Lookout Landing - 2021 Mariners Exit InterviewsMariners baseball support group meets here, Tuesdays and all the other days too.https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/50775/ll-fav.png2021-11-09T08:00:00-08:00http://www.lookoutlanding.com/rss/stream/225101362021-11-09T08:00:00-08:002021-11-09T08:00:00-08:002021 Mariners exit interviews: Chris Flexen
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<figcaption>Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>A promising first season with the Mariners brings high hopes for seasons to come. </p> <p id="MlhXq1">My first glimpse of the 2021 <a href="https://www.lookoutlanding.com/">Seattle Mariners</a>, my first in-person Mariners game at T-Mobile Park since 2019, and my opinions of the team to start the season were all in the hands of Chris Flexen. As the only proper birthday celebration I could think of, I convinced my family to join me at the Mariners’ second game of the 2021 season to watch them face the <a href="https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/">San Francisco Giants</a> on one of those beautiful April nights that remind you of the magic that baseball games bring. </p>
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<figcaption>Come back, baseball!</figcaption>
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<p id="panqUC">I didn’t have very high expectations for the game, but I didn’t really have any expectations at all. The Mariners had picked up Flexen that December from the Doosan Bears of the KBO for a guaranteed $4.75 million over two years with some additional bonuses. Prior to his KBO stint, he had spent a few seasons with the <a href="https://www.amazinavenue.com/">Mets</a>, but nothing that would have kept him on my radar. Up and down from the minors for most of his time in New York, Flexen struggled to post consistent numbers, and was DFA’d in 2019. His KBO season showed improvement in his pitching, but he was still struggling. So when Flexen exited the game after five scoreless innings with four hits, two walks, and six strikeouts, I was quite satisfied with his first outing in a Mariners uniform. </p>
<p id="TqTqVK">Perhaps foreshadowing the rest of the Mariners’ season, Flexen’s overall performance encapsulates the 2021 Seattle Mariners; a team of low expectations but desire for competition that blossomed into something quite fun to watch. </p>
<p id="AD24ZT">That 4-0 win against the Giants would serve as a starting point for a trajectory that would only continue upward. Flexen’s ability to stay consistent and healthy throughout the entire season proved to be key in the Mariners’ playoff push. From the beginning of the season to the end, his stats are almost identical. Per FanGraphs, his K% during the first half of the season was 16.9% compared to his second half percentage of 16.8%. He additionally posted a 1.21 WHIP in the first half that slightly increased to 1.29 during the second half of the season, right in line with the league average of 1.297 for the 2021 season. Considered a bust during his time with the Mets, the comeback-story-narrative of Flexen’s first season with the Mariners fits perfectly with his success. </p>
<p id="Ftqr0Z">With his lowest ERA in the Majors since 2017 and a career record for strikeouts in a season with 125, Flexen was involved in talk of low-ballot Cy Young votes for much of the season. He was awarded Mariners Pitcher of the Year by the BBWAA, and spoken of highly by manager Scott Servais and GM Jerry Dipoto, who were impressed with Flexen’s development of control and confidence. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Our man <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanDivish?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RyanDivish</a> presents the Pitcher of the Year award from the Seattle chapter of the BBWAA to Chris Flexen. <a href="https://t.co/4nxw9DJQId">pic.twitter.com/4nxw9DJQId</a></p>— Larry Stone (@StoneLarry) <a href="https://twitter.com/StoneLarry/status/1444121573145804803?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 2, 2021</a>
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<p id="0OhBij">The Mariners were forced to use 15 different starting pitchers this season due to injuries, so having reliable pitchers like Flexen who were able to stay healthy and productive throughout the season was of high importance, and his energy and eagerness to perform lifted the team in important moments. Perhaps his own biggest critic, he could often be seen yelling into his glove while walking off the field if he wasn’t happy with his performance because he wanted so badly to do well for his team. This type of competitor is necessary to have on a team looking to make a serious drive towards the playoffs. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Flexen berating himself for giving up one run is again a moment all of us self-critics feel spiritually <a href="https://t.co/foJCBqvq8U">pic.twitter.com/foJCBqvq8U</a></p>— Lydia Cruz (@TheLydiaCruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLydiaCruz/status/1440880066108428290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2021</a>
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<p id="5nmBcP">He even earned himself the nickname “Hulk!”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hulk hands are a new accessory for Chris Flexen… <a href="https://t.co/fSytSor9K6">pic.twitter.com/fSytSor9K6</a></p>— Jen Mueller (@JenTalksSports) <a href="https://twitter.com/JenTalksSports/status/1412565632126648321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2021</a>
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<p id="mXrkqI">Although I had no expectations for Flexen going into this season, after his first few starts, he built them for me. I was impressed with his 2021 performance, and I now expect him to continue his upward trajectory next season. He has shown no signs of fatigue, and it only makes sense for him to continue getting stronger. At just 27 years old, Flexen is currently signed through 2022, with a club option for 2023. I’m excited to see what’s in store for him this upcoming season, and given his ability to stay composed and consistent, I anticipate similar results. </p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2021/11/9/22770497/2021-mariners-exit-interviews-chris-flexenBecca Weinberg2021-10-26T09:00:00-07:002021-10-26T09:00:00-07:002021 Mariners exit interviews: Marco Gonzales
