert did not pitch. The Travelers won two to one. Their runs were scored late in the game. Jared Kelnick grounded out with the bases loaded, which scored a run.

And then Dominic Thompson Williams, who was acquired in the James Paxton trade, reached on an air, and that scored the other run. So not, like I said, not exceptionally exciting. Kellanick did steal a base, which is fun to see. He's been doing a whole heck of a lot of that in the minor leagues. That was his 21st stolen base of the year. He's also got 23 home runs on pace for potential. He was on pace for a 30-30 season.

He's not quite going to get there this year, but has the kind of skill set that he could get there in the near future. He's clearly the Mariners' most exciting prospect. I know I've heard a lot of Mariners fans who are a little bit jaded on exciting prospects, and I understand that. A lot of people who said, well, we were excited about Dustin Ackley. we were excited about Jeff Clement, we were excited about Mike Zanino. Kellnick's a different breed, and I'll eat my words if I'm wrong, and if he turns out to be similar to those guys, which I suppose it's possible.

But I don't think the Mariners have had as exciting of an outfield prospect. I mean, in a long time, maybe since Griffey. I'm not saying that Jared Kellanick is going to be Ken Griffey Jr. That would be insane. I don't think that Griffey is able to be duplicated in any way. so there's not really anybody that I think is fair to compare to him. But Kellanick has every tool. He's a good fielder.

He's a great hitter. He's got power. He's got speed. He really is a complete package player, and I could see him being a very, very good major leaguer, potential all-star type guy for a long time, and I'm really excited for when the Mariners get to call him up, but he's only 20.

He just turned 20. He's got a waste to go. The rest of the game, again, not super exciting. Kyle Lewis had a pair of hip. It's Kyle Lewis, it was first round pick a couple years ago by the Mariners. He's had some injury issues, a lot of injury issues. He's having a decent year this year in AA, which is nice at kind of reminding fans that he still exists and that he's still a decent prospect. He's got 11 home runs.

He's got three steals in AA. But he's striking out a lot, like a lot, a lot, 29.4% of the time, which is way too high. That, to me, is deeply concerning. If he can't get that down, he probably won't stick in the major leagues. But I also have believed that he could probably work on that. He can fix that. He's a smart, talented baseball player. I do think he's only 24.

It feels like he's been around forever. But, yeah, I certainly doesn't have the potential that Kellanick does. Certainly isn't going to be the guy that I think a lot of people envisioned when he got taken 11th overall. But there's still some potential for him to be a very good Major League outfielder. Anyway, the drillers and the travelers will continue to play for the next couple of games. if they win, they'll go into the championship. This means their season could go as long as September 15th.

That's the last day that they could theoretically play. Once their season is over, expect to see a few of these guys up in the big leagues. Lewis is among the guys who I think could get a chance in the major leagues. Donnie Walton is the leadoff hitter. I talked about him extensively on the podcast yesterday. He's a shortstop prospect, kind of your typical utility infielder type guy, but I do think that he's got potential to be up in the big leagues as soon as this year, especially as long as Dylan Moore keeps starting at shortstop.

I wouldn't count on seeing Evan White or Cal Rally just yet. I don't think they're ready. I don't think there's any reason to rush those guys to the major leagues. Again, service time is part of the reason, but also just, you know, these guys haven't really played at all at AAA, so let them kind of do that. But Lewis is a guy I think you might see. Walton's a guy I think you might see,

and there's maybe some relievers that we might see. And I think that's fun. It's kind of nice to get a glimpse of the future, even if it's maybe still two years away from being the actual future of this franchise. All right, coming up, I'm going to discuss just how close the Mariners were to acquiring closer Mariano Rivera in the spring of 1995 just before he became a superstar in our throwback Thursday segment. 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, growth.

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giving our listeners $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days. To start your free deliveries, download the app and use code locked on. That's code locked on for $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days when you download the Postmates app. Anything you need, anytime you need it, postmate it. Download Postmates and save with code locked on today. All right, welcome back and welcome to my throwback Thursday segment. Today we're going to talk about Mariano Rivera. So you may have already heard this story if you have not. I'm really glad I get to tell you this for the first time.

