Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 2023 Seattle Mariners Opening Day 26-Man Roster Projections

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

On today's show, Colby and Ty project the Mariners' Opening Day 26-man roster. Will there be any surprises for a club with very few position battles this spring? Listen to find out!Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Join our Slack!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of Locked-on Mariners, we're projecting the Mariners opening day roster. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. It is Tuesday, February 28th, 2023. This is Tadang Azales and Colby Patnav for the Lockdown Mariner's podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen. Subscribe, like, internal alerts if you're watching on YouTube,

or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform. if you like what you hear. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description below. On the show today, we're projecting the Mariner's opening day roster going one through 26. Obviously, it's very early on in spring training still,

and a lot can happen between now and March 30th, which is opening day, of course. But we're going to take our first swing at this. We might do another one later on in March, but this is where we're at right now. We're also making these projections based on what we think is going to happen, not what we think should happen. So let's kick things off here with the starting pitching,

which is going to be pretty much chalk across the board. You're going to hear us say that a lot with this roster. There aren't a lot of position battles. We talked about this in the buildup to doing this projection. But we got Luis Castillo here. We got George Kirby here. We got Robbie Ray here. We got Logan Gilbert here.

And then we, of course, have Marco Gonzalez, despite his rough outing against the Angels on Saturday. We talked about this, Colby, during yesterday's mailbag episode that that isn't deterring us from putting Gonzalez in the number five spot in this rotation. Let me ask you this, though. Is there anything that Marco can do this spring that could lose him this job? That is an excellent question, tidying Gonzalez, whom I respect very much. He's sick, sick man.

The answer is no. Short of injury, Marco's going to be in this rotation. I mean, Jerry Alba confirmed it to us, you know, when we interviewed him last month. Marco's the guy. They value that he can eat innings and keep you in ball games and give you a lot of quality starts. So they value that. And they're going to keep them in the rotation. Flexin, there's really no shot whatsoever that flexin takes the job, again, unless there's an injury.

So really what it comes down to is it's Bryce Miller versus Marco and the Mariners don't seem too inclined to to rush Miller to the big leagues. They seem like they want to give him a legitimate, you know, a couple weeks at least in the minors. And you guys can claim it's service time. It's really easy to service time of pitcher. And the Mariners wouldn't do that if they really thought Bryce Miller had a shot to win the rookie of the year because then they'd get another draft pick. So this to me is just about Marco is the vet. You give him the first crack. He's been here the longest.

And the difference between him and flexen is negligible. Flexin does play up a little bit better in the bullpen than Marco would. And then it's, hey, Marco, you know, this is your shot. You're the vet. You're the clubhouse leader here. You're going to get a handful of starts to prove that you can stay in the rotation. And if you can't, then we're going to go with the young kids. So no, there's really nothing short of injury that could happen to Marco that would cause him to lose that job.

Thank you, Colby. I equally respect you and I also agree with you on your take about Marco Gonzalez. Yeah, so I said this yesterday. What was the, what was the name? What was the, oh, it was just channel name, right? Channel name. Yeah, there you go, channel name. There you go.

All right. Yeah, contrary to popular belief, we actually like each other. It may not come across as that on here, but we do like each other. We enjoy talking to one another. We've been doing this for five years, so we have to have some sort of mutual respect for one another to do this for about basically half a decade with one another. All right. I said this on yesterday's episode, though, about Marco that, look, you know what you're going to get with Marco. Do you know that you're going to get starts like the one that you saw on Saturday?

And you know that you're going to get some quality starts mixed in there as well. There's nothing for me that Marco is going to do this spring that changes my mind on that, really. and plus, you know, the thing with starting pitchers in spring training with a lot of their starts, they're working on stuff. They're not necessarily going into a particular game with an actual game plan on how to attack the other team that they're going up against. They're just working on stuff. They're working through things. And so context is very important when it comes to spring training in general, but it is extra important with starting pitchers. So, yeah, going off of that, Marco is going to be the number five.

barring injury. And that's just what it is. And maybe Bryce Miller just has an incredible spring and just forces the Mariners hand, but I really, really doubt that. So that's why Marco is here in our number five spot. Maybe that changes by the next time we do our projections, but that's what it is right now here at the start of spring.

