{"id":691094,"date":"2026-05-24T07:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T07:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/691094\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T07:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T07:57:20","slug":"mariners-notes-crawford-rotation-castillo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/691094\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners Notes: Crawford, Rotation, Castillo"},"content":{"rendered":"

J.P. Crawford<\/a> has been a key part of the Mariners\u2019 lineup since joining the club in 2019. In over 3,800 plate appearances with Seattle, Crawford has batted .248\/.341\/.369 with a 107 wRC+ while providing serviceable defense at shortstop, including 9 Defensive Runs Saved as recently as 2024. That said, the recently extended Colt Emerson<\/a> is Seattle\u2019s shortstop of the future, and Crawford, in his final season of club control, has volunteered<\/a> to play third base to accommodate Emerson.<\/p>\n

Crawford\u2019s willingness to play the hot corner will add to his value in free agency, and it may also help his chances of returning to the Mariners. The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal<\/a> reports that Crawford\u2019s agent met with general manager Justin Hollander following Crawford\u2019s asking to try third base, reiterating the latter\u2019s desire to stay in Seattle. Hollander indicated a Crawford reunion is \u201cabsolutely\u201d possible. \u201cObviously we\u2019ll talk about it after the season and see how it goes. But he wants to be here and there\u2019s definitely a place for him,\u201d Hollander said of Crawford.<\/p>\n

Those comments are not surprising for a general manager speaking of a long-tenured and well-liked player. That said, Crawford\u2019s willingness to move positions and positive clubhouse reputation make the third base experiment worth exploring before he reaches free agency. Crawford\u2019s work at short has been poor since the start of 2025, adding up to -9 DRS and -19 Outs Above Average. He has 174 2\/3 innings of big league experience at third, all coming with the Phillies from 2017-18. To his credit, Crawford was worth 7 DRS and 3 OAA in that sample.<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s a small sample from eight years ago. In contrast, a look at Crawford\u2019s Statcast page gives reason for pessimism. His range is in the first percentile, while his arm strength 77.5 MPH arm strength in 2026 falls in just the 17th percentile. In terms of lateral moves, Crawford has been worth -10 OAA since the start of 2025 when moving toward third base. When moving toward first base, that improves slightly to -4 OAA. Playing third base would result in more lateral moves toward first, which could theoretically help to optimize Crawford\u2019s defense as he plays deeper into his 30s.<\/p>\n

Time will tell how Crawford fares defensively at the hot corner. In any case, a reunion might help the team\u2019s offense and overall defensive flexibility. Crawford has put up a 114 wRC+ in 180 plate appearances this year. Despite a .204 batting average, he remains a productive hitter thanks to his ability to draw walks, doing so at least 11.3% of the time in every season since 2022. The M\u2019s also have Brendan Donovan<\/a> under club control through 2027. Donovan has exclusively played third this year but also has experience at second and in left. Retaining Crawford to play third would allow Donovan to be used as a super-utility player while ensuring plenty of at-bats for those two and Emerson.<\/p>\n

Turning to the pitching staff, the Mariners\u2019 rotation is in a bit of a crunch with Logan Gilbert<\/a>, George Kirby<\/a>, Bryan Woo<\/a>, Bryce Miller<\/a>, and Emerson Hancock<\/a> all performing well. Although Miller had a 5.68 ERA last year and missed the first month and a half of 2026 with an oblique strain, he posted a 3.52 ERA with a strong 17.6% strikeout to walk differential from 2023-24. Going forward, Ryan Divish and Adam Jude of the Seattle Times<\/a> opine that the Mariners\u2019 best path forward is Miller in the rotation and Luis Castillo<\/a> in the bullpen full-time.<\/p>\n

Castillo made his first career appearance as a reliever on Tuesday, allowing two earned runs in 2 1\/3 innings against the White Sox while striking out four. He\u2019s been a reliable starter since joining Seattle midway through the 2022 season, but unfortunately that hasn\u2019t been the case in 2026. Castillo has a 6.34 ERA in 44 innings as a starter, and that\u2019s not the result of one or two blow-ups. He\u2019s allowed four earned runs or more on four separate occasions, and he\u2019s only once completed six innings. Castillo has had some bad luck, as evidenced by a .346 opponents\u2019 average on balls in play, but he\u2019s also getting groundballs at a career-low 35.2% rate.<\/p>\n

Castillo\u2019s four-seamer had a run value of +11 last year, according to Statcast. While it hasn\u2019t been as effective in 2026, the pitch is still getting 1.8 inches of horizontal break above league average. As a reliever, Castillo could take advantage of that movement by throwing the four-seamer more often, without having to face hitters multiple times. Then, if one of the starters goes down with an injury, Castillo could slot back into the rotation and revert to his old pitch mix.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"J.P. Crawford has been a key part of the Mariners\u2019 lineup since joining the club in 2019. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,47314,102025,591,85],"class_list":["post-691094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-j-p-crawford","tag-luis-castillo","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}