Brock Huard on how the Mariners can improve for the stretch run
Jul 19, 2016, 9:54 AM | Updated: 1:03 pm
The Mariners have been hovering around .500 and sit 4.5 games out of the second wild-card spot entering Tuesday with the Aug. 1 trade deadline approaching. Brock Huard suggested some moves the team can make in the next few days to save its season. Here are three of them:
Part ways with Franklin Gutierrez. The injuries and inconsistency have made the fan favorite a burden to the team, Huard said. He’d prefer to give a high-upside minor-leaguer like D.J. Peterson a shot in the Majors instead. “It took 92 games for me, but Salk was right before one game. I love Guti and he is a wonderful guy, and it’s not that he has been atrocious, but this is just not a roster fit. Where does he play? There is no place for Guti on this roster. With his health at this stage, he is unreliable and can’t run. You can’t just pencil him in night in and night out. In clutch situations, through 92 games, baseball shows you he just can’t contribute here. He probably can elsewhere in this league – I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Maybe he’s a trade piece. But unfortunately on this roster with its limitations, I don’t know where he fits in.”
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Send Nathan Karns to the minors. “To Tacoma, Everett, Jackson or whatever. He just can’t be on this club. There’s no conviction, tempo, trust, efficiency, no confidence. I just don’t see it in Nathan Karns. He reminds me of Blake Beavan, with three more miles per hour on his fastball. I want to see him go to Tacoma and pitch every fifth day to see if he can become the starter you traded for. If he’s not a starter, then let’s go all-in on the bullpen deal. He’s not 23. You traded for him to be a starter and he’s not in your starting rotation. I don’t think it’s helping him … With Mike Montgomery and Wade LeBlanc, as well as Felix Hernandez and Taijuan Walker coming back, send Karns down to get right or not get right and then make the decision of where he fits next year.”
Make some trades. General manager Jerry Dipoto has said he’ll be “opportunistic” at the trade deadline. Huard hopes that means making some additions to help the team win now. “Your veteran core needs it. Your fans desire it. Your ability to compete into August and September demands it. This isn’t an overreaction to one series, but the last 50 games against good competition. Not the weaker competition you feasted on the first two months … When you play good teams, your weaknesses get exposed. And, in my opinion, their 25-man (roster) over the next three or four weeks against a tough schedule isn’t going to be good enough.”
