Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Airing Out Our Grievances With the 2023 Seattle Mariners

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Last night, Ty gave you his thoughts on the disastrous 20-hour stretch the Seattle Mariners experienced in their recent series with the Washington Nationals. Now it's Colby's turn to let out his frustrations with Seattle's mediocrity up to the point. Afterwards, the two discuss the importance of accountability for the team, if Scott Servais is solely to blame, if they can justify trading resources for a rental right now, and more.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 | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit. eBay Motors dot com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.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) 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.

At 38 and 41, can the Mariners justifiably spend resources on their current roster? We'll talk about that and more coming up. 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, June 29, 2023. This is Tiding Azales and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Brought to you by GameTime.

Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use promo code Lockdown, MLB. be for $20 off your first purchase. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. Thank you so much for making us your first listen, subscribe, like, and turn on 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're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below.

And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link, as well as our social accounts, is in the description of this episode. later on in the show we're going to discuss whether or not the mariners can justify buying on the trade market right now specifically with 2023 in mind but first you've already heard my piece about what this team has gone through over the last few days you can go listen to last night's episode if you're curious so to start things off i'm going to step out of the way and i'm going to let colby have the floor to share his thoughts so colby go for it yeah um you know the word frustration doesn't quite cover what this season's been like. You know, it's a little bit different for tie and myself because our success on this show is tied, you know, somewhat indirectly to the success of the Seattle Mariners. And it's, it's tough to, you know, motivate yourself to do content every single day when the team is just so frustrating. And, you know, I listened to your show last night.

It was okay. But I, yeah. But you're wrong about one thing. And this is what makes it so much worse. The Seattle Mariners are not a bad team. They are a really mediocre team that is also soft. And that is so much worse than being bad. Bad you could fix.

Bad is, you know, whatever. Taking on the chin for a year. you come back the next year you regroup. This is a team that's mediocre. They've been about 500 for now, what, 80 games or so. So they're not bad. If they were bad, fine, whatever. You could start to make moves and there are things you can do.

But you're mediocre, which means we can't have a serious conversation about how do you approach this trade deadline. Are you buyers? Are you sellers? Are you doing both? Are you doing sideways trades? Like, how can we fix this? Because this isn't a bad.

This isn't a team that has a talent issue. It needs more talent, certainly, and it's not a complete team. This isn't a team that's lacking talent. This is a team that is lacking, according to, you know, the mariners themselves. They're lacking, you know, concentration. They're lacking conviction. They're lacking commitment. And those are all massive, massive issues that may or may not be able to be solved this

year, which kind of puts you in this nebulous little, like, you know, you don't want to give up on them because they have so much talent and because, you know, they do. And only a fool, only an absolute idiot would tell you that the Mariners have a massive talent problem. Could they be more talented? Yes, of course. Every team in baseball could be. But they're not untalented.

They're not, they don't have a roster full of like mediocre talents. They don't. And that's what makes us so frustrating. It's because the pieces are there. They absolutely are. Julio Rodriguez is a superstar. He's supposed to be. Oscar Hernandez is an all-star.

Thai France is an all-star. Cal Raleigh is an all-star. You look at that pitching staff up and down. All-stars everywhere. This is not an untalented team. And that's what makes us all the more frustrating because it's not just like, oh, well, you know, we just bring in a couple new guys and everything will be fine. It's not.

It's a team that could, in theory, win seven of their last 10 before the break. And all of a sudden, you know, the momentum is completely shifted. And we're talking about, oh, look at this. It's also a team that could lose six in a row, you know, over the next few. And then you're just completely out of it. And you won't know because you have to take things one day at a time. And it's just tough to be in a position right now because you can't even if the Mariners went out and swept the Tampa Bay raise, which by the way, they have to face McLeanahan and they have to face class now in the next two games. All right.

But even if they sweep the raise, the best team in baseball, do you trust it? How could you? How could you trust it? You can't. Then you have to go into the next series against, against, San Francisco, I think. You go into that series against San Francisco and let's say you win that series. Oh, Mike, we won five of the last six.

This is incredible. We're on the way back. And then you go into Houston, replay four, and you lose all four or whatever. You're right back to where you started. And that's just kind of the pattern with this team. It's one step forward, two steps back, one step forward, two steps back, over and over and over again. And it's so frustrating because, again, it's not a talent. issue. Yes, they need more talent. I'll say it again, but they're not untalented. They're not

500 because their roster is built to be 500. That's not what's happening here. And that's what makes it a little more frustrating. It's especially frustrating when you hear, you know, comments from, you know, Scott and Jerry that like, oh, well, you know, there's been a lack of focus this year. There's been a lack of commitment. There's been a lack. You know, you could call it whatever you want, but at the end of the day, the Seattle Mariners baseball team is soft. They are soft. Something goes wrong. They shut down and they cannot turn it back on.

