Monday Morning Mariber is a weekly collection of thoughts on the Mariners week that was, with a focus on the weekend games. Like the 2022 Mariners themselves it is starting to understand itself better, although it’s unclear at present if that is a good thing.

You Get What You Pay For

It’s uninteresting for you, the audience, to have me go back and catalog the many times I and others expressed concern over the ways the Mariners havej spent the past three offseasons of their rebuild. Receipts are helpful in audits and budgeting but those are two boring words to describe two boring activities. Sports is supposed to be something outside of the drudgery of modern life. As such I’m not going to bother going back to link the (likely) hundreds of times I’ve said something along the lines of “SERIOUSLY THOUGH A PLAN IN WHICH EVERYTHING GOES PERFECTLY IS NOT A PLAN”. 

What we can say is that those like myself who worried simply adding four average-to-above-average major leaguers to last year’s mid-70’s win talent roster and calling it a rebuild saw our nightmare reach waking hours the past few weeks. Because baseball is baseball things have not gone exactly according to plan. Mitch Haniger caught Covid, then caught a high ankle sprain immediately after. Tom Murphy dislocated his shoulder. J.P. Crawford’s back locked up. Ken Giles’ finger makes him ever throwing a regular season pitch as a Mariner an increasingly-unlikely proposition. Because the Mariners are the Mariners the contingency plans for these various issues have been to thumb through the operations manual index desperately looking up the page that will help with FUBAR.

In losing 10 of their last 12 they have revealed that, while a tremendously enjoyable and talented team at their best, they are hideously, precariously thin. After spending an entire offseason telling us they were going to add another starting pitcher they proceeded to punt a handful of starts with Matt Brash, a talented but incomplete (and since-converted to relief) prospect. Their best healthy catcher may be Luis Torrens, amusing as he is not really a catcher.  The only series this season they have looked truly great has been against the dregs of the league in Texas and Kansas City. 

The Yankees, Rays, Astros, Angels, and Blue Jays all look like superior teams at present. If it holds, the Mariners will be in a see-saw half-inebriated boxing match with their fellow mediocrities for the league’s sixth and final playoff spot, exactly where they’ve found themselves the past two seasons, and so many years before. They have the 22nd highest payroll in the sport, and it grows ever-harder to not think about all the talented players the team showed little-to-no interest in over 2019-2022 as they “saved money for their window”. 

Losing 10 of 12 in late April/early May doesn’t doom a baseball season, particularly with expanded playoffs and a roster that does have plenty of talent when healthy. But Mariner fans have walked this path so many times you’ll forgive us for freaking out the second the landscape starts to look familiar. We know every single way there is for a season to fail, and the past two weeks are a played out one. They could be so much better, if only the suits in management and ownership had the stomach and vision to truly try.

Three Up

Abraham Toro Owes Me A Thank You

Look I’ve been on Twitter long enough to know when I’m Old Takes Exposed-ing myself. You’re not gonna get met with this stuff without me being a willful participant. I tweeted this Saturday:

I knew what I was getting myself into:

So let’s just say when Abe hit home runs in both games over the weekend, while my Twitter mentions were filled with jokes as limited in range as he is, I felt a bit of self-satisfaction. Now granted hitting the home run that saved the Mariners from losing every single game this week did only raise his wRC+ to 72 on the season, and ok yes that number is only your average Abraham Toro flyout (NOTE: not far) away from his career number, and ok fine this isn’t the most positive glow up I’ve written but I’m allowed to grind an axe or two occasionally. If Toro keeps it up he can hit a ball as hard as he wants at my dome. Given his average exit velo I imagine I’d be fine.

This Is the Dawn of the Era of Bored Kirby

Because Seattle Mariners President of Baseball Operations Jerry Adultman whiffed on his attempt to do A Genius with the rapid development and deployment of Matt Brash – MLB Starting Pitcher the Mariners found themselves in need of a starting pitcher for their rotation. The team selected the most obvious candidate in 2019 first round pick George Kirby. 

I wasn’t high on the Kirby selection at the time. When a college scouting report leans hard into a pitcher’s command that’s easy to read as code for “back-end starter ceiling”. Of course I didn’t know that someone with the Mariners would emerge from an ancient Egyptian ritual site, eyes glowing purple and holding a sacred tome with the words “WHAT IF WE TELL THE PITCHER TO THROW HARD AS SHIT?!?” scrawled in goat’s blood. Suffice to say once Kirby internalized the lesson and began throwing 99 MPH, my view of him changed.

He was damn near perfect yesterday, throwing six shutout innings, striking out seven, and not walking a hitter. Delightfully his postgame interview made him sound like an Elon Musk Humadroid 0.7 without the Personality Interface uploaded, AKA the dude sounded completely chill about the whole endeavor. At 24 he’s certainly a bit older than previous Mariner phenoms, but this is a team in desperate need of one more high-upside arm, particularly with Robbie Ray sitting right around his career average (a #3 starter). Let’s hope the gas stays hot, and the emotions cool.

