Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - The Actions of Jerry Dipoto and Co. Did Not Match the Mariners' Stated Goals in 2023

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

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On today's episode of the Locked-on Mariners podcast, our report card series wraps up with a look at the Mariners bullpen, coaching staff, and front office. 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 Tuesday, October 24th, 2023. This is Tadang Gazales and Colby Patnaut for the Locked-on Mariner's podcast, brought to you by GameTeners. time. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use promo code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Last minute tickets, the lowest price guaranteed. Thank you so much for making us your first. Listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear.

And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider sending up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. A link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. On the show today, we're going to hand out our final grades to the 2023 Mariners. We'll be looking at the bullpen, the coaching staff, and the front office. But we're going to start with the bullpen here, Colby. As a unit, the Mariners bullpen ranked this year fourth in ERA, fourth in FIP, first in XFIP,

six in F-WR, second in strikeouts per nine innings pitch, ninth in walks per nine innings pitch, ninth and win probability added. They allowed the seventh lowest hard hit rate as a unit and the fourth lowest barrel percentage as a unit, all while throwing the third fewest innings of any bullpen in the league. And Colby, we'll get into some of the specific names here, like Matt Brash and Andres Munoz.

But as a whole, how did you feel about this bullpen in 2023? agree. A little tough to say. There's kind of two versions of the bullpen too. You have the free seawall trade and post seawall trade bullpen. And not surprisingly, the, the bullpen after Seawald was traded was a little shallow. They still did a pretty good job of picking up the slack there, but they did their best. Sure. I mean, they were awful for the first couple weeks of September and then they kind of figured it out a little bit in the middle and then you know a couple bad outings at the end there uh but a lot of blame to go around for how the end of the year went but yeah the bullpen overall was it was good it was a good bullpen certainly um i don't think it was a great

bullpen i don't think it was an elite bullpen particularly at the end of the year um they were just missing some some probability in the high leverage spots uh brash had a few struggles here and there. Munoz really struggled pretty much for the entirety of the post Seawald trade, which, you know, not that surprising considering he missed a chunk of time. And he'd look like he had taken a step back anyways, but we don't, we're going to rehash that trade later. It appears. So no reason to get too deep into it. But yeah, other than that, you know, you had some guys step up, have really good years. Some, you know, holdovers have really good years. And you had, you know, as is basically now just expected, you had a couple of guys come out of

nowhere and just have really solid, you know, seasons career years. So the bullpen as a whole, it wasn't a huge problem for most of the year. It was a little short. That's not really their fault. So I think, you know, when I look at it and it, it was a top 10 bullpen. I think it was closer to 10 than it was to one. So I think, you know, it's a B plus somewhere in that range. It was good. It was solid. They needed help.

They didn't get it, unfortunately. But based on what they did have and, you know, how they managed the entire season, they do get a B plus. And I also, I'll knock them down a little bit just because they didn't have to cover a ton of of innings this year, which is a credit to the Mariners starting staff. Yeah, I'll go A minus here for the Mariners bullpen, especially because they were able to survive some of the guys that were supposed to be

a big part of this thing not really paning out Diego Castillo didn't pan out Matt Festa didn't pan out. Penn Murphy got hurt pretty early on. Peralonda Baroa wasn't a factor at all like we were expecting him to be probably should have been you know so yeah

and they were still able to get you know really strong contributions out of guys that you didn't really expect like Justin Topa and Gabe Spire and Taylor Sosato so from that point of view, I think it was a roaring success for the Maris bullpen this year. But yeah, you know, it was obviously an arm short once they traded Seawald. And there wasn't really a guy in that unit after that point that I fully trusted. Because even with Brash and Munoz, with how good those guys are,

there's some command control issues there as well that makes every single outing with them a little shaky where I don't feel fully confident in their ability to shut things down. but obviously you know you're across the board for the most part for both of those guys and a really good year for guys like topa inspire and Saucato that was really your top five and then

you know Isaiah Campbell was pretty good especially you know later on in the year he had some really really strong audience like the one in Tampa you might have been your best reliever in September yeah yeah and so so there's a lot of positives to take away from this bullpen overall and now of

Of course, you know, most of that stuff probably won't carry over to 2024. We know how fickle bullpins are. But as far as 20203 goes, I think there's, I think it was overall a pretty successful year. And I think the unit as a whole did the best that it possibly could have despite having, it's arguably its most trustworthy piece traded at the deadline. So specifically, though, you know, talking about Brash and Munoz here at the top, how did you feel about their respective seasons? Yeah, for me, Brash gets an A.

