FINAL GRADES: Andres Munoz Cemented His Status As Seattle Mariners Premiere Reliever
The Seattle Mariners starting rotation was arguably the best in all of baseball.
The bullpen wasn't quite to that level.
The Mariners' relievers were already somewhat depleted entering the season. Matt Brash was out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Gregory Santos started the season on the 15-day injured list and was transferred to the 60-day IL with a right lat strain. He didn't make his season debut until July 8. He went on the IL for the second time last season on Aug. 1 and wasn't activated until Sept. 23.
The injuries weren't the bullpen's only problem.
The Seattle offense often times struggled to take decent leads in games where their starting pitchers put together quality starts.
This led to games either being tied or the Mariners leading by the thinnest of margins when it came time for relievers to take the mound.
That resulted in a lot of blown saves and losses attributed to the bullpen.
But one reliever that didn't seem to have too much of a problem was Andres Munoz.
The fifth-year hurler was named to his first All-Star Game in 2024 and recorded career-bests in ERA, strikeouts, opposing batting average and WHIP.
He also cemented his role as Seattle's undisputed closer. And based on how 2024 went, Munoz isn't stopping anytime soon.
Andres Munoz by the numbers
Pitching stats: 2.12 ERA, 60 appearances, 3-7 record, 59.1 innings pitched, 77 strikeouts, 0.96 WHIP, 22 saves, .153 opp. BA, 2.0 WAR
Advanced pitching stats: 2.92 xERA, .180 xBA, 33.2% Chase, 39.8% Whiff, 2.75 FIP, 12.38 K/9, 77.2% LOB
What I liked
Looking at Munoz's numbers on Baseball Savant, there's a whole lot of red. And when it comes to that page, that's a good thing.
Munoz ranked in the 90th percentile or better in 8-of-12 pitching statistics on the website. The only four categories he didn't rank in among the elite 10% of pitchers in was walk percentage, barrel percentage, hard-hit percentage and extension.
Munoz ranked in the 87th percentile of MLB pitchers in hard-hit rate.
There was no doubt over who the last line of defense was in the bullpen. And that was something that was desperately needed for the Mariners.
Aside from Collin Snider, who also had a career year, there wasn't much consistency when it came to who came out of the bullpen.
Trent Thornton, Austin Voth and Tayler Saucedo were often the go-to arms when starters received early pulls or the team was in low-leverage situations. Outside of those hurlers, Seattle tested several different arms before settling on rookie call-up Troy Taylor as the last high-leverage reliever with Snider and Munoz.
Munoz's consistency in the closer role gave the Mariners one less thing to worry about while figuring out its bullpen.
Munoz has a three-pitch arsenal including a four-seam fastball that touches over 100 miles per hour. He also has a slider and a sinker that both generated at least a 45% whiff rate.
Munoz is capable of getting hitters to bite on his breaking throws or blow past a batter with his high-velocity hitter.
Even with just three pitches, he does everything you want a closer to do.
Andrés Muñoz, K'ing the Side. pic.twitter.com/yTJD6pND7N
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 21, 2024
Best game
Because of Munoz's role as a closer, it's hard to pick out one outing out of Munoz's 60 that stand out the most. Take into account the the former San Diego Padre also led the league in saves of four outs or more, it becomes even harder.
For that reason, there's two standout four-out saves to pick from: a 1-0 win against the Boston Red Sox on March 29 (Munoz's first appearance of the year) and another four-out save on May 13 in a 6-2 win against the Kansas City Royals.
Munoz pitched 1.1 innings and struck out three batters against the Red Sox. He threw 12 strikes out of 20 pitches. He also earned a save.
Andrés Muñoz K'ing the Side. pic.twitter.com/fKOcPgYMdy
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 30, 2024
Against the Royals, Munoz threw another 1.1 innings after pitching an inning the day before against the Oakland Athletics. He struck out three batters and threw 11 strikes out of 17 pitches.
Future prospects
Barring a blockbuster trade, Munoz isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Munoz is under contract for 2025. After that, Seattle owns a club option every single year through 2028 with rising totals of $6 million in 2026, $8 million in 2027 and $10 million in 2028 according to Spotrac.
In short, Munoz will be a Mariner as long as the club wants him to be a Mariner.
And that bodes well for the team's bullpen struggles. Santos will be back healthy for 2025 and Brash is set to return in June from Tommy John surgery. Snider will return to Seattle in 2026 for his pre-arbitration season and Taylor has played himself as a high-leverage arm.
Eduard Bazardo, who struggled earlier in the season, finished the year off strong after being recalled on Sept. 1. He posted a 1.80 ERA in 10 appearances.
A healthy bullpen of Bazardo, Brash, Santos, Snider, Taylor and Munoz plus whoever returns from Seattle's arbitration-eligible pitchers has the chance to be one of the better bullpens in the American League.
Final grade: A-minus
A-minus: The only thing that prevented Munoz from being perfect was the fact that even he wasn't always immune to the late-game blow-ups from Seattle's bullpen.
Munoz didn't have over a 2.53 ERA in any month of the season until August. In July, he didn't allow a single run and posted a perfect 0.00 ERA.
But in August, things started to slow down for the 2024 All-Star.
Munoz posted a 5.40 ERA in nine appearances in August and blew two-of-three save opportunities.
Munoz regain a bit of form in September and posted a 3.52 ERA in eight outings. He had three save opportunities in September and got the job done in all of them.
But even still, it wasn't the cleanest 60 days for him.
With a healthy bullpen and (hopefully) a better offense in 2025, Munoz will likely be under less pressure to be perfect. Which will end up paying dividends for him and the Mariners.
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