2018 Seattle Mariners regular season thread

[IndyHawk]

Zunino out with a twisted ankle. As bad as he is as the plate, he does a great job with the pitching staff. No word on if he will head to the disabled list.

For a catcher that is rough..Hope it is a simple thing that goes away in a day or two

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Haniger scratched with a bruised knee. Need other guys to pick up the slack tonight.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Z to the 10 day DL, Haniger day to day.

 

[avengerboater]

Seager looking bad at the plate again. The pitcher was struggling with his command, throwing high fastballs way up out of the zone, walking Cruz, and what does Kyle do...? He swings weakly at the first two high fastballs out of the zone to go down 0-2. Then, he helps out the pitcher a few more times by fouling off more of the same pitches way out of the zone. Then he promptly strikes out with bases loaded vs a pitcher that had ZERO command of his pitchers. Oy.

 

[DJrmb]

:shock: :shock: :shock:

Did Gordon really get to that ball? Wow!

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Yeah Gordon's catch is probably one of the better defensive plays of the season.

Great all around effort. Marco pitched great. Heredia had a nice game with the two doubles. Even though Colome struggled a bit, nice to see him have another scoreless appearance.

I don't know why but I'm always really excited for Felix now. I think he's turned the corner, but you never know what to expect. Hoping he brings it tomorrow.

 

[raisethe3]

Good game tonight. As expected, we bounced back.

 

[Shanegotyou11]

Team is good. Long season tho. Zunino out 2-3weeks.

 

[TransGenderHawkFan]

Zunino needed a break. He was lost at the plate.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

I'm just going to put some questions out there, I'm curious where most people are at with this team.

Can we win the AL West, what percent chance do you give us? Division IMO will likely come down to the head to head with Houston. Just not sure we can go above .500 against them, which we will probably have to do.

If we don't win the AL West, can we catch either Boston or New York to host the wild card game?

If you could make an upgrade to any part of the team, what would it be?

Paxton is the #1, how would you rank the rest of the rotation if set up for a playoff series. If everything lines up, Pax would likely pitch the WC game, who would you have start games 1-3 of the following series. Would you pitch Pax on 3 days rest and go to short rotation?

Diaz over/under 55 saves. Over looks easy, but got to think they scale him back.

What should we do when Cano gets back? Dipoto already said he won't play 2B, it would be unfair to move Dee back to the OF. Obvious answer is split time at 1B with Healy. With Heredia being mediocre at best, it would really make sense IMO to move Dee back to the OF and put Cano at 2B. I also wouldn't mind not even playing Cano, what is the point. He will be back for a month and a half and then be gone.

It almost looks inevitable we will play Boston or NYY in a one game playoff, who would you rather play?

 

[Msfann]

Zunino needed a break. He was lost at the plate.

I'm kinda guessing it's really a sprained brain after his bone headed play running into home. I bet his ankle is fine. 10 days to clear his head.

 

[Uncle Si]

Paxton is the #1, how would you rank the rest of the rotation if set up for a playoff series. If everything lines up, Pax would likely pitch the WC game, who would you have start games 1-3 of the following series. Would you pitch Pax on 3 days rest and go to short rotation?

I think the rotation needs an upgrade, with Felix getting moved to the 5th spot.

The Twins may want to ship out Santana.

 

[KitsapGuy]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Q13FOX/status/1015320219340849153[/tweet]

 

[DJrmb]

If you could make an upgrade to any part of the team, what would it be?

Lefty power. They can't move Seager down from the middle while he's struggled because they need the threat of left handed power to help protect Cruz and Healy a bit. Cano really hurt this team getting suspended because his bat is absolutely perfect for this lineup. Adding a left handed power bat would give you the flexibility to drop Seager down at times and help protect guys like Cruz, Haniger, and Healy later in games as managers try to play matchups out of their BP which will only be magnified in the post season. You don't want teams to only have to use 1 pitcher to burn through the entire middle of the order because all your power guys are righties. A guy like Eric Thames might be the perfect addition.

The other thing I would like to see is another elite arm in the bullpen. Zach Britton would make a lot of sense to me. Lengthen the BP, and give yourself another lefty to use in matchups. That would also get you back to the ++ bullpen they were kind of going for before Phelps went down and Rzepczynski lost his way. Being able to go Colome, Britton, Diaz could really shorten games and be on par with what the Yankees had when they had Miller, Betances, Chapman together putting up historic numbers.

 

[Shanegotyou11]

I think Ms need another relief pitcher, another bat and one good starting pitcher. So 3 moves imo. Then could be deadly. I mean this team is 56-32. I cant complain. Oakland is scary lately.

I have a wierd feeling if we make playoffs, somehow we get a home playoff game.

 

[avengerboater]

I'm just going to put some questions out there, I'm curious where most people are at with this team.

Can we win the AL West, what percent chance do you give us? Division IMO will likely come down to the head to head with Houston. Just not sure we can go above .500 against them, which we will probably have to do.

If we don't win the AL West, can we catch either Boston or New York to host the wild card game?

