Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - All About the Outfield

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss the Mariners' lack of interest in Michael Conforto and why that's a mistake, which other outfielders they could target once the lockout ends and why Seiya Suzuki is exciting but no sure thing to be a success.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/BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. 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.

You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariner's News and Analysis. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. And as you know, we are free and available on all platforms. Today is Thursday, December 16th, 2021. I am your host, Tidang Gonzalez. joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode.

Follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-U-N-R-N-Rerriner's. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, Z-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Friendly, a reminder that Lockdown Mariners, along with the rest of the Lockdown MLB Network,

will be going to three shows a week, starting on Monday, and all the way through to mid-February. So if you still want to hear from us five times a week, be sure to visit patreon.com. 4.14-Control zone and subscribe so you can get the two shows we post every week on there. So today on Locked-on Mariners, we're going to be talking all about the mariners

and what they should do with the outfield, why Michael Conforto should be on their radar, what other options they could explore, and why it's important that they ultimately do at least something there. if this is your first time joining us welcome to the show if you like what you hear give us a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this we greatly appreciate it so colby i'll just ask you this straight up why does michael conforto make so much damn sense for the seattle mariner's he's good that is certainly one reason yep it's kind of the only one that matters um

he is a uh you know he's again he's He's a very good hitter. He is from the Pacific Northwest. Went to Oregon State. I believe he went to Redmond High in the Seattle area. He wanted to be a Seattle Mariner. He thought he was going to be drafted by the Mariners. He was not.

I believe that was the year they took Alex Jackson. So worked out well. Another fine decision from the Jackson-Renzyk era. But, you know, on top of everything, he is a left-handed hitting corner outfielder. who has, you know, plus power, which is something the Mariners do not have. And I mean, again, I've said this before. I'll say it again, the Mariners do not have outfield depth. You don't have depth until you actually have it.

And the Mariners do not. They have guys who can play out there. They have some guys who have performed a little bit. But they do not have outfield depth. Like, it's that simple. They have one outfielder that right now we can say, good and it's Mitch Hanigar and Mitch Hanager shouldn't play the outfield all that much. He's bad out there defensively.

So yeah, it's a left-handed bat, which you could really use to help balance the lineup. It's a left-handed bat who replaces some of the power that Michael can, or that Kyle Seeger leaves. And he's an outfielder who can play both corner spots and is probably a pretty safe bet to be at least a 110 to 115 WR. plus guy. And the Mariners need that because right now they have not added a major impact power bat. Adam Frazier is nice, but he is not a middle of the order bat. And the Mariners need at least two of them. And it's kind of hard to see where they add two middle of the order bats if Michael Conforto isn't one of them. So this past season, his last year with the Mets, he's now a free agent, 232, 344, 384 with a 106 WRC plus.

He was worth under one win, 0.8 by Fangraf standards, which is a bit of a down year by his standards. But I mean, still he walked 12.3% of the time, struck out a fine 21.7% of the time. He played 125 games, dealt with a little bit of an injury during the middle of the season, but he was able to come back. 14 home runs, 55 runs batted in. You know, the thing here with him that's really interesting is that we haven't really heard any team linked to him, really. He declined the qualifying offer that he got from New York, believing that he could get more, which is $18.3 million on the qualifying offer. But we've been under the impression that he might end up getting a prove-it deal and nothing more because of the down year that he had.

But I mean, aside from this season, he's been fantastic. You look at the shortened season in 2020, 32, 412, 515 slash line. That's a 158 WRC plus. He was worth 2.1 wins, which was incredible in 2020 for how short of a season that was. That was 54 games that he played in, nine home runs that year, 31 RBI. The year before that, he slashed 257, 363, 494, with a 124. 27 WRC plus. It was worth pretty much four wins.

And that was his last, you know, full season. And he's been pretty healthy for the most part. Played 109 games, 2018, or sorry, 2016 and 109 games again in 2017. But after that, 153 in 2018, 151 in 2019. It's just, it feels like this is such a no-brainer for the Mariners with the connection to the Pacific Northwest. us. He grew up a Mariners fan. He fits exactly what they

need. You mentioned replacing the lefty power of Kyle Seeger. And Michael Conforto isn't going to give you, you know, 35 home runs probably, even though that he did get to 33 in 2019. But he's still going to eat up a huge chunk of that production that you've

lost from Seeger. And just in general, he is a massive upgrade offensively. Yes. He may he may not, he may hit only, you know, 30 home runs or 25 home runs, but it's not going to matter because the rest of his at-bats are going to be so much better than what Kyle Seeger gave you. It's a massive upgrade. Replacing Seeger with Conforto, even in, even 2021 version of Michael Conforto, is still like a 5% upgrade over what Kyle Segar gave you. And, you know,

5% doesn't sound like a lot until you consider that the Mariners missed the playoffs by one. game. So 5%. Kind of make a difference there. So yeah, I mean, it's not just the power, though. It's the approach at the plate. He takes walks. He doesn't chase wildly. He's not selling out to get to his power.

