Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Does Andres Munoz Have Enough Help in the Mariners Bullpen?

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

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We've talked a lot about the Mariners bullpen over the course of the off season, and today we'll dive in a little bit more. 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, Hoy, Sailors. It is Wednesday, February 26, 2025. This is Tadding Azolus and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Marys Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. It's another position preview day today. we're going to be looking at the Mariners bullpen.

But before we do, a reminder, as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, you check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out is click the link in the description of this episode. So the Marys are going to break camp with eight relievers in their bullpen. They always operate with 13 pitchers on their roster. They've never shown interest in carrying 14 or more position players on their roster. And we've said time and time again that if it was, were up to them,

uh, they would carry fewer position players and more pitchers, but, uh, that's not what the rules allow. So, uh, yeah,

so it's going to be an eight man bullpen. And, um, right now, looking at things, uh, seems like all of those eight spots are accounted for. It's going to be,

Andreas Munoz. It's going to be Gregory Santos, Colin Snyder, Edward Bizarro, Trent Thornton, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor,

Taylor, and, uh, Troy Taylor. now Taylor hasn't thrown yet since being cleared to throw from or he hasn't pitched in a game yet since being cleared to throw following his lat strain that he suffered during offseason workouts so maybe there's an opportunity there for a spot to be up for grabs at least as far as opening day is concerned but I don't know you would think that Taylor should be able to get into some actual game action here

relatively soon if he was clear to throw a couple weeks ago. or a week and a half ago, whenever it was. So, yeah, so all eight spots are actually accounted for. Like, I think they might very well be. That doesn't leave any room for all these pile arms that the mayor seems to be also pretty excited about, like guys like Casey Legamina and Hunter Cranton and Brandon Garcia and Shantaru Fujinami and guys like that. So before we actually dive into the guys that are, we know for sure are going.

going to be a part of this bullpen in 2025. I want to circle back to a conversation that you and I had on our Patreon last week. Do you think that any of these guys could get traded to make room for one of those pile arms before the end of spring? Or in addition to that, do you think there is someone that maybe we're assuming is going to make the bullpen that maybe the mirrors don't view them as favorably? So I think the possibility of a trade always exists. Every year we see this kind of like small flurry of moves made at the end of camp as teams, you know, try to finalize their 26 man.

And oh, hey, this guy didn't make the team. He's out of options. We could just DFA him. Or, you know, we could chop him around, see if we can make a move. So, yeah, I do think that it's definitely possible. One of these guys gets traded. kind of the guy that I've zeroed in on as a guy who might have some trade value and might end up on the outside looking in of this race who is also out of options

would be Trent Thornton who's making $2 million this year. So the Mariners can move them. There's a nice little bonus of like saving $2 million, which shouldn't matter, but we know it does. So yeah, I think it's possible. Now when you make these type of trades, you're making one of two types of trades. You're either making the Ryan Stanick for Ryland Thomas trade,

which is like you get nothing, but like an older prospect who's barely a prospect, and you're just like, eh, you know, maybe he becomes a useful bench piece for us. So you're either making that trade or you're making a trade where it's like, you know, you find somebody else's Trent Thornton, who happens to be a better fit for your roster.

So for the Mariners, maybe that's like a utility infielder. and you trade Trent Thornton for you know his mirror image I guess you would call it just you know on the office of things yeah his his utility equivalent or what have you right and again then it's not going to be a lot you know Thornton is is a valuable major leaguer but he's not I think most teams feel like they have a Trent Thornton in their organization and so you're not going to get a ton for him either way but yes those types of trades do happen the mariners have made them in the past um I believe Mike Montgomery was one when he was traded on like the day before they broke camp and all that stuff.

So yes, we do see it sometimes. And I think this year there's a chance that it happens, you know, a little bit with a little bit more frequency than it has in the past couple of years. As every team is kind of trying to compete a little bit right now and minor upgrades to their roster could be interesting. Also, you know, it's possible that the Mariners put a bullpen arm on the block and we're kind of surprised by how much they get. And it's probably not a major leaguer coming back in that sense. But it's like, hey, wow, Trent Thornton got this like, you know, number 19 prospect out of the system who's in like A ball. And you're like, oh, wow. I mean, that's somewhat surprised because we know how, you know, suppress the market is right now in prospects.

