Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 10 Reasons Why the Seattle Mariners SUCKED This Year

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Colby lists his 10 biggest reasons why the Mariners suffered arguably their most disappointing season in franchise history. Subscribe to the Control the Zone YouTube channel and set alerts to be notified for Friday's free livestreamCheck out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_MarinersFollow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast.Gameday Mens HealthGameday Men’s Health is a real, in-person men’s health clinic that looks at the full picture  before developing a treatment plan. Book your complimentary test and consult at https://join.gamedaymenshealth.com/reasons_to_choose_gameday-1201?utm_source=lockedon&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=MLB&utm_network=lockedon&utm_adgroup=corp&ghl_tag=national,corpOdooGreat organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon.5-Hour ENERGYGet candy-flavored chaos with Fruity Rainbow 5-hour ENERGY®️ Shots - available online at https://5hourENERGY.com or AmazonStanceCheck out the ICON collection from Stance—premium comfort, performance, and durability designed for whatever your day brings. Use promo Code LOCKEDON at checkout for 20% off your purchase.  Learn more at https://Stance.com.Stance. The Official Sock Partner of Major League Baseball.KALSHIFor a limited time, Download Kalshi and use code Locked On to get $25 when you trade $25. Kalshi. Trade what’s next.  GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. It’s time to put your knowledge to the test with College Football Pick’Em from FanDuel.  Download the FanDuel app and play College Football Pick'Em for free. Only on FanDuel.  Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COM FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Mariners sucked this year. Here are 10 reasons why. Colby, hit it. You are locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors, it is Thursday, September 24th, 20206. My name is Tadding Azalas and I'm joined as always by my host.

Colby Patneau. Today's episode is brought to you by Kalshi for a limited time, download Kalshi, and use the promo code locked on to get $25. when he trade 25. Kalshi, trade, what's next? On today's show,

Colby's got a list of 10 reasons why the Mariners suck this year. So let's just get right into it, Colby. You go in by order, like, how are we doing this? Did you actually rank these?

Some of them are ranked. Some of them are kind of just, you know, you just kind of, you know, ever just write something down and like anger and you're just like throwing oh and another thing and another like yeah so it started off as a

list of like yeah this this and then it's like oh yeah and this in this in this so yeah um needless to say these are 10 big problems and there are plenty of arguments to be made for like another 30 like I mean these aren't the only 10 let's be very clear about this uh these are just the 10 that came to mind and a lot of them are connected uh so some of them could have been bundled together but you know what 10's a nice round number we're a society of tens you know like the decimal system and all that so yeah we're going to go with 10 I was one with nine because you know know hey nine outs ha ha ha nine innings yeah uh the old and also and also it would make a bunch of people in the comments go why not 10 sure I mean well there's aren't going to be people like oh

10 there should be 30 and you know well I mean we're only a 30 minute show people so yeah anyways we'll start you could have done one per minute but whatever Sure. We'll start from the bottom and then we'll go there. Yeah. So number 10, ignoring defense. This is a team that's first. That's number 10 on your list is ignoring defense.

Like I said, you know, kind of another thing. All right. I won't keep interrupting. Go, go, go, go, go. But, yeah, ignoring defense. This is a ball club that is currently, as things stand right now. And I doubt there's going to be much of an improvement in the last four games. games of the year, which technically they are still alive.

So maybe there's more games. Who knows? I think we all do. Yes, the Mariners have made it to the final series of the year, technically still alive in the playoff race because, of course, they did. But number 10 is ignoring defense. This is a team that has for the last couple of years made a conscious decision to basically discount heavily one third of the game.

And it is, you know, just not working out for them. And it's not just because Julio regressed significantly in center field. Certainly that's a huge part of it, though. It's not that, you know, Cal has had, you know, struggles throwing out runners this year. It's not just that Naylor took a big step back. It's not just that Donovan missed, you know, most of this year. And we don't know how he would have been a third anyways, probably better than Weston Wilson, but whatever.

So it's not all those reasons because the front office decided that defense wasn't important. And when you have JP Crawford as your shortstop, you kind of have to be elite around him and he wasn't like j p crawford at short with a worst defender playing third base is a disaster uh and then obviously hoolio regressed and and randy never going to be a good defender he doesn't care enough to be a good defender uh he's got other thing he cares about um dom has actually been like average like defensively in right field like he actually grades out is pretty much a zero which is fine like that's average so uh yeah You know, it's just one of those things.

The front office decided that defense didn't matter because they had enough athletes that they could kind of make up for it. And they had good enough pitching that they could kind of make up for it. And well, this year when the athletes regressed and when the pitching regressed, you had nothing to fall back on, you couldn't stop it, as Perry Hill likes to say. So, yeah, and the number of games that we've seen lose or that they lost or got swayed heavily or turned on the inability to get to a ball that they should have gotten to, the inability to hit the right cutoff man, the inability to do anything that looks like a functional major league.

Sometimes the inability to catch the baseball, like the simplest of things they couldn't do at times this year. And it showed up. And when you're a team that's really struggling, you have to find a way to win on the margins. And one of those ways you can do that is by playing excellent defense. The Mariners did not play excellent defense and they weren't built to. And that's one of the reasons why they were failures this year.

Yeah. I mean, last year, sacrificing defense obviously worked because the offense was really good. You know, that tradeoff was more than worth it last year. However, regression came in the most extreme possible way. They were the worst defensive team in terms of range at the very least, you know, outs above average in the stat cast era, which is now a decade old. And yeah, like you said, like they were fundamentally terrible, right?

It wasn't just covering ground. It wasn't just making certain plays that most players would make. It was simple things like straight up just not catching the ball, not hitting your relay man. Like all those very, yeah, all those very simple, you know, fundamental things that you learn at a very early stage in baseball.

How many times did we see a pitcher not cover first base or cover it late? And they couldn't throw, they couldn't get a double play. Like it is literally plain catch. Yeah, I mean like, I mean, remember when Josh Taylor had the yips? and he couldn't throw a ball

he struggled like JP unleashes about one out of every 10 balls to the net like they couldn't play catch which is like the most fundamental part of baseball that is partially a design flaw and partially on the players that actually fielded the ground balls they didn't make enough inside the box plays as Perryhill likes to say

and they certainly didn't make any outside of the box plays to counteract that so defense definitely on the top 10 yeah all right number nine you know a real producer would have had these like real yeah but anyways

we're making it happen alive okay number nine I have a poor trade deadline despite everything the Mariners went through in the first half they were very much in the playoff race in fact they were in it on September 1st

they just you know played even 500 ball they'd probably be like two games back right now would be having a we wouldn't having this conversation, we'd be talking about what needs to happen this weekend. But regardless, the trade deadline was kind of their last shot and they blew it. They blew it royally. And again, look, you traded for Taylor Ward. That's been a disaster. Fine, whatever. But that is the process of that was fine. Yeah. Yeah. That is all they did. And that's the problem. It is the process of the trade as well as is technically part of that. Sure. But yeah, because he got Sir Anthony

Dominguez fine. Yeah, which like, I like that trade. I like the Taylor Ward trade. the process of it. Again, though, like we talked about after the deadline, it's what you didn't do, right? Which has been a constant theme with with us in this front office. And like we warned last or like we warned a lot this winter and at the beginning of this year, like last year's trade deadline, the 2025 trade deadline is an outlier where your needs matched the the best players available perfectly. And that is very unlikely to ever happen again. And guess what? It didn't this year. You had too many holes to fill at the deadline.

And then not only did you not fill enough of them, you didn't fill any of them. Like you just, you had a ship with leaking holes. And you're like, you know what? We're going to trust the crew that we have on hand to plug those up with, you know, whatever they can find. And oh, look at that. Matt Brash is out for the year. Oh, look at that.

