Episode 66: Mariners 2023 Reliever Grades

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 66 of the Marine Layer Podcast. We have our reliever grades for the 2023 season short episode today, but we will take a look at the Mariners' bullpen and see how they fared. This show is brought to you by Pagotch's Pub 85. That's Pagotch's Pub 85 in Kirkland. It's east of 405. It's got some awesome food, including some great pizza. It's got great drinks. There's 22 TVs in the place. So with sports going on, what do we say?

[00:00:28] October is the best sports month of the year, and that is a fact here on this podcast. So if you're looking to enjoy that, go spend some time with your friends and family at a really awesome spot and go over to Pagotch's Pub 85 and do so. If you do, show up early too, because guess what happens if you show up early, especially on the weekdays? There's happy hour specials Monday through Friday, 2 to 6 p.m. That includes $3 domestic beers, $4 Manny's Blue Moons, $4 Mac and Jacks, $4 Wells, $4 House Wines.

[00:00:57] So grab your friends, grab your family, go watch some games, go spend October watching sports over at Pagotch's Pub 85. We can't recommend it enough. And your reminder before we start the show to download our episodes, follow us and leave us a five-star review. If you're listening on our audio platforms, Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, if you're listening over there, go do all those things. The reviews and the downloads truly do help us out. So just take a couple extra seconds to do that.

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[00:02:26] Let's get it rolling. And today we will finish out on the bullpen. But first to start, I'm sure we're having a good time right now. I wonder, wonder exactly what we're doing. Well, by the time this is posted and released, we'll have seen the Rangers play at the garden. So we will have been to Madison Square Garden for the first time in our lives. I would say it was awesome. I've been there before. No, this will come out Friday. We'll have been there Thursday. Yeah. So we'll have gone. I've been there. I'm going to say I've been there before you said.

[00:02:56] You haven't been? I have. Sorry. Sorry. You have been? Yes. Okay. Well, I have not. So this will be a first for me. I am looking forward to it. So it'll be my first time to the garden. TJ has been. Go Rangers. Let's just put it out there. They won. They won. If we're wrong about this when this comes out, then oops. Oh, well.

[00:03:14] But we went to the Rangers game. We're going to say we had a blast. And I'm sure, like TJ said, when you're listening to this, we're having a good trip. See, TJ's in a grumpy mood. He's saying don't hit us up. I'm going to say on my end, if you still want to talk Mariners, I'll be on my phone during the trip. If you really want to send us something or send me something, I'll answer it. I'll respond. So hit us up if you want. Although we will be enjoying our trip.

[00:03:37] Well, we might be a tad bit busy. I think there's one thing I can guarantee I'm doing by the time this podcast episode comes out in a little over a week. I'll be drinking Dunkin Donuts, which is my happy place. I think I will be very. What's what's the right word for it? Content satisfied. I think I'm going to be very satisfied with my presence on Friday morning when a lot of people are listening to this episode because I'm going to have Dunkin Donuts in New York City bagel and.

[00:04:05] There's nothing better than that. So that's my flex. What do I say? Better than that awful, awful establishment of Starbucks, which we boycott as we currently sit. There's there's two things we're boycotting Starbucks, which always and we're probably sitting here boycotting the ALCS at the time of this podcast. Why? I ain't watching Rangers Astros. If we've been at a bar at this point and it's on my backs to it. I ain't watch it. I love the stand. I love it. I'm not going to I'm not planning on watching it either.

[00:04:34] I haven't got to watch a ton of playoffs, but definitely not watching that one. It's no, I can't do it unless they fight. They almost fought this season that I would tune in to watch, but baseball wise, I don't think I'm going to do it. Let's get to our reliever grades. Lyle throughout the season. Mariners bullpen another excellent season and we'll start off what I think both you and I agree was the best reliever in this 2023 season. Matt Brash, what's your grade? Matt Brash gets an A. Look, his season was not perfect.

[00:05:05] He was a little bit up and down at times as most relievers would be. But when you put up a 227 FIP, when you put up nearly 14 Ks per nine, and when you rank fourth among all relievers in F war, that is an A. Matt Brash did everything they could have expected of him and more. His expected numbers really jumped all across the board, which was nice.