We've seen it over and over and over again. When things are going well, they play really well. The second something goes wrong, the second there's a bad at bat, they shut it down and they fold up shot. Yesterday, that team had no interest in playing that baseball game. none. They weren't, forget winning. They didn't want to be there. They were not interested in playing baseball on that day. And that is a massive problem. How do you fix it? I don't know. And that's what makes it more frustrating. I don't know what the answer is because we can sit here and say, send guys down, bring guys up. And at this point, that's pretty much all we can say. But is that really going to solve anything? Probably. not. It's probably not going to change anything. So short of, you know, shocking the system and trading out somebody right now where you're probably not going to get near what you should for

that player by trading them now, that hurts you in the long run. And we're not talking about the Mariners being in a position where they have to tear everything down to the studs again and start over because they don't have to do that. They don't. But if you're not willing to send out somebody who is, you know, being a distraction or they're not focused or whatever it is, right? And the Mariners know who that is. They're never going to tell us. Yep. They're never going to tell the media. The media is going to guess and they're going to speculate and they're going to hear things from other players. And, you know, it'll get leaked at some point that so and so was this and this and this. That stuff does get out. But we'll never

know for sure who it is. And a lot of us right now are speculating that it's Julio Rodriguez. and by us, I mean, like Ryan Divish and Shannon Dreher, they're talking about how the club is frustrated with Julio, it's feeling like he's not putting out the effort that they need him to put out. That's a massive problem. Now, there's anybody who can understand that and turn it around and fix it. It's Julio. I don't think that's a long-term problem. But it is a problem for the rest of this year. That is your franchise player.

And he's going to be here for a long time. He's going to outlive, at least in terms of being in Seattle. Jerry and Scott, like he is here beyond their tenure. That's a problem. And that's a massive. So the question is, is that something you just have to man up and tell people and get through to Julio any way you can? Or are there people around him that need to leave this ball club because they're a bad influence on him? We don't know.

We're just speculating if we say we do. Well, I mean, there's so much activity around him, right? It's hard for him not, you know, as a 22-year-old to not. be distracted by all the things that are going on home run derby new you know shoe deal cereal all these endorsements and all the stuff that he's doing like it that's that's a lot and like i'm not i'm not saying that he's that it's really a fault of his it's just like that's just kind of nature right for a 22 old who gets a lot of attention and it's something he's never had to deal with before it just it's new right it's the first time that he's been shoved into the limelight it's

you know, last year or whatever, but it doesn't start. Like, it's always the following months after you kind of break through that your life changes significantly. And that's where Julio's at. And again, I don't want to sit here and say that he's, you know, there's some ridiculous people. He should break up with his girlfriend, like, get out of here with that. Oh, that's insane. That's insane. That's, I've blocked a couple people down on the comments. I've suggested that. Like, yeah, guys, stay out of Julio's personal life. Like, don't, you don't get to dictate whether or not he sees somebody.

Let's stop Russell, in Julio. right and that goes that goes that goes both ways by over analyzing his personal life and also over protecting poor play yeah exactly yeah so i don't know my my thoughts on this whole situation is that it's just really frustrating it's it's it kind of drains the motivation out of you um and it's because because we know they are so talented there is still an inkling in the back of your head that says they can write the ship. They have time. They have talent.

They have an aggressive GM. They have a farm system that they can go make trades with. They have time. Right. And every time we think that, the mayors will start to play a little bit better. They'll win a series that surprises some people. And they're like, oh, they won three of their last four.

And then they'll lose three series in a row. And they'll just keep you on this hook. And they won't let you go because they could turn things around. They absolutely could. But based off of the last 80 games, what are we to believe that there's just going to be another shoe that drops. This team's going to win seven of ten. Awesome.

