3 moves the Mariners need to make to turn the season around

Move Emerson Hancock to the bullpen and find a #5 starter

It's time to give up on the Emerson Hancock experiment. This team is not playing well enough right now to let the Hancock experiment continue on, hoping to recapture some of the magic that had the Mariners select him sixth overall in the 2020 MLB Draft.

Hancock has only made five major league starts over the last two years, with two of them coming this year, but he just doesn't look like a pitcher who possesses the stuff to work through a lineup two or three times on a regular basis. Hancock's fastball seems flat and ineffective a majority of the time, sitting in the 92-95 range, while his off-speed offerings include a fringy changeup and slider; that combination just doesn't bode well for a starting pitcher.

Two parts to this could result in a win-win scenario for the Mariners. The first is moving Hancock to the bullpen; no, he won't become a Matt Brash and be a high-leverage option, but he could become a valuable reliever. Let Hancock focus on working in one inning to longer relief appearances (maybe two or three innings max), while focusing on trying to maintain 94+ velocity for multiple relief innings, and maybe he can sit 95, while touching 96-97 in relief.

He will need to develop at least one off-speed offering to become valuable, but Hancock as a solid long relief option who makes 50-60 appearances and throws 80 effective innings, is going to be more valuable than the fringy number six starter that he looks like right now.

The second part of this is a relatively (hopefully) short-term fix. The team should call up Jhonathan Diaz or Dallas Keuchel to replace his spot, at least until Bryan Woo returns. Diaz offers a little more upside than Keuchel but has some strikeout stuff. Keuchel is the "been there done that" veteran who has been a part of some winning teams and could light a fire in this pitching staff. One of these two would be better off making the next three or four starts while sending Hancock down to work out of the bullpen, while the team waits for Bryan Woo to return.