Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Bustin' Myths: No, the Mariners Aren't Trading For Shohei Ohtani

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

In a perfect world, the Mariners would sign Aaron Judge, trade for Shohei Ohtani and boast a $1 billion payroll. But that's just not how things work. Colby and Ty spend this episode busting myths about what the Mariners can, should and will do this upcoming offseason.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/RhoneThe Commuter Shirt can get you through any work day and straight into whatever comes next. Head to rhone.com/LOCKEDON and use promo code LOCKEDON to save 20% off your entire order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you look at various congregations of Mariners fans across the internet right now, you'll find takes like the Mariners can trade for show Aotani and sign Aaron Judge. But we love the enthusiasm. Such hopes are ultimately unrealistic in other statements like the Mariners need a left-handed reliever, or need to spend X amount of dollars this off season in order to be successful or just simply untrue. We're going to explain why here on the Locked on Mariners 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. It is Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022. This is Tiding Gazzalas and Colby Patnode for the Locked-on Mariners podcast. 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 want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon, the link, as well as our social accounts, is in the description below. On the show today, we're unfortunately going to play the role of the wet blanket

and tell you why Shohei Otani and Aaron Judge won't be Mariners in 2023. I know big surprise. We're also going to address some common misconceptions about what the mariners need to do this offseason, specifically when it comes to things like adding payroll and the upcoming class of free agent shortstops. We'll explain later on.

But Colby, let's start off with the, the two big superstars who may or may not change teams this offseason. Aaron Judge, of course, is a free agent or is about to be a free agent. Shio Otani has one year left of club control with the Angels and is pretty much said publicly that he's out on what they're doing in Anaheim. Another losing season for them. We've talked ad nauseum about how much that organization is an absolute dumpster fire.

And Otani seems to finally. be coming to his senses and realizing the mistake that he made when he chose the angels over the Mariners all those years ago. But I don't think he'll necessarily write his wrongs in terms of coming back to the Mariners, crawling back to the Mariners, if you will, not to sound too Kevin Mathery here, not to talk about, you know, hat and hand or anything like that. But some fans do want the Mariners to trade for Shohei O. Otani and Colby, that's just not going to happen, right?

No. It doesn't even make sense. Like, what are we talking about? What does Otani's trade package look like? Honestly, it's probably pretty similar to what the Nationals got for Juan Soto. I know Soto only had, or Soto had two and a half years of club control, whereas Otani will only have one. But Otani is a number two pitcher and middle of the order bat. he's both.

He's arguably the most valuable player in baseball. He's going to cost a ton. And if you're the Mariners, you look at what Soto, what Juan Soto trade package would look like for the Mariners. It doesn't exist because they can't match that. They can't, not without giving up,

you know, probably two of Cal, Raleigh, Logan, Gilbert, and George Kirby. You're not giving up two of those guys, or even one of those guys for one year of anybody. Those are three guys who you think are foundational, players, you know, there's a non-zero chance that Kirby's going to be a better pitcher than Otani anyways this next year. And you're not certainly not giving both of those guys to a division rival. It's just not happening. So I think, you know, if it was just prospects, maybe, but anybody

trying to float a prospect-only Mariners trade for Shoahe Otani, they're either stupid or they're lying to you for clicks. Like, it doesn't exist. There is no configuration of prospects. that would have the Mariners, you know, acquire Shohei Otani without touching their major league roster. I think the Angels are dumb. I don't think they're that dumb. So I just don't see it. And when you kind of look around at like what teams could, you know, afford to trade all that capital for Shohei Otani, it's probably the Dodgers and that's it. I mean, it's a team that, you know, they're the only ones that have the young, you know, MLB players that the Angels would want.

they're the only team that also has still really good prospect capital can afford the $30 million hit on their payroll that he's going to make this year and they can win the World Series. Like that's the reason why the Dodgers are really the only team that makes sense. I mean, a team like Texas could try, but do you think that the Angels are going to trade Shohei Otani in division? Because, again, I don't think they're that dumb. I also don't think they're smart enough to trade Shohei Otani at all. So I just I don't see the point in trying to trade. And again, it would take. Let's just even hypothetically, let's say you get George, you can get Otani for Kirby straight up.

