Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - It's Been How Many Years Since Félix Was Perfect?!

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

It's been 10 years since Félix Hernández threw the last perfect game in MLB history. Ty and Colby reflect back on the performance, then look at Logan Gilbert's recent struggles and rank prospects 15-11 in the Mariners' farm system.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] up to date with all things Mariners at Inside the Mariners - a FanNation website covering the Seattle Mariners on the Sports Illustrated network.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11 | @InsideMarinersFor more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Did you know every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONMLB.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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.

It's the 10-year anniversary of Felix Hernandez's perfect game. We're going to look back on the last perfect game thrown in MLB history and then talk about what the current Mariners need to do about Logan Gilbert, whose struggles continued against the Rangers on Sunday. Plus, Colby is going to give you prospects 15 through 11 in the Mariners farm system on today's episode of Locked on Mariners. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network.

team every day. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Locked-on Mariners podcast. It is Monday, August 15th, 2020. And thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available in all platforms with new episodes dropping every Monday through Friday. I'm your host, Tiding Gazzal.

I'm your host, Tadayniz. We cover the Mariners over at inside the mariners. com for Fan Nation over on the Sports Illustrated network. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter. And L.O. underscore Mariners. Follow Inside the Mariners. inside Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-P-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon over at patreon.com forward slash control the zone. We post two additional podcasts on

there every single week. Again, that is patreon.com forward slash control the zone. And if this is your first time joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follower, subscribe wherever you listen to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly, greatly, greatly, great. appreciate it and we are working our way towards 3,000 subscribers the last time I checked I think we're like 24 away so if you are an individual that has not currently subscribed to the lockdown Mariners YouTube page go on and do it and if you're one of the 24 people that

helps us get to 3,000 I will give you a virtual high five and you know what I'll make good on that right here put it there bud thanks So let's talk about Felix Hernandez. Well, actually, we just watched a pretty rough series for the Mariners in Texas against the Rangers. We're going to be talking about that later, particularly about Logan Gilbert, who struggled again yesterday and yesterday's loss. And what do the Mariners do with them? We're also going to tell you about prospects 15 through 11 in the Mariners Farm System as ranked by Colby Patnode. But again, first, we're talking about Felix.

Hernandez who today his perfect game thrown against the Tampa Bay raised on August 15th 2012 has become 10 years old it's insane it's been that long crazy this game was a I mean this was one of the best pitching performances ever obviously perfect games still are incredibly rare in baseball no hitters have kind of fizzled out and how special they are nowadays because it seems like a few of them happen at least, you know, once every year. So perfect games, though, have maintained that rarity. And they have been very special.

And Felix, of course, has thrown the last one in Major League history. Drew Rasmussen, however, of the Tampa Bay Rays, tried to make things interesting yesterday. He pulled a perfect game into the ninth inning of yesterday's game against the Orioles. But Jorge Mateo of the Orioles was able to break that up. Orioles ended up even scoring off Rasmussen. So Felix stays. as the last perfect game thrown in MLB history and this game was nuts. 26 swings and misses for Felix.

Obviously, no hits allowed, no walks allowed, none of that allowed, a perfect game. And he was holding on to just a one run lead, of course, 12 strikeouts. Colby, what do you remember about this day 10 years ago? Where were you? Were you watching this game? Did you still happen to watch this game? because this was late in a season, a lost season for the Mariners. So, you know, there were only 21,000 or so fans and attendance at this game.

I can't imagine a lot of people were watching at home. It was a day game in the middle of a work week. Again, this team was bad at the time. But, you know, for those that were actually able to watch this, I mean, it was pretty special. Were you one of those that we were lucky enough to watch this live? Watched the last three innings. Prior to that, I was actually, Um, hanging out with, with a friend of mine, we, uh, we went to lunch and, uh, you know,

it was like you said, it was, uh, it was an August game, uh, middle of the year, loss year. Um, Felix was on the mound, but typically they replay the night game, the day games at night. I was like, oh, I'll just catch it up there. Uh, wasn't writing yet, right? So I could miss a game here or there without feeling like I'm totally out of the loop. Uh, so that's one of the games I decided like, oh, you know, I'll just watch it later or I'll just, you know, do whatever and uh well when you when you're away from your tv and you you learn that felix has a perfect game after six uh you quickly race home uh to watch the last three innings and hope that you don't walk in on you know the the hit right the the walk the air whatever it is so uh saw

