Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Weekend Series Recap/Prospect Talk With Aram Leighton (Part the First)

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

In the first half of the show, D.C. talks about the three-game weekend series against the Rockies, then previews the upcoming three-game series which begins tonight in Arlington. The second half the first portion of a conversation with Aram Leighton, the host of the new "Locked On MLB Prospects" show, talking about the Mariners farm system. Today, three potential future starting pitchers are discussed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Yes, here he is, ready to bring you another edition of Locked-on Mariner's. I am D.C. Lundberg, and we are part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, or T-L-O-P-N-O-P-P-N-Lop. You can download, rate, and subscribe to this program. I wish you would on Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting up that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariner's podcast or any of the other podcasts here on the Locked-on Podcast Network.

Follow this show on Twitter at L-O-O-U-U-N-Sournerner's, and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G for those scoring at home. We're going to wrap up the weekend series with the Rockies here in just a bit, and in the second half of today's program, we will have part one of a conversation that I had on Saturday. with Aram Layton, the host of the brand new Locked-on MLB Prospects program right here on the Locked-on podcast network. We will be featuring parts of that conversation in the second half of each program this week. And now for the weekend series versus the Rockies, a series got started underway on Friday, August 7th, 2020, Year of Our Lord. This was an 8 to 4 victory over the Seattle Mariners. You say Kikuchi started, had a couple of rough innings, wound up going five and two-thirds

innings, six hits over those five-and-two-thirds with four runs, all of them earned, three strikeouts, only the one walk, however. Eric Swanson, an inning in a third, a hit, a run, it was earned, a walk, a strikeout. That one hit was a home run, by the way. Johan Ramirez pitched the final two innings, and he's been having some control problems all season. He is still a young, raw pitcher with good stuff. He just needs to harness it.

He did walk three batters in those two innings while also giving up two, pardon me, three hits, three runs all earned, two home runs among those three hits, and four strikeouts. Like I said, he's got good stuff. He has good stuff. That slider of his looks filthy. He just needs to learn to harness it. And maybe in any other season, he might be in AA Arkansas. And I say that only because you cannot develop pitchers in AAA in this day and age with the Major League Baseball that they're using.

In any case, let's see. Lewis went one for four. Seeger went two for four. Austinola had a really good game. Two for three with a home run and a double, three RBI total for him. Lopes went one for four. His bat seems to have cooled off a little bit, and Malix Smith also went two for four.

Now to the Saturday game, and we're going to really quickly go through this one because it was not good for the Mariners. Nick Margievich has started in Kendall Graveman's who is on the injured list. He winds up going three in a third with three hits given up, a walk and three strikeouts. He was relieved by Anthony Masevich, who goes an inning. One hit, two runs, a walk.

And then we have Joey Gerber pitching an inning in a third. Three hits, three runs, all of them earned. And two walks. Tyler Gilbo pitched an inning in a third, Matt McGillan inning, and Taylor Williams in inning. One hit was all the Mariners' offense could muster. and that was achieved by Carl Crawford. Now to the victory. Hmm.

Five to three win for the Seattle Mariners over the Colorado Rockies. Yesterday, yesterday afternoon, that is. Mariners got the scoring started right away in the first inning. Two runs there. They would tack on three in the seventh, and the Rockies would then score three in the eighth inning. Just as Sheffield started the game, pitched six innings, gave up four hits, struck out seven, and walked none.

