Seattle Mariners: What’s Eating Gilbert?
Seattle Mariners starter Logan Gilbert is up in the major league. Getting first hand experience. This will all be beneficial. How is he doing in his taste of being in the show?
Seattle Mariners pitching prospect, Logan Gilbert, is here to stay. It may have taken a little bit longer than some might have thought. However, Gilbert is showing that he deserves to be in the majors and the Mariners development plan is working.
Earlier in the year GM Jerry Dipoto informed everyone that Gilbert will be on a structured development of sorts. Every start will have a set pitch count and that number will grow with each start. Meaning, he’ll be on a set pitch count per outing and the pitch count number will grow with each start he makes. The plan being that by the time of the second half of the season he’d be major league ready as a starting pitcher.
Veteran Catchers with Rookie Pitchers
In one of the first few Seattle Mariners starts for Gilbert, might have even been his first start, the broadcasters shared some insight from Scott Servais. Servais is a former major league catcher. His strategy when working with a rookie pitcher was to let the pitcher throw whatever pitch, he wanted. This way the pitcher would pitch with confidence because he was calling the game. Compared to the catcher asking the rookie pitcher to make Greg Maddux like pitches. That’s always hitting your spots in case you were wondering.
Knowing this and looking at Gilbert’s starts you can see this is the strategy. This is also why you see Tom Murphy catching Gilbert often. Gilbert is throwing his four-seam fastball 61.5% of the time. Which makes sense as it’s one of the first pitches any pitcher learns. A draw back to the extreme usage is that hitters are sitting and looking for it. Hitters are hitting .261 against it and missing it 21.7% of the time. However, the most important thing is that Gilbert is gaining confidence.
Logan Gilbert, Seattle Mariners.