Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How Will the Mariners Deploy Their Sewald-Less Bullpen the Rest of the Way?

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

After a very quick and successful homestand, the Mariners take their deadline acquisitions on the road for the first time for a four-game set with the Angels. Colby and Ty discuss the series, what they want to see from Bryan Woo, when Emerson Hancock could make his Major League debut, their first impressions of Trent Thornton, how the bullpen will cover innings without Paul Sewald, and more.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.SleeperDownload the Sleeper app and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get up to a $100 match on your first deposit.  Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details. Currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today! DaveDownload Dave today at Dave.com/mlb. You could get up to $500 in 5 minutes or less! No credit check. No late fees. 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) 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.

The Mariners head down to Disneyland for a four game set with the halos. Our thoughts on that in the new look Mariners bullpen coming up here on the locked on Mariners podcast. Colby, hit it. You are locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors. It is Thursday, August 3rd, 2023.

This is tighting as awesome. Colby Penn Ed for the Lockdown Mariners podcast brought to you by eBay Motors. The championship team is about each player being a perfect. fit and it's the same with a vehicle so for parts that fit head on over to ebay motors and look for the green check stay in the game with ebay guaranteed fit ebay motors dot com let's ride ebay guaranteed fit only available u.s customers eligible items only exclusions apply thank you so much for making us your first listen subscribe like and turn on 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 and if you want to hear from us more please consider signing up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial, check out the show. The link as well as their social accounts is in the description of this episode. On the show today, we'll get you set for this upcoming Mariners Angels series. We're also going to talk about this Mariners bullpen. What do we think of Trent Thornton and how do they plan on covering innings the rest of the year? But let's start with this series here, Colby, four games down in Anaheim. The Angels look pretty different from the last time we saw them, the Mariners a little bit, but definitely not as much.

What are your thoughts heading into the series? Can I spend this to talk about the trade deadline? Yeah, it's obviously it's a pretty big series. Four gamers are interesting because the difference between splitting the series and winning three out of four is drastic. So I think if you're the Mariners, you have to at least split. uh this series i mean really if you're the angels too like the split is is like should be both team's worst case scenario because dropping two games behind somebody at this stage of the year

and one weekend is is uh it's kind of annoying so uh i think that you know two uh you got to find a way to split and it's not going to be easy um you do have otani on the mount tonight so you know i would say your odds of winning tonight are about 20 percent especially with the way Wu's been pitching lately. So, you know, you probably are going to be in a position where you have to win two or three this weekend. But, yeah, if you can win three out of four or if you can, you know, find a way to sweep, if either side finds a way to sleep, honestly, you can almost like just end the season

of the other team. So it's a pretty critical series here. Both teams need to go at least two and two, which makes, you know, both teams desperate. But if the Mariners can, you know, win this. series or even sweep it, which again, difficult, then it more or less puts the angels to bed for a while at least because then you would be four and a half games up on them. So yeah, it's a big series. There's no question about it.

But again, if you go two and two at the very least, then you're going to be fine. Like the series, like the season will continue, you'll be fine. if you drop this series or you get swept, I mean, you could recover, but it's not looking good. So you got to find a way to win two games in the next four. And then, you know, you go to San Diego, who's playing better ball right now. And then you have Baltimore, you know, best team in the American League record-wise.

And then you can kind of get into the part of your schedule that a lot of people circled at the beginning of the year. So, you know, you never know how those things play out. they could sweep this four game series and they could win like six of their next seven and then they could go into that that good stretch and they could drop six of seven you never know so uh but yeah it's a critical series uh you know Seattle's not going to be not going to throw Gilbert in it so you know yet to survive a Miller and a woo outing which is not ideal uh with the way they're throwing the ball right now but it is what it is you got to find a way to win two of these games at

least. So Wu versus O'Tani tonight. Yeah, Castillo versus Detmer's tomorrow. Kirby versus Anderson on Saturday and then Miller versus Chase Silseth. I don't think we've seen before. So interested to see him and what he is all about. So what are your thoughts, hopes, whatever for Brian Wu tonight? Eight innings. Like you can't go four innings. You can't go three. You can't go three. meetings. You just can't have it. You got to go five, six, at least tonight. Don't let Otani be the one to beat you.

