Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: Let's Talk About Whit Merrifield and the Mariners

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

It's Mailbag Monday! Ty and Colby answer some Mariners questions from listeners, including what the team will do and should do to finish off its roster build, what reasonable expectations are for Mitch Haniger, if Whit Merrifield makes sense, and more.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.Jase MedicalEmpower yourself when you purchase a Jase Case, providing you with a personal supply of 5 antibiotics that treat 50+ infections. Get yours today at jasemedical.com and use code LOCKEDON to get $20 off your order. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON 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) 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.

What will the Mariners do next and what do we want them to do next? We'll answer that and more coming up here on mailbag Monday. 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 Monday, January 22nd, 2024. This is tiding Azolson.

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You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show, the link, as well as our social accounts, is in the description of this episode. This is Mailbag Monday. The show will re-answer your Mariners questions, and we're going to start here with Steve, who wants to know, out of all the new relievers, brought in on minor league deals,

who is the most intriguing to you? Colby, you want to start us off? No, but I will. The answer is none of them, because, of course, I don't care. Very on brand. Yeah. Yes.

But in all honesty, none of them are super exciting, but there are some fun ones and I think for me the answer is Crable pitched pretty well for the Orioles back in 2022 and didn't really get much of a chance in 2023 which is odd because he was again solid in 2022 Crable's not going to be flashy he's not going to be a huge strikeout guy

he's not going to wow you with like Matt Brash stuff or Andres Munoz's like velocity but he does something that seems to be pretty underrated by most front offices in particular in bullpen arms, he has a strong disdain for allowing hard contact. So he doesn't. Like it's very hard to barrel up the baseball against Crable.

It's very hard to hit line drives against him. And if you do, they're probably going to be softly hit. So when you look at the stack cast page, he just doesn't give up hard contact. And that is a valuable asset, particularly if you're coming in to start an inning clean. You don't want a guy who is going to walk somebody. you don't want a guy who's going to give up, you know, slug and hit the ball hard and, you know,

just kind of lose it at the beginning. Crable's not really a guy you want coming in to, you know, clean up a mess from your starter. But he is a guy who's very capable of coming in, getting you three outs in the sixth inning against, you know, six, seven and eight, and probably get you some three pretty soft take round balls, maybe a strikeout. And that's just his skill set. It's something that feels a little underrated in today's game. everybody wants to strike out everybody chases a strikeout i get why but you know a strikeout and a softly hit ground ball to the second baseman both result in and out so uh if i'm just looking for

a middle guy then crabils uh the guy that i'm i'm most interested in uh i know a lot of fans are kind of intrigued by the story of uh of butchery but uh it's just he hasn't pitched in the majors and so long it's hard to feel good about counting on him for anything so would be a cool story though it would be an awesome story, but do you want to count on it? No. So specifically with the guys who have been signed to minor league deals, Crable is the one that I'm most interested in.

Yeah, I mean, let's get this out of the way. It's going to be very hard for any of these guys to make the team out of spring training. So we're really talking about, I lost disaster strikes over the next, you know, a couple of months here. We're talking about guys that if they stick with the team might have a chance to impact the team later on in the season.

and I'm with you. I think Crable is the guy that really stands out here. Joey Crable spent the last few years with the Baltimore Orioles, had a really good season in 2022, like you mentioned. And like you said, generates a lot of weak contact and keeps the ball on the ground. And when you can do that with consistency, you have a place in most Major League bullpins,

if not every Major League bullpen, especially when those two things are working in unison. And a big reason for that is that change-up. That changeup is really good, man. In 2022, he was plus six, 93rd percentile, an off-speed run value. That's a very good change-up. And like we've talked about in the past, with pitchers and the Mariners pitching development, they typically hyper-focused on one or two things that you particularly do well,

and they have you just do more of that, basically. So I think that's really the game plan with Crable is try and keep the ball on the ground, try and continue to generate weak contact, and don't try to do too much with your change-up. Just keep throwing it the way that you throw it because it works, right? I'm not really sure why he didn't get many opportunities this year in Baltimore, this past year in Baltimore. He only threw five innings, I believe,

at the major league level in about 40-ish down in AAA. Again, not really sure what the reason for that was, but when he came up in those five eddings, he looked pretty much like the guy he was in 2022 as well. So if they can get that guy, that's a really nice mid-leverage option to have and the mayors have a lot of I'm not sure if I'm ready to call them legitimate options yet but they have a lot of bodies going into camp and really only you know we talked about this last week probably three

maybe four spots to give those guys in this year's bullpen so they have a lot of different guys that they can sift through but crable to me is is near the top of that list also throw him maricio lavera in there he's not a a minor league signing, he was a waiver claim, but close enough, right? And if you're looking for a Justin Topa type, a Justin Topa light sinker slider combo, really like the slider from Lavera. So that's another dark horse there potentially to impact the Marys bullpen at some point in 2024. All right, let's move on. We got another question here from Jamie or Jaime. What do you think is a reasonable move from the M's front office in the next couple weeks.