It's pretty easy power. He's just a good fit for the ballpark too. So it just, it makes so much sense. And it's, it's mind boggling that at least publicly, as far as we know, the Mariners don't seem to care all that much. We've heard them link to say a Suzuki, but not. But again, we haven't really heard any team's link to Conforto this offseason, which is really strange. Because I think the value itself is just, it's incredible for really any team that's looking for an outfielder right now, not just the Mariners.

I think, you know, there's so much upside here with Conforto, who is probably not going to mean to get the deal that he initially hoped for. he declined his qualifying offer. Right. And that might be the hangout. I think also a part of that, though, is that he wants to get out of New York, right? Which. Yes. Don't blame him.

No. You've seen the Mets. Yeah. Yeah. That could be part of the hang up here is that, you know, there were reports second foreto wanted like five years, $100 million this off season. And that's just not going to be out there for him. And if that's what he's hanging on to, he's going to sit for a while.

And so could the meritors be interested just not at that price? And they're just not even like willing to talk to him until the price comes down. Maybe it's certainly possible. And if Conforto was coming off of a normal year, he would absolutely be worth five years and $100 million. He's that good. He's 28. He'll be 29. Like, it absolutely makes sense of that price.

If he was coming off a good year, he's not. He's not. And he's a forest client. So he's going to hold out as long as he can. But ultimately, I would be. pretty shocked if Conforto got more than three years. Yeah. And even three years would be a little bit surprising.

Yeah. And the AAV on that, honestly, this is ultimately why I think he ends up getting just a prove it deal, a one year prove it deal. It's because I don't think the AAV on a three year deal is going to be what he wants, right? At most, I think there's going to be an option on that one year deal that allows him to be, you know, to stay in one place for, for, for, for, you know, to, to, to stay in one place for for multiple years but um yeah i don't i i just can't envision him getting what he's looking for anywhere close to that especially now that he's going to have to sign post lockout right because i already thought that even before the lockout but now that he along with so many other free agents are all going to have to sign and what is probably going to be a four five week blitz

before spring training starts. And all, you know, in all reality, I just, I think he's one of those guys that's going to end up getting hurt by the lockout in terms of evaluation. And, you know, because again, he's got certain things working against him with this past season. So we'll have to see how it all goes. But, I mean, the Mariners should absolutely be involved in this. It makes so much sense top to bottom just from the player from, from, from, from, from,

his interest and his background and all that. It just makes so much sense. But for now, we doesn't seem like the Mariners are going to go that route. So we're going to look at some other options that they could take a look at in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Stance. Now I'm a sucker for some comfy holiday clothing, but the designs and patterns used are frankly too common and boring for my taste. However, with Stance's products, I can feel good.

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You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the date. So, Colby, where do the Mariners go from here if they're not going to get Michael Conforto? Obviously, they've been in the market for, say, a Suzuki, but outside of Suzuki, and we can even talk about Suzuki. some and how maybe you know because i personally feel a little bit uncomfortable and buying in on suzuki hard but what are some other options aside from suzuki that they could potentially look at that come to mind to you yeah um this kind of comes down to what do they want to do with their outfield and it really seems like they want to pretty much use the guys they have and then

maybe add somebody to compete for for appbats rather than sign a guy who is going to get the atbats which honestly could be a fatal mistake, and I hope I'm wrong about that. But that's kind of what it seems like they're willing to be like, okay, we got Kelnick and Lewis and Frey, and now we can put Frazier out there like, we're good. And it's like, by the way, you could argue the Mariners don't have any outfielders because I know he made it through the season fine,

but are we 100% sure that Mitch Hanager isn't going to get hurt again? No, you shouldn't be. So yeah, it kind of depends on which way they want to go here. If they want kind of the everyday type, you know, it's, there's not a lot of options. One of them is actually Chris Bryant, but it sounds like they probably are going to sign story or they, they prioritize story at least ahead of Bryant. So I doubt they signed both.

