Episode 243: Mariners Are BACK, Sweeping The Padres + How Has Andres Munoz Been Even Better In 2025?

[00:00:00] Welcome to Episode 243 of the Marine Layer Podcast. Wow, are the Mariners back. They sweep the Padres in San Diego this weekend. They get great performances all around, especially in the rotation. We'll highlight some of those and we'll also talk about Andres Munoz's awesome start to the 2025 season.

[00:00:19] Here's your guys reminder. If you want to stay on top of all of our stuff and keep up to date with everything we're doing, it's all over at our website. That's MarinLayerPod.com. Whether you want to listen to our episodes, if you want to watch on YouTube, if you want to get some merch, if you're interested in our Patreon, our live show schedule, all that good stuff is over at MarinLayerPod.com. You can also find us across social media at MarinLayerPod. Let's get it rolling.

[00:00:57] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording on Sunday evening, May 18th. It's refreshing to see their back. It didn't take that long. Yeah, there's a lot of things that we talked about in the last episode in terms of worry and concern. And I'm not saying all that's debunked, but man, was it nice to see them go into San Diego and just dominate

[00:01:26] one of the best teams in all of baseball? Like start to finish in basically every facet. That was their series. There's nothing really fluky about it. It was everything the Mariners had done well this season. And then you add on a couple new wrinkles that we'll talk about in terms of like what was successful. What have we talked about? Like what this team does really well, especially offensively. They bash home runs. They hit six home runs in the series. They hit home runs in big spots. Shout out to Cal Raleigh. Shout out to Rowdy Tellez.

[00:01:54] I mean, shout out Randy today. Think about it on Sunday where Michael King is strolling his way through the Mariners lineup the first time through. You sent me a text and you were like, yeah, TJ, I don't think the Mariners are scoring off of Michael King today. And what did I send back to you? I'm like, just need a dinger. It's all you need. And what did Randy do the next time he came up? Deposited one in the left field seats. The Mariners ran up Michael King's pitch count. And all of a sudden you knock him out of the game. You add on a couple more runs.

[00:02:24] And Edward Bazzardo doesn't blow the game at the end of the game. And then there you go. You have another dominant win. Three total runs are allowed in the series with the six home runs. That's going to it's going to work wonders every single time. And it looks like the team we were just watching before this most recent homestand. Glad to see they weren't gone for very long. Have we talked enough about that Randy Orozarena has a 141 WRC plus entering Sunday? Like this, this is right now his best offensive season.

[00:02:53] And I feel like that's a storyline and a narrative that's probably not being mentioned enough. He's been awesome. Now we know he's streaky and we know he has hot streaks and cold streaks, but man, right now he's on a tear. He's on a tear through the first six, seven, eight weeks of the season. And you saw it again on Sunday in San Diego. And he's embodying really what makes this Mariners lineup great. Besides the home runs, it's the walks. His walk rate this year at Lyle is up to nearly 15%.

[00:03:24] That's, that's, you know, that's a really high mark. And just to put in a context of Randy Orozarena's past seasons by WRC plus, if you look at the 140 mark, 142 now mark from this season after today, the past three full seasons for Randy Orozarena. In 2022, it was 124. In 2023, it was 125. Last year, when he comes over to Seattle, if you remember the first two months of the season, he sucked. He was really, really bad.

[00:03:51] Next two months, he was one of the best hitters in all of Major League Baseball, ends up finishing the season with a 114 WRC plus. This season, we're near that two month point where Randy last year was among one of the worst hitters in baseball. And he's sitting at 142 with a lot of really refreshing things to look at when it comes to his offensive profile. And it's been, I think it's been a super underrated part of what's made this Mariners lineup good.

[00:04:19] Think about the guys we've already highlighted of why they're hitting. It starts with Cal, and Cal certainly did his damage this weekend. Rowdy Tellez just shows up to random weekends in the season and dominates. I have no rhyme or reason why he does it. But it's very refreshing when we get to see that and it helps this Mariners offense out a lot. We've talked about Julio and the good things he's doing offensively at the plate. Even if not, everyone is happy with what he's doing. We've talked about J.P. Crawford.

[00:04:47] But we haven't talked as much about Randy Orozarena. But the numbers say we should be talking more. A lot more. Which is great. Again, if he's really going to be the... It's hard to say second guy behind Julio in terms of pecking order, in terms of offensive talent. Because what Cal Raleigh is doing right now, he's absolutely the second guy. Right now, he's the first guy because Julio's not playing like a star. He hasn't hit that hot streak offensively. It's been Cal Raleigh's offense through the first two months of the year.

[00:05:17] But if you want to just look at a middle of the order and a really, really fearsome part of a lineup, Randy keeps hitting like this. That's what you have. Especially with Polanco. That stretches out to four guys that can flat out hit. I mean, and that's not even putting it in probably strong enough terms. Because those are three of four guys, excluding Julio, that have been awesome. And have been just absolutely mashing to start the year. And then you just wait on Julio to get hot. You know what I've got to say about Randy, though?

[00:05:45] Just kind of looking at some of the success he's had this year. He's still not hitting fastballs. Which is kind of interesting. But that also makes me think if he gets back to hitting fastballs, can he actually even level up from this? He could. But we'll see as the season goes along. Because it's going to go in one of two directions. We're still in the small sample size phase. Where there's just not enough actions. Not enough things.

[00:06:15] Not enough plays that have happened. Where it's like, okay, this is for certain so far this season. Maybe in mid-August. And Randy's still hitting fastballs, but he's actually hitting really well otherwise. Then we say, okay, maybe Randy did evolve a little bit. Maybe he's just changed up what he's had the ability to do this season. And think of it, Lyle. It could also be on how pitchers are pitching him this year. Because he's in a different lineup than he was in Tampa Bay before. With a different situation. And how pitchers attack him.

[00:06:44] So that could be a real thing, too. Listen to this middle of the Mariners lineup now. We're a week away from Memorial Day. And think about this mix of guys, depending on the day, hits in the top 5 to 6 of the Mariners lineup. You have Jorge Polanco with a 183 WRC+. You have Cal Raleigh with a 177 WRC+. Dylan Moore's not going to hit in the top 6, depending on the day. He's sitting at a 150 WRC+. Right now.

[00:07:14] Randy's at the 142, as we talked about. JP Crawford's at a 129. Julio's at a 112. Rowdy's at a 109. Think of some mix of those guys that you put in the top 6 of your lineup. And then you get the little contributions at the bottom of the lineup. Whether it be Demo down there. Whether it be Leo Rivas down there. Whether it's a good game for Miles Masturboni and such. And that's how you get the decent offensive performance the Mariners put on this weekend. It's crazy reading off those numbers.

[00:07:43] That just every guy is either above average or most of them way above average. Most of them just flat out hitting. Also, by the way, speaking of Polanco. So he definitely tweaked something again, right? Because now he's back to not playing against lefties. Yeah. Yes. They haven't said anything, but the actions speak. Yeah. I mean, because he was and they were starting to ramp him back up against left-handed pitching.

[00:08:12] And now all of a sudden he's not playing against them again. Which is disappointing because the Mariners, they're not going to be able to get him to Atlanta like he would otherwise deserve being a DH if he's not going to hit against righties. Or hit against lefties. Because there's just not enough plate appearances for him. It stinks that the Mariners are in this position where they have to take one of their three best hitters out of the lineup if there is a lefty on the mound. Yeah. It does.