So yeah, it's possible that the Mariners could make a trade for one of the. trade from their bullpen, particularly if they really feel strongly that Brash and Coar are going to come back before June, which it sounds like they are basically banking on. At that stage, you're probably DFAing one of these guys anyways. And so, yeah, to trade, I'm just using Thornton as an example that you trade him, you put, you give his spot to somebody who has minor league options. And then when Brash is ready, you can just send that guy down. and put brush up, you know, and you don't have to DFA anybody. So, yeah, it's certainly possible.

Short of finding that type of trade, though, I think these are the eight guys. Like, I don't think that they're just going to DFA Trent Thornton. I think it's trade him or keep him. I don't think they're going to DFA Gabe Spire. I don't think they're going to DFA Bizarro. I think they really like what they saw from him at the end of last year. So maybe, maybe sauce gets sent down. I think sauce has one option left.

I could be mistaken there. But maybe Sauce gets sent down, but it does feel like the Mariners want to have two lefties. And to me, none of the guys in the pile that are really fighting for a roster spot are left-handed. Pomerantz hasn't been bad, hasn't looked bad, his first couple outings. But I think they probably want to see more and see him be healthy.

So, yeah, I think Thornton could be the odd man out. But if it is, it's because he's traded, not because they're going to DFA him. With how much they're talking about Casey Legamina over these first couple weeks, do you think that that would be the guy that they try to make room for if they do make a trade or they do kept one of these guys or send one of them down? I mean, he seems to be the guy who's generating the most hype from like the Mariners' own words. But I don't know.

I mean, I only, I think he's only pitched in the one game. And I did see that outing. I wasn't overly impressed. So I don't, not quite sure what all the hype is about. But yeah, it does seem like he is probably the favorite. And he's on the 40 man also. So, yeah, I feel like,

like if you're asking him, like, who's the ninth guy or who's the guy, if Taylor's just not quite ready on opening day, who's the guy who's going to take his spot? I would say it's probably, it would probably be like the Mina just based on how they're kind of building him up. but yeah I think again I didn't really see anything that made me go wow but I've only seen them pitch the one time right and I haven't seen the bullpins and I don't know what their plan is with it well I kind of know what they're what they're going to try and do with them but like

we just don't know if it's going to work and again we're not seeing the bullpins or anything like that and so it's real tough to tell from just one outing but yeah it does feel like like I mean it's probably like the ninth guy in that bullpen right now things are going to get really though if like say all these guys stay healthy and you know they are performing relative to what you expect out of them once Matt Brash is ready to come back once Jackson CoR is ready to come back seems like they really like CoR we'll talk about those guys a little bit more and just dive into the rest of this unit in just a moment but first a reminder this episode of the lockdown areas podcast is brought to you by wonderful pistachios looking for a snack that's both

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Get snacking and get cracking with a snack that packs a protein punch. Visit wonderful pistachios.com to learn more. You're listening to the Lockdown Merrittor's podcast. We are previewing the 2025 Mariners Bullpen. Just talked about some of the pile arms and if the Marers could make some room for those guys with like a trade or maybe an unexpected cut or you know option down to

AAA they only have a couple of guys that are actually eligible for that but yeah I mean we talked a lot about Casey Legamina being potentially the knife guy if he will the guy that would benefit the most from someone exiting maybe it's also Hagan Danner but

we haven't really heard about Hagan Daner we've heard a lot about Casey Lugamina out of camp so it seems like that's the guy that they've really zeroed in on that they really like, that they've kind of identified as maybe that next guy that they essentially pull out of thin air that we've talked about. So we'll see. But let's just talk about this unit as a whole.

It was a weird year in 2024 for this Mariners bullpen. They actually got too much in the offseason last year. Like we had been pounding the table for, right? They went out, they traded for Gregory Santos. They went out and they signed Ryan Stanik. And then that all just kind of fell apart pretty much immediately. Fresh gets hurt, obviously. He requires the surgery.

Gregory Santos isn't healthy once he gets to camp. And he gets set back a billion times over the course of the year. We hardly see him. Ryan Stanik ends up becoming basically the second guy for a little while. And we know how that went. And he ends up getting traded. A lot fell on Andreas Munoz's shoulders in 2020. Yep.

Say it with me, guys. You can never have enough pitching. Really can't. You really cannot. In 2024 was the biggest testament to that. This bullpen, though, they weren't asked to do a whole lot. They were the only bullpen in all of baseball

to cover fewer than 500 innings. You know, they managed fine-ish over the course of the year. They ended up, you know, discovering Colin Snyder, Troy Taylor eventually came up. He helped quite a bit. But this bullpen basically from August on was a problem.

