SODO Scorecard: August 31st, 2020 *SPECIAL TRADE DEADLINE EDITION*
The Good: The Mariners, and the sports world, standing up in protest and solidarity for the oppressed.
The Bad: The circle of racism and violence churning again in the United States, and some good, popular players being sacrificed for the M’s Cause.
It was the offense of turning and walking away that earned Jacob Blake, unarmed, seven rounds in his back from the Kenosha police officers following him to his car, becoming the victim of the very dispute he was supposedly there to diffuse — an ironic, tragic twist of fate that became a new flashpoint in the ongoing protests against racism and police brutality across the country.
What happened the next night at the protest in Kenosha was troubling in so many ways, and was very much caused by an accumulation of the social problems tearing America apart — a white high-schooler with a history of aggression, racist leanings, and disciplinary problems gets access to a semiautomatic rifle, drives thirty miles to a town he doesn’t live in, gets compliments from police officers, threatens some unarmed protesters over property he doesn’t own and is not being asked to protect; finally, he shoots three people, killing two, and gets to run off in the night, as police watch and protesters point him out and scream.
The complete lack of proportionality when it comes to the police responding to these two events in Kenosha continues to show that it is not merely a “few bad cops”, or that these events can be chalked up to simple mistakes, but rather a full systemic problem. Kenosha’s police force made it clear that they weren’t on the side of the people they were sworn to protect, and chose to side with the white “militia” that pointed their guns at unarmed people, menaced protesters, and ultimately killed two people protesting peacefully.
When the police complain that people don’t comply, that they don’t get any respect from people, that they have a hard job, they aren’t entirely wrong; that said, you get respect by giving respect in this country, not by taking it by force, or demanding that it be given. Respect is earned, and it is not at all unreasonable at this point that the people — those of the communities that have been oppressed, harassed, and killed for centuries especially — demand of the police that they earn it back.
Across sports, you could see the fatigue on the faces of the black athletes and coaches, and in many cases you also saw tears — the reaction to Blake’s shooting started a whirlwind of anger that eventually turned into a boycott. NBA games were cancelled, MLB games were cancelled, games in the MLS as well — after being a distraction for the last few months, the sports world shut off, so we couldn’t look away from what we all had wrought.
Real change was enacted, however small at first — the NBA will be making all arenas polling places, a new social justice coalition is being formed, and this was done in concert with the owners, not just the players’ initiatives. Whether Major League Baseball likes it or not, they will not be able to stay neutral, and they should not run and hide from the issue. The game of baseball is a diverse one, as teams play all over the planet, and making a stand at this time in history would be true to the legacies of Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Frank Robinson, and the trailblazers that created a more diverse and greater game for us all today.
The Mariners, as the team with the highest percentage of black players in Major League Baseball, could be very important in the coming months and years, and as a fan and follower since as far back as I can remember, I am proud of the team for supporting its players, making an attempt to give back to the underserved communities in Washington with the Hometown Nine program (look it up, every team should be doing this), and in giving the team’s black players a platform in these tumultuous months.
In the midst of a grisly losing streak that ultimately dropped the M’s to 8–17, M’s starter Nestor Cortes played a starring role in what may be one of the worst innings of baseball any Mariners fan has ever been subjected to on August 14th. Ready for this?
- A catcher interference to start the game, George Springer to first
- Another error on a Josh Reddick single that sends Springer to third, courtesy of Kyle Lewis
- After striking out Jose Altuve, Cortes allows an infield hit on a ball Kyle Seager corralled but didn’t get a throw off that scores Springer, then on Yordan Alvarez’s first (and as it turned out, one of his last) at bat of 2020, lifted a shot into the Crawford boxes. 4–1, Astros.
- Yuli Gurriel homers, a little further this time — 5–1, Astros.
- Cortes forgets how to pitch, and walks Carlos Correa and Kyle Tucker on 8 pitches.
- Martin Maldonado finally double taps Cortes with a ringing double, plating Correa and Tucker for his 956th and 957th RBIs against Seattle this year. 7–1.