[00:08:39] I wish there was a way to solve this, but they just got to get him healthy. This was the risk that they were going to take on by signing Jorge Polanco. I think they envisioned that he would heal a little bit faster or the side or whatever he tweaked faster than what it's currently on pace for. Sure. Yeah, because he's still not really playing the field either. So. Well, he got a game back out there, right? He got out. Or am I wrong on that? I mean, he's been taking ground balls that we know. He's been doing infield work.

[00:09:09] I think he. Yeah. No, he did go back out there for one game. Yeah. Let me. Yeah. Let me double check. I believe so. But not since then. And since then, he's back only playing against right-handed pitching, hitting lefty. He played second base on the sixth. Right. Against the A's. Right. But. Well. A full game? I remember he came in late when things got crazy. No, he started. No, he started in this game. Okay.

[00:09:39] So yeah, then he did play one game out in the field. He did. The game you're thinking of, he came off the bench the night before after starting as DH. But then on the sixth, he started at second. Right. Anyway, something to keep note of as the season goes along and the weeks go along here is what is Jorge Polanco's status on a daily basis? Is he going to get back to playing every day? You certainly hope so. But for the time being, if we're going to focus on the positive of the offense, you have Polanco,

[00:10:07] Julio, Cal, Randy right in the middle of your order with JP Crawford leading off the way he's playing. First half that lineup is really a threat. And the difference from past years, Lyle, is that no one is having a bad start that's dragging everyone else down. The floor of bad starts is raised. As we keep talking about, the quote unquote bad start is Julio Rodriguez being 12% above

[00:10:34] league average while running career best strikeout and walk rates. That is something you would happily take. And oh, by the way, a major offensive piece you haven't even had this year in Victor Robles, who is supposed to be your leadoff hitter and who you were envisioning being a huge part of this team has barely played. He played a week and a half before he got hurt. Throw Luke Raley into that too. And Luke Raley as well. Another guy who's playing almost every single day and was supposed to be a well above average

[00:11:03] piece of this offense, especially for what they do well in hitting homers. And he usually would only play one side of the plate, but that's fine. And we know that's what he's best at. But like we've said about Luke Raley, when he gets hot, similar to a Rosarena, his hot streaks mirror anybody's in the league. Talk about the last month of the year, what he did last year when him and Victor Robles were two of the best bats in baseball. So you don't have Robles, you don't have Raley, but you're still doing what you're doing with everybody else. And so many guys just tearing the cover off the ball.

[00:11:33] And it makes it a lot easier while I would say for this offense, when the pitching does what it did on the road this week. Dude, what a week for the rotation. What a weekend for the rotation. How about that? Where do you want to start? Where should we? Where should we start? Actually, I have a, I have a place to start though. I would like to check something first. I want to check in what the road ERA is right now. After watching what we watched last year, where is the road ERA at?

[00:12:05] You're talking about the Mariners road ERA in terms of how much they struggled on the road last year versus the way they pitched at home and where it sits now. Well, the guys that really struggled on the road haven't pitched a lot. Kirby hasn't pitched all year. Bryce, well, Bryce's road numbers got a lot better in the second half. But, you know, he's on the aisle right now. 3-9-6 ERA right now on the road for the Mariners as a team.

[00:12:36] Versus... That is a big step up from last year. So it's about two-tenths of a run right now. It was a 4-1-8 ERA for the team last year. And by the way, this is pre-game today on Sunday. So you could take it down a little bit. Let's say a third of a run then. Let's roughly... Rough math. A third of a run difference this year and last year. So last year was 4-1-8. This year, we'll say after Sunday, if I'm going to guesstimate my math, bring it down a tenth of a run. 3-8-6 ERA on the road. So that's...

[00:13:04] Right now, that is an improvement. It is something that could stabilize out a little bit as the season goes along and they play more road games in hot run scoring environments. But allowing three runs and 27 innings against the Padres, a good offensive team all weekend, is a really, really, really good reflection of where that rotation has been pitching on the road so far. And the Padres are one of the best teams in baseball. They're one of the best offenses in baseball.

[00:13:34] We've talked about it plenty, right? Like, this is a team that's just a star-studded lineup. They don't strike out. You've got Fernando Tatis that anchors the top of the order. And aside from a Tatis homer here on Sunday early in the game against Brian Wu, man, all those guys were totally held in check. You didn't let Tatis go out and beat you. You didn't let Manny go out and beat you. You know, Arise wasn't punching singles left and right. It was... You held those guys at bay.

[00:14:02] Before we actually talk about the players, I want to give some props to Dan Wilson. I thought there was some growth in decision-making this weekend. On Saturday. Think of, like, what they had to manage on Saturday. Emerson, on Saturday, was coming out and he was throwing just BBs. I mean, holy crap. We'll talk about his outing here in a little bit. But he gets into a situation in the fifth inning where they're going to be a the bases are loaded at this point. And Dan goes ultra-aggressive with his bullpen and pitches Gabe Spire in the fifth inning for

[00:14:30] the first time all year. They come in with a leverage reliever in the fifth and Gabe Spire comes in and punches out Jackson Merrill. And then Gabe comes out and pitches a scoreless sixth inning as well. And then you saw it again from Dan in the eighth inning where I did... There were some quabbles on perhaps Andres Munoz just starting the eighth inning instead. But Casey Legamina ends up starting the eighth inning on Saturday against the middle of the Padres lineup.

[00:14:58] Munoz still comes in to pitch the eighth inning for the first time all season and ends up recording a four-out... Was it a... Yeah, it was a save on Saturday. So he records a four-out save on Saturday. That's not something he's done yet. Like that's a first for Dan Wilson this season in terms of using his leverage guys I feel like in the middle of an inning early in a game for like the trying to grab a game and grab a win in that moment if that makes sense.

[00:15:27] Yeah, I think he came to the realization in that game that the situation called for exactly that. Runs were not being scored at a premium. Mariners offense was not having their best night. And he realized with the bases loaded in the fifth inning and with, you know, ducks all over the pond, he said, we need to get out of this jam right now. Worry about the other innings when you get to it. We can't let this inning get out of hand and let them put up a crooked number. So he goes to Gabe Spire to get the last out of the fifth.

[00:15:54] He gets it and then he has a really good sixth inning too and throws up another zero. So that is a shout-out to Dan in terms of how he deployed his bullpen after Emerson Hancock left the game, he recognized the situation and jumped on it. And he used one of his leverage guys to get out of an important scenario. Because if he goes to Carlos Vargas in that scenario, or if he goes to Bizarro, whoever, I don't know if we're sitting here talking about a serious sweep.

[00:16:22] That inning could have unfolded a hell of a lot differently, but it didn't. Because you went to your most, one of your most reliable arms and he slammed the door. And I would say think about that because the way the Mariners bullpen's been used for a lot of guys this year is that they've been pretty rigid in where exactly they pitch. But this was different. They weren't rigid in where these guys pitched. It was instead, hey, we're going to try and get our best arms to try and get most of these outs.

[00:16:51] Outside of two outs recorded by Casey Legamina, it was all your leverage arms covering nearly half the game to finish it out. It was, yeah, because Brash is in there right after Spire, and then Legamina in the eighth, and then Munoz for four outs. Right. And Legamina's approaching, not there yet, but approaching leverage. And we're going to talk about Legamina in a segment here later, because he's earned the right to earn a discussion period here. So we'll get to him in a bit.