the last three innings um it last three innings live um it was it was pretty cool uh i just remember when he got to the ninth you know you got to two strikes on the on the last hitter and at that point I knew it was game over Felix doesn't get this far

and then just give it up my only concern at that point was whether or not the umpire was going to start to squeeze them a little bit and kind of the opposite happened he got a he got maybe a call on the last pitch of the game and the rest is history and of course you have the iconic

you know the iconic pose Felixine and all that stuff. I remember the lineup being pretty interesting. I think Eric Thames wasn't right and John Jaseau was catching. Smoke and Ackley played in that game too, I believe. Ryan, I think was a shortstop, Seeger at the third. I want to say was it Michael Saunders in Center and Casper Wells and left? Might have been Trayvon Robinson and left.

And I also remember the game being one-nothing. nothing at the time because of course it was because god forbid even when felix throws a perfect game the mariners give felixernandez more than one run of support of course of course i mean like how else could that game have possibly gone that was that was the that was the perfect way for for felix that throw a perfect game i mean it perfectly encapsulated felix's career as a whole in a mariner's uniform dust and michael saunders hazy mus montero john jaso kyle seeger justin smoke Trayvon Robinson, Eric Thames, and Brendan Ryan. That was the lineup for the Mariners in this game.

He played centerfield. And yeah, Michael Saunders, the Connoor played center field. Eric Thames and right. Trayvon Robinson and left. Can you take a while guess as to who was the one person that drove in the run in that game? Montaro. It was Montero with a two-out RBI as well. Do you score smoke?

He scored. Let's see here. who did score the one it was britton and ryan of course britton and ryan got on base for once yeah brin and ryan got on base he finished that year with a 290 on base percentage funny thing is i remember felix's next start against tampa which was you know obviously in 2013 i think he struck out like a career high like 13 guys that day and like he gave up like two hits and there was a debate about like which performance was actually best better. So yeah, Prime Felix was something special and not something you wanted to miss that often.

And it makes me sad that, you know, not Prime Felix, unfortunately popped up for the last three years here in Seattle because Prime Felix was like best pitcher in baseball. So it's, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, let's remember the good times because it got rough there at the end. but we'll always have the perfect game and we'll always have Eric Thames running catch into the gap in the first inning as kind of like the play of that game. Do you remember what the play was in that game? Because that's the only one that stands out to me is Thames made a pretty decent running catch in right field. So, well, this is why I was kind of bringing up if you were actually able to watch this game because I did not watch this game. And technically I still haven't watched this game in full as sacrilege as that might be as a Mariners fan. I haven't watched this game in full because, you know, I was living in New Mexico at the time.

Parents didn't have a lot of money, so we didn't have the MLB package. It wasn't as easy to get nowadays, you know, with MLB TV and all that. You had to go buy like a $300 package from like whatever cable provider yet. So we didn't have the package. I wasn't watching the games. And honestly, I probably wouldn't have even watched the game at the time because the Mariners were so bad. But yeah, I think Brennan Ryan had a couple of good plays in this game, obviously because it's Brennan Ryan. Britain and Ryan was awesome.

Defensively speaking, at least. But yeah, if you guys have a favorite play from the perfect game, if you're listening right now, if you're watching us on YouTube, leave a comment down below in the comment section and let us know what your favorite play or what the play of the perfect game was for you. But this game, again, like I said, was insane. The pitching performance was insane. And also because of the opponent as well, because look, this race team was really good. They didn't make the playoffs that year because, you know, this. was just this was still back when it was four teams making the playoffs in each league. But they won 90 games that year.

This was a good race team. This was not some scrub lineup that, you know, Felix was going after. This was. Zobrist, Upton, Longoria. Zobris, Upton, Longoria, Carlos Pena, Sam Fold, who was having a pretty good year that year, BJ Upton. Yeah, like this was, I mean, shoot, Sean Rodriguez was on this. raised to you as well. Shout out to Sean Rodriguez.

Just so you know, Ty, the entire perfect game is on the MLB YouTube channel. So, you know, stop being lazy. Yeah, I should make a point of watching it all in full. I mean, like, I've seen like a cut up of all 27 outs, but not, that doesn't really give you the full feel of everything. It doesn't, it doesn't even come close. Because after like the sixth or seven, like once you get down to single digit outs to go. Like every single pitch is just high intensity.

