PEORIA, Ariz. – You don’t need to be a grizzled old scout weathered by the sun and salty from sunflower seed consumption to recognize a well-thrown, mid-90s fastball without the use of a radar gun.
The ball seems to explode out of the pitcher’s hand, maintaining a constant plane, belying the nature of gravity.
But what’s most noticeable is the sound. There is a distinct hissing as the baseball travels the 60-plus feet from the pitcher to the catcher followed by the sound of a small explosion when it slams into the catcher’s mitt.
In the partially covered confines of the pitching area at the Mariners complex, that sound is amplified and echoing.
It’s prevalent when Andres Muñoz, Brian Woo, Bryce Miller and Logan Gilbert are throwing bullpen sessions. But on Thursday morning that repeated hiss and pop was coming from a somewhat unexpected pitcher.
At the far end of the bullpen area, Gabe Speier was firing fastballs with authority. The sound of his pitches drew the attention of president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander, who both made their way over to where Dan Wilson was standing and watching intently.
Early in his session, with a good lather built up, Speier fired a hissing fastball that got a “Nice!” from the catcher. A coach remarked that’s a “five,” which meant the Trackman software had the pitch at 95 mph. The next fastball was 96 mph.
“Gabe Speier kind of caught the eye of a lot of folks yesterday,” Wilson said the next day. “I think he was in the mid-90s yesterday. And, you know, that’s outstanding.”
For Speier, it was verification of an offseason spent throwing and lifting in an effort to recapture the velocity and life on his pitches that were absent most of last season.
“The velo is back,” Speier said with a grin. “Obviously, last year I was dealing with some stuff. This offseason was great. I put in a lot of hard work, and it’s cool to see results. You put in all that work, and you kind of hope that it’s back. It’s definitely a good feeling to see it in the first bullpen back, everything ticked up.”
Even more encouraging was that Speier wasn’t trying to throw the ball hard. He took the mound wanting to be smooth with his mechanics and “a free and easy” arm path.
“I don’t think I threw a single pitch at 95 mph last season,” he said.
Speier sold himself a little short. Per MLB Statcast data, of the 422 pitches he threw at the MLB level last season, he threw six pitches that registered at 95 mph or faster. He threw another 14 pitches between 94.5 and 94.9.
By comparison, Speier threw 782 pitches in his breakout 2023 season with 224 pitches at 95 mph and 74 more pitches at between 94.5 and 94.9. His four-seam fastball averaged 95.1 and his sinker averaged 94.4.
But a few weeks into the 2024 season, something just didn’t feel right with his arm. It started on a hellacious road trip to the East Coast that Speier said, “beat me up a little bit.”
All 20 of those pitches that registered 94.5 mph or faster came in his first 22 appearances of last season. Speier went on the injured list with a left rotator cuff strain on June 1. He had also suffered a partial tear of his subscapularis. Speier received multiple injections, including platelet rich plasma, in hopes of speeding up his recovery and getting back to full strength. While he would eventually return to the Mariners bullpen on July 19, the velocity and life on his pitches did not.
“I was trying to throw hard,” he said. “It just felt like my arm was dead after the injury. I just never got my footing back.”
It affected his mindset on the mound. He started chasing after velocity, knowing it helped him be effective. But as he tried to generate those few ticks of velocity, his command, which had been stellar in 2023, started to wane. He walked 13.5% of the batters he faced, which was almost triple the 5.1% he walked in 2023.
“That was a thing for me last year,” he said. “Everyone wants to throw hard, and I’ve shown that I can throw hard, and then all of a sudden, I’m not. It was definitely something I was chasing instead of maybe locking in on the zone and trying to pound the zone. I was just trying to throw the ball hard. So, my intent wasn’t quite what it should have been. So not only was I not throwing the ball hard, I wasn’t commanding it either.”
The Mariners eventually sent Speier down to Triple-A Tacoma due to ineffectiveness.
“It was definitely frustrating,” he said. “You never want to get sent down to Triple-A, and unfortunately that happened.”
But he has no plans of it happening again.
With the help of Trent Blank, the Mariners director of pitching strategy, Speier worked out a training and throwing program for the offseason. He postponed a family vacation to Hawaii and chose to focus on getting stronger in the weight room and building arm strength by throwing.
“Really, I didn’t put the ball down,” Speier said. “As soon as I got home, I was still throwing three days a week. I didn’t stop throwing. I just kept getting my arm going with lots of long toss.”
In the weight room, Speier did hours of power strength training, moving heavy weight faster than he’d ever done before. There were dead lifts until his legs felt weary.
“I started to feel powerful and like an athlete again,” Speier said. “The ball started zipping out of my hand in the offseason and it still feels the same now.”
If Speier can return to his form of 2023, when he produced a 78.2 first-pitch strike percentage with 5.82 strikeouts for every walk and held left-handed hitters to a .218 batting average and .534 on-base plus slugging percentage, the Mariners bullpen will solidify a key role in late innings.
A bounce-back season from Speier and healthy seasons from Matt Brash and Gregory Santos will play a huge part in any overall success for the Mariners this season.
“Obviously, staying healthy is the No. 1 thing,” Speier said. “And if all of us can do that, we will have a really, really good bullpen.”