Still some things to clean up. There were times particularly early in the year where he would just come out of the bullpen and he would throw two pitches and you would know like he's not throwing strikes today. And he just never really was able to make that adjustment. And then he had a couple more outings where he just had bad BAPIP, right? He'd strike out the first two guys in a high leverage spot. And then, oh, there's a single through the hole between second base and first base, and now two runs score.

And it just looks worse than it is. But yeah, you know, overall Brash definitely took step forward. He was durable. 78 games pitched. I think he led the American League in games pitch this year. 100 strikeouts. The walk rate went down again. It's still a little high.

Like overall, that's who Brash is. You'll take it. Like that, that's a really good reliever. That's a high leverage guy. But, you know, you'd like that number closer to three. I think it was in the three sevens this year. But again, that's fine. as long as he maintains his swing and miss stuff.

And yeah, Brash's stuff still pretty good, pretty good. So we found some consistency with a two seam fastball as well. So another weapon for Brash to use to go along with the curveball and the slider. And of course, the four seamer, we saw the velocity jump up a little bit on both the two seam and the four seam. Both of those pitches can touch 100 miles an hour. So Brash, I feel really good about entering next year. You know, he's not Mariano Rivera, right? You're not going to put All-Star next to his name every single.

single year and all that, but he's a good reliever. You have to feel pretty good about where he's at entering next year. Munoz C plus B minus. He really lost his slider down the stretch. And it was a disaster. Munoz needs that slider. We know, we know that he can throw really hard. We all know that.

But remember last year when he struggled early, it was because of the overall reliance on the fastball and the Mariners finally got him to start throwing that slider more as his primary. and that's when it clicked. So we know how important that slider is for Andres. He's got a whole offseason to get it figured out. He did deal with some hip issues. And I think a shoulder issue,

was that what put him on the IL? I can't recall. I think it was his shoulder. But we do know that he had a hip issue. He had a hip issue. He had surgery. So maybe that's part of it. We'll see how he figures it out.

But yeah, overall, he was fine, but he really struggled for a long stretch. of the second half, and that is going to lower your grade pretty significantly, particularly if you're a high leverage guy, like Munoz, who basically became the closer after C-Wald left. So C-plus, B-minus, like, he was good for the most part. The numbers are good, but, again, don't box score scout guys. Yeah, I'll go C-plus on Munoz.

It was a shoulder issue, by the way, just to confirm that. and obviously, you know, that has to factor in here with their grade because that's obviously not his fault and that probably had a longer lasting impact on his season than maybe we know, you know, for us on the outside looking in. But yeah, he really needs that slider

and he just completely lost it. Now, to counteract that a little bit, he was able to throw that two seamer a lot more and that pitch was very effective for him at times and that was a nasty looking pitch at times. and he was also able to increase his velocity later on in the season. Like he was able to suddenly just tap into more Velo

like consistent 100 plus mile per hour Velo towards the end of the year after the hip issue propped up which was strange but we'll take it. I'm not overall concerned about Andres. He really needs to find that slider though over the course of the off season before the before 2024 begins here

for him to be the best version. of Andre Smoonios. As for Brash, I think he was great this year, but I think valuing him as the fourth best reliever in baseball might be a little strong. Van Graf's really love strikeouts, and he struck out a lot of guys. And that's why he was worth 2.1 F4 this year. He was one of just four relievers in baseball this year to post a 2 plus F4. He was the fourth most valuable pitcher on the Mariners roster in general this year by that standard. But he had some walk issues like you mentioned. He has

some inconsistency was with finding the strike zone. And you kind of know which version of Matt Brash you're going to get on a night to night basis from the first couple of pitches he throws. Anyway, we're going to talk about the Mariners coaching staff, hand out some grades

to them in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Marries podcast is brought to you by Fandool. October baseball is back, folks and you can make your postseason debut with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. Join Fandul today and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. Just visit Fanduil.com slash locked on. That's L-O-C-D-O-N to create your new account.

