Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Is Jurickson Profar a Risk Worth Taking? + Mariners Pitching Grades

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Colby forgot a name on his top-five free agent target list yesterday—one that comes with a significant amount of performance risk: Jurickson Profar. Ty and Colby discuss Profar's potential fit in Seattle then hand out their grades to the 2024 Mariners pitching staff.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11For your next listen, check out the Locked On MLB podcast. Prepare for the Fall Classic with Sully, who has it all covered every single day. Click HERE to listen now. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Arena ClubWhether you’re buying, selling, trading, or displaying—Arena Club is the card-collecting platform you have to check out. Right now, you can get 10% off your first Slab Pack or card purchase by going to ArenaClub.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb. RobinhoodRobinhood Gold provides the privileges of a high net worth for any net worth. These generous benefits are now available for only $5/month. The new gold standard is here with Robinhood Gold.Sign up at robinhood.com/gold   Terms apply, for product specific disclosures visit robinhood.com/gold. Investing involves risk. Rate may change. Gold membership is offered by Robinhood Gold, LLC.   PrizePicksGo to prizpicks.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb to win $50 instantly when you play $5. You don't even need to win to receive your $50 bonus, it's guaranteed! Prizepicks. Run Your Game. IbottaIbotta is a free app that lets you earn cash back every time you shop. Right now, Ibotta is offering our listeners $5 just for trying Ibotta by using the code LOCKEDONMLB when you register. Just go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE app to start earning cash back when you use code LOCKEDONMLB. eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big 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 LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. FanDuelNow through September 22nd, ALL FanDuel customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get a THREE WEEK free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FANDUEL.COM 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.

So we all know how good the Marriss pitching staff was this year, but how would we grade each pitcher season individually? We'll tell you coming up here on the Lockdown Marers 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. Oh, Hoy, Sailors, it is Wednesday, October 16th, 2024. This is tighting is awesome.

Colby Patnaud for the Locked-on Marriss Podcast. part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. On today's show, we'll be handing out individual grades to many of the mayor's pitchers and officially close the book on the 2024Ms. We'll get into that during the second and third segments of this show

because someone forgot a player for his top five free agent list yesterday. Somebody didn't remind me. Sure. Yeah, because I was totally aware. Yeah, I was totally aware. Yeah, I was totally. aware of that. So we're going to be talking about that first, but before we do, shout out to our title sponsor today. FanDuel. Place your first $5 bet and you'll get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed.

Visit fanduel.com to get started. And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. Sign up now to hear us create our 2025 Mariners off season plan before we show it off here. And today on CTZ, we're going to be going over our respective trade Luis Castillo plans, which should get pretty crazy. There'll be a lot more crazy. I'm going to get wild. They should be at the very least a little bit more interesting than our, let's call them the more realistic plans, the normal plan.

Yeah. I mean, I like those plans, though. I think they're solid plans. I think the Mariners are better if they were to execute those plans. But, you know, they're not exciting. They're not like renew my season tickets, although I doubt anything really realistic could happen to make that happen anyways. But, you know, I think it's, you know, they're fine. Sure.

And like if that's the offseason, I'm like, oh, solid B. Like really nice, really nice word. But today, ooh, today we're going to have some fun. Today is going to be a lot of fun. So be sure to head on to the Patreon. I don't know over to the Patreon if you haven't already if you're not subscribed already

We'll also have that Post available for purchase If you just want to have a one-off The minimum we can charge for it Is $3 according to Patreon So we can't charge any less than that You guys pay two more dollars Yeah

You get eight shows in a month Instead of just one one show Like yeah So think about it Not not trying to upsell you here But yeah for for $2 more you get a hell of a lot more value yes the uh patreon charging three dollars was a bit of a disappointment yeah i was i was more so thing along the lines of like a dollar yeah yeah same

yeah but uh you know what can you do so i would just sign up for the tier two membership yeah absolutely for the tier even if you still just want to spend the three dollars just sign up for tier one today and you'll get to hear that episode still today and then you'll get one episode every single a week so you get four a month for the same price so yeah yeah but whatever you want to do i mean it's your money all right so yesterday we get down recording we did top five tuesday colby did his top five mariner's free agent targets i did my top five mariner's uniform combos uh and as i'm editing the show colby texts me and goes dude i messed up and i'm like oh no what did he do is he getting me fired what's going on here.

