Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Will Vest DFA'ed? Yep, Will Vest DFA'ed

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

In what D.C. thought was a very bizarre roster move, the Mariners designated pitcher Will Vest for assignment the other day. D.C. explains why he thought the move was bizarre, and talks about who he thought would have been the next to go if a 40-man roster spot needed to be cleared. With Cal Raleigh's call up to the Mariners over the weekend, the M's now have three catchers on the roster... or do they? D.C. explains what Mr. Raleigh's promotion might mean for Luis Torrens. Also, this is episode 300 of Locked On Mariners. D.C. takes some time out of the end of the show to note this, ahem, momentous occasion, which he didn't know was approaching until last night. 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.

Today on Locked-on Mariners, the host gets such a late start that he has no script and no plan and has no idea how this is going to turn out. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lunders. Yes, gang, that is correct, but for the sake of getting something out there in a reasonable amount of time before this evening, we're just going to go with it and see what happens today on Locked-on Mariners. part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, or T-L-O-P-N or T-L-O-P-N or T-Lopin. Please remember to download and follow this program using whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariners Podcasts or any program here on Tlopin.

Very simple to do. All you got to do is say, hey, smart device, play Locked on Mariners podcast for me. Would you please or any of the other great shows here on Tlopin? And as I said, play Locked on Anaheim Ducks. Play Locked on whatever. My plan for the day is kind of to go position by position as a mid-season type report card thing with no script, like I said. So that might not happen. I'm not entirely sure at this point.

It can be kind of one of those stream of consciousness shows where just kind of whatever comes out of my mouth is what I say. I usually work at least with a rough outline. I'm not doing that today. There is some news to get to first, however. And there's some roster moves, some pretty significant roster moves at that. A couple of these took place before Sunday's game. Of course, Cal Raleigh called up to the big leagues that day Donovan Bolton was also recalled. I don't remember if he got into that particular game or not.

Taylor Tremel was sent out to make room for one of them, and Yusikichi was placed on the COVID-injured list also to make room for the other. Raleigh was not on the 40-man roster at that point, but since Kikichi-San was placed on the COVID-injured list, he did not have to be replaced on the 40-man roster, so They had some time to figure out how they were going to work with a 40-man roster when Kikichi returned. He was activated yesterday. Kikichi was. He was showing some COVID-like symptoms, so he was placed on the COVID-injured list.

He's been vaccinated and tested positive. Or, pardon me, tested negative. He tested negative, ladies and gentlemen. So his placement on the COVID-injured list to me, very odd situation. He was activated yesterday. Donovan Walton was sent back out. and to make room on the 40-man roster, this is a very weird roster move as far as I'm concerned, ladies and gentlemen. Will Vest was designated for assignment.

If anybody on the big league roster in that bullpen was going to be designated for assignment, I was assuming it was going to be Raphael Montero. The meritors, I guess, are showing some confidence in Raphael Montero, which is, I don't know why they have confidence in Raphael Montero. I said on the show before, I did a whole almost half segment on Mr. Montaro, so I'm not going to rehash most of that. But he failed as a closer, and he's failing as a middle-inning reliever. He's good for mop-up duty only.

And he's older than Will Vest. He's 30 years old. He's a Major League veteran. And Will Vest is younger. I believe he's 25. No, pardon me. He's 26. He turned 26 in June.

But the fact remains, he is younger than Montero. He might have a future as a contributor in the bullpen. He was also a Rule 5 draft choice. over the off-season. And I believe the rule is that he had to have been kept on the Big League roster all season or be offered back to Detroit. And I kind of assumed that if the Mariners wanted to take him off the 40-man roster, pardon me the Big League roster, he had to stay at the Big League roster.

I thought that the Tigers were going to snap him back up. But I guess the Tigers did not want him back. I think they would have had to pay a fee to the Mariners. Maybe they didn't want to do that. So that's why Will Vest was designated for assignment rather than just being reclaimed, I guess, by the Tigers organization. And going over some of Will Vest's numbers, remember, gang, he started off pretty well. In his first 14 games, he had an ERA of 117 and an opponent's batting average, pardon me, of 212, opponents on base percentage of 306, pardon me, but it's been kind of downhill from there.

since then, and this is since May 8th, he's pitched eight games as an ERA of 1007 and an opponent's batting average of 338. He was one of those pitchers, especially early in the season, that Scott's service liked to use so much out of the bullpen, and I thought he just got overworked. Same thing with Anthony Masevic, although his ERA has come back down a little bit. Season statistics for Mr. Vest, he has a 617 earned run. average in 35 innings, 32 games. He has a whip of 1.6.00, 9.8 hits per nine innings, which is very much on the high side. A half a home run per nine, that is not on the high side.

