Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - BREAKING: Mariners Get the Relief Arm They Needed in Gregory Santos

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

The Mariners have answered one of the biggest remaining question marks on their roster, adding a high-leverage arm to the back of their bullpen in Gregory Santos. Ty and Colby react to the trade, which sends Prelander Berroa, Zach DeLoach, and a 2024 Competitive Balance Round B draft selection to the White Sox.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Factor MealsHead to FactorMeals.com/lockedonmlb50 and use code lockedonmlb50 to get 50% off. eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.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.

One of the biggest questions surrounding the Mariners all off season has been, who would be that third high leverage arm to go with Matt Brash and Andres Munoz in the back of the bullpen? Well, it seems we finally have our answer as the mayors have traded for one of the most electric arms in baseball, Gregory Santos. I'll tell you about them coming up here on the Lockdown Merritton podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners.

Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoys, sailors. It is Saturday, February 3rd, 2024. This is Tiding Azolos and Colby Patnode for the Lockdowner's podcast. Brought to you by Fandwell. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when he place a $5 winning bet. Visit Fanduel.com slash locked on. That's LOCKD-O-N to get yourself started. 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-store 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.

We'd love to hear from you. 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 their social accounts is in the description of this episode. So a very busy week for the Seattle Mariners has gotten even busier. Just when he thought they might be done with the offseason as a whole, here comes another big trade. Gregory Santos, right-handed reliever from the Chicago White Sox,

is now a Seattle Mariners. Zach Deloche and Prolander Baroa and the Mariners' competitive balance round B selection in this summer's draft heading to Chicago. And Colby, I found out about this deal because you called me on my phone, which you have literally never done. I was deep in playing persona three. I was having a burrito bowl and enjoying my Saturday. And as soon as I saw your name pop up on my phone,

I knew this was going to be something wild. And it certainly lived up to the hype. So the Mariners, like I said, in the cold open, seemed to finally have that third high leverage guide. What do you think? Yes. Well, the reason I called you is because this is proof that Jerry and Justin clearly listened to the show.

Yeah. because I have been talking about in light of the Mariners not likely being able to get an elite bat. Maybe they should just swing the other direction and go build what on this show I have to call the screw you bullpen. Members of our Patreon know that I call it something else. And so proof, apparently they have the same idea. They get a very good arm in Gregory Santos. You look at his stat cast page. It's a lot of red.

And it's a lot of red in the places that matter. You're talking about, oh, there you go. 89th percentile in XERA, 98th percentile on basketball velo, 91st percentile in Chase, 77th and whiff, 85th in base on ball. That's a big one. 100th percentile in barrel percentage, 1.5 percent barrel rate. 78th percentile in hard hit, 87th percentile in groundball. Like, this is a guy who is very hard.

hard to square up. When you do, you're going to hit it on the ground, which limits damage, and he's not going to walk you. At least that is what his profile from last year tells us. It's 98 to 103 with running fastball and one of the best sliders in all of baseball. Breaking ball run value, 98th percentile. Yeah, he had the second most valuable slider in all of baseball this past year. This is a guy, and there's still more to get because he doesn't strike out a tremendous amount of guys, and the stuff suggests that he should. So, I think the Mariners could even get a little bit more out of Santos. And here's kind of the beauty of it.

You get this guy for five years. Yeah. This isn't a two-year rental. This is a guy who's making league minimum. You're going to get him for five more years. And you have built a bullpen that is on par with the best bullpins in baseball and might be the best bullpen in baseball because you're adding Santos to Matt Brash and Andres Munoz, both of whom still have another gear to go as well.

there's a possibility that you have the best one, two, three punch in, in, you know, the back end of your bullpen in all of baseball. And you built it, relatively speaking, on the cheap. None of these guys are making huge amount of money. The Mariners payroll actually stays roughly the same. They actually technically dumped payroll on the steel because they traded two 40 men guys for one. But yeah. Right. It's it's pro rated.

