Gilbert keeps spring tradition alive by unveiling new pitch

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Logan Gilbert typically arrives at Spring Training with a new pitch, a new tinker to his exhaustive routine and a new outlook on what he wants to accomplish. The same holds this year, but it’s dialed back.

“I felt like I needed a break,” Gilbert recalled of his fatigue after the Mariners were eliminated in the postseason last fall. “I felt pretty good. I took like a month off and then got back into it. I felt a little sore coming back and took it slower than normal on purpose this offseason. And then once I got out here, my arm started feeling great again. So I kind of slow-played it and worked through a little bit of soreness, but I'm feeling great now.”

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Workload management was a well-chronicled narrative for both Gilbert and George Kirby as they emerged as keys in a rotation that could be one of the AL’s best. Gilbert threw 185 2/3 innings in the regular season, 17th in MLB, then 5 1/3 in a tense start at Houston in Game 1 of the AL Division Series. His previous career high was 135 innings in the Minors in 2019.

For that reason, the Mariners -- with Gilbert’s understanding and backing -- are easing him in. Gilbert made his Cactus League debut on Thursday against a Padres lineup that featured many of their starters. He logged 1 2/3 innings in the Mariners' 5-4 victory and gave up three runs on three hits, with two strikeouts and two walks. Kirby debuts Saturday, by which point Robbie Ray and Marco Gonzales will have pitched twice.

“I threw way more than ever last year, and I plan to do it again this year,” said Gilbert, who says he wants to reach the game’s respected but increasingly uncommon 200-inning benchmark. “So I want to be out there as much as possible, but I know that they have a good idea of how to pace it out.”

The tradeoff, in Gilbert’s eyes, is not facing as many live hitters, a simulation that can’t be matched in bullpen sessions.

“I think they're on track with probably the best idea for what I should do,” Gilbert said. “I've been feeling great and bullpens, locked in. The live BP was solid -- and then got out there today and just the game atmosphere kind of kicked in, and I think that's why I was leaving balls up.”

Specifically, and ironically given how effective it is, Gilbert’s fastball felt the least functional within his arsenal. He also unveiled the new split-changeup that’s been all the talk among his teammates, including Ray, who is also toying with it.

“Of all the guys that have played around with it, his might be most advanced or farther down the road,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said of Gilbert.

The calculus behind adding the split evolved late last year in brainstorming conversations about how to have a more effective offspeed pitch against lefties. Because Gilbert has such large hands and among MLB’s greatest extension down the mound, the club believes the pitch’s late-breaking movement will be even more conducive to his profile.

Gilbert always had a changeup but lacked confidence with it, throwing it just 7.9% of the time over his first two seasons, almost exclusively to lefties. His plan with the splitter, for now, is to use it ahead in counts and against lefties. He estimated that he threw five or six on Thursday.

“I just tried to find basically a variation of a splitter that I can throw like a fastball,” Gilbert said. “And I should be able to throw it [against], hopefully, lefties and righties just as well.”

Gilbert was worth 3.2 wins above replacement, per FanGraphs, and had a 3.20 ERA and 116 ERA+. (League average is 100.) He was the AL Pitcher of the Month in April and voted the team’s pitcher of the year by the Seattle chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Last spring, it was the harder, firmer slider Gilbert added with consultation from Jacob deGrom that was all the rave. But Gilbert wound up taking a little off that pitch as the season went on. He recognizes that the split could be the same work in progress into the regular season.

“He really is kind of the epitome of what we talk about here. ... He's a deep thinker,” Servais said. “But the adjustments he's made in his game, he's hitting on the right things.”