The 40-man roster deadline led to the usual squall of transaction activity, with teams turning over portions of their rosters in an effort to make room for the incoming crop of young rookies. Often, teams with an overflow of viable big leaguers will try to get back what they can for some of those players via trade, but because we’re talking about guys straddling the line between major league viability and Triple-A, those trades tend not to be big enough to warrant an entire post.

Here we’ve endeavored to cover and analyze the moves made by each team, division by division. Readers can view this as the start of list season, as the players covered in this miniseries tend to be prospects who will get big league time in the next year. We’ll spend more time discussing players who we think need scouting updates or who we haven’t written about in the past. If you want additional detail on some of the more famous names you find below, pop over to The Board for a more thorough report.

The Future Value grades littered throughout these posts may be different than those on the 2022 in-season prospect lists on The Board to reflect our updated opinions and may be subject to change during the offseason. New to our thinking on this subject and wondering what the FVs mean? Here’s a quick rundown. Note that because we’re talking about close-to-the-majors prospects across this entire exercise, the time and risk component is less present here and these FVs are what we think the players are right now. Read the rest of this entry »

Mini trade alert! Yesterday, the Seattle Mariners sent outfielder Kyle Lewis to the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for outfielder/catcher Cooper Hummel. That’s the entire exchange – no other players, no cash, just a one-for-one swap. It’s not terribly exciting, but its simplicity makes it easier to break down. Shall we?

Two years ago isn’t a lot, but considering all the ruckus that has occurred between then and now – and I’ll spare you the loathsome, often non-baseball-related details – it might as well be forever. That’s also when Lewis won American League Rookie of the Year. After a lengthy detour caused by persistent knee injuries, Lewis seemed on a sure path to becoming an integral part of an up-and-coming Mariners core. But the hardship continued into his sophomore season due to another tear to the same knee that had been bothering him for years; he played just 36 games in 2021. And if that wasn’t enough, the already battered Lewis, who began his 2022 on the injured list, was hit by a pitch a mere week after being called up in May. He recovered, but struggled immensely at the plate. Eventually, the Mariners sent him back down to Triple-A Tacoma, where he wrapped up a grueling season.

Laid in front of us are four fragmented seasons, including a cup of coffee in 2019, from which to evaluate Lewis. The truth is, it’s a tricky task. When samples are small and distant from one another, distinguishing the effects of injury from random variance and a possible decline in skill is about as productive as imagining “what could have been.” But from a projection system’s perspective, a short resume actually paints Lewis in a positive light. Steamer, for example, forecasts a .240/.323/.426 slashline and a 110 wRC+ for 2023, likely because of his recent minor league output and the fact that most of his major league experience comes from an award-winning rookie season. The ceiling of an everyday center fielder still exists, and a 116 wRC+ in Triple-A last season that wasn’t BABIP-driven is reason for optimism. Read the rest of this entry »

The Blue Jays and Mariners have swung the biggest trade of the young offseason so far, as Seattle has acquired Teoscar Hernández from Toronto in exchange for reliever Erik Swanson and pitching prospect, Adam Macko.

For the Mariners, the calculus for this trade is simple: immediate improvement on the offensive side of things by adding one of the 30 best hitters in baseball. The table below shows hitters with at least 1,000 plate appearances since the start of the 2020 season, ranked by wRC+:

That 132 wRC+ comes with a 26.7% strikeout rate and 6.3% walk rate. That shaky plate discipline and a BABIP that ran well above average (.345) made it unclear whether Hernández could sustain this success. But changes to his stance and leg lift unlocked a part of his swing that allowed him to make hard contact in the air more consistently. Once a hitter figures out how to do that and has a 96th percentile average exit velocity like he does, the odds are in their favor.

This trade signals a few things from the Mariners. The first is that long-time outfielder Mitch Haniger is unlikely to return. That’s not shocking, given that he wasn’t extended a qualifying offer and that he seems to have already hit his offensive peak. The second is that they are going all in to try to catch the defending World Series champion Astros. Hernández is not a long-term addition; he’s under contract for just the 2023 season. This is, essentially, a one-year rental to goose the offense.

Shipping Swanson away isn’t ideal for Seattle, given his fantastic performance this season: a 1.85 FIP in 53.2 innings. But the team’s usage of him in the postseason — he only threw one inning in five games of play — suggests that he’s seen as expendable, making him an easy choice to include in a trade for a top-30 hitter. After all, even if the Mariners love Swanson’s pedigree and stuff, it’s always worth trading middle relievers for productive hitters, even if they have only one more year of team control.

