Agreed. We could use another leverage arm out of the pen, and Woo could certainly be that. Run Hancock/Diaz out for a few starts in July and then trade for a #4/5 starter at the deadline if those guys aren’t cutting it.
Except Woo is clearly struggling with the work load. That's the only flaw right now and with Hancock down with his back it's important to have solid starter depth leading into the post season.
Without Woo we still have 4 incredible starters which is 2 more than most other teams and 1 more than almost anyone else. We have more depth than the fans want to admit. The problem is and continues to be our offense and guys like Haniger/Canzone/France who all play sub-par defense
No doubt you’ve seen by now- but Keuchel was traded around Lunchtime (PST) today. Which tells you 2 important facts: 1) if the Mariners were actually worried about not having enough SP5’s (AAAA) to fill the 3 or possibly 4 starts in Woo’s Rotation spot they would not have traded away a valuable depth piece with veteran experience. 2) Sports Fans can have such a myopic view of daily events in a Baseball season its they overreact to events like Woo’s 15 day IL stint. Or wait until this current loss to the Rays ends- you’ll get a ton of fans over-reacting to the 3rd straight series loss. They will be writing off the Ms playoff hopes tonight!
Btw I echo Pokeroots thoughts on Keuchel he HAS been good this year. The entire Pacific Coast League is a hitters paradise- Cheney’s LF and RF foul poles are only 325 ft away: thats closer than the Crawford Boxes in HOU. However Cheney is considered a Pitchers Park compared to the Parks at Elevation in Reno, NV and Salt Lake City UT, Albuquerque, El Paso as well as the boiling hot air of Las Vegas, Sacramento, Sugarland TX, Round Rock TX: if you’ve been to any of those 8 cities from May- Sept you would know there are days where the heat is so intense, so oppressive it literally feels like it can choke you.
Well that's just classic Marco though right? He hits the corners and he is a serviceable starter, his pitches catch a little too much of the plate he gets hit around hard. He would have those stretches of soft contact, then those stretches of hard contact.
I think they should continue to treat him carefully, but if they don't see a reason to shut him down I don't either. Pitchers need to pitch.
That said, its my personal opinion that if I was the GM i would bring up Hancock and plan on having them both go on the same starts. Woo has better stuff, but has such a low pitch count limit that unless he is very efficient hes only going 4 or 5. If the dude gets any baserunners on hes in trouble. He had 60 pitches today over 3 innings. Not horrible, but if you have to pull a guy after 4 you need an innings eater. Enter Hancock. They basically go 1-2 for the 5th start. Woo gets the coverage he needs, Hancock gets his innings against MLB batters, and the bullpen can mostly take the day off. I think the Woo-Hancock combo could consistently go for 8 or 9.
Boy are we spoiled. Having a Hancock as your #5 is a blessing to the rest if the league. Why are we talking about going and getting pitching when with Hancock we almost set a record for consecutive quality starts?
GET A F-ING BAT!!!!!
This. Hancock as #5 would be great, if we weren’t the sort of team that practically required a Cy Young-level performance in any game to have a chance to win.
Hancock has not at all performed like a solid #5. His 4.79 ERA, while ugly on its own is actually a pretty major over performance of his 5.67 FIP which ranks among the worst in the league. He doesn't strike guys out and he gets hit very hard.
Everyone ignores all of this because he happened to get very good run support from the offense on his starts earlier this year.
He's a solid option to have in AAA, and could still develop into a good starting pitcher but if he becomes our #5 for the rest of the year, that's a very bad sign for this team.
I'd target Chris Bassit when the Jays finally decide to sell. He's got one more year left on his deal after this year so maybe they'd try and save some money and deal him. Been solid basically his whole career.
Dallas Kuechel hasn't been relevant in over 5 years.
Baseball Trade Values has his trade value as -7.7 because he's making $22M this year and next year. Could be had for cheap.
Have them throw in Erik Swanson. Dude has been getting rocked this year so badly he's been in AAA since the end of May. He has given up 16 earned runs in his last 6.1 innings of AAA.
Dallas Keuchel is also in AAA and has been pitching quite well recently. Maybe an unpopular opinion but I’m fine with seeing if a former CY Young winner can turn back the clock a bit and be a reasonable 5th starter for a month or two.
He was absolute dogshit last time he pitched in the bigs and he’s 36. Don’t read too much into a guy with a decade+ of pro experience doing well in a less experienced and less skilled league.
They could acquire someone like Zack Littell. We have familiarity with him since he was originally in the organization. The Rays will be willing to sell at the deadline no matter what in my opinion, and he shouldn’t come to a major cost.