So like Delochev, he's not on the active boss. blah, but you guys get the point. Anyways, they didn't add money in this deal, which, again, unfortunately, we do have to point out every time it happens. But hey, you know what? We're here to talk about Gregory Santos today. We're here to talk about how much better the Mariners are. And remember back on mailbag, I guess, technically Tuesday, Wednesday now. Yeah. The, our biggest question, our biggest topic of conversation is, are the Mariners, did they catch the Astros? Did they catch the Rangers? Yes. They have caught them. They have passed. them. This is a team that has the best rotation in baseball in the American League West. It now has the best bullpen in the American League West. They've essentially turned these

games into six inning games, which very few teams can do. And if you don't get on that starter, if you don't jump on that starter early, by the way, the starters we're talking about, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Louise Castillo, all Scyon contenders. Yeah. And then you have the huge upsides of Bryce Miller and Brian Wu. Good luck. Good luck scoring runs against this Mariners team. so and that's not even counting the middle guys in the bullpen which pretty good not awful so the mariner well and we and we've and we've heard jerry considered gab spire to be a part of that high leverage group uh taylor sasado who you guys are going to hear from on tuesday said that if there's anyone we're sleeping on in the bullpen at spire so you might have four guys or at least the mariner's feel

that they have four guys and so you said that it might be a you know six inning games it might be five any games from the Mariners perspective here. Right, and we're not even factoring the high upside arm of somebody like Carlos Fargus, who definitely has the stuff to be. Jackson, Coar, I got to mention. Jackson, sure, naturally. And, you know, that's not... And of course,

sauce, and of course, sauce. Sure. I mean, then you have the guys in the middle. You have sauce, you have Thornton. Yeah. You have, I mean, probably Coar, but you know, you throw Crable, maybe a butchery in there. Respect Jackson Coar. Sure, always the change up. But yes, the Mariners have built

the screw you bullpen to go along with their screw you pitching staff in a pretty good offense. So we're sitting here. We're talking about who's the favorite in the American League West? As things sit right now, it should be your Seattle Mariners. Yes, there's questions. Yes, there are health concerns with a lot of this roster. Things have to break right for you. But when you look at just talent, when you look at how you win baseball games,

the Seattle Mariners are the class of the American League West right now. And considering what Jerry and Justin have had to deal with this entire winter, it is hats off to those guys yet again as they continue to not allow questionable ownership to be nice to push them down when every other team in baseball seemingly with payroll restrictions major payroll restrictions have basically just decided to run it back jerry and just have been aggressive they've gone out they've traded from their farm they've traded from their major league roster they've been open to anything and everything that can make this club better and if there was ever a doubt in the mind of any of the players in the clubhouse about whether or not the front office

believes in this group. They've been answered in spades this week. This is a group that this front office wants to invest in. I wish the ownership did too. But for now, the Mariners have arguably the best bullpen in baseball. They have the best rotation in this division at the very least. They have a good offense filled with a lot of guys who are very stable bets to produce. It's just going to come down to how healthy do they stay. How what's the word how like consistent can they be on a day and day out basis this is a good team it's still a young team and gary and justin deserve a ton of credit and mariner fan should be absolutely psyched to get to watch brash munoz and santos because keep in mind we're thinking about

them when they're all when they're all available what happens when brash isn't available for a day because he pitched two days before okay that's okay yeah that's okay i got santos now and i got munoz still So this is huge. I got Gabe Spire. That's okay. I got Andreas Munoz. Yeah. Right.

So this is huge. This is a massive deal, just in terms of what it brings in. Maris had to give a little something to get, you know, Santos, which you should. You have to.

That's how it works. I have some thoughts on that. Yeah. I have some thoughts on that. We'll get to that later. We'll get to that later. Right. But Mariner fans should be absolutely psych.

This is pure filth coming out of the Mariners bullpen in the 6th, 8th, 9th inning. Good luck. You better have a lead when the Mariners hand things over to those three guys. Because if you don't, it's probably not going to go well for you most nights. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to be channeling the, you know, Morgan Freeman and the Dark Night. Good luck.

This is going to be a nasty bullpen. And like we talked about on Wednesday, this pitching staff is the great equalizer. Yes, your offense isn't as good as the Rangers. It's not as good as the Astros. Close than people think. But can it be good enough to score enough runs to give you a shot? any given night, especially when paired with this pitching staff? Absolutely. This bullpen is significantly better than the Rangers. The rotation is significantly better than the Rangers. It is

better. The rotation is better, not as significantly, but still better than the Astros. And this bullpen, I think there can be, I think you can make a strong argument for the Astros' top three guys over the Mariners' top three guys, but I think this is a deeper bullpen. and I feel like the top three guys, the difference between those two groups is not large enough that I would give the advantage to the Marra's bullpen over the Astros as well. So, you know, as long as these guys can stay healthy, right? As long as the pitching staff stays healthy, which is obviously a massive question mark. Always going to be a massive question mark.

