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Mariners Likely Done Adding Major League Pieces

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The Mariners sought multiyear accords with a couple of free agents this winter, including Kolten Wong and Tommy La Stella, per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com. The Mariners were clear in their attempt to find a left-handed bat to split time with Dylan Moore at second base. Ideally, that player could stick his cleat in the grass at times as well, specifically as an option in left field.

Though the Mariners came up empty, there were more than a few free agents who fit that mold. Ha-Seong Kim, Marwin Gonzalez, Jonathan Villar, Jurickson Profar, Brad Miller, Jace Peterson, Ehire Adrianza, Brock Holt, and Dee Strange-Gordon signed elsewhere at a variety of different price points. It’s a little hard to fathom that the Mariners couldn’t find a way to add someone from that group. Presumably, those names either didn’t fit GM Jerry Dipoto’s vision or priced themselves beyond the Mariners’ comfort zone. Mike Freeman and Eric Sogard are two options whom the Mariners could turn to, should they want to bolster their depth. They are prepared to enter camp with the roster as-is, however.

Per Kramer, Dipoto more-or-less put a bow on their winter work, saying, “We had a series of targets, each of which we thought were ideal fits. We put them in an order that we thought best represented the way we saw that player, and then we tried to go out and get them. In all of those cases, we offered multiyear contracts that seemed to fit what we were trying to do not just for 2021, but for 2022 and potentially beyond that. We were aggressive in that market. We just failed to bring in the offensive piece we were looking to add.”

Without that additional piece, the Mariners will roll with Moore at second and Shed Long filling that versatile bench role. Sam Haggerty and Donovan Walton will push him for playing time in spring training, while Taylor Trammell and Jake Fraley will get take some spring at-bats in left. Designated hitter Ty France could also see time at second.

In further Mariners news, Logan Gilbert will likely start the season in Triple-A. While he was previously going to have an opportunity to contend for a spot in their six-man rotation, the James Paxton signing will allow the Mariners to protect his innings and bring him along slowly.

This follows a trend for the Mariners’ roster-building this winter, as they’ve tried to build out their depth to allow for maximum flexibility in how they promote and push their young players. Mission accomplished: if anything, the Mariners are light on veteran depth at the moment on the position player side. As is, they can allot most of the playing time this spring to youngsters, including top prospects Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez – both of whom are likely to start the season in the minors.

The Mariners CBT payroll sits at $102MM, per Roster Resource, with their actual payroll even slimmer at $85MM. That leaves them roughly $5MM shy from 2020 payroll level. This winter, they handed out four Major League deals to free agent pitchers: Paxton, Ken Giles, Keynan Middleton, and Chris Flexen. Giles and Flexen received two-year pacts, though Giles will miss this upcoming season. The Mariners have not signed a position player to a Major League contract.

AL Notes: Mariners, Graveman, Rotation, Rays, Arozarena

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Kendall Graveman signed back with the Mariners with the expectation of sticking in the bullpen, he said on the Extra Innings Podcast. Graveman pitched out the bullpen consistently for the first time in his career last season for the Mariners, emerging as an option for high-leverage opportunities. The former Oakland Athletic spent 2018 with the Cubs while recovering from Tommy John. He signed with the Mariners and made a couple of starts in 2020, but the bulk of his outings came out of the bullpen. Heading into 2021, he’s fully committed to a bullpen role. He’ll the 30-years-old in December, and though he’s new to the bullpen, Graveman spoke confidently about his ability to adjust and let his stuff play up during shorter outings. The right-hander also spoke about shortening his arsenal. He plans on focusing on what works best and sticking with a couple of his strongest pitches, probably a heater, change, and curve primarily, though he also spoke about working in a two-seamer on occasion as a way to vary the look from the fastball.

  • Even with Graveman firmly in the bullpen, the Mariners plan on use of a six-man rotation in 2021 to help keep starters healthy, per Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times. With that in mind, they’re likely to at least explore the starting pitching market in free agency. Marco Gonzales, Yusei Kikuchi, Justus Sheffield, and Justin Dunn figure to return to the rotation in 2021, while Nick Margevicius and Ljay Newsome are the other holdovers. Logan Gilbert could also emerge as a potential option at some point in 2021, if not by Opening Day. Gilbert will turn 24 early in 2021. He finished 2019 with 9 starts in Double-A with a 2.88 ERA.
  • Randy Arozarena’s playoff performance was a dramatic enough affair to spark a feature film. Wonderfilm Media has begun working on an Arozarena biopic with plans for release in 2022 or 2023, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The film, of course, won’t solely portray the postseason. Rather, the film will focus on Arozarena’s journey to MLB from Cuba. Wonderfilm co-founder Bret Saxon said (per Topkin), “We feel like the heart of this movie is his journey, and the people around him, how he was inspiring and helping the family back home. But, for sure, some of those big payoff moments are on the field, so there will be plenty of actual baseball in stadiums.”