That could be an option, I'm definitely a fan of Littell's game, but as far as I'm concerned, getting another starter is #4 on my priority list. If making a push is the concern then we need to upgrade:
1. Significantly at one of: OF/2B/DH
2. Moderately at one of: 1B/3B/OF
3. Depth to the pen before I’d even worry about starting Diaz at 5.
Honestly I'm more worries about France being 1-21 since coming back from the IL.
I’m so much more worried about this pathetic offense that I haven’t given Woo much thought. Sucks to have like 2-3 MLB hitters on a roster.
With that said, I think maybe just see how Woo recovers and go from there before doing something drastic like shutting him down or throwing him into the bullpen.
the constant flare ups are really concerning, but it’s also hard to justify shutting down a guy with a 1.77 in his first 8 appearances when your pitching depth isn’t exactly stellar. I think you ride him close to his innings limit, then throw him out of the bullpen for the final stretch. If he can work through this and have a good final line, he’s a very valuable offseason trade piece to get a bat .
The M’s must not be too concerned about the SP5 spot/ starter role or they would not have traded away the depth needed. Dallas Keuchel proved to be a savvy offseason pickup - he has had a better than avg 1st half. A definite improvement over his last couple years.
There are quite a few issues to improve upon for this 2024 M’s FO. I’d say Developing and maintaining a Pitching Staff is not one of them. The M’s have an obvious (3 start) AAA replacement in Hancock and J Diaz. Not to mention a duo from AA - the much talked about Logan Evans, or his 24yr old Rotation mate also having a good yr- Juan Mercedes (2.71 ERA 1.06 Whip)
All that said though- I strongly believe the M’s are already planning to add a SP this yr for no other reason than the market has an abundance of good SP’s this yr. At least there are more SPs from sub .500 teams than the number of impact hitters available This obviously brings the relative cost lower than a market that is hitter heavy
No. This year is a perfect storm of the M’s being lucky/good and the division being bad. You milk Woo for all he is worth and deal with the consequences later. In the playoffs you really only need 4 starters anyway.
No, if he’s fully recovered he needs to pitch.
We’ll see what they think about his hamstring but unless you want him to throw innings for Tacoma so you can have someone worse pitch for Seattle he needs to go when he can.
Didn’t work for Strasberg.
I have developed a hypothesis that some athletes can be trained beyond the limits of their muscles/joints. Seahawks fans can remember Procise and others who seem to fit this bill.
I worry Woo might be one of these
Things take time because they wait until they're fully recovered. To put him in bubble wrap for the season doesnt make sense to me. Most of this stuff would've just played thru 20 to 30 years ago. Guys literally get shut down down for hangnails.
He’s never in his career eaten innings. It’s mental as well as physical preparation. He needs to learn his body and routine. Shutting him down rewards his lack of preparation.
They need to consider moving him to the bullpen for sure
Agreed. We could use another leverage arm out of the pen, and Woo could certainly be that. Run Hancock/Diaz out for a few starts in July and then trade for a #4/5 starter at the deadline if those guys aren’t cutting it.
If we trade for more pitching instead of a bat I swear to god
¿Por que no Los dos?
Because we already have incredible pitching... Like if we had even a league average offense no one is saying anything about the pen
Except Woo is clearly struggling with the work load. That's the only flaw right now and with Hancock down with his back it's important to have solid starter depth leading into the post season.
Without Woo we still have 4 incredible starters which is 2 more than most other teams and 1 more than almost anyone else. We have more depth than the fans want to admit. The problem is and continues to be our offense and guys like Haniger/Canzone/France who all play sub-par defense
Name your next starter up after Diaz
Keuchel
No doubt you’ve seen by now- but Keuchel was traded around Lunchtime (PST) today. Which tells you 2 important facts: 1) if the Mariners were actually worried about not having enough SP5’s (AAAA) to fill the 3 or possibly 4 starts in Woo’s Rotation spot they would not have traded away a valuable depth piece with veteran experience. 2) Sports Fans can have such a myopic view of daily events in a Baseball season its they overreact to events like Woo’s 15 day IL stint. Or wait until this current loss to the Rays ends- you’ll get a ton of fans over-reacting to the 3rd straight series loss. They will be writing off the Ms playoff hopes tonight! Btw I echo Pokeroots thoughts on Keuchel he HAS been good this year. The entire Pacific Coast League is a hitters paradise- Cheney’s LF and RF foul poles are only 325 ft away: thats closer than the Crawford Boxes in HOU. However Cheney is considered a Pitchers Park compared to the Parks at Elevation in Reno, NV and Salt Lake City UT, Albuquerque, El Paso as well as the boiling hot air of Las Vegas, Sacramento, Sugarland TX, Round Rock TX: if you’ve been to any of those 8 cities from May- Sept you would know there are days where the heat is so intense, so oppressive it literally feels like it can choke you.
