With the sixth-overall pick of this year’s amateur draft, the Seattle Mariners selected 18-year-old Alex Jackson out of Rancho Bernardo [CA] High School. Their second selection, which came 74th-overall, was 18-year-old Gareth Morgan out of North Toronto Collegiate [high school] in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Tom McNamara, as one would expect, is bullish on both. The Mariners’ director of amateur scouting went the collegiate route with the club’s top pick in four of his first five drafts – Taijuan Walker, in 2010, was the exception – but he couldn’t pass up Jackson’s potential. Ditto Morgan’s, despite McNamara’s admission that the Canadian outfielder is a relatively unpolished project.

Jackson was also drafted as an outfielder, but it wasn’t his primary position in high school. The 6-foot-2, 215-lb. slugger was a catcher, but Seattle appears to be set behind the plate for a good long while with 2012 first-round pick Mike Zunino. And while McNamara didn’t say it so many words, he seemingly suggested Jackson could be in the big leagues sooner than some might think.

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McNamara on scouting Alex Jackson: “We saw him for three years. It’s not like we just stumbled across him this spring. He played for the Area Code team in California — Long Beach. We saw him at the Under Armour All-Star, at Wrigley. We saw him at the Perfect Game All-Star at Petco Park. We were tracking him for a few years.

“The scout responsible for signing him was Gary Patchett. Our West Coast supervisor is Jeremy Booth. Our national crosscheckers are Butch Baccala and Mark Lummus. Other guys on our staff saw him as he traveled across the country. I saw him.

“These guys all play on a summer team, and also break off and play in showcases with the best players. We’re seeing high school hitters face the best high school pitchers for the following year, and with wood bats. Those are things you’re not going to see in the spring most of the time. We saw at Alex as an advanced high school player. I’ve had other teams tell me they had Alex No. 1 on their list.” Read the rest of this entry »

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

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Reymin Guduan, LHP, Houston Astros (Profile)
Level: Rookie-Advanced   Age: 22  Top-15: N/A   Top-100: N/A
Line: 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 6/4 K/BB, 1.29 ERA, 3.97 FIP

Summary
Can you feel the heat?

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Summary
This independent league find has always been old for his levels, but he has legitimate stuff and deception.

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Rick Waits brings a wealth of knowledge to his new job. He also brings vital hands-on experience. Prior to being named Seattle’s pitching coach in late November, he spent three seasons as the Mariners’ minor league pitching coordinator.

Helping young pitchers like Taijuan Walker and James Paxton continue their development at the big league level will be a big part of his job. It won’t be his only job. The Mariners are heading into the 2014 season looking to contend, which means Waits will also be focused on winning.

Waits — who pitched in the big leagues from 1973-1985 — shared some of his pitching philosophies, and talked about some of the Mariners‘ young talent, earlier this month. Read the rest of this entry »

Hitting is in Lloyd McClendon’s blood. The Seattle Mariners hope some of it flows into an offense that scored the third fewest runs in the American League last season. Infusing Robinson Cano into the lineup will help make that possible, as will the expertise of the club’s new manager.

The highly-regarded Howard Johnson is Seattle’s new hitting coach, but McClendon’s influence will be inevitable. He spent the past seven seasons as the hitting coach in Detroit, and previously served in that capacity for the Pirates. This is the second time McClendon has moved from the batting cage to the manager’s office. He did so with Pittsburgh, so he knows how to separate the two positions.

McClendon shared some of his philosophies during this week’s winter meetings in Orlando. Read the rest of this entry »

In June the Seattle Mariners took the University of New Mexico’s D.J. Peterson with the twelth overall pick in the Rule 4 Amateur Draft. Peterson represented one of the safest, most easily projectable bats in the draft class. He had mashed the ball all Spring for the Lobos and led the team to a Super Regional berth. His 18 home runs were good for third most in Division 1 – although he did play his home games in a very homer-friendly park. His short, explosive swing and quick hands excited scouts and appealed to scouting directors looking for a bat that could help relatively quickly. With a strong pro debut Peterson finished 2013 looking like a player every team would be glad to have in their farm system. There remains some questions as to whether Peterson can stay at third base in the long term though, and where he plays could swing his value pretty drastically.

