Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Despite Injuries, Mariners' 2024 Bullpen Has Chance to Be One of the Best in Team History

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Ty and Colby continue their 2024 position preview series with a breakdown of the Mariners' bullpen. NOTE: This episode was recorded before more information was released about Matt Brash's elbow injury.WIN COLBY'S STUFF TERMS & CONDITIONS!Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BackblazeReceive a fully-featured no risk free trial at Backblaze.com/lockedonmlb. Go there, play with it, start protecting yourself from potential bad times! eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelNew customers, join today and you’ll get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right. So before we jump into today's episode, we do say this during the show as well, but I feel it's necessary to reiterate it here at the top. We pre-recorded this episode back on Monday. So well before Ryan DeVis's report came out that Matt Brash may miss significant time with his elbow injury. So some of what you're about to hear may wind up being irrelevant. But we didn't have an opportunity to re-record this because Colby's now out of town. So just wanted to say that. Hope you understand. Nevertheless, please enjoy this. episode. Our 2024 Mariners position preview series continues with a look at Seattle's bullpen. Colby, hit it. You are locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the locked on podcast network, your team every day. Oh, hoys sailors. It is Wednesday, February 28th, 2024. This is tighting is awesome. Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Mariner's podcast brought to you by FanDuel. Make every moment more. New customers join today and you'll get $150 in bonus bets if your first bet of $5 or more wins. Visit FanDul.com slash locked on. That's L-O-C-K-D-O-N to get yourself starting.

Thank you so much for making us to your first. Listen, subscribe, like internal alerts. If you're watching on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform, if you like what you hear. And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. And today, we're going to preview the Mariners Bullpen. And just as we did with the rotation on yesterday's episode, we're going to start with the big three in this group, Andres Munoz, Matt Brash, Gregory Santos. Now,

two of those three guys currently dealing with some injuries, but Colby, what are your expectations for these three guys. I get being a little concerned about Brash because, again, he hasn't started throwing at him and all of that. But until something happens, and maybe by the time you're watching this, something has happened. But until we get news that he's like not going to be ready for opening day,

I just going to assume that he will be. So I'm not all that concerned. We'll see how Santos is throwing program goes tomorrow. Like if he stays on track for the next couple days, and I think you're probably, you know, reasonably out of the woods there. So as far as, you know, what to expect from these three guys, if healthy, you're not going to find much better in terms of just raw stuff. You're not going to find much better back into the bullpen than these three guys.

Houston's is kind of close. It can certainly be right there with Hader and Presley and Ontario. Abreu. Like one of those two probably going to hit. But I feel like when you look at just best bullpins, best back end bullpins in baseball, Seattle has to be top five with these three guys. You know, obviously Baltimore is not going to have Felix Battista. I know they think they fixed it with Craig Kimbril. They didn't.

So, you know, I think Seattle at the very least, if these guys are all healthy, second best bullpen in baseball or in the American League, maybe the best. certainly it's right there with Houston. So these three guys, they're going to miss a lot of bats. They're not going to give up a ton of home runs, which is nice. And I think they'll throw enough strikes. Like you never really know with Brash on an outing to out and basis, but he did improve pretty greatly there last year. And Santos didn't walk anybody last year.

So it's really good stuff. It's all three have like elites, elite stuff, like just top end stuff. They all throw enough strikes. It's just a matter of consistency. Last year for Munoz, it was mostly consistency. Like from one outing to the next, you didn't know what you were going to get from him. Brash dealt with a lot of bad luck last year, but he was pretty solid for most of the season. And then, you know, Santos didn't get to watch a ton of him.

Obviously, he was pitching for the White Sox last year. But he also was pretty consistently good throughout the year. Every reliever is going to have a hiccup here or there. So, you know, it's easy to remember when a reliever implodes or when he has a bad week or something like that. But overall, just consistently, if you're handing the ball to these three guys with a lead after the sixth inning, you have to feel really good about where you're at, if you're the Seattle Mariners and if you're a fan of the Mariners, which you are. So I feel pretty good about these three. It's hard not to, assuming they're all healthy.

So we talked so much this off-season about how this team really needed a third high-leverage guy to go along with Braschen Munoz, and they wound up getting that guy in Santos, or at least we think he can be that guy. He certainly was that guy this past year in his first full season at the big league level. Where do you think this bullpen is right now compared to, say, last year's, when they had Paul Seawald. do you think this bullpen is better or at least has the potential to be better? Where do you think it kind of falls in terms of the like if you had to rank the last few mirrors bullpins just on paper? Where would you place this one? Probably the best at the top end is this year's team, the one, two, three.