Donovan couldn't get back on the field. Oh, look at that. Another I L stint for JP. Like they did not properly prepare for disaster at the deadline. And when they had their last opportunity to fix things and, you know, kind of try and keep this ship afloat, they didn't. They ignored it. And they said, oh, well, we tried, but you didn't try hard enough. And trying doesn't count when you're the most disappointing team in baseball.

So this horrendous trade deadline, not for the Taylor Ward trade, but for the other Taylor Ward-like trades, they did not make that. We know they had an opportunity to make. We know they were trying to make. they didn't get those done and that has led directly to this collapse in September, calling it a September collapse when they've been about this good all year. But whatever, you guys get the point. The poor trade deadline, definitely top 10. The front office, both directly responsible for both 9 and 10 on the list.

And that is a problem. Those are points against them that we talked about a couple weeks ago when we did our should Jerry be fired or not segment. But yeah, the disastrous trade deadline is certainly one of the reasons why they were never able to recover from their poor start. It was a very clear sign of lack of belief in this club. All right. We will get into more reasons why the Mariners sucked this year in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Locktime Maris podcast is brought to you by Calci and Odo.

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That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-C-K-E-O-N. And you're listening to the Lock-L-Time Airs Podcasts, part of the Lock-L-T-on podcast, network your team every day. Thank you so much for making us here first. Listen for all things, Mariners, and also thank you for making Locked on the Number One Sports Podcast Network. If you enjoy the show, give this episode a like and hit the subscribe button if you're watching on YouTube or if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, leave us a five-star review. It only takes a few seconds. It really, really helps us out. All right. Top 10 reasons. The Mariners suck this year, Colby.

Just went over number 10 and number nine. Now it's time for number eight yeah so number eight is I picked a couple specific guys but just in general nagging injuries they did play a role in this

and particularly Brennan Donovan and J.P. Crawford those two players were essential to kind of being these high floor they're going to produce they're going to get on base like you can always count on those guys to do their thing and unfortunately Donovan three separate IL stents

and he's going to end up only playing 30 some odd game, 38 games, I think, for the Mariners this year. And J.P. Crawford also with three separate IL stints, including one to start the year. And we've just kind of seen J.P. get back to close to full health here at the end. And he's performed like he's been fine since he returned from his last IL stint. But those two guys in particular, three separate IL stints for one guy who's like the clubhouse leader and one guy who is, you know, arguably your best overall hitter. on the slam. Now, Randy kind of changed that narrative with the year he's having. But like on paper, this was probably your best overall hitter entering this year. So to not have those guys for most of the season to have complete and total disarray on the left side of your infield,

just to never really get anchored with those two guys kind of leading off and, you know, wrapping around your lineup to get to Canzone and Randy and those guys, not having them. It just, it was devastating. I mean, you just couldn't overcome it. And if you had those two guys were healthy all year, I'm not saying you would have won 95 games, but like you probably at least in this race, you're probably leading this division. Yeah, you probably win the division. You're probably winning the division of these two guys are healthy. And, you know, again, we don't want to make excuses.

Everybody hasn't the Astros have had injuries. The Rangers have had injuries. Understandably so. And that's why it's not higher on this list. Like even with these injuries, you still had enough talent to win this terrible division and you didn't get it done. But we can't sit here and, you know, pretend that. losing brash and losing Donovan and losing JP for large chunks of this year and then losing them again after you thought you had them back.

Those those type of things definitely play a role. And can remember Julio went on the IL with a concussion and Cal missed a couple of weeks. I was going to mention that. Like yeah, Cal obviously dealing with the oblique. And then that doesn't just go away as we saw with Luke Rayleigh last year. So like we know that Cal was like trying to play through that. And that's why even after he got back, he still really struggled. I think that, or at least that's part of the reason that he really struggled coming back.

Julio, you know, it's hard to judge because you just, you never know with guys recovering from concussions. Like, you can take a very long time for guys to start to feel normal again. Right. And like, look, Randy going on on the IL with like a hammy for a week to 10 days, that's not really devastating. But you lose your two best, like contact hitters. You're too high on base guys for most of this year. And you never really know when you're going to have them back. is just hard to overcome.