All right, let's get into the bullpen here because this is one of the few points of, maybe not contention, but there might be a question mark or two in here. year, but I still think that it's pretty much chalk. We got Chris Flexon here at the top with Trevor Gott, who is, you know, he got a major league deal this off season. So I think they're going to, he's going to be a part of this bullpen, at least to start

the year. We'll see. They might have a pretty short leash on him with guys like, you know, Justin Topa behind him. Penn Murphy, Matt Festa, Diego Castillo, Matt Brash, Paul Sewell, and of course, Andresneux. So let's talk about Gott and flexin and also, you know, Murphy and Fest. I mean, I feel like those guys you could consider maybe are on the bubble, but it does seem like for context purposes that they are more or less locked in for now for at least the, you know, the first week or two of the regular season. And from that point forward, we'll see.

But, you know, obviously, Jerry DiPoto really likes Justin Toba. He tried to acquire him for for a couple of years now. Finally landed him this off season. So maybe if he has a really good spring, he enters the conversation here, maybe pushes someone like God or Murr. or Festa. Of course, Festa's going to the World Baseball Classic. So we'll see if maybe him being away from the team will open up the door for someone. But I think this is just pretty much it, right? Colby. Yeah, Flexen's definitely going to make the team if he's not traded. They're not just going to DFA him and tell him to go away. They want the pitching depth. So he'll be in the

bullpen for sure. Festa, I feel really good about because he really showed last year that he is a major league quality arm. And he's out of options. So there's no sending him. down and hoping to get him back. So if you want to make a move with Festa, you're exposing him to waivers, and there's a really good chance somebody will claim him. Murphy, on the other hand, he does have options left. And so that is a possibility that you can make that swap. And, yeah, I do think that got is going to get the early opportunities here because, you know,

the Mariners, this is a guy that they think they can turn into something. This is a guy that they think they can turn into a pitcher that he's all. only really been for one season. They think they can get him back to that. They see something. That's a guy they identified and they don't give up on those guys that quickly. So he'll probably get some decent run. But aside from those guys, you know, everybody else is pretty much locked in.

Again, barring injury or trade, which could happen. But yeah, I think this is what it's going to look like. It's not how it's going to look all year. There will be injuries. There will be trades. There will be, you know, demotions and DFAs. We know the bullpen will look a lot different in July than it will. on opening day. But I think for opening day,

this is what it's going to look like barring injuries. Yeah. And, you know, God, obviously there isn't a lot of money attached to him. It's pretty easy to, you know, go away from him if you don't want him to be a part of your 26-man roster. And obviously, you know, Topa's really interesting. And Orlando Burroughs had a nice start to Spring. And you and I are very excited about Isaiah Campbell. But I think they're just going to roll with God unless, you know, spring is just an absolute disaster for him. And they just don't like what they're seeing. really.

And just, you know, see what they got there. And if it doesn't work out after a week or two, then you move on. You go to the next guy. And that's really it. And, you know, one thing we know about Jerry Depoto in this team, they're pretty quick to pull the trigger on bullpen guys. And they've had a lot of success, you know, kind of rebuilding bullpins, kind of out of thin air in the middle of the season.

So not really concerned about it, even if some of these guys don't pan out this year. they have a they have a really good knack for time and very rarely does does jerry and his crew stick with a guy too long before they either make a role change or before they just move on to a different arm so yeah you know you might get a couple bad outings in a row and then that would be it and one point one million dollars

is not going to prevent the mariners from doing what they have to do with a guy like trevor god if it just doesn't isn't working but they're going to give it a shot first and they should because they've identified him as a guy that they think they can help, and that's worth seeing through. All right. So we're going to be moving on to the position player portion of our opening day, 26-man roster projections here in just a moment.

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Thank you again for making us your first listen here as we project the Mariners opening day roster. Their 26-man major league roster. Let's start with the catchers here as we get into the position player portion of our projections. Nothing to really see here. Cal Raleigh, Tom Murphy, that's what it's going to be. Cooper Hummel has not had a good start, well, to put it lightly to spring training. So I don't think he really factors into the conversation here. But yeah, so I mean, Colby, the Mariners have one of the better catching situations in all baseball right now, as long as both of these guys stay healthy, right?

Yeah, Murphy's certainly better than, you know, probably half of the guys who are going to get a majority of the reps for their team anyway. So, yeah, Seattle has two legitimate starting catchers. Again, both are kind of coming off of their own injury in the winter. or so how they, you know, co-exist is going to be really important. There's going to be opportunities early for both of them. We expect Cal to, you know, take the job and run with it, and he should. It's his job. He's an all-star quality player.