[00:05:30] We saw his fastball get another gear this season as well, which is a nice development for him. Even if the results really weren't there, his fastball wasn't a true out pitch. We've highlighted before how his fastball really isn't a true elite fastball, even though he throws it hard. It just doesn't have elite physical characteristics outside the velocity. His slider, though, I mean, really, really popped some ridiculous numbers this season better than it was a season ago.

[00:05:56] And we're talking about an expected slug of under 240, an elite ex-woba as well. 48% whiff rate on that slider this season and a 44% strikeout rate. He did get a little unlucky this season, really unlucky, especially early in the season. Finished the season with a batting average on balls in play of about 380. But for a number one reliever in this bullpen, maybe you'd want to see his stats a little bit better, which is why he doesn't get an A+. He just gets an A.

[00:06:25] The inconsistencies led to a little bit of an inflation of his ERA. At times, you get a little bit wild. His strikeout rate dropped month by month as the season went along, which you'd want to see that stay plateaued. But in the end, he was the fourth best reliever in baseball by F-War. And you can't ask too much else of Matt Brash if that's the case. So your grade for him was an A. You might not have said. Okay. So A's across the board for Matt Brash.

[00:06:55] Yeah, he had a great year. Super weird. I kind of remember this period of time in, I don't know, May, where there were some Mariner fans claiming he should, I don't know, be sent to Tacoma. Yeah, that was a real take from several fans across Twitter. It's kind of a good thing they didn't do that because considering he was our best reliever, they needed him. That would have been a bit of a sticky situation for Scott Service.

[00:07:19] There's one thing I think maybe he, if he's really going to become an elite, elite, elite, like Felix Bautista level reliever, he was kind of pedestrian against lefties this season. I mean, here are these numbers against lefties. His strikeout rate was barely above league average, 25.4% strikeout rate against lefties. His walk rate was nearly 11%. His FIP was two and a half runs higher against lefties than it was against righties.

[00:07:47] And all that was with a BABIP that was actually lower against lefties than it was against righties. Just like he doesn't feel quite as confident for a dominant reliever to actually not be dominant against some lefties he's facing. That's probably because he doesn't have a pitch breaking away from lefties. He throws a slider in on their hands. He'll occasionally corkscrew one like he did with Jose Ramirez.

[00:08:09] But when you rely on your fastball a little bit more against lefties and your slider is not quite as strikeout pitch against lefties as it is against righties, that leads to some inconsistencies in his stats and eventually leads to some outings like we've seen him have where he doesn't throw strikes or gets hit around a little bit. So I'd say that's one thing that if Matt Brash is going to take that next step, that's what he's got to attack. I think that's all fair.

[00:08:39] I wonder if those numbers against lefties just kind of flatten out next year in the sense of maybe they just correct themselves. Maybe not. Maybe it's just lefties have a little bit of an edge on Brash, which is possible. But I also wouldn't be shocked if it just kind of gets more even here in 2024. But overall, like we've said about all the guys that we give A's to and still talk about the downsides with, we're nitpicking. We're talking about a guy that was objectively one of the five to ten best relievers in baseball by again by F4.

[00:09:08] He was fourth case per nine with third among relievers. This guy's awesome. He is and he's going to be in this bullpen a long time. So look forward to seeing much more Matt Brash. Oh, by the way, Brent Rooker shout out for Matt Brash. So he's been way more active on Twitter recently, which is pretty cool. And I think he started to engage with a lot of fans. Seems like an awesome guy, by the way, Brent Rooker of the A's. And a couple of things he said this week. Well, he had three tweets that just warmed our hearts.

[00:09:35] Number one, his favorite road ballpark, T-Mobile Park, he said in Seattle. He said he loves it. There's number one. Number two, somebody asked, what stats do you use to try to evaluate your game? He said, I like to use hard hit rate, chase rate, walk rate, like all these baseball savant numbers. He said, I know a lot of people aren't going to like to hear that, but it is very indicative of my game. And I said, power to you, Brent Rooker. Stand up for the analytics nerds. I was going to say, he's like, these are the stats I can control, which is the biggest point he tried to make.