And when you start looking at other like full timers out there, there's really none. I mean, Kyle Schwabber is probably a full timer. but obviously there's some defensive issues there. But yeah, it's not a particularly good outfield class. Nick Castiano's out there, but if they're not interested in Porto, I can't imagine they're going to be interested in Castiano. So now we still.

And also Castianos is equally, if not worse, than Mitch Hanager in the outfield defensively. Yeah, and so is Schwerber. So those two guys, you know, Schwerber makes some sense. Left-handed bad, he's got some power. He's, you know, pretty C-Denner. TZ.

He's just atrocious in the outfield. And how many places do you want to be bad? Because if Jared Kelnick is your center fielder, he's below average out there now. I think it's safe to say, can you survive with him out there? Sure, but not with Kyle Schwerber and Mitch Hanigar flanking him. That's a disaster waiting to happen. So it's just not a great fit there.

So you start looking for kind of the part timers, the platoon guys, whatever term you want to use. And there are some interesting options in that, in that range. Jock Peterson, lefty bat, not a center fielder at all. He's worse than Kelnick, but probably fringe average in a corner at this stage of his career. So, Jack Peterson's a guy. Brett Gardner, like, no. Jake Moresenick.

Yeah. I'd rather have Mariznick than Gardner. But Gardner is very CTZ. He sees a lot of pitches, makes a lot of contact, brings the veteran presence that people love to throw around this time of year. But if you want veteran presence, just go get Andrew McCutcheon, who's better. But he's a right-handed bat, not a lefty. He crushes righties or he crushes lefties.

Wasn't so good against righties this year. Bad defender. He's definitely lost a few steps out there. So, again, not an ideal fit. Same with Tommy Fam, kind of a similar. player at this stage of their career. Eddie Rosario, not a CTZ guy at all and doesn't really walk ever. So there aren't a ton of options. And one other name I'll throw out there who probably is the best fit of the, you know, platoon or just kind of veteran fourth outfield types. Corey Dickerson,

who is not exciting at all, but does kind of match a lot of the CTZ, you know, ideologies that Jerry Depoto is going to look at. So in the free agent market, there really aren't a lot of options. So what about the trade market? Because there are some options that you and I have talked about quite a bit on this show on CTC as well. Kevin Kirameyer is pretty much the big one that a lot of folks are pointing towards right now because he's got the $12 million that he's on the books for for this year. He's on the raise, of course, who historically don't spend. money from the marriage perspective. I mean, and you brought this up yesterday when we're recording CTZ that Kierremeyer has under undergone a right knee procedure. It's over 30 years old.

That's a little bit concerning. How comfortable are you turning to Kevin Kiermeyer? is that your first option, your second option, your third option is that your fallback plan, you know, if everything else fails, like where does that idea kind of rank for you with where the Mariners should turn in the outfield? Yeah,

Kevin Kiermeyer is like my safety school. Like, if all else fails, I have Kiermire in the back. He's still have to pay him $14 million. He's a fringe average bat at best. still a great defender out there, but obviously he's losing his staff and at $14 million.

Like you would hope to do better, but. It's $14 million, by the way, well, $14.5 million dollars, by the way, because he has a $2.5 million buyout in 2023, $12 million salary in 2022. Yeah. So, I mean,

would he help the Mariners? Yes, absolutely. He's contact-oriented. Probably hits ninth and gives you that, you know, what probably is going to be most days, a Kiermeyer,

uh, Crawford Fraser wraparound, which is a lot of contact from your 9-1-2 spots. Um, so he's a bit, sure, but I, I,

you have to have, you have to have offense coming from somewhere, right? And it just, do you trust that offense to come from Jared Kellnick? Do you trust that offense to come from anybody, except for Thai France? Because Mitch Hanigar could get hurt.

you have to factor that in. Do you trust it coming from Tom Murphy and Luis Torens and Abraham Toro and J.P. Cropford? Like, where's the offense going to come from? It's not going to come from Kevin Kiermeyer. So if you're not going to get it, if you're not going to fill that spot in the outfield with a bat, a legitimate bat, you kind of have to get one at third base and one at second base. And no, Matt Chapman is not a legitimate bat, not right now.