You haven't had great command of your off-speed stuff. That's fine. And there are other dangerous hitters in this, you know, in this lineup. But let them be the ones to beat you. Don't let Otani beat you. You have to walk them. You walk them. You fall behind two and oh.

You don't throw them the challenge fastball, right? You just pitch around him, make somebody else on this team beat you. And find a way to go deep in this game. I mean, not even deep, but like you can't go three and two thirds. You can't go, you know, four. You have to go five, six innings. You have to give this bullpen, you know, a legit shot. And you have to give your offense a very real shot to stay in this game.

And unfortunately, with Otani on the mound, your margin of air is not that big. Now, Atani hasn't been incredible on the mound this year. So I don't think that it's, you know, I don't think it's one of those situations where like if you give up a run, it's game over. but yeah it's uh you know you can't go crazy you have to keep this thing relatively close and and i think if you're giving up three four runs you're going to have a hard time winning this game so uh for woo it's it's it's you know it's gut check time well and if otani gives you an opportunity right if there's a window here for you to strike you have to take advantage of it because last time we saw otani down in anaheim his command was a little all over the place for the first

inning maybe first couple of innings i can't remember exactly but i think the they only were able to get one, maybe two runs out of that. They need more if Otani does give them an opening there. So definitely going to be keeping an eye on that. But yeah, with Wu's recent struggles, you know, the question comes up about when are we going to see Emerson Hancock potentially? What are they going to do with this rotation? So what do you think here with Hancock?

Because obviously, like, we know your overall feelings about him as a prospect, all that. We don't need to go over that whole thing. again. But we're going to. But since June 6, he's actually really getting his walks under control, just a 1-8-7 walks per 9, 890,

Ks per 9, 297, ERA, 3-40 FIP. He's won Texas League pitcher of the week a couple of times during that stretch. I don't know specifically if he's, you know, changed anything mechanically or whatnot, but when do you think we could finally see Hancock here?

I don't think it can be much more than a couple weeks. He just started last night, you know, did his normal Chris flexing routine and got out of there. So because that's who he is. He's Paul Blackburn. He's a number five starter. Yippie. But yeah, you know, he's actually approaching a new career high innings pitched as well.

So that is something to keep an eye on. You know, he was far ahead of Wu. So it's not, you know, a huge deal. But I think you're going to see him pretty soon. His, with the off day coming up, well, two off days. after this four-game set. I think maybe they'll give Wu another shot through the rotation because they can kind of relax it.

And maybe they even skip him this time. They use the day off and they kind of push guys around so that they can skip them for a time or two. But yeah, you're going to see Hancock in the next two weeks if he's healthy. I just can't imagine that by the time, you know, by the end of Felix weekend, I would be somewhat surprised if Hancock's not on this team. And if he's not on the team the following weekend, I would be shocked. So it's coming.

It's going to happen. And, you know, they've still talked about a six-man rotation. I hate that idea. I get why they might try it, but I hate that idea. So I think it's probably going to be, you know, I would say in the next two weeks, I suspect we'll see Hancock. Real quick, why do you hate that idea? Because you're taking the ball away from Luis Castillo and George Kirby and Logan Gilbert, and you're giving it to Emerson Hancock to keep us struggling Brian Wu or Bryce Millie.

learn the rotation. What's the point? You know, you do the math on that. If you stick with a six-man rotation, even just like two times through, you're going to take away one start from Castillo. You're going to take away one start in September from Kirby. And do you really want to kick starts right now with the playoff race being as tight as it is?

I don't think you do. So I hate that idea. To me, if you want, either you put Wu in the bullpen and Hancock just kind of eats those innings or you piggyback them, but we'll talk about it. about that, I'm sure, in a little bit. But yeah, I just, I don't like the idea of giving Luis Castillo fewer starts, giving Logan Gilbert fewer starts. I want my best pitchers to pitch as often as possible. So we've talked a lot over the last couple of days about how Dominic Canzon and Josh Rojas impact the offense. But now let's talk about how the departure of Paul Seewald

impacts the bullpen. We're going to be talking about that in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Mary's podcast is brought to you by Sleep. Are you using the Sleeper app for Daily Fantasy Baseball? One of times your money by 100? Sleeper is now offering up to a 100 times payout for up to eight-pick contests. Choose as many as eight players that you like and pick more or less on your favorite baseball stats like home runs, strikeouts, hits, and more. Get your picks right and you could win big.