But Murphy's going to get legitimate run here. Murphy's probably going to catch, you know, 60, 65 games if he can handle that. So far, so good behind the plate. He's moving well. He's throwing well. You know, he's swinging the bat. So it looks like he's, you know, back to, I don't say, back to normal, but he is healthy enough to start the year with the Mariners and Cal getting his

first action today, which I know a lot of Mariners were concerned about, but it's a long season, you know, let's not rush him when we don't have to. And Cal is also coming off of a couple's surgeries, I think, most notably the one in his thumb. So, yeah, as long as they're both healthy, they should, you know, perform really well. And they're both good enough that you don't have to run the other guy into the ground. If Cal needs three days off in a row, no problem. We're not going to have a black hole in the lineup. We'll just roll with Tom.

That's such a crucial part of this because Raleigh, I mean, obviously took the like all of the workload there towards the end of the season, especially when Kirk Casale didn't come off as a viable option, really. You know, they were hoping that they were going to get more out of him after they acquired him at the deadline. He wasn't really anything for them after showing up in Seattle. So, yeah, having Murphy here is, is huge. which not only just because like Murphy's a pretty good catcher, as you mentioned, but also because it takes some of the pressure and some of the workload off of Raleigh.

And, you know, there will be some days, I think, when maybe we'll see both of these guys in the lineup. But, you know, that also depends on if they have another guy who can catch him. I think Cooper Hummel was supposed to be a part of that plan. I don't know if, I don't know if he's ever going to be a part of it with the way that he's playing right now. So I mean, yeah, it's spring, but like obviously strikeouts have been a huge part of his problem. And they're continuing here in the spring.

And I don't even know if Hummel's the first guy up. Like if somebody needs a 10-day I L stent in April, they might go to O'Keefe before they go to Hummel. I mean, Hummel's on the 40 man. So he probably has an edge. But I wouldn't say it's a guarantee. But yeah. So keeping those two guys healthy is going to be a big deal. And, you know, they're going to get some DH days even.

both of them will get a D.H. Day here and there. It won't be normal or it won't be like an everyday type of thing, but there's really no reason to bench, you know, either guy against left-handed pitching. I mean, obviously, you want Murphy in the lineup more than you want Raleigh, but you can D.H. Raleigh or catch Raleigh and D.H. Murphy against lefties, you can do that. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's a good situation.

I really don't think anybody would argue that the Mariners' catching situation is in a really good spot right now. Yeah. And by the way, because we can't watch today's game, I thought I'd let you know, Ty. Okay. Teo hits his first Cactus League home run,

three-run shot. Let's go. Let's go. Followed up, of course, by Ty France going deep. With a solo shot, apparently a line drive to straightaway center field. Steve LaFrance.

All right. Speaking of... Unfortunately, unfortunately, Cow Raleigh struck out in his second at bat, so... Bust. Like, yeah, so it's over for the fall office here.

You always have the home run. Soft for slump, even though it's actually his third year technically. But yeah. All right. Speaking of Thai France, we move on here to the infielder's. France leads us off here.

He's going to be the starting first baseman, barring injury, of course. Colt Mung's going to be the starting second baseman. Might be a platoon situation there with Dillamore. You'll notice that Moore isn't listed here. he'll show up in the utility portion spoiler alert A. E. E. Henino Svarez

of course, J.P. Crawford. Then we're putting Tommy Lestella here. Lestella is listed as a D.H on the Mariners website, but I can't imagine that they're just going to have him be an exclusive D.H. They're going to have Tommy Lestell be a part of this roster as an exclusive D.H. He's going to have to play in the field

some, right? In theory, but he still belongs in the D.H. tab where Delamore belongs in the infield tab. but you're so smart. He's going to play some outfield. No. He's going to play some outfield though. No, it's fine, Ty.

Like, you're so smart. It's, it hurts sometimes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for respect to me. Yeah. I just want you to feel like you are heard and respected. Thank you.

Thank you. By the way, real quick, guys, I forgot to mention this earlier on. We've started a TikTok and an Instagram. Check us out on there. At Locked-on Mariners. That's all it is on both platforms. At Locked-on Mariners.