You can't, but let's say you can. Why would you make that trade? You're not significantly better as a result. You just added $30 million of payroll. You've crossed out a couple free agents. Now you have to pay this guy. You only have him for one year and you just gave the angels a potential number two starter for five years or six years even because he didn't exhaust his rookie status this year.

So it just doesn't make sense. You're not getting Joe Hay Otani. And anybody who's trying to tell you that the Mariners should go all in on Otani and they should trade whatever it takes, those people are dumb. Like just straight up, they're dumb. They don't see the big picture. They don't understand it. Why give up, you know, again, hypothetically Kirby, Harry Ford, Cal Raleigh, Thai France.

And I mean, it's going to cost more than even that. Emerson Hancock, Bryce Miller, blah, blah, blah. Why give up all of those pieces when you can just go sign Otani next year if he's a free agent? You're not guaranteed to sign him just because you trade for him either. So the extension thing doesn't work. There's no argument that could be made that would make it worthwhile for the Mariners to go down this road. Unless the angels are just giving them away. Like, would I trade Harry Ford and Emerson Hancock and like any three prospects the angels want for one year of Show Hey Otani?

Yeah, sure. they're not going to do that. So, and I don't care about the extension because you can't, you can't, it's not a thing. The thing doesn't exist. The whole trade them and sign them thing, that that's a lie. Yeah. I can, I can see the comments in the YouTube section now already. I can hear you all typing furiously at your keyboards at Colby right now.

You know, you wouldn't trade George Kirby for show hey, oh, tiny, blah, blah, blah. In a vacuum, yes, I would trade George Kirby for Show Hey, oh, Otani, but the thing is you're trading six years of George Kirby, just to reiterate what Colby was saying for one year of Shohei Otani. The one year thing, it really matters that has to factor into the cost of acquisition. You are not acquiring Otani with the intention of extending him, right? Like, you will want to extend him. You're basically going to put yourself in a position where you more or less have to extend him at that point. But there's no guarantee. that he will sign an extension

with you. There's no guarantee that he won't test the market. There's none of that. So what you are paying for is one year of Shohei Otani. That's it. And while Shohei Otani is one of the greatest players of this generation and perhaps of all time, it's

still just one year and you are hedging a lot because again, it's not going to cost just George Kirby. It's going to cost George Kirby plus like a Cal Raleigh or someone like that and prospects on top of that. That's a lot of future capital. and you are closing what may very well be a seven to 10 year window that you've set up for yourself to three, five, and really putting a lot at most into 2023, really putting a lot into 2023,

basically hedging your future into 2023. That is not good baseball practice. No matter how good Shohayotani is, you are significantly limiting yourself. especially if you were not able to get an extension done because you don't know that you don't know that when you're acquiring him perhaps the day after he shows up in seattle his agent tells you yeah we are willing to sign an extension and that's great but again you're not paying the angels for the extension you're paying the angels for one year of show hey otani so what does that really cost now the angels of course don't have a lot of leverage here right because the writing is on the wall

Otani has basically said, I'm out, right? He's basically, like, you can see it on his face when he's playing that he just, he wants out. And so they only got one year left of club control. They either have to trade them now or they have to trade them at the deadline. And the cost is going to lower and lower and lower the closer you get to free agency for him. But for a lot of teams, like Colby was saying, from the mayor's perspective, why don't you just wait until he hits free agency to just sign him, right? Why go for it now?

Why trade all this capital to get him a year ahead of time and then have to, you know, spend a ton of money on him? So at the end of the day, oh, here, I'll let you go. I'll let you go. No, I was just going to say, by the way, I think we also need to understand that there's risk to Otani staying healthy. He made his debut in 2018. And in 2018, 2019, and 2020, he, he,

He pitched a combined 53 in a third innings in three years. He just, this last year was the first year he qualified. He threw over 162 innings, which is what it takes to qualify. This is not a workhorse. You know, this is a guy who has had injury issues. You have to be very careful of how you use him. He's a DH only. He's a great player, probably the best in baseball.