So it's not the one to two week injuries or even like the three or four week injuries. It's the six week injuries, the start, stop, start, stop of some really important role players that really contributed to this. But again, every team goes through it to some extent. But that doesn't mean it's not part of the problem. Yeah. Josh Naylor also planned through a bunch of stuff over the course of this year. So injury is a big part of the story for the 2026 marriage for sure. Number seven.

Yeah, so number seven, people are going to be surprised by the placement of this. And this is one of those things where I could easily have broken this down to like eight different things, but I squished them into one. And that is the field staff. Notably Dan Wilson, but just in general, it's the field staff. It is the lack of alignment between them and the front office. It is the lack of accountability held.

for the players who underperformed. It is for the lack of focus. It is for the lack of improvement. It is everything about this team that you hate. Part of it has to go on the field staff. Dan Wilson did not hold players accountable, ever, not once. He did not make any changes. He was bullheaded about, you know,

Munoz only pitching in the ninth. He communicated the piggyback in the six-man rotation very poorly. Some of this goes to the front office. too. As you can see, a lot of these, they have front office like connections to them. So don't get me wrong here, but Dan Wilson and his staff did a horrendous

job this year. They, and it started right from the jump. You know, they, Randy issued the non-apology apology after the WBC thing and they had to go back and talk to them again and try to get that straightened down. And again, it's the piggyback. It's the use of

platoons. It just never felt like Dan fully bought into what the front office wanted him to do. And then he, as a result, did not communicate that well because he didn't really believe in it. He didn't believe what the front office was trying to tell him he needed to sell. And again, the defense regressing despite, you know, Perry Hill, this defensive wizard and the offense being bottom five in basically every category, despite Edgar Martinez and Kevin Siteser being these great hitting coaches. Like everybody on the staff did a really poor job this year because the Mariners got worse at literally everything this year versus last year. a lot of that, most of that is on the players, absolutely.

But some of that is also on the field staff led by Dan Wilson. And this is one that we're going to get, you know, resolution to very quickly. The word is on Tuesday. Jerry's going to address the media and announce that Dan is no longer the manager. We don't know what verbiage they're going to use according to Ryan Divish, but that is the plan, at least as far as I know. So by Tuesday, Dan Wilson will no longer be the manager. manager as for what happens to the rest of the staff.

I don't know. All right. Number six. Yeah, number six could be number one. Again, this is in another thing, territory right here, but ownership. Ownership's unwillingness to spend the extra money to put this team over the top, hamstring the front office and by, you know, by proxy hamstringing the field staff, they are always going to be a big part of this problem because they don't spend the money they should spend.

It's very simple. We've used this phrase a lot. It comes from Casey Bellin. They won't pay for the last eight outs. Like, and when you're that close to going to the World Series and you enter the next year with a payroll that is at best the same as it was the year before, if not a little bit lower,

actually, you screwed up. Like you you screwed up and ownership's unwillingness to cut the check so that Jerry and Justin can go out and get better players. with higher track, with longer track records and more likely to produce at these key positions, it is, it's obvious. Like ownership is significantly a big part of a significant reason to blame for this 2026 season because they did not back the front office when they needed to the most.

And when you got closer than you've ever gotten, and they had all this momentum in the world. And they could have wrote in the check and they could have gotten people. People still came to the ballpark, by the way. I was there on Tuesday watching we get their doors blown off by a bad Astros team. There were 35,000 people there on a Tuesday night with the team out of contention. Like the fans showed up. They spent money. They believed in you for a long, long time. And this is the result. This is the thanks you give back, not even raising payroll a single penny.

