Game 62, Twins at Mariners
Logan Gilbert vs Joe Ryan, 7:10pm
Quick one today, as I’m standing outside T-Mobile…(but headed to a Sounders game). Two things today: first, Jesse Winker’s getting a night off. So far, so normal- Julio was off last night. But there are rumblings, per Ryan Divish, that the M’s are getting a bit tired of Winker’s inability to hit the ball hard in key situations. He was up with two outs in the 9th last night in a favorable situation: he represented the go-ahead run, and Dylan Moore was on 2nd. His opponent was a righty with a penchant for allowing HRs and hard, elevated contact. He struck out. Winker is clearly better than he’s shown, but my patience is wearing thin a bit, too.
Second, Jarrett Seidler has a great piece on Jarred Kelenic and his swing and miss issues. With statcast data, we can see he hasn’t solved his big problem, even as he was putting up good numbers for Tacoma (he was before tweaking a hamstring). Seidler notes that there were swing and miss concerns throughout his rise, but people ignored or more accurately downplayed them because he hit the ball so hard, so often. But breaking balls and off speed pitches have flummoxed him at the big league level, and continue to in Tacoma. Did evaluators miss something? I’m perhaps more inclined to give them a break: his K rate (which is a crude but huge metric) was going down as he hit the low minors. Big league pitchers found a weakness that minor leaguers couldn’t exploit perhaps, but something else is going on. The hitting development has had a couple of these, where swing changes unlocked power, but perhaps at the expense of pitch recognition. Was there an overemphasis on timing the fastball?
1: Frazier, 2B
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Suarez, 3B
5: Toro, DH
6: Raleigh, C
7: Trammell, RF
8: Moore, SS
9: Haggerty, LF
SP: Gilbert
JP Crawford was supposed to start and play SS; he’s apparently a late scratch. Hmmm.
At some point Seattle has to find another corner outfielder, if not two. Winker just isn’t making hard contact and the team can’t wait on Kelenic to pull it all together.
Something has to give.
“At some point Seattle has to find another corner outfielder, if not two”
I don’t think it’s going to happen this season. Justin Upton-type moves if that. We won’t get a decent outfielder without trading something valuable, and the front office isn’t going to do that.
I think we literally have to bank on Lewis and Haniger returning soon and Winker regressing to the mean on his career numbers. This season is a career outlier to this point so logically we should see a correction.
I don’t think Seattle has to bank on Lewis and Haniger, nor do I think they should. The 2021 Atlanta Braves serve as an example of how it could be done.
Guys like Benintendi, maybe Ian Happ, could probably be acquired without coughing up vital prospects, but I would argue that even Kelenic shouldn’t be off-limits if they could bring back at least some control.