The Risks, 2022
Okay, enough optimism. Expectations can bring excitement, but in this fan base, they can just as soon bring fear. The entire history of the past 20 years have been a series of other shoes dropping, pretty much on cue.
What other shoes are teetering this year? How can a year filled with such promise go wrong? Which of the innumerable expectation-repelling seasons could this one most resemble? Here is what I’m worried about.
1: The bullpen
The M’s bullpen almost single-handedly saved the M’s 2021. Sure, the offense’s almost spookily-perfect timing played a big role, but in terms of which group *played* the best, Paul Sewald and company would be the one.
Sewald is legitimately good, even if no one, including the Mariners, knew it a year ago. This underscores just how hard it is to find, develop, and *keep* bullpen arms playing well. The history of the M’s under Dipoto shows this. They had a good bullpen in 2018, before crashing to a disastrous 2019, and then enjoying last year’s top-5.
In addition to being the perfect group for Dipoto’s trade/waiver-claim addiction, the lower inning totals make bullpens especially liable to volatility, as regression and luck do their thing. In most years, that may not matter as much, and of course talent can help smooth out that volatility to a degree. But while regression is a perennial issue, 2022 is perhaps uniquely vulnerable to it.
The M’s benefitted from a low BABIP last year, but they had an even lower one in 2019. Crucially, they posted a very low HR/9 and HR/FB in 2021; these were what sunk that 2019 group. The new/refined M’s bullpen cut HRs allowed just as the league did, and that helped the fly-balling Sewald and
company post such great numbers. The M’s had a below-average K%, and while their walks allowed were legitimately great, the unit doesn’t scream “elite.” They also don’t stand out as a group who can beat the HR/FB ratio gods forever, which is fine: nearly no one can.
Now, theoretically, the additions of Sergio Romo, Ken Giles, and Andres Muñoz should help. The addition of additional roster spots in April should help manage innings. But the story of bullpens has traditionally been written by their best performers. If Giles (still hurt) and the newcomers don’t hit the ground running, they’re taking innings that could’ve gone to someone else. And all of that doesn’t even touch on the fact that the top of the pile includes some seriously volatile pitchers: Drew Steckenrider, Sewald, and even Giles himself.
If the starters and bats were world beaters, this would matter less. But the way the year is shaping up, and with Minnesota just trading for Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan, the M’s can’t really afford to lose any late leads. The growth of the M’s as a team has made bullpen luck and bullpen skill more important than it’s ever been, and the M’s are coming off an historic year for both. That’s..that’s kind of a scary place to be.
2: Replacing Seager Harder Than it Looks
The M’s have depth at 3B for the first time in ages. The pickup of Eugenio Suarez gives them legitimate upside at the position, a critical need after Kyle Seager’s retirement. Abraham Toro is a super-sub to start, but could slide back to his natural position should Suarez’s (precipitous) decline continue.
It’s funny; Seager’s final two seasons were both solid, but they looked nothing like each other. In one, he was a low-K, high-BB guy with moderate pop and a low BABIP. Last year, he was an all-or-nothing slugger, popping a career high in home runs, but running a bad OBP due to a high K rate and an even lower BABIP.
Suarez last year looked just like the most recent season from Seager, right down to the poor BABIP and value derived mostly from longballs. If that BABIP turns around, you’ve got something, even admitting that his defense won’t be Seagarian. And Toro doesn’t have as much power, but has legitimately good contact skills and a solid eye, more like the 2020 version of Seags. He’s got nothing more to prove in the minors, and needs to show that he can hold down a full time gig.
So there’s plenty of upside, but the downside risks scream out all the same. Suarez’s trajectory can be fairly described as a three year free fall. Seattle’s home park is very much NOT where you go to find a BABIP turnaround, and it’s harder to hit home runs (the one thing he’s done consistently) in Seattle than Cincinnati.
Toro’s projections look good, but that’s been true for years, and he still has a career wRC+ in the 80s. Sure, it’s trending up, but he’s never managed a league-average mark in several (small) trials. Without great defense, it’s hard to make that work.
3: The M’s Rivals Did More
Minnesota picked up Carlos Correa, Gary Sánchez, Gio Urshela, Sonny Gray and two wildcards in Chris Paddack and Chris Archer. The Rangers gave themselves the best middle infield combo in baseball with Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. The mostly-quiet Red Sox may have an argument at middle infield after getting Trevor Story to go with Xander Bogaerts. The AL East remains stacked. You get the idea.
No, the M’s weren’t quiet. Picking up Robbie Ray in free agency and then swinging the Jesse Winker/Eugenio Suarez trade made them much better. You can argue that Minnesota had to do more, after a disastrous 2021. But that won’t work with New York, Boston, and Tampa, who did less, but arguably didn’t need to in order to stay ahead of Seattle.
Worse, the competition changes, but doesn’t go away, depending on the run environment in 2022 (obligatory statement of disgust that we have to wonder about this afresh each year). If the humidors knock down run scoring somehow, or bring it back to normal after years of superball-inflated HR totals, teams like Detroit and Cleveland become real wild card challengers (Detroit might be there anyway, depending on how well Spencer Torkelson hits). If it stays the way it was in 2019-21, then Minnesota and Texas have more of a shot. This is a case where the M’s balance could hurt them: not enough pitching to dominate in a low-run environment, not enough batting average and depth to win in a high run scoring environment.
So, yes: a bit more spending could’ve made a difference. The M’s line-up looks pretty good top to bottom, but it lacks the depth of the really good teams. And because Julio’s starting the year in Seattle, there’s less obvious high-minors help in case a starter goes down due to injury or ineffectiveness, at least on offense. There’s more depth at pitcher, but it’s always tough to count on young pitchers.
I’m not as down on the off-season as some, but the M’s front office would probably allow that the way they built this team comes with plenty of risk. They kept most of their top prospects, but find that their wildcard rivals are multiplying. Sure, the AL West isn’t as tough as it once was (though the Angels can’t underachieve *every* year, can they?), but it also matters less and less as the playoffs keep expanding. The M’s have to care about the other divisions in the AL, and their actions don’t show that the care all that much. Either that, or they’re absolutely convinced they have nothing to worry about. Not sure which is worse
Suárez really turned it on late last year. Right around the fourth week in July, he started hitting the ball hard again, and though he was still BABIP’d to death through August, his luck changed in September. Small sample size, but I wonder if that swimming pool incident that led to surgery was responsible for his poor showing in 2020 until late last season.
The bullpen is definitely the biggest concern. After that, the starter depth, though outfield depth is nearly equally as concerning for me.
This lack of depth puts a lot of pressure on the younger players. Is it fair to lean so heavily on Kelenic, Rodriguez, Raleigh, Gilbert, and Brash? That’s a talented group of names right there, but none of them have a full season’s worth of experience.
Here’s to a season of breakouts and rebounds!
Perry Minasian says “hold my beer…”.