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marries bullpen, the Mariners coaching staff, and the mayor's front office. We just did the bullpen. We're going to be doing the coaching staff here in just a moment. But first, Colby, you're giving away some stuff. What are you giving away? Well, apparently nothing. If you guys don't get off your butts and start subscribing to the YouTube channel, but you have the opportunity to win some really cool cards here like this guy we just talked about,

autograph map Brash card. There's also this Brian Wu card autograph card, Bryce Miller. There's some heavy hitters, guys. These are some heavy hitters. And, of course, probably the Grand Prix. here is this Harry Ford autograph card, which I'm feeling really confident I'm going to be able to keep. And I will laugh at you guys

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between last Tuesday and October 30th. You're automatically entered into this giveaway. So in order for us to give away, of these cards we have to hit some subscriber goals on youtube we're getting closer we're inching closer but you guys need to really do your part here at 9500 subscribers we'll be given away the matt brash card at 9,750 subscribers will be given away the bryce miller card at 10 000 subscribers will be given away the brian woo card and at 10,250 subscribers will be given away the

hairy board card so if you want those you got to subscribe yo and you got to tell your friends and enemies and your dog and your cat and all those everyone that you know to come and subscribe to the locked on mariner's YouTube channel so we can give away these cards all right colby the mayor is coaching stuff how did you feel about them specifically how did you feel about scott service this year b b plus really really like i don't like what do you want me like did he bunt a few too many times yes did he leave a starter in a few too, uh, too long a few times. Yes. Did he also have to manage a, uh, what from the sounds of it was an incredibly upset clubhouse for the entire year because they didn't feel like

the front office believed in them. Yes. Like so those are all things that, uh, you know, kind of, kind of happened. Did he have to deal with a, uh, George Kirby, uh, you know, issue, uh, in Tampa? Yeah. Did he handle that one well? Yeah, I think so. Did he handle the, the Cal Raleigh one well? Hmm. not really but then again like are we sure that that was scott's decision or did that come from scott's boss so it just it's so tough to know scott still could have expressed himself a little bit better there without you know putting himself in an awkward position without yeah yeah um but yeah you know the simple fact is that we don't have a good idea of how um how well the job scott did uh because we don't have anywhere near enough of the information about what he had to deal with this year. Now, again, it does sound like the Mariners players were pretty upset with the offseason, that we know that they were really upset with the trade deadline.

And so kind of managing that aspect of it is tough because, you know, Scott is technically management, but he's also the guy who has the most, you know, interaction with the players out of that management team. So it's a little tough. And I know a lot of people like, oh, well, you know, it's just tough because like the players ultimately are in charge of the players. I know the manager is like the babysitter and all that stuff, but the players have to, you know, kind of control the clubhouse and all that stuff. So it's really tough to say what Scott does. You know, I think that, you know, I think he's just the same guy. I just, I don't think he's getting better.

And that's fine because I think, you know, when he talks to the media and the way he creates culture and builds culture. He's still really good at that for the most part. He's not perfect, but he's still really good at that overall. No one is. No one is. And then in the in game management stuff, I think he's kind of average. I think he's kind of, you know, he's okay. Yes, there were some horrific bunt calls.

We could go over all of them and I probably remember every single one in the situation because they're bad. Scott doesn't decide to punt a lot, but when he does, it's usually pretty stupid. Like asking your best hitter to bunt against the Blue Jays. Right. But

But, you know, I don't think he's a great improv guy. Like if the plan doesn't go exactly how he planned it out, I don't think he's great at thinking on his feet. So overall, I think Scott is good. I think he's a good manager. And that's really all. It's just tough for me to be like, oh, well, last year he made the playoffs. So it's an A. This year he didn't.