That said, I’m a firm believer in Swanson. His whiff rates on his four-seamer and splitter are both well above average, and he seems to have perfected how to use them to go with his above-average extension and straight over the top delivery. The Jays’ most glaring weakness was their bullpen, so if their goal was to improve it, then they have succeeded.

The bigger question mark in the deal is Macko. He topped out this year with 38.1 innings in High A, striking out just under 36% of the hitters he faced, but he also walked 12% of them. He was solid with a 3.77 FIP and 3.21 xFIP as well. That’s all well and good, but with minor league pitchers, it’s always important to get to the good stuff — literally. So I asked Eric Longenhagen, who is constantly sourced for information, for the goods on Macko, and lucky for us, Eric got a few looks at him in the Arizona Fall League. Check out the video below to get a better look of Macko’s stuff and mechanics.

Per Eric, Macko had some Jekyll and Hyde characteristics in Arizona, with his secondaries and command coming and going depending on the outing. That makes sense, given his walk rates. When he was on, his stuff was interesting. He has two breaking balls: a curve of the loopy ilk that comes in at the low-70s, and a slider that’s more of a mid-80s gyro spin-dominant kind. Macko tended to pitch backwards in the AFL with those two pitches, adding a running four-seamer at 93–94 mph and topping at 96 to finish hitters off in the top of the zone.

To me, the most interesting tidbit was that Macko has rather short arms and as a result can get down the mound to a low release point. That’s ideal for getting whiffs and popups on fastballs at the top of the zone. By the looks of it, the spin is pretty true as well. It might not be perfect, but Macko’s fingers stay over the ball very well, which goes right in line with the pitch playing up the zone. The curveball might not have great specs on its own, but when paired with this deceptive fastball, hitters struggle to hit it. It’s the classic pairing of high four-seamers and big depth curveballs below the zone.

When Macko has command of the slider, it flashes plus. During the regular season, he used that pitch nearly a quarter of the time, and the fastball just about half the time. The curve had about a 15% usage; he also featured a changeup sparingly. Per Eric, that pitch also flashed plus when he used it. I know this all sounds exciting, but it’s always important to remind yourself that the saying of “if the command is there” needs to be at the forefront of your mind. This big “if” is enough to put Macko in the 45+ FV tier, rather than at 50 or above. But given that the Jays’ system isn’t too deep anymore, that will put him easily in their top 10 when Eric updates it.

To recap, the Mariners get a fantastic hitter to slot right into the middle of their lineup, and the Jays get a quality reliever and intriguing pitching prospect. This trade is likely only a prelude to more moves from the Jays, though; there are rumblings all around suggesting that George Springer’s time in center field will soon come to a close, and it seems like there is another play to be made there. After all, you can’t move a 130 wRC+ hitter for only a middle reliever and expect your team to improve. This is all speculation, but there is almost certainly more to come.

The Mariners don’t necessarily have a specific model when it comes to drafting and developing pitchers. But they do favor certain traits, and a pair of talented young right-handers serve as prime examples. One of them is George Kirby, whose 3.0 WAR this season was tops among American League rookie hurlers. The other is a 2020 fifth-round pick who emerged as arguably the most promising arm in the system.

“Taylor Dollard was identified by our pitching strategists as an interesting mover,” Mariners President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto said of the 23-year-old right-hander. “We do movement assessments on draft-eligible pitchers, and from there we identify picks in the middle rounds that we think we can really do something with. Dollard was very high on our list that year.”

Plus command was, and remains, the Cal-Poly product’s primary selling point. Dollard waked just 2.2 batters per nine innings as a collegian, and this year he issued 31 free passes in 144 innings with Double-A Arkansas. His other numbers were equally impressive: 106 hits, 131 strikeouts, and a 16–2 record with a 2.25 ERA. Buoyed by that performance, he climbed to No. 3 in our Mariners top prospect rankings.

Tom Allison, who at the time was Seattle’s VP of Scouting, played a key role in bringing Dollard on board. According to Dipoto, the longtime scout and executive “had an itch” for the right-hander and was “probably the first one that rang the Taylor Dollard bell.” Read the rest of this entry »

Analyst, Baseball Projects

Department: Baseball Projects
Reports To: Director, Baseball Projects
Status: Exempt

Primary Objective:
Responsible for delivering projects across player acquisition, player optimization, in-game strategy, and other areas of the broader baseball operations group, with an emphasis on creating innovative tools & streamlining communications.