Especially, I mean, it kind of became the team's biggest problem once Dan Wilson took over. Because at that point, when Ed and Eger took over the offense, at that point, the offense was actually pretty solid from Wilson's first game to the end of the season. But the bullpen struggled quite a bit. The bullpen from August Yeah, the bullpen from August 1st onward was worth negative 0.62 win probability added. We were 24th in that mark. And again, Andres Munoz was asked to do a lot last year. I mean, I've mentioned this before, but like it is ridiculous.

And it's worth mentioning that he was asked to complete a felt save in the second game of the season. And he was asked to do that quite a few more times over the course of the year. And he wound up being an all-star. He was awesome last year. Andreas Munoz was great. But yeah, he can't do it all by himself as we saw last year. Yeah, I believe he had 12 four out outings last year, which is, you know, a big number. And it is especially for Munoz, he's never really had to do it before.

and obviously Munoz dealt with, you know, some back issues last year. He didn't pitch in the last series of the year because he had a little bit of elbow soreness. Obviously the bullpen, they kind of got a pass last year because the offense was so bad for so long. Yeah. That even after the, you know, the problematic part of this ball club flipped in August, people were still focusing on the offense. And, you know, I can't even blame them, really, because that's how bad it was for four or five months.

but the bullpen was not good last year. And in fact, with a healthy Matt Brash, or even just one more guy to help Munoz last year, this club, even with that terrible, terrible offense, probably makes the playoffs last year. Like the bullpen here is very important, especially in Seattle. You're going to play a lot of tight games.

You're going to play a lot of low scoring games. Your offense is not equipped to score runs and bunches late in the game. You have to, when you have a lead, you have to keep it. And so the bullpen in Seattle is super important because of their offensive limitations, because of the ballpark they play in. The bullpen has to be lights out. And I mean, it doesn't have to be number one in baseball, but it's kind of got to be top 10. And last year, it just simply was not. Let's talk about Munoz.

1168Ks per 9 last year, 394 walks per 9, 212, ERA, 335 FIP, 298 XIP, 0.7F4. He was an all-star, like I mentioned, over 59 in a third inning pit. And again, a lot on his plate. I want to attack the Munoz's discussion from two angles here. One, if this kick change is actually a thing, what could that do for him if it's actually as nasty as advertised? And then if it's not, if it's something that he doesn't feel comfortable deploying

with any sort of regularity in games, just how do you feel about Munoz going from pretty much what he was last year into this year. It's really a bonus pitch if he has it, which is great. But yeah, I mean, you still feel really good about him. You just don't want him to be asked to get, you know, four or five outs, you know, a couple times a month. You really want to limit that.

And you especially don't want that happening in April, May, June. You kind of want to save that for down the stretch. So, yeah, I think if that pitch isn't real, regardless of that pitch is like a real part of his arsenal or not in 2025. I mean, you still shouldn't use them as much as he did last year. You shouldn't have to pitch every single high leverage spot. No. I guess more so my question on that front is like, well, one, we've talked about this more so with regards to like Adonis Medina.

Like this bullpen doesn't really have a change up, like an actual really good change up to give Dan Wilson another lever to pull. So Munoz has this change up. I mean, that that adds an element that the bullpen just doesn't have. Right. But also, again, if it's as nasty as advertised, could this be the thing that takes Munoz from being like a top 10 reliever, top 15 reliever, however you feel about him to being like one of the best? Yeah, it's possible. I mean, I do think that there is kind of the question of like, well, how much better can he actually be? I mean, Munoz is now again, he's not like Immanuel Clossi. Now, if you only watch the playoffs, Closset is the worst pitcher in baseball. ball, but that is not who he is. He's actually pretty good.

Yeah, like probably the best. Like, you know, can he be that guy? Is the change up the only thing preventing him from being that guy? Maybe, but maybe not. I mean, is it just like, yeah, it's a nice added weapon, but, you know, there's still concerns about Munea sometimes loses the strike zone and sometimes, you know, the slider's flat and he has to rely on just the four seamer. And, you know, he also has a two seamer now, a sinker.

that he's mixed in there a little bit more. So yeah, I mean, if this thing is legit, and it's a pitch that he feels comfortable throwing on a regular enough basis that hitters have to start kind of respecting it, then could it be the thing that, you know, takes him from All Star to like the elite of the elite relievers? Yeah, it's certainly possible it could be.

