Seattle Mariners Move Nate Karns to Bullpen

The Seattle Mariners have elected to move Nathan Karns from the rotation to the bullpen with Wade Miley back from injury. He shined in his first relief appearance, but was it the right move?

For the first time in a while, the Mariners have a good offense, ranking 5th in all of baseball in wRC+ and 9th in runs scored. Despite this, they sit at .500 on the season, partially because of some questionable luck and sequencing, particularly over the last month or so (their run differential is also 9th best in baseball), but also because their pitching staff has been inconsistent, because of both injury and poor performance.

Their rotation ERA may be 11th, at 4.25, but their FIP is 16th, and their innings pitched by starters is 13th. That all culminates in a rotation WAR of 4.6, 18th in baseball, and enough to counteract a productive offense at times.

Knowing that, it can seem odd on the surface that the team would then choose to move their leader in pitching WAR to the bullpen, as they chose to do with Nate Karns as Wade Miley came back from the Disabled List. Wade LeBlanc (yes, there are two left-handed pitchers named Wade on the Mariners), who began the year in Triple-A for the Blue Jays and pitched last year in Japan, was left in the rotation in place of Karns.

The problem with Karns has been twofold. One, he has struggled to pitch deep in games all season. His season long is 7 innings, way back on April 26th, and he has just four other starts of 6 innings or greater. He has pitched 5 innings exactly 7 times, some of those being starts where he was pulled early despite pitching well. This is because he tends to run his pitch counts up quickly, and because he is prone to getting shelled later on in the game.

His ERA in the 1st through 3rd innings is 3.20. In innings 4-6 it jumps to 5.45 (including an 8.53 ERA in the 6th inning). In the 7th inning, it’s up at 10.80 (in just 3.1 innings). It can be tough on a team, especially one without a deep, shut-down bullpen, to have a guy who is almost guaranteed to leave the game after 5 innings. On that front, the decision to move him to the ‘pen makes sense.

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That was on display in his first relief appearance as well. Karns pitched 2 innings against the Pirates on Wednesday night, giving up 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 6. That’s all of the outs he recorded. I think it’s safe to say that, in a vacuum, having Nate Karns pitch in relief is a nice luxury.

The problem is, it may not be a luxury the Mariners can afford. As noted, they don’t have a particularly strong rotation, especially with Felix Hernandez still injured. Wade Miley was not effective before his injury, and looked even worse in his return last night, giving up 5 runs on 7 hits while striking out just 1 over 4 innings of work. Remember how I said Karns is a problem because he only goes 5 innings? About all Miley has going for him at this point is a track record, and the ability to eat innings. The first one doesn’t matter if he doesn’t actually pitch well this season. The second wasn’t on display last night.

Ultimately, I don’t know that there is a real solution to this problem. Karns may look dominant at times, but he needs to be able to pitch more than 5 innings in a start. Miley has that history of pitching well, and is a veteran under contract passed this season, but he simply isn’t performing. No one has any idea what Wade LeBlanc will do going forward.

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If the Mariners hope to get into the playoffs, let alone win in the playoffs, something has to be done about the rotation. Maybe getting The King back and healthy will be enough. Maybe Wade LeBlanc is actually a capable back-end starter, allowing Karns to be a relief ace. More likely, they will need to complete a trade for a starter in what looks to be a thin market, while also having an extremely thin minor league system.

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