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See Sleepers' Terms of Use for Details. Currently operational in over 30 states, check out Sleeper today. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. You can catch the Mariners and the Angels tonight on the Marrius hometown broadcast, Sirius XM via the SXM app. And real quick, before we continue our show here, this is a programming note for you. We are not going to be putting out a show tomorrow.

We'll see about the weekend. We'll see if, you know, our schedules line up, all that stuff. We'll see if the mayor is when, right? We've told you in the past that it's not really worth it for us to do postgame shows after a loss unless that's just kind of what we plan to do anyway. So, yeah. So we'll let you know, keep your eyes glued to our social media channels, all that. And you'll get all the updates you need. All right, so the smearer's bullpen.

I want to actually start by talking about Trent Thornton because we didn't really talk about him. I asked you yesterday about your impressions of your very early impressions of Josh Rojas and Dominic Canzon. What about your first impressions of Trent Thornton who pitched on Tuesday in the 6-4 loss of the Red Sox, two and a third innings pitch, three strikeouts, no walks. The sweeper is what baseball Saffan is calling it. looked pretty good. What did you think? He's fine.

I mean, he's just kind of that middle innings guy, bridge guy who gets you to the back end of your pen when your starter can't go deep, which means he's probably going to get a lot of innings because, you know, again, we've seen the last few starts from Wu and Miller, and they faded pretty quick in those starts.

So maybe it's just a rookie wall thing. Maybe they're legitimately running out of gas. Miller really shouldn't be, Wu is, but I think you're going to see Thornton a lot in that role. The kind of issue with that is, is that you don't have the deep bullpen like you used to, as deep of a bullpen as you used to. So if you're only going to have, so you're using one guy for an extended period, you know, every week, then he's going to be down for the next two or three days at least. So Thornton, you know, it's kind of what we expected.

It's a good breaking ball. He can spin it. We knew he generates elite spins. He was pretty good for Toronto this year, kind of in an up and down roll. But yeah, I mean, he's had some success at the big league level in the past. We know who he is. He's 92 to 96 with the fastball and he's got a really good breaking ball. He can spend both of the pitches pretty well.

He's going to throw strikes for the most part. Yeah, I mean, he's, it's kind of a starter arsenal in the bullpen. But despite the great. great spins, you know, it's not like an elite breaking ball or anything like that. So I think he's totally fine. He's basically, I think, what they hope Chris Flexen could be, but flexen's just not equipped for that role. Thornton is because his stuff is frankly better. And he has more experience pitching out of that role. So yeah, he look fine. I, you know, did exactly what you needed him to do. He ate innings for a shallow pen on a game that, you know, you must. You

might have won if Scott had made some different decisions with that pitching staff, but it is what it is. I thought Thornton looked fine. I think he's a totally fine seventh, eighth guy in your pen. And as he puts out more outings, we might get some data that shows if the Mariners are making some tweaks there as well. So something to keep an eye on on that front. So as far as the overall bullpen goes here, Colby,

no Paul Seawald. That's the guy that was taking the ball and two thirds of your save opportunities. You lose a high leverage arm here overall. Now, a lot rides on Andres Munoz, Matt Brash, Justin Topa is getting an uptick in usage as well. We've seen Taylor Saucato take the ball in a couple of high leverage situations lately.

So how do we think this bullpen is going to cover innings the rest of the way? On a wing in a prayer? I mean, that seems to be the front office's response. So I just, you know, you figure it out. So I don't know exactly. The ninth inning or the save situations, I don't know if they're going to have a guy because frankly, you know, you want to use Brash and Munoz, especially if they're both throwing the ball really well. You want to use them in your high leverage spots. And that doesn't mean the ninth inning every single night.

