The Mariners have agreed to sign right-handers Matt Magill, Gerson Bautista, and Brady Lail to minor league contracts, The Athletic’s Corey Brock reports (Twitter link). All three pitchers were outrighted off Seattle’s 40-man roster following the season.
Magill entered the season as a candidate to become the Mariners’ closer, following a solid performance (3.94 ERA, 10.1 K/9, 2.79 K/BB rate) over 107 1/3 innings for the Twins and Mariners in 2018-19. As it happened, Magill’s only two save opportunities of 2020 resulted in blown saves, and the only two poor outings of his season — Magill tossed nine scoreless innings over nine of his appearances, and seven earned runs over 1 1/3 innings in those two blown saves, working out to a somewhat misleading 6.10 ERA for the season.
Shoulder surgery cut Magill’s season short in mid-September, and it’s quite possible that his injury played a role in those two blown saves, given that they both occurred within Magill’s final three games of 2020. Magill is expected to be healthy and ready in time for the start of Spring Training. He was eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter, projected to earn somewhere between $700-$800K depending on how arb salaries are calculated this offseason.
Bautista didn’t pitch at all in 2020 due to a flexor strain in his elbow, and he also missed significant time due to a pec injury in 2019. The hard-throwing righty still has only 13 1/3 big league innings under his belt, all with the Mets and Mariners in 2018-19. Bautista is best known for being one of the five players acquired by the Mariners in the huge blockbuster trade in December 2018 that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to New York.
Claimed off waivers from the White Sox in August, Lail posted a 4.41 ERA, 1.71 K/BB rate, and 6.6 K/9 over 16 1/3 combined innings for Seattle and Chicago last season. Originally an 18th-round pick for the Yankees in the 2012 draft, Lail’s eight seasons in New York’s farm system resulted in one MLB appearance before he was let go after the 2019 season.