And then they're going to go around and they're going to lose four series in a row. Like it's just this constant back and forth. It's extremely frustrating. Right. And it's aggravating for us, you know, me personally that, you know, I have friends who tell me that I have to defend the Seattle Mariners. Like it's my job to defend the Seattle Mariners. I have, you know, commenters saying, oh, you said this and this in the office. season like you lied and it's like no it didn't lie that's not a lie and somehow I am the one who

has to defend the mariners from everybody in my life people I know and don't know like it's my job to be the spokesperson for the team it's just frustrating it's making it not fun to watch baseball because when they win we don't get those questions we don't get those you know we we get good questions and we get people who are interested in talking about baseball and when they lose everybody comes out of the woodwork and all of a sudden that's why are you lying about this team? Why are you, why are you, you know, shilling for this team? And we're not. Just, you know, I know that sometimes we, I know we got to go in a second, but we know the Mariners have people who listen to this podcast. We know. People who work for the Mariners, they listen. Do we know who it is? No, not every time. But if you're, if you're an employee of the Mariners and you're listening to this, clip it. Clip what I'm about to say. Put it on the big board, whatever. When the Mariners, are in the, you know, are in the playoffs this, this October, play it on a loop, put it in your promo videos, I don't care.

Your baseball team is soft. They are soft as one ply a toilet paper. And until they decide, essentially, that enough is enough and that playing October baseball, meaningful October baseball is something that they care about, they will not accomplish it. They're soft. Somebody needs to call them out on it. And I honestly, I, I, honestly, I don't.

don't know how many different team meetings you can have. I don't know how many, you know, how you can snipe at people in the media and expect that to be okay. I don't know what, I don't know how they fix it. I don't know. And it's frustrating to me that people want us to have the answers to that question when we don't know either. We're just as frustrated as you guys, maybe even more so. And it's annoying. It's annoying. It's draining, uh, you know, physically and mentally draining. and I just I wanted to stop and I can't because this baseball team is so mentally feeble that the second anything goes wrong they close up shop and they do up well that's a loss and they just they lack the mental fortitude that they had the last two years and I don't know why

I can't explain it accountability that's that's what I was talking about last night I need to see accountability take him we saw a Cal Raleigh take accountability the other night but that's really been the only guy. You know, like, I haven't really seen that across the board, both with the players, with Scott's service, with Jerry Depoto. It's just a lot of like, this isn't working. It's a lot of pointing out the obvious whenever these guys talk to the media. It's, you know, this isn't working and we don't know why.

And it's like, yeah, none of us know why. Like, we're all perplexed by this. Anyone who knows what's up. Now, we got to, I got to, I just, I got to read an ad real quick, but we can continue this conversation actually. Real quick though, before we do that, this episode of the Lockdown Marries podcast is brought to you by GameTime. Buying tickets to your favorite events shouldn't be stressful. Game time is a fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy, and theater near you. With killer deals on last minute tickets and their best price guarantee,

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And you're listening to the Lockdown Merris podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. The Marys, of course, have an off day today. He'll be back after it tomorrow against the Tampa Bay raise. You can catch all the action, if you dare, on the Maris Hometown podcast with Sirius XM v. Yes, XM app. So you talked about it a few minutes ago that even if they were to like sweep the raise,

which we've joked about that like behind the scenes that, you know, they'll lose the series of the nationals, then they'll sweep the raise, right? That's the merriest thing that would happen. But even if they do that, again, why should I trust it? Because this team has proven time and time again that, yeah, it can win two or three in a row, but after it does that, it's going to lose four in a row. There's no like win to lose one, win two, lose one, win three, lose two. of that. Yeah. The Mariners' longest win streak this year is four. Their longest losing streak is

four. And there's just a lot of, they lose three out of four and then like, they'll win two out of three, but then they'll go right back and they'll lose three out of four again. And it's just a lot of that. So the reason that I went as harsh to, to call them just flat out bad is, again, mostly because of the mentality of this team, right? It's, it's bad. That's, that's, like I said, they have the mental fortitude of the Oakland athletics when they have the talent of one of the best teams in professional baseball. And they're really

like, they're going to win games just based off of the talent alone, right? That's going to carry them in some games. That's why they're still in it technically. That's what leads them to score like 13 runs against one of the best pitching staffs in baseball in Baltimore, right? Like, that's going to

happen because they are so talented on offense. Is the roster incomplete? Yes, yes. We've talked about that. but they are more than capable of rattling off, you know, a seven, eight game win streak, like you mentioned. But having seen them now for, what, 13 weeks, get on a roll and then immediately take four or five steps back right after. I just, I have no faith in them doing that right now. Yeah. So.

So. And the Mariners haven't earned it. And you don't, it doesn't follow through for an entire year. Like in April, you say, look, I trust this team. I saw what they did last year. I believe they can turn it around. Cool. You could that, that's still totally justifiable.