Essential Functions:

• Deliver dashboards, reports, and educational materials to facilitate evidence-based decision-making throughout broader baseball operations.
• Identify novel strategies & technologies to streamline Mariners computational and communications processes.
• Engineer and support data pipelines for post-game feedback and pre-game preparations.
• Curate and deliver data-driven in-season player plans across all levels of the organization.
• Formulate a holistic offseason experience for all Mariners players, including evidence-based season reviews, offseason objectives, and individualized training programs.
• Stimulate growth of Mariners amateur scouting infrastructure, including draft room processes, amateur statistical databases, and player pool management.
• Spearhead player acquisition exercises to evaluate potential trade concepts, major/minor league free agent signings, and Rule 5 Draft selections.
• Contribute to player acquisition decisions in both formal & informal contexts.
• Field ad hoc requests from coaches, scouts, and other staff about internal metrics & processes.
• Will complete other duties as assigned.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in statistics, computer science, mathematics or any other STEM field related to data science preferred. Equivalent, relevant work experience in lieu of formal education may be approved by management.

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA’s):

• Proficiency handling large datasets in R, SQL, Python, and/or comparable languages
• Shiny application or other web development experience
• Demonstrated capacity to define stakeholder needs and organize project visions
• Working knowledge of baseball analytics, strategy, and trends
• Experience building predictive models is preferred.
• Basic Spanish fluency preferred.
• Competent in required job skills and knowledge. Completes work assignments thoroughly and completely in an accurate, and prompt. Identifies and corrects errors.  Is careful, alert and accurate, paying attention to details of the job.
• Demonstrates through their actions and interactions with others a commitment to Mariner Purpose, Mission and Values.
• Effective negotiation skills that include analyzing a problem to determine the interests of each party in the negotiation and effectively communicating that between the parties involved.
• Handles sensitive and/or confidential information professionally, involving only those who need to be involved or informed.
• Identify, collect, and analyze relevant information to a problem and create multiple solutions
• Initiate and maintain actions to attain goals, regularly monitoring progress.
• Know when to make a unilateral decision and when to consult with the team or superiors, and how to involve them in the process.
• Navigate a variety of social, emotional, and interpersonal situations to leverage the capabilities, insights, and ideas of all individuals.
• Shares and expresses thoughts in a clear and effective manner through verbal and written communication skills. Exhibits effective listening skills and builds positive relationships with all team members, vendors, and guests.  Is diplomatic, tactful and professional in all forms of communication.

Physical Activities and Working Conditions:

• Seattle-based and works out of T-Mobile Park. Remote opportunities may be available on a case-by-case basis.
• Night, weekend, and holiday work may be required.
• Travel to Spring Training, relevant conferences, and/or Mariners affiliated games may be required.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Intern, Baseball Analytics

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports To: Director of Analytics
Status: Part-time, Nonexempt

Primary Objective:
Responsible for supporting all areas of baseball operations through baseball related data science, including statistical modeling, research, visualizations, and other projects.

Essential Functions:

• Statistical modeling and analysis of a variety of data sources including Trackman, Hawkeye, and proprietary data sets.
• Ad hoc queries and quantitative research.
• Will perform other relevant duties as assigned

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree preferred. Education and experience may be considered in lieu of education requirements if approved by management.
• Proficiency in programming with either R or Python required.
• Proficiency with SQL required.
• A strong foundation in mathematics, statistics, computer science, and/or engineering required.
• Track record of original baseball research preferred.
• Experience building and interpreting predictive models preferred.

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA’s):

• Strong technical skills in predictive modeling, data analysis, and research.
• Shares and expresses thoughts in a clear and effective manner through verbal and written communication skills. Exhibits effective listening skills and builds positive relationships with all team members, vendors, and guests. Is diplomatic, tactful and professional in all forms of communication.
• Understands and supports the team and is quick to volunteer to assist others. Others view most interactions as being positive with a willingness to achieve common goals. Effective in working with others to cooperatively solve problems. Workplace behavior is consistently respectful of others.
• Takes personal responsibility for getting things done in a way that positively and professionally represents the organization.
• Demonstrates through their actions and interactions with others a commitment to Mariner Purpose, Mission and Values.
• Competent in required job skills and knowledge. Completes work assignments thoroughly, accurately, and promptly. Identifies and corrects errors. Is careful, alert and accurate, paying attention to details of the job.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Intern, Baseball Operations

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports To: Director, Baseball Operations
Status: Non-exempt

Dates: Preference will be given to candidates who can start by March 1, 2023, and work through mid-October 2023.