All right. So I ask him what's up. And then he, he sends me a screenshot of his notes app and his phone. And it says, and it's this, it's his top five lists that we went over yesterday. You know,

I see all the names. I don't see anything wrong with that. Until you look at the title of the note itself, top five free agent targets after. And I'll let you tell the people who it's after. Yeah. So essentially. when I was writing my list down,

I went through the caveats that I went through at the beginning of the show yesterday. Like no megastars, no $20 million Aavs, no, you know, three to five year contracts for guys in their mid-30s, blah, no option guys, because we don't know if they're going to get picked up or not. I went through all that. I was like, okay, so who's the player that kind of like exemplifies all of this? And it's, it's, it's jerks and pro far who, is, you know, probably going to get a two-year deal, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We'll talk about it in a second. And I was like, okay, so this is like my jerks and profile list. So I write the, instead of calling it the profile list, I just call it, top five after profile because I figured I would just, you know, mention those guys and it'd be like, and then obviously number one is pro far. Well, I didn't, I made the list. I didn't actually look at it when I was doing my top five yesterday. And I totally forgot to talk about jerks and profar, who would be my number one.

How did you remember Mike Soroka and not Jurexon ProFar? That's my question. I've been really hyped about Soroka. Okay. A few days. Potential spoiler there. Yeah, I was really excited to talk about Soroka. So I've been like, like, that's been my like free agent bullpen target for the last

couple days. And so, yeah. And to be honest, I'm not super excited about ProFar. but just when I went down the list and all the criteria, it's like, yeah, I mean, he's the guy who checks the most boxes. So, yeah, I get excited about weird things and like small players. You know what I mean? Like, I'm more interested like, hey, who's the seventh guy in the bullpen going to be?

And then like, hey, who's the starting third baseman going to be next year? It's like, oh, well, they'll figure that out. But let's talk about bizardo and how he could be a high leverage arm. So, yeah, I'm going to miss on my end. So ProFar is coming off by far. a career year with the Padres this year. Outlier status career year. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Because the year before, he was the worst player in baseball, at least one of them. Yeah, negative 1.6 F4 last year. He was god-awful. He ends up slashing 283-80-4-59 this year. Let's see, 139 WRC Plus 4.3F4. Is career high in F-4 before this year,

you might be wondering? 2.4 back in 2022 with the Padres as well. He posted a 15.1% K rate, 11.4% walk rate and hit a career high, 24 homers and drove

in a career high 85 runs. A lot of career highs that we're talking about here. Yeah. At 31 years old. First time he's gotten a 20 homers or really even come close since 2019. So yeah, it's been a hot minute. And when you look at a stat cast page, it is bleeding red. And the problem is he's literally never done anything close to this before.

And so how do you value this? That's part of the problem, right? Because like if you're pro far, you're like, I'm 31. I just put up this great year. Are you looking for, you know, $100 million? like in a thin free agent market maybe but our team's going to be willing to give it to you I doubt it because you know again you you haven't been this guy like before this your best season was probably I don't know what it is by Fangraphs metrics but it was probably

2018 when you hit 254 3354 458 so yeah you have to go all the way back to like 2018 before you get anything remotely close to what he just did. And again, the power was, it's never been really consistent 20 home run power. The average has always been, you know, fine, whatever. And he's got some on base skills. He's always had that. The walk rate is, you know, believable. The walk rate's believable.

The K rate is believable. So there are some things about the profile that say, yeah, no, he's done that in the past. That's repeatable. but the power, the exit bellows. So what you have to figure out is, is this a guy who has figured something out? Or is this a guy who just got hot at the right time and the league will make their adjustment to him? And he'll go back to being the player that he was, which again, last year in 2023, was one of the worst qualified players in baseball.