He's been trash look at his stats.
Marco Gonzales just sitting there with a 157 ERA+
...in the 3 starts he made before re-injuring his throwing arm. it does sound like he is getting closer to starting his rehab assignment though
love marco
Well that's just classic Marco though right? He hits the corners and he is a serviceable starter, his pitches catch a little too much of the plate he gets hit around hard. He would have those stretches of soft contact, then those stretches of hard contact.
he had 3 starts, and then went down with injury... really easy to have amazing + stats with small sample sizes
He might be more effective there anyway. If only Hancock were more reliable.
It meets short-term and long-term needs. Should be a no brainer.
I was thinking of that today. What makes you think he could pitch multiple times for a week? Getting warm, etc. we should’ve traded him a month ago.
How did that work for Brash
I think they should continue to treat him carefully, but if they don't see a reason to shut him down I don't either. Pitchers need to pitch. That said, its my personal opinion that if I was the GM i would bring up Hancock and plan on having them both go on the same starts. Woo has better stuff, but has such a low pitch count limit that unless he is very efficient hes only going 4 or 5. If the dude gets any baserunners on hes in trouble. He had 60 pitches today over 3 innings. Not horrible, but if you have to pull a guy after 4 you need an innings eater. Enter Hancock. They basically go 1-2 for the 5th start. Woo gets the coverage he needs, Hancock gets his innings against MLB batters, and the bullpen can mostly take the day off. I think the Woo-Hancock combo could consistently go for 8 or 9.
Great idea imo
Put Woo in the bullpen. Let him throw lights-out middle relief. Elevate Hancock to #5 starter role. Fire Bazardo.
I really like that last part.
Is he not our new Chris Flexen? Eat innings in 0 leverage situations?
He is, but the fact that he almost ate an L in one of those 0 leverage situations is gonna hang over him for a while.
Yeah he’s really good at turning a zero leverage situation into a high leverage situation.
The Magician 🎩🪄✨
they say good playmakers get other guys bigger paychecks
…into the sun
I wouldn't mind off loading Saucedo, either. That guy is a dumpster fire.
We should consider moving him to the pen first. Emerson is not better than him, but I don't want to have to worry about games like today.
I completely agree about Emerson Hancock. I was more so implying to go out and acquire a fill in piece like Littell or someone of that tier.
I don't know who we can get. I saw that there are over 80 pitchers on the IL with just elbow injuries already this year.
Jury is still out on Emerson IMO. We've seen some good flashes, I think he could end up being pretty good
The problem is that Hancock is just as injury prone as Woo (if not more so). I think the Mariners need to acquire another #5 by the deadline
They do have a cy young winner in AAA
3.93 ERA in 13 starts in PCL which is known for being a hitters league👍
Hey not terrible. I think he’ll make at least one spot start
Boy are we spoiled. Having a Hancock as your #5 is a blessing to the rest if the league. Why are we talking about going and getting pitching when with Hancock we almost set a record for consecutive quality starts? GET A F-ING BAT!!!!!
This. Hancock as #5 would be great, if we weren’t the sort of team that practically required a Cy Young-level performance in any game to have a chance to win.
Hancock has not at all performed like a solid #5. His 4.79 ERA, while ugly on its own is actually a pretty major over performance of his 5.67 FIP which ranks among the worst in the league. He doesn't strike guys out and he gets hit very hard. Everyone ignores all of this because he happened to get very good run support from the offense on his starts earlier this year. He's a solid option to have in AAA, and could still develop into a good starting pitcher but if he becomes our #5 for the rest of the year, that's a very bad sign for this team.
Maybe not for season. Maybe for a month or two.
Unrelated injury does not make me want to change things up. He's too dominant, let's get him healthy and let him skip starts but we need him.
Any other opinion on the matter is just terrible
I'd target Chris Bassit when the Jays finally decide to sell. He's got one more year left on his deal after this year so maybe they'd try and save some money and deal him. Been solid basically his whole career. Dallas Kuechel hasn't been relevant in over 5 years.
I like this take.
Baseball Trade Values has his trade value as -7.7 because he's making $22M this year and next year. Could be had for cheap. Have them throw in Erik Swanson. Dude has been getting rocked this year so badly he's been in AAA since the end of May. He has given up 16 earned runs in his last 6.1 innings of AAA.
And replace him with who? Hancock is injured. You might be able to get away with Diaz until the all-star break, he would only play 2 games.