As someone who covers amateurs and the draft fairly extensively I often see fans that prefer their team avoid a player like Peterson if there is some question of him moving to first base. After all, the defensive spectrum and conventional baseball wisdom tells us that good teams are built up the middle, with players on the right side of the defensive spectrum. Talking to amateur scouts I encounter a different attitude. They find it more than difficult enough to “hit” on a player and are quite often happy to find a safer choice like Peterson than they can project as a major league bat. After all, the general success rate of any first rounder making the majors isn’t great, so for many it’s very enticing to find a player you’re reasonably confident will hit in the big leagues. Both viewpoints have merit, of course. Personally, I have to be really convinced a player has a special bat for me to endorse him as a top of the first round pick. The offensive threshold expected at first base is just so lofty that it troubles me some to spend early picks on players with uncertain profiles. A prospect can develop into an above average major league hitter and still be only the 16th best first baseman in the majors (as in the case of  Nick Swisher this season with a .336 wOBA). When calculating WAR the positional adjustment for third base is +2.5, which is the same as that for second base and center field. The adjustment for first base is -12.5. Given the broad range of available quality hitters in free agency at first base and the extreme developmental demands on a first base prospect’s bat the question that then comes to mind is whether it makes sense for teams to draft a first baseman in the 1st round.

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The Seattle Mariners may have gotten the steal of the 2013 draft when they selected Austin Wilson in the second round. The 21-year-old outfielder is a five-tool player with a world of potential. And he has a Stanford pedigree.

He is also a bit of an enigma. Wilson has never quite lived up his billing: Expectations have been sky high since he was dubbed a potential first-round pick coming out of high school. He hit .295 in three collegiate seasons, but the 6-foot-5, 245-pound right-handed hitter remains more of a work-in-progress than a burgeoning superstar.

Wilson needs to rebound from an up-and-down campaign that has some doubting his future. He missed more than a month of his junior year due to an elbow injury; and in 56 games with Seattle’s short-season affiliate, the Everett AquaSox, he hit a lackluster .242/.319/.414.

Wilson talked about his hitting approach — and his introduction to pro ball — late in the minor league season. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners could use some roster upgrades, but no less important is the need for several of their current players to improve. In some cases — youngsters Dustin Ackley, Jesus Montero and Justin Smoak are prime examples — a physical adjustment could be what it takes. Seattle skipper Eric Wedge addressed the subject during this month’s winter meetings in Nashville, Tenn.

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David Laurila: In your press conference, you said Justin Smoak made some mechanical changes this year. What were they?

Eric Wedge: He lowered his hands a little bit and did a better job of finishing his swing. He put himself in a better position to see the baseball, which is half the battle. He did a lot of work — a lot of tweaking — and it paid off for him.

DL: What goes into the decision to make mechanical adjustments?

EW: You have to work off what you see and make educated decisions. It’s a combination of film and what you see [in live action]. You have to communicate with the player and the coaches, and when everybody feels the time is right to do something, you do it. What you don’t want is to do it too early.

DL: Is there a relationship between mechanics and approach?

EW: The approach is more of the intangible. It’s a mindset; it’s your game plan as you head up to home plate. The tangible side of it is the physical and fundamental side — the hands, the swing, the lower-half — and it all works together.

When you talk about a young player starting to figure it out, there are a lot of things he has to master. That’s what [Smoak] has been battling with, and I think he’s just about to get over that hump.

DL: Are there times you want both the mechanics and approach to change?

EW: Yes, and he’s one of them, but sometimes it’s just one or the other. Sometimes a guy has a nice swing, but mentally he’s not doing what he needs to do in regard to his approach, his game plan or his discipline in sticking with that game plan. There’s a lot going on and that’s why it’s so tough to hit. Ultimately, you need everything working together.

DL: Has Dustin Ackley made any mechanical changes? Read the rest of this entry »

Taijuan Walker is more than the top pitching prospect in the Seattle Mariners organization. The 20-year-old right-hander is among the best in the game. With only 126 innings under his belt he remains a work in progress, but his ceiling is sky high.

A two-sport star at Yucaipa (California) High School — he also excelled in basketball — the 6-foot-4 Walker was taken 43rd overall in the 2010 draft. Blessed with athleticism and aptitude, as well as a mid-to-high-90s fastball, he profiles as a front-line starter.

Walker talked about his repertoire, which includes a newly-added pitch, during the Southern League playoffs.

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Walker on his changeup: “My changeup has gotten a lot better since spring training and the end of last year. I’m comfortable throwing it in any count now. I’ve made really big strides with it.