It's not really even about the player profiles or the history of the players. It's just you never know what pitchers, especially with guys like Santos, Munoz, all these guys who throw hard that put a lot of stress on their arms. But as long as they stay healthy, this is going to be a nightmare for opposing offenses to deal with on a night-to-night basis. And there are so many ways that Scott Service and company can deploy this bullpen. It is very, very exciting. Now, one thing we have to mention before we move on here is that Santos actually does come with a little bit of a health concern. and he did finish the season on the injured list with right elbow inflammation.

And Scott Merkin, who is the White Sox beat reporter for MLB.com, said back in December, Santos is working out in Arizona and has had good medical reports. The goal is to have him ready for the start of the season, but he just started his throwing program so he might not be full go at the start of spring training. So we'll see, but I would assume that if the mayor is, pulled the trigger on this deal. They feel pretty good about Santos being ready to go sooner rather than later, and they don't feel that there is really much of a concern there with the elbow.

So we're going to talk more about the return, what the Mariners sent to Chicago in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marriss podcast is brought to you by Fandul. Happy Super Bowl to all who celebrate from Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. If you like me, Super Bowl Sunday is all about scoring the best seat on the couch, grabbing your favorite football snacks, and placing some super bets. I'm sure a lot of us Seahawks fans are going to be hate watching the 49ers and cheering on Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. But the only thing I would love more than seeing the 49ers go home crying is winning

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And you're listening to the Lockdowner's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen after the Gregory Santos trade. And as a reminder, Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. Locked-on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Locked-on, plus our national shows covering every league. Go to Lockdown Sports Today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel,

part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day. So before we talk about what the Mariners had to give up, in the steel. I also want to focus on a really important aspect of this is that this team really, really needed a third guy. You know, after trading Paul Seawald at the deadline last year, this bullpen just wasn't the same. How important

from that perspective is adding Santos to the mix? I think it's pretty important. It's funny. You know, I was speaking on a Slack channel today of other Mariners fans. And I said, my only concern with the bullpen and just kind of building it as it was this morning is that when you inevitably need a guy in the middle of the year, it's going to be a lot more expensive

to get him in season than it's going to be now. So that was my concern. And then a couple hours later. So no longer much of a concern. Jerry and Justin are in the Slack confirmed. Maybe. We know they listen to the show. That is a fact.

We can prove it. Obviously, everything about the Santos. Santos, Polanco. My idea. Like, nationally. Chills. Chills. Colby did it again. Yeah.

It's insane. Right. That's going on a T-shirt. Yeah, it's huge. Let us know in the comments below if you would buy that t-shirt. Sure. Sure. Because really, honestly, what, what Santos is at his worst is a, like, a jacked-up Justin

Topa. Like, that's him at his worst. And there's more to go get there. So I think to me, a big part of this trade is the message that it sends into that clubhouse where it's like, yes, I know that, you know, there were some questions about our commitment to you guys last summer. And we know that, you know, trading Seawald, well, ultimately it probably did help a little bit. Just in terms of getting in a second basement, we could actually play and getting something out of Canzone for a couple weeks. While it ultimately did help, it's still a gut punch. And it's still like, hey, do these guys believe in us?

no there's no question about that now Santos and Polanco are definitely moves you make when you think your team can you know take that next step and so well and the other thing too right is like after the way that last offseason went we heard Jerry and Justin

talk on multiple occasions about how they misread the market and it seemed like the messaging essentially there with them acknowledging that was we are not going to let that happen again and you know, it took a while for them to get going this offseason.

And for a while, things looked really bad. But you look at what they've done over the last monthish. It's been banger after banger after banger. And especially this week with swinging the deal for Polanco and now swinging this deal for Santos. These are real statements that this front office are making. Right. And we talked about this, you know, when Jerry had his press conference,

one of the things he said after the 54% fiasco, and Justin also alluded to this is that, yeah, you know, we thought we had a better hand on the market last year and it got away from us and we can't do that again. And I think our sentiment was like,

cool, it's good that you recognize that. But how do you, like, until you actually act on it, it's just lip service to us, right? The merits have acted on it because we,

think about a week ago, We were talking about, you know, it would be a nice cap on this roster. Maybe somebody like Whitmerfield. And instead they go out and they get two All-Stars, put a cap. And by the way, they still have money to spend. They still have resources to spend. Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that in a second.