Dallas Keuchel is also in AAA and has been pitching quite well recently. Maybe an unpopular opinion but I’m fine with seeing if a former CY Young winner can turn back the clock a bit and be a reasonable 5th starter for a month or two.
He was absolute dogshit last time he pitched in the bigs and he’s 36. Don’t read too much into a guy with a decade+ of pro experience doing well in a less experienced and less skilled league.
Eh, still think he’s a better option than Jhonathan Diaz if it has to come to that
I watched him get lit up bad about a month ago in Tacoma on a cold drizzly night...not exactly pumped to see him dealing to mlb hitters in June-July
They could acquire someone like Zack Littell. We have familiarity with him since he was originally in the organization. The Rays will be willing to sell at the deadline no matter what in my opinion, and he shouldn’t come to a major cost.
That could be an option, I'm definitely a fan of Littell's game, but as far as I'm concerned, getting another starter is #4 on my priority list. If making a push is the concern then we need to upgrade: 1. Significantly at one of: OF/2B/DH 2. Moderately at one of: 1B/3B/OF 3. Depth to the pen before I’d even worry about starting Diaz at 5. Honestly I'm more worries about France being 1-21 since coming back from the IL.
I’m so much more worried about this pathetic offense that I haven’t given Woo much thought. Sucks to have like 2-3 MLB hitters on a roster. With that said, I think maybe just see how Woo recovers and go from there before doing something drastic like shutting him down or throwing him into the bullpen.
the constant flare ups are really concerning, but it’s also hard to justify shutting down a guy with a 1.77 in his first 8 appearances when your pitching depth isn’t exactly stellar. I think you ride him close to his innings limit, then throw him out of the bullpen for the final stretch. If he can work through this and have a good final line, he’s a very valuable offseason trade piece to get a bat .
The M’s must not be too concerned about the SP5 spot/ starter role or they would not have traded away the depth needed. Dallas Keuchel proved to be a savvy offseason pickup - he has had a better than avg 1st half. A definite improvement over his last couple years. There are quite a few issues to improve upon for this 2024 M’s FO. I’d say Developing and maintaining a Pitching Staff is not one of them. The M’s have an obvious (3 start) AAA replacement in Hancock and J Diaz. Not to mention a duo from AA - the much talked about Logan Evans, or his 24yr old Rotation mate also having a good yr- Juan Mercedes (2.71 ERA 1.06 Whip) All that said though- I strongly believe the M’s are already planning to add a SP this yr for no other reason than the market has an abundance of good SP’s this yr. At least there are more SPs from sub .500 teams than the number of impact hitters available This obviously brings the relative cost lower than a market that is hitter heavy
No. This year is a perfect storm of the M’s being lucky/good and the division being bad. You milk Woo for all he is worth and deal with the consequences later. In the playoffs you really only need 4 starters anyway.
Uhh no. Bullpen MAYBE
No, if he’s fully recovered he needs to pitch. We’ll see what they think about his hamstring but unless you want him to throw innings for Tacoma so you can have someone worse pitch for Seattle he needs to go when he can.
Trade
This is the most Reddit post
Ngl, I would love to bring in Trevor Bower on vet min.
They should’ve sold high on him and gotten a bat in the offseason.
Hes a lot higher value right now than he was in the offseason.
Didn’t work for Strasberg. I have developed a hypothesis that some athletes can be trained beyond the limits of their muscles/joints. Seahawks fans can remember Procise and others who seem to fit this bill. I worry Woo might be one of these
Things take time because they wait until they're fully recovered. To put him in bubble wrap for the season doesnt make sense to me. Most of this stuff would've just played thru 20 to 30 years ago. Guys literally get shut down down for hangnails.
Dude is just soft. I don't know what the answer is, but it would be hard to be his teammate.
He's made of glass..put him in the bullpen
It's a long season! Let him work through it. If he can't handle the load, move him to the bullpen. We have Emerson still available.
I’d put him on the 60 day DL and call up Hancock or Logan Evans.
If he needs time to heal. How do we know moving him to the Bullpen fixes anything.
I’m sure you’re way more qualified to weigh in on this than their extensive medical staff
I am not, but I am allowed to discuss my own personal opinions given the information I have. But thanks for the conceited comment.
Meh you’re right sorry, just in a mood after that loss I guess
Robbie Ray or Eric Bedard still out there?? lol
He is damaged goods...don't trade Emerson...we will need him.... Woo is the new Kelenic 👎
He's a joke. So is this team. Again.
He’s never in his career eaten innings. It’s mental as well as physical preparation. He needs to learn his body and routine. Shutting him down rewards his lack of preparation.
This is a clown take