[00:17:20] But yeah, absolutely. You went to your leverage guys to win you that game, and they won you that game. And that's what you have to do, especially in a middle game like that when, again, guys were fresh, guys hadn't been used, and the situation called for it, right? That fifth inning absolutely called for it. And it was not a scrub of an at-bat by any means. It's not just like the bases were loaded, and there was runners on base,

[00:17:47] and you had to get out of a situation against the bottom of the order or something like that. No, that was against Jackson Merrill. That was against one of their absolute stars, somebody we probably didn't mention when we were rattling off guys for the Padres earlier in this segment. Yeah, that was Jackson Merrill. You went to not just one of your leverage arms, but your best lefty to get out their best left-handed bat, and you did that. Yeah, pretty impressive. I do want to talk about this rotation. I want to talk about all three of the guys, Lyle, that pitched this weekend. Yeah, and I do too.

[00:18:17] So before we get to that, I do just want to remind everybody that we have a live show coming up this weekend. Is that all right? Yeah. Oh, yes, please. Jump in and mention it here. Okay, great. Because as exciting as the rotation was this weekend, I'll argue, I'll sit here and put out a hot take if you want to call it that. I don't think it is, that just as exciting is us putting on our third live show of the season, which we cannot wait for. I guess technically it's our second of the season, but third period. Anyway, it's at 12 p.m.

[00:18:45] It's back at Queen Anne Beer Hall over in Seattle. The show is at 12 p.m. And then we're going to stick around again and watch the Astros with everybody sitting over, hanging out at Queen Anne Beer Hall. That game starts at 1.10. So the live show will lead right into first pitch for Mariners Astros. And it's going to be a really, really fun afternoon. So if you've got time and you're in the area, we would love to have you out. We're going to do a bunch of trivia again. We're going to do giveaways again. We're going to take all your questions again. You could win something in this bag.

[00:19:15] See, is that bag selling you? We might have another to give out. Like, yeah. Yeah, we might. We'll see. I'm not going to open the bag, of course, because you've got to come to the show to see what's in the bag. But you could win something in here. Yes, you can. Again, that's this Saturday, May 24th, over at Queen Anne Beer Hall. Live show starts at 12. Watch party at 1. And we can't wait to have you guys. Hey, that could be George Kirby's first start back. We don't know exactly when he's going to be re-slotted in.

[00:19:42] But what a better way than to watch Kirby's debut than with a bunch of other Mariners fans hanging out with us over at Queen Anne Beer Hall. So there's your sales pitch. That would be pretty fun. Before we get to this rotation, Lyle, I also want to tell all of our listeners about our friends at Rhythm. Awesome. Let's be honest. Betting on baseball can feel like throwing darts sometimes, but not anymore. We've partnered with Rhythm, an app that helps you build your own data-backed betting model in just minutes. No coding, no spreadsheets.

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[00:20:35] That gets you access to Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, and college football predictions. Try it free for seven days and bet smarter with Rhythm. Which starter should we talk about first? Should we just go in order? Start with our guy Logan and go from there? Yeah, let's do that because they all deserve their own time and praise here. So let's start with Logan. Six shutout innings for the first time in his big league career.

[00:21:00] He struck out Jackson Merrill with a nasty sweeper on his back foot that made it on Pitching Ninja. That was incredible to see. But just think about the situation that Logan Evans is going into on the mound on Friday. He's facing the most talented team he's faced so far in his big league career. He's pitching on the road. I believe it was a sellout crowd on Friday as well.

[00:21:25] And man, this dude just goes out there and he shuts down the Padres for six shutout innings. I mean, he's just continuing to get better. And now his ERA law is under 3-5? Or is it lower than that now? Under 3-5? It's 2-5-7. So yes, it's under 3-5. Dude, he was lights out on Friday. That was sick. And he was all around the strike zone. Again, he wasn't walking guys. He only gave up one walk in the outing. They just could not figure him out.

[00:21:54] I mean, we talk about how Logan's a total kitchen sink guy and throws everything at guys. Clearly, the Padres were not comfortable in those at-bats. Now, they got a few hits. But they couldn't push runs across. And they weren't putting hard contact on the ball or anything like that. And Logan gets all the way through six innings keeping his pitch count really low and had the best start of his very, very young career. That was awesome. And there was multiple situations, too, where there were runners on base. And he had to work his way out of it.

[00:22:24] And he did. And he got all the way through. And he allowed the Mariners to do what they did on Saturday with the bullpen because of how he pitched on Friday and didn't let those innings spiral out of hand. He kept them right at bay. And the Mariners were two outs from a shutout because of what he was able to do starting on the road, which is great. Now, you know, the tests continue to get a little tougher. I will say, actually, it's probably not going to be against the White Sox. I feel like he should pitch pretty well against the White Sox. They're still pretty bad.

[00:22:53] I was going to say his next two starts would be aligned to be the White Sox and then at home against the Nationals. So in two starts here, I don't want to jump ahead to too many conclusions. But how low can Logan's ERA get if he keeps pitching like this and he's going to go up against the White Sox and the Nationals? I'm just saying. He's got to, yeah, just keep it up, Logan. Shout out to you, man. That was awesome to see. Now, Saturday. Oh, I was just going to quickly say, like,

[00:23:22] Logan got some swing and miss in that start on Friday too, which he had seven whiffs, which, again, like that's not some astronomical number, but you were seeing him miss bats. And like you said, the pitching ninja at bat where he threw the sweeper, that was dirty. That was a true swing and miss offering that they did not hit. And the swing and miss will come more with the command too, because once he can sequence his pitch, he feels more comfortable sequencing his pitches against these hitters

[00:23:51] and maybe can feel comfortable doing what Emerson Hancock did and ramp up his velocity a little bit. Once he's got that dialed in, then the whiff will come along, I think, a little bit more with that. Yeah. But ultimately, again, had the swing and miss going a little bit on Friday in the middle of what was just an awesome outing, where like you said, down in San Diego, big crowd, like blue blood team in baseball right now,

[00:24:20] silenced them. Just absolutely silenced them, and we love it. How about Emerson on Saturday? For as good as it, if you look at the two stat lines, right, Logan Evans had by far the better stat line than Emerson Hancock did. Watching Emerson's stuff on Saturday, like, out of nowhere, we know he's been throwing a little bit harder this season, and the stuff has ticked up a little bit.

[00:24:49] And even in starts that haven't gone great for Emerson, his start against the Yankees early last week, not a great start because his fifth inning got away from him. Emerson still had like 15 swings and misses in that start, so he's been able to get swing and miss in his starts. But then against the Padres, he walks into Petco Park, and he threw a pitch 98. Dude, he was pumping rockets.

[00:25:18] Rockets on Saturday. Legitimately throwing just darts. That looked like, velocity-wise, the Emerson Hancock that was drafted out of Georgia five years ago. It did. The lowest increase in terms of average mile per hour from his pitches in that start was one. That was the lowest increase across his pitches. He was throwing his slider a full two miles an hour harder in that start than he was averaging so far this year. So everything was just on the uptick. Now, I will say,

[00:25:48] what I've noticed in Emerson's starts when he starts throwing a little harder, the stuff moves a lot, and it can get him in some trouble like he had in the fifth inning on Saturday. The stuff moves a lot. It's not always, it's not pinpoint command when he's starting to throw it harder. So that's why there's going to be a little bit of balance with him in terms of how much he's, I think he's going to ramp it up. I'd love to talk to him more about this when we get back to the park in, I think like a week and a half. We'll go, you know, we'll try and talk to him about this.

[00:26:18] But if I'm guessing from watching him on TV, when the stuff ramps up, the command slips a little bit, and we'll see where that balance point is. But man, the biggest concern with Emerson, the post-injury Emerson, when he's coming up through the minor leagues and making his debut, is he going to be able to get enough swing and miss with his pitches? I think the answer is yes. Now can he balance that out with getting back to throwing the amount of strikes he was throwing before, while keeping some of that swing and miss, and some of the same pitch mix as well?