Could he just make that step without the changeup, though? Yeah, I think he actually still. could make that step. Munoz is still a pretty young guy, but I do, you know, my concern for Munoz this year is not about performance or anything like that. It is about can they get him help so that he can stay healthy throughout the year. I know he didn't hit the I.L or anything last year,

but there were, you know, stretches where he was just unavailable. He had the back thing that happened in Oakland. He was just unavailable for four or five days at a time. Yeah. You know, and he was your only high leverage guy. So yeah, Munoz, the kick change is legit and he can throw it in games and throw it with confidence and get some more whiffs on it. Then in theory, that makes his fastball play up more. That makes his slider play up more.

So yeah, he could absolutely take that next step. But until I see it in games for myself, until I see how hitters react to it, you know, it's just kind of a theoretical upgrade that might be available to them. but obviously it is a pitch that has generated a tremendous amount of buzz in camp and you know the reaction from his teammates seemed to tell you a little bit about how good they think it is so yeah the is the kick change going to change everything for Munoz like no I mean he's already one of the 10 15 best could he go from top 10 to top five yeah sure yeah yeah yeah so

who do you think Gregory Santos ultimately is? This is a question that I feel stumped by because I'm not sure if I should feel the exact same way that I did when they acquired him last year and pretty much have the same expectations that I did heading into 2024 when I thought that he was healthy. Where do you land right now with Santos? I think stuff-wise,

he is kind of a classic eighth inning setup man guy. Now, I think there's still more swing and miss here because the repertoire that he has does suggest that there should be more strikeouts in his game. But as we know, Santos is a very heavy ground ball guy. So I wonder if the, like, he's not likely going to miss bats at an elite level, which is kind of important or required.

to be an elite reliever in today's game. But I do think he can be a very good, you know, still high leverage guy. Maybe, I mean, he's not Matt Brasher, Andres Munoz, but he might be in that level right below it. But there are questions here. He wasn't amazing when he was healthy last year. Now, you could argue whether or not he was ever really healthy last year. But we did see the stuff too when, you know, he only, I think made eight appearances, I believe, seven or eight. And in all of those appearances, regardless of how he looked, you could see the stuff.

Like the raw stuff is really impressive. It's 98 to 100 with a sinker and a pretty good slider. So like, yeah, I feel reasonably comfortable giving Santos high leverage option or opportunities right out of the gate. And I do think that he is a high leverage quality arm. I just think it's a little bit different with Braschen, like Braschen, like runners on second and third, one hour. you're going to those guys over Santos because they're going to get swing and miss. Santos is going to induce contact and contact could score a run. So to me, Santos's ideal role is clean inning, you know, eighth, seventh, whatever, ninth even sometimes.

And just, you know, whatever. It doesn't matter if you hit a ground ball because it's not going to score a run. So, yeah, I do, you know, relatively comfortable with Santos. But, yeah, there still are absolutely questions about exactly what type of pitcher he is. is because again, he's been great once in his entire career. So, yeah, it's fair to question like, what are we actually going to get out of this guy? You're listening to the Lockdown Merritt's podcast. So Colin Snyder was essentially the Paul Seawald, Justin Topa, et cetera, revelation of the year for the Marys.

Marys typically have at least one of those guys that they seemingly pluck out of thin air. and Snyder was that guy. So my question is very simply, can he do it again? 194 ERA last year, 341, FIPP, he was worth half a win, 10-15Ks per 9, 281 walks per 9, and 41 and 2 thirds of an innings pitch. Now, those numbers that I just read to you, Colby, are leaps and bounds ahead of what he's done in his major league career. So, again, I ask you,

Can he do this for a second year? Yeah, probably not going to repeat the ERA. That's kind of a, you know, once in a career type of thing and for most players. And I don't think Snyder has that stuff that is just going to allow you to repeat that type of success over and over again. But, you know, as the person who recommended Colin Snyder to Jerry Depoto, So it is definitely a feather in my cap if you can't do it a second time. Now, you would think, you would think that with that track record, Jerry would trust me again and go out and get, I don't know, one of my other boys like Curtis Mead or somebody like that. But whatever.

He got you awesome chutton. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, and he got me, Donovan Solano. Yeah. I feel like I'd probably rather have Curtis Mead. The problem is those are like the only things he did this offseason. but this is an off-season discussion episode.