- M’s reliever Brian Shaw is thrown into the feeding frenzy, and serves up Springer and Reddick to bring around Maldonado to extend Houston’s lead to 8–1.
- Just to be sure to take a full-on crap on national television, J.P. Crawford boots an easy grounder from Altuve that scores Springer for the second time in the inning. 9–1, Astros. The inning has been over 45 minutes long at this point, and the urge to drink heavily has long set in.
Incredibly, this could have continued — Shaw walked Bregman, and only a double play ball snared by Seager stopped the carnage. Cortes allowed 7 runs, got just one out with his 41 pitches — 19 of which were strikes (!!!) — and is now at the Mariners alternative site. So is Shaw. The M’s lost 11–1.
The next four games were lost by a combined total of 5 runs — Erik Swanson picked up his second loss in a week in a 3–2 loss to the Astros; the M’s also lost a slugfest with the Dodgers that featured the brothers Seager bashing home runs in consecutive half-innings (this elicited great reactions from both), two home runs from Evan White, and a 5-run 7th for the Dodgers that put them ahead for good in an eventual 11–9 loss.
Their losing streak, however, comes with a reminder of one thing, and that is how absolutely brutal the West divisions of Major League Baseball are at the moment. Want to come up from the cellar to the penthouse? The Astros and Dodgers are the two best teams in baseball, no out is easy against them and they also pitch as well as any team in the game (the Dodgers pitching depth is, frankly, unfair). The San Diego Padres have the most captivating player in baseball in Fernando Tatis Jr., a human highlight machine that has taken over the sport this year, as well as a talent-loaded starting rotation and a stacked organization that is now blossoming at once. Oh, and the Oakland Athletics are somehow good every single year, have a patient, powerful lineup, and own the best record in the American League right now. You just can’t win over 60% of your games out here when you don’t have an ace, your bullpen has two new names every week and you have black holes in your lineup.
There have been steps taken to remedy that recently, however, that seem to have provided some jolt to the team — the first being the demotion of Mallex Smith and the trade of Dan Vogelbach to the Toronto/Buffalo Blue Jays. Let’s revisit the box score one more time in that entertaining Dodgers game — see anything stand out in the middle?
Yup, in the middle of the lineup where the hitters around him went 13–22, Vogey went 0–5.
It actually gets worse the closer you look — he ended the M’s rally in the first, ended another inning in the 4th, and was the last out of the game in the 9th. This was his effect on the offense this year — rally killer. Removing his lifeless corpse from the middle of the order has already seen White, Lewis, and Nola perk up since.
The Blue Jays did turn Michael Saunders and Justin Smoak into All-Stars, so, you know, maybe trading Vogelbach for a small wad of cash someday bites us in 2022 when Vogey, now the white Prince Fielder, sledgehammers a ball so far at T-Mobile Park that Aaron Goldsmith has an aneurysm trying to find the superlatives to describe it. But, really, what’s more likely to happen?
Smith was simply a zero in the lineup and in the field, and until he can find a way to maximize his athletic ability and take a pitch again, he won’t be seeing a Major League ballpark anytime soon. Any at-bats being given to Dee Gordon were also a waste; he has been largely mothballed in recent weeks.
This was not the end of the wheeling and dealing for the Mariners, though, not by a long shot — those relatively minor moves gave way to some potentially tremendous ones, as Austin Nola, Taijuan Walker, Austin Adams, and Dan Altavilla were all dealt in the last few days.
The trade of Walker was almost a formality — once his fastball came back to life and he began mowing hitters down, his near-minimum contract and power stuff had Dipoto’s phone ringing off the hook. The M’s have asked for a player to be named later from the Blue Jays, which could potentially be a nice prospect; the Jays have some young, intriguing infield prospects outside of their organization’s top 10 overall that could be worth a look. It was fun to watch Walker blossom, and he will be a quality pitcher for the Jays, but this is also a win for the M’s from a value perspective — good luck, big man.
