Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Sign "Key" Free Agent

Episode Date: December 20, 2020

Today, a semi-addled D.C. is joined by Jason Hernandez. The two of them speak about the Mariners newest free agent signing, Keynan Middleton. How does he fit into the Mariners plans, and how does he plan to correct the issues he had in a "rough" 2020 season? Also, Jason & D.C. talk about the future of the National League designated hitter. Which for now is history. (Much to their delight.) Oh yeah. There's hockey and bowling talk, as well. (Congrats to Jason Belmonte!) 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.

Thank you for tuning in to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Here he is kind of, so to speak. I am indeed D.C. Lundberg, and this is indeed Locked-on Mariner's, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, brought to you, of course, by Beltbar. 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 Mariner's podcast or any program here on the Locked-on Podcast Network or T-L-O-P-N-O-P-N-O-N-O-P-N-R-F-N-E-R-G, or, of course.

You bet. Please also follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-O-U-N-R-R-G, if you are indeed scoring at home. We do have Jason Hernandez on the program today, ladies and gentlemen, host of Locked-on Anaheim Ducks. How are you doing today? Jason. I am ecstatic because hockey is a coming. Hockey is a coming in four weeks because the breaking news came out that the NHL Players Association and the league have agreed on a 56 game schedule for this coming season.

So I'm happy I got my wine. I'm celebrating because the Ducks finally get to play a game for the first time in 10 months. That's a long time. And this news broke today as we record this program on 9. Friday night, December 18th. And also today, it was announced that Jason Belmonte has won his second consecutive Chris Schenkel PBA Player of the Year award. That is fantastic. This is his sixth player of the year award overall. And in addition, Brad Miller has won the Steve Nagy Sportsmanship Award. Oh yeah, and the Mariners have signed another pitcher. On Wednesday, December 16th, it was

announced that the Ms have signed Keenan Middleton. He was previously in the Angels organization and spent the majority of the season at the Major League level in 2017, and then parts of the succeeding three seasons at the Big League level. He is a Northwest native. He is from Portland, Oregon. He is 27 years old. He has a career 348 ERA, ladies and gentlemen, in 104 games, 95 and two-thirds innings. He is a 6-foot 3, 213-13-pound right-handed pitcher.

Last year, in 13 games with the Angels, 525 earned run average and a whip of 1.5 even. According to this article that I'm reading right now by Greg Johns of MLB.com, he described last season as quote unquote rough. He went on to say, quote, it was the first rough one I've had and I'm just looking to move past it. I'm going to learn from my mistakes and be better. When I came back and finished the season in 2019,

I felt really good and crisp, but the velocity wasn't there. Last year, the Vila was there, and at times I was just trying to overthrow or trying to throw fastballs past guys because I felt so good. I've learned from my mistakes, and I'm going to move forward, end quote. Jason, you are a resident of the SoCal area, so to speak. Yeah. Saw this guy pitch for the Angels. What are your impressions of him? Rough is an understatement for Keenan Middleton, to say the least.

although he did have a 15-month absence. Keep in mind, he was on the shelf for a very, very long time. Yes, and I will say to that, sort of to that point, Jason, Keenan Middleton, one of his nicknames is Key. So you could say that he was definitely off-key last season. Oh, man, I knew you were going to do that. I knew it. Everybody saw that coming from a mile away. But good for him to come back off of Tommy John surgery. he had the TJS back in, I want to say April or May, but he had the surgery to address a couple of issues.

He had a pretty decent start in 2019. He was looking really good for the month he was there, and then he just got hurt, and that really dismissed the Angels' chances of having any hope of postseason play in 2019. When he came back in 2020, I didn't get to see him this season for obvious reasons, but looking at his,

is velocity, it's getting there. It's getting back to where it was. I wouldn't say it's quite there yet, and that is going to be kind of a concern. Do you happen to know what the contract is for Middleton? It's a one-year major league contract, and I don't believe that the terms of this contract were released yet. That's what I mean.

I didn't know if there was out of it or not. At the time, I didn't see money figure to that. It'll probably just be a smaller money deal because of his recent health problems because of the recent Tommy John surgery that he had. Before the T.J.S. He was throwing in the mid-90s. The velocity was good. The movement was very good

on his fastball. The movement is what you want to see as far as those kind of pitches because you can really full batters with off-speed and speed. I get that. But if you have the movement, you don't have to throw a hundred and two hundred and three. Like, no, he had

good movement. I say had because he kind of fell off a little bit in the past year plus. That's something that he has to get back to as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, absolutely. And going over his numbers, his 2017 through 2019 numbers, he appeared in 91 games at the big league level, 83 and 2 thirds innings,

ERA of 323, a whip of 1.339, 8.4 hits per nine innings, that's a little bit on the high side. 1.3 home runs per 9, that's a little bit on the high side, 3.7 walks per nine innings. That's also a little bit on the high side. But he did strike out 9.1 per 9 innings. You know, I am not a big strikeout guy, Jason.