Like, it's just different, you know. And so, yeah, I would recommend watching it. I went back and watched it a while ago. You can live tweet it. Oh. From the locked on account. Yeah, and I'm watching every out right now. And so far, the one play was the first hitter of the game.

Thames made a nice running catch. There's another play. The second hitter of the game, slow roller upped in running down the line. Ryan got to it, flipped it over, and Smoke made a really nice pick at the other end to kind of, you know, obviously get the out. So, but that's pretty much been it. Most of these are a routine, like, or if they did hit it hard once or twice, it was right at somebody. So, yeah, not one of those, like, huge, like the play type of situations. Yeah, it's crazy because it feels like every no hitter, every perfect game requires at least one massively insane play.

and from what you're saying at least it seems like Felix didn't really have that and that's just a testament to how good Felix was that day 12 strikeouts 26 swings and misses like I said that's just nuts so let's fast forward now to present day and talk about another mariner's picture but one that is currently struggling at least relative to what our expectations are from him but real quick a reminder of this episode locked on Mariners is brought to you by LinkedIn As you gear up for fall, you need the right people on your team to help your small business fire on all cylinders. LinkedIn Jobs is here to make it easier to find the people you want to talk to faster and for free. Create a free job post and minutes on LinkedIn jobs to reach your network and beyond to the world's largest professional network of over 810 million people. Then add your job in the purple hashtag hiring frame to your LinkedIn profile to spread the word that you're hiring so your network can help you find the right people to hire. Simple tools like screening questions make it easy to focus on candidates with just the right skills and experience so you can quickly prioritize who you'd like to interview and hire. It's why small businesses rank LinkedIn jobs, number one, in delivering quality

hires versus leading competitors. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to you faster. Did you know every week nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash Lockdown MLB. That's LinkedIn.com slash lockdown MLB to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. of the day, just like you do here every single day. The Mariners, unfortunately, dropped two of three to the Texas Rangers

over the weekend down at Globe Life Park or field or whatever the heck that toaster is called. And some of it was on the offense. Offense struggled to score at times, struggled to capitalize on opportunity, struggled to capitalize against a bottom of the league bullpen and bottom of the league pitching staff in general. But also the pitching,

was not great. Marco Gonzalez had another rough start. The defense and his start as well was God awful. And that's being kind about it, honestly. And then yesterday, Luke and Gilbert pitched and only gave up three runs, but Colby, the issues that were prevalent for him in his starts against the Yankees and the Astros as a late were prevalent once again. Here against Texas and obviously a lesser capable lineup wasn't able to do as much damage against him, but that isn't reflective at all as to what he was actually doing on the mound yesterday. It was just a lot of middle, middle stuff. Couldn't really find a feel for his breaking stuff either, or at least he used it efficiently. It was just a mess. And he's been a mess for a while

and it kind of seems like he's getting gas a little bit. So what do you do now? Because he's like, he's supposed to be one of your, you know, three or four horsemen here. And he's a problem. at the moment. There's no way around it. Like, he's a legitimate problem right now. Yeah. Right now the mayors are basically rolling out a rotation where, you know, the first three guys you feel pretty good about, Ray, Castillo, and Kirby, you feel pretty good that you have a chance when those games.

And the last two guys, you don't. You don't feel great about it. I know people wanted Logan Gilbert's issue just to be that the Yankees are a really good lineup. I'm sure that's part of it, but clearly not. all of it. I know people want the issue to be that Logan Gilbert's fatigue because that seems to be the easiest thing to fix, but we might need to, you know, accept a reality here where that's just not the case. Gilbert has been giving up a lot more hard contact for a few months. He's been giving up a lot more doubles and home runs for the last few months. This isn't a, you know,

oh, well, it just happened on August 1st or it just happened after the, after the All-Star break. It's not really what happened. It started happening in late May and early June. So it's one of the things where Gilbert's ERA was fine in those months. So nobody really paid it any attention. But you look at the stat cast page, it's a lot of, you know, dark, harsh blue and it's not good. The fastball command loses arm side a ton. The changeup has taken at least a full grade back, maybe even two. It's just not even a usable pitch right now.

The slider, he can't seem to find, I guess the one positive is yesterday he had a decent knuckle curve. but again the fastball was just middle of the plate there was just very little life to it whatsoever so i know people want it to be fatigue and they're convincing themselves that it's fatigue and it's pretty easy to see why career high innings so you just automatically assume but he's only 15 innings over right now like that's really not significant so it's just one of those things where i think people want it to be a quick fix. They want it to be an easy fix. I'm just not convinced it is because it's been trending this way for a while. You know, and you can't really solve a problem until you admit that there is one.

Logan Gilbert is becoming a problem. It doesn't mean he's going to be long term. It doesn't mean that he can't turn it around as soon as his next start. But Logan Gilbert has been a problem, basically for his last, I don't know, five, six times out. Because even in the outings where he like, oh, he goes six and he gives up three. It's like, yeah, he's doing that against Texas. Texas isn't a great lineup. That's a lineup you should dominate. So it's just watching Logan Gilbert pitch right now.

It's clear that something is wrong. And hopefully it's fatigue because that is something you can fix. But it's, I mean, I can't imagine he was fatigued in May. And we started to see this type of stuff creeping in May. So we'll see what the Mariners decided to do with it. I kind of doubt that they just skip him. him or anything like that. I think they could skip him because of the off days.

So it's not even like they have to put flexing back in the rotation. They could just skip his next turn and Castillo would still go on four days rest, his full four days. So I think you have to consider at this point. But also, you know, at some point it just you run out of excuses. And Logan Gilbert, is there something wrong mechanically? or, you know, hopefully it's fatigue, but that seems like a really simple solution

that people want more so than what's actually happening. So here's his last nine starts. This is dating back to June 30th. Four earn runs against Oakland, one earn run against San Diego, but that was a start that I think is still pretty clear in our minds here that he didn't have his best stuff in that start and kind of got lucky there at times.

and runs against Toronto, one and run against Texas, which he should be doing that. Then he had that string where he had two against Houston, then two in a row against the Yankees. He gave up two in his first start against the, against the Astros, then two again. And his next start against the Astros, then six in New York, then seven at home against the Yankees. And now three runs against Texas. But of course, you know, that's not the only thing that we need to go off of here, right? what are the signs what are the signs and the signs right now are he is catching way too much play with the fastball and that's really a lot of the time that's his only competitive pitch that he has

and then when he does have his breaking stuff or his off speed stuff at his disposal it doesn't last for an entirety of a game it just it hasn't it comes and goes inning by inning maybe game by game and you see it for an inning at a time or two innings at a time and that's really he just hasn't had a complete start really since april that's the thing and it's just you know even when like his stat sheet looks good it's like man he was really lucky to have ended up with that stat sheet you know there's always there's always a caveat to logan gilbert starts this year just think about the last time you remember logan gilbert being dominant in a start don't think about the numbers. Tell me when the last time you watched Logan Gilbert and was like,

there's the number two upside type of guy we were talking about. Like, that's what it looks like. And honestly, that might be the Tampa start back in April, late April. Yeah. I mean, like, it's not like he's been a disaster for most of the season. He's been fine. He's been, he hasn't been a problem up until the last probably, I would say, four or five starts. But what you're doing is you're putting a lot of strain on a bullpen now when, Marco and Gilbert feel like they're both, you're pushing on me if you ask them to go more than five at this stage.

And those guys are going back to back. You already know that you're going to short script Kirby a little bit here and there. They'll say they aren't going to do it, but they are. So you're just putting a lot of strain on Castillo and Ray and Kirby to be very good because, you know, if you can win three out of five, great. If you lose three out of five and you do that repeatedly over and over again, you're going to miss the playoffs so it's one of those things gilbert has to figure it out marco has figured out you can't have two uh massive question marks in a rotation as you head towards october hopefully so

um like so i really hope it is fatigue because then the marriage could just skip him and hopefully that resets everything and he's fine but i'm not convinced it is because we're seeing some of the problems that he got away with in may june july he's not getting away with in august and I don't know if that's, I just, I can't just assume it's fatigue because I can't imagine he was fatigued on June 18th. You know what I mean? So sometimes we want the simple answer, but a lot of the times the simple answer is not, not the one that you get. No, it's pretty clear that he's gone through some mechanical issues. And if it is mechanical, then I trust Gilbert to get that fixed eventually, hopefully before he runs out of time this year.

but Gilbert's a very smart pitcher. He's very analytically driven. I guarantee you he's not sitting around going like, oh, it's just the Yankees. I'm fine. That's not who Logan Gilbert is. And it's okay to be critical of Logan Gilbert. It's fine.