Very simple. Just one word. Out Locked on Mariner's. us on there. We're going to be posting content there this season. Anyway, continue. 80 great podcasting from Utah. Just dropping it in the middle of the show after you forgot. Just only, only somebody like you could do that. So thank you. Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. Yes, I'm proud of you. Um, yeah, this is the infield. Like I said, it's pretty straightforward. Dylan Moore is going to get the start against lefties either for J.P. Crawford or Colton Wong,

probably Wong most of the time, but JP is not going to play every single day like he has the last few years. So Dimo's going to get some run at shortstop too. And the fact that he can hit lefties and both Wong and JP are lefties, great. Works out really well.

Lestella will probably get to play some second and third. We'll see how his elbow is. He was scratched from the opening day, opening day at the Cactus League lineup with elbow soreness, right elbow soreness, and he has not returned yet. Maybe sometime, you know, at the end, towards the end of this week, he'll be back.

But that's something to keep an eye on because that is a potential roster spot that opens up. And the injury is something that could lead to him not actually making the team. Remember, he signed a minimum deal. So he is not guaranteed a roster spot by any stretch. But if he's healthy, I feel like he's probably going to win that spot.

And probably be the opening. day D. But yeah, he'll have to play in some first base if necessary. Yeah. So the next time that we do these projections, it might very well be Colin Moran in this spot instead or maybe this opens the door for someone like Cade Marlowe to make the team. We'll see. But right now it's, we're going to put Lestella here. We're going to we're going to err on the side of caution and just say that Lestella is going to return by some point between now and opening day and end up big in this club. But we'll see. All right. Outfield.

Can you believe it, Colby? We have Julio Rodriguez making this team. I know. It's bold. Shocker. It's bold. Yeah. Shocker.

Tay Oscar Hernandez as well, who, of course, as you mentioned, went yard today for a three-run bomb. Jared Kelnick and AJ Pollock. So, yeah, nothing to really see here. And then finally, get our utility and DH designation here. I mean, neither of these guys are probably going to DH. So these are mostly just used. utility guys. But Dillamore, Sam Haggody, this was kind of a point of contention on our on our Patreon show yesterday. Sam Haggertie versus Collin. If you want to hear Colby and I

debate and yell at each other a little bit, we did about Sam Hagggy and Colin. I would like to point out that why I yelled at Ty, I still respect him and his baseball acumen. Thank you. This is what you asked for. I can't say the same about you though. So that's why I this is what you asked for yeah uh because sam haggerty shouldn't have a guaranteed spot on this roster he's not that guy you're not that guy pal you're not that guy sam haggerty certainly isn't so i i value his value on the uh base pass and defensively more than i value columner ends bat and if you want to hear if you want to hear more of of my reasoning for that you can go subscribe to our patreon at patreon

dot com forward slash control the zone spoiler alert it's mostly dumb but tie is smart therefore we must assume that it is smart because tie said i got to say that this makes the show more boring with you just complimenting me so yeah so it doesn't work it doesn't work this is this is what you wanted this is what you wanted um i didn't want this channel name wanted this yeah well tie is fine with it is the point so that's all i care about Uh, no. I mean, as you know, I love to be liked. I have to be liked.

It's everything to me. So this is a bit of a sickness, really. This is great for me. Yeah. No, I just, I like Moran. I, I think Moran is being overlooked. He's been a pretty good hitter the last few years.

Um, and I know people, well, league average isn't very good. Well, A, it's major league average. So yeah, that's, that's pretty good. But B, we're talking about. him competing with Tommy Lestella, who hasn't been major league average for the last two years. And we're talking about Sam Haggurdy, who can't hit right-handed pitching. So thankfully, only like 65% of the starters in baseball are right-handed.

So who, that won't come. That won't become an issue anytime soon. Seattle Mariners were one of the slowest teams in baseball last year. I'm just going to mention that. I'm just going to say that. So why do you think they care about speed then? if they were slow last year well they need to get fast

what did they what did they need to be at least competent what base stealing what base stealing threats did they add I don't need them to just steal bases I'm not talking about this just from the perspective Col Moran's not a bad athlete just saying I just need someone to run the base as well so why don't you just runs the base as well

okay fine then you know what just go get Terran score because he'll give you the same at the plate against right hand of pitching oh whatever okay Karen score is out there somewhere right he always is yeah no September late September the Mariners are going to sign Terran score what's Billy Hamilton doing