So, you know, in terms of how do they cover Paul's innings? I think it's kind of a group effort thing. I think we'll see guys go, you know, four outs more often than we have in the past. I think you'll see you guys go five outs more often than they have in the past. And because we're getting towards the end of the year here, you know, it's more of a sprint. So you're more likely to do those things anyways than you are in April and May. But yes, is the Mariners bullpen equipped to do that? I don't know.

Like, we haven't really seen Munoz do that a lot. We haven't really seen Brash do that a lot. You know, so we'll see in terms of like, like if I had to get like, who is the Paul Seawald role, right now. I mean, it's it's probably Munoz because Paul was you know, I don't, maybe it's

maybe it's Topa because if you're just looking for like a traditional closer, you're just looking for somebody who's good enough to not blow the game. Whereas, you know, the fireman role or whatever you want to call it, the high leverage rolls, those should be going to Munoz and Brash as often as you can.

So yeah, how do they cover innings the bullpen. I think everybody just picks up an extra out here or there. I think you're going to see more matchup based. And, you know, the Mariners wanted to do that in the past. And they have. You know, we've seen Paul in this in the eighth and whatnot. But for the most part, it's been Paul in the ninth this year. And I think that that particular role is probably going to be gobbled up by Topa, maybe spire, depending on matchups. And then I think you're just going to see Brash and Munoz kind of handle the high leverage roles. But yeah, they're in arm short. surprise without Paul.

So how did they cover those innings? They ride Brash and Munoz pretty hard and hope that they don't collapse down the stretch. Right. And we've already seen them try to get four outs out of Brash in this Red Sox series. Munoz was set up for a

four out save the other night before they scored what five runs in the bottom of the eighth and they ended up going to Isaiah Campbell after that. But yeah, so that that does seem to be the game plan for them. What do you make of the uptick and usage for Taylor Sosato?

And do you think he's capable of taking on that role? No. Like he's been better recently, but he gives up a lot of base runners. And when you're a high leverage guy, your literal job is to not let people reach base. Like it's not like, oh, you know, you gave up a hit, but whatever, it's fine. No, because when you go into those high leverage spots,

typically giving up a hit means giving up a hit means giving. up the lead so no i don't i think sasato is is fine i think he's you know just i think he's a middle guy and and we've seen them use them in some high-ish leverage spots but not really um i could see it against lefties i find whatever again this is going to be more both are more matchup base than ever but i don't want sasado getting high leverage uh spots on a nightly basis so right we'll see honestly i trust spire more because I feel like Spire more likely to get you a strike out, which again, typically in high leverage spots, that is the ideal like outcome.

You want to strike out. And I just don't think Saucato's that guy. So I think he's, you know, totally fine middle guy. Depending on matchup, you might give him a high leverage situation. But I don't, I don't trust him enough to just start handing them, you know, save opportunities, quote unquote. you're listening to the locked on mariner's podcast thank you again for making us your first listen again you can catch the mariners and the angels tonight on the mariner's hometown broadcast with serious xm be the xxm app what's going on with pro linda burrow because they they brought him into a very unideal situation uh against what the twins and then they sent him down after that uh and he hasn't been back up and they've been sticking here with with devon sweet uh they brought up one 10 for the day before uh or after they trade uh traded seawall and then they brought up Thornton after that. We think we're going to see Baroa again?

Like what's going on with that situation? Yeah, apparently he's had some issues back down in Arkansas throwing strikes again. So yeah, not ideal because Baroa is, you know, a potential high leverage reliever. He does have that type of stuff. But if he can't throw strikes, you know, like at all, what good does that do you? So it's my understanding that he's he's really struggling with his command right now. They might have to take that shot anyways because again, they need that they need strikeout stuff added to this bullpen. So yeah, it is interesting because the Mariners feel like they don't want to use Devon Suite ever unless they absolutely like have to.

Essentially Devon Suite is is the either the human victory cigar or the human white flag. So yeah, if he's in the game, they're either up by a lot or they don't think they can win this game. So that's a wasted bullpen spot. You know, we, the Mariners have wasted, you know, like the 21 through 26 spots, multiple of them all year. And they continue that proud tradition right now. But, you know, honestly, they don't have a ton of other options. You know, Diego Castillo, believe it or not, still in the org. Yeah.

cannot find the strike zone. Yeah. Matt Festa, really struggling right now. Baroa really struggling right now. So, you know, do they take a shot on AJ, AJ Puckett, or I don't even know if he's healthy, do that Riley O'Brien. Stephen Colick. Colick doesn't really have a breaking ball right now.

