In the days leading up to the trade deadline, Jarred Kelenic earned himself a mention in Jay Jaffe’s corner outfield replacement-level killers, a series that analyzes the players who are dragging down contending teams. The idea is to identify positions of need for potential trades to come, but Kelenic’s struggles in the majors weren’t going to force the team to make a deal. Instead, as Jay put it, “this should probably be a sink-or-swim situation unless he’s totally overwhelmed.”

Kelenic has already been in the spotlight because of the Mariners gaming his service time; his performance since his promotion has put him back in it. He got the call on May 13, but simply didn’t hit: In his first 23 games over a total of 92 plate appearances, he slashed .096/.185/.193. He collected just eight hits total and had come up empty in his last 44 plate appearances when the Mariners optioned him back to Triple-A in early June.

After a successful stint at Tacoma — a 137 wRC+ — Kelenic was brought back to Seattle. This time around, the results have been a bit better, but they’re still ugly overall, as he’s gone from a 10 wRC+ in that first stint to a .181/.263/.315 line and 65 wRC+ since his second promotion. Through Tuesday’s action, he’s up to a 45 wRC+ and -1.1 WAR in 64 games:

Even with the improved numbers since his return from Triple-A, Kelenic is still running the 11th-lowest wRC+ among qualified hitters in that time. He’s still not hitting well. But while there may not be one answer for why he is struggling, I believe that there’s a huge plate discipline problem that isn’t entirely captured in the walk and strikeout rates alone. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the biggest reasons the Mariners have stuck around the fringes of the AL wild card race despite a -60 run differential has been the collective performance of their bullpen. Kendall Graveman had established himself as a bonafide relief ace before being traded to the Astros in late-July, and Drew Steckenrider has revived his career after falling apart in Miami two years ago. But equally unexpected, and perhaps the biggest reason Seattle felt comfortable dealing Graveman at all, has been the fantastic season put together by its other breakout relief ace: Paul Sewald.

Drafted as a reliever by the Mets in the 10th round of the 2012 draft, Sewald came with two years of college experience under his belt at the University of San Diego and quickly moved through the farm system. He reached the majors in 2017 and made 125 appearances out of the bullpen through 2020, but outside of a 23.5% strikeout rate that was just a hair above league average, he was mostly forgettable as a Met; across 147.1 innings in New York, he posted a 5.50 ERA. He was non-tendered this past offseason and signed a minor-league contract with the Mariners in January.

Even though Sewald wasn’t able to make the major league roster out of spring training, he has thrived in Seattle. He was called up on May 13, the same day Jarred Kelenic and Logan Gilbert made their debuts, and while his return to the majors was much less heralded than those two top prospects, he’s arguably been more important to the Mariners this season than either. He’s upped his strikeout rate to 40.3% in 2021, the fifth highest rate among all qualified relievers, and all those strikeouts have helped him drop his FIP to just 1.95. In just 45.1 innings, he’s more than doubled his total career WAR.

Michael Ajeto of Lookout Landing was one of the first to write about Sewald’s breakout, but the reasons for his improvement are tough to spot on the surface. He’s simplified his pitch mix a bit, cutting out his rarely thrown changeup and increasing the usage of his slider to make him a two-pitch pitcher:

Both the fastball and slider are returning better-than-ever results, with the latter generating a 38.6% whiff rate and a .270 wOBA against. But as good as his breaking ball has been, the four-seam fastball has been even better. Its whiff rate is up to 35.3%, the 12th-highest mark among all four-seam fastballs thrown at least 100 times this year, and it boasts the 12th-highest CSW% (35.7) in that group.

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Whether it’s because they’re only just getting healthy or someone ahead of them has gotten hurt or their talent is kicking down the doors of roster manipulation made brittle by actual competitive spirit, some potentially important participants in postseason play are currently in the minors as we speak. This is especially likely when it comes to pitching, where health and effectiveness are tenuous, and team behavior surrounding promotion tends to be more opportunistic and aggressive.

For both leagues, I’m providing a scouting-centric update on pitching currently in the minors, either because the players are prospects who could conceivably play a September role or make a postseason roster, or because the player in question is a rehabbing big leaguer. Pitching can be streaky and fragile, so any of these guys could be in the big leagues at the drop of a hat, or they may simply convince their front office, like several rookies did last year, that they’re one of the best 26 guys in the org and need to be put on the playoff roster. The level of impact could range from Hunter Greene or Shane Baz dominating like Francisco Rodriguez in 2002, to Connor Seabold or Thomas Hatch humbly eating innings in a blowout loss in effort to save the rest of the bullpen for the series’ next game like J.A. Happ in 2008.