[00:10:05] Yeah, which is great. And number three, the whole reason we bring this up. Somebody said, what's the toughest pitch you've had to face so far in your career or this season? He said, it's Matt Brash's sweeper. And he said, honestly, I couldn't even characterize it as that. Whatever that guy's throwing should be in a whole different stratosphere in terms of a category. So he's getting shout outs around the league. All we hear about Matt Brash is just how good his stuff is. So shout out to you, Matt Brash.

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[00:11:03] All of these and more streaming now. Get the Disney Bundle with plans starting at $9.99 a month. Plans with ESPN+, starting at $14.99 a month. Terms apply. See DisneyBundle.com for details. Okay, Andres Munoz, reliever number two. What grade did you give him? A-. Yes, it was close. When I think about this, it could have been worse and it could have been better.

[00:11:30] Because if we are, it depends how you, depends how you're grading Andres Munoz. I graded him in the looking not how he performed last season. I graded him how he stacked up in this bullpen this year. Which, if you look at his overall numbers, were good. His ERA was not right next to his expected ERA. He struck out 32% of the batters he faced. His FIP was 2-7. Those are all things you love to see among relievers with 40 innings.

[00:11:59] 22nd strikeout rate. 18th and FIP. So very good season for Andres Munoz. If you want to make a case that his grade should have been lower, it's the fact that he was as good as he was this year, significantly worse than he was last season. We came on this podcast and said at the beginning of the season, our expectation for Andres Munoz is for him to be a top 5 reliever in baseball. He wasn't a top 5 reliever in baseball.

[00:12:26] I don't really think he was close to a top 5 reliever in baseball this season. Which stunk. He lost pretty much all effectiveness in his slider this season. And yet, he's so talented that he still managed to put up an A- season in our eyes. And the stats would reflect it as well. I also gave Munoz an A-. So we're 2-2 on similar grades here. And by the way, for those curious, TJ and I don't tell it. TJ and I do not tell each other what our grades are of each pitcher before we do these.

[00:12:56] We like it to be kind of a surprise on the show. So then we compare notes. But we are 2-2. I think everything you've outlined is more than fair for why he gets a good grade. I think there's also a lot to be outlined, which you also talked about, for why he was not as good as he was a season ago. Along with, I'll add one more thing, that his walk rate was way up. He was walking away more guys this year than he was a season ago. So that didn't help him. And obviously, that led to more traffic on the base pads. We saw Munoz get into a lot of close calls late in games this year

[00:13:25] when he was trying to close games out. And a couple of them he blew. A couple of them were just very, very high-pressure situations where it was right on the brink. And he just barely found a way to notch out a save. But yeah, he just wasn't quite as crisp as he was last season. And part of that's because of the walks. Part of that was because the slider wasn't as effective. So you'd hope some of those things could kind of get fixed in the offseason. To Munoz's credit, however,

[00:13:53] he still pitched the way he did, which was very well, considering he had essentially no spring training. He missed most of the first two months of the year. He pitched in the first couple series and then went on the IL for about two months. And he didn't really get a shot to adjust to the pitch clock either, which I heard him say in an interview was a little bit of an adjustment. Like imagine if you're Andres Munoz, you didn't pitch a game in spring training, so never got to see the pitch clock there. Pitched in a couple of big league games

[00:14:22] where he got a little bit of experience with it. And then between having the lingering foot injury and also coming back and having to adjust to the pitch clock, having the season he did, he deserves some credit for that. And I wouldn't be shocked if he totally flushes this next year. Just to put in context of what happened to his slider last year, his slider was one of the best pitches in baseball. It was a plus 20 run value on baseball. Savant this season, plus three.

[00:14:51] That's a major drop off for what we consider an elite, elite pitch. If you look on another plus side though, his fastball went from subpar last year to actually plus this season, improved his fastball with across the board with expected stats, expected batting average, expected slugging, K percentage and whiff percentage. And I think it paired really well with the sinker he added as well. Started throwing that a little bit more to kind of offset the ineffectiveness of his slider this season.