[00:26:48] To be fair, he only walked one guy in his outing. I didn't think his command was awful. He did give up a couple hits in the fifth inning. And sure, ultimately they went to Gabe Spire. But for the most part, I thought he was pretty dialed in. Maybe then I'm thinking more of Monday's start against the Yankees. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. In that outing, obviously like he, he got hit decently hard only in one inning, by the way, like most of that start is actually better than what the stat line is going to tell you to against the Yankees. Cause like you said, swing and miss was there. First few innings were really sharp. Respond like,

[00:27:19] like was on pace for a really good outing, but then that one inning just really hit him hard. So the last two outings, you've seen a lot of really, really, I mean, you've seen positives from Everson Hancock ever since he came back up from Tacoma, but last two outings stuff wise, that's been pretty eyeopening. If he can do 10 starts of legit swing and miss stuff, like what he currently does, you know, we were, so we're planning,

[00:27:48] we're planning to have Joe Doyle on Wednesday. I'd be curious to think of what Joe thinks of if there's, if there's going to, would be a reevaluation of Emerson Hancock. Cause I feel like it was pretty universal of what, uh, what, uh, evaluators thought of him coming up to the big leagues. How much does that change now for what we see? So I don't think people were thinking he was going to ramp this velocity back up. This is how hard he threw in college, but once he got to the pros and he was dealing with injuries,

[00:28:19] he, he brought it down a little bit, but now it's, now it's ramped back up and we'll say, okay, is, do you feel like that's sustainable? And how does that change his profile at this point? If people are actually doing a reevaluation process on Emerson Hancock, I'd be really interested to hear what people think of who he can be as a pitcher all of a sudden, because then all of a sudden are we having a totally different conversation? Does it get back to maybe not all the way what people,

[00:28:47] we're saying pre 2020 after he put up the sub two ERA in 2019 out at Georgia and people talking about him being the number one pick. I mean, it's two people who saw torque play all the time. Spencer Torkelson at ASU. The thing we would always hear is like, if he doesn't go number one, it's going to be this right hander out of Georgia, Emerson Hancock back when we were in college, because people thought he was that good. I'm interested where the evaluation lands from people.

[00:29:16] If he puts together this string of starts in terms of like the max being that level of a ceiling to where people thought he was when he came up, when he was throwing low nineties. Yeah. So we'll see, but it is so, so good to see from, from Emerson. You know what? And you, you know what fire me up about Emerson on Saturday? The fact you were seeing the raw emotion out of him too. Like he was fired up. Like I tweeted it on Saturday. Whenever it's an Ancock's fired up,

[00:29:45] I'm fired up when he got out of one of those innings. Dude, you see him scream off the mound and just let it all loose. Like you could tell he was, you like something about that start meant something to him. Whether it was just the fact that he felt like he was pitching really well, or he got out of a jam, or he knew his stuff was playing up. Like something, something in that mind of his was like, Oh, this is a big deal. And this is firing me up. And he let it all loose. Yeah.

[00:30:14] And the adrenaline's pumping and all that. So he did it. He did it in the fifth inning too. He didn't end up finishing that inning, but when he got one of those strikeouts in the fifth inning, and it was after a couple of guys had already reached base, he did it again. I'm not going to say he went full, like Carlos Rodon. Remember Rodon after like an inning in the playoffs last year, when he's like screaming and shaking his tongue all around. And people are like, what in the hell is he doing? Yeah. It was, you'll have to go look up the video, but Rodon,

[00:30:43] when he had a good first inning in a playoff start last year, like he got one strikeout and he takes a circle around the mound. It's like, Oh, it's on now boys. Like, like that's what he got caught on camera saying. And then he exited the inning after getting out of it. And he's like, wagon is talking all around. He's like, like, and I was like, people are like, what is he doing? And it wasn't quite that from Emerson, but you could tell there was, there was real fire inside Emerson Hancock at not like pitching the way he pitched on Saturday and getting out of those innings. So that was awesome.

[00:31:12] And then we get to Sunday. I don't know if I saw that from Brian who probably cause he's so used to just being awesome. Well, I ain't cause maybe used all that energy and all the screaming from the last star. Remember when Spire came in, remember Spire came in, got out of that jam and he was screaming in the dugout. Brian Wu, man, we're going to, I think we're going to make a case every week for him to go to Atlanta. I mean, how much more of a case do people still need? If this continues, I don't think there should be much of one.

[00:31:42] The only thing that could hold them back is when you look at the ERA leaders in the American league, there are a lot of starters right now that are pitching incredibly well. And their ERAs are very low, even lower than Wu's. But assuming that some of these guys aren't going to keep up that pace and that some guys won't be able to pitch in the all-star game because it'll be too close to their turn in the rotation, et cetera, man, Brian Wu keeps this up. I don't know how you keep him away from Atlanta.

[00:32:13] Every single start he's made this year is thrown six innings. That's incredible. And today, that in today's major league baseball, that is, that's an incredible stat. It's him and Zach Wheeler both have nine starts of six innings or more. And then there was another really good stat that Gary Hill tweeted out. Yes, on Saturday, or no, it was today before Brian Wu start on Sunday. And this stat remains true. Given that Brian Wu only gave up one run on a solo home run is that since

[00:32:42] Brian Wu came back from injury about a year ago from the injury that kept him out the start of last year, his ERA remains below three in a full calendar year. That's incredible. Below three for an entire season. We knew he could do this, right? Yeah. Like we knew we had this in him. The key for him was always just staying on the field. Even when he was in his rookie year, you saw what he could be. We talked about it all the time.

[00:33:10] Remember when we threw out that Luis Robert trade proposal and White Sox fans got so mad about what we threw out there. Let me ask, let me ask White Sox fans now what they think about that proposal with Luis Robert looking legitimately cooked and Brian Wu damn near on his way to the all-star game. Maybe when we're done recording, you should quote tweet that. It's like, you know, after today, I was thinking about this, thinking about the response to this. I'm,

[00:33:39] I'm going to do that now that you say it. Yeah. Apologies? Question mark. Yeah. I don't know what else we need to do to pitch Brian, Brian Wu to go to the all-star game. If you look for efficiency, if you look for stuff, if you look for the, uh, the durability, at least from what we've seen so far this season. And for the end of last year, as well, you look at the length he's going in games, you look at the impact he's made on the Mariners rotation, given all the injuries this year,

[00:34:06] not even Logan Gilbert has did Logan Gilbert. Even last year, didn't really do what Brian was doing right now in terms of the consistently getting into the six. And I'll have to check if he made nine starts in a row that he went six. Let's see. Well, the thing about Logan sometimes, right? Is as dominant as he is, when he strikes a lot of guys out, it obviously ramps his pitch count up. So if Logan Gilbert has a day where he's ramped up and gets a lot of strikeouts, but maybe guys have gotten on base too,

[00:34:35] and he gets hit for a home run at some point, which does happen to him. And we've talked about that with Logan Gilbert, that he's one Achilles heel. Sometimes as he can get hit a bit hard, but the fact he strikes out so many guys sometimes takes his pitch count up and some, and that results sometimes in Logan going, you know, five innings, two runs with eight strikeouts, still a good start. It's just not super lengthy where Brian Wu is so efficient and gets so much soft contact

[00:35:02] that he works deep into games all the time. Now, Logan, by the way, did go nine consecutive starts of six innings from May 14th to June 28th of last year. So there he did. Like, again, this is, this is by absolutely no means in any way, like a bash on Logan Gilbert segment. This is just, this is more just highlighting how ridiculous Brian Wu's been. It's because he,

[00:35:29] he has the ability to pitch to weak contact while utilizing stuff that plays in the strike zone so well, and that you can throw that many strikes because it's, it's only fastballs. When Logan Gilbert as a, as a rookie and a second year pitcher tried to fill up the zone of fastballs, they would end up getting crushed. Therefore he had to get to the, Logan essentially had to get to the point where he was so nasty that he was throwing a lot of junk and guys couldn't hit his junk. But like you said, it just racks up your pitch kind of a lot. Meanwhile,

[00:35:58] Brian Wu can throw something that he knows pretty much exactly where it's going. It's going straight for the most part, but guys still can't hit it. Therefore he has this ability to be as ultra efficient as possible while keeping his ERA down, keeping the damage down, et cetera. It's, it is, it is very unique in baseball to have that ability to do that. When every guy that seems to go up against them seems like they hate that matchup. How many times have we heard it?

