Mariners Moose Tracks, 6/3/22: Baseball America Top 100 updates, Gray and Ryu to the IL, Ty France is great

Hi! Do you all know it literally hailed at my house yesterday, here in the first few days of literally June? I know I should be grateful that we’re not mired in a drought here in the PNW, but dangnabbit, I have a bunch of super-cute summer clothes that need wearing and I’m so anxious to see the sunshine. At least the Mariners won yesterday. Zach has the recap for you, in case you missed it, which you probably did, because 4 PM start times are of the devil. On to the links!

In Mariners news:

• FanGraphs did a roundup of which hitters are the worst and best secondary pitch hitters. In bad Mariners news: Jarred Kelenic is one of the worst. In good Mariners news: Ty France is one of the best, which tracks, because he’s just the best, in general.
• Baseball America recently updated their Top 100 prospects list and uh, things did not go great for the Mariners. Noelvi Marte’s slow start in Everett has rocketed him down the list from top-10 adjacent into the 50s, Matt Brash has likewise tumbled down the list, and Harry Ford and Emerson Hancock have fallen off entirely. Yikes. We’ll have a full writeup later, but also, if we’re judging off the first three months of the minor-league season, where is the respect for Edwin Arroyo?
• MLB dot com ran down the current clubhouse leaders for the MVP awards and surprise surprise, Mike Trout is still the frontrunner. Aaron Judge pulled the second-highest number of votes, which is unsurprising as he currently leads the AL in wRC+, followed by José Ramírez, who also garnered some votes, and then Trout. Rafael Devers also gets a mention, as does Ohtani because of course, but do you know who actually has a significantly higher wRC+ than Ohtani but is relegated to the “others receiving votes” category? That’s right, it’s Ty France. Can you tell today’s links are an ode to Ty France? I didn’t mean for it to happen but let’s just roll with it.

Around the League:

• Speaking of Ohtani, he got lit up against the Yankees yesterday, leading manager Joe Maddon to suggest Ohtani might have been tipping his pitches against the Bronx Bombers.
• The Twins have placed RHP Sonny Gray on the 15-day IL with a pec strain.
• The Blue Jays have placed LHP Hyun Jin Ryu on the 15-day IL with inflammation in his left forearm; this is the lefty’s second trip to the IL this season for the same issue.
• Dodgers OF Kevin Pillar has a fractured left shoulder, apparently, and could have surgery to repair the issue, although in better news for the Dodgers, Clayton Kershaw is apparently nearing a return.

Kate’s pick:

I love a good batflip.