He's only 28 years old. When he's a free agent, the Mariners should absolutely be interested. but I think people also need to remember when they say, oh, well, he'll sign an extension here. He already didn't pick the Mariners once. He already looked at what the Mariners had to offer and said, I'm good. Now things are completely different.

So I'm not saying that he would do that again. But you also have to recognize that Shohei Otani already spurned the Mariners once. Basically, everybody in baseball thought he was going to sign with Seattle. They had the most money to offer him. They made all those trades to get me even more money. There's the legacy thing in Seattle. there's the huge, you know, Pacific Asian market that gets tapped into in Seattle. Everything was saying Seattle and Otani spurned them.

He said, nope, I'm good. You can't just assume that he's going to say, yeah, of course I want to play in Seattle. Like who wouldn't want to follow Nietzscheo's footsteps? Literally show Hey, Otani. Yeah. That's one of the reasons he gave you. I don't want, I want to blaze my own trail. I don't want to be, you know, the next each year.

I want to be myself. I want to be what Ichro was to the Marin. for somebody else. He might think that same way. So just this idea that like, oh, just sign him to an extension. No.

And by the way, if you're Otani, why would you sign an extension? Why would you go out there and just see what the other 29 teams are offering you? Exactly. And again,

when it comes to the actual trade and what you are paying the angels for, you are paying for one year. You are not paying for one year and the chance to extend him. You're paying them for one year and that's how you have to look at it.

And so when you were talking about what that actually costs, It's just too much. It's too much. You are mortgaging so much of your future. It doesn't matter how good show how he is. You are mortgaging your future, a significant portion of your future. Now, I'm not saying that the mariners completely shut their window and completely close it off to just 2023 and 2023 alone when they make this deal.

But you are significantly capping your ceiling for the next decade by doing this deal. Even if you extend him. because again, you can just sign him next year. You can just sign him next winner. If you really, really, really, really want him and you want to spend all that money that it's going to take, just wait until next year. The last thing that I'll mention here before we hop on over to judge

is that the Angels are one of two teams, I believe, too, that Jerry Depoto still hasn't traded with since his tenure in Seattle began. I think there's something to that. I think there's something to that. Also, there's just general bad blood between these two organizations. I don't think the angels could justify to their ownership, to their fan base, trading their once-in-a-lifetime generational superstar to the team that they just had like a brawl with

and just leapfrog them and basically son them all year. So this whole point is moot. because of that, I think. So let's move on from one superstar to another Aaron Judge. In just a moment, but real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Rhone. We all know that when you look good, you feel good, but sometimes looking good means putting on uncomfortable fitting clothes that don't breathe and limit your mobility. The dress shirt in particular was due for a radical reinvention and Rone stepped up to the challenge. Roan's commuter shirt is the most comfortable, breathable, and flexible shirt known to man, and here's why.

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So Aaron Judge. Colby, I'll say this. I think Aaron Judge is likelier to be a mariner in 2023 than Shohei Otani is. That, however, is not saying really anything. Why is Aaron Judge not going to be a mariner next year? I mean, just say it out loud. Aaron Judge is going to pick the Seattle Mariners over the New York Yankees, the San Francisco Giants. He's a Northern California guy, by the way.

The Dodgers, like, he's going to pick. We already know that those three teams are going to be heavily involved in Aaron Judge's market. Potentially the Mets as well. Yeah, he's going to pick Seattle over one of those teams. I mean, if they grossly overpay, which they shouldn't. Right. But, yeah. But, again, we're talking about a 31-year-old who is just like unprecedented.

precedent. And we don't have any comps for a guy of his size and his athleticism, how they'll age. They just don't exist. How many six foot eight, two hundred, 70 pound guys play major league baseball and can do it well enough where they can play a pretty decent center field into their 30s. Name somebody. You can't. There, there's no way to know how this guy's going to age. But more importantly, like Ty said, if you want Aaron Judge, like hypothetically, he's probably the guy who's going to get $300 million this offseason, probably the only one. if the Yankees are willing to give him, or the dot, it doesn't matter what team, if they're willing to give him 10 and let's just say 350, what are the Mariners going to have to give to get judged to pick them over those other like just juggernauts, those other iconic franchises, 400 million, 425 million. Are they going to have to break the Mike Trout contract? Maybe it's certainly possible. And that's just not a good way to build.