So it's a, it's a C. Like results aren't, manager controlled results aren't as black. Why do some people think? Like it's just, it's hard to say, you know, because again, we don't know. We're not there. We're not in the clubhouse. We don't know what the actual dynamic is. Yeah.

Plus, I mean, this year, Scott had to deal with some starting pitching injuries that he didn't last year. He had to control, you know, kind of manage a young staff. And a lot of the decisions that are made, by the way, that seem to be like those are Scott's service decisions. They're not a lot of the times. They're a collaborative effort. So it's tough, man. And it's really tough to grade Scott every year. It's tough to grade Scott because the only stuff we really get to see and he'll take credit or blame for is the in-game stuff.

And he's average at that at best. And we know that he has a lot more value than what he, you know, when he decides to bunt and when he doesn't. Like there's a lot more value to Scott service and that and his coaching staff. So, you know, I just, I don't know. I don't feel good about grading Scott because I feel like I feel like I only get to see like 10% of his paper. that he turned in and I have to guess what the rest of it is. Right. I don't want to grade him for the things that I think I know. Right.

And rather just grade him for the things that I've actually seen with my own eyes. And that's mostly in-game management. And this year I thought this was a little bit of a regressive year for him. But also I feel like some of these things like, you know, having Gino and Teo play all those games and some of the weird pitching decisions and all that is more reflective of the circumstances of the roster build. And that's not really his fault. Like I think he's just kind of doing the best with what was given to him,

which wasn't a lot. And I don't think that, I think this is one of the few years over Scott's tenure where he hasn't really been supported very well by Jerry, who's supposed to be his partner in crime. Right? So that to me, like, I'm going to give him like a C plus. I'm just going to like sit fairly like middle of the road here.

Ty's sitting here telling people to fire Scott's service. Right. I'm going to sit fairly middle of the road here because again, we don't know exactly what's actually Scott's fault and what's Jerry's fault and what's other coaches fault and what's the player's fault. It's the hit after the season. all over. Right.

After the season was over, I said, you know, everyone's to blame. It's not just one particular party here. The players were at fault for a lot of the issues down the stretch. Coaching staff, I'm sure, were at fault to a certain degree.

Front office was obviously at fault. Ownership, obviously at fault for some of this. Like, everyone deserves blame. But as far as Scott goes, you know, you made a great point in that he had to handle a very difficult situation

with a lot of upset people within that clubhouse. Paul Sewell went on the, what was Chris Rose, went on Chris Rose's show the other day and talked about how the clubhouse was upset about the, the off season, how the off season went. And they felt that they needed another, you know,

batter or two at an end to the season. Like, we all thought, right? Like, the players feel pretty much the exact same way that the fans and us doing this podcast feel or felt going into the season. They care more than we do, just to put that out there. like yeah if you think you care more about you know the outcome of a baseball game than

Julio Rodriguez you're nuts right so so just like throw that out there Scott had to handle that and I'm sure a lot of fingers were pointed at Scott within that clubhouse because he's the he's the mediator between the clubhouse and and the front office right so the way that he was able to balance that and get the and still help lead them obviously the players are the ones that ultimately did this but he helped spearhead them to

being right on the doorstep to win a division still after all of that I think he should be applauded for that but again I feel like some of the end game decisions the stuff that we can actually see the stuff that we can actually judge him on I think he had a little bit of a regressive year on that front so again because there's so much

context that we're just not aware of I'll just sit middle of the road here and go C plus. I know that's a really boring answer, but that's my answer. Sorry. Coward. Yeah. Not to, you know, hurry you along here, but can we get to the front office because I have some things to say.

Yeah, yeah. We, we, we, we, and I will be tying in the, uh, ownership group to this grade as well. So yeah, that's the, uh, that's the headline here. That's the, the, the headline matchup here is the, uh, the front office grade. So let's get into that and just. a moment, but first, a reminder this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you by Game Time.