The Mariners were so, so, so close to acquiring Mariano Rivera in 1996. The trade that almost happened would have potentially derailed Derek Jeter's career as well. It was a very kind of weird, one of those great what-if stories, I guess, great in the sense that it was a relief for the Yankees that it didn't happen and kind of devastating for the Mariners. I suppose that it did not happen, although I have my suspicions that had this trade happened. I don't think Mariana Rivera would be known as the player that he is now. But anyway, so what happened is in the spring of 1996, the Yankees were planning to have a rookie shortstop named Derek Jeter. The problem, he wasn't having a very good spring. He didn't look like he was ready to be in the big leagues.

He came out of high school in 1993. He was still in his early 20s. He was obviously a guy they were really excited about, but George Steinbrenner and the Yankees brass, they don't really like, still to this day, obviously George Steinbrenner passed away, but the Yankees have always been very hesitant to give young guys kind of the floor right away.

And I think they were just not quite sure if Jeter was ready for it. They had a couple other infielers, Tony Fernandez and Pat Kelly, but they were both hurt, so they were panicking. They were like, we need to win this year, and we need somebody who can play shortstop right now. So the player they were looking for was Felix Furman. Furman played shortstop for the Mariners for a couple years. He was never really all that good. He had some okay seasons, but he was good enough to be a starting big league shortstop,

and that's what the Yankees desperately needed at that time. Apparently when the Mariners were talking to the Yankees about potentially acquiring Furman, they wanted two players back. They either wanted Bob Wickman or Mariana Rivera. Wickman himself had a perfectly fine career as a late-ending relief option. He was a closer for a while. He had over 200 saves. And at the time, he was more established in his career than Rivera. Rivera had a 5.51 ERA in 19 games the previous year. Ten of them were starts, so he'd been kind of a swing man, a failed starter. They'd started him as a reliever. He hadn't figured out his cutter yet. So he was a guy at the time who just looked like your typical, like, average swing man who, you know,

I don't think anybody expected that he would turn into, certainly not what he did, but really anything at all. And so for the Mariners, it was kind of a, well, should we give up on Furman and try to get this guy and see if we can turn him into anything. And they were ready to do it. They said, yes, this deal is done for us. And apparently Joe Torrey and a bunch of other people on the Yankees brass, like, demanded that George St. better not make this trade. They were lining up outside his door. They were just letting him know, hey, and their reasoning wasn't, you know, they weren't out there saying Rivera's going to be a Hall of Fame closer. Like that wasn't what this was. They were just saying, hey, you've got to give

Derek a chance. Jeter deserves to be the starting shortstop. This Furman guy should not be the guy who gets in front of him, who gets in his way, like you need to let Jeter be the guy. And they decided, yes, obviously. And they didn't pull the trade. And it worked. worked out fantastically for them because the Mariners released Furman shortly after that. He actually ended up getting signed by the Yankees, like literally the, yeah, they released him on May 22nd, so he didn't even make it barely into the season at all. They signed him. They thought, okay, now we have our depth in case Jeter struggles.

Jeter did not struggle. He won the rookie of the year. The Yankees released Furman less than two weeks after that. He barely, I don't think, ever played in the big leagues again. and then obviously Mariana Rivera became, here's the quote here from Brian Cashman, who worked in the Yankees front office at the time but wasn't in the role that he is now,

but his quote was, Mariana Rivera became Mariana Rivera, Derek Jeter won rookie of the year, and we won the World Series. So a lot of great things happened because of that, but that decision was something that was, I think, right on the fence. And that was at that time that we still didn't realize who Mariana was just yet,

despite what he did in the 95 playoffs. So yes, Rivera did have a solid appearance in the 95 playoffs, but like I said, he hadn't developed his cutter. He hadn't been brought into as a ninth inning role. He just wasn't the guy that he ended up becoming. And I'm not sure that he would have become that guy with the Mariners. It's hard to, you know, I'm not trying to trash the Mariners' development in the 90s. They obviously did develop some players very well.