And as a matter of fact, he had run. runners at the corners in the fourth inning with the one away and got out of the jam. Those are the kinds of innings this year, which have been turning into big innings at the expense of the pitching staff. And the fact that Justice Sheffield was able to not only get out of it with minimal damage, literally minimal damage, no runs given up, kudos to him. Because like I said, those are the innings that have been spiraling out of control for the meritor's pitchers very quickly all season, and he got out of it.

so good on him. He earns, ladies and gentlemen, his first major league win. Eric Swanson pitched an inning. Dan Altevilla pitched an unimpressive two-thirds of an inning. He gave up all three of the Rockies' runs. Taylor Williams then comes in for an inning in a third, cleans up the mess that Altavilla led left, and he strikes out three in that one and two-thirds innings

and gets his third save of the season. So the Rockies wind up taking two of three from the Mariners, and the Mariners begin a three-game series in Arling, tonight against the Rangers. It'll be Justin Dunn versus Kyle Gibson tonight at the ballpark in Arlington. Yes. And then we have Marco Gonzalez versus Mike Minor tomorrow night. And Wednesday, it'll be Taiwan Walker facing off against Jordan Liles in the ballpark in Arlington.

Thursday is the Mariners first off day of the season. Almost three weeks into the season and they finally get an off day on Thursday. We're going to have part one of our conversation with Aram Layton talking Mariners prospects coming up here in just a bit before any of that happens though we're going to get to the Mariners trivia question. In what round was Justice Sheffield drafted in 2014? Answer following this from CBDMD. It does not matter if you were a professional athlete, a stay-at-home parent, if you spend eight hours a day in an uncomfortable office chair, if you're manufacturing, if you're teacher, whatever you do, gang, everyone needs support to get through the day. Luckily, our friends at CBDMD, or Submdom, have an amazing duo that can help you relax,

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they're offering all our listeners 25% off your next order when you use the promo code Locked-on MLB at checkout. Once again, CBDMD.com, promo code locked on MLB for 25% off your purchase of superior CBD oil products from CBDMD. Answer to the trivia question, ladies and gentlemen, in 2014. Justice Sheffield was indeed a first-round draft pick,

chosen 31st overall by the Cleveland Indians. The Indians would trade him away at the trading deadline in 2016, along with Clint Fraser, Ben Heller, and J-P-Fier-R-B-R-E-I-S-E-N, and those gentlemen were all traded for relief pitcher Andrew Miller for the Indians' stretch run, and their eventual World Series appearance that year. The Yankees would trade Sheffield to the Mariners

with Dom Thompson-Williams and Eric Swanson in the James Paxton deal. More Locked-on Mariners following this. Now time for the second half of Locked-on Mariners. Once again, your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, J.M. This is indeed the second half of Locked-on Mariners. And coming up here in just a few short seconds as soon as I'm done recording right now,

We will bring you part one of our conversation with Aram Layton, host of the brand new Lockdown MLB Prospects show. We spoke for over an hour on Saturday. And here is the first part of that conversation. Yes, indeed. We are here with Aram Layton, host of Locked-on MLB Prospects. Is that the proper name of the show, sir? Or is it just Locked-on Prospect? Yeah, we didn't go too original there with the name,

but we wanted people to know what we were doing and under the Lock-on umbrella. it's going to be exactly what it sounds like. A lot of MLB prospect stuff from all 30 systems, including the Mariners, which I'm really excited to talk about because I got a lot of thoughts on a really good and rapidly ascending system. So I'm excited to talk about the show

and talk about the Mariners system. Absolutely. Well, let's start off talking about your new show first, and we'll get our listeners acquainted with that before we dive in to the Mariners' specific farm system. Yeah, so the show is going to be pretty multifaceted, which I want to make it pretty different from your traditional prospect podcast, which I don't think there's a lot of to begin with. And the nature of the locked on template,

which is having a podcast every day, I think it's unique to be able to have a prospect podcast daily. But a big component that I think will be different with this show is that I'm going to be doing a lot of interviews with some of the top prospects in baseball. I just did one with Griffin Conine, who led the Midwest League in home runs last year. Nick Gonzalez, seventh overall pick, by the Pittsburgh Pirates is going to be the guest next week, and it'll go on and on and on.