4.6 walks per nine innings that is on the high side. Also, just to kind of highlight how he's been struggling lately, since June 1st, he has in the area of 995, which is actually a little bit lower, but pretty much on par with the 10.0.6. ERA, I mentioned earlier since May 8th, opponent's batting average of 360. That includes his July 6th outing, and in the month of June, he pitched 11 games, 10 and 2 3rds innings had an 11-8-1 ERA and a very high opponent's batting average of 395, and opponents on base percentage also of 500. So he has been struggling lately, but again, still a very odd move, considering you

have Raphael Montero sitting in that bullpen, who was kind of, to me, the obvious choice to jettison, so to speak, if they needed the 40-man roster spot. I still don't understand why they jettisoned Mr. Vest. I think Mr. Vest has a future, and I don't think Raphael Montero has a future. He is on a one-year contract, I believe, and I would be very surprised. He's also arbitration-eligible, Mr. Montero is, and I don't know if he's going to be a mayor in her next season, where Vest may have had a shot to be at Mariner next season or at least stick around in AAA Tacoma to work out his problems. Season numbers for Mr. Montaro, he's pitched in 38 games, 41 in the third innings.

He has an ERA of 675. He has a little bit of a lower whip than Mr. Vest does, 1.548. He's given up more hits ratio-wise at 10.9, also more home runs ratio-wise, at 0.9. still not a horrible number. He's given up fewer walks ratio-wise at 3.0 walks per nine innings, and he struck out 7.6 per nine innings. So I guess maybe the walks, that's the only thing I can see justifying Montero's not being designated for assignment and vests being designated for assignment.

Since the calendar turned to June, Raphael Montero has pitched 17 innings and 14 ball games, has an opponent's batting average of 338, and opponents on base percentage of 398, pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, and an ERA of 953. Since May 1st, he has an ERA of 767 and 26 games, 29 in a third innings,

opponents average of 325, and an opponent's on base percentage of 379. And if they need more roster spots after that, I don't know who the next to go, is going to be. Kyle Lewis might be coming off the 60-day injured list sometime in August from comments. I heard Jerry Napoto make prior to Saturdays game,

Friday's game. One of the weekend games, I don't remember which one it was. Evan White is much farther away, and unfortunately he might not play again this season. His injury was much worse, evidently, than originally thought. That's not good news. This season they have Thai France playing first base pretty much every day. And that could work.

They've also got Luis Torrens sitting on the active roster. And he has been getting more infield work than catching work recently, from what I understand. So while the Mariners do technically have three catchers on the roster, Tom Murphy and Cal Rale are going to pretty much split time behind the plate, from what I understand. They're both going to get a lot of playing time, and those are not my words. Those are words of Meriters management. Plus Luis Torrance, who's probably going to see

a lot of action at designated hitter and first base. Raleigh's call-up, which is something I did not mention on yesterday's show, kind of signals to me that Luis Torren's days behind the plate might be over. And that's not a bad thing because defensively he's not a good catcher. He can hit. He's really been swinging the bat since being recalled from AAA. But as I'm looking at the time, I need to take a commercial break. I don't even know what the first commercial is.

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Coming up, I really don't know what's going to be coming up. I was originally going to go position by position. But now I'm going to talk about Luis Torenz, I think, and just kind of see what he's been up to. Stick around. Welcome back to Locked-on Mariners. Here once again is your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you again, Joey Martin.

Back on Lock-on Mariners. We're going to talk about Luis Torenz just a little bit here, and the second part of the show was originally going to go position by position as sort of a mid-season report card-type deal. I'm going to say that for later on, again, beginning this show so late. I don't have a plan. I don't have a script.