Even in May, like, look, I saw what this team did last year. I understand the talent. They can turn it around. And the Mariners are really good in May. And that's also part of what's frustrating. They were so good in May. It felt like, yep, they've got this turnaround. June started out okay.

And then it's just collapsed here down the stretch. And now they're going to have a terrible June and get back all the gains they made in the month of May. and now that trust that this team can figure it out and they turn it around shattered there are people who will not believe in the marriage go win 15 in a row tomorrow starting tomorrow and people will still say yeah but we know they're going to lose you know six of seven here down the stretch right so and they've earned that that you know they haven't earned that level of like we'll turn it around at least not based off of what they did last year that that that time's gone right that that honeymoon phase is over is over is It's turned the page and now what is this year's team telling me? It's telling you who they are. They're mediocre. They're middle of the road and they are not a team that is right now mentally equipped.

They're physically equipped. They're not mentally equipped to turn this thing around and and rattle off the windstreet. They kind of need now, honestly, to have a shot to, you know, get back in this thing for real. Yeah, like they need something like a, you know, six and one road trip heading into the All-Star break, something like that, which that doesn't seem very likely. Yeah. And it's just like what is there here? Like, and again, you know, I try to be optimistic with this team.

You know, I've done that for the last three months, really, tried to stay on the optimistic side of things. But what have the Mariners done this year over these three months that suggests that they're capable of going on a run like that? Because again, like, you don't necessarily need a windstreet. You could just win like 14 of 18, right? That would be amazing. But the problem is every time this team loses a game,

especially in a dramatic fashion, like on Tuesday night, you know, when they lose it in such a devastating way, it takes them multiple days to recover from that. Yeah. Yeah, you're just running out of time because now you're in a position where you need that kind of streak to happen. in the next month. And winning 14 out of 18, that takes half of the month.

Because we're getting to a point and we're going to talk about this in just a second, where it might not make sense for the Mariners to go add anything or to not value anything that impacts you in 20203, unless it also impacts you in 2024. And if you don't turn this around, and I mean like now, there's no reason whatsoever for Jerry and, Justin to go out and believe in this team. They have not told ownership. They have not told the baseball office people. They have not showed them with their actions that they are a team that's worth investing in.

And they're running out of time. And that's the scary part. So, you know, I don't know. You finish your thought. And then I have a question for you. I was just going to say, you know, remember early in the season we were talking about like, Gino getting picked off second just from a lack of focus. And like Scott should bench him.

get him off the field or somebody who was it made a like they didn't cover the bag or whatever and we're like get get him off the field like you have to sit these guys down when they make a mistake and you know I say that after the fact and then the next day I come and I go well you know it's not really Scott's thing like I get it he wants to you know criticize privately and praise publicly and I understand all that and it works but now I'm wondering if like does he just have to do something like that like and it's almost not even fair but does he just have to pick on the next guy who like doesn't run out a ground ball and just be like, look, sorry, but like I have to send this message and I have to send it publicly.

So that's something we could see change because on Monday we saw what can be generously described as a leisurely stroll for a ball thrown down the right field line by two players. Now, ironically, those two players singled and hit a home run the next inning. So, but at what point does Scott say we can't do, we can't keep getting picked off? We can't keep, you know, giving half effort defensively. We can't keep striking out, looking or can't keep chasing pitches a mile out of the strike zone with the bases loaded. Accountability is a real thing. And I have to show not only, I have to show, like, I have to show this fan base, not only like the fan base, but I'd show this fan base that we are holding guys accountable.

But I have to show this bench that I'm willing to do it publicly, that I'm willing to hold you accountable publicly. and if there's not a move to make in AAA to bring a guy up or there's not a trade to be made right now, how do you like light a fire under this, this clubhouse? You pull Tayasca Hernandez out of the game when he jogs to first base on a slow hit ground ball to third. And I'm not saying Teo, you know, has done that, but like just as an example. Like, I think you got to send a message at some point. And I don't think a private message is working because clearly the mayors have had lots of team meetings. They've talked about this. We've, oh, you know, only one guy talked to this meeting, blah, players only meeting.

Oh, like Scott really got into us. It's not working. It's not working behind the scenes. Do it publicly. You have nothing to lose. You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Again, you can catch the Mariners of the Rays starting tomorrow on the Marriss hometown broadcast with SiriusXMV, the SXM app.

