Looking At Mariners Bullpen

Now that 2017 is here and the Mariners spring training is not far off I will start writing about the different positions and players.

The team has improved off of last season but by how much we will see. I don’t see the bullpen changing a whole lot since last season except that Edwin Diaz will start the season off as the closer. The hope is that he will continue to do what he did last year except in September where things went array probably because of the amount of innings he had pitched. I am sure that manager Scott Servais will watch the amount of inning that Diaz will pitch again especially early in the season.

The Mariners could use Dan Altavilla sometimes as a closer if he makes the club. He did a good job when he came up in August. He primarily will pitch in either the sixth or seventh inning. I would not pitch him in the eighth if Diaz is pitching the ninth because they are a lot alike. They both throw hard along with having a slider. Hopefully Diaz will improve on the slider against lefties or come up with another pitch. He is dominant with the slider against righties. The same maybe for Altavilla; I don’t remember him facing too many lefties.

I can see Steve Cishek as the primary guy coming out of the bullpen in the eighth inning though he may be asked to pitch the ninth inning once in a while. Depending on his usage he could go two innings. Cishek isn’t expected to start the season because of surgery so Tony Zych or Nick Vincent could be pitching the eighth inning. Zych would depend on his arm since he missed most of last season. When Cishek comes back Vincent likely is the main guy pitching the seventh inning.

Evan Scribner who had an outstanding September after being on the disabled list all season likely will pitch the sixth or seventh inning depending on how far the starter has gone. He did a great job getting hitters out with runners on base so that could be his job for the season.

Ariel Miranda or Nathan Karns could be the long reliever out of the bullpen depending on who may be the fifth starter. It would be nice if Miranda started because it would mean that the Mariners would have two lefties in the starting rotation unless the Mariners pick up another lefty to start. Karns who had a so so time in the bullpen before being injured could be effected in relief because last season he was only good for about two or three innings. This would depend to on how Dipoto and Servais are looking at Karns.

The Mariners signed a left handed specialist who primarily will pitch in the seventh or eighth innings. The guy is Marc Rzepczynski who is familiar with being a left handed specialist. He is best known for getting lefties out and has not had a lot of success against righties. Most of the Mariner right handed relievers are good at getting lefties out so he will come in to get one of the tough lefties out or two depending where they are in the batting order and how many outs there are.

I would not see any surprises for the bullpen right now unless they pick up someone in spring training like they did Nick Vincent last year. It looks like a solid group however we know that the bullpen can change a lot one year to the next. So spring training will be interesting on how it works out and we know that things could change before spring training with the history of Dipoto. He could trade someone in the bullpen part as a package to get someone somewhere else.  Next time I will look at Manager Scott Servais.