Mariners Moose Tracks, 5/29/20: MiLB cuts; mock drafts; the Mets, everybody!; Adrian Sampson

Hello, and happy Friday. Weeks and weekends don’t mean much to me anymore but I’m hoping to put a big piece of tape on the end of what was honestly a pretty lousy week and kick this particular box into the attic.

In Mariners news:

• If you missed it, yesterday was sort of a red wedding around MiLB as teams started to notify players of their release. Teams usually release between 20-30 minor leaguers per year, mostly at the end of spring training, to make room for new draftees and international free agents, but this year that didn’t happen as transactions were halted after things shut down in the baseball world. However, the number we’ve heard is closer to 45 or upwards of 50 players being released. The latest news, as well as info about some other cuts the Mariners are making to non-baseball ops jobs (ticketing, group sales, etc.) is all in the blurb here. We don’t have a complete list of the released players yet, but will share that when it is made public, either by the team or the players themselves.
• ICYMI, a whole slew of mock drafts have come out lately and the takes, they’re everywhere. John rounded them all up for you here but to summarize quickly, what looked like a surefire top five last month is no longer so and there is a very exciting possibility, at least according to a couple of analysts, that Emerson Hancock or Nick Gonzales might be available to the Mariners at #6, and that, friends, is very very exciting news.
• Technically a former Mariner, but I’ll allow it:

John: “Still unable to challenge the right-field wall, it seems.”

Around the league:

• At least one released player is spilling the tea about the dysfunction he saw in the Mets organization:

If you’re interested in reading the complete list of the 39 players the Mets released—including former Mariners Nick Rumbelow and Rob Whalen—you can find that here.

• The A’s have been asking you to split the check and Venmo them for your second drink for a while, it seems.

• Do y’all ever look at a product in the store, and think, oh my, I’m sure there’s a target market for this, but really, who are these people, and how many of them can there possibly be? That was me opening up this email from MLB:

• First Trevor Bauer, now I have to reconsider my David Price feelings? Ugh quarantine is the worst.

• After all that bad news you slogged through, here’s a nice thing: Texas RHP Jared Kelley won the Gatorade prep baseball player of the year award and was surprised with the news by Bryce Harper as well as his dad carrying in a Texas-sized trophy onto the Zoom call. In addition to being a large and strong lad with a lightning bolt attached to his shoulder, Kelley also volunteers his time off the baseball diamond helping with hurricane relief efforts.

Spoiler alert, video still, he will probably not play at University of Texas if he goes where he’s predicted to, anywhere from the back of the top 10 to the middle of the first round. If you want to read more about Kelley, we wrote him up as one of our earliest draft previews.

In international baseball:

• The Mexican League plans to play a shortened season:

• Former Mariner and Seattle native Adrian Sampson pitched in his first game for the Lotte Giants yesterday after the passing of his father earlier this month to cancer. On a pitch limit in his first outing he threw 59 pitches in 3.1 IP, allowing two runs while striking out three.

Gotty’s pick:

If you live in King County, this site has a really helpful, easy-to-read infographic on what the target numbers are for containing the spread of COVID-19, and where we are with regards to that target.

Kate’s pick:

Is there a song that you inexorably associate with baseball that immediately causes feelings of happiness to burst forth in your chest, like the physical sensation you get being jumped upon by a gigantic, unwieldy, overly-affectionate dog? “Centerfield” is that song for me—it’s the song they play before every home game at the Peoria Sports Complex, even during the AFL, and it’s timed up to a perfect montage of baseball greats past and present, with all the right little jumps during the hand claps, and it’s my favorite thing in the world, and I hope whatever song makes feel that way, you go chase it down immediately, because we could all use a little of that right now.