I'm my listeners know that by now, and I think you're well aware of that. That motion, deception, movement on pitches location is definitely the way to go in my estimation. Yeah, and I'll go Taylor Blake Ward mode here a little bit. I'm going to go a little bit in depth just because I have seen them play a lot before the injury, of course. Sure.

So in between 2017 and 2018 and even parts of 2019, he relied a lot on his fastball at first. He was topping out at about 97, 98 miles per hour. He was averaging mid-90s. What he was working on the most was a slider. It started to become a wipeout slider late in 2018, which accounts for the strikeouts. His slider was getting about 87, 88 miles an hour

with some pretty good lateral movement. and that's where he got the majority of his strikeouts was with that wipeout slider. As far as his change-up goes, his change-up went anywhere from 84 to 87. That's a pretty decent range because typically, and DC you can attest with this, you want the difference between the change-up and the fastball

to be about double digits, right? About 12 miles an hour is ideal. Yeah, and he has... 12 miles an hour or more. Yeah, right now his difference is about a... 11, 12, so it's on the lower end of that ideal rate. No, but that's doable for sure. That's effective.

It's doable. It's a serviceable use of pitch, something that he needs to utilize more, and something that apparently he has been working on as far as changing his speeds. But now you could see that last season, his changeup was getting down to the low 80s, which players can catch up to. The fastball was only in the low 90s as well. So there's two things to work on getting that velocity back up and him feeling comfortable with throwing that fastball velocity

because the change-up is there. It's getting there. The slider is there. That is his main pitch that he needs to try to utilize more and more often and something that he can full a lot of batters with. And that really attests to the ball movement. The movement that he was using with the slider, the arm slot that he was using,

used to have a lot more torque than it does. did just in the brief time we saw him in 2020. So the torque is something that he has worked on. The elbow movement is something that's a little bit different, and it's been kind of an adjustment for him. So this is not a super high risk if the Mariners are only paying him minimum like a million or so. If it's that much, not a huge risk. And it's something that, you know, just take a punt.

Take a punt on someone that has had some good seasons. but with the TJS, you truly do never know sometimes with Tommy John surgery because we've seen a plethora of pitchers come back. We've seen a lot just fall off completely. So from my perspective, I hope he does well in Seattle just because I liked having him here in Anaheim, really cool guy, really cool dude,

and wish nothing but the best up in the PNW. Absolutely. There's one more piece to this puzzle, and he knows that he was overly reliant on his fastball last season. He knows he needs to mix his pitches better, and that's a good sign that he knows what he needs to do to improve, and he has worked specifically on that. So, you know. Yeah, but I think part of that is just a comfort level as well.

He has to feel comfortable with getting back to that pitching shape again, because we have a huge surgery like that. There's always going to be that small part where you're like, I don't know if I can throw it this fast again, and that's common for a lot of pitchers, unfortunately. Oh, sure, yeah. And we will leave it at that, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to go to today's trivia corner, and we're going to do another hall pass, ladies and gentlemen, and with that hall pass, Jason Hernandez. Jason, lay it on us.

Oh, thank you very much. So this player in 19 seasons had 229 wins, a 330 ERA. Number of strikeouts, 2,416. Pretty good ERA plus of 114 had a whip of 1.19, so a pretty good ERA plus. so a pretty minuscule whip in 573 games, and most of his seasons were in the American League. So do you think he's in the Hall of Fame? Well, we will tell you who this is,

and I'll let you know my opinion on this gentleman after this word from Bilt Bar. See how I do that, Jason? That's called a tease for you up there. Ladies and gentlemen, what springs to mind when I say Bilt Bar? It should be the delicious protein bars covered in 100% real chocolate that are high in protein, low in sugar calories and carbohydrates, made oddly enough by a built bar.

Yes, indeed. They are absolutely fantastic. They come in 18 delicious flavors, plus the limited edition flavors that they break out from time to time. Jason is holding one up right now on camera, which you can't see because this is radio, but he has got the white chocolate cookies in cream, it looks like. Is that true, Jason? Yeah. Oh, he was muted.