Spending $400 million on a 31-year-old who is going to lose some athleticism, he just is. I refuse to believe he's that much of a freak that he's going to maintain the athleticism all the way into his late 30s. And there's also questions about, hey, you know, how long can you keep playing at this size? I mean, there's nothing judge can do about it, but there's back issues. There's wear and tear issues. Bigger bodies break down sooner. So there's some legitimate concerns here. But the biggest one is just Aaron Judge isn't going to pick the Mariners.

So why bother? If Aaron Judge's agent calls Seattle and is like, hey, what do you think about like 10 and 325? Like, okay, fine, cool. Let's do it. That's not going to happen. Aaron Judge is either standing in New York or he's going to L.A. or San Francisco. It's one of those four teams. Yeah.

You know, barring some kind of miracle where he signs a one-year deal with somewhere, which why would he? Again, he's 31 years old. And he's coming off of one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time. Right. He's got to cash in this year. So he's not signing with Seattle. It's really that simple. Just say that out loud.

Think about it this way, right? Robinson Canoe is probably the guy that people point to and be like, well, he wasn't going to sign with Seattle either until he did. Okay. The Mariners overpaid Robinson Canoe. They outbid the Yankees by $70 million. And this is back in what, 2014? 2013. So think about inflation.

Think about how much better a player Aaron Judges than even Prime Canoe. And we're talking about what, $100 million? dollars, at least 50, 60, 70 million, somewhere in that range. It's not worth it. If we're talking about going over by like, you know, $10, 20 million dollars over what the Yankees are offering, like, fine, over the course of a 10 year deal. Who cares? It's 2 million a year. We're talking about 70, 80, 90, 100. Those are really good relievers you're giving up. Those are really good young players. Those are players you have to trade away sooner because you can't afford their arbitration. Like it's just, it's dumb.

It's a bad practice. And by the way, you don't want to be the team that overpays for players, right? You want to be the team that pays that pays fair market value. Because if you overpay Aaron Judge, then guess what? Next year when Joe Hottani comes around, he's going to say, hey, give me that Seattle tax that Aaron Judge got. Like, it's just, it's not going to happen. And by the way, you're not signing Judge this offseason and then signing Otani next offseason. That's not happening.

So you could just stop that day during two. Well, the other thing that we need to mention here, too, is like, the Mariners have to look out into the future, too. Julio's going to get more expensive because it's an extension that's going to start kicking in. Cal Raleigh, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert. All these guys are going to start making more money through arbitration. Luis Castillo is making a good chunk of change now. Like, the Mariners have a lot of commitments pushed down the road that they're going to have to account for. this leads into another discussion that I wanted us to have today

and I can hear the tweets I can hear the YouTube comments once again yelling at us oh well you know it's not our money so who cares right like let you know the greedy owners need to spend the money and I get that yeah it's totally it's not our money and I would if the Mariners went out and and could spend a billion dollars on the roster I'd be all for it I'd be Jumping for joy. But let's get back to reality here.

Jerry DePoto, Justin Hollander. Those guys have to work within a budget that is set by John Stanton. So, Colby, we see tweets like this all the time. The Mariners have to get back to $180 million in payroll if they want to be able to be a World Series contender. Colby, if the Mariners don't get back to $170, $180 million in 2022 or 20203, payroll for the major league roster. Are they not winning a World Series next year?

