Mariners Moose Tracks, 11/12/23: Ryan Bliss, Martín Maldonado, and Bobby Witt Jr.

Meet the Links is back baby!

In Mariners news...

• Ryan Bliss was the talk of the Arizona Fall League, and Jerry made some comments about him to the media at the GM meetings that were posted by Ryan Divish on Friday. After those comments were met with some amount of consternation, Ryan felt it necessary to clarify the context around the aforementioned comments. (Thread)

• Will all that said, the AFL season that Ryan Bliss put together has not escaped the notice of baseball as at large. With the 31st year of the AFL is in the books Bliss has been awarded Defensive Player of the Year!
• Seattle power couple sighting!

Around the league...

• Hey you! Yes you reader! Have you ever been presented with the notion that stolen bases are a pitcher stat and not really understood what that meant? Well, now there’s a stat for that! Thanks to Baseball Savant, we now have data going back to 2016 tracking who is the best and worst at stopping baserunners from advancing for free.
• The end of the Dusty Baker era in Houston has seemingly also signaled the end of the Martín Maldonado era. The 37-year-old is a free agent, and there are plenty of teams that would benefit from having a catcher of his defensive acumen.
• The Kansas City Royals may be the next team to lockup a young superstar. According to Jaylon Thompson at the Kansas City Star, shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. is open to signing an extension to keep him in the Midwest for the foreseeable future, and it is seemingly just a matter of timing to get a deal done.

Nick’s pick...

• An exceedingly Foolish youtuber has posted a feature film length video analyzing his preseason picks of the league’s Top-50 players.