He was terrible. And, oh, by the way, on top of that, he's roughly Randy at Rosarena defensively in left field. not a great runner. So there's some defensive questions there. He's not going to provide a ton on the basis. He did steal, I think, 10 bags last year. So it's not nothing. But again, he's not a great runner, slow sprint speed, terrible defender.

He's a switch hitter. And he does have a lot of infield in his background, which has been a while since he's played there. So could the Mariners be like, let's put pro far at third base? Like, do they want to try that? Because if he's just the left fielder, he's probably more of a TH for you because I'd rather have Randy Rose Arena out there. He's a better athlete.

Profar is interesting because there's a very real possibility that he might have to take two, three year worth $15 million a year. Like that might be what the market says he's worth. But my guess is that he's going to want like six and a hundred. Like he's going to want to be played like a star because he did just put up a star like season at the plate. Like you have to give it to him. How repeatable is that? How much are you willing to bank on it?

Because if you're the Mariners, you have very limited options. And if you're going to spend, let's say you have $30 million to spend this winter, right? If you're going to spend half of it on ProFar at a minimum, you have to be right. And if you're wrong on ProFar, the likelihood is that the rest of your offseason, not going to matter that much. So you have to be right at least to some degree on Profar. You have to get that question right. So there's big risk there. But again, look at the rest of the list I gave you yesterday.

There's risk up and down that list because that's, is the position you're in when you're not willing to spend at the top of the market. So pro far to me, super fascinating. I have no idea. I can't give you a feel. Like, is last year real? Is it a mirage? I think it's probably a bit of both what I need from pro far to feel good about giving him $15 million a year.

And again, that might be a low, low guess, but I really don't think a team's going to give him 20 million in five plus years. But I need him to be 270. 340, 400, at least something like that for me to feel pretty good about giving them that. And I just, I don't know if it's going to get there. I'll tell you the number that stands out the most between this year and last year and why I'm really not loving the idea, but I do think he is the, I think he's the swing for the fence and hope you're right type of guy that they'll actually be able to afford. In his career, Jirkson ProFar has posted. a 33.5% hard hit rate.

Average in the big leagues, major league average, 36.5. So he's been 3% below league average for his entire career, except for this last year. In 2024, his hard hit rate, 44.4%. He's never been above 34.3% before.

That's outlier status. And again, the question is always, is it an outlier because he got i mean i want to say lucky because he did it over and over again but is it is it just a one-off or is this was there made a mechanical change right that has led to this at 31 years old it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility we've seen guys explode right around 30 31 before typically they don't typically it doesn't last very long right it's kind of a maybe you get one or two years of that and then at 31 32 your bat starts to slow down and blah, blah, blah, blah.

So a lot of questions with jerks and pro far, but I do think if you're looking for a guy who has some star upside at the plate who isn't likely going to cost like star money, pro far is kind of the only one. Yeah, if the cost is reflective of the major risks and red flags involved here, then sure. I think the most I'd be willing to give him is the contract that Mitch Hanuker got from the giants. I think that's where I would absolutely top out. and even then I'm like

Yeah even then I'm considering what else the the merits have to accomplish here Well and the other thing too is like again like you said earlier is like where is he going to play I don't feel great about him playing second and third base It's been a long time but third base might be your best option But also as we've said beggars can be choosers and there's a pretty decent chance that you're either going to sacrifice defense completely for the sake of offense at third base or you're. you're going to ask someone to do it who's never done it before. Yeah.

So, yeah. It's interesting. He's, he's fascinating. He's by far the, the most fascinating free agent in the market, though, because of the year he's coming off of, but the wild inconsistencies in his history. And the fact that, again,

he just hasn't done anything even close to what he did this year. Yeah. He's a potential landmine. Yeah. So. So, uh, let's get into. to our pitcher report cards in just a moment.

