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2020 Seattle Mariners thread

Biff Tannen

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45665

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To get us started off right:

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“There will be no closer,” Servais said. “It’s just going to depend. Some nights it might be a particular guy matchup-wise or because he has the freshest arm, he hasn’t pitched in a couple days and he will be asked to get the final three outs of the game. Unless somebody jumps up and grabs the position and he looks super comfortable and he’s just shoving it and looks great, then it might grow into that. But right now, we don’t have one.”

 

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ss13

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Your current RF mess. 

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Entering Spring Training, the Mariners were slated to roll out Mallex Smith in center field and Kyle Lewis in left, but there was little clarity regarding right field following a series of injuries that have left Mitch Haniger without a timetable to return to game action. Jake Fraley, Braden Bishop, Jose Siri and veteran non-roster invitees Carlos Gonzalez and Collin Cowgill were among the team’s options to step into the void created by Haniger’s absence.

Fast forward a few weeks, and the team’s situation has trended toward a resolution. Siri was just claimed off waivers by the Giants earlier this afternoon, the Mariners also announced that Bishop was optioned to Triple-A Tacoma. Both struggled in Major League camp with the Mariners — Siri going 2-for-12 with a homer but seven strikeouts and Bishop going 1-for-11 with a pair of walks and five punchouts. (As Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times tweets, Bishop has struggled to return to form after having his spleen removed early last summer.)

At this point, Fraley appears to be the favorite to open the year in right field. MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer spoke with Seattle skipper Scott Servais about the 24-year-old, whom the organization acquired alongside Smith in the trade that sent catcher Mike Zunino to the Rays. “I like where Jake is at,” Servais said of Fraley. “There’s still room for growth. … But he comes to work every day. He’s about as serious as anybody in that clubhouse. He knows what he wants to get done every day.”

Fraley got his feet wet in the big leagues last season, although he went just 6-for-40 in his first MLB cup of coffee. That small sample shouldn’t overshadow a huge year between Double-A and Triple-A, however, as Fraley’s combined .298/.365/.545 slash is eye-catching (particularly considering the pitcher-friendly nature of the Double-A Texas League). Fraley appeared in 99 games in the minor leagues (427 plate appearances), but he still racked up 19 home runs, 27 doubles, five triples and 22 stolen bases. Thus far in Spring Training, he’s 6-for-26 with a pair of homers, a pair of doubles and a steal. He’s punched out in eight of his 29 plate appearances but also drawn three walks.

Gonzalez and Cowgill remain in the mix, but it seems unlikely that either would secure a starting job. The Mariners have every reason to get a look at Fraley in a regular role against big league pitching, considering they control him through at least the 2025 season. Gonzalez could be a bench bat and potential fallback option in the event that Fraley struggles early, but the Mariners appear intent on trotting out a young lineup and evaluating their controllable candidates. With uber-prospects Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez looming behind the current crop of outfielders, this is the best time to get a look at Fraley and other currently MLB-ready options.

It’s also possible — and perhaps likely — that neither CarGo nor Cowill breaks camp with the club. Divish tweets that the Mariners could carry both Tim Lopes and Dylan Moore on the Opening Day roster, using one as a fourth outfielder in that scenario. That’d keep with the team’s evaluation-focused modus operandi in 2020, although it’s worth noting that Moore exited today’s Cactus League game after being hit on the wrist by a fastball. Initial x-rays were negative, but his status is one to keep an eye on at the moment.

 

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Biff Tannen

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1 hour ago, ss13 said:

^ I just recently clicked on that thread, how many times would you guess you’ve seen every episode? 

Lord.  I mean, I watched Simpsons/Seinfeld every weeknight from about 1995 til the end of the series.  Then bought every season DVD as they came out in the early 2000s and now Hulu has them all for free.  I've won the last three Seinfeld trivia nights I've entered.  One of them had 55 teams.  I may have a problem.

Edit: Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45665

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1 hour ago, ss13 said:

Highly doubt I’ve ever seen a complete Simpsons episode in one sitting, just never got into it. 

Man, there are some on this board that will roast you for that.  Also, lovely that our Mariners are so promising this year that Seinfeld is more popular in this thread than the team.  That said, I'm going to try and get up to Arlington for at least one game of the April series at the new stadium.

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MC Fresh Breath

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Mariners have discussed playing home games in Arizona if COVID-19 forces change

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By Evan Drellich Mar 10, 2020comment-icon.png 57 save-icon.png

Update: The Daily Herald and Seattle Times report that Washington State Governor Jay Inslee is expected on Wednesday to restrict gatherings of over 250 people, including sporting events.

