Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Hot Stove Catch-Up

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

In the first episode of this program to feature honest-to-goodness Mariners news since the regular season ended, D.C. gets you caught up on all the transactions the M's have made thus far after their 60-game sprint ended about a month ago. 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 Mariner's, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lunberg. Thanks, Joey. It is Halloween, and this is Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, or T-L-O-P-N, or T-Lopin. Please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked on Mariners podcast or any program here on Sloppin. All you got to do is say, hey, smart device, play locked on team name here podcast. Follow us on Twitter at L-O underscore Mariners and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-V-E-R-G. For those scoring at home.

We are going to take a break talking about World Series. Last episode we talked about the most recent one. and we've been talking about some historic World Series over the, you know, previously in the week, and we're going to continue to do that next week. But there have been a lot of Mariners transactions that we need to get to, some actual baseball news, believe it or not. And we're going to talk about that here today,

the transactions that the Mariners have undertaken here in the month of October. And there have been quite a few key ones. Well, I shouldn't say quite a few key ones, but there have been a number of them, and they involve some pretty significant players. We're just going to kind of go in chronological order here, and some of these are not real significant. So we'll talk about some of them just in passing and then talk about the more significant players, a little bit more in depth.

But starting on the 19th, October 19th, the Mariners outrided four players to the Tacoma Rainiers, pitcher Seth Frankoff, catchers Joe Hudson and Joe Odom, and pitcher Brady Lale. All four of these players saw time at. the Major League level with the Mariners last season. Lale pitched in seven games. All of them were in relief, and he finished six of them. He wound up with a 4-80 ERA. He is 26 years old.

Frankoff pitched in two games, and he had a 16.88 ERA. He's 31 years old. He's not a prospect. He pitched previously with the Chicago Cubs in, as my phone drops, in 2017. The Mariners originally acquired him as a minor league free agent on August 10th after he had been in the Padres system earlier in the year. He was also previously in the Mariners system in 2017. He was selected off waivers by the Mariners on September 4th of that year and then was released by the team on December 10th. Joe Hudson and Joe Odom both saw time, pardon me, off the bench at the catcher position, Hudson,

playing in nine games accumulating a 176 batting average, and Odom playing in 18 games with a 128 batting average. They're really not even terrific Major League options to be a backup, but with a catching situation as it was going into the season with Tom Murphy on the injured list, Murphy and Nola were supposed to split time at the beginning of this season, and with Murphy missing the whole season, that obviously didn't happen,

and the meriders needed some sort of warm body as a backup. I shouldn't phrase it that way. because they're both pretty decent defensive catchers, but at the major league level, you need a little bit of offensive output, and Odom and Hudson really didn't provide any whatsoever. And then when Nola was traded at the deadline, and the Mariners got Luis Torrens in return,

Torrens started pretty much every single game from there on out, and Odom was on the roster of the Big League roster at that time. Hudson was at the alternate training site. Continuing to go through the list of transactions on October 21st, right-handed pitcher Art Warren was claimed off waivers by the Texas Rangers. Warren did not pitch with the manners of the big league level last season, although he was on the big league roster for a day or two before getting sent back to the alternate training site. Although in 2019, he did pitch in six games, five in the third innings,

finished two of those ball games and did not give up a run. He did give up two hits, two walks, and five strikeouts. Art Warren is 27. years old. He was originally drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 23rd round of the 2015 draft made his way through the system and made his major league

debut in 2019. Nestor Cortez has been outrighted to the Tacoma Rainiers. He pitched to the major league level as well and was not very effective. Carl Edwards Jr. was also outright to the Tacoma Rainiers. He was injured most of the season but was effective

when he was on the roster. He pitched in five games on ERA, of 193 and a whip of 0.643. Obviously in five games, you know, do with those numbers what you will. But in the five games, he pitched, he was effective. And he's been a valuable reliever in the past. Matt McGill has also been outrided to the Tacoma Rainiers. And Tyler Gilbo is no longer a member of the organization. He was claimed off waivers from the Arizona Diamondbacks. He pitched in eight ball games. He finished three of them. Accumulated a one-one. 17 ERA, but had a very high whip.

1.826. Gilbo is 27 years old, so he's not really a prospect any longer either. He was originally drafted by the Yankees in the 39th round in 2011, but he didn't sign and chose to go to college. Then he was signed by the Nationals in the 10th round in 2015. The Mariners acquired him at the trading deadline last year as part of the Rowanus-Alius deal. The Mariners sending Rowanus Elias and Hunter Stry. to the Nationals for Gilbo and minor leaguer Elvis Alvarado.

The Mariners have also outrided Gerson-Bautista to the Tacoma Rainiers. I believe he was injured most of last season. He pitched at the big league level for the Mariners in 2019. He was acquired from the Mets as part of the deal that also got the Mariners, Jared Kelnick. He appeared at eight ball games with the Mariners last year accumulated in eight, uh, pardon me, at 11 ERA, 11.00 ERA, eight games and two stars. and had a very, very high whip.

2.44. In 2018, he appeared in five games for the Mets, where he had a 12.46 ERA and a whip of exactly three. His career numbers, 13 games, two starts, ERA of 11.48, whip of 2.625. Gang, if I'm going to be completely honest, Batista has not really had any success whatsoever above double A ball. Let's hope he turns it around.