Now last year had Sewell, you know, been here the entire year, then that might have been a little bit better. Probably a higher floor on last year's bullpen. was Seawald in it than this year's because there's less injury questions there. Was Seawald than there is Santos. But Paul was not particularly good for Arizona down the stretch. He was pretty good in the playoffs until, you know, unfortunately he made the- World Series.

Yes. But really, he was not great for Arizona down the stretch. So, and he was in his 30s now. He's starting to get up there. Santos, younger. more control years, higher upside. So I feel like ceiling-wise this year is probably the best we've seen over the last three years. Last year, you probably felt safer just because you had some, you had some, you know,

Seawalt's kind of the emergency break in the bullpen, right? Like everything goes to, you know, you can pull on the emergency break and CWald would typically come in and stop the bleeding and kind of get you to reset. that you don't I don't know if you have that guy this year I don't know if you have that veteran who can do that so I would still say this year's bullpen is better than last years even with CWald in it but I think they're pretty comparable just in different ways so I think this team this year's bullpen assuming health again I think it carries significantly more upside than than last year's because Santos might have the second best stuff in this pen right and CWall while he has very good stuff, just not close to what Gregory Santos brings to the table. And it's pretty much the swap they made, right, is Seawald for Santos. This bullpen has the potential to offer a lot of different looks against teams and throw a ton of gas. We're going to get into that a little bit more in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by Fanduel.

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part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team, every day. You guys have two days left to enter our giveaway and win Colby's stuff. Again, we're recording this on Monday, so we don't really know where we're going to be at by the time that this episode airs in terms of the subscriber count. If we have moved past 11,000, Colby is going to post what you guys can win at 11.1K, if you get us there on Twitter.

I believe. And I think I'll also post it. I'll just copy his tweet over and post it in the community notes here on YouTube as well. So if you guys don't use Twitter, you can still see it over on here. But really quick, can you remind folks what they can win? Sure. So we're doing a Mariner mystery box. I guess we're calling it, although we're revealing the mysteries as you guys move past each. every hundred new subscribers we reveal what could be added to the box next. So so far in the box, let's see. We have how many of these can I? There we go. So far we have this Prelonder Borough autograph card, five out of five. Only five of these in the world. Love that one.

And you'll get one. Beautiful card. We have this Las Montes numbered Bowman Chrome refractor card. You have this Harry Ford, Bowman Chrome refractor card. non-numbered. We have Randy Wynn autograph card going in the box. We have this lovely Jared Kelnick numbered autograph card, not on the team anymore, but it's a beautiful card.

So throw that in there. And we have this Mitch Garver autograph card with two jersey patches on it numbered. That's all going into the box. And since you guys, yes, and since we're about 43 or so away from 11,000, we get to 11,000, we're going to add Kyle Seeger to the box in the form of this unopened bobblehead a few years ago, never been opened, still sealed. And then on top of the bobblehead, we'll throw in this autograph, Kyle Seeger card.

So you guys have seen this before. If we're past this mark, make sure you check our socials to see what is being added to the box if we get to 11.1K. But yeah, that's pretty much what we're doing. It's, again, it's a Mariners Prize mystery box going to one of you. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment. down below on any of the videos between last Monday and this Thursday. And we will pick a winner next week because I will be out of town on Friday.

We'll pick a winner next Monday. And one of you will get the box. So just leave a comment on any of the videos. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel and check out the terms and conditions in the description down below. So we talk all the time about how this mayor's organization can seemingly pluck mid-leveraged relievers out of thin air. And they did it again last year with guys like Taylor Saucato and Gabe Spire.

And I feel pretty good about both of those guys being a part of this bullpen, at least as far as opening day is concerned. Obviously, I think Spire is pretty much a lock. I think Taylor Saucato is also a lock. I'm not sure if you agree with that or not. I know you've kind of left that up in the air a little bit when we talked about this bullpen.

But what are your expectations for those two guys? Yeah, Sosato is interesting. Spiders definitely in. There's really no question about that. He is, I think, looked at by the Mariners as their fourth high leverage arm. He was very good last year. And there's still room for growth there. Sosato, he's got some issues primarily against right-handed hitters and walking them.

It's something like a 16, 17-1. percent walk rate against right-handed hitters last year. That's a problem. You can't really be a lugy in today's bullpen mix. So Soss was pretty good last year, but there are some concerns about some kind of regression that could come. But, you know, I think he's definitely got the inside track right now over a lot of other guys, but he does have an option left.