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Mariner's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. So we are now at the main event of this show. The last grades we'll be handing out to the 2023 Mariners. And that's for Jerry DePoto, Justin Hollander,

the Mariners front office, and John Stanton and the Mariners ownership. So Colby, I think I have a feeling which direction you're going here, but tell us what grade you're giving for everyone involved. Are we throwing the ownership in with the same grade, or do they get a separate grade? Separate grade. Okay, so front office staff, I'll give them a D plus C minus.

Because, and this is weighed pretty heavily, I do feel like they knock the draft out of the part. And that does count. Oh, yeah, sure. So, you know, they had three first round picks and essentially three first round picks, and they nailed it. Emerson is already getting buzz as the best prospect in the mariner system in a good mariner system. You know, obviously, you know how much we like Tai Pete. And, you know, Farmello is certainly a high upside play there. and just the rest of the draft in general.

It looks like they had another really good draft. Now, we don't know that they've had a really good draft yet since they took, what, Kirby, really? But, you know, just based on the early returns of the last two or three draft classes, sure feels like they figured some stuff out there. So the draft does count. I don't want to be too harsh on them in terms of the, like, Colton Wong acquisition that didn't work or the AJ Pollock acquisition. That didn't work because those made sense.

Like, those were moves that made a ton of. a sense and they just didn't work. To Oscar, he was okay. He wasn't a disaster, but he wasn't what you needed him to be. And then obviously the deadline. The deadline is the big one here after the fact. And the Seawall trade, fine, like totally good trade. But to the fact that they didn't do anything after and we know they had an opportunity.

Like, I can't blame ownership for Jerry and Justin's inactivity at the deadline. That's purely on them. So, yeah, I think, you know, when you can kind of. put that all together. They did, you know, they did do things like draft and develop Wu and Miller who were huge this year and didn't trade them this winter too,

which is a thing. They did, you know, show some faith in Jared Kelnick. And, you know, for the most part, that worked out until the self-sabotage. So they did make some decisions that actually worked and the decisions they made were mostly like what they didn't trade. Like they didn't try and force a Bryce Miller trade because they wanted the big bad.

and now Bryce Miller's worth significantly more than he was last winter. So, you know, discipline-wise, they were fine. They were fine in the draft. I like the draft they had. I even don't mind the seawall trade, you know, in a vacuum. But they were still a bat short in the off-season, at least one. They were still a bat short and a bullpen arm short at the deadline. Those are things that everybody in the world knew.

And they didn't address. So I can't give them more than like a C-minus. Like it was a very, even giving them the benefit of the doubt on Wong and Pollock, which is totally fine because nobody thought they were going to be that bad. Nobody. Even all of that, given the benefit of the doubt on that, they came up short again for the third straight acquisition period. So, yeah, it's a C minus. And, you know, particularly the deadline here is the big bugaboo here. So, yeah, D plus, C minus.

like that that's really all I feel like giving them and and I think a large portion of that is actually lifted up by the fact that I really like their draft class this year. Yeah, yeah, I love the draft class, but I'm going to give them a D because this roster going into 2023 was not as good as it needed to be. And look, I don't want to hyper focus on Tommy Lestella and Cooper Hummel, but the fact that you went into this season saying we want to win the World Series and we want to win a division and all that stuff and tried to sell us. on Tommy Lestella and Cooper Hummel being a piece of that, right? Being part of your 26-man roster at the start of year, you're unsurious. You're being unsurious with that. I mean, more specifically, they tried to sell us on that because they whiffed, because they misread the market.

That's why you ended up in that situation. And that's why it's so bad. Because we know that they went after guys like Brandon Belt. They just came up empty-handed. You know, if Brandon Belt was your DH this year instead of Tommy Lestella to start the year, we might be having a very different conversation right now. We might be celebrating the first Mariners World Series appearance right now. Like that's how close they were and that's what makes this ultimately even more frustrating in retrospect.

