Well, Mariners fans, I’d be lying if I told you this season was off to an ideal start, or even a good start, or even an average start. At least then they’d be above .500. The team has struggled in all aspects with performance and injuries including, but not limited to, Brendan Donovan, Cal Raleigh, Gabe Speier, Matt Brash, Victor Robles, Carlos Vargas, and Logan Evans. This has led to a variety of patchwork lineups and stopgap fixes in the hopes that they will all return sooner rather than later,
and the Mariners’ record has suffered for it.
Despite these issues, the Mariners have had quite a bright spot this year in the form of longtime organization Quad-A player Emerson Hancock. Hancock has had his fair share of pots of coffee, but this most recent one seems to have stuck. Hancock has dominated teams throughout the AL to start the season, posting an impressive 3.02/3.64 ERA/FIP alongside a very solid WHIP of 1.01. It’s come thanks to the absence of poor old Bryce Miller, who has been suffering at the hands of repeated elbow issues since last season. But Miller is now back and healthy, and everyone looks around awkwardly, as it seems Hancock has displaced him. The Mariners reacted with a temporary six-man rotation to test things out, resisting the urge to displace Luis Castillo or Emerson Hancock right away.
Now the Mariners have run this rotation for a week and, with more feedback, have progressed to “piggybacking” Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo together on Tuesday night. While the Mariners ended up walking out with the loss, Miller looked pretty good in his 5 innings, and Castillo seemed serviceable in his two and a third. Jerry Dipoto has already expressed resistance to moving either to the bullpen full-time, as he told reporters recently:
“If you go to the bullpen, you don’t maintain your pitch volume for very long. And that’s the worst thing that could happen to the depth of our starting rotation is taking one of our top six starting pitchers, send them to the bullpen, and then 10 days later, their pitch volume is no longer a factor.”
It’s looking unlikely that either will have an extended stay in the bullpen, so now we have to ask ourselves: should the Mariners run a six-man rotation for the rest of the year? Let us know what you think via the poll and comments below.
Of course, they don’t have to run six men, but if they don’t, then who is the odd man out? Presumably, barring sudden injury (knock on wood), it could be any one of Hancock, Castillo, or Miller. Personally, I think it’s extremely likely that Castillo is moved to mostly long relief/piggyback starts, with the hope they can trade him later this season. Obviously, if they switch him to a full-time reliever, he loses value, as much value as a starter with a 6 ERA can have anyway, so the idea would be to keep him stretched out and available for spot starts and the like until such a time as he can be moved on. But let us know what you think, answer the poll, and leave comments below on your thoughts!
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