Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Lopes & Ervin are Now Former Mariners

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

The Mariners lost two players from its organization yesterday. Tim Lopes and Philip Ervin were both claimed off waivers are headed to the National League Central. D.C. talks about both players, tells you which teams they're headed to, and also explains why the M's waived them in the first place. 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.

Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. It is a mere two days until Christmas, gang. I sure hope that you've gotten all your shopping done and are completely prepared for it, if it is something you indeed celebrate. This is Locked-on Mariners. I am D.C. Lundberg, and we are part of the Locked-on podcast network, or T-L-O-P-N or, of course, T-Lop-N, for those of you who prefer Tlopin.

please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program using whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariners podcast or any program here on the Locked-on Network. Follow us on Twitter at L-O underscore Mariners and follow me on Twitter at DC underscore Lundberg. That is spelled L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G if you are indeed scoring at home. We have got some more Mariners news to get to today, ladies and gentlemen. It was announced yesterday, Tuesday, December 22nd, that the Mariners have lost two players out of their organization who had been designated for assignment last week to open up spots on the 40-man roster for Keenan Middleton and Chris Flexon.

Both of these gentlemen are headed to the NL Central. Outfielder Philip Irvin was claimed off waivers by the Cubs, and utility man Tim Lopes was claimed by the Brewers. Both of these men saw action with the Mariners last season. We'll talk about Tim Lopes in the first half of the show, and Phil Irvin in the second half of the show. First, Tim Lopes. He appeared in 46 ball games last year,

which is all but 14 of them, because it was just a 60 game schedule, and slashed 238, 278, 364. In 143 at Bath, he accumulated 34 hits and two home runs. In his entire Mariners' crew, which spans 87 games, 2019 and 2020. He's got a 252, 315, 362 slash line. Three home runs, 19 doubles, 27 runs batted in.

He was originally drafted by the Mariners in 2012 in the sixth round, but he was traded to the Blue Jays organization in 2016 as a player to be named later. The original deal went down, pardon me, on August 6th, and the Mariners acquired Pat Vendetti, the switch pitcher for a player to be named later. And on August 1st, 2016, that player to be named later was announced to be Tim Lopes. He re-signed with the Mariners organization following the 2018 season on November 2nd and made his Major League debut with the Mariners on July 24, 2019,

and appeared in 41 ballgames at the end of that season, slash 270, 359, 360. So he did show a better bat in 2019 that he did in 2020, even though he hit for more power in 2020. Even though, you know, I'm sorry to see Lopes go. I like him, but he was kind of redundant on the Mariners 40-man roster. The Mariners have Dillon Moore, also a really good utility player. Moore's got a little bit of a better bat than Lopes has, had better contact ability, and more sting in his bat, and Moore also plays more positions than Lopes does. Moore can play center field. He can play shortstop.

He can play third base. And Lopes is really limited to second base and the corner outfield spots. Pardon me, Lopes has played just one game at third base at the Major League level and no games at shortstop. And throughout his professional career, Lopes has not played very much shortstop at all, while Moore has. And he's a better defender at each position that Lopes is also. In addition, the Mariners also have Donovan Sunshine Superman Walton, who can play both second base and shortstop, and his defense is very highly regarded, even though Lopes is far in a way a better offensive threat than Walton is.

Lopes was designated for assignment last Friday to make room for Keenan Middleton on the 40-man roster and did not clear waivers and was again claimed by the Brewer's organization. Lockdown Mariners' wishes nothing to get the best for Tim Lopes and his future. Time for the trivia corner and today it is a trivia question. Tim Lopes is of Brazilian descent, so the question today is how many Major League Baseball players have been born in Brazil? I'll tell you the answer to that question after this word from Bet Online. Are you ready for some football? College football heads into bowl season and there are some big matchups this weekend. NFL regular season is finishing up with the playoff picture becoming clearer and there's only one place it has you covered

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at BetOnline underscore AG on social media to take advantage of the best bonuses in the business. Sign up for a free account and use promo code locked on for your sign up bonus. Bet hashtag bet online. Answer to today's trivia question, how many Major League Baseball players have been born in Brazil? The answer is five. The first of these players was Jan Gohms, who made his Major League debut in the 2012 season with the Toronto Blue Jays on May 17th. He played 43 games with the Blue Jays that season and then played the next six seasons in Cleveland and was a 2018 All-Star. He spent the last two seasons with the Washington Nationals.