Like that, that's a joke. Ownership forever and always, as long as John Stanton is the guy, the ownership group is always going to be a problem. They're never going to be a reason why they win the World Series. always going to be a problem for why they didn't win the World Series because that is who they are. Profits over playoff appearances. That's the 2026 Seattle Mariners ownership group. And it's always going to be a problem. All right, coming up, the top five reasons. The Mariners suck this year. But first, a reminder, this episode of the longtime errors podcast is brought to you by Fandual and Game Day Men's Health. College football fans, it's time to put your knowledge to the test with college football pick them from Fandual. Each week, you're

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Yes, it's essentially an AMA. So whatever you guys want to talk about, we're free to talk about on that channel. So yeah, where were we on my list? Because I've lost track. Number five. Ah, there it is.

Yeah, number five, I have the bench slash depth. And this one is, can be directly attributed to both the front office and ownership. this is where it pays you know you're not willing to pay that little bit of extra money you're not only get that from ownership if you can't get that from ownership it puts more pressure on jerry and justin to go out and find these cheap options that can fill in admirably and they fail like one of their big you know offseason additions was rob raff snider total failure okay like fine whatever

that happens hopefully they learn from it and they go and they try and get like athletes on the bench you can help you in different ways than just one thing uh but yeah that failed but is also the weston Wilson's and the Patrick Wisdoms and the Leo Reeves and, you know, the number of the bullpen pile guys on top of it and just too many one-dimensional players on your bench who didn't do the one thing you needed them to do. Well, and as a result, when J.P. Crawford goes down. You don't have the answer. You have to rush Colt Emerson to the big leagues. And that's not me saying that. That is Justin Hollander who said, they asked him, would he be up if Donovan didn't get hurt? And he said, no, probably not, but we think he's close enough.

Like they rushed him to the big leagues. You had Leo Rivas as your opening day shortstop because JP got hurt. Like, you didn't, you couldn't put, or he felt like you couldn't put Josh Niller on the IL at any point this year because you didn't have a viable option in the minors. Like, this team did a really poor job of identifying useful major league talent that could help them in any meaningful way at the big league level. And they did the minor league free agent stuff. You know, they signed Connor Joe.

and he had a moment or two. They signed Patrick Wisdom, didn't really have a moment or two. They went out and they tried Weston Wilson as a platoon infielder and all that, but they just failed. They epically failed. They didn't build a roster that could sustain kind of the normal wear and tear baseball seasons. They were hoping for, you know, above average health. And they didn't get it.

And as a result, like everything else here, when everything doesn't go exactly according to plan and you collapse like this, that's a problem. problem. And it's a negative mark against the front office and by extension, the ownership group. So the lack of depth on this team, the inability to withstand the injuries that we talked about with players from, you know, within or addressing those needs at the trade deadline, uh, continues to play, uh, just a devastating role on this team. So the bench, the depth, uh, you know, who cares about the utility guy? Well, after this year, I hope you guys do because it plain as day that the Mariners need to fix this. They need to win on the margins. And winning on the margins is having guys on your bench.

who not the end of the world if they have to play for three weeks because, you know, JP has to go on the I. Because they're going to give you something. They're either going to play a really good defense or they're going to mash or whatever. They're going to do something well. The Mariners have nobody on their bench that does a single thing well.

It's also like the unwillingness to try something new where it's like it's clearly not working. Like West of Wilson is not working. Why is he still getting the significant of playing time? Why? Why is, why didn't we see Victor LaBrata this year? Why didn't we see Ryan Bliss this year? Why didn't we see, you know, pick a guy.

It took them until late August to call up West and Wilson or Brock Rotten. Like, just having a good year down there. Like, yeah, this team, this group just failed to maximize the margins. And nowhere is that more evident than on the bench in the end, you know, their major league depth. Yeah. All right. Number four. Yeah, number four is the bullpen.

Just all of it. like every single member of it. Do we really need to get that into it? Like you know the drill. We can because you know, you'll see why with the top. Yeah. Yeah.