“It’s just a regular straight change, a four-seam circle. I’ve tried many grips and this is pretty much the comfortable one and the one I like. Plus, I throw a lot of four-seam fastballs, so a four-seam changeup is going to benefit me more.

“You have to throw it like your fastball. You have to keep the same arm speed and let the grip do all the work. Sometimes I’ll throw it a little too hard, but I’m mostly been pleased with it. It ranges anywhere between 84 and 90, and I get a little downward movement and some arm-side run. Not a lot, but just enough.”

On his curveball and feel: “This year I didn’t really trust my curveball, so I kind of got away from it. I just wasn’t confident in it. In my last couple of starts, it’s been much better though. I’ve been trusting it more and throwing it more. Instead of trying to make it break, I’m letting the grip do its work. It’s going to be one of my key pitches. Every day I’m working on it, trying to perfect it.

“I was a big basketball player in high school and my pitching coach last year, Rich Dorman, would always use a lot of basketball analogies with me. He used them to help me understand pitching. When you throw a baseball, you feel it off your fingertips, just the same as when you’re shooting a basketball. You feel where the ball is going to go, whether you’re going to miss right or miss left. Same with pitching, inside or out.”

On his fastball: “Velocity is one of the biggest keys to my fastball. I can get away with missing my spot sometimes, just because I have the velocity that I do. I think I’ve topped out at 99 this year. But I can’t always get away with it, so I’m working on making my location better.

“You don’t ever want to be too fine. That’s when you get yourself in trouble. If you’re a hard thrower and can get your fastball in the area of the location where your catcher sets up, you should be fine most of the time.”

On missing bats and maturing as a pitcher: “There are times and places where you want to pitch to contact, but there are other times… it depends on what type of pitcher you are, if you’re a power pitcher, or not.

“I don’t really pay attention to it too much, but it’s always good to get more ground balls than fly balls. If the wind is blowing straight out, and you’re a fly ball pitcher, that can kind of hurt you. Plus, with runners on, you can get double plays.

“I think this year was big for me. I feel like I’ve had to learn how to pitch and not just be a thrower. In Double-A, you can’t just throw fastballs and get away with it. You really have to pitch. You have to mix your pitches and throw off-speed in hitters’ counts. This league helped make more of a pitcher.”

On his newest pitch: “I just added a cutter a few weeks ago. In high school I threw a slider, and I wanted to add it back, but they wouldn’t let me. Now that I’m at a higher level, they’re allowing me to work on this pitch. Not as my strikeout pitch, but just to have it. It’s another look. I feel it can be a good contact pitch, off my fastball, to get a ground ball. Or maybe I can get a broken bat or a pop out. I’ve been throwing it from 88 to 92, but I’m still working on it and trying to figure out how much break I need on it and how hard I need to throw it.”

The Seattle Mariners probably need offensive production more than they need to upgrade defense at the catcher position. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t make a move to upgrade defense at the catcher position. General manager Jack Zduriencik faces that quandary at this week’s winter meetings, and possibly beyond.

Jesus Montero and John Jaso are currently in line to share catching duties, and neither is a Gold Glove candidate. They can, however, swing the bat. The underrated Jaso hit .276/.394/.456, while Montero, who possesses a high offensive ceiling, hit .260/.298/.386, with 15 home runs.

If the Mariners do acquire a defensive-minded catcher, it will likely be as a platoon partner for Jaso, with Montero seeing most of his action at first base and/or DH. Similar to the deal that brought Jaso over from Tampa Bay last November, the player would also fit the undervalued-asset category. Kelly Shoppach, a solid defender who hits well against left-handed pitching, is the type of player that fits that description.

Zduriencik was asked about the team’s catching situation, and what went into the Jaso trade, in a lobby conversation at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel.

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Zduriencik on acquiring Jaso for Josh Lueke on November 27, 2011: “In the Jaso case, we had a need and [the Rays] liked the arm they got. We liked that Jaso gives you really good at bats. Plus, a left-handed-hitting catcher is a nice commodity to have.

“We do our due diligence in any trade. You dot your Is and cross your Ts. You have the baseball people look at the statistical analysis side of it, and you talk to your people who have seen the player on the field. You also try to get background information, to find out his makeup.

“Sometimes things move really fast and you just have to make decisions. Read the rest of this entry »