yeah oh man that makes me sad I wish that Billy Hamilton was a part of that club last year at least for a day I just wanted to see Billy Hamilton in a Mariners uniform Speed kills have only Haggarty had any No I do that think Sam's probably going to make this team. The good news is that he's healthy. He's already playing in Cactus League games. That was, you know, he's gotten a couple starts, I think,

both at second base. So, um, which is kind of interesting because last year, the Mariners had no interest. They avoided him playing in the infield like the plague. Yeah, they had absolutely no interest in seeing that. Um, by the way, Bryce Miller now out. Nice. Sounds about right. Um, so, yeah. Uh, Haggerty already playing. That's great. It bodes well for his health. He's probably going to be on the opening day roster. Probably shouldn't be, but he's probably going to be. So whatever, ham swaggerty. We'll see him strike out against velocity up. And, you know, some dumb manager will turn him around with some, you know, slider spinning left in and he'll hit a double into the gap. And everybody, well,

he's the best ever. You're such a hater. You're such a hater. Why can't you just be like, Yeah, Sam Haggerty, you know, he does have some flaws, but I like him. He's cool. He wears a, you know, he wears the headband and he's called Swaggerty. He's fun. He's a fun baseball player. No, Haggurty is a, he is a fun baseball player. And obviously Ham Swagherty will live forever and all that stuff. But, uh, I don't know, man. I'd rather have the bat, uh, particularly because I don't trust, uh, Tommy Lestella really. Well, again, if Lestella doesn't, you know, pan out. this spring. If he can't get healthy or they just, they don't want him around. I mean, you might get the bat and you might get Swirty as well. You might get both. So we'll see. Yeah, it's possible. But the other thing is, I don't know what Moran's

minor league deal is. I don't know if there's a opt out date attached to that. If he's willing to accept an assignment to AAA. But if he's not, I would be concerned about losing that type of player, more concerned about losing that type of player, whereas Haggerty has options. So I can kind of put Haggerty in AAA for a month and then watch Lestella hit and watch Moran hit and kind of extend that decision just because, you know, I bench bat. And honestly, could be your DH, which is an ideal, but yeah, it's the situation you're in.

So I just, I don't want to, I just don't want to, you know, give that up for nothing. And if he's not willing to go to the miners and he doesn't have like a reasonable May first opt out date or something like that, then I would probably put him on the roster. just kind of roll with him and Lestella and see which one, you know, more or less wins the job. Yeah. Like you mentioned, Haggerty does have not just one, but two minor league options remain. So one for this year, one for the for next year, theoretically. So, but yeah, you know, but again, we're doing these projections based off of what we think is going to happen, not what we think should happen.

And I just, I can't imagine that the Mariners are going to break camp without Sam Haggerty on their roster on opening day. but but we'll see all right so uh those are our projections we'll throw them up here again uh let us know what you guys think uh what were we what were we what are we wrong about uh let us know down below and uh like i said we'll probably do another projection maybe around mid-month maybe once uh colby gets back from uh from peoria something like that uh we'll we'll let you guys know and uh we'll have a clear idea of uh what things are kind of looking like and how things are going to hammer out because, you know, we'll be what, when does the world baseball classic end?

Do you know? The 19th or 20th? Yeah, so we'll be close to the end of the World Baseball Classic. And so most of the guys should be returned to Mariners camp at that point. And so, you know, that will be, I mean, because when, you know, guys like Julio and Tayasca, et cetera and go off to the World Baseball Classic, that's the prime window for some of these guys to stake their claim for the roster. So, you know, we'll see.

But, but yeah, right now, like I said, you know, the, the roster is pretty much chalk across the board. It doesn't seem like we got a lot of position battles that we're going to be watching, which, you know, makes for a pretty boring spring training. You know, not a lot of storylines really going on. It's mostly just trying to see how guys are performing, making sure that guys are staying healthy, you know, staying in shape, all that good stuff. And that's about it. But, hey, maybe someone will surprise us here over the next couple weeks. Anyway, that is going to do it for our show today. Thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners for Colby Pat.

I'm Taday Gonzalez. Be sure to get us to follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's C-A-N-ZL-Z and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-PAT-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen. Now for your second listen, check out Lockdown Fantasy Baseball,

win your league by listening to Matt and Dom every day as they bring you the best fantasy draft strategy. It's free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, every day. And with that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.