[00:36:25] Like Mookie Betts was talking to Cal Raleigh about it on Mookie's podcast and saying, man, when Wu pitches, the fastball looks like it's on one plane, but it's actually like on another plane and you cannot pick up where it is. So Mookie said that Tatis today's post game just said something similar where he's like, he's a, you know, he's really good. First and foremost, his fastball was on today. It's a tough matchup. So you got another star on record saying that when we talked to Rowdy Tellez in spring training, he was saying, man,

[00:36:55] I hate facing Brian Wu. He's like, that is a nightmare of a matchup because he had to face him in live at bats. So people, we've talked about this before, but hitters around the league are, are now very well aware of Brian Wu and how nasty he is. And he's been dominant. He's been dominant. I also love the fact that after his rookie year where walks could get him sometimes, it wasn't out of control, but it would sometimes get him that since then he's like, yeah, you know,

[00:37:24] what's not fun walking hitters. I'm just going to stop doing that. And he is basically on command. Stop walking hitters ever. Well, he's realized he can essentially throw his fastball down the middle and guys can't hit it. It's crazy. There's no, there's no bigger walk cheat code than doing that. It's like, Oh, I can only throw strikes and it doesn't matter. And guys still don't hit it. He was in the 49th percentile of the league and walk rate is rookie year. That is about average. It's actually slightly below last year.

[00:37:54] He was in the 100th percentile, literally walk. Nobody again, it was less than George Kirby. And now here in 2025, he's in the 94th percentile. Doesn't walk anybody. Speaking of George Kirby, did you see his mustache today? On TV? He had a mustache. He did. Yeah. Very light one. Huh? I guess I didn't notice. Yeah. Well, he's probably obviously he's prepping to come back. So he's got to look the part. So it looked like it looked like he was like three days of growth.

[00:38:24] Then there's a very random comment from myself, but they were talking about it on the broadcast. I think the exact words from, from Mr. Aaron Goldsmith was looks like Albuquerque helps George grow his mustache. The elevation is like brought it out of his face. Okay. Yeah. Let's do a little exercise here with Brian Wu before we wrap this up, just in terms of what he'd have to do to get to the all-star game, how he fares against the rest of the league.

[00:38:51] Cause the American league right now has some absolutely lethal starting pitchers. In fact, the first six guys that lead the league in ERA are all American league starters as we speak, which is Max Freed, Hunter Brown, Tyler Malley, Nathan Ivaldi, Chris Bubich, who just, I guess another Royal starter who's burst onto the scene late and then Garrett Crochet. So the first six guys in the American league all have two ERAs or less because Crochet's right at two. Everybody else is sub two.

[00:39:19] Wu overall is 10th in the league in ERA. Now again, there is going to be somebody that comes back down to earth before mid July here. It's just a matter of how many of them, how many of them get too close to their start days and where Brian Wu fits into this. They're just like, so who's a slam dunk all-star right now? Max Freed. Yeah. Hunter Brown. So Freed and Brown. Absolutely. Crochet is probably getting in.

[00:39:47] I would say those three as long as I would say Evaldi's getting into. Do you trust him and Malley to keep this up? I would trust him to keep it up. Well, he wasn't all that great last year, so I'm just curious. Well, I don't think Tyler Malley, but he's had good years and passed. You know, who's honestly more of a lock than maybe any of those guys? Shane Smith. Oh, yeah, because the rest of the White Sox team stinks. Shane Smith, who's been awesome, by the way, this year, he has a 205 ERA,

[00:40:17] and you know he's getting in because somebody has to get in for the White Sox, right now. You're going to need some guys to fall off a little bit, and again, there's always replacements because late into the All-Star process, guys are ineligible to pitch because they had their start day.

[00:40:45] It just got a lot tougher because I realized there's another Ranger on here we're forgetting. Mr. Jacob DeGrom. So, that's where we can get into this too, is are the Rangers going to have three starters get to the All-Star game? I don't know. No, but I would, I could easily see a world if Nate Evaldi and Jacob DeGrom have similar stats slash ERAs to Brian Wu, and we get near the All-Star break, that those two would be favored.

[00:41:14] I feel like. Yeah, we'll see. Especially, DeGrom for sure. I think Major League Baseball wants Jacob DeGrom back in an All-Star game. I'm sure. it could, it could be that DeGrom says, hey, I would rather have the time off. I've been really hurt. I don't want to pitch an inning in an exhibition game where I ramp it up to 100, and then I get hurt. Wouldn't want to do that. That's, it's possible. And Wu, we would be fine, right, if Wu was even a replacement for somebody at this point, because that means he's in the game, which is important. We want him in the game.

[00:41:44] However, he gets there, it would be great, if they voted him in, or the managers and players selected him in. But if he gets named a replacement, I think that's totally fine as well, given the state of the American League pitching. I think that's fine. He needs to get there. That's my, that's my bar to set. He needs to be in Atlanta, walking down the red carpet, in uniform, in the dugout for the All-Star game. He needs to be part of it. That's my thing. Even if he doesn't end up pitching, like he needs to be there. He needs the recognition.

[00:42:14] If this keeps up, he has to, also, if he keeps this up, his ERA is going to keep getting lower. And if it's around the really low twos, or whatever it could be by July, I mean, you can't ignore that. You're right. In theory, you would think. This is why, again, I tweeted today from our podcast account that, man, we're not even talking about All-Star conversation right now. Like, you could, you could argue,

[00:42:41] we're entering a totally different conversation with Brian Wu. Now, it's all relative, because, again, it's a lot of American League arms he's going up against. And what I'm getting toward is, the idea of him being in the Cy Young race. Which, he is not the favorite. Not yet. But, when you're talking about guys who are competing for it, his name has to be in the mix. I'm not saying right now he would win it over Hunter Brown. But, I think we've gotten to a point in Wu's season where,

[00:43:10] at this moment, yeah, he has warranted that conversation. Definitely. It is, All-Star games though are just tricky. And I'll use Francisco Lindor as an example, given that he's finished top 10 in MVP, including runner-up last season, three years in a row, and has not made the All-Star game. In any of those three seasons, you mean? No. He has not made it in any of those three seasons. Yeah. Yeah, they are tricky. You gotta have a good first half. So, we'll see.

[00:43:38] Let's talk a little bit about Andres Munoz. I think this segment is long, long, long overdue. It kept getting bumped. But now we have a great reason to talk about it, because he had another incredible weekend. Let me rattle off these stats for you, for Andres Munoz this season. Of course, he hasn't allowed an earned run. His ERA, his expected, his FIP, his expected ERA are both under two. 35% strikeout rate. He's got a ground ball rate nearly 75%.