I’ll touch first on the American League this week, then provide some National League options next week. If any prospects moved on The Board due to info or opinions brought to light from this piece, I’ll note that below.

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On July 26, the Seattle Mariners experienced what was perhaps the apex of their season. Down 6-0 against the Astros until the third inning, they embarked on an improbable rally that would culminate in an 11-8 victory. Let’s take some time to admire Dylan Moore and his swing, which produced the grand slam that punctuated the uphill battle:

Chills! It was a great moment, and not just for Mariners fans but for baseball in general. Who doesn’t love a cathartic underdog upset? (Well, maybe not the Astros in this moment.) But it was also a reminder of how the team had gotten to that point. Despite an ugly run differential, the Mariners had managed to squeeze out key wins throughout the season. This latest against the Astros gave them a 55-46 record. Suddenly, a Wild Card berth didn’t seem out of reach.

Two weeks later, the Mariners are still going. I had planned to write this article as early as July 24, when I tweeted about the team’s offense. In the back of my mind, I sort of assumed they’d fizzle out. But here we are, and the Mariners have a respectable 58-51 record – three games behind Oakland, and just a few more behind Boston. No team has been more clutch. Read the rest of this entry »

What a ride this year’s deadline was. All told, we had 75 prospects move in the last month. They are ranked below, with brief scouting reports written by me and Kevin Goldstein. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of were analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below. I’ve moved all of the players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates. Our farm rankings, which now update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up post-deadline.

A couple of quick notes before I get to the rankings. We’ve included a few post-prospect players here (those marked in blue) so you can get an idea of where we value them now as opposed to where we had them at their prospect peak. Those players, as well as the Compensatory pick the Rockies will receive after they extend Trevor Story a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere, are highlighted below. We had closer to 40 prospects (and 23 Players to be Named Later) traded last year, with the PTBNL number inflated by 2020’s COVID-related transaction rules. The backfields are not well-represented here, with just four prospects who have yet to play in full-season ball. Two of those are currently in the DSL and have no official domestic pro experience, though Alberto Ciprian has played stateside for instructs/extended spring training. Now on to the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners understandably upset their fan base on Wednesday when, while just one game out of the Wild Card race, they traded away Kendall Graveman, and to the Astros no less. While it’s still a debatable move, Seattle general manager Jerry Dipoto has shown a bit more of his hand since; after trading for Tyler Anderson to stabilize the rotation on Wednesday night, he found a better reliever than Graveman in the form of Rays closer Diego Castillo, who was acquired for righty J.T. Chargois and minor league corner infielder Austin Shenton. For Seattle, mystery solved, at least kind of; for the Rays, on the other hand, it’s a curious decision.

In getting Castillo, the Mariners have upgraded their late-inning options for the stretch run. Armed with one of the more deadly two-pitch combinations in the game, he is throwing more strikes than ever and missing more bats than ever, and given that he’s just 27, there’s still upside beyond what we’ve seen. There’s nothing complicated about what Castillo does or the way he does it; he’s a classic let-it-eat bullpen ace who sits 96–98 mph with the heater and has a slider in the upper-80s. In an era obsessed with revolutions per minute, he is the rare anti-spin guy, with below-average RPMs on both offerings, but he has found a way to add some two-plane break to his breaking ball this year. He’s also using his slider more than ever in 2021, with nearly 70% usage. Compare that to just two years ago, when he went after hitters with a nearly 50/50 mix.

While Castillo has greatly reduced his walks, he still certainly has far more control than command. It’s the same approach against every hitter: he elevates his fastball and throws his slider to the one location he can consistently get to, working the lower outer edge to right-handed hitters and back-footing lefties. It’s the kind of thing you can succeed at with quality pitches, and there’s no reason to think that success won’t continue. The Mariners added an elite high-leverage reliever who should be able to rack up saves in the Emerald City for three more years (Castillo is arbitration eligible for the first time this offseason), and they made their big league roster better, both right now and in the future.