If government officials impose restrictions that prohibit events on the scale of Major League Baseball games in the Seattle area, the Mariners could temporarily play their home games in Arizona at their spring training facility, people familiar with the contingency plans said on Tuesday.

No alternative scheduling plan is final. It is unknown what directives, if any, government officials in Washington or Seattle will issue in an effort to fight COVID-19 — or whether the timing of those directives would affect the regular season. But the possibility that games could be canceled nonetheless looms as myriad events, in sports and otherwise, are shut down across the country. 

With Opening Day 16 days away, an ordinance longer than two weeks in length would likely impact the Mariners, and MLB and its teams have been planning accordingly.

There have been 24 deaths in Washington state, per the Seattle Times. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and other government officials, including Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, have a planned news conference for 10:15 a.m. PT on Wednesday. The media advisory notes that “social distancing plans” are to be a topic. 

The Mariners are scheduled to open their regular season on March 26, in a home game against the Rangers, a franchise that is opening a new ballpark in 2020. Rangers general manager Jon Daniels indicated to the Associated Press that it was possible the relocated series could be played in Arlington, Texas, but a source on Tuesday night suggested that was not likely. The Rangers could benefit from as much time as possible before opening their park.

Arizona is a logical alternative in many respects. The Mariners and Rangers are both already in Arizona for spring training. The Mariners would likely use their own facility, in Peoria. 

Many outcomes are in play. For example, the Mariners could play some home games in Arizona, and perhaps others at a road stadium in another major-league city, depending on the length of any potential absence from Seattle.

Major League Baseball on Tuesday night declined comment. On Monday, the league issued a statement: “While MLB recognizes the fluidity of this rapidly evolving situation, our current intention is to play spring training and regular-season games as scheduled.”

With reporting by Corey Brock

 

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MC Fresh Breath

MC Fresh Breath 4074

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My favorite player: Ichiro

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By Peter Baugh 3h agocomment-icon.png 5 save-icon.png

I owned one of the dorkier lunch boxes in my fourth-grade class, but that was fine by me. The plastic front showed MLB outfielder Ichiro looking toward a pitcher with his bat held up like a lightsaber — his trademark pre-pitch ritual. He looked focused, athletic and — in my elementary school eyes — as cool as humanly possible.

Throughout my childhood, my grandmother, who lives in Seattle, sent me anything she could find related to Ichiro. The postal service delivered everything from The Seattle Times clippings to paperback biographies to, yes, the lunch box. Mimi Shawn doesn’t watch much baseball, but her frequent mail made sure Ichiro became my favorite player.

In my mind, no one could top Ichiro’s style, poise at the plate, slick fielding or cannon for an arm. It became habit to recite facts and figures, tell uninterested classmates about how he was MVP as a rookie in 2001, then how he slapped a record 262 hits in 2004. He was the first Japanese position player in MLB history and immediately emerged as a perennial All-Star and Gold Glove winner.

He was breathtakingly talented, stunningly consistent and a true joy to watch until he retired in 2019.

All that said, my best Ichiro memories come courtesy of my mom.

Ichiro and the Mariners visited St. Louis for a 2010 series with the Cardinals. Because they’re in different leagues, this only happened about every six years, so my mom, Elizabeth, marked it on the calendar months in advance. As a self-conscious 13-year-old, I’d started carrying a plain lunch box, but the appreciation I held for my favorite player hadn’t dimmed. So, in the days leading up to the game, I crafted a plan: I’d go to batting practice, wait in the right field bleachers and call down to Ichiro as he prepared for the game. Maybe if I got his attention he’d flip up a ball or sign a baseball card for me. Deep down, what I truly wanted was to be acknowledged, to believe that, even if it was only for a few fleeting seconds, Ichiro knew who I was.

ichiro-lunchbox-scaled.jpg
 
The Ichiro lunch box still has a place in the Baugh home. (Baugh family)

Game day came, and I traded my typical Cardinals colors for an Ichiro T-shirt and printed a sign that read “Ichiro is Ichiban” (Ichiro is No. 1 in Japanese), a phrase fans wrote out frequently when he took the league by storm his rookie year. I felt nervous bustling through the Busch Stadium gates two hours before first pitch and jogging through the concourse toward right field.

Normally the first glimpse of a stadium’s grass makes me pause to appreciate the pesticide-aided beauty of a baseball diamond. But not that day. Ichiro was my focus, and there he was, alone in right field as he watched his teammates take batting practice.