So, you know, they, they're kind of short. They're short. And the one guy that might be able to help them is probably Brian Wu, but they seem pretty focused on him finishing the year in the rotation, which again, to me, is a mistake. So yeah, if the Mariners are looking for a high leverage option or a potential high leverage option in the middle of their, in their farm system, they don't have it right now,

at least not what I can see. So maybe there's a surprise. You never know. But yeah, Baroa seems like the natural answer there. But right now they literally trust Baroa less than they trust Devon Sweet. So. Yeah, so we'll have to keep an eye on it. It's just like the upside of Baroa is obviously so much higher than than Sweet or Campbell, really, you know, quite a few of these guys in this bullpen.

And right now when you're an arm short and you're looking for some high leverage earnings, like Baroa would have the upside to do that. But if you don't trust them, then there's no, there isn't really any point of going down that avenue either. but again like that's probably the only answer right outside of just you know one of these guys like taylor sasado just coming out of nowhere and being incredibly effective for you so yeah yeah i mean i you got you got to you got to scour the waiver wire um you have you could you could still make trades by the way you just can't trade anybody who's been on the 40 man this year so yeah maybe there's a prospect swap and you get a guy who you think can you know help you can you know help your bullpen right now.

So stuff like that is still on the table. It's highly unlikely. We don't see that very often. Also, with more teams in the playoff race, I just want to throw us out there, either push the trade deadline back two weeks or bring back the August waiver trade.

It's beyond stupid. But anyways, so yeah, it's, you know, the bullpen. I don't know. I don't know where that big arm's coming from,

but they need one. it's almost like they should have gotten one. But yeah, we'll have to wait and see what they do because they think they can cover these innings in-house. I disagree. So. Yeah.

As far as the waiver deadline, you know, you can still put restrictions on it if you want. So teams aren't taking advantage of it. You could put like a money restriction on it or something, right? So like big money players aren't going like, you know, Justin Verlander, right?

To like block deals like that. but still allow teams the ability and the flexibility. And I think that's even more important now than ever with the third wild card. Because I think by the time that you get to September 1st, you know if you're in or out at that point. Like maybe a couple teams are going to be on the fringes there. But for the most part, I think you pretty much understand if you're going forward or not at that point. So yeah, I would like just without the waiver deadline, just something feels off about the acquisition period. just push it back 10 days or two weeks.

Sure. Because this year you had what? You had five sellers, like five true sellers. Yeah. And you end up with a bunch of fan bases whose teams don't do anything because the market gets clogged by, you know,

and no team wants to do these sideways deals. None of the playoff contenders want to do sideways deals with each other. So yeah. Yeah, you just, it's dumb. You have to give the idea that, oh, more buyers is great.

Like, Yeah, in theory, if there's a supply for them to buy from, but there's not. So push the deadline back because on August 15th, there are going to be teams that look at it and go, yeah, we should have sold at the deadline. Yeah, we, we, you know, so yeah, they should push the deadline back. But anyways. Yeah, enough deadline talk. Well, we're going to put a bow on that on our Patreon show today. So if you're interested in listening to that.

Patreon.com forward slash control the zone. You can get a free seven-day trial now. And once again, tonight, you can catch the Mariners and the Angels on the Mariners' hometown broadcast with Series XMV, the SXM map. So before we get out of here, Colby, any closing thoughts? No, you know, I think that's it. I do just want to say, you know, I believe in the Seattle Mariners. Sure.

I think you should believe in them too. And you should believe in them more than Jerry. So. Right. Right. Yes. I believe in you, Cal Raleigh. regardless of what the front office says about you.

Making it happen regardless. That's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby, Patnode, I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-N-Rer-Ners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, it's T-A-N-Z, and Colby at C-P-E-E-Pat-E-1-F. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok as well over at Locked-O-Mariners. That's one word, Locked-O-Mariners.

You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us. first listen to have yourself a beautiful baseball day and again we will be back next week so we'll see you then peace