So you mentioned all those things about what's going on in the clubhouse. You mentioned, you know, Julio and the theory going around that he's the one of the one of the that Jerry is specifically thinking of when he talks about distracted young players. How much of this really, like I want to have a real conversation about this. And I still want to talk about the trades and all that stuff. So we won't get too deep into this. Maybe this is something that we can continue on another day. But I don't want to have a conversation from the perspective of like, you know,

what we get in the YouTube comments, which is like, fire Scott. You have to fire Scott because it's a lot more. There's a lot more context there. There's a lot of stuff that we don't know. We're not there in the clubhouse. So we don't know exactly what's going on, who's exactly at fault for all of these things. And like I said last night, you know, you can make the assumption that at least every entity, the players, the front office, the coaching staff is culpable to some degree, right?

But Scott in particular, like, do we need to start actually having a conversation about him and if he is the leader for the, I mean, look, he led them to two straight 90 win seasons the past few years, especially in 2021 where they really had no business doing that. But we're seeing this philosophy crumble, particularly the offensive philosophy with all the strikeouts and everything. And there just doesn't really seem to be a lot of accountability with the players right now. I know people hate when this analogy gets made. And usually I do too, but I do think it makes sense here.

Was Pete Carroll the problem or did they just bring in the wrong players for Pete Carroll? Did Pete Carroll all of a sudden stop being a good football coach in the last few years of the Russell Wilson era? Or were there just too many people who had heard the message where they're just, you know, just bad people who weren't a fit? Was the team so desperate to, you know, try and maximize this window that they didn't consider culture fit on a couple of these acquisitions? based on what we saw last year after they kind of cleaned house, it would seem to indicate that it wasn't a Pete problem. It was a locker room problem, which is still partly,

you know, Pete's fault, just like the clubhouse problem is still partly Scott Service's fault. But I don't like, why is Scott Service to blame for the team's philosophy? He doesn't pick the players, right? He doesn't take the at-bats, right? He's not the one who's striking out with the bases loaded.

He's not the one who's popping up on a pitch that's, you know, Right. So no, I don't think it's time because if the problem is, right, that there's a culture problem right now for the Mariners. If that's the problem, that is something that I still trust Scott Service to fix. Maybe not this year, but I don't see that as a problem. That is his strength. Now, we have the same issues going into next year and we're in the same spot next year. And then, yeah, I think we could legitimately have that conversation.

I don't think we're there yet because, again, for me to make that leap, that it's time to fire Scott Service. I have to believe that Scott has gotten worse at managing a clubhouse, something that we think is his greatest strength. He's gotten significantly worse at it. And it's just, it's not the player's fault. It's his fault. I'm not,

I'm not making that jump. To me that it's, it's silly to, you know, I hate the whole fire hitting coaches thing. Like, I get it, you're frustrated,

but ultimately Tim Laker, I don't even know who the, who's the hitting coach now. Tony, it's Tony Arnrich and Jared to Hart. right you fire one of those guys like oh i guess that means you know tie france isn't going to chase a pitch that he couldn't hit with a boat or like no that's not how that works so right yeah well it's it's like jerry said that you know you're not going to bring someone in and

they're just going to yell you know start scoring runs and start hitting and then people are going to magically start hitting right and that and that's that's not jerry trying to excuse the issues that's that's that's like in all fairness that's an actual real thing that like Right. But Sean O'Malley's not going to come up and be the majorly kidding coach and be like, hey, don't swing at that pitch. And they're just going to go, oh, oh, okay, yeah, we just won't. And then they're going to score six runs a game. Yeah. That's, that's never going to happen. And so specifically Scott, no. Yeah, I just, I do wonder if maybe the messaging has fallen on deaf ears this year. Then it's Jerry's job to get with Scott and find out who's not receptive to the messaging anymore and move on. There is, and I, you know, I want to stress this. there is no player, no single player who is bigger than the Seattle Mariners. There is no player whose ego is more important than the Seattle Mariners winning baseball games. Well, what if it's Julio? If it's Julio, then you have to have to sit down with him.

And if he's not willing to change, if he's not willing to hear those things, then you have to be open to the conversation. You have to because then what you end up with is you end up with Russell Wilson running the show and running everybody out of the clubhouse because they don't want to play with him. because he's an egotistical jerk, and I don't think that's Julio. So, no,

I don't think that's Julio either. If Julio is the problem, right, if Julio is the problem, he's 22, right? Or 21, 22. He's 22 years old. Yeah.

Right. He's a young guy. He can learn. You can still learn. You can still, but if it continues to escalate, and there continues to be, you know,

issues with this, everything has to be on the table. Julio's success off the field is not more important. than the Seattle Mariners winning on the field. Not to you, not to me, not to any fan who's worth anything out there, not to the organization, not to the city, not to the state, not to the region. If I thought Julio Rodriguez was dragging this team down, I would stand up on a pedestal at Team Mobile Park tomorrow and shout trade Julio.

