Massive Mike’s Revenge Rampage Involves Seattle

Over the weekend, I used to be distraught to be taught that Mike Baumann — my pretty, mild-mannered, Fits-loving, pineapple-curious distant cousin — had been designated for project by the Baltimore Orioles. These no-good, rotten, perfidious, cold-hearted Baltimore Orioles. Do you know that Massive Mike and Austin Hays had been teammates courting again to varsity? All these years, misplaced like tears within the rain.

To say I’m livid could be an understatement of biblical proportions, and the Mike Baumanns of the world are coming collectively to go to disproportionate vengeance upon the Orioles. I’ve already jinxed John Means, and I’ll take one other pitcher each week till our thirst for retribution is sated. Which can most likely be by no means. Francis Scott Key was a hack. The Wire is overrated. Neither I nor my descendants will ever eat crab once more.

Fortuitously, there are different groups that worth what Massive Mike can provide. (Meg gave me permission to name the youthful, harder-throwing Baumann “Massive Mike” all through this story, as a result of writing my very own identify again and again was getting bizarre.)

This can be a bodily, sturdy, hard-throwing reliever with a number of secondary pitches who performed a major (if low-leverage) function on a 100-win workforce final 12 months. I might’ve been shocked if he made it by waivers, however he didn’t even get that far.

The Mariners took curiosity in Massive Mike and labored out a commerce: Two Michaels for a Blake. Baumann and Michael Pérez to Baltimore in trade for Triple-A catcher Blake Hunt. Pérez you may bear in mind from his transient cameo on the Mets’ catcher carousel final summer time. (I completely forgot that Gary Sánchez was on the Mets briefly in 2023. They’d a wild 12 months.) Hunt is, presumably, a human man who has many attributes. I care not even slightly what they’re. We’re right here to speak about what Massive Mike can do for Seattle.

Massive Mike received into his first sport in a Mariners uniform whereas I used to be scripting this, and in 2/3 of an inning he threw simply three strikes out of 12 pitches, walked two batters, and threw two wild pitches. Not a terrific first impression, however I’m prepared to chalk it as much as rapid post-trade jitters. Don’t fear about it.

Let’s say nothing modifications about Massive Mike’s sport from Baltimore. Final season, he received 10 video games out of the bullpen largely by being in the proper place on the proper time. Massive Mike appeared in 60 video games final 12 months and entered 32 of them in both the sixth or seventh inning. He entered with the Orioles both tied or trailing 36 instances, appeared in a number of innings 20 instances, and recorded 4 or extra outs 16 instances.

Final 12 months’s Orioles had an superior offense, an superior nearer (even after Félix Bautista received harm), and a rotation that’s greatest understood by the quantity of effort that workforce put into convincing us that, sure, we really do suppose we are able to win with Kyle Gibson and Dean Kremer pitching that many innings.

A workforce like that’s going to have loads of video games determined within the sixth and seventh innings, and whichever pitcher is round at the moment goes to rack up loads of wins. Until you’re the 2022 Astros, the reliever who pitches these innings — or relievers, most definitely, given accidents and variances in type — might be going to be simply effective at greatest. Massive Mike was slightly higher than “simply effective” final 12 months; he walked 12.1% of opponents, which isn’t nice, however he had an ERA- of 90 and held opponents to a .218 batting common.

With that stated, when the Orioles received to the playoffs final 12 months, they left him off the postseason roster. And to not be the man who says, “After which what occurred?” — which is without doubt one of the web’s most annoying tics — however what occurred subsequent is the Orioles received their collective head caved in by the Rangers. Baltimore received swept within the ALDS and gave up roughly a billion runs within the course of.

Coincidence? I feel not.

However even on this hyperbolically optimistic analysis of Massive Mike, I concede that he was hardly a pivotal member of the pitching employees. He was out of choices, and the Orioles minimize him to make room for Grayson Rodriguez’s return from the IL. I’ll concede, reluctantly, that you just’d most likely relatively have Rodriguez in your roster than Massive Mike.