[00:15:20] So in ideal world next year, he has that sinker which graded out positively. He has the fastball which was improving in 2023. And he has a slider that hopefully regains 80% of its 2022 value. That would make Andres Munoz, that would vault him back into a top five reliever spot. But that's the level we hold Andres Munoz at. And when he doesn't hit it, he gets dinged for it because we know he's better

[00:15:50] than being outside the top five. Could you imagine if he has all three of those pitches working in full force next year? If his fastball stays this good, if his sinker stays this good, and he gets his slider back, what does that Andres Munoz look like? It eliminates most of the damage risk against him. Because if you throw that slider more, you might put a bat on it, but you're not doing any damage with that swing.

[00:16:16] If you're going to have success against Munoz, it's going to be all luck-based. Because when his slider's on, you're not hitting that. When he's pumping 101 with that fastball and it's at its peak, it's really hard to barrel up 101 mile an hour fastballs. And oh, by the way, when he's throwing a 98 mile an hour tailing sinker off the outside corner to lefties. Yeah, I don't know if you're really doing much damage with that either. What do you plan on hitting?

[00:16:45] He would be one tough dude to hit. Not that he's not already. But if he gets that slider back next year and gets some of this command back a little bit, we're talking about a guy who can be the best reliever in baseball, the number one reliever in baseball, if he does all those things. Because he is that good. Before we get to our next reliever here, let's talk about the Columbia Athletic Club. Our friends over at the Columbia Athletic Club, Juanita Bay.

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[00:17:40] Get started with a free five-day trial at ColumbiaAthletic.com. That's ColumbiaAthletic.com. So Justin Topa. Yeah, Justin Topa. What's your grade? Topa gets an A. We're talking about a guy who started the year in the minor leagues and come season's end, there is a real argument, which we made on this podcast, that he was the best reliever among Mariners' bullpen arms this year. There's a fair argument for Brash.

[00:18:09] I think there's also a fair argument for Topa, too. As a result, both those guys get A's. 261 ERA for Topa, 293 XERA, got a ton of ground balls. That sinker was deadly. I mean, you want to talk about a guy that was like an earthworm in terms of not giving up any hard contact or anything in the air. 94th percentile in ground ball rate. He was also 97th percentile in barrel percentage. So nobody hit him hard. Nobody put it in the air against him.

[00:18:36] And he had a 261 ERA for the year. What a guy the Mariners found in that Brewers trade. Yeah, he gets an A. I give him an A, too. You get an A if you remember who they traded for him. Who the Mariners gave up? Yeah. It was Joseph Hernandez. Yeah, okay, good. So you get an A. Come on, I'm not a casual. When you can get this kind of production trading Joseph Hernandez away,

[00:19:05] you're going to take it any day of the week. Limiting damage. Again, not an elite strikeout guy, but when you talk about getting soft contact and ground balls with the top tier of baseball, I mean, that's what Justin Topa did. This bullpen outside of Matt Brash really became a sinker bullpen. Limiting damage, limiting hard contact, limiting home runs, things that will crush you as a bullpen. And nobody epitomized that more than Justin Topa.

[00:19:35] When I scan through these relievers, when we're doing our grades, the Mariners like having guys who are just elite at something. All these guys are elite at something. For example, Justin Topa was elite at, for his expected ERA, was elite, but he was also elite at limiting barrels. He was elite at generating ground balls. He was not elite at getting whips. He was not elite at getting chases, but that's fine. Because he had other elite traits.

[00:20:04] And when you mishmash all these mixed elite traits together, it sometimes spits out a pretty good bullpen. And Justin Topa was just the start, as we'll get into the other guys, of what a unique and good bullpen is from guys that were on the baseball scrap heap. It is interesting how this Mariners bullpen has evolved, because three years in a row, they've been a great bullpen. But even look at the difference in arsenals between last year and this year.

[00:20:31] The 2022 bullpen, they were so slider heavy. Munoz, big slider. Brash, big slider. Seawalt, great slider. I mean, these are all sweepers. I mean, Seawalt especially was a sweeper. Penn Murphy, big sweeper. All these guys in 2022 were throwing it. Matt Vesta, big sweeper. But then all of a sudden you get to 2023, and you look at Munoz's sinker. You look at Topa's sinker. You look at a bunch of these guys that, like you were mentioning, were sinker heavy.