We're talking about the bullpen. You want to see me making one? But yeah. I don't doubt your ability to do that. So yeah, the Snyder thing is interesting. Obviously, the hope is, is that once you get brash back and hopefully Gabe Spire is healthy and Santos is healthy, then you don't need Snyder to be that high leverage guy. That's the hope at least. But yeah, I do think he's earned some trust from this.

you know, from the front office, but also from the, from Dan Wilson and company. And I do think that he'll be, uh, I could see him being that all important pivot guy that the Mariners try to identify every year, the guy who bridges the gap between when the starter comes out of the game and getting to the bullpen. You know, J.AT. Sharkuas done that in the past. Justin Topa started out doing that. Drew Steckenrider was that guy. Like it's a very important role for the Mariners.

And I think Snyder is pretty well suited, uh, to be that guy. which, you know, it's not high leverage, but it's right below that in terms of, like, the importance. And sometimes it does end up being a high leverage spot. So, yeah, I think Snyder, you know, can he do what he did last year? I think that's asking an awful lot. Can he be an effective major league bullpen arm and, you know, be trusted to handle some tight situations when, you know, a couple other guys are down for the day? Yeah, I think he, I think he'll be at least that good. Yeah. So I want to talk about Brash in a second. I want to first, though, ask you about Jackson Co-Ar. Seems like they really like this, dude.

Have for a while now. How funny would it be if Jackson CoR winds up being the best player out of that trade? Again, it's not a high bar to clear. Jared Kellogg was worth what half a win last year? I think we found out. The Mariners won the much bemoaned Jared Kellnick trade, you know, whether CoR pitches for them or not. But it does sound like they seem to be pitching that he's going to be good to go by the end of May, which is going to be interesting.

You talked about, you know, this Mariners pitching staff not really having any changeups in it. Apparently, COR's got a great change up. And that is the pitch that the Mariners are really excited about from him.

So, yeah, he's definitely going to factor in here. Again, because we're talking about, you know, very late May, early June at the earliest, you know, you kind of wait and see there, right? You don't want to put any expectations on the guy.

And you don't know, going to have a setback this late or anything like that. But yeah, the Mariners seem to think that he's the real deal. And, you know, we'll see how much they want to trust him coming off of Tommy John surgery without really any kind of major league track record of success. So we'll see how much faith they want to put in him and how early they want to do that. But yeah, CoR was the guy who was turning heads last year. There was a lot of hype around him.

And then one day it was just like, oh, yeah, he needs Tommy John. And it just died. So, yeah, Coar is kind of the ex-fax. factor here. If he is as good as the Mariners have kind of hyped him up to be, how good the mariner's think he can be, then the Mariners might have four or five, six high leverage guys in this bullpen. Is he going to be that good? I have doubt, you know, but I am interested to see him pitch. But unfortunately, I mean, I can't imagine we see him in the Cactus League. So you're probably going to have to make your way down to Tacoma sometime in May before we see

him up on the mound again. But yeah, he's definitely an X factor out there. So you guys know how we feel pretty much about the Matt Brash situation. We've talked about it a bunch on this show. I don't think we need to go too deep into it. I don't know if we've talked on the show since Justin Hollander confirmed that his surgery was to put in the internal brace. So it wasn't actually like a full on Tommy John surgery. Right. So with that information, I am willing to buy in more on the idea that he could come back by the end of April, which is what they're saying right now.

and they haven't shifted off of that just yet. He has thrown a few times already down in spring or down in camp. And so far doesn't seem like he's reported any issues or anything like that. He's been able to throw another bull, like the last time that I saw him throw a bullpen, it was like two days after he threw his last one. So that seems like a pretty good sign, right? So what is a realistic? and fair expectation for Matt Brash whenever he gets back.

If that's at the end of April or, you know, worse comes to worse, it's the all-star break. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. So like, I don't know. Does the brace first? No, I've been very clear about this. Not a doctor, not a lawyer, not a financial expert.

But I could fool you into thinking I am one if you need false testimony, which is not legal advice. Yeah, so the thing with Brash is like, I don't know if the brace versus the full surgery. I mean, I know that it impacts, sorry, impacts like timeline in terms of returning to the big leagues. I don't know if it impacts like the typical post-Tommy John return stuff. Like, he usually takes guys a year or so to get all their velocity back.