They knocked it out of the park again with some of the reliever finds. So that's great. And again, that helped them survive, you know, Dio Cassio, not panning out, Penn Murphy getting hurt, etc., etc., etc. Look, again, like you said, I'm not going to fully blame them on the Wong and Pollock stuff because the process of those moves, the process behind those moves, and I know most people that are listening to the show, don't want to hear this, but process is very important here.

The process behind those moves made a ton of sense. And there was no one in the right mind. All of you were liars. If you said that you thought, or if you're saying that you thought that Colton Wong would be literally 100% worse than he was last year, coming off of a career year offensively, if you thought that A.J. Pollock was going to be like literally 120 or 130% worse

than he was against lefties from 2020. 22 to 2023. You're out of your mind. If you said that, if you said that you knew that, you knew that. Like, all right, if you thought that Colton Long was going to be a lateral move from Adam Fraser, fine.

There really was no evidence going into the season that said that was going to be the case. But we would have taken that. If he was, you probably win the division. Probably. You probably. You probably win.

You probably win an additional game or two. over the course of the first half of the season. So which would have made a significant difference in the end. So yeah, from that perspective, like I don't necessarily blame them for that. But the results do matter. The results of what happened do matter. And the fact that, you know, Teo wasn't the Robin to Julio's Batman like he was supposed to be that that does matter. And the fact that they built this roster or this lineup, you know, made up of guys that are strikeout heavy or quite a few guys that are strikeout heavy.

like that does matter because that wound up being a huge problem for them this season. It was just a bad roster build, right? Or at least a mediocre roster build given what given what the opportunity was and given the chances that they had to go out and get significantly better. The deadline though was a complete utter disaster. Again, the Paul Seawall deal is fine in a vacuum. That's great value for a year and a half of a top 15,

top 20-ish reliever in baseball. That's great. Like they knocked that deal out of the, out of the park, frankly. But because they didn't follow that up with another acquisition of a reliever to help supplement Seawald like they did when they traded Kendall Graveman

and went out and got Diego Castillo, that negatively impacted the Mariners' bullpen and the Mariners' chances of going to the playoffs over those final two months. And specifically September, we saw that play out right before our eyes, the negative impacts that the Paul Seawall deal, or rather subtracting Paul C.

Well from the equation had on this team. Also not going out and getting another proven bat, like a Tommy fam, Mark Kana, etc. There is no way that you can convince me that they didn't have an opportunity to land one of those guys for something that wouldn't kill them. No way. Absolutely no way. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder

and maybe the Brewers or sorry, the Mets liked what the Brewers and the Diamondbacks were offering more than whatever the Mariners might have been able to offer. But they could still beat it. They could still beat it. They could still beat it at the end of that. So they didn't, they didn't do enough at the deadline.

And then I'm also going to, to factor in the, the end of the year press conference into this thing as well. Sure. That was a, that was a disaster. That was an F minus, minus, minus, minus, minus, minus, minus, minus, minus, minus, minus. You guys know how we feel about that end of year presser.

So I'm going to give them a D. I don't, I don't know. we want to try and cram the ownership grade into this. Maybe we carry that over to tomorrow's episode because I've got a full seven minutes that I could like a whole segment that I could rant about ownership. All right.

There we go. We're calling an audible. We're actually wrapping up the grades tomorrow with ownership. John Stanton, you are in our cross-air. Yeah. Tie, just sit down and shut up and let me go. Right. Thank you for keeping that clean.

Appreciate it. all right so is that going to do a for our show then right is that going to do it for our show then i think so all right uh real quick question of the day folks in what order do you put on your socks and shoes don't be a sicko about this if it's anything other than sock sock shoe shoe you're a psychopath and you need help do you go sock sock shoe or are you a weirdo that goes sock shoe socks shoe or some other sicko order. Maybe you're one of those people that just goes shoe shoe, no socks.

You're one of those sickos. Let us know down below. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locktime Marrace podcast for Colby Patnaud. I'm Todd and Gonzales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-T-1-1.

You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.