[00:20:59] Yeah, it led to more ground balls, but they were just as effective, if not more effective. It's interesting how it's evolved, but it's evolved in a very good way. Now, Gabe Spire. Well, if I'm talking about elite traits, he's got them too. But first, what's your grade for him? I gave Gabe Spire a B+, and it was close.

[00:21:25] I think the ERA for Spire as a whole at 379 knocked it down a little bit because that is higher than the guys we were giving A's and A-minuses to. Along with the fact Spire didn't have a great September, 450 ERA in the month of September when they really needed him. But this is a guy that did a lot of things really well, and I'll let you get into that. I said elite traits, right? And we just highlighted Topa's.

[00:21:51] Like, oh, well, Topa's elite traits, he's not elite at getting chases or whiffs. You know who was 100th percentile in chase rate? Gabe Spire. You know who was 77th percentile in whiff rate? Gabe Spire. What about strikeout rate? 89th percentile. What about walk rate on top of that? 72%. Gabe Spire led every pitcher in baseball with a minimum of 50 innings pitched in first pick strike percentage. I think it was a little over 76%.

[00:22:20] Kirby, by the way, George Kirby, shocker, among all qualified pitchers, was first in that category as well. So talk about what made Gabe Spire special. Throwing a ton of strikes, getting a ton of whiffs at a good rate, getting a lot of guys to chase, getting his strikeouts. I mean, you claim this guy off of waivers, comes into your bullpen and strikes out 29% of his batters while walking just 5%.

[00:22:45] By the way, among relievers in strikeout minus walk rate, he was only behind Matt Brash in the Mariners' bullpen, and he was 13th in baseball. That's another guy who you find traits that work in your bullpen and insert him in, and he works out. And that's why he gets a B-plus from me. I would call Gabe Spire the chase rate king a lot of this year because he was that 100th percentile. He got guys to chase pitches, which was awesome.

[00:23:16] Yeah, his ERA was a little high, but you know what? His XFIP was a lot better than his ERA, so some of the underlying numbers were better. And you mentioned it. He struck a bunch of guys out. So the Mariners didn't have any lefties in the bullpen in 2022, and to start 2023 on opening night, they didn't have any lefties either. Now they do. In fact, they've got two of them, and both of them were really effective, one of them being Gabe Spire, who got a ton of guys to swing and had a really, really good year.

[00:23:45] I mean, this feels like a profile that can sustain. Last thing on Spire for me, finding something with Gabe Spire, not just some of the results he had, but his fastball ended up being sneaky good. I didn't even realize how good his fastball was this year. At the end, the results are a 128 average against and a 231 slugging against his heater that averaged 95 miles an hour and was his primary strike throwing pitch.

[00:24:14] 35% whiff rate on that pitch. Some elite traits right there. Really elite traits. Again, another way this bullpen's evolved. No lefties in 2022. They had two good ones in 2023. Speaking of good lefties, let's get to the second southpaw in this Mariners bullpen. Taylor Saucedo. Too much sauce. What do you got for Taylor's grade? He gets a B from me. Another guy. There's some elite traits here.

[00:24:42] Taylor Saucedo this season was elite at limiting hard contact. 94th percentile in average exit velocity of this season. Didn't allow barrels. Didn't allow hard hit baseballs. Got a ton of ground balls. Had good extension as well. Ended the season with a 3-5-9 area. Probably a little high for a high end reliever. Only racked up 0.2. Fan graphs wins above replacement. They claimed him off of waivers from the Mets.

[00:25:11] Again, when you can get results like this from waiver claims and they end up being a very crucial part of your bullpen. And serving a role like Saucedo did where he comes in, he limits hard contact, and he gets a bunch of ground balls. And in the end, he was the sixth reliever in the bullpen this season. When Seawal was in it, he was the sixth guy. And you have a sixth guy generating all these ground balls and limiting all this hard contact. It ends up working out pretty well, and you earn yourself a good grade. I gave him a B+.