They get most of it back pretty quick, but all their velocity. Usually the breaking ball is a little flatter the first year back. And so I don't know if the brace versus that means anything to that degree. But if the Mariners are accurate and Matt Brash is available by, let's say, May 1, if that is accurate, I would still be very hesitant about using Brash in high leverage spots right away. I think you have to build back into that. You have to give them kind of a soft landing.

And also we have to keep in mind is that just because Brash is a. able to pitch like for the Mariners again on May 1st. It probably means he, I mean, it almost certainly means he's not available to pitch on May 2nd and probably not even on the 3rd for the first couple of weeks, I would think. They're going to be very cautious with him. So it's going to be a couple of months, I would say, or at least a couple weeks before they go back to back with him. And then it might be a couple months after his return that they even feel good about going

to him in those, you know, those classic map rash spots where you're up 4 to 2, but the Yankees have runners on second and third. And Aaron judges up, you need a strikeout. Like, yeah, so you go to Brash. Like, they might not give those opportunities to him right away. I think he kind of has to earn his way back into being that high leverage arm. Can he do it? Sure.

I mean, obviously, we know that he can be a high leverage arm. I just don't feel great about the stuff returning and the control returning enough to pencil brash in as he's definitely going to be a high leverage guy this year. Maybe he might be. I don't want to say he's definitely. going to be. I just I think that's an unfair expectation. Yeah, I mean, you also have to at least be wary of the possibility of re-injury as well, because it's still going to be a really violent delivery. It's going to put a lot of strain on that elbow. And yeah, I just, I really think that

you need to look at whatever Brash gives you this year as a bonus. Like, you can't set any sort of expectation like I'm going to get this version of Matt Brash back right if you're the mariner specifically so yeah we'll see I mean I hope he comes back and he is Matt Brash so you know the Matt Brash that we know and love that'd be awesome but yeah we'll just you know that's just a wait and see thing right yeah so so lastly before we wrap things up let's put Munoz Santos Snyder and

Brash aside here you have to pick one guy the rest of the group could be someone that we think is already slated to be part of the bullpen come opening day could be one of the pall arms who is your one guy that you think

could really pop become a high leverage arm for this team in 2025 how dare you take away Gabe Spire from me I didn't I didn't Oh, I thought you said Spire, Santos, Sprach. No, I said Snyder. Oh, yeah, then Gabe Spire.

Gapier, all right. Tell me why. Well, he was that in 2023. And then last year, he got hurt. I mean, plain and simple, he got hurt. He wasn't right physically. By all accounts, he's right. This year, he's, he's, velocity is fine.

He feels good. Last year was a couple of things. He had kind of the elbow thing. I think he had a bit of a knee issue at one point. So he just didn't feel right last year. but I watched the guy in 2023. I know how good this stuff was. He generated a ton of ground balls.

He generated a ton of strikeouts. And he's, you know, he's just the guy that I think has the experience plus the stuff. And I think there's a real easy, you know, explanation for why he wasn't that guy last year. He got hurt. He just never could seem to get healthy last year. And sometimes that type of stuff happens. You get over one injury. and then something else pops up

and you just can't put it all together. So I think the Sinker slider, Gabe Spire, uh, 2023 version is going to be back. Uh, and I think he's going to get some big, big outs for this team, uh, particularly against lefties and,

you know, in a division that features Yordon Alvarez and, and Corey Seeger, like you need some guys who can get these lefties out with some consistency. Uh, and I do think that gave spire. And then as an added bonus, not only good against.

lefties he's good against varieties as well when he's healthy so i think spire is that guy um no that's a good call i i think it's easy to forget just how good spire was in 2020 23 54 and two-thirds endings pitch 10 5 4 ks per 9 basically a 30 percent k rate 1 81 walks per 9 55.9 percent ground ball rate so he's striking dudes out and he's keeping the ball on the ground at basically an elite level 379 er a 3 3355 5 5 271 X-FIP. 0.6.4. The only issue with 2023

Spire was that whenever hitters did lift the ball in the air, 20% of those went over the wall. Right. But if you're striking you guys out at a 30% clip and you're getting 55% ground ball. You're not generating a lot of fly balls.