The Mariners, I think are second in baseball and blown saves. And now look, blown saves doesn't mean that they lost the game in the ninth inning. Like if you come into the game with a lead in the sixth and you leave the game no longer having the lead, you catch a blown save. But and blown saves is not a perfect.

at. But when you are like lead the American League in blown saves or whatever it is, like, so they are six in major league baseball. Okay. So either way. And like fourth in the, in the Yale. But yeah. So it's still bad.

Yes. And you look, they're going to miss the playoffs by, I don't know, let's call it three games. I don't know what it is going to end up being. But if they had 10 fewer blown saves, they're in the playoffs.

And this was something we talked about, you know, when they enter the season. We're like, boy, they talked about how they needed to add arms because of the big workload they put on those guys last year. And they added for rare, which was nice. We liked it. But that's it. That's all they did.

And it, it bit them because Bizarro stepped back in a huge way. Munoz has kind of been up and down this year. Mostly good, but the bad outings really stand out, which isn't too uncommon for a closer. But Munoz wasn't elite dominant this year. Spire took a step. back, especially against right-handed hitters. Ferrer didn't take the leap that they were hoping for. And, you know, you lost Carlos Vargas early in this year and didn't realize that

was such a big deal, but you really struggled to find that pivot guy throughout the year. And you just look at the Michael Ruckers. You look at the Cooper Chris Wells. Matt Brash got hurt. Surprise. Got hurt twice. Surprise. Oh, my.

How could we have foreseen that, except for everybody else in the world forced all that. But, yeah, the bullpen was just a disaster this year. And we talked about this a lot. like this is probably the number one area of focus that the mariners need to look at this winter because you know there is some of the other problems with this team you can look at and be like okay that'll probably improve on its own the bullpen who do you trust in this bullpen right now because honestly sir anthony dominguez might be your best reliever at the moment and that's a problem that is a massive problem so it was kind of fun to see them just like dominate

yesterday, the Mariners' bullpen without using Munoz, like Ferrer was good, Spire was good, Dominguez was good, even Cooper Chriswell was good. But, you know, the bullpen has been a massive problem for the marines this year. And by the way, it's, part of it could be the, the, you know, abuse they took at the end of last year, pitching a month longer. And then a bunch of these guys also pitching the WBC. So they had to ramp up earlier than they normally would. Never play in the WBC. I hope that's a lesson learned by these players, but whatever. But at the end of the day, the owner's bullpen has had to cover fewer innings than anybody in baseball this year. Like, yeah, the starters mostly did their job. And that's not to say the starters aren't perfect. They're not on my list, but they could be because certainly they were good enough for large stretches of this season. But, yeah, the bullpen is a massive problem. They failed.

And if the mayor has had an average bullpen, they'd probably be in the playoffs this year. They don't, though. They don't. Yeah. Some of the worst win probability added on all bullpins and baseball this year, despite throwing what the fewest endings of any bullpen? Fewest in major league baseball.

At least when I checked a week ago. Yep, yep, yep. By far, by the way, 35 below the second which is the conjures. Keep in mind that like three or four weeks where they did the piggyback, those counted as bullpen endings.

So like when you subtract the Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller innings, it's even fewer. Like the gap's even bigger. So like it's just a downright embarrassment. from the bullpen. They suck this year. And there needs to be new arms added next year. Good arms added next year.

Yes. And I imagine a bulk of our offseason talk when we're actually talking about player acquisition, a bulk of it will be how do we fix the bullpen? Because it's a massive problem. Yes. All right. So you were telling me that one, two, and three basically go hand in hand, right? They do. Yeah.

Okay. So which works out well because we're running out of time. So, Ty, give me the number. Numbers. Three, two, one. No, I want you to say number three. Okay. Number three.

Josh Naylor. Mm, yep. Okay. I see where this. I see where this is going. Yeah. See, yeah. Number two.