[00:44:08] You wanna guess how many pitchers in baseball have a 35% strikeout rate and a 74% ground ball rate? Zero. Zero. Besides Andres Munoz. Is that good? That is pretty good. It's what you want out of your relievers. You want your relievers to be good at one of two things. You want them to either get a ton of swing and miss or a ton of ground balls, because that's how you mitigate damage. And Andres Munoz does those both at an elite level. It's crazy.

[00:44:37] It is ridiculous to see where he has gotten to this year. And it's saying that as if he wasn't already one of the game's elite relievers. He is. But he's legitimately taken it to another level this year. You wanna know what jumps out to me the most about Munoz this year? As impressive as the ridiculous ground ball rate is, as ridiculous as how impressive it's been that he's not giving up any hard contact and he's not letting the ball leave the yard or really anything. How about the fact of when you look at his home road splits,

[00:45:07] which obviously both come out to a zero ERA because he has not given up a run. But look at last year. Remember it got talked about once the attention started to circulate around the narrative that at home in 2024, Munoz had an 0-28 ERA. Just nuts. But on the road, it was 4-28. And how he really was a different guy on the road versus at home. So far this year on the road, he has given up two hits. We are approaching the end of May.

[00:45:36] Andres Munoz has allowed two hits on the road. And oh, by the way, no runs. No earned runs. It's pretty good. He's turned the narrative around a little bit. Which is great. But that's where it comes... I think the ground ball rate here is so important when it comes to why he's not allowing very many runs. He's just not giving the opportunity for the other team to do damage. The biggest reason for his struggles last year, especially on the road...

[00:46:05] So he gave up six home runs last season. He gave up five of them on the road. It's really hard to hit home runs when you have a 75% ground ball rate on the mound. And a 35% strikeout rate on the mound. So when you present that opportunity to a hitter, you're like, what am I supposed to do here to do damage? Because you then essentially have to have... At that point, you will need to have like four guys. One of them might hit the ball in the air. And the other three are hitting them on the ground.

[00:46:34] If you don't strike out. And you're going to have to hit them in the right spots. It's a really tall task for teams to try and score against that. And that's why Andres Munoz has essentially elevated himself even higher when it comes to his efficiency as a reliever. He had had good ground ball rates before. It was in the mid-50s. But it's jumped up almost 20%. How you go from like already borderline elite, and then you go like elite, elite in that category, while keeping your stuff right where it is,

[00:47:04] is just... It's just remarkable. How much of this do we think has to do with him pitching in essentially the same inning all the time? Because he came out this weekend, and he talked about how much he felt like only having to worry about pitching in the ninth inning, for the most part, until Saturday, has helped him. He said it's been easier to focus knowing, hey, this is when I'm coming into the game. It's not a constant on-call nature of being ready. Yeah, this is interesting.

[00:47:35] So part of me wonders if Munoz is saying this just to obviously back his team, his coaching staff, who has put him into this role, and said, this is what we want to do to best win games. And Munoz is obviously not, like, is obviously going to support whatever his coaches do, because we know he's, one, a competitor, two, a great guy, and he would never single anybody out or anything. But the fact he actually dove into this a little bit, I did think was interesting, because the narrative so far this year has been,

[00:48:02] well, why is Munoz only throwing the ninth? Why is he only throwing in the ninth inning? There's situations this year where they've needed him in other innings against the best part of a lineup, but they're not using him, and it feels head-scratching at times. And sometimes it can be a little, you know, a tough pill to swallow when you're a fan and you're watching the game and you see how the game's been managed by the Mariners over the last few years, and you say, why aren't we using our best reliever here? But Munoz seems to think that it has helped him, and it seems to think that

[00:48:30] whether it's mentally, physically, a little bit of both, that when he knows every day what his role is going to be if the situation calls for him to pitch that night, has potentially helped him out for some more success. If that's the case, and this is something Munoz truly prefers, and this is something more him and the coaching staff got on the same page about, then yes, like, that is noteworthy, and that is something to absolutely take into account

[00:48:59] because what Andres Munoz is doing right now is better than he's done in each of the last couple of years, and that's saying a lot because he's been great every year. But the fact he's taken it to another level this year, if he feels like this is really helping him, then sure, I think this is a narrative that people should pay a little bit more attention to and say, maybe this is an Andres Munoz thing. In your opinion, what do you think's better for the team itself? I'd be curious, like, what do you think increases their winning percentage more? Having Munoz available

[00:49:28] whenever they need him in a high-leverage situation, but he's, I'd say, a little more along the lines of what we saw in 23 and 24 where he'd have those unfortunate blow-up outings in some package. The Andres Munoz blow-up outing where once a month he would give up a crucial home run, right? But otherwise he'd be completely dominant. Or the version we've seen this year where he's reserved just for the ninth inning, but he's that much better. When you have Matt Brash back and he's pitching like this,

[00:49:58] even if he's going to continue to pitch like this, I think the latter has to be the answer that you'd rather just have him in the ninth inning and pitching like this. Because they also didn't have Matt Brash last year. And I think the fact they didn't have the best pivot man in all of baseball, potentially, forced Munoz into more roles. I'm not saying Munoz never would have thrown in other innings had Brash been healthy last year, but I think you have to see him do more of it last year because they have to find a way to fill innings and fill the Matt Brash void.

[00:50:25] And a lot of that was put on their best reliever otherwise and Munoz to do so. You know what? And you know what we saw when that happened last year? I think Munoz got a little tired toward the end of the year. He worked very hard. He was used in a lot of games. We know he was really leaned on last year. Maybe this has helped him in a lot of ways. Maybe not just the decreased workload and the set aligned role that he has now had carved out for himself by the team.

[00:50:56] But yeah, where was I going with that? Yeah, just the fact that, again, you have more reliable bullpen arms to kind of compliment him and the fact he seems to be enjoying the new role. And it's not just the, not just Matt Brash, the pivot man. We're talking about Gabe Spire too. They didn't have really good Gabe Spire last year at all. No, not at all. So two guys that Munoz could lean on to sort of help bridge to him were gone and more of the responsibility fell on his shoulders. The way you laid it out, Lyle,

[00:51:25] I really, you know, I like that idea. And so I think that is gonna, that is the best version for what we can do this year. I do still feel like though, as we saw on Saturday's game, there will be a couple games where I do think the Mariners are gonna need him in the eighth inning. And he's gonna need to be ready for that. But when he understands, okay, there's only gonna be a couple, I don't need to be on call every single night for this. It's certainly helped him out a little bit with that. And also, you know,

[00:51:52] Jackson Coar is throwing absolute gas down in Tacoma. I would imagine he's gonna be back in the Mariners bullpen soon as well. That's another potential option in a mid leverage to low leverage spot, depending on how he looks when he comes up. We know Coar has pretty good stuff when he's pumping it up there. So we'll see how that looks when it comes back. But I'd say all this has really kind of helped Mooney out and with the development of his arsenal as well has made him not a perfect reliever,

[00:52:22] but pretty darn close. Right. Yeah, just the fact he has more help back there this year. Colin Snyder did a lot of really good things for the team last year. And he was really relied upon in a year where they had a lot of injuries in that depleted bullpen. But the fact most of these guys are back now, again, Brash back, Spire back, you have Munoz, Legamine has stepped up, all these things. I do wonder how much of that was part of it last year.