Some other pitchers have been able to do. do that. I wasn't high on Justice Sheffield going into the season, and he's a rookie of the year candidate, so you never know, do you? We have a few more transactions to talk to. We'll get to those in the second half of the program, including those who the Mariners declined

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where we're talking about actual baseball news. We're going to get back to talking about World Series of yesteryear next week on this program, but we've got a few more transactions to get to today, and the first one involves a right-handed pitcher named Domingo Tapia, whom the Mariners claimed off waivers from the Red Sox on October 23rd. Last year, he did pitch in five games at the Big League level for the Red Sox, had an ERA of 208 and a whip of 1.385, 4 in a third innings.

However, you can't really judge a pitcher based on those few innings and those few ball games. In 2019 with the Pawtuck at Red Sox, which is the International League, that's AAA Baseball, ERA of 518 and a whip of 1.6. 06 with 4.4 walks per 9 innings. That's on the high side. That is concerning to me. Career AAA numbers, 434 ERA, whip of 1.470, 3.9 walks per nine innings. Minor league numbers at large, and he's been in the minors for 10 seasons.

He's no kid. 414 ERA, whip of 1.399, 3.8 walks per nine innings. Again, that's on the high side. That's concerning to me. 6.9 strikeouts per nine innings for those of you who are in. to strikeouts. A few too many hits per nine innings, eight point eight of them. He's not given up a lot of home runs per nine innings, however, only a half a home run per nine innings. So, you know, there you go. Control looks like it needs to improve with this guy. We'll see where he fits into

the Mariners' plans. Next year looks like it might be another revamped bullpen, which is good because this latest bullpen was not good. He's 29 years old. He turned 29 in August. Then we get to the players whose options were declined. And the first one we'll talk about. as Yoshihisa Hidano, who is now a free agent. He just never got on track last season. His season started late. He had tested positive for COVID-19. So I don't remember when exactly he joined the Mariners roster.

But his training camp time, summer training camp time was very limited. And then just, again, never got on track at the big league level. He did appear in 13 games, however, 12 and 1 third innings. ERA was on the high side at 5-8-4. WIP was extremely high, over two. 2.108. Last year with the Diamondbacks, he appeared in 62 ball games, 53 innings, 4.75 ERA, which is on the high side, whip was not terrible at 1.377.

The year before that was pretty good. 2.44 ERA, 75 games, 66 in the third innings, and a whip of 1.085. That was his first year in Major League Baseball after pitching in his native Japan. He is now a free agent. Again, ladies and gentlemen, we wish him the very best of. of luck. D. Strange Gordon is now also a free agent. He has just wrapped up his third and final season with the Mariners, and his tenure in Seattle was an interesting one. Prior to the 2018 season, he was acquired. The Mariners traded for him to be their center fielder, which I thought

was an odd move at the time for two reasons. It's not very common where a middle infield or an infielder of any sort can make the transition to center field. They can often make the transition to left or right field, center field is a different beast. Yes, D. Gordon is one of the fastest men in Major League Baseball. He does not have an outfielder's instincts, and that was apparent when he was trying to play center field. I mean, I hate to rag on the guy because he obviously is going to play center field a hell of a lot better than I would, but he is an infielder. He looks good at shortstop. He looks good at second base, just did not look good in center field. He's not suited for it. In 2018, he hit 268 with an

on base of only 288 with 30 stolen bases. And in 2018, the Mariners had Robinson Cano at second base, and he was busted for PED use. So Gordon moved from center field back to second base, where he was obviously much more comfortable and did a much better job. In 2019, he was the starting second baseman, hit 275-304 on base, and 22 stolen bases in 117 games. Towards the end of this season, the Mariners were giving their younger kids a shot at starting jobs, and Shedlong Jr. came up from AAA and did a very good job at both second base, third base, and left field. Going into 2020, Shedlong was going to be the starting second baseman, relegating Strange Gordon to a utility role, which he's just not suited for.

He appeared in 33 games and only hit 200. He played second base shortstop, left field, and also DH'd. To finish up a point that I began to bring up earlier, the second. The second reason why I felt that acquiring D. Gordon was kind of a head-scratching move from the Mariners is that he had been busted for PED use in the past. In 2016, in April, I want to say, he was suspended 80 games for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug and only played 79 ball games that year. The year before he was busted, he won the batting championship. Do with that what you will. The other player whose option was declined was Kendall Graveman, who had some medical problems and only pitched in 11 ball games.

And he began the season and the rotation. And because of those medical issues, he had to go to the bullpen. This year was a throwaway for him. 579 ERA, 1.232 whip, which, you know, is not very bad. He's been a starter in the past. He is getting older. Plus the medical problems, he is now a relief pitcher. The day after his option was declined and he became a free agent, he signed a pretty

incentive-laden contract with the Mariners. So he is back with the organization after being a free agent for less than 24 hours. He is buying into moving to the bullpen. He's buying into the Mariners philosophy. Good for him. I hope that he has a successful season next year coming out of the bullpen. Again, throw this year's numbers away. It was way too strange.

The shortness of it, the medical problem. Too many things went wrong for Kendall Graveman for this to be any sort of indication of what he is capable of. Let's see what he does next year. Well, gang, we're just about caught up on the transactions, meaning this episode is about to come to a close. We'll be back probably Monday looking back at another classic world series. I haven't decided which one yet. But joining me on that episode will be Wilbur Post, Sergeant Floyd Pepper, and a tongue depressor. Please remember to download rate and subscribe to this program on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast,

Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that may happen to spring into your brainhead. Follow us on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. Don't know why I said it like that. Follow me on Twitter as well. What's going on at D.C. underscore Lundberg. Thanks again for listening, gang. Have a happy Halloween. And remember, we gain an hour tonight.

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