No, Louleo Rodriguez. There you go. Number one. Cal Raleigh. Well, yeah. Your star's got a star, man. Yeah. have to. And all three of those guys have had subpar years. Nailers managed to be, like,

decent for most of this year. But he's the first baseman who had 10 home runs. He's going to slug like 370 this year. Yeah. That is not acceptable in any way, shape, or form. That is not acceptable. Julio Rodriguez, for other players, yeah, solid year. 20, you know, probably about a league average slash line on base, maybe a little bit below league average, but probably going to be a three-win player. Yeah, like, okay, fine. But that's not who you paid Julio to be. That's not who Julio is. Julio is a five-win player, six-win player,

who can explode at any given year and become an eight, nine, ten win player. And he hasn't done it yet. And that part's fine so long as you're getting the five-win, Julio, not the three-win, Julio. And when you build up much of your team around this guy being a star and he's not, you're kind of screwed from Jump Street. And the number one is obviously Cal Raleigh. And nobody, nobody expected.

him to hit 60 again. Nobody. I don't think anybody expected him to be amongst the worst qualified hitters in all of baseball for the first four months of the season though. Yeah. And there are reasons. We know Cal had the oblique thing and I think he's probably still playing through it a little bit here

and he's finishing the season strong so that's good. But your stars have to be difference makers and the Mariners three highest paid position players all sucked relative to what expectations were for them.

Like Josh Naler has to hit more than 10 home runs. Julio has to be more than a 100 WRC plus bat. Cal Raleigh has to hit 30, 40 home runs and be like a 130 WRC plus bat that we know he's capable of being. And we've already seen that, that he's still capable of doing that over the last four or five weeks. So these guys were not good enough at all for any significant stretch of the season. And it just burned you over and over again because you built,

your entire offensive identity around these three guys plus Randy Rose Arena and then a bunch of auxiliary players, a Dom Kanzone, a Luke Rayleigh, a Brennan Donovan, a J.P. Crawford. Like when these guys slump a little bit, we still have enough depth in our lineup that they could carry this thing. Well, guess what, your depth all got hurt too. And then these guys still didn't perform at any point this year. You were screwed. No wonder you have, you know, a bottom five offense in all baseball.

Your three best hitters sucked. Yeah. Like sometimes the easy. easiest answer is the correct one. Why are the 2026 Seattle Mariners, the most disappointing team in franchise history? Because their three highest paid best hitters all had terrible years relative to our expectations and relative to fair expectations. Again, Cal didn't suck compared to his 2025 season.

Cal just sucked, period. Yeah. He was rookie year, Cal for a while. Right. And then for the last couple months, or for the last month or so, we saw a lot of 2025, Cal. honestly. So again, I think Cal's going to hit 40 home runs next year. I think he's going to maybe 50. Yeah.

Like based on August 11, 2.23, 350, 531, 152 WRC plus 11 homers, 25 ribs. That's really close to 2025 cow. So yeah, if he could find somewhere between 24 Cal and 25 Cal, he's going to be a 6-7 win catcher. If Julio can get back to, you know, 2024, 2025, he's going to be a five or six win center fielder and josh nailer has to hit 20 home runs next year he has to and josh i'm willing to give a little bit more leeway to because he's very clearly been playing trying to play through a bunch of little things that have really added up and he's man he's gotten robbed last the last two series uh but he has to it more than you can't have a

first basement hitting 10 home runs i'm so you can't i'm sorry and while you're at it josh stop swinging at the stuff at your eyeballs you're never going to hit that pitch like you're not going to do anything significant with it. You're going to slap it the other way at best for a single, and then you're going to get thrown out trying to go to second like you did last night. And by the way, you also have to cut out the mental mistakes that Josh Nailer said this year. Like Josh has done some things that have nothing to do with the injury. So those three guys have to be better next year. Otherwise, it doesn't matter what this team does in the offseason.

They're going to underperform again because those three guys are the most important players in the entire franchise. And it's not remotely close. All right. Well, that is the time. 10 reasons. The Mariners sucked in the year of our Lord 2026. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locktime Marriss podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcasts Network, your team every day for Colby Patnode. I'm Tadeng Azalus.

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can also find us on Blue Sky at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.