- Joined
- Oct 3, 2019
- Messages
- 10,220
- Reaction score
- 29,293
- Points
- 135
The 3-1 Guardians make the short trip to Seattle to take on the Mariners, who went 2-2 against the Red Sox in Seattle this weekend. The M’s were outscored 14-10 in the series. Not a lot of offense by either team, which is consistent with The Athletic’s season preview, in which they ranked the M’s as baseball’s 7th best team.
The odds of reaching the postseason might be 60.2 percent, but the odds that Mariners fans will continue to grumble that the team should have done more to improve the lineup are roughly 99.9 percent. They’re right, you know. The Mariners have one of the best starting rotations in the game, if not the best, but they’re going with a gaggle of .730 OPS guys and hoping a couple of them can be .830 OPS guys. The rotation is high floor, high ceiling, and the lineup is low floor, low ceiling (and Julio Rodríguez). Seems like a missed opportunity, considering that rotations like this don’t come around every decade.
The Mariners hit .178 against the Red Sox in their opening series and pushed across just 10 runs. Last year they ranked 12th of 30 teams in runs, so their offense was on the high end of average. Fangraphs has them 6th in WAR last year as they finished 88-74, two games behind the Rangers and Astros in the ultra-competitive A.L. West.
The Guardians were 4-3 against Seattle last year, playing all seven games by April 9. The Guards opened the season going 3-1 in Seattle before dropping two of three in Cleveland. The M’s averaged 3.7 runs against the Guardians, although all the games were in March and early April in chilly conditions. The M’s hit a frigid .226/.631 against Cleveland.
T-Moblie Park has been the hardest in baseball to score runs over the last three years. It’s not too hard to homer in (ranked 18th) but it’s the hardest park to get on base for some reason.
CF Julio Rodriguez is their star with a 2023 line of .275/.818 with 32 homers and 103 RBIs. C Cal Raleigh had 30 homers and as a team the M’s cranked out 210 home runs which ranked 11th. They did lose Eugenio Suarez who had 22 homers and 96 RBIs and Teoscar Hernandez and his 26 homers and 93 RBIs, however.
Mitch Haniger, age 33, is back after a year in San Francisco where he hit .209 in 61 games. He had 39 home runs for the M’s in 2021. Sometimes the grass isn’t greener. The M’s also picked up Jorge Polanco, who had an OPS of .789 for the Twins last year. He went 1-for-14 against Boston this weekend.
Tristan McKenzie gets the start on Monday against rookie Emerson Hancock, who got a 12-inning cup of coffee last year. Hancock is a 24-year-old right-hander who was the 6th overall pick in the 2020 draft. Last year he had a 4.32 ERA in 98 innings at AA. He’s trying to skip AAA entirely.
The last two games will feature the #1 and #2 starters for each team. Shane Bieber faces Luis Castillo on Tuesday and Logan Allen goes against George Kirby in the finale on Wednesday afternoon. All five Seattle starters are right-handed and they have two lefties in the pen. This has all the earmarks of a low-scoring series.
The Mariners shed some payroll from last season due to concerns about their TV revenue. Sound familiar?
After they eliminated players (Teoscar Hernandez, Eugenio Suarez, Marco Gonzales, Evan White) comprising about $44 million of 2023 salary from their roster, I reasoned that they could be primed to sign one of the bigger bats on the free agent market. I must admit that I read those tea leaves incorrectly.
The M’s simply aren’t going to run it back with the club-record $183 million payroll they carried last season. - Forbes.com
The odds of reaching the postseason might be 60.2 percent, but the odds that Mariners fans will continue to grumble that the team should have done more to improve the lineup are roughly 99.9 percent. They’re right, you know. The Mariners have one of the best starting rotations in the game, if not the best, but they’re going with a gaggle of .730 OPS guys and hoping a couple of them can be .830 OPS guys. The rotation is high floor, high ceiling, and the lineup is low floor, low ceiling (and Julio Rodríguez). Seems like a missed opportunity, considering that rotations like this don’t come around every decade.
The Mariners hit .178 against the Red Sox in their opening series and pushed across just 10 runs. Last year they ranked 12th of 30 teams in runs, so their offense was on the high end of average. Fangraphs has them 6th in WAR last year as they finished 88-74, two games behind the Rangers and Astros in the ultra-competitive A.L. West.
The Guardians were 4-3 against Seattle last year, playing all seven games by April 9. The Guards opened the season going 3-1 in Seattle before dropping two of three in Cleveland. The M’s averaged 3.7 runs against the Guardians, although all the games were in March and early April in chilly conditions. The M’s hit a frigid .226/.631 against Cleveland.
T-Moblie Park has been the hardest in baseball to score runs over the last three years. It’s not too hard to homer in (ranked 18th) but it’s the hardest park to get on base for some reason.
CF Julio Rodriguez is their star with a 2023 line of .275/.818 with 32 homers and 103 RBIs. C Cal Raleigh had 30 homers and as a team the M’s cranked out 210 home runs which ranked 11th. They did lose Eugenio Suarez who had 22 homers and 96 RBIs and Teoscar Hernandez and his 26 homers and 93 RBIs, however.
Mitch Haniger, age 33, is back after a year in San Francisco where he hit .209 in 61 games. He had 39 home runs for the M’s in 2021. Sometimes the grass isn’t greener. The M’s also picked up Jorge Polanco, who had an OPS of .789 for the Twins last year. He went 1-for-14 against Boston this weekend.
Tristan McKenzie gets the start on Monday against rookie Emerson Hancock, who got a 12-inning cup of coffee last year. Hancock is a 24-year-old right-hander who was the 6th overall pick in the 2020 draft. Last year he had a 4.32 ERA in 98 innings at AA. He’s trying to skip AAA entirely.
The last two games will feature the #1 and #2 starters for each team. Shane Bieber faces Luis Castillo on Tuesday and Logan Allen goes against George Kirby in the finale on Wednesday afternoon. All five Seattle starters are right-handed and they have two lefties in the pen. This has all the earmarks of a low-scoring series.
The Mariners shed some payroll from last season due to concerns about their TV revenue. Sound familiar?
After they eliminated players (Teoscar Hernandez, Eugenio Suarez, Marco Gonzales, Evan White) comprising about $44 million of 2023 salary from their roster, I reasoned that they could be primed to sign one of the bigger bats on the free agent market. I must admit that I read those tea leaves incorrectly.
The M’s simply aren’t going to run it back with the club-record $183 million payroll they carried last season. - Forbes.com
Last edited:
