Drayer: Mariners’ Logan Gilbert won’t dwell on his debut likely being delayed
Jul 5, 2020, 3:55 PM
Logan Gilbert was expected to have joined the M's by now had the season not been delayed. (Getty)
(Getty)
Had the Mariners’ season gone as planned, chances are very good that Logan Gilbert, Seattle’s 2018 first-round draft pick, would have been up with the big league club by now.
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Of all the players in Mariners Summer Camp, he may be the one who has lost the most with the majority of the season being wiped out. Seeing the right-handed pitcher’s arrival to the big leagues delayed could be a bitter pill to swallow but he has worked hard to not look at it that way.
“It’s tough – it’s easier to say than actually do,” Gilbert acknowledged Sunday. “I think at this point I could let myself keep thinking about it but it’s really just wasted energy when it comes down to it. This is the situation I am in so the only thing I can do is make the most out of it and just hoping and wishing things would have took a different turn is really not going to help me at all.”
Gilbert sees what he has now as better than the alternative of no baseball this year, which at times he felt was a possibility during the shutdown. His goal now is to get as many innings as he can and continue his development. That will have to happen as a member of a taxi squad, but he believes that can be of benefit.
“It’s going to be a little tougher obviously but that is just the way the season is kind of going,” he said. “As long as I am getting competitive innings in, facing batters and that stuff, I think I can still continue to grow. Some of the things I wanted to improve on at the beginning of the year as far as my pitches and what I do on the mound, that’s still very realistic to do going in and out for the rest of the year.”
On the Mariners’ taxi squad will also be George Kirby, Emerson Hancock, Brandon Williamson and Isaiah Campbell, all first-round draft picks and all potential future rotation mates for Gilbert. He said he looks forward to getting to know them a bit better, something he is being afforded by working out in the afternoon group that is made up mostly of the Mariners’ younger players.
“They just have a lot of energy and a lot of talent,” he said. “It’s great to have that young group of guys and kind of bond a little bit more with those guys and hopefully be able to bounce ideas off each other. At the end of the day we are all just trying to get better and help each get better.”
Having the top pitching prospects all together at the same level is a unique situation and there could be future benefit much like we saw with the Double-A Arkansas group in 2019. It is something we won’t be able to watch in Tacoma but perhaps something we hear about in the future. All part of the Mariners looking to get whatever they can out of the 2020 season.
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