But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marries podcast is brought to you by Fandul. NFL fans can start the season with a big return on Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats of you live play-by-play and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets. Yeah, you heard that right. $200 in bonus bets. guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet.

That's fandul.com. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. It is time to start handing out some grades to the 2024 Mariners pitching staff. We did the position players last week. And we're going to get the bullpen out of the way here before we get into the rotation, which is obviously the big thing here. So we're not going to, obviously, there's so many relievers that pitch for the Mariners. this year we're not going to get into every single one of them

and some guys like Gregory Santos who only threw you know sevenish innings we're not going to even bother because of the injuries and all that stuff so we're going to do I believe Andres Munoz Taylor Sosato Trent Thornton Austin Voth Edward Bizarro

Colin Snyder and Troy Taylor maybe we'll also do Gabe Spire but again injuries so I guess do you want to start there Gabe Spire you want to give him a grade I mean it's really more of an incomplete, but just very inconsistent this year when he was up. He had issues with walks.

Velocity jumped up and down. So it's very clear that he was impacted by injury this year. So I mean, I don't want to be too harsh on him, but it's like a C minus at best. Let's get into someone that I know you're really excited about. Edward Bizarro. So we all remember when he came into that game when it was what seven nothing mariners against the Rangers or whatever it was. Yeah. And he nearly, and he nearly blew it.

It took a great play from Tyler Locklear to end that game. Well, he actually wound up having a pretty good season overall. 27 to two-thirds ending his pitch. 488-ERA, not great. But a 270 FIPP, 296 X-FIP, he averaged 10.73Ks per 9, 2.93 walks per 9. It's pretty good. He looks like he might be someone that's actually a factor in the 2025 bullpen. no, he has to make it.

He has to make the roster. He's out of options. Right. Yeah. Overall, how would you grade his season? Really solid B-plus. You know, again, the ERA is elevated, but when you're a reliever who only has 23 endings, I think we said, right?

When you're a reliever only has 23 inning. Yeah, if you have one or two bad outings, your ERA is shot for the year. And he certainly had one or two bad outings. But really, at the end of the year, he was probably, your second best reliever. And you could see the Mariners start to use him in more leverage spots. Like he used to be the mop-up guy and then it was here and there. And then towards the end, he's pitching in extra innings in the 10th, you know,

with the go-ahead run on second base and nobody out. But, yeah, 55% ground ball rate, plenty of strikeouts. The walks got under control. A lot of soft contact, too. So, you know, we know that the Mariners have liked Bizarro for a while. They acquired him last year. and there were times where we were all clamoring for them to DFA them, and they just wouldn't do it.

This is why we're seeing the guy that the Mariners thought they could get out of Bzzardo, and he has so far. So for me, it's a B-plus, and I'd say he's as close to a lock to make the opening day open next year as a guy in his position can be, which is still pretty precarious. But I think that he is going to fill in very nicely for either Thornton or both they're in that role essentially that those two guys, you know, handled this year. So I would give him with B plus. There's a lot to be excited about with Bzzardo.

Yeah, I would say B plus because I mean, even an A minus because he went from essentially a fringe 40 man reliever to a guy that seems almost firmly locked into the 2025 bullpen projection. They may trade them, who knows, but sure. I mean, it looks like a solid middle guy to me who could could be. leverage. I mean, 30% strikeout rate, 55% ground ball. That can get you into some high leverage spots. So you can carry that over. Troy Taylor, we saw him for 19 and a third innings pitched this year, made his debut in that Sunday night baseball game against the Mets.

So he's pretty recent, pretty new to the Mariners. He was pretty good. A couple of hiccups here and there, but overall pretty good. 3.72 ERA, 436 FIP. I would like to see that number lowered. But 11.64 Ks per 9, 326 walks per 9. Solid rookie season for Taylor, who I think we actually gave our rookie of the year award to, which says more about who ended up coming up for the mayor of this year. Rather than Taylor, but still, he was pretty solid. So what grade would you give him?