Here’s the thing about Ichiro: Even when a baseball is nowhere in sight, he never stops moving. His stretching and care for his body ultimately allowed him to play until he was 45, and I watched from the front row as he kept his legs wider than his hips, moving his shoulders to stay loose. Then, whenever the batting practice pitcher went into his delivery, Ichiro alerted, ready for any ball to come his way.

The first time Ichiro drifted toward the warning track to snag a ball, which he caught behind his back for the delight of the early forming crowd, I called his name. He threw the ball to another fan, but he caught sight of my flimsy sign. He pointed my way, needing no words to convey a message: be ready. I was equally excited and terrified, not wanting to screw anything up.

But sure enough, the next time a hitter ripped a ball to right, Ichiro drifted into position and caught it cleanly. He whipped around smoothly, effortlessly finding me in the crowd. He let the ball go and it sailed, flying perfectly toward me.

The world around me seemed to slow as the ball landed neatly in my outstretched glove. I felt numb with elation, my head light. All I could do was turn around, grasping the slick, white baseball, and walk up the steps to my mom. She was waiting at the top of the section, her eyes reflecting my excitement.

“It was Ichiro, Mom,” I said as she grinned. “Ichiro.”

My heart pounded, ringing somewhere near my throat.

The funny thing is, I wouldn’t have shared that moment with my mom if my dad, Richard, hadn’t eaten some bad food. We were usually the ones bonding over baseball — he taught me to love the game, raising me on stories of Lou Gehrig, Kirk Gibson and the 1998 home run race — but he’d come down with food poisoning and couldn’t take me to Busch.

Father’s Day was a week after the game, and, as a gift, I wrote an essay about it — perhaps foreshadowing my career choice. I wanted him to still feel like he had a place in the experience. He loved it.

It turns out my mom did, too. Without my knowledge, she sent a letter to then-Mariners chairman Howard Lincoln, telling him about my appreciation for Ichiro, his play and his style. She enclosed the essay. The only way to give the story a better ending, she said, was if I could somehow get a hold of Ichiro’s signature.

The month after Ichiro came to town, my family left on a road trip out west. We hiked through Yellowstone, marveling at geysers and buffalo and beautiful overlooks. My parents and sister, Maggie, frequently had to ask me to give it a rest. They had the audacity to want to focus on nature, and somehow my blabbering about Ichiro, the Cardinals and the rest of the league distracted them.

Two weeks later, when the family Ford Escape pulled up to our St. Louis house, a medium-sized box was waiting by the door, a Mariners logo in the top corner. Confused, I looked at my mom.

“Open it,” she said, a soft smile on her face.

Lincoln had read her letter. He was touched by the essay and promised to pass it along to Ichiro himself. Inside the package sat a smaller box. My fingers trembled as I lifted the cardboard edges and pulled out a plastic cube protecting a pristine baseball.

My mom beamed as I caught sight of the loopy blue signature etched on smooth, white leather.

(Photo: KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP via Getty Images)

Baugh-Peter-Headshot-070419-.jpg
Peter Baugh covers Mizzou football for The Athletic. He has previously been published in the Columbia Missourian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star and Washington Post. A St. Louis native, Peter recently graduated from the University of Missouri. Follow Peter on Twitter @Peter_Baugh.

 

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MC Fresh Breath

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Five questions we need answers to as Mariners prepare to get back to baseball

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By Corey Brock Jun 24, 2020comment-icon.png 14 save-icon.png

Yes, there will be baseball in 2020.

Commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Tuesday that Major League Baseball’s 60-game season will begin on July 23 or 24. Beyond that, though, there are questions. A lot of them.

A truncated season will affect clubs in different ways based on where they are in terms of their competitive window. For teams like the Mariners, who weren’t going to be a postseason contender, the absence of a full schedule hurts because the organization doesn’t get 162 games to evaluate the many young players it’s trying to build around.

Suffice to say it’s going to be a weird season for everyone. Even covering the team as reporters will be different. No more access to the clubhouse before and after games. Reporters will be allowed to cover games from the socially distanced press box, but interviews will be done via phone call or Zoom.

Hey, it’s a brave new world, right?

There are still some questions left to answer — especially on the health and safety side of things — but here’s where we are as of this morning in terms of how it pertains to the Mariners.

Spring Training 2.0

Players will need to arrive in the city where spring training will begin — for the Mariners, it will be held at home at T-Mobile Park — before July 1 to undergo COVID-19 education and testing. Workouts will begin on July 3 for the entire squad.