[00:25:40] So I went a little bit higher, and some of his expected stats were not great. But just look at his baseball savant page, and for some of the stuff you just outlined, the way he wouldn't give up hard contact, the way he got so many ground balls. So impressive. Again, picked up from the Mets. Started in Tacoma. Him, Topa, and Spire all started the year in Tacoma. And all three of these guys became very valuable and reliable bullpen pieces.

[00:26:08] For Saucedo, yeah, I gave him a B+. I think he earned it. There was so much of his profile that played so well into the Mariner's strengths. Again, for a guy that got a lot of ground balls the way Topa did and limited hard contact, benefit is huge for the Mariners. I think there's ways he can still get better. I think similar to Andres Munoz, Saucedo could cut his walks down a little bit.

[00:26:31] And that's something that maybe didn't give him the A grade or A minus grade, is there would be some outings here and there, I should say, where Saucedo would come in. He just wouldn't really have it with the command, and sometimes Scott had to go out there and yank him early and leave traffic on the bases. But, look, no reliever's perfect. And, yeah, I think Saucedo had a great year. Another guy with a profile that plays for a long period of time. So I think that people have got to be pretty happy with what he did this year.

[00:27:00] Before we get to our final reliever here in our reliever grades, let's hear from Simply Seattle. If you like Pacific Northwest themed gear, if you like Mariners gear, if you like Sonics gear, if you like Seahawks gear, Huskies gear, all the best Pacific Northwest themed gear. You can go to Simply Seattle. You can go to simplyseattle.com or you can go to one of their stores in the Seattle area. Use our code MARINE15 for 15% off your order.

[00:27:30] All sorts of stuff, hoodies, shirts, specialty gear, anything you could want, sports or Seattle slash Pacific Northwest related. Go to simplyseattle.com and use our code MARINE15 for 15% off your order. Good friend of the podcast. Happy to have Simply Seattle along for the ride. Okay, final reliever, Isaiah Campbell. What's your grade? Another B+.

[00:27:57] I think there's things that Campbell can certainly work on, like some of these relievers. Another guy who probably walked a few too many batters. But there was a lot of things he did really well for a guy that became very dependable as the year progressed. Nobody really hit a slider very well. You're talking about a guy that gave up a 137 batting average against that pitch. He had a 283 ERA. He was punching out 10 batters per nine. That's a pretty good profile for a reliever.

[00:28:24] So for a guy that was making his inaugural season in the show and was called upon late and started to get a bigger and bigger role as time went on, I was pretty impressed with what Isaiah Campbell did. It was fun to see his slider really develop into maybe not an elite pitch, but he ended up with a plus six run value. And hitters hit just 137 and slugged 157 on his slider. What I thought was interesting about the balance of it is that he didn't get a ton of whiffs on it.

[00:28:53] It was under 30%. And usually an elite slider, you're looking at a Matt Brash level like 48%. That was not Campbell's case. But he didn't let many guys reach by swinging at a slider. For a guy who didn't have many expectations coming into this year to come into this Mariners bullpen and have a 283 ERA. And, you know, just a third of Fangraph's wins above replacement. You'll take it.

[00:29:18] He's he is the last guy in the bullpen and probably the last guy in the bullpen next season as well for however they add to this this bullpen. But, you know, when you you throw 95 and you have 91st percentile spin on your fastball and there's a little bit of growth in that profile as well. I think you'll take that alongside the slider, which got good results this year and he got more consistent as the season came along.

[00:29:42] He had some outings where he looked really, really, really good down the stretch and a guy like the Mariners could rely upon if they needed to in a higher leverage situation. So your grade form was? Man, I'm going to roll with this B. B. OK, so you gave Campbell a B. I gave him a B plus. I don't think he's going to be the last guy in the bullpen, by the way, because so just to be clear. We're highlighting the main six relievers that the Mariners use this year. There will be a few more guys in the bullpen than that.

[00:30:11] We decided with this, OK, like Trent Thornton, Edward Bizzardo, Dominic Leone, even Devin Sweet, Ty Adcock. What was your Dominic Leone grade? Oh, he probably gets like a D. Really? All right. Maybe. What are you giving him? Maybe higher. No, I thought you were going to give him a lower grade than that. No, I mean, it's probably like he wasn't. He wasn't very good. But I can't put him on the Colton Wong, AJ Pollock level quite.