I'm kind of feeling like a C plus, B minus? Yeah, I'm making like a B minus. the 18.2% home run to fly ball ratio is going to have him, you know, pitching in Tacoma for most of next year. If he doesn't get that figured out, you can't give up home runs. And he's certainly not the only mariner reliever who had an issue with home runs, particularly in the second half. But that's a huge number. And that's why the FIP is high and all that stuff. But definitely swing and miss stuff.

Definitely a guy who does have some leverage upside in him. you got to get the home run to fly ball rate figured out. You can't give up that many homers. But yeah, obviously swing and miss stuff, like you said, yeah, I mean, I think the nice thing is he's got options left. He doesn't have to make the team next year. But, yeah, I think B minus is probably most fair as a rookie.

You have to kind of factor in expectations and, you know, what's reasonable to expect from a rookie. And so from a guy who really moved up the ranks very quickly as well. So, yeah, I think a B minus is pretty fair. next up cullen schneider you know every year we talk about this there's at least one guy that just kind of comes out of nowhere in the mayor's bullpen and pops

and um i mean they had a couple of guys i mean troy taylor like we talked about bizardo uh as well um another guy that we'll be talking about here in a moment awesome both had a pretty good year uh that you weren't necessarily expecting out of him but snider is the guy that really stands out in that category uh 194 er a 3 4 1 5p he was worth 0.5 F4 10-1Ks per 9, 281 walks per 9, and 41.2 innings pitch. He had some really big moments this season as well, some big strikeouts and key situations. A for me, I know he started to regress a little bit there later on in the season,

but overall, I think it's a fantastic season for Colin Snyder. Yeah, the home run rate and the regression later in the year. probably knocks him down to an A-minus, but Snyder was, you know, the second high-leverage guy behind Munoz for really the last two months of the year when they desperately needed him, especially after Jimmy Garcia got hurt.

He was supposed to be that guy. He got hurt, and Snyder really stepped up. And so, yeah, I think A-minus is totally fair. A is, I get it. You know, and he's entered the year as a guy who somebody may have mentioned as like, hey, the mayor should claim that guy.

He's pretty good. to a guy who your UCL patting your back I mean you know when you got it you got it but yeah Snyder probably gonna make this team next year maybe they trade them again

you never know with Jerry and he'll recycle both in arms and all that stuff but Snyder probably pretty solidly back next year and you hope that he's like the fourth leverage arm just in case there's some regression but yeah obviously he was very very solid this year awesome both

they signed him to a to a one-year deal he's obviously still R-Beligible so they could pick up or they could tender him and keep him around. 369 ERA 412 FIPP 9 case per 9 flat a 266 walks per 9 over 61 innings pitched 0-4 fan graphs had no idea what to do with him so and graphs over value strikeouts and her value creating soft contact which both is I mean I mean he struck out a better per inning yeah but that's not great for a reliever. But what he does do is he gets a lot of soft contact, very good at that. So I would say he's a B.

I mean, like for a $1.25 million, he came in and at times he was a leverage arm for you, and he kind of filled a lot of rolls. He could go four or five out, so he could get you out of that inning, that tight spot, go, you know, two-thirds of an inning and keep the score where it was at. Again, not an elite reliever by any stretch. And you certainly don't want him to be in a leverage spot, but the few times he was this year, he did okay. He did pretty well.

There was a couple of stretches, about week-long stretches where he was pretty bad, and that's kind of what ballooned his numbers overall. But I think that for the most part, he was a very trusted member of this bullpen, and I think he was relatively safe. He felt okay when he was in the game. So I'll give him a B-B-minus. No, I'll give him a B. Yeah.

Trent Thornton also had some really big moments this season, but also had some rough moments as well. 361 ERA, 347, 5th for Thornton, 958Ks per 9, 236, walks per 9. And 72 and a third inning's pitch. He pitched a lot this year. What would you give him? Yeah, probably be again,

home run fly ball rate a little high and there was a couple weeks stretch there. It was August, maybe early September, where he could have one home run per night. innings pitched. Yeah. This year. 11% home run rate.