So he is in danger of being sent down for somebody who doesn't have an option left, like, you know, Javera, who we're probably going to talk about. a little bit. So, yeah, Spire is definitely in, again, I think the Mariners, I think, I think the Mariners might feel comfortable enough with Spire to keep Brash, like on the IL to start the area if they need to. Like, they're not going to push him because they feel like they already have a third, or in this case, fourth high leverage arm in Spire.

So feel really confident about that. It gets a ton of strikeouts. Saucato, kind of a classic middle guy, lefty middle guy. if you're going into the six inning and it's four to two and you're going lefty righty lefty six seven eight or whatever Saucato's probably the guy you're going to go to to get out of that but he can fill a couple different roles you know mop up duty he can get you five outs in the middle of the game heck he even got a save last year so pretty awesome don't yeah I don't I don't want to write Saucato in into the bullpen with pen but I would say he's got a pretty significant leg up to be, you know, the fifth member of the Spolpin.

So beyond those two guys, Trent Thornton was brought in later on in the season. Pretty good year. Had some run issues. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome vote, I think, is going to make this team because it seemed like they had a specific role carved out for Anthony Desclophani before they. traded him to the twins as kind of that swing man six starter maybe type that they would just stash away in the bullpen.

I think that guy ends up becoming both who they gave a major league deal to. And of course, like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't have options. So I feel pretty good about him making the roster. And then we get into the crop of the other guys that they've accumulated over the course of this offseason. and I'm not even going to be able to name all of them because they've added so many guys. But, you know, it's the Joey Crables of the world,

the Cody Bolton's of the world, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, Maricio Javara, who you mentioned. So how do you think the rest of this bullpen shakes out? And I know I've omitted a couple of names here that I know you want to talk about specifically Carlos Vargas, but we'll talk about those guys a little bit later. But what do you think about some of those other guys that they've added this offseason?

Yeah, I think, Thornton is, I feel like he's more of a lock than even Sos Sato. I think they really like him. He can spin a breaking ball really well and he's 95, 96 with the fastball. So if you just refine the control a little bit, ease some of the home run. He's kind of a multi-inning middle of the game type that does have value. You know, can pitch the seventh against the bottom of the order type of guy with a, you know, two-run lead and all that. So, you know, I feel like he's pretty, pretty well set to be on this team.

He's also out of options just like both. Both feels like he's going to be on this team for no other reason. And it feels like they want to use that eighth spot in the bullpen on a long relief type, particularly early in the year as they kind of ease these guys in to their workloads. We know they're not going to push these guys past 100 pitches in April very often. So, you know, it's maybe, hey, Austin, we need you to go to today because, Castile can only go through four or, hey, we need you to go get this last out in the sixth in a four-on game because, you know, he's at 90 pitches. We don't want to push him.

So go do that. And then maybe you pitch the seventh. And then, you know, it's, hey, you know, maybe we go six-man rotation for this week just to try and push and give some guys some rest. And then both goes four innings on that day. So I feel like both is, I don't want to say he's a lock to make this team because I think he saw us to prove that he's worthy of a. major league roster spot, but he looked pretty good today. There is some success as a starter in his history as well. And he does have a pretty good breaking ball and a pretty useful fastball to get some value

out of it. So I feel like Thornton and both are both in. And if Saucato is also in, then we're at seven guys, which leaves one spot for six or seven guys at least, I think. So yeah, yeah, I feel like both and Thornton are both in. as kind of the multi-inning middle of the game relief types. So of that group of, you know, Crable, Bolton, Snyder, Javera, Diaz, etc., which of those guys intrigues you the most?

Well, since you didn't say Carlos Vargas, I assume I'm not free to add him into this. We're going to talk about him in a bit, yeah. Okay. So Javera doesn't have any options left. And I think that the competition between those guys and particular, particular is close enough that you probably give the ball. You give that last spot to Javera, because again, he doesn't have options left.

They're all kind of middle guys. And he's 94 to 98 with some run and a decent sink or a decent slider. So I feel like he's kind of the guy that they want to take a shot on in that group. So I would say he has the edge. And then, you know, you start looking at guys who are on the 40 man, Colin Snyder's on the 40 man, Cody Bolton's on the 40 man, whereas guys like Cray. and butchery, they are not on the 40 man.