Primary Objective:
Responsible for coordination, support, and assistance to the Baseball Operations department in research, administration, and day-to-day scouting operation tasks.

Essential Functions:

• Support all areas of the Pro/Amateur Scouting departments, including player evaluation, research, video clipping, and preparation for Amateur Draft meetings.
• Provide support in advance scouting, including preparation of the advance report, as assigned.
• Provide additional statistical analysis, economic and financial research as assigned.
• Will perform other duties as assigned.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree preferred. Equivalent, relevant work or playing experience may be considered in lieu of formal education if approved by management.
• Basic Spanish proficiency preferred.
• Background in player evaluation preferred.
• Background in video preparation preferred.

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA’s):

• Working knowledge of statistical baseball data and its application as it pertains to scouting information, baseball strategy, and current in game management trends.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel & PowerPoint.
• Shares and expresses thoughts in a clear and effective manner through verbal and written communication skills. Exhibits effective listening skills and builds positive relationships with all team members, vendors, and guests. Is diplomatic, tactful and professional in all forms of communication.
• Understands and supports the team and is quick to volunteer to assist others. Others view most interactions as being positive with a willingness to achieve common goals. Effective in working with others to cooperatively solve problems. Workplace behavior is consistently respectful of others.
• Takes personal responsibility for getting things done in a way that positively and professionally represents the organization.
• Demonstrates through their actions and interactions with others a commitment to Mariner Purpose, Mission and Values.
• Competent in required job skills and knowledge. Completes work assignments thoroughly and completely in an accurate, and prompt, manner. Identifies and corrects errors. Is careful, alert and accurate, paying attention to details of the job.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Intern, Baseball Projects

Department: Baseball Projects
Reports To: Director, Baseball Projects
Status: Non-exempt

Primary Objective:
Responsible for contributing to projects at the intersection of baseball analytics and broader baseball operations, with an emphasis on creating innovative tools & streamlining communications.

Essential Functions:

• Develop dashboards, reports, and educational materials to facilitate evidence-based decision-making throughout broader baseball operations.
• Provide quantitative support to player plan, high performance, advance scouting, and other player improvement processes.
• Contribute to amateur & professional player acquisition decisions in both formal & informal contexts.
• Field ad hoc requests from coaches, scouts, and other staff about internal metrics & processes.
• Will perform other duties as assigned.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in statistics, computer science, mathematics or any other STEM field related to data science preferred. Equivalent, relevant work will be considered in lieu of formal education may be approved by management.

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA’s):

• Proficiency handling large datasets in R, SQL, Python, and/or comparable languages
• Shiny application or other web development experience
• Demonstrated capacity to define stakeholder needs and organize project visions
• Working knowledge of baseball analytics, strategy, and trends
• Experience building predictive models preferred.
• Basic Spanish fluency preferred.
• Competent in required job skills and knowledge. Completes work assignments thoroughly and completely in an accurate, and prompt. Identifies and corrects errors.  Is careful, alert and accurate, paying attention to details of the job.
• Demonstrates through their actions and interactions with others a commitment to Mariner Purpose, Mission and Values.
• Effective negotiation skills that include analyzing a problem to determine the interests of each party in the negotiation and effectively communicating that between the parties involved.
• Handles sensitive and/or confidential information professionally, involving only those who need to be involved or informed.
• Identify, collect, and analyze relevant information to a problem and create multiple solutions
• Initiate and maintain actions to attain goals, regularly monitoring progress.
• Know when to make a unilateral decision and when to consult with the team or superiors, and how to involve them in the process.
• Navigate a variety of social, emotional, and interpersonal situations to leverage the capabilities, insights, and ideas of all individuals.
• Shares and expresses thoughts in a clear and effective manner through verbal and written communication skills. Exhibits effective listening skills and builds positive relationships with all team members, vendors, and guests.  Is diplomatic, tactful and professional in all forms of communication.

Physical Activities and Working Conditions:

• Seattle-based and works out of T-Mobile Park. Remote opportunities may be available on a case-by-case basis.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Seattle Mariners.

Craig Lefferts has a place in San Diego Padres history, and a good story that goes along with it. The 65-year-old veteran of 12 big-league seasons shared it with me prior to a recent Arizona Fall League game.