Hail Marco Gonzales, the Good Zag

Ol’ Marco had a rough 2021, and has had a rough start to 2022. His FIP is (slaps self and re-adjusts glasses) 7.15. It’s very fair to wonder what the future holds for Gonzales, as command-first-and-only type starters live on the narrowest of knife edges, with a milimeter’s sway in either direction costing them the edge that grants them their success.

I’m not here, though, to bury Marco. On April 27th Manuel Margo hit a baseball well over 100 MPH off Gonzales’ wrist. It should have put him on the IL, probably for a long time. I don’t think I really believe that mindset can impact things like the body’s immunity to injury but somehow Bulldog Marco not only didn’t hit the IL, he didn’t miss a start. In the two starts since the injury he’s thrown a combined 11.1 innings, giving up six runs and giving the Mariners a chance to win both games. They didn’t, because they played like ass this week, but he gave them a shot. It’s what he’s done almost every time he’s taken the hill his 4+ years in Seattle. 

You don’t win a World Series because of guys like Marco Gonzales, but you can make the playoffs with them. The Mariners haven’t but that’s more on them than him. He’s one of a precious few holdovers (Mitch Haniger being the main other one) that have been with this org every step of Jerry’s grand “Re-imagining”. I’d sure like to see him and his stubborn toughness get a payoff at the end of the year.

Three Down

Please Stop Trading with the Rays

I don’t know how many times we’re gonna do this. Every time the Mariners play the Rays it feels like there are ex-Mariners everywhere. Mike Zunino won the game Thursday with a three-run home run. Ryan Yarbrough threw five shutout innings yesterday. Austin Shenton is looking like a future big leaguer in AA. Most importantly it feels like every time the Mariners trade with the Rays they not only give up something worth keeping, they get something forgettable back. Mallex Smith, Nate Karns, and now Diego Castillo. 

Relievers are weird and volatile and Castillo was highly effective for many years in Tampa. I also would absolutely believe it if you told me they had installed a switch in his brain they flipped to “suck” the second they traded him. He and his 7.20 ERA have been, uh, not good so far. The Rays are to the Jerry Dipoto Mariners as the Jerry Dipoto Mariners are to AJ Preller and the Padres. This is not a good thing. Please stop trading with this clearly demonic and accursed franchise, Jerry.

The Mariners Catching Situation is Now Very Bad

Could this have been avoided had they simply not low-balled Mike Zunino way back when and then traded him for a song afterwards? Who is to say. Should they perhaps have given Omar Narvaez more than a single season before trading him for *checks notes* “Adam” “Hill”? Well there’s no real way of knowing. Is it possible that a team with no payroll commitments, no every day catcher, and a two-decade long playoff absence should have at least made a run at J.P. Realmuto a few years back? Look it’s in the past, just let it go.

All I know is the Mariners catchers for the foreseeable future are Luis Torrens who, as I’ve already stated, doesn’t belong at catcher (and is hitting a robust .175/.190/.200 at the moment) and Cal Raleigh, who doesn’t belong in the major leagues. They need Tom Murphy to get healthy on the ASAP because this position is the one that looks most capable of becoming an absolute black hole for the duration of the season.

Jesse Winker is AWOL

There were flashes this past week but the Mariners best offseason addition still finds himself with an anemic 86 wRC+ a month into the season. His BABIP is a hilariously low .214, and his plate discipline and high contact rate continue to make him a very likely candidate to revert back to his borderline-elite offensive levels. However, if I were to raise a concern, he’s simply not hitting the baseball very hard.

A quick examination of Winker’s Statcast page shows a player whose contact quality is contributing to that low BABIP at least as much as poor luck and random fluctuation. The Mariners being a good team requires Jesse Winker to be the high on-base and high .400’s slugging machine he was in Cincinnati. He needs to start finding the barrel more and quickly as, and this will shock you if you’ve read this far, the Mariners don’t have a great backup plan in place if he doesn’t.

The Weekly “Mariners Tweet that Made Me Laugh Most Embarrassingly in Front of My Family” Award

The Mariners have had two bad weeks in a row and have at least two more absolutely brutal weeks ahead of them before the schedule starts to calm down. They need to start taking series and fast, as the Angels and Astros are very talented teams that are not going away. Their next opponent, the Phillies, may be bad but their lineup of all-DHs will certainly test Mariners pitching, and all of our patience. Average game time for this series? Let’s put it at 3:45. I hope someone stays up to figure out who won, because it most likely won’t be me.

Have a great week you beautiful folk, and goms.

You can follow Nathan on Twitter at @nathan_h_b. Additionally he appears on the Ian Furness show on Mollywhop Mondays on KJR 93.3 FM every Monday at 1:10 PM with Chris Crawford and Kevin Shockey. Please be nice, he is going his best.