The headliner, though, is unquestionably Nola, Adams, and Altavilla to the Padres for outfield prospect Taylor Trammell, third baseman Ty France, catcher Luis Torrens and reliever Andres Munoz.
Nola took his opportunity for regular playing time at catcher this year and ran with it — he does not have Tom Murphy’s raw power, but his .920 OPS thus far and five bombs in less than 100 plate appearances show how far the unheralded but multidimensional utility man has come in becoming a quality professional hitter. I have devoted plenty of words to how much I like this guy.
A haul like this, though, is entirely unexpected for someone like Nola, who is 30 and only found his stroke at the end of last year — let’s talk about Taylor Trammell for a moment.
Trammell was the 35th pick in the 2016 draft, and what will immediately jump at you is the speed — he is blisteringly fast, his calling card as a pro thus far. Currently the #67 overall prospect in baseball (that’s seven Mariners in the top 70 now, if you’re keeping track), Trammell has scuffled a bit — once considered a potential power/speed superstar in the mold of a Ronald Acuna Jr. or Cody Bellinger, he has been inconsistent in the minor leagues, showing out in big games like the Futures Game two years in a row, but also struggling at the plate, posting a slash line of .234/.340/.689 at the AA level last year. The power part of that power/speed combo has been a little missing as of late.
That said, there is some evidence that the Padres tinkered too much with his swing and hurt his confidence, which is what happened to J.P. Crawford in Philly before his trade to Seattle — he has shown he will take a pitch, he doesn’t seem to have a bad strikeout tendency (though his strikeout rate has jumped around a lot as a pro), and at 22, he has plenty of room for growth, and on the same timeline as the other M’s outfield prospects. He is also a hard worker by all accounts, and a thoughtful, humble person, as his writing for The Athletic would suggest. M’s fans should be excited about this guy.
The other players involved are also interesting — France started the season as San Diego’s designated hitter, but can play the corner infield spots and can hit, and is only 25 as well, so he could be useful, if he can cut down on the strikeouts. Munoz is a flamethrowing right-hander who, before Tommy John in March, was their future closer — his fastball in 22 appearances last year averaged 99.5 MPH, and the potential as a closer and shutdown relief pitcher is huge for a team that has…well, no one that fits that bill. Torrens will be depth at catcher, where the M’s are desperate right now with Nola gone, Murphy out for the year and Cal Raleigh still probably a year away from the majors.
None of these moves the Mariners made today or the last few days is going to help the team this year, and no Nola or Walker is going to make the team a little less watchable the next few weeks. But front office work is chess, not checkers — some pieces are sacrificed to the Cause to achieve a greater goal. In getting nice value out of Taijuan Walker and flipping the good-but-not-likely-All-Star-caliber Nola for a top-level prospect, the M’s front office scored a little on the desperation of the Padres and Blue Jays, and funneled even more talent into a talent-rich system.
As for the Padres, they have clearly decided that there is no time like the present this year, as they have emptied out their organization to go for it in this wild shortened season. How talented was the Padres prospect pool before their flurry of trades? Somehow, they managed to get an ace (Mike Clevinger, by way of the Cleveland Indians; that relationship soured after his jaunt in Chicago with his teammate that could have exposed himself and his whole team to COVID), a lefty power hitter (Mitch Moreland, via the Red Sox), a closer or elite setup man, depending on role (Trevor Rosenthal, from the KC Royals), and a multipositional player with a live bat (Nola) with losing just two of their top 15 prospects (Trammell and shortstop Gabriel Arias). This is what good drafting, coaching, and trading will do for you — it’s all about turning talent into assets, however that might be done, and it’s hard to argue that there are more than a handful of teams in baseball have done that better than the Padres in the last three years. As the Mariners hope to turn their elite prospects into future superstars and end one of the longest stretches of futility in professional sports, they can look to the Padres as an example of what it might look like when the M’s are ready to compete.