“My rookie year was 1983, with the Chicago Cubs,” said Lefferts, who is now a pitching coordinator in the Oakland Athletics organization. “We had two left-handers in the bullpen, myself and Willie Hernandez, and the two of us would play catch every day, trying to work on a changeup. We had a right-hander in our pen by the name of Bill Campbell who threw a screwball. He taught, or at least attempted to teach, us how to throw a screwball. Mine was terrible and Willie’s wasn’t very good either. [Pitching coach] Billy Connors told me, ‘I don’t want you to ever use that in a game. I want you to pitch with the stuff that got you here. You’re a rookie, so don’t go out there and try and throw a new pitch.’ So I didn’t, but I kept working on it. After the season, I went to winter ball and perfected it.

“The next year, Willie got traded to the Tigers and I got traded to the Padres,” continued Lefferts. “Both of us threw a screwball as our best pitch. He won the Cy Young Award and I had arguably the best year of my career. I had 10 saves, but was mostly setting up Rich Gossage. Then Willie and I met in the World Series.” Read the rest of this entry »

With the ALDS finally finished, I’m continuing my annual series grading each manager’s playoff decision-making. As always, I’m focusing on the lineup and pitching decisions that each manager made in the course of their series. I’m honing in on process rather than results, and taking into account the limitations of each roster.

That might mean not docking Dusty Baker, in a future edition of these report cards, for failing to bring in a lefty specialist; he doesn’t have any. It might mean taking it easy on teams with limited platoon or pinch hitting options. It doesn’t mean that you get a pass for not doing anything, though; just because a manager’s resources are limited doesn’t mean they should automatically sit on their hands. Of course, sometimes doing nothing is good, too. Leaving your excellent starter in or skipping pinch hitting when it only confers a marginal advantage can both be smart moves.

What qualifies me to issue these grades? Well, nothing really. They’re just the opinions of someone who spends a lot of time thinking about baseball. I’m sure teams are doing their own evaluations, and they probably have a better handle on the exact individual matchups, but the point is this: these decisions matter, and while the team- and consensus-building aspects of a manager’s job are far more important over a 162-game season, little edges can be decisive in a short series. A run could send you home or catapult you to glory, as these two managers will demonstrate. A note: both ALDS losers played in the three-game Wild Card round, and I’ll cover all of their decisions, starting with the most recent series. Read the rest of this entry »

The Division Series between the Astros and Mariners only went three games, but it wasn’t short on drama. Overlooked amid the extra innings madness and the late game heroics was the performance of Jose Altuve. That might be for the best, as the Astros second baseman struggled mightily:

Going 0-for-16 with six strikeouts is, to use a technical term, real bad. What was going on? Let’s start with Altuve’s plate discipline:

Read the rest of this entry »

SEATTLE – My train begins to fill with Mariners fans. Most are wearing jerseys, but others are outfitted in more home-made looking fare. A young woman sports a dress covered in the team’s logo; its skirt is puffed slightly by teal tulle, with navy bows on her shoulders holding the whole thing upright. Further down the car is a man in a 1995 Division Series shirt. His snowy goatee suggests that unlike the sweatshirt I own of similar vintage, his wasn’t a thrift store find; I wonder if the one he’s wearing smells musty like mine first did. Much of the chatter is about the day finally being here, and how long they’ve all waited, how many disappointments they’ve registered in the years since 2001. I’m surprised by how little I hear about Seattle’s chances today, as if no one dares to entertain the possibility of a tomorrow with baseball, or one potentially without it.

A few stops later, a member of the University of Washington marching band steps off the train; upon seeing his regalia, a couple near me wonders if the football game, which kicks off around 2:30 PM, will cause trouble for their ride back home from SODO. “These cars can get so crowded, you know.”

As I approach the media entrance, lines snake around the ballpark, and the coffee cups and puffy eyes make clear that some of these folks have been here a while. The gates don’t open for another hour and a half, but after almost 21 years, what’s a little more waiting? Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, a postseason game that went into extra innings. Everyone was waiting for it to happen. After all, that sort of thing hadn’t occurred since… a week ago. In retrospect, that “marathon” Guardians-Rays game was pretty zippy. Just 15 innings? Only 394 pitches? On Saturday night, the Astros and Mariners cordially invited the Guardians and Rays to hold their beer. Then another. Then perhaps six more.

How about an 18-inning game, tied for the longest in postseason history? How about 498 pitches? How about a record 44 strikeouts? The teams combined for 18 hits across those 18 frames. Christian Vázquez came in as a pinch hitter in the seventh and batted five times. Luis Garcia came on in relief and very nearly notched a quality start. The Mariners didn’t allow their first walk until the 16th (though they did hit four batters). Read the rest of this entry »