So yeah, you know, I think the kind of the dark horse here to look at guy on the 40 man, not really dark horse. I think we all know who I'm going to say is Jackson Coar. But, you know, he does have an option left and he does have starting experience. And like we talked about on yesterday's show, this team isn't exactly deep in terms of like major league guys who have starts in the major leagues. And so you can push CoR down to AAA, put them in the rotation, and then when you need them in the bullpen, you can just call him up and shorten his role. But it's about getting him reps in Tacoma.

So I think because of all that, I would say Javera probably has the best shot out of that group to crack this opening day roster. Although, I do really like Crable as well. I think what he did in Baltimore in 2022 was really slept on. And he's the guy who just excels at getting weak contact. and that's kind of what you want from a middle guy. Yeah, I kind of feel like Joey Crable has some Nick Vincent to home. Yep. All right.

So, like I mentioned, we're going to talk about Carlos Fargus coming up because I know Colby really, really likes Carlos Fargus. So I wanted to dedicate a whole segment. You don't like 102 with a nasty slider. We're going to get to it. We're going to get to it. We're going to get to it. Just a second. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you.

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And we have left for last here on our preview, Carlos Vargas. One of the two players acquired in the A. E. E. E. E. Hennio Swaris. trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Again, I wanted to dedicate a whole segment to him because I know you love Carlos Vargas. And my question for you is if they do hit on Vargas,

what does that do for this bullpen, knowing everything else that we just talked about, knowing everything that they already have in this bullpen, what could adding an arm like the one Vargas can be do for this bullpen? Best in baseball. I think you're good. I think it could go beyond that because I mean I you can easily argue that they're already the best in baseball as is right Vargas is 98 to 102 yeah some run on the fastball yeah in a pretty darn good slider like a 60 grade slider now can he throw enough strikes for that to matter that's the question right if he can can then you're looking at

at Munoz, Brash, Santos, Spire, Vargas. Yeah. Spire's the worst guy in that group, and I'm not sure it's close. Yeah. And Spire was, for long stretches of last year, a pretty good high leverage arm. Yep. Like, that's what Vargas brings, that nobody else that we've talked about so far can touch. Nobody has high leverage upside like Vargas does.

It just, it doesn't exist with any of those other arms. maybe some mid-leverge guys like Jackson Coar, but I don't think anybody has the high leverage. Because again, talking about 98 to 102 with a wicked slider. That's Andres Munoz. Add Munoz, add his second Munoz to this bullpen and tell me how good the bullpen is. So is it likely that he gets to that level this year? No, probably not.

But the beauty of it is that you've got five years to try, six years to try. and you've got it a couple options there too. So I just think that he is the guy who can take this bullpen from really good to potentially legendary. And what it also does is if Matt Brash is on the IL or if Santos has to go on the IL or if you miss one of these guys for a month or two, you're still a great bullpen. Like you're no longer like, oh, we got two guys we feel really good about maybe three. Now you're like, oh, okay, we still have four guys that we feel like can, this game for us after the sixth inning. And also, you know, you have to work in this reality that you're not always going to have

everybody available every day. They're going to be days where Brash is down because he threw 24 pitches the night before. There's going to be days where, you know, Santos's pitched three of the last four. He's got to be down tonight. And you have to have somebody else step up to fill that role. And they're going to be nights where, you know, Brash and Santos are going to be down. Or Munoz and Santos are both going to be down. And you're going to need that guy to kind of step up.

and instead of that being Trent Thornton like it was at the end of last year, what if it's basically Santos, like a clone of Santos or a clone of Munoz who does that instead? So that's the difference maker right there. Like that is the guy. Now, if they don't hit on them right at this year, it's not the end of the world. It's still a very good bullpen.

It might be the best in baseball. But if they do hit on Vargas in particular, and everybody else is just healthy and within like 10% of what we, think they can do and what we think they will do. And what they have done? Yes. You're going to hand the ball. Every night, you're going to hand the ball from Castillo, Gilbert, Kirby, Wu, Miller, most nights. Obviously, you're going to need more starters than that.

But you're going to give the ball from those guys directly to Matt Brash, Gabe Spire, Gregory Santos, Andres Munoz, Carlos Vargas, like, yeah, the game's over. after, you know, after four, essentially, like, you can be that good. So a lot has to go right to get there. There will be some nights where two runs is more than enough. Yes. There definitely could be. So, yeah, we'll see.

You have to get there. And all these guys have to perform and they have to be healthy at the same time. So far from a guarantee. And it's not likely in any scenario. Is it, are the odds greater than zero percent that it happens? pretty significantly. Yes. So yeah. All right. That's going to do it for our show.

Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marreras podcast for Colby Patnode. I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tideane Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-PAT-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time.

Peace.