So if you're thinking Story and Chapman, just shut that down. so yeah it's Kiermeyer's on the list certainly and he does make you better but again it just it kind of comes down to fit a little bit here offensive yeah because again too the Mariners have a budget

right and if they are in the markets for someone like Trevor Story that's going to eat up a pretty considerable amount of their budget they're still in the market to add someone like Sunny Gray via trade he has 10 million dollars that that's going to take a pretty big chunk out of the budget. Matt Chapman isn't cheap from a financial perspective in his third year of arbitration. Or is it second?

Third. Second, right? Second, okay. Second year of arbitration. But, like, you know, those moves are going to add up. So, you know, you can't just willy-nilly spend $12 to $14 million on Kevin Gearmeyer who is an average hitter one of the best defensive center fielders in baseball obviously he's won platinum gloves all that he's still maintain that even you know maintain that kind

of level of defense passes 30s it's now 31 but that knee procedure scares me a little bit the overall you know just averages offense scares me a little bit you won't have to trade really much to get him, I would assume. I think you can get Kevin Kiermeier for like Caden Polkovich. Yeah. Maybe even less than that. Who knows? Probably. But I just

you know, especially if you're taking on all the money, which in this scenario, I would assume you're probably doing. Yeah. I yeah. To me, it's the fallback to my fallback. Right. Ideally, I want

Conforto. You know, and I don't know how the Mariners feel about this. We just talked about this, but ideally I want Conforto. After that, I would assume my fallback is say it's Suzuki. And if that fails, you know, you could look at the part timers, but I think you need like a legit starter. And Kevin Kerrmeyer is probably, I mean, you look at the other guys, right, that you mentioned, that are realistic here. And plus, what you really need is a centerfielder. Because you can't trust Kyle Lewis right now to be healthy enough to play that position. Jerry Depoto has said that they're unsure if he's going to be able to play that position.

Jared Kellnick, like you said, look below average out there. Jake Freely is an adventure out there. I feel like that's probably got to be the third guy on your list, but again, that's got to be the fallback to your fallback. I just, yeah, I'm not super comfortable with it. And there's got to be other things that have to happen before you may. that decision because it's just it's so much money yeah it i'm not advocating against it i just you got to be smart with your funds here because you got to be realistic like i i know mariners fans are probably listening to this right now and saying well you know it's not our money so who cares well the the thing is though that realistically speaking the mariners jerry de potto probably has

40 million dollars to play with still 50 million dollars to play with like if that's And you have to imagine that story is going to eat at least half of that. Or Bryant. If they have to pivot. I mean, we know they're really interested in Sunny Gray. So if they go get one of those two guys and Sunny Gray, that's pretty much all of it.

So unless the Mariners are going to spend a lot more than we think they are and we can want them to. But again, Jerry has a budget. And there's only, so when you say it's not my money, well, it's not,

but it's your general manager's money, basically. And he has to try and get as many pieces in place as he can with that money. Now, if they go get Story and say, you know, Sunny Gray, are they better? Yes. And is that a pretty good offseason? Sure. Are there still major holes they have to fill?

Yeah, there are. And are they a division contending team at that point? To me, no, they're not. So there is some kind of allocation of resources here that you kind of have to walk. It's a fine line. And, you know, it'd be great if John Stan was just like, sure, go up to one, 170 million. That's fine.

But it just, it's, it's not going to happen. That's just not, it's just unreasonable. Well, it's not unreasonable. It's just,

it's fantasy to suggest that the owner will spend as much money as he possibly can on his baseball team. It just, it does not happen. Maybe it should, but it doesn't. So it's,

it's not even worth really discussing much further. So let's talk about another name that the Mariners are going to be, or that they have. shown interest in rather that they seem to be pretty heavily heavily in the market of. In just a moment, but real quick, we're going to remind you that this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by betonline.ag. Betonline has you covered all season long with more props, odds, and lines than ever before as football continues the march to the playoffs. Bet Online remains your number one spot for all the sports action this season.

