Overview:
Gabe Speier pitched an average of 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings last season as the top lefthanded reliever of the Seattle Mariners
The first time I saw Gabe Speier take the mound, I didn’t picture a future Team USA player pitching in the World Baseball Classic.
I just wondered if he could reach home plate.
He was one of the smallest kids on my grandson JP’s team in the Goleta Valley South Little League … a 10-year-old amid a gaggle of 12-year-old “Giants.”
I was immediately struck, however, by the way the little lefthander glared toward home plate.
His steely eyes were something straight out of the sockets of Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, the fierce lefthander whose intimidating, 6-foot-10 frame inspired the nickname of “Big Unit.”
Little Gabe’s deep focus during my first viewing burned this indelible memory into my brain:
He jutted out his jaw and slung a belt-high strike to the outside corner of the plate. He then buzzed another strike to the top-shelf of the inside corner.
And, finally, he sent the batter back to the dugout with a surgically placed spinner at the knees.
“Geez, what that kid could do if he were bigger,” I said aloud.
He’s showing that now, 20 years later.
Speier never got close to Big-Unit size. He crested at 5-foot-11 by the time he earned All-CIF Southern Section honors as the senior ace of the 2013 Dos Pueblos High School baseball team.
But he dutifully cast his body into a powerful, human cannon.
By the time the determined lefty landed with the Seattle Mariners, having bounced around five other professional baseball organizations, his teammates were calling him their very own “Li’l Unit.”
Speier has only himself to blame. He started the Mariners’ tradition of nicknaming players soon after they claimed him off waivers before the 2023 season.
“I just rattled off one and everyone kind of loved it,” he explained, “so I was like, ‘I guess I’ll just do everybody else, too.’”
And now Li’l Unit will be plugged into next month’s World Baseball Classic as one of the top relief pitchers for Team USA.
“Beyond the imaginable!” Jenny Speier gushed to Noozhawk about her son’s arduous journey to the top of the baseball world.
First pitch for Team USA will come in a 5 p.m. March 6 game against Brazil at Houston’s Daikin Park.
Crazy Days
Speier, now 30, has pitched in parts of seven MLB seasons. None was more complete, or as significant, than last year.
He appeared in 76 regular-season games and eight more in the playoffs.
He posted an earned-run average of 2.61 and struck out 82 batters in 62 innings. His 24 “holds” — maintaining his team’s lead in a save situation — ranked fifth among all American League relievers.
“I think I just believed in myself more than other years,” Speier said. “As the season went on the confidence grew, and our team was obviously very good last year.
“That helped to be playing for something more than just yourself, playing for the postseason and to make it deep into the postseason.
“It was definitely the most fun I’ve had playing baseball.”
And yet, despite such success, he described his Team USA selection with the word “crazy” seven times while addressing the media during the Mariners’ recent FanFest at T-Mobile Park.
“It’s crazy, you know, to kind of reflect on what I’ve been through, what I’ve had to go through to get to this point,” Speier said. “You know, I was pitching in Triple-A in 2024, and now I’m on Team USA.
“It’s just wild to take a step back and reflect, like I said, of how I got to this point.
“And a lot of thanks to the Mariners for believing in me and claiming me off waivers from Kansas City … and putting the ball in my hands in big spots.”
He was thrust into one of the biggest spots of Seattle’s postseason last October.
Manager Dan Wilson summoned Speier from the bullpen to protect a 1-0 lead with runners at first and third bases during the fifth inning of Game 2 in the American League Division Series.
This time, he was glaring at Detroit Tigers slugger Kerry Carpenter.
The Mariners replayed the confrontation for Speier and the crowd at FanFest on the T-Mobile video board.
It showed him gripping the baseball for a four-seam fastball, jutting out his chin and throwing the pitch 96 mph past Carpenter’s mighty swing for strike three.
“What was going through my mind right there was to throw my heater as hard as I can, honestly,” he said, “and you can see right there it’s right down the middle.
“That was the intent, just throw it as hard as I can in the zone and just challenge him.”
The Mariners went on to win the game, 3-2, and eventually the best-of-5 series.
“The postseason was incredible,” Speier said. “From pitch one, it was just so crazy.
“Every pitch was like the last out of a game, and even more so, honestly.
“It was crazy to be able to experience that out there on the mound with that energy going through the stadium was just like no other.”
