To me isn't a conclusion yet. If pitchers get traded or injured there could still be need in the rotation next year.
I don't think they need to trade to get the needed upgrades this year though. SP, OF, DH and late inning reliever if all from free agency could cost between $35M and $55M and those numbers seem possible from all that we know. If Maurer is in the pen I'd think long relief/spot start if needed not late innings to start the year.
If a starter is brought in that's a #3 type or better (penciled into rotation upon signing), which seems to be likely, there will be 2 spots left. Ramirez, Walker, Paxton, Hultzen, Maurer is then 5 to make 2. For me Maurer is 5 th now though maybe 4th most likely, ahead of Hultzen, to break camp in the rotation. No decisions need be made yet, it just seems likely that if Maurer is on the opening day roster it's in the bullpen.
Luke Hochevar turns 30 years old this week. Brandon Maurer started the season at 22. I'm not sure that Maurer's problems are completely comparable to Hochevar's, as they are in completely different stages of their pro careers. Maurer just matriculated through the door and had a rough freshman year in his new digs. Hochevar got 5 years in the Royals' rotation (a whole college experience plus some grad school) before he was kicked out to find success in the pen.
Is it getting bullpenned that helps the starters go to relieving? Or is it the ability to finally consolidate what their hundreds of innings pitched have taught them by limiting their option and therefore their confusion?
What I mean is: would putting Maurer in the pen to figure out his lessons do him any good when he hasn't LEARNED the lessons yet?
Hochevar had a THOUSAND pro innings thrown before this year (and another few hundred in college) and wasn't getting better as a starter. They bullpen him and voila! Success. It's like the teacher in Searching for Bobby Fischer sweeping the board clean of pieces and letting him stare at a blank slate, use it to re-focus what he knows.
But Maurer hasn't learned how to play chess in his 400 injury-interrupted innings as a pro pitcher so far. We might want to teach him first before we expect him to deploy his weapons in a discerning manner.
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So I guess the question is who do we want teaching him? Since Zunino is a wonder-stud catcher, I would think that we want Mike showing Brandon the ropes. I think that's a more important distinction than AAA vs. big leagues. But Maurer has to be able to get outs and not leave sliders up to be clubbed. Noesi would be better served to throw to Zunino too, but I don't want him up here until he shows he can fix his other issues.
You know I believe in Maurer, and that I believe he was rushed. Him shaking off Zunino looked like a man who had no faith in someone else and who was not willing to risk his last chances this year to impress on a backstop's calls. Since he got hammered earlier in the season throwing what Shoppach and Montero were putting down, I don't really blame him.
But if Maurer's gonna be in the pen, then he's gonna have to trust both his stuff and his backstop, and learn to pitch intelligently. He was a two-pitch guy (FB/Curve) back in 2011. The slider and changeup have both arrived since his 2010 injury-lost season, and Maurer threw 92 MPH 2 years ago, so he doesn't have a lot of experience using a 98 mph heater either.
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Hochevar came out of college with all the weapons he has now. Maurer has just found all of his, which is why he doesn't know how to use them. Hochevar never learned how to use his, but Maurer's had just two healthy seasons to get all of his organized.
He's still messy, and I compared him to Meche before the start of the year for a reason: some guys just don't have a coherent attack with 4 pitches. What's interesting is that he didn't used to center a lot of pitches, doing a lot of his work on the black, so I thought he'd get squeezed this season by unforgiving umps. Instead he's chucking it down the center or into a hitter's wheelhouse and getting thumped.
It's a teaching moment. If Maurer is willing to listen then I'd love to have him as either a starter or a bullpen guy in the bigs. If he's not ready for that, then he should be in AAA until he can throw what he has, where he needs to.
His arm is VERY live. It's the approach that needs to catch up. Maybe that means we should do with our 23 year old what KC did with their 29 year old.
Maybe not.
I have a different name that comes to mind as a comp for Maurer's current sitation: Chris Tillman. The Orioles could have bullpenned Tillman when he came up and promptly blew his first shot at 21, his second at 22, and his THIRD audition at 23. But they didn't, and his fourth shot at the brass ring worked out and now he's an All-Star at 25. They kept shipping him back to the minors to get it right, and eventually he did. Tillman had 300ish IP before his first callup. So did Maurer. Both men blew that shot.
The Orioles had their patience pay off. It might be like that for us with Maurer. Since we have at least twelve angry men to fill out a bullpen without *needing* Maurer for that, it's just a matter of the best way to both help him and harness his talent.
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Bullpenning might help him, but with Wilhelmsen, Capps, Pryor, Smith, Farquhar et al who already throw mid-to-high 90s as pen righties, what's the surplus benefit to having Maurer in the pen instead of Capps, who has the same problem and hasn't had it cleared up at all by his time in the major league pen?