[00:52:50] Thinking more about this now out loud and kind of verbally processing this, I do wonder how much of the reason Munoz had to throw in all those different spots last year is because fact of the matter was the Mariners just had to find a way to try and win ballgames. And they had to do so in a way with a bullpen that just wasn't what it was in years past a lot of the times because of injuries. So they had to have Munoz play that role. And think of what they tried to do at the deadline. They tried to give them their pivot man,

[00:53:18] pivot slash eighth inning slash guy before Munoz thrower in Jimmy Garcia. Jimmy threw three innings and then got hurt and missed the rest of the year. Yeah, one of those, he got blown up in Detroit and lost him a game. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like that was the goal of that for him to come in and take the pressure off and then all of a sudden he's gone. Right. Yeah, absolutely. After April last year, because I do want to say when we said, you know, you didn't have Pete gave Spire last year. That is true after April.

[00:53:48] Last April, he was unreal. After that, I think is when everything kind of went the other direction. But yeah, look at this bullpen right now. Again, Munoz, Brash, Spire, Legamina, Snyder's still in there. You have Vargas. Kowar's about to come back. And if Kowar can give you something, that's huge. Am I forgetting anybody? I mean, Bizzardo's back there, obviously. But like... And you hope you see a better version of Troy Taylor too at some point.

[00:54:17] At some point. And we've already talked about wanting to add a reliever at the deadline, getting another leverage guy, which would be great. And we still think they should. But on top of all that, you know, with getting Kowar back and with the way the guys are pitching now and with potentially getting a bullpen arm, even with all that, I will say, we've probably paid closer attention to this than maybe the casual fan as people who are locked in on one of the minor leagues and two locked in on the players

[00:54:46] who are our guys and the guys we really root for. But I gotta tell you, month of May, Brandon Garcia's looked pretty damn good down in AA. He had a couple rocky outings in April where his command just wasn't totally there. Last few outings, he's looked really good. And we know that's another guy the Mariners are probably gonna pull up at some point this summer. So all of a sudden, Andre Munoz has a lot more help back there. So then prepare yourself. I'd say we can prepare the two of ourselves

[00:55:15] and prepare all of you listening that there is real reason for the Mariners to not address the bullpen at the deadline because of what they have in the org. Oh, I would still go get a leverage arm. I'm saying I'm not saying I wouldn't. I'm telling you what the Mariners would use to rationalize not overpaying for a reliever. Though at this point, again, as you and I have talked about, this should be the year, right? So you focus on like bite the bullet, go get a good,

[00:55:44] go make yourself better. If there is a leverage arm available at the deadline, go get them. There is no such thing as having too many good bullpen arms, especially in a playoff race and in the playoff specifically. The best teams usually have dominant bullpens. Usually. And you can worry how you're gonna sort out your future bullpens next year. That's a good problem to have if you have too many bullpen arms. So the last thing I'd say about Andres Munoz here, I don't know if you want to call this a hot take or not,

[00:56:13] but I am going to throw it out there. Is his 2022 version of the slider fully back? No. Well, as we currently sit in the middle of May, guys are hitting 026 against his slider. They're also slugging 026. The results might be there, but the command and stuff is not. Are you sure that run value of his can't get back to 20 the way it was in 22? Right now it's at 7. I don't think it's going to get back to 20.

[00:56:43] It's at 7 right now. I don't think he's ever going to match that again. We're talking about the combination of command of that pitch and just the filth of it. I was looking at the Stuff Plus earlier. It was a one... That's... Stuff Plus, by the way, again, just highlights how nasty the pitch is and it's Fangraph's model of a pitch model, essentially. A hundreds league average, higher is better, lower is worse. 20-22 Lyle, it was a 150 Stuff Plus slider. I believe right now it's like 117.

[00:57:13] All right. So the stuff is... Yeah, the stuff is not the same and for Stuff Plus, for those that are still wondering, the numbers of it look the same as WRC Plus, aka Andres Munoz having a 150 Stuff Plus on his slider in 2022 means it was one of the best pitches in baseball. That's not to say his slider's not been insanely good and insanely effective this season, but that 2022 slider mark is probably never beaten. The only guy in this org, historically, I think, who had a slider that good

[00:57:42] and that effective is Eddie in 2018. Well, on Matt Brash, right? Or to... Okay. Over a full season? Sorry, maybe the Stuff Plus, you don't have to look it up if it's going to be a pain, but maybe the Stuff Plus of Brash's slider never quite got that high. So I would say there's a difference. So Stuff... We're measuring two different things here. Stuff Plus is measuring how nasty the pitch is. On the other side, we're measuring how effective the pitch is. Right. Two different things. Like Brash's Stuff Plus, really, really, really good.

[00:58:12] But if we look at like... You go look at the run value or you go look at the command of the... If you go look at the slider. So like it's 20... It was a 23 run value in 2022. And technically, I guess you could say, yeah, he's on pace for that. It's just like... It's going to be really, really tricky for him to get that. I mean, the slugging numbers are lower. The hard hit numbers are lower. The percentage he threw it was lower. The command of the pitch was better.

[00:58:41] I'm curious what Eddie's was in 2018. Let me go look. And while you look that up, the other thing I wanted to touch on here with Munoz is the one thing you could kind of pick at with Munoz, if a such thing exists for what could improve, would essentially be his walk rate. But I would even proceed at that with caution because by the results and by the numbers, his walk rate is a little bit high and he puts some guys on base. But the difference now with Munoz

[00:59:10] is I think so much of his stuff has just gotten so nasty and it moves so much that sometimes that stuff's hard to command in big samples. For example, in 2022, Munoz was a little bit of a different pitcher back then because back then he was very, very reliant on the fastball and the slider. He was a two-pitch guy. He was a four-seamer and slider guy. That's what he relied on. Now he's got so many different offerings with his sinker is nasty and he's got the kick change that he's added

[00:59:38] and he mixes so many different things in that have such movement that not just for him but with any pitcher with stuff that crazy, it's really hard to have pinpoint command with. So he walks a few more guys. However, I will fully take it to keep this version of Andres Munoz. I just think that's going to be who he is as long as this is what his pitch profile is which is a good problem to have. Well, and that's what I'm getting at. That was kind of what I was highlighting there is in 2022, he didn't have to worry about commanding so many pitches.

[01:00:08] It was just pinpoint two of them. Now so much of his stuff's nasty that this is just who he is and that's not even necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's a good thing. The dude hasn't given up a run and it's May the 18th so you live with it. Eddie's slider in 2018 was only plus eight run value so that I've, I'm pretty certain now looking at it that Andres Munoz 2022 slider is it's probably the best bullpen slider season the Mariners have had ever. I would say right terms of effectiveness,

[01:00:38] volume, command, strikeout rate, all that stuff. It, I would be floored if there were someone else who had a higher, higher effectiveness of one pitch. Sure. That's a, of a slider than that. Yeah. Last topic we wanted to hit on here because this guy's earned it and while we're on the topic of the bullpen, this feels like a very seamless way to transition. How about Casey Legamina? And the reason we bring him up is not just because he's been so good over the last couple weeks

[01:01:07] and a guy that's really put himself into a key role in the Mariners bullpen, but it's more asking the question of this small sample size aside, which this does factor in, but even with that, is he approaching Steckenreiter bucket territory? Which for those who don't know that definition, that is essentially what Scott Service started to call guys that they would essentially pick up off the street in terms of bullpen relievers, found something they liked about him, had him hit at home,

[01:01:37] had him change just their usage of pitches a little bit in terms of like with Paul Seawald, hey, we like your stuff. If you just throw more sliders and more high fastballs, you're going to have success. He did. Steckenreiter was kind of the same thing. So we've seen over the years the Mariners pick up a few of these guys who were a little bit cast aside and turned them into great relievers. Is Casey Legamina that next dude? He's not in my Steckenreiter bucket yet, but he's on his way.