Conversely, what move would you like them to make? So what do we think the Mariners are going to do? What do we want them to do? Two very different things, at least potentially. Colby, what do you think? Whitmerfield for both. Right. Just to spite Mariner on Twitter.

Yep, absolutely. Whitmerfield for both because he's fine. Yeah, they should actually sign Whitmerfield to a $25 million contract. Mm-hmm. clearly that's the only yeah that's clearly what people were saying this weekend um yeah so what what should they do i think um or what's reasonable for them to do i think adding a kind of a role player bench bat type um who can play you know not not a guy who's going to play once a week like i'm not talking about that i'm talking about like a guy who could legitimately play three four times a week uh adding that guy

and you know give you some value offensively um versatility would be nice, but not necessarily. Like with Merrifield. Yeah, about that. You add that guy and then you go add kind of like a middle relief type. I think that's reasonable. There's not a lot of high leverage guys. So like what would I want them to do?

Well, ideally they would have signed Robert Stevenson and just, you know, built that bullpen out. But they didn't. Too soon. I'm not ready to talk about that. I mean, Stevenson decided to ruin his career by picking the angels. That's his business. Yeah, all the great work the raised it is going to be. done by that angel's pitching development stuff.

Which is weird because they actually have developed some pretty good pitchers. But it doesn't matter. We cannot give them any credit here. Not the day for facts. But yeah, what I would like them to do is find a trade that nobody in Major League Baseball thinks is possible. Like, I want them to go trade for an impact hitter at the cost of prospects only. Yeah. that's not reasonable, at least not with the current market.

So that's what I would like them to do. At least not with what we know about the market. Right. What I would like them to do is go get, you know, Elise, Luisa Rise, combine the names there. I'd like them to go get Louisa Rise and it only costs them Harry Ford and, you know, Emerson Hancock. That would be sick.

Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Not realistic. I would like the Mariners to go get one. but who is he? How much does he cost and does he fit? Like Corius Oler's an impact bat. Does he fit on this roster?

Not at all. So what I would like them to do is find somehow an impact like a 120 WRC plus or better second or third baseman to hit third, fourth or fifth. What's reasonable to ask them to do? Go get a Whitmerfield, Amad Rosario, you know, Gio or Shella, whatever type. go trade for Jonathan India and then go and get you know Jacob Junis somebody pitch in the middle

the the bullpen who could also start if you need them to I think that's reasonable yeah I don't think they're going to go after someone like Junice especially now after like both yeah yeah I have Desklafani if they don't trade Deskofani I just I think that's probably a hard know on someone like Junice I think they're

they're probably out on the rest of the reliever group if I had to guess like they're probably not. I don't know. Maybe out's not the right word, but I don't think that they're going to end up getting any of those guys. Once this offseason is all sudden done. Yeah, you know, what I want them to do, obviously, is, you know, go and get yourself another, you know, everyday player. That would be great. But like you said, who is that guy? How do you get him? And I don't really see the path there. You know, I'll take what you said one step a little further. With the bench bat,

how about a guy that can play all three outfield spots legitimately well, like Michael A. Taylor. I think that could really help the Marriottis right now, especially if, you know, looks like they're going to be running Mitch Hanigar out there a lot. So,

yeah. And I don't know if I necessarily want my late game outfield defensive replacements to be Dillamore or Whitmerfield or Sam Hagarty. I don't know if I really want that being the case there late in games So yeah if you can get like a legitimate Defensive outfielder that can play all three spots

Can give you know Julio a blow when it whenever he's you know Just deaching or you know needs a day off entirely I think Taylor's a great bit for the for the mariner's roster Before we kick things into high gear What do I think they're gonna end up doing? Probably like Wood Merrifield you know Tim Anderson someone like that I could also see them just going in the spring training with things as is, which we'll talk about that a little bit later on.

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Again, that is eBaymotors.com. Eligible items only, exclusions apply eBay, guaranteed fit only available to U.S. customers. And you're listening to the Lockdown Marys podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. And as a reminder, Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube.