[00:30:38] But well, the way you were talking sometimes, that was pretty close. I thought Barroa should have been on the roster, but that's just me. Anyway, we're not going to give every single reliever that pitched for the Mariners this year a grade. Like again, like even even though there was guys that ended the year on the team, like the Thorntons or Bizzardo's or the Devin Sweets or the Ty Adcocks that pitched in summer. Yeah, we're not going to give all those guys a grade because these were the main six. So of the main six, would Campbell be the last? Probably, at least right now.

[00:31:08] But I don't think he's going to be the last guy in the bullpen next year unless they really go add some pieces that just blow you away. I think he'll have a decent role. If Barroa is in the bullpen, would you put Barroa over him? Not to start, but maybe by mid-season. Yeah, or I mean, depending on how good he looks, yeah. So that would leave somebody else. Maybe Campbell's not the last guy. Again, I think Campbell was pretty good.

[00:31:36] And if he keeps getting better, he might get used in higher leverage. Paul Seawold, by the way, got an A for me. And he's doing great. Yeah, he'd get an A for me too. Guy was striking out 12 per nine in Seattle and he had a sub three ERA. He was awesome. We love Paul Seawold. Overall though, good season for the Mariners bullpen. And we think about these three contending seasons. 54.5%, by the way.

[00:32:03] Three different bullpens, three different structures, three different philosophies, three different groups of guys, and yet three good results for the Mariners. Three seasons in a row. And based off of this, we're going to expect another good unit next season. Whoever they bring in before the start of next year, just pay attention because you never know who's going to be a high leverage arm in this bullpen. And I remember when the Mariners traded for Justin Topa, we talked about it here on the podcast.

[00:32:33] It was a story. And we said, circle all these names. Remember all these names because you don't know which one of these guys is going to be a high leverage guy. Here we sit in October and we say, oh yeah, Justin Topa, he might have been the Mariners best reliever this year. Think about it. Isaiah Campbell was the highest touted of any of these guys in this bullpen. Matt Brash, an unknown pitching prospect from Niagara. Andres Munoz was a throw-in in the Austin Nola trade.

[00:33:02] Justin Topa traded for a minor league reliever. I think technically had his rookie eligibility last year at age 29. Gabe Spire was claimed off of waivers. Taylor Saucedo also claimed off of waivers. And Isaiah Campbell was a second round pick. I think he was like a comp pick in the second round or something like that. Yeah. Right. So he was the highest profile of all of them. It doesn't matter the profile. You find something you like. You find those elite traits like the Mariners have had.

[00:33:32] You stick them in the bullpen and good things happen. Keep it rolling. If the Mariners can keep putting out bullpens like this every year, they're going to have an advantage a lot of the time. So keep it rolling. Nobody's complaining over here. Yeah. So short show today, huh? Yeah. I'm not complaining. Again, we're on vacation right now. So I'm sure we're having a blast. So I'm sure you guys are having a blast while listening to this as well.

[00:33:59] That's our very short Speak Your Mind is we're on vacation and it's probably a bunch of fun. So there we go. So I'm sure we'll fill in more when we have our next Speak Your Mind when we're actually back from the trip and can recap what actually happened rather than kind of guessing what happened while we're sitting here, but also half knowing because we have a bunch of stuff planned out. So yeah, that's our Speak Your Mind. We're enjoying vacation and hopefully you guys are enjoying your time too, doing whatever you might be doing.

[00:34:29] So at that, we'll just about wrap it up and we'll get back to our trip, I guess. So that wraps it up. That'll just about wrap up this edition of the Marine Liar podcast. You guys know the drill. You want to listen to the full form podcast, you can do so on Apple, Spotify, Google, and Amazon. If you do that, follow us, download our episodes, leave us a five-star review. Reviews, downloads help us out a ton. So take some time to do that. Watch on YouTube. We've got a video side to the podcast. Head over there.

[00:34:58] Make sure to like, comment, subscribe, and turn our notification bells on. That's all over on YouTube and then go follow us on social media, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube shorts, at MarineLayerPod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. Talk to you soon.