There will be some Seattle Mariner prospects in that mix down the line as well. And that's just going to be, you know, one part of the show. And then a lot of it is going to be analysis on the 30 farm systems all about which ones I think are good, bad, who's rising rapidly, which players I like. A lot of the conversation we're going to have today will be a little bit of a glimpse of what it can be like. Also, you know, with the top 100 lists coming out left and right, those are a lot. these fun things to talk about and I'll have a lot of the writers on whether it's MLB pipeline, Baseball America, fan graphs, whoever drops the most recent top prospect list, I'll have them on.

So if you have a gripe, you feel like somebody was snubbed, whether it was George Kirby, if he didn't make the cut for the top 100. And those are the things that like I would have thought he was snubbed. I would talk about that. Hopefully answer some of the questions that all 30 teams, fans of all 30 teams may have. And everything in between, you know, I'm going to be making my own top prospect lists. there's going to be a lot of analysis on swings adjustments, which I'll talk about with Zach De Loach, who is one of my more underrated prospects too.

And some of the stuff that you'll hear me talk about today, it'll be a little glimpse of what I'm going to do in terms of going into these prospects. And if a guy has a breakout year, you know, getting into what he did mechanically, what stands out to me. I'll do video breakdowns. It'll be on and on and on. But I'm excited, as you can tell. And there's a lot of things I think that can come of this.

and I'm hopeful that people will enjoy it as much as I'm enjoying doing it so far. Excellent. That sounds like it's going to be a fun show. Makes me feel really inadequate. I'm just a daycare teacher from Spokane doing a baseball podcast. But in any case, let's dive into, let's start talking about the Mariners Farm System. The last three years in the first round, the Mariners have taken college pitchers. This year it was Emerson Hancock. Last year it was George Kirby.

And the year before that, it was Logan Gilbert. all of them seem to be pretty good prospect, I would say. But talk about these three gentlemen and where you might see, do you think they might all be in their rotation at the same time at some point? Or is that even a reasonable question to ask? I think it's a reasonable question to ask, but at the same time, it's tough to answer because when you look at George Kirby,

he's barely pitched at the professional level. Emerson Hancock has not pitched at all at the professional level. Yeah, because it's a weird year. It's a weird year, but I will say I'll hedge that, that both, especially Kirby, more than Hancock, but both are pretty advanced. I'd say Kirby is a really advanced pitcher in terms of his command and his ability to pound the strike zone. My only slight concern with Kirby, which is, I use the word concern probably a little too aggressively here, and just in terms of how he's going to be moved up the ranks, it's never going to be about throwing strikes for him. He's never going to have

problem throwing strikes. It's just if maybe at the higher levels, he might have some trouble missing bats, just because he's still working on those secondary pitches. Right now, he's got a fastball that continues to rise in velocity. He's always had elite command. That's what really got him on the radar. Yes, he had fantastic strikeout numbers at Elon, but that's a mid-major school. He did impress in the cape, though it was a small sample size. I'd like to just see him refine those secondary pitches a little bit before he rapidly ascends up the minor leagues. But he does have the profile of the type of pitcher that will rise quickly as a mid-major pitcher that is just really advanced, is really solid with his mechanics,

repeats them very well for a six-foot-four pitcher. And I really just want to see him refine that curveball and slider. And if he can add that change up, that at the end of the day, that will make him really effective against left-handers as well, because that seems to be his only struggle from time to time is consistently getting out left-handers as much he does right-handers. But Kirby, I think, is one of the more undervalued prospects in this system. And he is going to surprise a lot of people when he gets his first chance at a full season next year. Hancock, the same thing. His command is a little bit more of an

issue, but he has much better stuff, raw stuff that is. He just needs to learn how to command it a little bit better. But that's a fastball that can reach triple digits for Hancock and a wipeout breaking ball. He just needs to hone in on a third pitch and also work on. having some more consistent command, which is unfortunate, you know, not being able to have the season this year, but I think he's probably doing more than enough to get his work in. But you see the trend here. The Mariners are not afraid to draft college arms, and there's some teams that get shied away from that because they think it's a tempered ceiling to a degree, and while that can be true, the Mariners seem to do a good job of finding college arms that