Locked-on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Lockdown, plus our national shows covering every league. Go to Lockdown Sports today on YouTube and subscribe to the first-ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. your team every day. And this is Mailbag Monday. We're answering some of your Mariners questions. Dean wants to know, what would a reasonable expectation be for Hanneger in terms of

plate appearances and production for this season? Nothing. I mean, yeah, that. What's reasonable? Nothing. Yeah, yeah. You should go into the year of, you know, like not banking on anything from from Hanigur, given his extensive injury history.

But let's assume that he is healthy for, a good portion of the season and you can determine what a good portion is 235 310 430 is over 400 played appearances that's not about right

so here's the deal with with Hanager is that he still hits the ball really hard Yeah. Like when he's healthy or when he was healthy in 2022 and last year in San Francisco, which granted was only for like 90 games combined. He still hit the ball hard. He's like he's still a capable major league hitter.

Like this isn't the guy who's so broken down that he can't even. This isn't Tommy Lestella, right? Like so broken down, he doesn't just have any bat speed left or anything like that. Hanager's got bat speed. He can still generate power. So as long as he plays, I think he's going to be, you know, an above average bat.

I don't know if that's 120 or 110, but I think it's going to be somewhere in that range for as many plate appearances as you can get from him. So you got to manage him pretty seriously. You have to be careful not to overwork him, both in the field and at DH. He's going to have to just get pure days off. Like, you have to do that for him. So I think, you know, you get 300 plate appearances from him, and he's a 110 WRC plus bat. That wouldn't surprise me. at all and I think anything you get over that is a pretty significant bonus so yeah um I think

you know Hanager being basically at least as good as to Oscar Hernandez was last year just in fewer played appearances is probably reasonable yeah I think it's probably um you know 105 to 115 wRC plus which is you know large gap there but um 20-ish home runs again it all depends especially with the county and stats it all depends on how much he plays. Can he be Jared Kelnick last year? Yeah. Like yeah, probably. Yeah, a little bit more consistent preferably, but yeah.

Maybe not. Maybe not. It might just be one boom month and then a lot of... Well, I mean, a lot of IL stents, but... Yeah, a lot of IL stance and, you know, as he tries to work his way back. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think though, you know, the best way to look at it is just don't bank on getting anything out of him. And then whatever you get from him is a bonus.

Which is why the Max Kepler's and the Michael A. Taylor's and the Eddie Rosario's and, you know, the Jesus Sanchez, why all those guys still make sense, even though the outfield looks crowded right now. Yeah. So while we love Mitch, we're very happy that Mitch is back. there is an unavoidable reality that we have to, you know, address here. So, and that is Mitch just can't say on the field, whether it's his fault or not. And most of the time it hasn't been. But yeah, just the way that it's been, unfortunately, for Mitch. You're listening to the Locktime Marries podcast.

Thank you again for making us to your first listen here on Mailbag Monday. We got a couple more questions to answer from you guys. We got this one from Max. Oh, boy, Colby. We got to talk about Whitmerfield. again. Why are people saying we already have a white Marifield

not Whit Merrifield, a white merrifield, as Max wrote here. I don't remember Demo or Haggerty hitting over 275 with a K rate less than 20%. Question mark, exclamation point. You can have better options on the bench. I mean,

even if you remove the word better from your last sentence, it's still a valid point. Just have options. Have bodies. It's okay to have a little too much on the back end of your roster. I have no comment on this. Right. Yeah. Do you want the good,

do you want the solid player on the Mariners or not? Yes. Okay. Cool. No. What's wrong with you? And by the way, Haggarty has options left. You don't lose Sam Haggarty by signing Whitmerfield. By the way, you know who else has options left? Surprisingly. Dylan Moore.

Oh, by the way, you know who else has options left? Again, surprisingly. Josh Rojas. Oh, you know who else has options left? options left, surprisingly. Luis Rius. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to pick one of these guys or the other.

You can have them all. It's not a one or the other situation. Look, I get it. If Whitmerfield is going to command $10 million, then yes, we can have a conversation about that, about whether or not that's the best use of the Mariners' limited resources.

I don't think that he's going to make $10 million, but also I'm incredibly confused by this market. I don't think anyone can make any definitive statement about what a player is going to make because Isaiah Connor Folefa got $7.5 million per season. So. It's not a better player than Whitmerichael. But the other thing too here on that, right?

Because I see a lot of people that are like, why would the mayor spend $10 million on Wood-Marifield? We have seen on multiple occasions over the last few off-season the mariners look at the end of the market and look at players that, you know, they could beef up their back end of their bench. They could be a slight upgrade over, you know, the Sam Haggardies of the world or, you know, a couple of years back, like the shed lungs of the world, etc.