Nobody's going to get hurt. Logan Gilbert's not going to get his feelings hurt. And to be honest, Logan Gilbert doesn't care what you think about him. And he doesn't care what me and Ty think about him. So he's a big boy. You can criticize Logan Gilbert and still believe in the long-term success of Gilbert and the Mariners. Oh, yeah. no, I still think he's on number two.

Like, I just, I, I, I, I, I just, you know, he isn't. Figure out the breaking stuff. Like, he's not, he's not right now, right? Like, it's just, this is something that's probably going to need an off season's worth of work to fix. And so. He's a really mediocre number four right now. Yeah. And so, but he has the talent.

He has the talent to reach the ceiling that I think we all envisioned for him. So, you know, it's just kind of, it's kind of weird and a little disappointing that the stuff has, taking a step back here over the last few months. And again, hasn't been entirely reflected in the in the numbers yet. But we're starting to see it. We're starting to see the cracks and we're starting to see that kind of come to fruition here, especially in those starts against the Yankees. So hopefully he's able to turn it around because the Mariners can really use him down the stretch,

especially once they start getting into playoff series. Because at this point, right now the way that he's pitching, I don't know if there's a clear answer between him. and Marco Gonzalez as the fourth starter to get the ball in a seven game series. At this point, I'd probably trust Marco to, you know, grit it out more so than I would, Logan Gilbert, because Gilbert doesn't have that tool where if he doesn't have the fastball, he can just make it work. Logan Gilbert's not there.

So, yeah, it's fun when Castillo and Ray and Kirby are pitching. and you feel like you beat anybody. And then the other two guys step on the mound. You're like, no, try and find a way to split one of these two games. Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully Kirby or, sorry, Gilbert figures it out, but we'll have to see. All right.

So moving on, we're going to look at prospects 15 through 11 as ranked by Colby in the Mariners farm system. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by BetOnline. Betonline. Dot net is the fastest and easiest way to check in on all your betting needs. find all your favorite sports and events at the number one online resource for odds, lines, and games. Find reviews and news of every league, including Major League Baseball, NFL, NBA, NHL, Combat Sports, e-sports, and even golf. But Online continues to be the top online resource for all your sports wagering information from live in-game betting, scores, and podcasts.

They have you covered. Head to bet online today or use your mobile device to learn more about the trends in action. Bet Online is where the game starts. So last week, we ranked, or you ranked, rather, prospects 30 through 16 in the Mariners Farm System. So we're going to be continuing that with five at a time per episode here. On today's episode is numbers 15 through 11 in the Mariners Farm System, starting with Michael Morales, the Mariners third round pick from last year's draft, right in a pitcher now in Loe-Modesto at the age of 20. What do you like about Morales?

Why is he in your top 15? Yeah, Morales is really interesting because, again, he was, he's just 19 years old. The fastball is kind of the key here because he does have some growth that he needs to go through, but it's already up to 93 and he commands it pretty well, which is, you know, a big plus for a 19 year old. There's still a lot of projection there, though. So whether or not he becomes a mid-rotation guy or just kind of a, you know, number four, number five type. comes down to how much value you can extract from that fastball. But he does have, you know, again, 93-mile-hour fastball as a 19-year-old right now,

a pretty good curveball. It's probably his best pitch. I think he, I think it's the pitch he's most likely to get swings and misses with. So it's to me that that's the number one off-speed pitch. The slider is okay, but it's not great. Sometimes it gets kind of cutterish, and it just kind of tumbles towards home plate without much movement. It's a pitch he needs to throw, he needs to throw more of.

He doesn't throw it a lot because he doesn't trust it. And the change up also is something that I think is probably most likely to be his third pitch. It's pretty good. He doesn't throw it a ton. Again, it's something he needs to throw more of. But when he does throw it, typically he throws it with good arm speed, and it actually has some run and some sync to it. So I think, you know, this is a very efficient.

wind up. It's a very, it's a very smooth delivery. So I do think there's even more velocity in there. I think his ceiling is a four pitch, you know, rotation guy. Probably a little bit better than Chris Flexen, but probably ultimately, I think his ceiling is a number four. But, you know, if he gets enough value out of that fastball, it could take up to a number three. And if we're talking about, you know, 95 with a 50 change up and a 60 curveball, that's a pretty good pitcher. So, I like him. I think next year is going to be a big year for him to see if he can really climb up these rankings even more. It's a very good arm.

