Apologies to the readers of this baseball blog with an analytical bent hoping to gain some deep-dive insight from new Mariners reliever Caleb Ferguson:
“I don’t really talk about a lot of analytical things, because I don’t really think about pitching in that way.”
Ah. Well. [Crumples up pages of notes on vertical approach angle and spin rate] How do
you think about pitching?“I just focus on outs,” he said, shrugging. “I just focus on counting as many strikes, as many first pitch strikes, counting as many outs as I can
get.”
It’s not a surprising answer from the one reliever the Mariners picked up at the trade deadline. For all of the attention surrounding Seattle’s much-ballyhooed pitching development, there’s relatively little futuristic technology and mo-cap devices and pages of stat sheets that require an advanced degree to understand. Usually, it’s a sheet of paper with a few bullet points that basically boil down to three concepts: throw your best stuff the most; throw strikes, especially first-pitch strikes; and trust your stuff. It’s a mindset that suits Ferguson to perfection.
“[The Mariners] identify strike-throwers. And that’s what I try to pride myself on. Coming in and just having very brief meetings, hearing their philosophy and then okay, how do you like to pitch? And presenting my way, and then listening to them...it’s like, okay. This should be a pretty easy transition.”
Like the other players the Mariners acquired this trade deadline, Ferguson has post-season experience. He was drafted by the Dodgers in 2014 and debuted four years later, spending the first five years of his career with LA. Even though he missed much of 2020’s championship run (and all of 2021) with TJ surgery, Ferguson has never been with an organization that’s missed the post-season; after the Dodgers traded him to the Yankees in 2024, he was then traded to the Astros, and made one appearance in the ALWCS. But LA still has Ferguson’s heart.
“I am what I am because of what the Dodgers have done for me, from the time they drafted me to the time I wasn’t there anymore.”
Mariners fans will be encouraged to know that Ferguson sees similarities in the player development between the Dodgers—one of the best at it in the sport—and the Mariners.
“The Dodgers are really good at identifying what you do that’s really good, and that’s just what they ask you to do. It’s kind of like here. They want to challenge you. Like hey, let’s just see how many strikes you can throw. It’s one of those things where when it’s preached upon you for so long coming up through the minor leagues that when you get into the big leagues, you’re already a strike-thrower. You don’t have to figure out how to throw strikes. It was just kind of engraved in my head from day one that you have to throw quality strikes. From the time they drafted me to the time I wasn’t there, they preached that. They preached it so well for me, and they identified what I did really well, and they just asked me to do that.
In addition to his strike-throwing ability and post-season experience, Ferguson also brings a steady veteran presence to the reliever corps. With Trent Thornton on the IL, Ferguson is now the most experienced MLB vet in a bullpen that has several contributors in just their first or second full big-league seasons.
“I think part of the reason there’s success in certain places is because some of the presence they have around in clubhouses, and some of the knowledge that’s shared player-to-player. Being able to go ask certain guys questions when you have them, it’s beneficial.”
Ferguson brings that presence, along with a pitch arsenal he’s honed over time thanks to stops in several places known for their pitching—first the Dodgers, then the Yankees, then the Astros. Seattle might be reaping the benefits of some development from a divisional rival.
“When I got to Houston, same thing. They identified what I did well, they asked me to do that, and they were really helpful with helping me develop the two-seamer.”
The development of the sinker might be the reason behind Ferguson’s drop in strikeout rate but increase in overall effectiveness. The two-seamer isn’t engineered for whiffs, but it results in a ton of soft contact. He retired two of his three hitters on the pitch in Sunday’s game, soft flyouts to center and right field (in an aesthetically pleasing 11-pitch inning where the putouts went F7, F8, F9 in order). The sinker has the highest putaway percentage of any of his pitches, at 25%, and has the second-lowest expected metrics among any of his pitches except the slurve (which Ferguson calls a curveball).
The slurve is also a weapon Ferguson honed over the past two years, tweaking it into a whiff-getting weapon and upping its usage.
“This year I’ve thrown it more than in years past, and I think it was, I sat down with a couple different people and just did a scouting report on myself, trying to figure out what I could do to make my job easier. And that was kind of a flashing light to me, hey, this pitch has good success, so maybe start upping the usage with that.”
Like teammate Jackson Kowar, who learned that not every pro pitch arsenal has to look the same (cue him saying “working on a changeup” with deep disdain), Ferguson went through a similar process in refining his toolkit.
“In my younger years, I was kind of intimidated to throw two breaking balls, intimidated to throw two fastballs because I didn’t want to take away from what I was already doing well. But as I matured as a player and figured out how to navigate the big leagues in the 162 game season, I just realized, more weapons are better. When you have two fastballs and two breaking balls as a reliever, if you don’t have one, you’ve got the other one to lean on, so you give yourself a better chance if you don’t have your greatest stuff that night.”
Ferguson’s single-minded emphasis on throwing strikes doesn’t necessarily mean he’s chasing strikeouts, allowing him to open up his arsenal in this way. It’s far from the sexiest deadline pickup in a time when other teams in the race were chasing big strikeout stuff, but that’s just fine with the Mariners and Ferguson, who threw two perfect 1-2-3 frames for the Mariners this weekend.
“I pride myself on throwing as many strikes as possible. If I get three outs on four pitches, our hitters are right back in the dugout and we’ve got a chance to score more runs. I think in baseball now sometimes, people can forget that our job is just to get outs. You have to get 27 of them, so however you can get them, you just gotta get ‘em.”
While there’s a philosophy match between Ferguson and his new team, he also sees the relationship as being mutually beneficial.
“Anytime you can go to a contender with a chance to pitch in October, and on top of being able to pitch on a contender, pitch in an organization like this that can produce what they have on the pitching side year in and year out, it’s a chance to get better, and it’s a chance to help a really good team to continue to win.”
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