Familial Feeling
Family life was always a baseball experience for Gabe Speier.
“I started organized baseball, T-ball, like when I was 3 or 4, but I was playing in my backyard with my dad and my brothers before that,” he said. “It was as early as I can remember, like 2 or 3.
“It was as soon as I could pick up a bat and swing it … pick up a ball and throw it.”
Great uncle Chris Speier, a former UC Santa Barbara shortstop, played in the Major Leagues for 19 seasons. He made three MLB All-Star teams when he was with the San Francisco Giants.
Chris’ son, Justin Speier, pitched in 12 MLB seasons.
My grandson’s Little League team adopted the name “Giants” in a nod to Gabe’s famous relative.
Every season was a Speier Family Reunion, with brother Jesse and cousin Luke on the team. The coaching staff usually featured his father Craig, uncles Scott and Kevin, and even grandpa Kurt.
I’d gotten to know the family well while coaching Gabe’s aunt, Christie, a standout softball player in her day. Christie’s husband, Chris Robinson, became one of his first pitching coaches.
Athletes, all.
When UCSB coach Andrew Checketts scouted Gabe in high school, he was most impressed with what he described was “his athletic arm.”
His maternal grandpa, the late Jim Klein, had one of those, too.
He flung the javelin with the best of them, earning a spot as an alternate on the U.S. Track and Field Team in the decathlon during the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.
Sports were part of Gabe’s daily routine as a kid.
“I liked shooting the basketball, and I was all right,” he said. “I never played tackle football, just flag football a little bit. Soccer, too.
“I played all sports until eighth grade. But once I got to high school, I played just baseball.”
He made DP’s varsity as a freshman. Two days after his graduation, the Boston Red Sox selected him in the 19th round of the 2013 MLB draft.
Speier departed soon after that on a baseball odyssey in which he pitched for 10 minor league teams for five different MLB clubs.
As a minor leaguer, he was thrown into four Major League trades as an extra player.
“It seemed like every time I got settled in with an organization, they shipped me off,” Speier said. “I always joke that everybody and nobody wanted me.
“But I really found my footing here in Seattle.”
Making His Pitch
He had a solid first season with the Mariners in 2023, fashioning an ERA of 3.79. He struck out 64 batters and walked just 11 in 54⅔ innings.
But a strained rotator cuff turned him into a wayward Mariner in 2024. He was twice optioned to Triple-A Tacoma and spent seven weeks on the injured list. His ERA ballooned to 5.70.
Speier just bore down and worked harder to turn his left arm back into a howitzer. That included throwing heavy plyometric balls against a wall throughout the winter after the 2024 season.
He then came out blazing with determination during his first meeting with pitching coaches Pete Woodworth and Trent Blank at last year’s spring training.
“Every now and then a guy will come in there and say, ‘This is what I’m (expletive) doing. … I made some mistakes last year; I am not doing that again. This is who I am, and this is what I’m going to do,’” Woodworth recalled.
“And that’s what that meeting was (with Speier). That kind of shook us in our seats.”
Speier wound up leading all MLB pitchers last season with a first-pitch strike rate of 78.2%
“Just trust yourself and really attack,” Speier said.
“When I first got called up to the big leagues, I thought that I had to be perfect, and so I’d try to nibble and fall behind guys,” he added. “And you don’t want to fall behind guys.
“Really, it’s just believing in yourself and going right after it.”
Speier took only a one-week break from his training after the Mariners lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in last fall’s American League Championship Series.
“I get right back into the weight room and start moving my body around and that,” he said.
He employed a unique way to work during a vacation trip to Maui with wife Megan and 2-year-old son Casey.
“I bought this little sock thing that goes over your hand,” he said. “It’s a kind of self-catch thing, because I didn’t have anyone to throw to.”
It probably won’t be long, however, before Casey is begging to catch Dad’s bullpens.
“Our life obviously kind of revolves around him,” Speier said. “He’s our light.
“It’s super-fun to be a dad and be a baseball player, too, seeing his face light up when he’s in the clubhouse meeting Julio Rodríguez and Cal Raleigh.”
Megan brought Casey to every one of Dad’s home games last year.
“He loves to swing the bat,” Speier said. “He loves to throw the baseball.
“He’s lefthanded, just like me, so we might have a little second coming of a Speier lefty.”
The ball, after all, doesn’t fall far from that family tree.