Are they not capable of winning a World Series next year? No, because they were capable of winning the World Series this year with $112 million payroll. It's not about money. It's about getting the best player you possibly can. It's about not letting small amounts of money keep you from getting players that you really want. Again, and we're talking about Carlos Correa, hypothetically, right? Like if the only thing standing between you and Carlos Correa is $20 million over a seven-year period, you do that, right? That is what's important is you give Jerry that you give Jerry that little bit of extra money.

And also I think people need to understand here is that the Mariners don't have a year-to-year payroll. They use, like most teams do, this rolling payroll structure where it's basically, hey, Jerry, over the next three years, you get $500 million to spend on this baseball team. you can spend it out you could spend 180 this year and and you know 120 you can spend 180 this year and in 200 next year and then you got to drop it down to 120 in year three though because that's that's how it works they it's a rolling number so if the mariners just spend money just to get up to 180 they're going to have less money to spend next year right there's a tipping point there's a balancing act you have to take into account it's not just oh just keep spending money spend money spend money spend money because it's just not going to happen like we need to live in a in a world of

reality here jerry depoto has a budget jesson hollander has a budget and if the budget ends up not being big enough then we can we can blame uh we can blame stanton all we want that's fine uh but it's not about money like you know who looks up payroll numbers at the end of the year nobody nobody cares they want to see how many games you want right right and like this has worked four teams in the past spending big does work like the philly two wins away from the world series with the third or fourth highest payroll in in 2022 the braves had the 11th highest payroll last year and won a world series like it does help right but also the way that we need to look at this too is that or the thing that we need to acknowledge here is that there isn't just one set way to building a championship caliber roster and sometimes that is via the trade market right you can do the heavy lifting via the trade market and end up getting guys who are worth, you know, 5, 6, F4, you know, by Fangraph standards, and they cost you the league minimum, right? Your big piece could be a league minimum guy or someone that's only making

$3 or $4 million in arbitration. Right. You got to look at the quality of player, not the quality of the contract. Right. Like, I don't get like, I would just put it like this, right? Let's say the Mariners signed Carlos Correa. Right. and they get them for seven and two 10 just a nice easy number 30 million dollars a year

are you going to be mad that they didn't give them 32 million dollars a year because they could have of course you're not you don't care about the money you care about the player so i just this idea that like oh the mariners have to spend x them out this year to to win the world series no they don't no they don't they could have won it this year they were close you know they if they beat the astros they're playing in the world series of that i have no doubt so like what is like what are we talking about here i don't care about the payroll i don't uh when i hear things like hey jerry said jerry was told he had this and then they pulled the rug out from under him and they said oh well actually now it's down to this that i care about that's being cheap that is

something worth criticizing but john stands saying hey jerry we're going to have you're going get $500 million to spend over the next three years on this team, which is going to be about, you know, somewhere between 10th and 15th in payroll. That's where the Mariners need to be. Seattle is the 12th or 13th biggest media market in the country. It makes sense for them to have somewhere in the 10 to 15 range in terms of payroll. They are a mid-market club. And as much as the Mariners can spend $300 million, and they should, like if everything was just fair, but it's not. We know it's not going to happen. We know it's never going to happen. So every minute you spend talking about like, oh, well, they need to get up to 180.

It's a waste of everybody's time. What is the arbitrary number? And by the way, they get up to 180. What are you going to do when they're two games out of the division? You're going to say, oh, well, they've got to get up to 200 now. You're just going to keep moving it. It's an arbitrary line. And it doesn't, it doesn't determine success at all. Build a good team. And then whatever the money is at the end of the day, that's what it is. But we need to understand that Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander have budgets. And they just cannot write checks as much as we may want them to. John Stanton is not going to do that.

No owner in professional sports is going to do that. That's just the reality. Before we get to our last couple of items here, let me list the top 10 teams in payroll. Number one, the New York Mets, $282.7 million. You went further than them in the playoffs. First, wild card exit. Los Angeles Dodgers at number two, $275.6 million.