They want to get another guy they can. So, yeah, talk is cheap, right? Especially for the Mariners. And that includes the talk from the front office, still includes a talk from the ownership. It includes Scott's service. And the players all have foot. well, not all the players, but the players have voiced those concerns in the past.

Talk is cheap. How like action, action is going to prove more than whatever your press conference will say. And what the front office has done, again, you have to separate the front office from the ownership group. They're not the same. What the front office has done has showed us and the players through their actions that they believe in this roster and that they think they are legitimate World Series contenders. And they've gone out and they've acted accordingly. that should be like if you're a mayor if you're a Seattle mariner if you're Cal Raleigh if you're Logan Gilbert this offseason you should look at this and be like these guys are serious like they want to win yeah so I think this move just beyond what it brings to the bullpen which is tremendous is kind of a reinforcement of Gary and Justin practicing what they preach a little bit which is nice because you're right they they totally butchered last off season and they said they were going to learn from their mistakes.

We were all kind of like, we'll see. Then when the stuff about the money came out, we were even more like, probably not going to happen. And they've done it. And they've absolutely floored us with their ability to do it. And yeah,

I would be very, very excited if I was, Cowellie, Logan, Gilbert, George Kirby, Julio, like,

I'd be jacked if I was playing for the Seattle marriage this year. We talked about this on CTZ, I believe on Tuesday. I asked you, the question is this the best offseason in the depoto regime era and i think we agree that 2021 was probably the best overall but i think we both agreed that it was that this offseason is at least the most impressive by this front office i'm this took it over the top for me this is

the best off season the depoto regime has had in seattle full stop no qualifier about the restrictions that have been put in place i mean that's makes it all the more impressive for sure the fact that they've done this in spite of their ownership group basically giving them zero support whatsoever um but this is insane i'm stunned and i'm and the thing for me really is that they just keep going right when again like a week ago we were talking about you know maybe they'll add tim andersen or or with merrifield and that and they're going to call it an off season. And it's like, okay, I feel pretty wellmed by that.

You know, I liked what they did on the day that they traded for Rayleigh and Hanager. But overall, me. But now considering what they had to do, like what they had to work with, you probably have been like, yeah. I understand it. I understand it. But you bring in now Polanco, who was arguably the best second baseman available, or feasibly available on this market.

and now you bring in someone like Santos, who I didn't even think was going to be available in general, to shore up the back end of your bullpen. I know you did. You called it your Nosejama, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're on the same day, don't you know? That's true. We did establish that on CTZ that one day.

So, yeah, I just, I could not be more impressed with what this front office has been able to accomplish. That does not absolve the organization as a whole for, you know, ownership's cheapness. some of the messaging at the beginning of the offseason, all that, does not absolve that. But back when that happened, back when the 54% comment was made, I said the only way you can make up for this, if you're Jerry to Potoh,

is to go kick this off season's ass. And they kick this off season's ass. Like they did it. Jerry? They did it. Like they truly did it. So my hat's off to Jerry to Poto. Justin Hollander, who we need to give.

a lot more credit than we probably do. And just the rest of that, mayor is front office in general. Yes. I've consciously been trying to say Jerry and Justin more. Yeah, same. Same. Same.

Because, yeah, Justin is more or less the day-to-day guy. Like, obviously, Jerry. He's doing the heavy left team. Right. He's doing most of the negotiation. He's talking to most of the agents. And Jerry has kind of got his hands.

He's the directive. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. All right. So let's talk about what the, The Mariners gave up in the steel Colby. It's Pallonor Baroa.

It's Zach Deloge. And it's a competitive balance around B selection. I've seen a few people on Twitter say, this feels like a lot. And I wholeheartedly disagree. I was waiting for more to get reported about this deal. Or cherry forward. Quite frankly.

Yeah. Look, I get there's like Santos has only done it for one year. There's obviously the elbow concern. but again, we're talking about one of the most electric arms and all of baseball for five years of that guy, too. And I get the White Sox are in a very different place than the Mariners are right now. But I don't get it from the White Sox perspective. I don't. I see a lot of people that are like, I like this deal for both sides.

