What stood out from latest Seattle Mariners’ Hot Stove show

The Seattle Mariners Hot Stove took to the Seattle Sports airwaves Tuesday night with an episode that featured conversations from four different corners of the M’s organization.

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Mariners broadcaster Gary Hill and Aaron Goldsmith started off the two hours of baseball talk with a conversation with reliever Troy Taylor, who made his big league debut on Aug. 11 at T-Mobile Park against the Mets on Sunday Night Baseball.

“It was pretty crazy,” Taylor remembered. “When I got in the game I wasn’t so nervous, but warming up in the bullpen and waiting, we scored like 40 runs in that game and Champ the bullpen catcher was telling me more than likely I was going to debut because this was a great soft landing.

“I remember being really nervous, but once I got out there, walked a guy and told myself, ‘Hey, same game. Calm down.’ And I ended up getting those two strikeouts which was cool, but I think the most nervous part was just waiting in the ‘pen.”

Thanks to his performance, the soft landings didn’t last for long for the 23-year-old right-hander, who was moved into high-leverage situations just weeks after getting called up from Double-A Arkansas.

“It was really cool,” Taylor said. “I was really blessed that they trusted me in those situations because I know that that doesn’t happen a lot for guys that just come up. I was really happy I was able to pitch in those and help the team win.”

Taylor very well may be built for such situations. Bringing high intensity and high aggressiveness on the mound, regardless of game situation, has been a part of his game throughout his career. The bigger crowds and atmosphere at the big league level both home and away have helped as the adrenaline does not have to be generated.

“No matter what kind of game you are pitching in the big leagues, you just get adrenaline naturally,” he said. “It was just easier to find adrenaline in the big leagues for sure.”

In his conversation with Goldsmith and Hill, Taylor gave the rundown on his slider, shared the latest on his “side project” (the changeup he has been refining), and spoke of the impact catcher Cal Raleigh had on him coming to the big leagues.

A new face in Seattle Mariners’ dugout

Up next on the show was new assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes, who came to the Mariners this offseason from the Atlanta Braves along with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer. The two have worked together for years with their coaching benefiting from complementary skillsets.

“I come in and complement the areas I think I have more experience in. That’s the movement part of it,” Magallanes said. “I feel I am an expert at the swing and the movement. I don’t know it all but I think that’s a strength of mine.”

A trait both Magallanes and Seitzer share and believe is vital to coaching hitters at the big league level?

“Both of us are very positive coaches,” Magallanes said. “We know how hard it is to play this game and hit. We just try to make a good atmosphere for the guys when they come in every day where they feel comfortable and an environment where they can come in and work and have fun while there doing it.”

A Seattle Mariners selection in the 50th round of the 1985 MLB Draft, Magallanes never made it to the big leagues but did spend time with manager Dan Wilson on Team USA in 1989.

“Real good defensive catcher, and smart, smart guy,” he said. “He was a great guy. His personality was contagious, always had a smile on his face. That’s what I remember about Dan.”

Magallanes brings with him over three decades of coaching experience and a couple of masters degrees – including one in performance psychology, something that no doubt comes in handy in his current role.

“The mental part is No. 1,” he said. “When you are in the flow state, everything flows, that’s where you want to be. You want to be where you are not thinking about it because once there is a lot of clutter in our brain, in our mind, the movements become rigid, tight, not athletic. And that’s not what we want. I tell our hitters we want to be at a point where we don’t want the mind to tell the body what to do, we just want to be able to react and have fun. The mental part is huge.”

Drafted to the front office

The second hour of the show featured a story on how the Mariners were able to grab a hot front office prospect by drafting him. The story starts at MIT – not exactly a place where players sign to start what they hope will be professional baseball careers, but that is exactly what a young David Hesslink did. When told he couldn’t major in the sport, Hesslink chose mechanical engineering, where he found a way to incorporate baseball into a final project building a system that could simulate games and their outcomes based on probabilities.

“That’s what started the whole journey,” said Hesslink, now Mariners vice president of baseball product development. “I can do problem solving and math, and think about baseball and play a childhood game and think about how we can use some of that logic and problem solving skills and apply it to play smarter, better baseball.”

While at MIT, Hesslink interned in the Rays front office. When it came time to graduate, a number of organizations expressed interest in his skills. But the Mariners took it one step further, taking him in the 34th round of the 2017 MLB Draft. He pitched a short season at Everett before making his way to T-Mobile Park for a job in the front office.

“I like to tell people I set a record for fastest ‘pitch yourself into a front office,’” he said.

In his wide-ranging conversation with Goldsmith and Hill, Hesslink detailed more of his journey from MIT to Everett to the offices at T-Mobile Park, shared a story of an incredible “bring your kid to work day” (his father was a submarine commander), gave a look at how information is managed and communicated in the game, and spoke of his commitment to the Mariners’ “Hometown Nine,” a project that starts, supports and mentors a class of nine area fellows each year.

“I was bouncing around a lot because we were moving a lot,” Hesslink said. “Baseball was the anchor that helped me through the three different elementary schools, three different middle schools, three different high schools. It helped me get into college. It helped me find the family I did with the Mariners. So whenever there’s a opportunity to make those kind of baseball memories for other people, I always love to jump on it as fast as possible.

“The Hometown Nine I think has been the best example of that. We found nine kids in the community – these kids are the most cool, awesome kids you will ever meet. They do super cool stuff, they are really motivated. They’re just really good, genuine people, and helping them make the kinds of memories with baseball and softball like I have been very fortunate to make has been for sure one of the most rewarding parts of my Mariners experience.”

A look at “La Bestia”

The final guest of the show was Frankie Thon Jr., Mariners director of international scouting, who joined Gary Hill from an international event in Colombia. In mid-January, the Mariners announced a class of 16 international signees. Among them was MLB Pipeline’s No. 6 player in the 2025 class, Venezuela’s Yorger Bautista. Thon gave the rundown on the player known as “La Bestia,” or “The Beast.”

“He’s a really explosive athlete with really loud tools,” he said. “Arguably the highest ceiling of any player in Latin America in this entire class. From the way we measure things internally, Yorger has got in our opinion the single best bat speed in anyone we’ve developed in the last 5-6 years, and one of the top 10 in raw strength as well. When you combine that with the fact he is plus runner, he’s a good defender in center field and he’s got top of the scale arm strength, you mix it all together and you are talking about an exciting player with intriguing potential.”

Yorger has developed a name for himself in baseball and Thon explained the nickname “La Bestia” was given not because of the 17-year-old’s size but because of his exploits on the field.

“In Venezuela – and it’s a big country – anywhere you go, be it a player, a fan, a scout, you say ‘La Bestia,’ they know who it is,” he said.

Thon gave his thoughts on other players in the Mariners’ class including infielder Kendry Martinez, who was ranked as high as 19th by some publications, switch-hitting center fielder Elias Pérez, Cuban outfielder Maikol Rodriguez, and switch-hitting catcher Manuel Almeida.

The Seattle Mariners Hot Stove can be heard from 7-9 p.m. every Tuesday leading up to spring training on Seattle Sports 710 AM and streaming on the Seattle Sports app. Click here for podcasts of every full show, or subscribe on Spotify.

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