I mean, they executed a trade with the Yankees. It turned out spectacularly when they acquired Jay Booneer, which was, I think, six or seven years before that. So they did have some development skills. they did have some guys who I think they were able to turn into success stories, but would they have somehow found Mariana Rivera at Cutter and turned him into the greatest closer of all time? I have a hard time believing that that would have happened. I don't know what would have happened.

I can't sit here and say conclusively that yes, that would have happened or no, that would not have happened. I have no idea. Maybe the Mariners would have tried him longer as a starter, and it would have worn out his arm. Maybe he would have found some success as a starter. I mean, it's entirely possible that just because he had a bad few starts in 1995, that he never would have become a good starter. Maybe Mariana Rivera would have been a very solid big league starter for the Mariners. Maybe he would have turned into an all-star reliever like he did.

Maybe he would have never become anything and been out of the game by 1998. It's impossible to know. This gives me a good excuse to talk about one of my other favorite stats. I think this will be my third time talking about Edgar Martinez in throwback Thursday, and I can promise you that it will not be my last time talking about Edgar Martinez and throwback Thursday. but Edgar Martinez absolutely owned Mariana Rivera, ridiculously owned him. He faced him 23 times in the major leagues. He hit 579 off of him with a 652 on base percentage.

His OPS was 1.705, which is the highest of anybody who faced him. He's one of only five hitters to hit multiple home runs off of him, and he had far less at bats than the most of the rest of those guys. The other ones are Evan Longoria, Miguel Cabrero. Aubrey Huff, which is kind of random, and Rafael Palmyro. So he just, and Rivera alluded to this in his Hall of Fame speech. It's actually, it's fun. Edgar went into the Hall of Fame with three other pitchers.

Mike Mussino, who hit 307 off with five home runs. Roy Halliday, who he hit 444 off with one home run in just 19 plate appearances. And of course, Rivera. So while it was, it took way too long for Edgar Martinez to make the Hall of Fame, but I do find it fitting that he went into the Hall of Fame. with three other pitchers who he absolutely torched for his entire career. And perhaps I don't think that Mariana Rivera would necessarily regrets that he never got traded to the Mariners,

but I can bet that he regrets that he had to face Edgar Martinez ever in his career. All right. Last but not least is our quick today birthday segment. We just have one birthday to celebrate today for a former mariner here on September 5th. That would be Jamie Nelson. Jamie Nelson is turning 60 today. Nelson played for the Mariners briefly during the 1983 season. He was a backup catcher.

He actually wasn't too bad. He played in 40 games for them. He had 219, which obviously isn't great, but he had a 309 on base percentage. He stole four bases, which you'll always like to get out of your backup catcher. But then he never made the big leagues again, and that's kind of odd. I'm always intrigued by guys who, I mean, obviously if you come up and you're really terrible, I kind of get why you never make it again, especially if you don't debut until you're like, you know, 27, 28 or whatever.

But this is a 23-year-old kid who'd hit really well in the minor leagues, got a chance in the big leagues, didn't look all that bad, and then just never made it again. I did a little bit of research, looked at his minor league numbers. I still can't really figure out why he never made it. He played in the minors through the rest of the 90s. Excuse me, 80s, sorry. He was always in AA or AAA. He bounced around a bunch of different teams, so he probably signed a lot of minor league

free agent contracts. He was never great. I mean, it's not like he hit 300 in the minors, but it seems like he should have gotten at least another shot at the big leagues. Hopefully he has moved beyond that in his life and is doing something that he loves, and that he's going to have a happy 60th birthday. All right, so for tomorrow, I'm going to recap the Mariners series opener against the Astros, and then we're going to go deep using some advanced analytics in our regular statcast Friday segment.

Once again, I am Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at at Andy Patton, S-E-A. you can find the Locked-on Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening and go Mariners.