So I'm really intrigued to see what the Mariners can do with the guy like Michael Morales. All right. So coming in at number 14, Taylor Dollar, 23-year-old pitcher, who was, of course, a name that we talked about a lot in trade talks leading up to the trade deadline. Ended up not getting dealt. He stays in the Mariners' rotation and has had a very good year. now at AA Arkansas. What do you like about Dollar? Yeah, Dollar's a pitchability righty,

which is not a term that's usually thrown around. But he throws a ton of strikes, really commands his pitches very well. If Dollar threw 95, 96, consistently, he would be top 10. But right now he's still 89, 90, occasionally touches 93, but it's not nearly enough.

He'll top out at 93, but that's once or twice a game. He honestly, to me, he reminds me a lot of Chris Flexen. He's going to throw a lot of strikes, not going to miss a ton of bats. And he's not going to induce like 55% ground balls. It's going to be a pretty even distribution between ground ball and fly ball.

But he's going to throw a ton of strikes. He knows how to pitch. And again, he's 6'3, about 200 pounds. So he could still add some good weight, maybe get that fastball velocity up a little bit. But based on where he is right now, I think he's a pretty safe number four. I think he could survive in the majors right now.

It's not something you want to do. You're in the playoff hunt like Seattle is. So I wouldn't expect to see him, but I think he can actually pitch in the majors right now and be reasonably effective. He's probably a number five right now. But I think his ceiling is probably that number four, Chris Flexen type.

Coming in at number 13, of course, the Mariners last international signing period signed Lazaro Montez, but along with him, they also signed Michael Oroyo, who's earned some pretty high comps from people in the game. 17 years old, infield are currently

in the Dominican Summer League. What should we keep an eye out for with Michael O'Royle? Yeah, you really want to see if the power develops here. I think it's probably going to be average power, you know, probably 20 home runs, 18 to 20 home runs, but he hits a ton of line drives. he'll use the entire field. It's a very CTZ-esque approach.

He's actually a pretty decent runner right now. It's probably a 55 runner. I would imagine that sinks down to 50, 45. That's kind of how these things work as the guys age up. It's a pretty strong arm, but it's not like, it's not Mani Machado, right? It's probably not even Suarez, but it's very accurate. He gets the ball out quickly. It's a really safe arm to project a third.

He's going to be a good enough athlete to stay there as well. Um, so it kind of comes down to the power as to whether or not he's going to be a traditional third basement. I really think he can hit. And honestly, he, the profile and everything I read about him kind of reminds me of a right handed Kyle Seeger where it's, you know, not amazing defense, but good defense, not a great arm, but extremely accurate. And he gets rid of the ball quickly. Uh, not insane third base power, but, you know, average 25 home runs ish. And a guy who gets a lot of doubles. I just, I feel like that's kind of where Michael Oroyo is headed. And this is a guy who could be top three here in a year. We do this again in a year. He could be top three. Like the

bad is, is really something to be excited about. All right. So number 12, Jonathan Clase, who was injured for most of the last season, now healthy, having a good year, 20 years old, outfielder now in low aid, Mendezzo. Why, or what has Clos A done this year? to rise through your ranks? Well, and start with the fact that he's a true center fielder. He is a double plus runner. It's an easy 65 speed grade.

I've seen some give him 70. And he was off to a very good start. He really struggled in July. You know, things happen. But overall, he's had a pretty good year. He's actually added a little bit of power to his game. He's definitely still more of a slap hitter. you know, hit the ball in the gap, run like hell type of guy.

But he, you know, he gets on base a lot. He's got a good eye. He's developing some over-the-fence power, some doubles power here. I think the arm is, he can handle right field. If you need him too, it's good enough arm to do that. But he's definitely a center fielder. And he's stealing bases like crazy right now. I think he's up to 40 right now.