I completely shooting from the hip, ladies and gentlemen. And so we're just going to kind of see what happens. I left off the first segment talking a little bit about Luis Torrens in light of Cal Raleigh's call-up. The Mariners now effectively have three catchers on the Major League roster. Sort of two and a half, if you want to count Luis Torrens as a catcher, because I don't think he's going to get much playing time behind the dish anymore. he did not, when he was sent down to Tacoma towards the end of May, not only, he was not a good defensive catcher.

He displayed that not only this year, but throughout his big league career, and he was sent down to work on both his defense and his offense. And while his offense has improved greatly, I'll get into his numbers here in just a little bit. His defense did not improve. He allowed a couple of past balls at his time in Tacoma, and he was there less than a month. So I personally think that Cal,

Rolley's call up is a signal that Torrenz's days behind the plate are over. That's not a bad thing, like I said. Defensively, he just can't get the job done. Now, he might make a good first baseman. I don't know. He's been getting a lot of infield work. He played about seven games, I think, with the Rainiers this season at first base. So he might be able to stick there, especially since Evan White's going to be on the shelf.

Maybe for the rest of the year, I touched on that also towards the end of A block. Offensively, though, since his recall, pardon me, on June 15th, Torenz is slashing 288, 391, 695. That's an OPS of over 1,000 at 1.086. He has seven home runs, a double and a triple in that time frame among his 17 hits. He has struck out 15 times. He's also walked 10 times, though. So that's a pretty good.

ratio, maybe a few too many strikeouts just on the surface there. I'm going to figure out how many strikeouts it is per at bet. Yeah, that's striking out about once every 25.4 at batts, which is a round league average, I realize, still too high for me. But, you know, it is what it is. The offensive output is there, that 288 batting average on base percentage of almost 400. That is against a season slash line of 221, 291, 456.

Last year for the Mariners in 18 games, he slashed 254, 323, 373, with one home run and four doubles among his 14 hits. Overall for the season split between San Diego and Seattle, 25 games, 257, 325, 37, 325, 371, slash line. So his slugging percentage for his season numbers is up. And in this 18-game stint since being recalled, he's been on fire. He's absolutely been on fire.

And it was a Sunday's game or Saturday's game. He smoked two low-line drives the other way down the first base line, one of which resulted in a single because it hit the seat, the wall, where the seats jutt out into foul territory. And he couldn't advance any of four. farther than for his base. The other one wound up going into the corner, rattled around down there a while,

and he got a triple out of it. That was Saturday's game, July 10th. Since the calendar changed to July 1st, Torrens has appeared in eight games, and he is slashing 33, 484, 667, an OPS of 1151. Two of his home runs and his triple have come in that time frame. He has walked seven times against six strikeouts,

more walks and strikeouts. Always a good thing to see. He's walking more. Not only is he making a better contact and hitting the ball with authority, he seemingly has a better knowledge of the strike zone now. He's taking his walks, as we've mentioned, that on-base percentage is very, very high.

It's good to see. And just to remind you what he had done before his recall when he was sent to AAA Tacoma at the end of May, his last game before being sent down was May 18th. And after that game, he was slashing 178-219-300. That's an OPS of 519, which is below his OPS of 519 as of May 18th, is well below his slugging percentage since being recalled of 695. This guy is just on another level right now,

sort of, I shouldn't say that. This guy has been doing very, very well since his recall. People who are on another level generally hit about 450, and he's, he's, he's, He's not to that point, but 288 batting average, an on-based percentage of almost 400, doing very, very well since his recall, as I keep saying. And I'm kind of excited that he's going to be in the lineup on a seemingly regular basis, but not behind the plate. He's been de-hing a lot.

He's been de-hing as Tom Murphy has been catching. There have been games where he has caught and Tom Murphy has de-hed. That should never happen unless it's like the second game of a double-header. or that's something. But now that doesn't need to happen because they have Cal Raleigh on the roster. And Tom Murphy and Cal Raleigh now are the number one and two catchers. And you've got Torenz who's kind of a bat without a defensive position. Hence all the times at D.H. I am excited to see what he can do at first base.

I have never seen him play first base, so I cannot pass judgment on what kind of first baseman he is. Maybe he'll be good there. And I almost said that you might be able to try him at third base as well. but judging on his mobility behind the plate, he's probably not going to be real mobile at third base either. So, I don't know, maybe he could fill in there in a pinch once he gets acclimated to first base, but I don't see that as a long-term option really at all.