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Tuesday night, the Mariners continued what had already been a busy day, following up the Kendall Graveman trade by acquiring pitcher Tyler Anderson from the Pittsburgh Pirates for catcher Carter Bins and pitcher Joaquin Tejada. Anderson’s had a solid, but unspectacular, season as Pittsburgh’s ace-by-process-of-elimination, putting up a 4.35 ERA and 4.26 FIP in 103 1/3 innings over 18 starts, good for 1.3 WAR.

Anderson’s unlikely to be the best pitcher acquired this week, but he ought to be a solid back-of-rotation pickup by the Mariners, who woke up Wednesday morning just a game behind Oakland for the second Wild Card spot. Anderson was originally set to become the number-three starter for the Phillies instead, but once that trade fell apart, the Mariners swooped in to close a deal themselves.

Given Seattle’s present proximity to the playoffs, it makes sense to shore up one of the team’s weaker areas, especially when it doesn’t involve giving up significant pieces of the future. Two of the rotation’s expected key contributors, Marco Gonzales and Justus Sheffield, have struggled in 2021, and with Sheffield and Justin Dunn currently out with injuries, there’s less in the larder than the M’s would like. There are better pitchers available; bringing in Max Scherzer would be way more fun than incrementally shoring up the starters. But while the M’s aren’t trying to tank, I think the Graveman-Abraham Toro trade — one the team’s players are quite unhappy with — is a strong indication that the team isn’t willing to throw all their chips into the pot to chase this playoff spot. Read the rest of this entry »

Most deadline trades follow a familiar coda. A team with fading hopes and eyes full of prospects gets rid of an overperforming reliever, or perhaps a soon-to-depart slugger. A contender who needs more pitching (so, all of them) gives up on its prospect-hugging ways long enough for a few to slip through its grasp. Wham-o! It’s a trade. This one is … well, it’s not that:

Source confirms: Astros acquire RHPs Kendall Graveman and Rafael Montero from Mariners for IF Abraham Toro and RHP Joe Smith. Montero had been designated for assignment. First: @brianmctaggart

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 27, 2021

Kendall Graveman is definitely the aforementioned overperforming reliever. He’s been incredible this year, one of the best closers in the game. No longer a middling starter, he converted to relief in 2020, added velocity and started dominating. His 0.82 ERA is better than he’s actually been — shocker, that — but he’s cooked up an enviable mix of strikeouts and grounders, and he’s done it when it counts; he’s recorded 18 shutdowns this year (adding at least 6% of win probability) and only three meltdowns (losing 6%).

Rafael Montero? He hasn’t been that. He has 12 of those fancy shutdowns, but 12 meltdowns to match. The Mariners are 23–8 in one-run games, but it’s been because of Graveman, not Montero. In fact, they’ve swapped roles; Graveman now finishes games, and Montero sets him up. He, too, is a capable pitcher. But he’s been dicey this year, even at the underlying metric level, and that 7.27 ERA — ew!

Anyway, neither of them are Mariners anymore. The Astros snapped them both up, and they’ll fold them into their middle-of-the-road relief corps; they’ve been only 16th in baseball in park-adjusted ERA and 20th in park-adjusted FIP. Ryan Pressly has been great, but he’s a man, not an entire bullpen. Houston could certainly use the help.
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These are notes on prospects from Brendan Gawlowski. Read previous installments of the DPN here.

Across the country and around the world, it’s the Daily Prospect Notes.

Graham Ashcraft, RHP, Cincinnati Reds
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Chattanooga Age: 23 Org Rank: 22 FV: 40

A threat to walk everyone in the ballpark in college, Ashcraft seemed like a surefire reliever after the Reds drafted him in the sixth round of the 2019 draft. But a weird thing happened between then and now: He found a way to throw strikes, started going deeper in games, and did both while still missing bats. Read the rest of this entry »

For the full introduction to the Replacement-Level Killers series, follow the link above. While still focusing upon teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the July 30 deadline, and in this two-position batch in particular, I don’t get the sense that any of these teams have these positions atop their shopping lists. With catchers in particular, framing and the less-quantifiable aspects of knowing a pitching staff make it easier for teams to talk themselves out of changing things up unless an injury situation has compromised their depth.

Note that all individual stats in this article are through July 18, but the won-loss records and Playoff Odds include games of July 19. Read the rest of this entry »