I don't think that's the, I don't think that's the issue. But if it was, and I had faxed to back it up and it was something that Julio was just refusing to change, get him out of here. I love Julio. I'd rather have a good baseball team than Julio Rodriguez. If I have to pick one or the other, I'm picking the Seattle Mariners being good over Julio Rodriguez, you know,

getting a cereal and being in the home run derby. Like, come on, it's a no-brainer. Any real Mariners fan is going to say, I pick the team over the player in terms of personal success. Like, if the player is going to be a distraction, I have to stick with my team. I mean, you could go with Julio. I find whatever.

I don't care. right you can fan however you want to fan but ultimately the mariner's success is worth so much more to me than anything Julio does on the field. Julio could be the worst player on the planet and the Mariners 100 games I wouldn't care. I wouldn't care just like Julio could be the best player on the planet and if the Mariners win 70 games I'm not sitting here going like oh well at least we have Julio so that's great no right yeah I'm tired of taking consolation prizes as a Mariners fan quite frankly.

So yeah. So. All right. So we're already at 30 minutes, but I want to look at us, not not staying on time per usual. Who would have thought? There's a lot going on though. There's a lot that we need to. There's a lot that we need to talk about here.

So I think there's an argument to be made right now. You know, you're 38 and 41. You're in the middle of the pack in terms of the wild card race. your five back, but you got quite a few teams to leapfrog or a couple teams that are right on your tail as well. You know, there's, there's, the likelihood of you winning the wild card isn't very high, given all those factors. And again, knowing everything that we know up to this point, the three months worth of data

and information that we have that suggests that the Mariners aren't capable of getting on a run. So I think there's an argument to be made, like I said, that you, might not be a justifiable situation here to go and trade resources for someone that only helps you in 2023, right? We talked about the Carlos Santana trade. Now, that didn't cost you a lot. Last year, that didn't cost you anything that you really care about. But how many teams right now are selling, Colby?

Four? Yeah. Five, if that. and quite a few of the teams that are bad record-wise, the Padres, the Mets, they're not really in a position where they can justify selling. They need to more so, you know, the Cardinals are another one of these teams

where the current position that they're in, where their roster is at, suggests that they need to just ride this thing out and retool for next year with the core that they currently have and not sell off a bunch of pieces. So, because of how limited the market is right now,

theoretically speaking, at least, what are those prices going to be like? You talked about how you would spend the, you know, extra 15% or 20% to get a guy right now, but is that actually, again, is that actually justifiable considering the spot that you're in right now? Like, have, has your mood changed on that at all?

Since we last talked about this? Not for the like the Carlos Santana types who are going to cost you a bag of baseballs. Like fine, whatever. Those are always worth it. And honestly, no, not even for like the more expensive. For example, like Candelario, right? Like probably a pretty expensive rental. He's one of the better bats available.

If I could get him now for like 110, 115 cents on the dollar, I would because if things don't turn around, I can just turn around and flip candelario for 75 cents. sense of what I paid for it. You know what I mean? Like, okay, maybe I have to give up, I don't know, maybe I have to give up Las Montes to get Candelario right now. But if things go well and we turn it around, then I have Candelario and I get them for an extra 25, 30 games. If things don't go well in 25, 30 games, I can turn around and trade them for a guy who's half a grade worse than Las Montes. I would take that, you know, I would take that risk. So no. But I think like in terms of, Like, I think only because it's still June and because it's still pre-all-Star break, I'm willing to take that chance. And we get to the All-Star break and this team is in the same exact position they are right now.

No, rentals are out. Like, it doesn't make sense because you don't have enough time to turn around and trade that player again. If you're watching on YouTube, apologies for the random cut, if you're just listening on podcast platforms and just ignore this. But there was a couple of other things that I wanted to ask Colby and talk about before we hopped off of here. But the lag unfortunately got us. So I'm recording this after the fact real quick to outro the show. And thank you so much for joining us here on the Locked-on Marrars podcast. For Colby Pat Node, I'm Tadang Gonzalez.

You're sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. This is D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at CPAT 11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok as well over at Locked-on Mariners. That's one word, Locked-on Mariners. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. again, you can catch the Mariners and the Tampa Bay Rays starting tomorrow on the Mariners'

hometown broadcast with Sirius XMV, the ESXM app. Thank you again for making that's your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.