And go, yeah, that's great, but is that actually worth $6 million, $7 million when this guy, this Quad A player that we have that we think might be able to produce similarly, is making the league minimum? we'll just go with that guy. Why would that suddenly change in an off season in which they have been arguably the most financially restricted they've ever been? Like, why are we throwing all logic out of the window with that when we have evidence that suggests that the Mariners would not? Like the Mariners have done everything to prove that they're not going to throw out a good chunk of their remaining budget on someone like Whitmerfield. So if they sign Whip-Merefield, it's probably going to be for $4 or $5 million. And who knows if that's actually what he's going to end up commanding or not.

But if Whitmerfield is a mariner, I feel pretty good that it's at like half of what you guys think, what a lot of people think he's going to sign for. Right. I think when I look at what this bench, like, look, I don't want to turn this into like a Merrifield versus Morr-in-Hagrty thing, because Moran-Hagrity are useful players. like Dillan Moore as much as it pains me to watch him swing the bat he brings defensive versatility he steal backs he hits for power he crushes lefties and yeah he strikes out but he walks a ton too Dillan Moore can help you Sam Haggerty can help you Yeah outside of like their overall offensive profile like Dillamore is pretty much the same player that what Merrifield is in terms of base running value defense of versatility etc

Right I mean and there's a non-zero chance that both of the those guys, or at least one of those guys, is better than a 35-year-old Whitmerfield in 2024. Maybe. But you know what's good about Whitmerfield is that he's still a solid, you know, usable player when at 35 years old, he's being asked to play 160 games. You know what happens if you ask Sam Haggurdy to play 160 games? You lose.

Straight up. Sam Haggurty is, is not a 2-1 player if you ask him to play 160 games. He's not. Sam Haggurty gets the benefit. of having his matchups handpicked. He gets to face the pitchers. He has the best chance to hit 90% of the time. Because that's the type of player he is.

Whitmerfield is a guy that you can use every day. You don't want to. And you don't have to. And that's kind of the beauty of the Whitmererfield idea that nobody's talking about. Not only is Whitmerfield available. He's played in 85% of his team's games or more every year since his first full season, which does this team have some issues with reliability? on the roster. Oh, wow, look at that.

They do. Okay. So not only that. But if you ask Merrifield to do less, can he produce more? Yeah. In theory, yes. Like, Marifield is fine. And I keep saying this over and over again. Merrifield is fine. The idea of what Merrifield is fine. The idea of Amad Rezario is fine.

The idea of Tim Anderson is fine all at the right price. That's what we're talking about here. the idea of Eddie Rosario is fine. Like these players who nobody cares about that they just kind of float around on the back end and you look up at the end of the year and like, oh, they're a one and a half two one player. Those players have value even on a roster like the Mariners.

Players like that help you go far. They help you win the World Series. Yeah. The Atlanta Braves don't win their World Series without Eddie Rosario. Eddie Rosario. Adam Duvall, Jorge Salar. These are just,

and at the time, those are all just 100 back in like 100 WRC plus. can't really play defense like they're fine and they what do they what do those guys do when you combine them and you use them properly they replace ronald accunia junior and help you win a world series i'm equally annoyed by the people that are like why don't you want an all-star player as i am by the people that are like whitmerfield's useless and he's worse than same area yeah no don't give me wrong join us in the middle ground here people middle ground folks middle ground folks.

Not everything needs a massive reaction in one direction or the other. So Marifield, though, that set, you know, the All-Star thing said, he was an All-Star caliber player for the first four months of the season. He was hitting like 303 for the first four months of the season. He had like a 118 WRC plus. I can't remember off the top of my head. He was an above-average offensive producer. For most of 2023, the problem is last two months of the season, he was going to

garbage, like just flat out garbage, like 44 WRC plus, something like that. And thus, when you look at his overall numbers, who finish like a 93 WRC plus, something like that. Now, he's a little bit of the anti-Dipoto offensive profile in that he doesn't hit the ball hard at all. Literally second percentile and hard hit rate, third percentile and barrel percentage, all that, get that. But he does put up consistently high averages. He makes things happen when he gets on the base pass. he's a versatile defender he can still give you even though he doesn't hit the ball hard he can still give you like 10-ish home runs

honestly there are a lot of things that what merrifield still does to this day very well and i think if you know like you mentioned if you limit his playing time because i think there's at least some of that and you know we don't know the full context even though that i live in toronto i'm not watching every single blue jays game so i don't know what exactly happened with merrifield last year but like when you look at the numbers you know you look at just kind of what happened to him over the course of this past season there is some strong evidence that, yeah, a 34-year-old playing every single day,

especially with what he is specifically asked to do and playing multiple positions and adding value on the base pass, stuff like that, that caught up to him in the later stages of the season. So can you maximize what Merrifield's value by playing him 90 games out of a season or 100 games out of a season rather than 130, 14, 150, can you get more of that first half of