If you have a question or comment, please send it into locked-on mariners at gmail.com. Questions and comments on any subject are highly encouraged. Does not need to be about the Mariners, does not need to be about sports at all. Coming up, I talk about a mile. stone in this show's history, which I did not realize was upon us until last night. But first, this word from bet online.

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Sorry. What is going on? Provo code locked on. Now back to Locked on Mariners and your host, DC, Lunders. Thank you very much one more time, J.M. We're going to do kind of a quick little segment before getting out of here for the day. This is episode number 300 of Locked-on Mariners. I didn't realize that episode number 300 was upon us until I decided to count up the number of episodes we did last night. I don't know what struck me to do that, but I'm kind of glad I did. Because 300

episodes is kind of an important milestone. This show began in August of 2019. with Andy Patton behind the mic as the host. He did this program's first 34 episodes before stepping aside. I took over in January of 2020, January 20th, 2020 as a matter of fact. And furthermore, that also happened to be the day after my 35th birthday. So that was kind of a nice birthday present to start doing the show. At that time, I was actually supposed to start the previous week, but I had a nasty bet with laryngitis.

So the Locked-on podcast network, and I put it off a week. And I've been doing the show now for almost a year and a half. Not all of the episodes. We've done 266 episodes since I took over. I have not been a part of all of them, obviously. I've had a lot of help in terms of guest hosts. John Miller has guest-hosted at least a half a dozen of these things. Clive Braithwaite, the fourth, has been able to step in at the last minute to guest host a few of them.

Jason Burke from Lockdown A's has guest-hosted. Jason Block, whom I've been podcasting with for almost a decade, talking about baseball, he's guest-toasted one of these things, as has Taylor Blake Ward, former host of Locked-on Angels, who helped me out when I first started school several weeks ago so I could put my entire focus for the day on school. He continues to be a friend of this program. Brent McGuire does a great job on Locked-on Angels since taking over, covering our division rival, Los Angeles Angels.

So thank you to all the guest hosts who have helped me out. And also to frequent guest Jason Hernandez, who has not guest hosted this show, but has appeared almost as frequently, I think, as John Miller. Those are my two most frequent guests. And thank you to everybody who has helped out in the show in that regard. Most importantly, however, thank you out there for listening, whether you have been listening since the very beginning with Andy Patton

or if you just kind of recently picked up this show, or if this is your first episode, Thank you very much for tuning in. And if this is your first episode, I realize that this is not the best episode maybe to start with, you know, during the mid-season break. There's no Mariner's baseball to cover.

There won't be any Mariner's baseball to cover until Friday night, and I'm not doing a Friday night show. So the next show where I actually recap anything is going to be next Monday. It'll be another catch-up Monday, as it were. And I believe that that is going to be the series in Anaheim. I guess I should have looked. at that. I think they're going to Anaheim next.

But thank you very much out there for listening to this program, whether you're listening once a week, once a month, or whether you're a daily listener. I appreciate each and every one of you. Well, I think that's enough self-indulgent crap for the day, so I'm going to call it a day and get the heck out of here. Not exactly sure what's going to be happening tomorrow. Maybe I'll do the mid-season report card on tomorrow's show. I am not quite sure.

Joining me to do that, while I didn't write one of these things, did I? No, I didn't. So I guess I'm just going to be on my own. Well, I'm on my own most shows anyway, because never mind. Please remember to download and follow Locked On There's, my goodness. Look for us at any podcasting app you can think of leaving a rating and review. If your podcasting app of choice, so allows. And also remember to check out all the other great programs here on the Locked On podcast network. Most of the hosts are not as tongue-tied as I tend to be. but he's and gentlemen, I don't know what happens to me every once in a while. Thank you very much for listening to today's episode.

Thank you for listening throughout this show's history. I hope you'll stick with us, and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Get all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes with the Lockdown Today podcast. Host Peter Bukowski will keep you updated on the latest news in every major sport with Lockedons team of local experts. Follow the Locked On Today podcast on the Odyssey app or wherever else you get your podcasts. This is Joey Martin speaking for Lockdown Mariners. part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.