I'm sorry. Yes, absolutely. And these white chocolate cookies and cream is available right now at the website, which is actually built bar.com. And candy cane brownie, which is one that I've tried, which is delicious. All this can be found at builtbar.com, and lest you forget about Built Boost Drink Powder and BuiltGo Energy shots. And as I have been saying on most shows, ladies and gentlemen,

the Built Boost Drink Powder, when mixed with plain iced tea, gives you a delicious flavored iced tea. And now there's Built Boost Drink Powder. boost immune plus, too, which comes in three terrific flavors. And those flavors are, Jason, hold it up higher, lemon, lime, pomegranate, green apple, and apricot pineapple. Yes, indeed. They're all great flavors. They send us hosts a sample pack of each of these flavors, and they are terrific.

Builtbar.com is the place to go to get these. And if you try to use promo code, glorg-g-g-glop-di-glorp, nothing. happen. So just use promo code locked on instead, and that'll get you 20% off of your next order of the greatest protein bars ever to hit the face of the earth.

Ooh, I love that. Yes, thank you. And the promo code again? The promo code is glorg glorg-gloppity-glop. No, it's code locked on, all one word. Yes. Yeah, let's see. The hall pass, Jason, I don't know who this is. Jason, what he,

what years did he play? 1964 to 1982. 1964 to 1982. 229 wins. 3-3-0 earned run average. About 2,000 strikeouts, you say? 2,100, you said?

2,400 strikeouts. 2,400 strikeouts. Pardon me. I am going to go ahead and say, here's the thing. When you're getting to 2,400 strikeouts, that's a lot. 229 wins, not a lot for that era, but I don't know what teams he played for.

I'll tell you. He played mostly for the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox. His greatest success was in Boston. His greatest success was in Boston. Cleveland and, okay, I still don't know who this is, but I'm going to go ahead and say that I would at least think about voting for him for the Hall of Fame. And I honestly have no idea who this is. Jason, who is it? Someone that is a very good Latin pitcher, someone that is pretty well known.

Luis Tion. It's Tiant, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely Louis Tiant. And then when you say that, I kind of feel validated because I think he should be in the Hall of Fame. Come on. His middle name is Clemente for crying out loud. Oh, so is mine.

No, it's not. That's what the C stands for. That's what the C stands for. No, the C stands for Cumberbund, actually. If you got a question or comment, please send it to Lockedon Meritors at gmail.com. I will address it on the air in an upcoming mailback episode, which we will be getting to very shortly.

We've actually got quite a few emails, so probably going to be another two-part email extravaganza. Questions and comments about any subject are encouraged even during the regular season. I love answering those types of questions. Locked-on Mariners at gmail.com is the place to send those, and we will be back when we feel like it, basically. Now time for the second half of Locked-on Mariners. Once again, your host, D.C. Lundberg.

Those were the dulcet tones of our announcer Joey Martin here on Locked on Mariner's, bringing us into the second half of today's program, and ladies and gentlemen, the holidays are about giving. So I'm giving you a hot tip that could earn you some extra cash. The new Locked-on Betts podcast is hosted by Lee Sterling of Paramountsports.com. Lee is red-hot to start this season, and he shares a lock of the day on every episode. Subscribe to Locked on Betts today wherever you get your podcasts.

And with us on this episode of Locked on Marins again is, Jason Hernandez of Locked on Ducks, our fishing and hunting show here on the Locked On Podcast Network. And that is not a show about mooky bets, but here's one thing that we can bet on. We can bet on not seeing a designated hitter in the NL this season. Yes, indeed. I am happy.

I am shocked. I am thrilled. What are your thoughts? You're shocked? So am I. I'm shocked because all these changes that went into effect, I figured this was just a backdoor way. for Manfred to just kind of sneak this into baseball, you know,

permanently going forward, using the pandemic as an excuse, basically to force upon everybody else what he wants to do. And that's not the case here. Yeah, because there was a memo that went out. And here's what Ken Rosenthal said recently, quote, MLB instructed clubs in a memo last week to proceed under the assumption that the DH will not be used in the National League this year, though few will complain if the league is.

Union reached agreement to the contrary. So it sounds like the majority of them, they don't want the DH and the NL. Let the pitchers hit. We could have fantastic moments like Bartolo Cologne. That's still one of the best moments in all of baseball history. I liked Ron Darling on the color commentary saying about his home run trot that that might just be as fast as he runs. I mean, some of the Spanish broadcast is the exact same thing. Yeah, didn't they say that he took like 30 minutes or something around the bases?

Yeah, the sentence broadcasters were very personal. I mean, they were giving him the business. They were giving him the business, you know, kind of as they should, just because it's such a fun moment. And ladies and gentlemen, I got to say, I really don't speak a word of Spanish. But listening to Spanish baseball commentary is a lot of fun because they are super passionate, super excited. And if you've never listened to a Spanish broadcast, I actually, whether or not you speak Spanish, because I don't. don't understand it, but I still like the Spanish language broadcasts. They are fun.