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<figcaption>Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>After a tough start to his year, Marco proved he’s still got it</p> <p id="Dl7Ugc">“Be kind, because you never know what someone else is going through.” That’s one of those maddeningly ubiquitous yet untraceable quotes people love to put on the ‘gram over a picture of like, a rainstorm or something. Generally they prompt an eye roll as you keep scrolling. But the sentiment at the core of that hand-lettered cursive bromide is one worth remembering, if you think about people like Hemingway’s iceberg theory for fiction: what is visible on the surface is just a sliver of what lies underneath.</p>
<p id="y5ToYW">Pitchers like Marco Gonzales, or Kyle Hendricks, or any other soft-tosser you want to name, always seem to live under a shadow: looking at their sub-par stuff, people wonder when the league is going to catch up with them. They can’t keep getting away with this, the stuff-lovers yell, as these gentle hurlers continue to do exactly that. Questions about how sustainable Marco’s results are have dogged him seemingly everywhere but in Seattle’s front office—where he earned the distinction of being branded “very boring” by disgraced former team president Kevin Mather. But in 2021, it looked like Marco was finally going to be apprehended by the league. His strikeouts were down; his walks were up. A shaky spring training led into a shaky April, which ended with the normally stalwart Gonzales headed to the IL with a forearm strain.</p>
<p id="spTJpE">After those early-season struggles, it was concerning to see Marco hit the IL, especially with the always ominous-seeming “forearm strain.” Five years removed from his TJ surgery, Marco has been a durable, workhorse starter, going on the IL only one other time in his career as a Mariner—when he had a neck strain that kept him out for a couple weeks towards the end of the 2018 season. This time, the forearm strain sidelined him for the entire month of May, the longest he’d been out of baseball since his UCL surgery.</p>
<p id="w5n5h0">Working without a minor league rehab assignment, the Mariners limited Marco’s workload when he returned in June, a month where the team went 2-2 in his appearances thanks to a couple of the Mariners’ signature chaotic wins (a one-run victory over the Twins, and an extra-innings victory against the Rays). Things were shaky, though, with Marco still giving up his characteristic 1-3 runs per start, but doing so in significantly fewer innings: more fours and fives in the box score rather than sixes and sevens. His ERA ballooned into the 5s and 6s as the season wore on. </p>
<p id="Onti0E">Marco has always been a master of control, getting his modest number of strikeouts not with big stuff but by outsmarting the hitter and coaxing batters into weak contact, but suddenly, he was getting barreled up more than ever before: 11.4%, bottom of the league, vs. a well below-league average 4.9% in 2019. He also faded out his signature cutter, a pitch he threw almost a quarter of the time in 2020, as batters were slugging .500 off it. All these things suggest that Marco wasn’t able to make his pitches do what he wanted them to do, what he’s always been able to get them to do. Maybe that forearm strain was more serious than it sounded. Or maybe this time, after all this time, the league finally had him dead to rights. Maybe it was time for Opening Day Marco to fade into Very Boring Marco, the back-of-the-rotation starter we’ve been told he is since he came over from St. Louis.</p>
<p id="TaSTYd">The name Marco derives from Mars, the Roman god of war. Maybe that’s where Marco gets his fiery personality from, the reason why he’s referred to mostly as “Marco” while other pitchers are “Flexen” or “Gilbert.” For someone whose stuff doesn’t speak loudly, Marco compensates with his warrior’s spirit, mound presence, and leadership in the clubhouse. In the midst of his struggles, Marco was open about his frustrations with his performance on the mound, not making excuses for any of it, but vowing to do better. And in August, by talent or luck or sheer force of will alone, he did, dragging his ERA back down with both hands, including a complete game, nine-strikeout performance against Texas where he surrendered just one run. Pitcher wins aren’t everything (or anything), but at the beginning of July, Marco was 1-5; at the beginning of September, he was 6-5; and at the beginning of October, he was 10-5.</p>
<p id="BSyvPo">It’s not in Marco’s nature to make excuses, but it’s impossible to look at Marco’s season not colored by a tragic loss suffered right as it was beginning. In February, right as spring training was starting up, he and his wife Monica suffered the loss of Monica’s mother to Multiple Systems Atrophy, or MSA. MSA is a rare but devastating disease that resembles ALS in its symptoms and prognosis; the typical life expectancy of a patient at diagnosis is seven to eight years. (Learn more about MSA and how to help spread awareness <a href="https://www.multiplesystematrophy.org/">here</a>.) Just four months later, Marco and his wife would welcome their first child, Grace Linda—Linda, after the grandmother she would never have the opportunity to meet. </p>
<p id="jpqF3n">So often, fans don’t see the sacrifices players make—the family members left behind while they go on lengthy road tripes, the milestones hastily marked or missed entirely. And while that’s part of what the job entails, it doesn’t make things like what the Gonzales family went through in 2021 any easier. Nor did the hateful comments left on Marco’s Instagram photos of his newborn daughter—again, part of the territory, but in a year marked by a death in the family, being publicly insulted by the team president, injury, and the stress of a new baby, maybe it shouldn’t be part of the territory? Maybe everyone could just, I dunno, be a f%$@ing human? I guess that’s not as catchy as “be kind” in a pretty font, but the sentiment endures either way.</p>
<p id="TRUXnX">“The human element” has become somewhat of a joke phrase as umpires blow high-stakes calls in these playoffs, but the human element is what fiery Marco brings: more than the sum of his parts. Analytics might hate him, and 2021 might not have been his best year, but the captain of the Mariners pitching staff was able to turn his season—and the team’s fortunes with it—around. How important is Marco Gonzales to the Mariners? The lone month of the 2021 season where the Mariners would be under .500 was May, the month Marco missed. FanGraphs awarded him a mere .6 fWAR on the season, and Baseball Prospectus hit him with a -.9 WARP; Baseball Reference was a little gentler, giving him 2.2 bWAR. But it’s the war fought under the surface that matters for Marco this year, and to Mariners fans who can be comforted in penciling him in for another year helming the rotation.</p>
https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2021/10/26/22746061/2021-mariners-exit-interviews-marco-gonzalesKate Preusser