General manager Jerry Dipoto said Wednesday that “more than one” Seattle player has tested positive for COVID-19 and will not take part in workouts next week.

Teams can invite 60 players to the camp and will eventually send 30 of them to Cheney Stadium, the Triple-A ballpark in Tacoma, for workouts and in-house games once the big-league team has settled on 30 players to begin the season.

The Schedule

An official schedule has yet to be released, though it’s expected Seattle will compete in a 10-team division that includes American League West Division teams and also National League West teams (Dodgers, Rockies, Giants, Padres and Diamondbacks) to mitigate travel. Seattle will play a total of 40 against AL West teams and 20 against NL West teams. The regular season is expected to end Sept. 27.

The Roster

The Mariners, like all teams, must submit a 60-player pool list no later than Sunday at noon PT. Teams are allowed to start the season with a 30-man roster, but it will be cut to 28 players after two weeks, then to 26 players — the change for 2020 we were going to see anyway — after four weeks. We took a stab at what an expended roster would look like last month under the assumption that teams would have an extended practice, or “taxi,” squad.

We can be certain the team will carry extra pitching as it goes into the season because, well, they’ll need it. Starting pitchers won’t come out and work seven innings since they just won’t have the luxury of time to build their endurance. This would seem to place a premium on multi-inning relievers – with resilient arms being a plus.

Dipoto said the team will utilize a six-man rotation and will sometimes use more than one starter in a game, especially early games, to protect arms.

Five questions we still need answers to

5. What about the kids?

During a regular 162-game season in 2020, we almost certainly would have seen top prospects, like pitcher Logan Gilbert and possibly even outfielder Jarred Kelenic, at T-Mobile Park. Now? It doesn’t make sense to start their arbitration clock for a few innings and a few at-bats, but they will be part of the prospect group that will comprise the expanded squad so they can continue their development. “We’re committed to recovering as much of a development season as we can,” Dipoto said.

4. Is a playoff run possible?

In a short season, there’s obviously a much better chance for Seattle to run into a hot spell (or two) where it could potentially sneak into a wild card spot. But that true for everyone, and as of today, I don’t see it. You’re going to see young players like Kyle Lewis, Jake Fraley, Justus Sheffield and Evan White get long looks, some for the first time at this level.

“We want to be as competitive as we can for these 60 games,” Dipoto said. “But we need to make sure those young players are getting their reps.”

There are going to be bumps along the way. It’s inevitable. I don’t know if there’s enough offense or pitching to keep up with postseason contenders, even with a 60-game schedule. Oh, and Seattle will also have the toughest strength of schedule in baseball based on 2019 records. So there’s that.

 

Hardest 2020 Strength of Schedules in AL based on 2019 records

.536 Mariners
.532 Angels
.530 Orioles
.526 Rangers
.517 Blue Jays
.506 Athletics
.503 Tigers
.500 Red Sox
.496 Astros
.491 Royals
.487 Rays
.480 Yankees
.477 White Sox
.456 Indians
.448 Twins

 
 
 
 

 

3. Who does a 60-game season help?

It’s clearly the young guys on the roster, but I’m not necessarily talking about players who would have gotten long looks regardless of length of season. Other young players, especially pitchers, will likely benefit from a shortened schedule and, more appropriately, an expanded roster. I can’t say for sure how the Mariners will cut this thing up, but I would expect there’s a chance we’ll see pitchers Joey Gerber, Sam Delaplane and maybe even Penn Murfee at some point. Seattle will need the arms and these young guys probably deserve a look anyway for a rebuilding team.

2. What happens to the minor leaguers?

We could see some of the above-mentioned prospects eventually get into games at the big-league level. Others will remain in Tacoma with the expanded squad. But the bulk of the minor league system? That hasn’t been decided yet.

For the young guys who won’t have a minor-league season, there is still room for growth if even there are no games to play in. That’s why many of them will be in Tacoma.

1. What can the team take from this into 2021?

Hopefully, a handful of answers. Before the pandemic, I was telling everyone that Seattle would have been able to chart a course the winter based on the information gathered over a full season in 2020.

If the kids played well, maybe the Mariners could augment the roster over the winter via trades and free agency with an eye toward realistically contending for the postseason in 2021. If those kids struggled on the game’s biggest stage, then, as an organization, Seattle would have to reassess a few things.

Now, after a 60-game season, you might have an idea where you stand with all of these young players, but 2021 might end up looking a lot more like what a full season ’20 would have looked like — more evaluating, searching for answers to the question Are these kids part of the rebuild moving forward?