Still wouldn't say he's a plus base stealer. He's more of above average. still gets caught a little too much, still doesn't get the best jumps, but the speed really plays here. So I think what you're looking at is a potential like old school leadoff guy who, you know, hits like 270, gets on base 34, 35% of the time and steals you 30 bags with, you know, plus center field defense for a while. That's, it's pretty valuable piece. And if the power comes, then that's, you know, BJ Uptonish. So I think that's a guy to watch. B.J. Upton, second time we mentioned his name on the show.

more on base skill though yes all right Brian Wu finally comes in here at number 11 I'm really happy that you put Brian Lou this high because of course you know when he was drafted last year was like all right this kind of seems like a

money saver no hold up he's a pretty interesting arm to maybe put in the bullpen well pure reliever like he's been starting and he's been showing out he's been showing out as a starter as well 22 years old coming off of an injury,

hi Evert right now for him, what do you like about Wu? And do you think he can stick as a starter? Yeah, that's kind of the big question here. And by ranking him 11, I'm kind of thinking he could. Because if Wu was a pure reliever like we thought he was when he was drafted, probably is in the back half of the top 30.

And he only cracks the top 30 because of trades this year. But like you said, he's starting and it is going very, very well. fastball up to 97 with a slider that is already plus it's a reliever slider and a change up that is kind of the difference maker right now it looks good it's a legitimate pitch i i say it's it's probably just going to be average at the big league level but again you have a plus fastball plus slider and you just need an average third pitch to stick in the rotation um so this is really interesting to see i i don't know if ultimately he's going to stick in the rotation

long term. But I mean, you're not going to take him out of the rotation right now. The guy looks really, really good out of that. It's a, you know, it's a three-quarter arm slot. It's true three-quarter arm slot. There's actually pretty good life to the fastball. It plays up even more than the 95 to 97 that he throws with. Mechanically, he's fine.

And he has had no issue throwing strikes, really, in any of his starts. So this looks like the guy who might legitimately. be able to stick in the rotation. And if he can, based on what I'm seeing right now, the Maris have themselves another mid-rotation starter that just kind of came out of nowhere. So we'll see what happens with Brian Wu, but that's a guy who has catapulted up the rankings. And it's pretty much all because he's healthy now and he's showing that he might actually

be able to start at the big league level. That's huge. Yeah, I was going to say if you have him 11, do you think that he's going to start? Or at least that there's a pretty good shot of it. Right now, I would say he's... Right now I would say he's a starting pitcher prospect. Yeah.

Whereas somebody like Travis Coon is most definitely not. Yeah. I mean, that's insane. Completely changed the narrative on him. Just, I mean, how many innings is he thrown now? Like 30 or so? Yeah. And about 30 innings of work, he's been a really good three innings.

He's completely changed what everyone thinks about him, I think. You know, and it's not just us, right? Like you see it from folks like Joe Doyle and all these guys that follow Mariners prospects intently that are just perplexed. They're flabbergasted by what Brian Wu has been able to do this year. It's pretty exciting stuff. There's a lot of helium here with Brian Wu. 39 innings, eight walks, and 56 strikeouts. Yeah.

So a lot of reason to be excited about Brian Wu. Next year will be kind of the big year in deciding whether or not he's a rotation piece or if he ultimately ends up in the bullpen. But right now, I mean, it's looking good. It's looking very good. It's looking very good. All right. So quick programming note before we hop off of here,

tomorrow we have a very special episode. I got to interview Jordan Schusterman, one half of Cespitus Barbecue and Ryder over at 5. sports MLB. He's a Mariners fans and is very excited about Luis Castillo and Julio. And we talked a little bit about Felix's perfect game and just perfect games in general. Playoff scenarios, a bunch of cool, fun stuff. So that's going to be airing tomorrow and probably a bit earlier than we usually air stuff as well.

I think I actually might premiere it on YouTube sometime in the morning. So keep an eye out for that. If you have notifications on on YouTube, then you're good to go. You'll know exactly when that's going to be going live. If not, subscribe. Turn notifications on. So you know exactly when that's about to go up. And it will be on all podcast platforms a little bit shortly after that as well.

So keep an eye out for that. Now, that's going to do it for our show today. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast for Colby Pat node. I'm Tiding Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow inside the Mariners at inside Mariners. You can follow me at Dame Gonzalez,

as C-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-A-L-L-E, that's C-PAT-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making it to your first listen of the day. Now make your second listen, the Lockdown MLB podcast. MLB expert Paul Francis Sullivan brings humor, passion, and unique perspective on every team and the biggest stories around the league. Follow the number one daily league-wide podcast,

locked on MLB on the Odyssey app YouTube and wherever you get your podcast just like us. And with that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.