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Bet online, where the game starts. So the Mariners haven't been in the market for Michael Conforto. at least in terms of what we've heard publicly, but they have been publicly linked to Say Suzuki, the Japanese outfielder who's looking to make his way overseas to play Major League Baseball this upcoming season. They're also in the mix with a few other teams

that have been reported, the Texas Rangers, the Boston Red Sox, among others. I personally am not super comfortable with heavily relying on Saya Suzuki to be that guy in the outfield to be that impact back that we're talking about adding to the outfield

potentially obviously options are limited but for all the reasons Colby that you've talked about how the Mariners really only have you know one established major league outfielder and Mitch Hanigur right now and the rest

are a bunch of question marks even though there's a ton of upside there. The upside is undeniable. And the upside is undeniable with Sayas Suzuki as well. The thing is, though, you don't know how his game is going to translate ultimately to Major League Baseball. So there's

still a lot of uncertainty there, just like there is uncertainty with Jerry Kellick, Julio Rodriguez, etc. So while I do like the upside of Sayas Suzuki, I understand what the interest is there. I think he'll be a good player in the end.

ultimately there's you know some some concern there there's some uneasiness with this because you just you really don't know you can't guarantee that he's going to come overseas and be able to produce for you right away

so you know for me like this is why I say that conformo has to be the top priority right and the fallback to that can be Suzuki. But it seems like right now, Suzuki is their priority in the outfield.

Yeah. And that's a problem to me. Or just go get bowl. The classic answer. Right. Hey, that would be preferable to me because you get a guy that is almost a sure thing to bounce back in Conforto. And then you have an upside play like Suzuki to go along with your crop of Kelnick,

Rodriguez, Freilly, etc. I think that's a great move. I just don't think they're going to do it. Plus, it's probably going to cost them a nice chunk of change because Suzuki, as it seems, probably not going to come cheap. We've heard projections anywhere from $7 million to $12 million to $14 million on him. So, you know, what are your overall thoughts on Suzuki? I like him.

I think he's going to be a good player. Would I bank my season on it? No, I wouldn't. Not that the Mariners would be doing that. exactly but if Suzuki is the outfielder they bring in they're telling you that they believe he is a an impact bat base an impact player um they have to be telling you that because if he's the only guy they bring in they're basically saying yeah this is you know this is our everyday probably center fielder and he's not great in center he's a good right fielder definitely an upgrade in a corner

over what the mariners have right now could you play center field sure uh like he's athletic enough and And could you survive with him in centerfield? Yeah, it wouldn't be. It'd be better than Kelnick, but probably not as good as Lewis based on the scouting reports that I've read. So, yeah, it's kind of a tough player because, like you said, we don't know what his contract's going to be. We don't know the length. We don't know the AAV. We don't know the structure.

Is it possible that you get him to sign for like $3 million this year and then $10 million next year and then like $17 million a year after? Sure, I guess. is it likely? No. You're probably going to have to give him $7 to $10 million in year one. And that's a risk. The good news with Suzuki is that I haven't

heard or read or watched anybody talk about him who doesn't think he's going to be at least, you know, a fourth outfielder, like a quality fourth outfielder that can play a hundred times a year and not kill you. The swing seems legitimate.

The power, which is continue to blossom over the last few years also seems legitimate. We know he's a good defender. We know he has a strong arm. We know that he's a good base runner. These are things that you don't need to, you know, have nothing to do with your ability

to hit Major League pitching. Can you run the bases? Can you make a good throw? Can you catch a fly ball? Like, those are universal. His numbers are certainly that of which is, looks superstarish. I mean, in 2021, the dude hit 38 home runs.

walked 88 times, struck out 89 times, and posted a 317, 433, 636 triple slash. He's also only 27 years old. He will be until August. So basically you're getting a guy at the start of his athletic prime by old baseball standards. But again, can he hit major league pitching? We have no idea. We simply do not know. And that's why it's a risk.

but like look, would I be excited? They signed Suzuki, of course. Of course I would. I think he's going to be a good player. But again, am I willing to say, oh, this is the guy. Now we're done with the outfield. Absolutely not. So it's a bit of risk there.

And to be fair, if they sign Conforto, I would probably be like, okay, I think you can survive with that outfield until the deadline and maybe you can go get somebody later. So it's not like I would say. conforto signs, okay, they're done in the outfield. Like I would still want them to add another guy, but I would just feel better about, you know, the floor of the outfield, I guess is the proper

way to phrase that. Right. Yeah, I totally agree. Well, on that note, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on lockdown Mariners for Colby Pat Node. I'm Tid and Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez.

That's D-A-N-Z-L-C and Colby at C-Pat-E. Pat 11 at C-P-A-T-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 of the day, just like you do here. Every day we greatly appreciate your support. So make your second listen of the day. Locked-on bets, your daily one-stop shop for all your gambling needs. Locked on bets hosted by your boy Q with expert analysis and insight from Lee Sterling.

And just like us, their show is free and available wherever you get your podcast. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day. and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.