Said Dipoto: “We’re highly focused on the big picture.”

Let’s see what that picture looks like after 60 games.

 

 

(Photo of J.P. Crawford: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)

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MC Fresh Breath

MC Fresh Breath 4074

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3 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

image.gif.aec7c9e66711fa93e7cbf290bd464d83.gif

 

https://nypost.com/2020/02/29/mets-nightmare-jarred-kelenic-scenario-is-becoming-reality/

 

Or:

 

 

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Longtime ESPN scouting and MLB writer Keith Law joined The Athletic this winter, and today he published his preseason 2020 top-100 prospects list there. The list includes four Mariners prospects, led by Jarred Kelenic. The rankings are as follows:

No. 8 - OF Jarred Kelenic
No. 19 - OF Julio Rodriguez
No. 59 - RHP Logan Gilbert
No. 86 - 1B Evan White

 

 

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Or from Law himself:

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1. Jarred Kelenic, OF (Top 100 rank: No. 😎

From the Top 100: Kelenic was the main prospect coming back to the Mariners in the deal that sent Edwin Díaz and the wrong half of Robinson Canó’s contract to the Mets, a trade that looked bad for New York at the time and only seems worse in hindsight, as Kelenic was so good in 2019 that he finished the year in Double A at age 19. The Wisconsin high school product is a true five-tool player, with feel to hit, above-average power already, plus speed, a rifle of an arm and the range to play anywhere in the outfield. He’s already well put together for his age, so there might not be a huge power spike in the future, but he has the power to get to 30 bombs already and the speed to steal 20-plus bases and likely stay in center. With an approach more advanced than expected — we really need to stop stereotyping high school hitters from cold-weather states — he could easily finish 2020 in the majors.

 

He wrote that in February, btw.  Not sure how the shortened season (if it even happens) affects all that.

 

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Seattle’s schedule includes 40 games against AL West division rivals and 20 more games against NL West teams, the plan that MLB put in place to mitigate travel amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of home games will start at 6:10 p.m. or 6:40 p.m. Sunday home games will begin at 1:10 p.m.

One upside to the shortened schedule? The Mariners won’t have to see Houston as many times as they have typically in the past. Last season, the Mariners were 1-18 against the Astros, who advanced to the World Series before falling to the Nationals in a thrilling seven-game series. Seattle plays Houston 10 times this season.

The Mariners’ schedule is the fifth-hardest in the big leagues based on the 2019 records of their foes (.550 winning percentage). The toughest stretch might come during an eight-game road swing from Aug. 10-18 when Seattle will take on Texas, Houston and the Los Angeles Dodgers. There are only six off days scheduled from the start of the regular season until the final game, which is scheduled for Sept. 27 on the road against the A’s. That figures to be taxing on the team’s pitching staff.

The Mariners can carry 30 players for the first two weeks. The roster will be cut to 28 players at that point, then cut again to 26 after another two weeks. Manager Scott Servais has estimated that Seattle could initially carry 16-17 pitchers, including a six-man rotation. Given that pitchers will not be entirely stretched out when the season starts, the plan seems prudent and should give the organization a chance to look at several players to evaluate them for beyond this season.

“It’s really, really important to keep these guys healthy,” Servais said. “And we do know the impact that they’ll be able to make by having an extra day off; all these guys throw better when they have an extra day. So because we’re using a shortened season, let’s stay with it.”

Those starters will likely be Gonzales, Yusei Kikuchi, Kendall Graveman, Justus Sheffield, Taijuan Walker and Justin Dunn. Relievers who can go multiple innings — like Nestor Cortes Jr. and Erik Swanson — will likely be more attractive as the team goes about building its Opening Day roster.

“One thing we’re doing is communicating with our players out of the chute that this is really important, that we’re going to push you a little bit,” Servais said. “Certainly our relievers, to make sure we’ve got relievers that are stretched out as well, where they can get you six, seven outs on certain days.”

The Mariners have been working out at T-Mobile Park since Friday and have not had to cancel any workouts due to the delays in COVID-19 testing that have besieged several other teams. On Friday, the team will hold its first intrasquad game at T-Mobile Park, though it will involve only a fraction of the team’s 60-man player pool.

 

https://theathletic.com/1913204/2020/07/06/condensed-mariners-schedule-includes-10-games-vs-houston-midseason-road-test/?source=dailyemail

 

A comment pointed out that actually in terms of percentages, Seattle will play Houston 17% of the season, instead of 12%. so there's that.

 

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