If you've got a question or comment, I do implore you to submit it to Lockdown Mariners at gmail.com and I'll address it on the air in an upcoming mailbag episode. Questions or comments on any subject are welcome and encouraged. We've got a mailbag episode, probably a multi-part episode, again coming up here very shortly. Again, Locked-on Mariners at gmail.com is the place to send those questions and comments. Keep them family friendly as this is a family show. Locked-on Mariners will continue following this from Bilt Bar. Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, Bilt Bar, the greatest protein bars in the history

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All this at builtbar.com. And if you use promo code locked on, you get 20% off of your next order. Builtbar.com promo code locked on for 20% off of your next order. Built bar, because you're worth it. Welcome back to Lockdown Mariners. Once again, your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thanks, JM. Lockdown Mariners has indeed returned, and the holidays are about giving, so I am giving you a hot tip.

They could earn you some extra cash. The new Lockdown Betts podcast is hosted by Lee Sterling of Paramountsports.com. Lee is red hot to start the season, even though the season doesn't start until April, and he shares a lock of the day on every episode. Subscribe to Locked on bets today wherever you get your podcasts. Back to Lockdown Meriters, this particular podcast. We're talking about the two players that the Mariners lost out of its organization via waiver claims announced yesterday, Tuesday, December 22nd.

We discussed Tim Lopes in the first half of the show, and the other player that the Mariners lost yesterday was Philip Irvin, who spent just a very brief time with the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners originally acquired him on September 3rd of this year. As a waiver claim, he had been claimed off waivers out of the Cincinnati Reds organization and appeared in 18 games, played most of the time in right field, after he was acquired by the M's slash 205-340-282. Prior to that, he had been in Cincinnati in 19 games.

He only hit 086 and on base 238 and, slugging of also 086. So each of his three hits were singles. It was his fourth year in major league baseball up until last year, 2017, 2018, and 2019. In 200 games, he had slashed 262, 326, 438. So he's got skills. And as a matter of fact, in 237 major league games, over 660 plate appearances, he's got a slash line of 247, 332, 406, 26 doubles, and 17 home runs. And those 660 plate appearances

are pretty much equivalent to a full season for most starters. However, in those 660 plate appearances, 568 at bats, he's shown a pretty decent propensity for drawing walks, as noted by the high-on-base percentage relative to his batting average, but he has struck out way too much. 27.3% of the time over his Major League career he struck out.

And in his brief time with the Mariners, he struck out 35.89% of the time. That is way too much, ladies and gentlemen. That's getting to Mike Zanino territory, but not quite that bad. He is indeed a former first round draft choice. He was taken 27th overall in 2013 by the Reds out of Samford University in Alabama. And his minor league numbers, I'll go over his AAA numbers in 187 AAA games. This is 781 plate appearances, slash line of 272, 352, and 430. Similar numbers to what he put up at the major league level in 2019. Again, he's got some skills, but at the same time, he really

was nothing to write home about defensively. He's kind of maybe below average to average. Although he does have a decent arm, not a great arm, but a decent one, a serviceable one. He does have a handful of outfield assists in his major league career, and at the same time, the Mariners have a lot of outfield options, especially with Mitch Hanninger coming back, who should be ready for spring training. There really wasn't room for Phil Irvin on the 40-man roster. He was DFA last Wednesday to make room for free agent pitcher Chris Flexen and was claimed off waivers by the Chicago Cubs yesterday, December 20.

We wish him the best with his new organization, and again, we wish Tim Lopes the best with his organization as well. That will do it for today's show. Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be the final show before Christmas. We'll be back on Saturday with the mailbag, and Clive tells me that since we had so many emails, and also because of the subject matter of those emails, it is definitely going to be another multi-part mailbag. It may even reach three episodes. So we have that to look forward to. Hopefully John Miller will be able to join me for that.

I'm not exactly sure yet. But in any case, that will be on Saturday. In the meantime, please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program using whichever podcasting app that you can happen to think of. Follow us on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners, and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg. Thank you very much for listening, ladies and gentlemen, and have a very Merry Christmas.

This is Joey Martin, speaking for Locked on Mariners. part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.