also have high ceilings. And I'd say Hancock, Gilbert, and Kirby are all good examples of just that. And the other thing that the Mariners have been trying to do, they prefer college pitchers to high school pitchers. The other thing that their philosophy, at least for their starting rotation for the future, is controlling the strike zone. And it kind of reminds me to a degree of what the Atlanta Braves did

in the early in mid-90s, where they had a lot of pitchers with not necessarily great blowaway stuff, but they controlled the strike zone. It seems like the same philosophy. fee. Might you agree with that? Absolutely. And that's the thing is I really like these pitchers because usually you sacrifice

good stuff for guys that can really pound the strike zone. And while I was a little bit harsh on Kirby's stuff, he still has well above average stuff for a first year professional pitcher. This is just if we're talking about being a

major league caliber, reaching his full potential, those are the things he needs to work on. But these guys, Kirby, Gilbert, and Hancock all have, Hancock may be the least of the three, but they all have solid command when they're on, especially Gilbert and Kirby, but Gilbert and Kirby also have good stuff. Gilbert is probably my favorite of the bunch because he is just such a good balance of pounding the strike zone, but also having really good off-speed pitches and being able to get swings and misses. With a 6'225 pound frame, usually those taller guys have a little bit more

trouble repeating their mechanics. Logan Gilbert doesn't have a problem with that at all. And another guy that's from a mid-major school in Stetson and is a little bit reminiscent of Jacob de Grom, who also came from Stetson as well and was a little bit more unheralded. Now teams are starting to realize you can find some diamonds in the rough. And that's exactly what the Mariners did with Kirby and Gilbert. And the thing about Jacob de Grom, much better hair than any of the other Mariners prospects. But in any case, talking about Gilbert specifically, he does have a full season of minor league ball under his belt, 26 starts at three different levels last season,

135 innings pitched with a 2-1-3 ERA and a whip under one. You know, even though that's just a first year and the highest level he pitched was double A. That looks encouraging to me. Yeah, and I think what looks encouraging the most is the fact that the Mariners were so confident in a first player, a first-year player there, excuse me, that they were comfortable after five starts in West Virginia to move him up to high-end. and after just 12 starts there and where he was dazzling, then they move him up to double A.

I mean, that's really quick to move a pitcher to three levels in one year in their first professional season, really. That speaks volumes to how much they think he is advanced and how mature he is on the mound. I think the big thing for Gilbert, too, is he is always able to, if he's not striking guys out, he gets weak contact. And that's what he did even at AA,

while he couldn't totally replicate the strikeout numbers at high A, which is to be expected of a first year player, he got a lot of weak contact, held opponents to under 200 batting average, thanks to the fact that he has a fastball that now ticks up to almost 97 at times, and he can locate it well too. His slider and change-up are great. He doesn't really need to work on the curveball if he can use that slider and change-up. The slider occasionally blends into the curveball as is.

But with that 95 around mile per hour fastball and a good change up, you mix in the slider and you've already got a pitcher with three Major League pitches and good command. Right now, his floor is probably a three or four starter with a chance to be a legitimate number two if he can make one of those two pitches, the slider or the change up, a plus pitch, which I don't think he's far from doing. We will have more of our conversation with Aram tomorrow in the second half. of the show.

And joining me for the first half of the program will be guest panelists, Barney Rubble, Donkey Kong, and a flamethrower. Ooh, that'll be exciting. You will not want to miss that, gang. So download, rate, and subscribe to this show so you don't miss it or don't miss any episodes. Apple Podcast, Google Podcast,

Spotify, Stitcher Radio, whichever podcasting app you can think of. Try it because we're probably there. We're everywhere. Follow the show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. And follow me on Twitter at DC. underscore Lundberg. Hope you have a great Monday, ladies and gentlemen, and a great week overall. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.