2023 Whitmerfield by doing that? I think the answer is yes. They've already proven they can because again, Dylan Moore and Sam Haggurty are useful major leaguers, like good major leaguers. Why? Not because they're playing, you know, getting 600 plate appearances.

It's because the Mariners pick and choose when they use them and they give them the best chance to succeed and both have been above average pretty much their entire Mariners tenure. So yeah, could Merrifield do the same? Yes. So yeah, just like don't, don't dismiss Whitmerfield and don't, don't be the like, oh, he's an all-star last year. You don't like an all-star?

Like, yeah, so was Daniel Vogelbach in 2019. He cares. That's not a thing. Okay. Adam Frazier was an all-star. Like, it's just, it's not a thing, guys. So just find, just find reason. Meet us in the middle here on reasonable island.

Okay, there's room for everybody. Just jump off your sinking ship. They're both sinking. You just swim to the middle ground. It's going to be okay. Good Lord. Let's get to this last question because it's also something I want to say something about. All right.

Nick wants to know, is it better to push the payroll closer to the budget limit in April or wait until the deadline to reach the end season max, which this is, you know, what I was talking about, you know, 20-ish minutes ago. I think they still have enough flexibility here at F. find a middle ground, speaking of middle ground, where I think they can still spend like $8 to $9.000 and be more than fine for whatever they would need to do at the deadline. But also, folks, this is assuming that you're competitive enough

at the deadline. You need to build a roster that is competitive enough to make you a buyer at the deadline. And if you don't feel that your roster is at that spot, maybe they do. Right. But if you don't, if they don't, if they don't feel that their roster is at that spot and there are a lot of people out there that don't feel that they're at that spot then spend the money now it's more important that you are competitive now than hypothetically competitive in july and august so yeah um saving money for the deadline is not a thing it doesn't exist not the way that these guys oh well just save it all putting your back pocket what player gets traded at the deadline that's going to cost you

$19 million in payroll. That would mean that they would have a starting salary this year of like $40, $40 million. Oh, you're going to go trade for Max Scherzer? No, you're not. You don't need all that money at the deadline, but also saving money for the deadline, isn't a thing because you can put it in your back pocket and then, uh-oh, Julio goes down. Well, we can't really fix that.

Uh-oh, Castillo goes to the IL. And all of a sudden, we're a 38 and, you know, 52 team at the deadline or whatever the record is, you know, and like, oh, well, now, yeah, all this money well it doesn't make any sense to buy we're going to go sell yeah now we're going to go trade mitch garber right it doesn't make sense you get there's no there is no valid argument to go into the season with like oh well what does keep all 20 million or like 15 million in our back pocket just in case doesn't exist that's stupid you want to keep two or three million just in case fine whatever but all of it like oh i'm not going to sign whit merrifield because i want that

$6 million he's going to get at the deadline. That's stupid because you have to get to the deadline in contention for it to mean anything, like legitimate contention, not, oh, there are four games back with three games, with three teams to pass of this third wild card. That's not legitimate contention, okay? And secondly, side note, name a contract that Jerry Depoto has not been able to trade to free up salary when he needs it. Don't take too long.

Doesn't exist. He traded Robbie freaking rome. Ray. Robbins and Ganoe. A lot of Robbies. Chris Flexen. Chris Flexon. Chris Flex. He got somebody to get Chris flex. All of Chris Flexon's money. Yeah. He got somebody to take it. If Jerry needs money in July to go get some, he will find it. Yeah. But also. No question about that. But also, it's strictly just 2024 payroll that we're talking about here. You know, I did talk about the middle ground, but you might not even need like $9 million by the deadline because all these, you know, numbers are going to be prorated.

that point, right? Like, you're only paying 40% of whatever that player's salary is. So even if you do add a relatively higher salary player at the deadline, that solo only might be like three, four million dollars. Yep. Yep. It makes no sense to save money for the deadline. None, not all of it. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby Paddode, I'm Tiding Azales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. you can follow me at Tideane Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pad 11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode.

Thank you again for making us your first listen, and thank you all for all of your questions. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.