The Mariners are not flexible when it comes to using "pen arms" in the rotation. Wedge said it would take years to turn Wilhelmsen into a quality starter, right? It seems like a one-way move for a man in teal, which is fine with a one-pitch guy like Soriano was for us when he got bullpenned, but silly if a pitcher has 3 or 4 major-league pitches.
Still, with that being the case, do I want to end Maurer's starting days to get another draw at Hochevar? IMO Hochevar was left in the KC rotation for too long. This might be a little short.
I guess I think Maurer deserves more than part of one failed year before I trade his 180 innings for 60. Let's at least see how many Grade A starters we have left after the Winter trading season before we make that call.
~G
Comments
He was 17 when drafted; no college experience.
Slow start due to injuries, and missed most of his age-19 season.
Then 79.1 IP split between Clinton and High Desert ...
Then 137.2 IP at Jackson ...
Then Safeco Field!
If you throw out Rookie Leagues, Maurer had faced fewer than 1000 advanced professional batters (Low-A and above) when he started the year with the Mariners.
Taijuan is two years younger, but he faced over 1500 batters (Low-A and above) before getting to Seattle.
Do you send him to Tacoma if the choice is there or the bullpen? It's a serious roster crunch at SP already throughout the upper minors. Figuring 2 spots plus 5 in Tacoma plus 5 in Jackson we're looking at Hultzen, Walker, Paxton, Ramirez, Maurer, Noesi, Beaven, Carraway, Sweeney, Mitchell, Fernandez, Elias, Gillheeney, Vasquez, Miller, Hobson, Shankin and considering Pries, Landazuri, Hobson, Shipers, Shore, Anderson, Sanchez, Holman, Unsworth and Pike from lower levels. I'm not saying they all are deserving and some of those names probably aren't here, but. . .17 already AA+ 10 more possibly pushing up. You'd be a better judge than I how tight that really is, Spec, but it looks overloaded to me.
The Mariner are just getting to crunch time, and this crunch will continue...
And not just the pitching staff. The entire 40 man roster is about to get really crowded.
This is why Jack was so willing to try to trade last off season, and why Jack was so upset about how other organizations viewed unproven minor leaguers... and this is probably why so many guys got chances this year... especially now in September.
The Mariners HAVE to make trades this off season. Unfortunately, the chances for a bad trade will increase this off season... but we have so many guys in the pipeline, that it is the best for all the players to get rid of several guys this off season - so the Smith's Pike's, Morban's, Pederson's have places to go to get pushed versus being stagnated at the same level.
Starter crunch in the minors is a good thing to have; it pushes some of the worse pitchers out of the way by default.
Right now let's say two guys get the nod in Seattle. Let's say it's E-Ram and Walker, just for fun. That leaves:
AAA: Hultzen, Paxton, Maurer, Elias, Noesi (last chance for the arm we traded Campos for).
AA: Landazuri, T. Fernandez, Shipers, Pries, Miller (the last two as place-holders who need to prove themselves, if they do make it).
Switched to the bullpen: Carraway, Hobson, Gillheeney (Mitchell doesn't pitch for us any more, Sweeney will be 40, Vasquez can be cut for all I care, etc)
Beavan is probably a long-man in the pen for days when one of the kids can't go 6. Pike and Unsworth might get to High Desert for half a year, or somebody like Pries might get held back in HD or tossed in the pen to make room if they get skipped up to AA. I'd like to see Pike bumped up to Jackson to start the year, but we'll see. There's some flexibility there, and having a couple of kids get rocked out of their comfort zone in the Cal League isn't the worst thing, as long as it's short term.
It's a crunch I'm fine with. I don't care about having a #6 starter/long-reliever stashed in AA, I want pitchers, and we've got plenty of interesting ones.
~G
The roster crunch is mostly good and that they need to trade away some of these. Hopefully a true multiple futures for impact today trade is at least 1 of the moves this offseason. Most of what anyone talks about is multiple major league ready for impact today and I think the M's are a year off of that being a good idea in general. Specifically a trade like that could work though.
The crunch at SP is just a consideration, I understand, but that's some good answers to how to potentially play things.
I figured my quick and dirty list contained 1+ guys not here, not Prospects or older, thanks for clarifying who.
I would just stick him in AAA and let him get another 160+ innings regardless of what happens in the spring. Just let him pitch every five days, build up the repetitions, the muscle memory, mentally absorb the in-game situations. Then see what he can do in September.
GLS, good point. All of that and some seasoned confidence. Baseball prospects require discernment but also patience. Great examples above. This kid does have an arm. Now take a year to get him to believe that also.