[01:02:06] If he keeps up a 1-8-4 ERA into August, yeah, then he's in my Steckenreiter bucket. I do feel like he's gotten a little lucky. The stuff's been good. Some of the expected numbers are really good. Like his expected ERA and his expected batting average, which relates to like, all right, when they're hitting the ball, do they have a chance of getting a hit and doing damage against you? The answer to that question right now is very flatly no, which is great. The problem is he's got a FIP of nearly 4, which

[01:02:36] can regress his ERA a lot. Most of that stems from the fact he has a 13% walk rate and not an overpowering strikeout rate. It's only been about 23%. And on top of that, I'll get to the, I promise there are positives here, but let me just make my case of why he's not quite there yet. Because I personally think he's going to regress a little bit. And his ground ball rate's only 36%. So he's not, he's walking guys, he's not striking guys out in an elite rate, and he's not getting guys on the ground at an elite rate. That's not a great combination

[01:03:05] for a reliever. There are no fly ball relievers. Those don't exist. If you're a fly ball reliever, you usually end up back in the minor leagues because you give up too many home runs. So I hope that's not the case for him. Yeah. But now I will say, if you think about it, like what have been his really good pitches, it's been a four seam fastball and a sweeper, who has he been comped to the most coming up? It's Paul Seawald because he gets down low and throws it like from the Brian Wu-Paul Seawald arm slot. And it's effective

[01:03:34] and it, you know, gets right on the fastball and guys chase the sweeper, which is really good. And the usage for the Mariners is ticked up with those two pitches, which has been great and which has been expected. But unfortunately, given what I'm looking at, I hope it stays the same, but something probably does have to change on the, under the hood. So I came to the same conclusion, which is, he is off to an awesome start. The Mariners have really needed him. They've leaned on him,

[01:04:05] but you can't run out a walk rate like this and usually have success continue. We talk about that the FIP is a lot higher than stuff like his XERA. The reason for that is because he's walking a lot of guys. Like, FIP only measures three things, right? It's what a pitcher does completely individual of help on defense. It only measures home runs, strikeouts, and walks. Well, Legamino right now walks his share of guys and he does not get

[01:04:34] a ton of strikeouts. Like you said, he's, he's, his ground ball rate's not that high. He's more of a fly ball reliever at this point if such thing exists, which it really kind of doesn't. But yeah, like, again, I don't want to spend all the time here talking about the, the, like, negative side of this because he has been awesome and I want to get to that in a second. I would say he has to prove a little bit more to get into the Steckenrider bucket category. He's only thrown about 14 innings right now, so this is probably a good conversation

[01:05:04] to circle back to around the All-Star break or so and see how he's doing by then. But yeah, I would say he is pitching really well, but also the two of us sitting here saying he's got to find a way to throw a few more strikes and get a little bit more swing and miss because that is what relievers do. What it's, has seemed like and what's been pretty clear, it feels like to me he's at least worked himself above in terms of like where his role is above Bizzardo and Colin Snyder at this point. I think right now he's fourth.

[01:05:33] I think it's Munoz, Brash, Spire, and then it's Legamina. Yeah. I mean, and we saw that on Saturday. The three leverage guys pitched and then we saw Legamina not only go back to back, but threw in that eighth inning which was a crucial eighth inning against a really good part of the lineup. I think he's fourth. And by the way, dude's got a 202 ERA plus right now. Again, we got to see some things continue for him. Again, like he's got to just throw a few more strikes

[01:06:02] but the results right now are what they are and what they say is Casey Legamina has been awesome. And they're going to keep using him as long as long as it is and it's great for him because he was no guarantee to be in this bullpen and be on this team but here we are. Right. And there's a lot of other things that he's done so far that are positives too. Like if you look at his platoon splits, he doesn't have a splits issue. It's even enough. It's like he's been good against both sides. Doesn't have a home road issue. He's been good in both places. So under the hood,

[01:06:32] the biggest thing you can kind of look at and the biggest thing that jumps out is the walk rate and can he throw a few more strikes? But other than that, there's a lot of things Legamina is currently doing that say he's got a chance to really play a nice role in the bullpen moving forward. Will he be a true leverage guy? That is going to depend on him and what he can alter and if any of this luck ends up turning against him. And just remember when we talk about regression coming over a larger sample size, the opposite could also happen

[01:07:00] over a larger sample size where he could figure things out and over the course of the season as he gets more comfortable and gets into a better rhythm, the strikeouts come, the walks go down, the ground ball rate goes up and then all of a sudden, you know, here we are looking at what is Paul Seawald. I don't think the ground ball rate is going to be honestly go up. What needs to happen with Legamina for him to fit really into what made Paul Seawald great out rate needs to go up and the walk rate needs to come down. Simple as that. Doesn't need to generate more ground balls.

[01:07:30] That's not his profile. He just needs to sort of focus on those two things and not give up home runs. Right. That's the key. But it has been very nice to see that you get past those three leverage relievers and there is some kind of gap to be plugged where it doesn't feel like if you're not using one of Brash, Spire, and Munoz that it drops off to the back half of the bullpen with guys that aren't really meant I mean as kind of that in-between guy right now where he's been really good

[01:07:58] and if you need him in a higher leverage spot he can do it. He almost reminds me a little bit of what Colin Snyder was last year. Not in terms of the profile but a guy that's really good in low to mid leverage situations and when you need him to pitch in the higher roles he's proven thus far that up to this point in the year he can do it. So there's a little bit of a middle gap there. So it's nice. Yes. Yep. I'd say I agree with most. The most important thing for him is that the Mariners have called him up to pitch in some important situations

[01:08:28] and he hasn't been bad. The Mariners don't have to essentially burn an arm and then say okay well now we have to find someone else. They don't have to worry about finding someone else. Yeah that 180 ERA is pretty good. Sub 2 ERA in the middle of May that's pretty good and that will play. And especially for all the guys we're talking about that could potentially come up and have a spot in this bullpen him pitching well buys himself some cushion in terms of who gets who has to go down. Right. It's funny how things change with a bullpen as a year goes on. Troy Taylor obviously

[01:08:58] was expected to come in here and be an important guy and not that he can't be and won't be long term but right now I think Legamina's pitching in the role that they expected Troy Taylor to be and once he got healthy. And once all these other guys get healthy where's Troy Taylor going to pitch? That is what we're going to have to find out because again like we know they want him to be an important guy in the bullpen but it's going to depend on one health and two how everybody else is pitching and succeeding. Yeah. So I guess we'll see but

[01:09:27] Casey Legamina been very important to the bullpen so we wanted to give him proper shout out here because he deserves it. So shout out shout out Casey. All right. I think that just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast. You guys know the drill if you want to find all of our stuff it is all over at our website. Go get your merch you guys that's on our website. All of our episodes are on the website. Patreon's on our website if you want to go get involved over there we'd love to have you and you can find all of our live show information which will remind you again we said it during the show

[01:09:57] we'll say it again here. It is on Saturday May 24th Queen Anne Beer Hall live show starts at 12 p.m. 1 p.m. is when the watch party starts immediately after we're going to stick around and watch the game with everybody. We would absolutely love to have you there if you're around come on out it's going to be a blast again May 24th over at Queen Anne Beer Hall 12 p.m. If you want to find us on socials too by the way we're everywhere across social media at MarineLayerPod. That's TJ I'm Lyle as always we thank you guys for tuning in

[01:10:26] we'll talk to you soon.