I don't get it. Because from the mayor's perspective, what you gave up is basically a guy that you hope is Gregory Santos one day on the high end. a fourth, fifth outfielder type in Zach the Loach and a glorified third round draft pick in what is widely considered to be a very weak draft. There is nothing here the Mariners gave up that I'm losing sleepover. And I don't really get it from the White Sox point of view either.

Sure. The White Sox, I think, first of all, we'll start with the Mariners because that's what people care about here. Fun note, Gregory Sanchez. Santos is six months older than Perlonder Baroa. Yeah. You gave up just one year of club control. Yes. For, yeah, you gave up one year of club control.

You gave up a fifth outfielder, more than likely, maybe a fourth outfieler. I think Deloche is an interesting guy. I think he has a future in the big leagues. He didn't have a path in Seattle, though. No, he was behind Canzone. He's behind Rayleigh. He's behind, you know, Hanager at this stage. Possibly even behind Marlowe.

Yeah, definitely. behind Marl. I mean, he might have been behind Tramel. Like, obviously he's behind other guys who can play out. He's behind Samad Taylor. He's behind, you know, Delmore. Like he had a very difficult path to get to the big leagues, uh, with Seattle. So he, you know, I don't want to say he's nothing because I think he's a solid prox, top prospect is act aloche, don't you know? Right, right. Shout out to Savage de Poto. I think I had him like 24th in the Mariners prospect ranks. Yeah. Whatever. Uh, so, Baroa is the key here.

And actually, I think it's the draft pick. Again, poor draft class. That's kind of the consensus right now. They lose a little bit of bonus pool money. It's about a million bucks. So that might be the bigger hit than the actual pick itself. Yeah. And then they lose six years of Baroque, maybe seven, because if you keep Baroa back for a

couple weeks, then you get the extra year. So they may have lost two years of Borough, but this is a deal that we saw, this is a jacked up version of a deal we saw a few years ago when they traded Seth Elidge for Sam Tui Vala. Basically, you trade the guy that you think could be the player that you're getting. Right. It's the whole, you know, Gregory Santos is cool, but Peralanderboro, it could be in anything. Even Gregory Santos. It's that same thing that I've said multiple times on the show in the past. It's just, I don't see why anyone could be upset about that swap in a in particular. Obviously, there's more to the deal outside of that. But when we just break it down to Baroa for Santos, I'm doing that.

not just 10 times out of 10, not just 11 times out of 10, a hundred times out of 10. I thought you're going to go with 12. Sure. Crick it all the way up to 12. Yeah. Shout us for Kurt Russell. Great opening for the Super Bowl, by the way. I still watch it sometimes.

I miss those days. Anyways, yeah, Barola is worse. The anniversary was yesterday, by the way. Yeah, I know, I know. I almost watched the game, but then I was like, no, I have a life. Not really. It would also make me very sad about Pete. Yeah, kind of.

kind of just look at all those guys be like, oh, but especially imagine watching Bobby Wagner 10 years ago versus the, anyways, we're not locked on Cocks. Shout out to Corbyn, yes, absolutely.

Baroa is probably more of a strikeout guy. He's going to be like a 12K per nine guy. He also might be a six and a half walk per nine guy. Gregory Santos is a strike thrower. Yeah. So it's going to look a little different, but at the end of the day, I think Perlonder's ceiling is probably what Santos just did last year.

It's about a win, a win and a half reliever. Sure, is it possible that that Baroa suddenly figures out how to throw strikes and he's just like this high leverage reliever for the next six years? Sure. Is it possible that Santos is just Justin Topa? Sure. All trades are wagers, but what you're betting on is that. Justin Topa and thrown 103 though. Right, but you know, same result, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the bet you're making. And the bet you're making is that Santos helps you more this year than Baroa would have. And I think that's a pretty safe bet. I like Barroa. I'm going to miss him. It would have been awesome to have him in this bullpen with Santos. But you have to give up something to get something in the White Sox.

That's the only disappointing aspect of this deal is like, like, or that swap is like, oh, well, yeah, I would prefer to have both in the bullpen. Sure. You know what? You might have, you might have Barraa already in your system again. His name is Carlos Vargas. His name is Jackson Cor. Sure. There's a lot of similarities between those two arms. And, you know, it's funny.