The Mariners might use a gradual hand on the wheel within the center innings, however they wouldn’t have given up a… effectively, prospect might be too sturdy a phrase for Hunt, a 25-year-old who wanted three tries to get out of Double-A. However he’s hitting .293/.372/.533 in 24 video games in Triple-A this 12 months, so he’s not nothing. Anyway, the Mariners wouldn’t have given him up in the event that they didn’t suppose there was at the least the potential for extra from Massive Mike.

On reflection, a Baumann-Mariners partnership makes a lot sense I really feel slightly silly for not predicting it earlier than it occurred. See, Massive Mike is about energy. His fastball averages 96.2 mph, and his two breaking balls are a slider that averages 92.1 mph and a knuckle curve that is available in at 87.2. That’s, in keeping with Baseball Savant, the best common slider velocity and the second-highest common curveball velocity in all of baseball this 12 months. Since 2020, there have been 45 sliders thrown within the majors at 95 mph or extra; Massive Mike has thrown 9 of them. The one one who’s thrown greater than that’s Jacob deGrom; the one different pitcher who’s thrown greater than 5 is Emmanuel Clase.

You recognize who loves a tough thrower? Jerry Dipoto and the Mariners.

The Mariners, as a employees, aren’t any. 1 within the league this 12 months in common fastball velocity at 94.6 mph throughout all fastball varieties. That leads the league by greater than half a mile per hour. They usually love a hard-throwing fastball-slider man out of the bullpen. Final offseason, Seattle signed free agent reliever Ryne Stanek (fastball velocity 98.6 mph, slider velocity 88.3 mph) to complement a bullpen anchored by nearer Andrés Muñoz (fastball velocity 98.9 mph, slider velocity 88.1 mph).

After I talked to Massive Mike final summer time, I posed a query I like asking pitchers: For those who had the flexibility to steal one pitch from anybody in baseball, which one would you decide? Massive Mike gave me two solutions: First, his then-teammate Shintaro Fujinami’s splitter. Second, Matt Brash’s slider.

Now he’s Brash’s teammate. Positive, Brash is presently on the IL whereas recovering from Tommy John surgical procedure, however I’m positive he’d be blissful to present Massive Mike a name and discuss him by the finer factors of throwing a slider.

With that stated, if studying Brash’s slider had been so simple as following a guidelines, absolutely each pitcher who’s come by Seattle previously three years would’ve picked it up. I’m unsure it’s inside Massive Mike’s potential to repeat Brash, if solely as a result of he’s by no means spun something as quick as Brash spins his slider.

Brash’s slider is far more east-west, whereas Massive Mike’s has extra vertical break. However when Muñoz was getting his slider into the decrease 90s, which he did fairly routinely in 2022 — when the pitch was the most effective breaking balls in baseball — his motion profile was slightly extra attainable for Massive Mike. It’d nonetheless require an overhaul to be able to generate extra horizontal motion, however the spin charges and velocity are fairly related, and each pitchers throw from a three-quarters arm slot.

And one factor Massive Mike has going for him: He’s all the way down to attempt stuff. Over elements of 4 seasons within the majors, he’s adjusted his curveball, gaining three miles an hour from 2021 to 2022, and one other three from 2022 to 2023. He additionally modified his set place this 12 months. In 2023, he pitched from a fairly conventional stretch.

However this 12 months, he’s began from an open stance, together with his left leg cocked out towards the first-base dugout.

He additionally let the lettuce develop out over the winter. I feel it’s a very good look that’s well-suited to the cooler, air-conditioned environs of T-Cellular Park. (And one other factor Massive Mike has in frequent with Muñoz, for what it’s price.) Anyway, if the Mariners suppose they’ll unlock one thing the Orioles couldn’t, I think about Massive Mike has proven a willingness to experiment.

Saying {that a} man who simply received DFA’d is probably the following Brash or Muñoz is clearly large discuss. But it surely wasn’t too way back that these guys had been simply nameless onerous throwers who had their potential unlocked by a visit to Seattle. And if you wish to increase the set from hard-throwing fastball-slider guys to right-handed relievers extra typically, you possibly can say the identical about Paul Sewald and Erik Swanson earlier than they had been traded away.

The Mariners have had their ups and downs — and greater than slightly generational trauma stemming from trades involving Orioles pitchers — however this strikes me as a very good place to kick off Massive Mike’s Revenge Rampage. I hope he makes Baltimore remorse this commerce for years to come back.