Yeah, there's not a lot of fly balls to be had. So you'll take it, right? You'll live. So like you'll see the 20.6% home run to fly ball rate, but then you look at the actual number of home run. they gave up of seven.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's not like he can't or shouldn't try to get better at that, but like, you know, it is what is. I mean,

nobody's saying Gabe Spire is an elite reliever, right? I'm saying he's good. I mean, 10, 54Ks per 9 with a 55.9% ground ball rate from the left side. With a sub two, with a sub two based on ball per nine.

That's kind of elite. It's close. The ERA is a little high, but reliever ERA is is out there, right because for like i went to the game log for all we know spire had one outing where you have five runs and then it just tanks your era for you know the next six months so yeah uh yeah i don't really care about era when it comes to relievers i think strike out rate walk rate ground ball rate home run to fly ball is something that you should consider fit fit fit so you know spire

checks a lot of those boxes yeah and i think he's going to be healthy this year so yeah gave spire is is um now i consider i'm part of the the mariners high leverage like group Munoz brash hopefully uh Santos spire to me right now those are the high leverage arms uh but obviously you know again like with Santos he has to actually do it like we have to see it happen before we should just sit here and be like yes he's definitely back or anything like that you got to see it first yeah i like the spire call i'm also going to throw a hunter cranton out there we talked about him quite a bit during during prospect week last week so yeah that was going to be my guy if you had blocks spire.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised he didn't go with Bizarro. Yeah. You know, Bizarro is a guy that obviously I really like so much so I make up. He's another guy like, like, CoR where it's like, all right, on the outside looking

in it's like, why is this guy still in the organization? There were multiple times over the course of 2024, even a little bit in 20, 23, where I'm like, why is this guy still here? Why is he still on the 40-man roster? clearly the mayor is really like him and we saw a bit of that in 2020 in uh september of 24 yes let me pull up the numbers here the corrected numbers yeah yeah yeah what did you say it was like 276 over the last 277 batters faced but it was only after 54 because i was looking at the 16 162 game average yeah on that one line but all these other numbers are accurate these

are all ratio numbers. So over his last 54 batters face, which I think was 16 appearances. 54, you say. Yes, of course. Anyways, in his last, I think it was 16 appearances last year. Opponents slash 177, 208, 216 against Pizarro. He had a 126 ERA and a 107 Fib. opponents hit just 167 against the sinker

and his slider saw a whiff rate of 33%. That's a really good pitcher. Yeah. That is, I mean, that slash line is elite. Right. The whiff rate is really good. It's tough to say any whiff rate's elite when you watch Matt Brash's slider on kind of a daily basis.

Kind of spoils it for everybody else. But yeah, he's also an elite ground ball guy. And he did finish last year with it. 30.6% K rate overall. So him like Spire, a lot of ground balls, a lot of strikeouts. Can he do it for more than 54 batters? We're going to find out.

So then my last question to you is, if we ask the Mariners, this question, who do you think, Pops? Would their answer be Casey Legamina? Sure seems like it. There seems to be a lot of Legamina propaganda floating around out there.

I think I can give you like a, like, I think I could give you their off the beaten path answer, though. Sure. I think they might say Garcia. Brennan Garcia? I like it. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, the marriers are going to have options this year. And they're a little bit more equipped to cover from within any injuries that might pop up. Obviously, you lose Munoz. It's devastating. Right. Like, you're just not going to replace that guy. But, you know, could they manage to.

replace Santos for a month if they had to? Yeah, they probably could. They'd survive. But yeah, it's deeper group I think it was than it was last year. But again, last year, you lost Brash, Spire, and Santos basically all at the same time. And you lost them for basically the entire year. Yeah, you could see why they maybe couldn't recover from that level of injury last year. But this year, I think if something like that does happen again, they have more interesting internal options. They're not, you know, it's not like, hey, we have to, Cody Bolton is what he is, or Hagan, Dan, or it's like, I mean, we could for a week or two, or we could just go get Garcia or we can just go get Cranton and ride some actual upside here. So, yeah, the bullpen has certainly a higher ceiling,

I think, than it did last year, although injuries has to be a part of the conversation when you talk about the 2024 Mariners bullpen. All right. So, hey, if you're still watching, let us know in the comments below, who do you think could pop out of this group of arms? Who's your favorite out of outside of Munoz, Santos, Snyder, and Brash? Let us know down below. We'd love to see your answers on that. All right. That's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown Marriss. For Colby Pat Node, I'm Tad de Gazzalas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L.O underscore Merrers. You can follow me at Taday Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat-11. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB.

Colby in the show at Lockdown Marriers. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.