And I do implore you to check those out. The other... Oh, yes, my signor. Yeah, I'm just kind of just moving past that because I can't remember how to say thank you in any foreign language right now. Thanks. Spanish or otherwise.

Thank you. Yes. I know how to... Wow. Hey, I... Escuched a radio in Spanish radio. Yes. Spanish radio. Yes.

Okay, anyways. The other moment that I was going to bring up, great pitching hitting moments, I'll actually bring up two. I'll talk about Warren Spawn first because he took pride in his hitting. He hit, well, 35 career home runs. Something like that.

And he said, and this is paraphrasing, going off my memory, he said something to affect like, yeah, it really takes a lot of work to pitch a no-hitter or to pitch a complete game, but one swing of the bat and, hey, you're a hero for a minute.

He loved hitting, and he took pride in it. He worked on it. Joe Tori later said that he had the distinction of not only pinch hitting for Spawn, but having Spawn pinch hit for him. And lest you forget, ladies and gentlemen, Joe Tori was an excellent Major League Baseball player who one year hit 363. He was absolutely no slouch of the plate. He was actually the subject of our first hall pass here as a player.

Yeah. Great pull. Great pull on that one. Thank you very much. Oh, my God. You were right. 35 home runs. Yes.

See, I have no short-term memory right now, but hey, hey, hey, hey. I can tell you that Warren spawned 35 career home runs on the dot. Yes, thank you. The other pitching moment that are pitchers hitting moment, Jason, you're a Dodgers fan. You might not enjoy this one too much. Oh, God. Sorry, but Madison Bumgarner hitting two home runs on opening day a few years ago.

That was awesome. earning the nickname the Bumbino. Anyway. Yes, indeed. I do want to put a bow on this by saying, I don't think that we're going to see the universal DH in the National League anytime soon. It sounds like the players do want to keep it as is with the pitchers hitting in the National League. Based on the memo that went out,

the majority of them said they don't want the DH in the NL. So it sounds like it's going to stay with that for a while. Obviously, the big concern is going to be with the possible lockout looming because that's still of a great concern for a plethora of reasons, and that still could happen. Yeah, yeah, but for now there is hope, absolutely. And there are a lot of fans out there, let's be honest, Jason, who do want to see the Universal DH,

just so they can see baseball evolve and progress and those types of things. But change for change's sake is not progress, I don't think. I agree with you on that one. With that, I think that's the perfect bow to have wrapped up this particular episode. with Jason, I appreciate you coming on today to do the heavy lifting. Please tell the nice folks where they can find you on Twitter and also about your great duck hunting show. So you can hear my podcast, locked on Anaheim ducks, not the Oregon Ducks who just won the Pac-12 football championship. I know SoCal fans really don't want to hear that right now.

Yes, but there are probably some Mariners fans who do, and some Mariners fans who don't. No, Washington fans certainly don't want to hear this because it should have been them in that game. but regardless, oh, there's a whole story on that, but I'm not going to get into that now. So Washington fans, I'm not a host of the Oregon Ducks, rest assured. It's the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Yes.

You can hear that podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitch, or wherever you hear your podcast. Just look up locked on Anaheim Ducks. The Twitter for that. At L.O. underscore Ducks. My personal Twitter is at Stimpy J.D, as in Ren and Stimpy. And also, also, make sure to subscribe and leave a five-star rating because why not?

Everyone else seems to love the show. And once again, a lot of breaking news on my podcast. Hockey's back. We've got Talk About the Mighty Ducks reboot, which I am super excited about. The Mighty Ducks are back. Emilio Estevez is reprising his role as coach Gordon Bombay. I'll be talking about that with C. Morley. and then we have a whole plethora of shows planned with Sarah Avampato.

I had a show with Mikey DeStefano from TSN 1050 Toronto. A lot of big shows as hockey's coming back. Yeah. Hockey's coming back. Special surprise on Christmas Eve. That's all I'm going to say. Yes, indeed. I'm happy that there's a Mighty Ducks reboot too.

Mighty Ducks 4, the puck stops here. Oh, God. Wrap it up, please. I will do just that. you for listening to today's show. Please remember to download rate and subscribe to this program using whichever podcasting app that happens to pop into your brainhead. Follow us on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariner's.

And follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg. Thanks for listening to today's show. Listen to the next one as well. promo code locked on for 25% off your order or whatever the hell. And we'll be back next time. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked On Mariner's, part of the Locked On Podcast Network.