It's not great. But there was that stretch. It might have been very early September where he could not throw strikes. Like, he'd throw 20 pitches and like eight of them would be strikes. And so obviously when you do that for a couple weeks at a time as a reliever, you do that for 10 innings. It really does hurt and you just can't have it. So I'll give him a B.

He was certainly, towards the end of the year, he was much better and gave himself. a shot to have his option or to, you know, be tender to contract. And we'll see what the mayor's want to do with that. But yeah, B. I'll go B as well. Taylor Sossato, 349, ERA, 3-76 FIPP, front of the show, of course. 8,8, 4Ks per 9, 419, walks per 9, 38 and 2 thirds innings pitch.

He had that really gnarly looking injury in Minnesota. When I saw that happen, I was like, oh, he's done for the year. It ended up not being anywhere near as bad as it looked. he was able to make his way back. He wasn't particularly good for quite a stretch there. But it was actually pretty solid to wrap up the season. And overall, his numbers look fine. It's a, it's a C for me.

The walk rate is ridiculous. Yeah, the walks are bad. The walks are bad. That is for, especially for a guy like Saucato, who's not going to miss a ton of bats, you can't have it. See. Yeah. Yeah, I'll go see as well.

And then finally, one of the Mariners, two all-stars this year, Andres Munoz, who, look, I know there's a couple of bad moments that stand out. You know, obviously the home run to Javi Baez. We all know that. You know, the home runs became a bit of a problem for Mooney, 16.2% home run to fly ball rate. Not great. I'm still giving him an A plus for this year because he was asked to do so much and pick up so much because of the injuries to Santos and Brash.

And they just, they didn't have the horses late in games for most of the year. He was asked to do a lot. Again, he was asked to, you know, give them four out saves, five out saves, and right out of the gate. So considering everything that was placed upon his shoulders and the fact that more often than not, he did come through, I got to give him an A plus. I'll go A minus. The home runs really became a problem at the end. Yeah, I think A minus.

And, you know, look, he was also pitching through some back issues that bothered him all year towards the end of the year he was that's another thing with the elbow uh strain so it's it's maybe it's not so much that the home runs are a big problem it's just a a buy factor of him i mean look it was only six home runs over 59 and third innings pitch right but it's it's like terrible it's a 16% home run to fly ball rate like that's too high so but he misses tons tons of bats uh so yeah it's an a minus for me and and uh i'm not overly concerned about the home run thing uh or the kind of the the bouts of inconsistencies he had this year because again he was dealing with the back

mean he's dealing with an elbow thing so hopefully the mariners can build a bullpen that can help him not have to get four or five out saves in april that'd be nice yeah that would be great all right so that does it for the relievers that we wanted to talk about today now we're going to shift our attention to the mayor's starting rotation which was obviously great uh on the whole now we're going to dive into it individually and grade each of the five primary starters in the merri's rotation in just a moment but first a reminder this episode of the last The Lockdown Marrars podcast is brought to you by Game Time and Price Picks. So I used to live in New Mexico and down in New Mexico, there are zero pro sports teams.

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Syyung two a couple weeks ago when we did our team awards. So I assume this is going to be a very high grade, but just to recap here, he led the league in innings pitch, 208.2 innings pitch this year. 323 ERA, 327 FIP, 4.1F4-9-9-4-9-4-9-4-49-16-0 walks per 9. Pretty much career year across the board for Logan. Had a couple of blowups here and there. But overall, fantastic season for Logan, where he took another step forward. it was really nice to see what do you giving him for a grade.