 

Mariners Likely To Open With Six-Man Rotation

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The Mariners are planning to begin the season with a six-man rotation in place, general manager Jerry Dipoto told reporters yesterday (Twitter link via Greg Johns of MLB.com). That tactic should allow the Seattle club the opportunity to manage the innings of younger arms on a per-game basis while also maximizing their opportunity to evaluate some up-and-coming arms who could factor into the long-term outlook.

Recently extended southpaw Marco Gonzales seems likely to get the Opening Day nod as the Mariners’ most established starter, and the team will hope for better results from 29-year-old lefty Yusei Kikuchi in the second season of his uniquely structured free-agent deal. Kikuchi, who had established himself as one of Nippon Professional Baseball’s premier arms prior to 2019, is locked in at $43MM from 2019-21. After the contract’s third year, Seattle can pick up a four-year, $66MM “option.” If the club declines to do so, Kikuchi can instead exercise a $13MM player option. In essence, he’s guaranteed $56MM over four years, while the M’s have the opportunity to lock him up at what would be a total of seven years and $109MM if he takes his game to a new level between now and the completion of the 2021 campaign.

Beyond that pair of lefties, Seattle will get longer looks at southpaw Justus Sheffield and righty Justin Dunn — two key trade acquisitions that came over in the 2018-19 offseason. Sheffield, a former first-rounder and longtime top prospect, was the headline piece of the trade that sent James Paxton to the Yankees. Dunn came to the Mariners alongside vaunted outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic and righty reliever Gerson Bautista in the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz blockbuster.

The Mariners also rolled the dice on a pair of low-cost free agents this winter, nabbing former division rival Kendall Graveman and former Mariner Taijuan Walker on one-year pacts. Both have seen their careers slowed by 2018 Tommy John surgery. Graveman, who had his procedure in late July that year, didn’t make it back to the big leagues in 2019. Walker’s surgery was in April 2018, but a strained shoulder capsule limited him to one inning in 2019, which came in the final game of the season.

As one would expect from a rebuilding club, the Mariners have plenty of other young options to dream on, though the organization’s very best pitching prospects are likely a bit too far down the pipeline to factor into the 2020 season. The Mariners have selected a college right-hander with their top pick in each of the past three drafts — Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and now Emerson Hancock — and while that trio is unlikely to pitch in the Majors this year (Gilbert being the lone plausible exception), Dipoto did suggest that they and other top prospects could be on the taxi squad primarily for developmental purposes (link via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). Working out with other taxi squad members would give that promising group critical developmental reps in a year where no formal minor league season is expected to be played.

AL West Notes: Mariners, Rangers, Astros

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Some news and notes from around the American League West…

  • While Spring Training impressions were limited due to the mid-March shutdown, the Mariners were still encouraged by the progress demonstrated by some expected key players, manager Scott Servais said this week on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (Twitter link, with audio). In particular, lefty Justus Sheffield and righties Justin Dunn and Logan Gilbert looked to have taken notable strides. Sheffield, the centerpiece of the Mariners’ James Paxton return, allowed two runs on five hits and no walks with 12 punchouts in eight spring innings. Dunn, acquired alongside Jarred Kelenic in the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz blockbuster, whiffed 10 hitters in six innings while holding opponents to two runs in 6 2/3 frames. Gilbert, Seattle’s first-rounder in 2018, pitched four shutout innings with four strikeouts, no walks and one hit. The M’s are hopeful that this trio can soon ascend to the big league rotation alongside Marco Gonzales as the organization emerges from an accelerated rebuilding process. There’s clearly more to the belief that strides were made than those surface-level stats, but the trio’s showing nevertheless was heartening for Mariners fans.
  • Rangers slugger Joey Gallo spoke with reporters about the dimensions of the newly constructed Globe Life Field, noting that the team’s new home park was “playing big as hell” during his batting practice session (link via Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). Gallo pointed out that the park is particularly deep in center field, where it’s 407 feet straightaway. That said, as Grant points out, the distance may not make a huge difference for Gallo, whose home runs to center field have averaged 434 feet in distance. GM Jon Daniels added that Gallo has been hitting with the roof closed, and opening it while hitting game balls against live pitching could change things. Still, it’d be a notable change for the Rangers to suddenly find themselves in a pitcher-friendly or even neutral park after long playing in one of the game’s most hitter-friendly stadiums. Gallo did offer positive reviews of the park’s artificial surface, calling it the “best turf I’ve ever been on” and touting its lack of “lingering side effects.” Gallo acknowledges that Rangers players were worried about the surface heading into the season, but his early experiences have allayed some of those concerns.
  • The Astros are facing a potential exodus in the outfield this coming offseason, and Jake Kaplan of The Athletic notes in his latest mailbag column that they’re looking at a similar slate of departures post-2021, when Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, Carlos Correa and Lance McCullers Jr. could all hit the open market. Houston will see George Springer, Michael Brantley, Yuli Gurriel and Josh Reddick hit the market after whatever type of 2020 season we get. Given their poorly regarded farm system — not to mention the loss of draft picks in 2020-21 — the ’Stros are faced with an increasingly precarious position. It’s of course possible that the Astros could yet work out some extensions with various members of that core, but it’s also eminently apparent that a fair bit of roster turnover can be expected in the next couple of years — with several high-profile names likely to depart.

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