I was thinking about this on, as I was frantically trying to get home, the Mariners in three and a half years earned Donovan Walton and Zach Deloach and a comp round B pick into Gregory Santos, one of the best relievers in baseball. Took some time. You know, that's how baseball works, but that's pretty impressive. That's basically at the end of it, what it was. because you only got like an inning in a third from Baroa before he traded him. Well, and that's the other thing too is like had the Mariners soured on Perlonda Burra because last year we talked about Barra as if it was essentially a lock that he was going to be a pretty big part of that bullpen at some point in 2023 and then we only saw him twice.

And obviously, you know, he struggled to throw strikes down in AA, but that started to improve over the course of the year. But I wonder if they just kind of lost faith in his ability to do that consistently. I truly do wonder if something changed in the minds of the Mariners regarding Barrowa and what they felt his ceiling was. Because if they think Barrow is just essentially another Gerson-Bautista, Tiago Vieira, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, guy that throws really hard but can't find the strike zone to save his life.

If he's just one of those guys, then cool, great. Sure. I mean, even if he is like an all-star level reliever, cool, great. He probably wasn't going to be this year. He probably wasn't going to be next year. So that's what you're buying. You're essentially accelerating Rolanda Baroa's sealing effect on your bullpen to this year instead of in a couple of years.

From the White Sox's perspective, I'm interested to see if they'll try and let him start. They really have no reason not to. So if they think that they can, you know, help him become a starter, then this deal makes a lot more sense for them. But, you know, either they see a lot in Deloche. They think he can be an everyday guy. They think Baroa could start and has like the high leverage reliever thing is a fallback for them, which, you know, he did come up as a starter.

So it is possible. And unless maybe they want that, maybe they want that pick, not for the actual pick, but for the bonus pool money. So maybe they can kind of coax their, their player that they want down the board to them. So yeah, it's an interesting deal. There's virtually no downside for Seattle. Of course, every trade can end badly.

Like, you could trade, you know. Santos could stay hurt or get hurt again, you know. You could have a cabiero for Shohei Otani. And Otani could have, you know, gone out for his career after his first app bat. That's still a good trade. It just, you lost it. Like, you know. It's, it's process over results.

Right. And that's, that's all you can, that's all you can really grade the front office on is, was it sound. process. Were they wrong for the right reasons? Then it's fine. Yeah. Did it make sense at the time? Yes. And at the time, yes, this makes absolutely does all the world of sense. Uh, and then some. So I was just going to say, and I'd like to point out, there's no reason they have to be done. That's right. That's right. They still have, you know, five, six, seven million bucks to play with. We'll see. They have an open 40 man spot. Yeah. Yeah, they do. Unless it goes to Canaan Smith and Jigpa.

CSN. That's right, baby. All right. I hate you. All right. Santos this past year, I didn't read his stats at the beginning of the show, so we'll just quickly go over it. It was his first full season at the big league level.

Only had five appearances in the majors before last season. 66 and a third inning's thrown. 339 ERA, 265 FIP. Just an 895 case per nine, which is kind of surprising considering how often he misses bats. 2, 3-1 walks per 9, which is great, especially for someone

that throws as hard as he does. Interesting enough, 52.5% ground ball rate, which is not typical for someone that throws that hard to keep the ball on the ground that much. So, yeah, it's a really interesting profile. The mayor has got better today. significantly so because it answered one of the biggest question marks remaining on this roster now

again there is a lot of health concerns or there are there are a lot of health concerns on this roster that's obviously the biggest question mark that is going to be prevalent no matter what else they do this off season but damn did they knock this off season out of the park of the frick it park considering everything that's happened insane insane

all right any closing thoughts before we get out of here someday I hope beyond hope that Jerry and Justin

are not only allowed to cook but they're allowed to do so with a budget that is indicative of their skills as baseball front officemen because right now from where I'm sitting the only person

preventing the Seattle Mariners from winning the World Series is Mr. John Stanton. Chris Larson, too. Yep, it's not the players. It's not the front office. It's not the coaching staff. It's not the fans.

That leaves one person. Yeah. Figure it out. All right. So on that note, that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locktime Maris podcast.

For Colby Patnode, I'm tidying as all. Let's be sure to give us a follow on Twitter. Twitter at L-O- underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby at C-P-Ead-11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff

in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.