A minus. I feel like there's still more to go get. Also interesting, he led the league in whip. So if you're a big whip fan, Logan takes that cake too. He'll get some Cy Young votes, down ballot Sion votes, as he should. But the blow-up starts are very much a real thing. And not only the blow-up starts, but how about the starts where he would go like six and two-thirds, and then he would hang a slider, and then all of a sudden he gave up three runs

and six and two thirds when he had a shot to get out and, you know, end on a high note. And those are very minor things. But, you know, if you're grading Logan on an ace curb, which, I mean, he's pretty close to being there, then I think those things do come into account. So I don't know if, like, the strikeouts can get much higher. I don't know if the walks can get much lower or anything like that. But I do think that he can have fewer of the blowup start. So I do think the ERA and the FIP and all that stuff could.

get lower. Luis Cassio? B minus. 364 ERA 391 FIPP 2.3F4 898Ks per 9241 walks per 9, 175, and a third inning speech. He obviously finished the year on the IL, first time he's been on the IL with the Mariners and Bob. So, yeah.

Nothing too concerning. Yeah, nothing too serious. But we did see a pretty significant dip in the strikeouts this year. He had been around 10 Ks per 9 the last couple of years. Obviously, like I just said, 8.98 case per 9 this year. So essentially still averaging a strikeout per inning, but not where he's typically been. But overall, pretty good year. Yeah, just too inconsistent.

You know, just really did avoid like the big massive blowup starts for the most part. But he had a few too many, you know, six innings four earned, six innings five earned. Yeah, which with this offense is a is a death knell. Pretty much. So yeah, that's why it's a B minus. Still pretty good. I'm still totally expecting to be a mariner next year and I'll be very happy that he is. He's still a very good pitcher.

But B minus. George Kirby, Jorge, 353 ERA, 326 FIPP, 4.2F4. That's pretty much where he was last year. 191 innings pitched. He got one more guy out than he did last year. Basically. He had a 190.2. I mean it's pitched last year. 843Ks per 9, 108 walks per 9.

Yeah, he was George Kirby. Still doesn't have a consistent out pitch, consistent strikeout pitch. Yeah, he didn't really take much of a step for it. I'll give him a B. B minus. He was the worst pitcher in your rotation in the second half. Was objectively terrible in the month of August when you absolutely needed him to be better. And like you said, still doesn't have the out pitch, still is getting beat the exact same way he was a couple years ago and still hasn't found a way to attack it.

So my concern here is that George is stagnated and he is what he is and what he is is still a pretty good pitcher. But yeah, you know, just comparing this year to last year, it feels like roughly the same guy. And so to me, that's a B minus. He was he was that bad in August. You remove August, B plus, maybe even in A minus, but August was that bad. So be minus. So last year we talked a lot about Logan Gilbert taking another step forward because of the splitter that he added.

This year it was Bryce Miller with the splitter. And, you know, as we say when pitchers develop new pitches, like we need to see it actually applied in real games before we say like this is actually going to unlock something. Well, it unlocked something for for Bryce Miller this year. And we also saw his other stuff take a step forward as well. And, you know, as I've said a couple of times on this show, I think we really started to see him transform into a complete pitcher. I don't know if he's actually there completely just yet,

but we're starting to see that transformation for him. 294 ERA. That was one of the lowest ERAs in all of baseball this year. 358 FIPP, 2.8F4, 853 Ks per 9, 225 walks per 9, over 180 in the third innings pitched, a 50 inning, 49 inning upgrade from where he was last year. He was arguably their best. pitcher in the second half.

And so much so that I almost gave him the team Sy Young Award over Logan Gilbert. But because Gilbert just was asked to do more, did more and had more of a consistent season than the Miller. I still give it to Gilbert, but Miller was right there on the doorstep for me. I'm going to go with an A for Bryce Miller. Yep.

It's an A. And so much shockingly, there's still more to go get. like this might not be a ceiling. My favorite staff for Bryce Miller here. Here's a list of pitchers who had more innings pitched than Bryce Miller in a lower ERA, which is the whole point of pitching, right? Get a lot of outs, give up as few runs as possible. And those two very important metrics, the pitchers who had who were better than Miller

and both, we have Tarek Scouble, about to be the Sy Young Award winner. Yep. We have Corbyn Burns, probably the runner up. And we have Zach Wheeler. End of list. It's a pretty good company. Pretty, pretty good. And then finally, Brian Wu, 121 in a third inning's pitch.