If you could make an upgrade to any part of the team, what would it be?

Paxton is the #1, how would you rank the rest of the rotation if set up for a playoff series. If everything lines up, Pax would likely pitch the WC game, who would you have start games 1-3 of the following series. Would you pitch Pax on 3 days rest and go to short rotation?

Diaz over/under 55 saves. Over looks easy, but got to think they scale him back.

What should we do when Cano gets back? Dipoto already said he won't play 2B, it would be unfair to move Dee back to the OF. Obvious answer is split time at 1B with Healy. With Heredia being mediocre at best, it would really make sense IMO to move Dee back to the OF and put Cano at 2B. I also wouldn't mind not even playing Cano, what is the point. He will be back for a month and a half and then be gone.

It almost looks inevitable we will play Boston or NYY in a one game playoff, who would you rather play?

As good as our record is, I don't think we can overtake Houston with our current roster. They simply have an all-worldly rotation. Even though Keuchel has been struggling with inconsistency, he can still come up with a good outing whenever. We wouldn't be able to match up with them head to head consistently in our series.

Now, if we get another quality arm, like say Hamels, then I think we can very likely win 2 out 3 against them, or at least put up a good fight. At this rate, we'll likely win games vs other teams to keep pace with Houston, but we'll likely lose ground to them when we play them head to head.

As for Boston or NY, I think they'll likely beat up on one another, but if NY gets a starting arm via trade, they'll likely run away with the division. We can play with either one of those teams in a one-game elimination playoff. We'll just throw Pax out there and have confidence in him being on his A-game. Afterwards, though, comes the problem of our rotation not having a legit #2 starter. If Felix is on, he can contend with being the #2 guy. But if he's not, then it'll likely be Marco, Leake, then Felix. I don't think Leblanc will end the season being a part of our starting rotation. If we get a starting arm, he'll likely be pushed to the pen to be that elite lefty that can do long-relief if need be.

When Cano comes back, it'd be foolish and unfair to kick Dee out of 2B and have him play CF. Cano isn't gonna be there in the playoffs, even if he is, he's nowhere near as athletic as Dee is at 2B. You can't tell me that Cano would've made that diving stop last night, nor the other Superman-esque diving stop Dee made a few weeks ago. And Heredia is a stellar outfielder, defensively he's probably our best one. We've done this well without Cano, but we can do even better if his bat is a consistent part of the lineup. I'd be all for him splitting time at 1B and/or DH whenever Cruz needs a break. Just do what they've been doing with the 4 outfielders, bringing in the 4th guy after the 7th inning for defensive purposes. But, yea, it will be interesting to see how Dipoto/Servais handles it when Cano comes back. I hope he's not selfish and has a team-first kinda mentality, considering he got himself into this mess and has no one else to blame but himself for losing his spot at 2B.

 

[avengerboater]

If you could make an upgrade to any part of the team, what would it be?

Lefty power. They can't move Seager down from the middle while he's struggled because they need the threat of left handed power to help protect Cruz and Healy a bit. Cano really hurt this team getting suspended because his bat is absolutely perfect for this lineup. Adding a left handed power bat would give you the flexibility to drop Seager down at times and help protect guys like Cruz, Haniger, and Healy later in games as managers try to play matchups out of their BP which will only be magnified in the post season. You don't want teams to only have to use 1 pitcher to burn through the entire middle of the order because all your power guys are righties. A guy like Eric Thames might be the perfect addition.

The other thing I would like to see is another elite arm in the bullpen. Zach Britton would make a lot of sense to me. Lengthen the BP, and give yourself another lefty to use in matchups. That would also get you back to the ++ bullpen they were kind of going for before Phelps went down and Rzepczynski lost his way. Being able to go Colome, Britton, Diaz could really shorten games and be on par with what the Yankees had when they had Miller, Betances, Chapman together putting up historic numbers.

Agree with all this. But I don't think we need another arm in the bullpen, though. Simply because if we add another arm to our rotation, LeBlanc will be that lefty in the bullpen that you know can be dominant when called on.

As for adding a power lefty to the lineup, I'm not sure we have the pieces to trade for both a quality starting pitcher AND a power lefty.

 

[Crizilla]

Dream trade that will never happen: Seager, Cano, and Felix to the O's for Machado.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Looks like it’s Rockies vs the Rainiers today.

Bottom of the line up looks extremely weak.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Dream trade that will never happen: Seager, Cano, and Felix to the O's for Machado.

Won’t happen for many reasons. Seager while he is a gold glove caliber defender, he is a dead pull hitter and the league has caught on to his severe flaws + plus Big contract.

Felix has no fastball anymore but is stubborn and thinks he can blow it by people and the results say differently, plus huge contract. Until Felix fully commits himself and buys 100% into “the less is more” and “pitching backwards” philosophy’s, he’s going to struggle.

Cano, aging player, who knows how he will play if he is not on PED’s, plus huge contract.

So the O’s would be giving up a great player for old, underperforming, and extremely expensive talent.
Yes, pure fantasy.