It's about a 34 inning increase from last year. And that's in spite of dealing with some pretty serious. sounding arm issues in the start of the year. And then he went on that stretch where he was going six and seven deep pretty consistently. Finishes the year 289 ERA 340 FIP. It's 2.3F4, 749 Ks per 9, 096 walks per nine. So even better in the walks department than George Kirby. Obviously, you know, less time, but still.

I've said this before. Brian Wu is my favorite pitcher to watch in this rotation. He's my favorite pitcher to watch in baseball right now. The delivery is so effortless. And while there is a little bit of concern about the fact that he really only does have the fastballs to offer right now, it is really fun to watch a guy just be like, here are my fastballs, hit them. And then watching teams consistently fail to do damage with them. It's pretty sick, actually.

I can't lie, it's pretty dope. Now, we did see a couple of starts here where he started to experiment a little bit, started to feel himself a little bit, and mix in some of his secondaries. And at times, there were some flashes. So we'll see what he does this off season to maybe hone that. And we'll see what he looks like going into next year. But, man, he was so much fun this year. And considering the fact that we didn't even know if he was going to be able to finish the year,

it looked pretty grim to start the year frankly um i'm going to give him an a a plus like he was really good this year i'm going to go b plus because um well because availability is a huge part of being a starting pitcher and he missed the month you know he missed a full month and and so uh that's not necessarily his fault but until he can get through a six month season like that part of your job is to you know pitch and so if you're not doing that consistently i have to dingy a little bit uh it's interesting that you mentioned the breaking ball he actually finished 60 in the 64th percentile in breaking ball uh run value uh so the sweeper actually really took strides especially in the second half and we kind of saw who who Bryce

or Bryce uh who Brian Wu is uh or what he's going to try to be really in August and September it's going to be the four seamer and the two seamer he's always going to lean on those two pitches, but to the lefties, he's going to throw a change up. And the change up, certainly we saw some absolutely gorgeous ones this year. And so hopefully that's the pitch that he can kind of hone in on this winter. And against the righties, you're going to get the sweeper. And we saw some filthy sweepers. So to me, it's not so much about adding a pitch or anything.

It's just about fine-tuning those two pitches. I mean, you can't ask for anymore in terms of command and control. Like, dude's 80 control and like 65 command most nights. So, and then the fastball value is just insane. Brian Wu is pretty close to untouchable for me, as is Bryce Miller. But, yeah, I think I'll go B plus. And the only reason he's lower than Miller is because Miller took the ball every single time out. I mean, I guess technically he finished the year on the IL, but okay.

Sure. Yeah, so I got to think him for availability a little bit here. Okay. Maybe A minor. Maybe A minus right around that 90%. I'm a little biased because again he's he's my favorite pitcher on the on the staff and my favorite pitcher and he's my favorite pitcher in baseball so I'm willing to ignore the well I guess for me it's more like what did he do in spite of the injuries that kind of boosts his grade that's kind of how I looked at it yeah and I also think that it'd be really nice if he can miss a few more bats he did last year this year don't went way down but it's still super effective he also had higher one walks significantly higher walks last year. So yeah.

So you know, find the balancing point there. But yeah, I'm super excited about Wu, but I'll give him B plus a minus somewhere in that range. All right. Well, that's going to do it for our show.

And now we can officially say that we are closing the book on the, uh, 2024 Marriers. Good riddance. Frankly. You will not be remembered fondly. Yeah. We'll remember the,

the starting rotation fondly. And those last five to six weeks. of offense. But overall, yeah, I'm ready to move on. The Justin Turner era will never be forgotten. That's right. That's right. Play the music. Before we get out of here, a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever

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You can follow me at Taday Gazzalus 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. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.