They lost in the divisional round just like you. The New York Yankees, $264.9 million, despite having one of the greatest offensive performances in a regular season of all time for Mayor and Judge, they got swept in the ALCS and looked like they didn't even really belong. Your roster is better than the Yankees, just straight up. The Philadelphia Phillies. Again, two wins away from the World Series. does work. It does work. Side note, though.

Side note. Do you feel like the Phillies are leaps and bounds ahead of the Mariners despite having spent 80 million more dollars? Nope. And they were also the last team to get in to the playoffs on the National League side, right? Yep. The San Diego Padres got to the NLCS. Good for them. Right? Again, one of the few teams that proves that it actually works. Now here's where we get, here's where things get a little shaky.

The Boston Red Sox at number six. $223.1 million. Terrible this year. Chicago White Sox, $208.3 million. Terrible this year. The Atlanta Braves, really good,

but a divisional round exit. The Houston Astros. All right. It works. The Astros are really good. But then we get to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. And whatever you talk,

talk about payroll, and this is a message to everyone, whenever you talk about payroll and wanting to get to a certain amount of money and you want to sign every single superstar there is on the free agent market, just remember the Los Angeles Angels of Anahe. Yep. Also, it's funny, too, because the same people, or a lot of the same people that, that, you know, pound the table for the Mariners to sign every superstar that hits the open market are the same people that are like, well, players come to Seattle and die,

basically. This is where careers die, right? Same old Mariners, all that stuff. Anyway, so let's talk about roster construction this winter for the Mariners specifically. One thing that we hear a lot,

and we heard this around the trade deadline as well, the Mariners need a left-handed reliever. They need a left-handed reliever because you need to get left-handed hitters out. But Colby, just because you throw up from the left side doesn't mean that you're necessarily good against lefties, right? No, it doesn't. First of all, we can acknowledge that, yeah,

having a guy in your bullpen who's really good at getting lefties out, pretty valuable, particularly in the AOS when you're facing Joe Aotani and Yordaun Alvarez and Kyle Tucker and Corey Seeger and now Nathaniel Lowe, like you're facing a ton of these big power lefties. you need guys who can get those type of players out. Okay, that's fine. Why do they have to throw left-handed? Ty, have I told you that the Mariners went out and they added a pitcher this off-season who held lefties to a 167-2-30-284 triple-slash this year in 566 games,

you would say that guy is a left-y specialist. Those are elite numbers against left-handed pitching. He's a luggy. Yes, those are the splits of right-handed pitcher Seth Lugo this year who happens to be a free agent You don't have to throw Lugo

Lugo? Thanks for killing momentum. Appreciate it. Who was the Mariners best reliever against lefties this year? Eric Swanson. Eric Swanson. Eric Swanson,

remind me what hand Eric Swanson throws a baseball with. It's his right hand. You're telling me that you would rather have Ryan Baruchy facing Yordon Alvarez. because he's a lefty than Eric Swanson. Of course you wouldn't because you're not stupid.

You're not, right? Like, I don't think you are. You're listening to this podcast, but like, you know, we all have our guilty pleasures. But I just, I look at last year, right, Eric Swanson, 200, 222, 295 against lefties. He struck out 43 lefties in a hundred and nine plate appearances, walked three.

you have your lefty specialist out in the pin his name is eric swanson use him you don't have to throw left-handed to get left-handed hitters out if you i'm not saying you don't add a guy just because he's left-handed but i'm also saying you don't just you don't add a guy just because he's left-handed yeah well the numbers matter more than the handedness and the thing too about you know quite a few lefty lefty specialists is that they're terrible against righties and what use is that guy to you, especially now with the three batter minimum. Obviously, there's ways to circumvent that, but at the end of the day, you're getting a guy that has a very, very, very specific role. And roster spots are crucial. And especially when it comes to the bullpen roster spots are

crucial for this Mariners team in particular, because they like to have a bigger bullpen. They like to play matchups. I just, to me, again, you know, like you're saying, I just want a guy that's good against both sides, right? And, um, and, um, and, you know, you're saying, I just want a guy that's good against both sides. right and if that's if that's a righty if that's an eric swanson if that's a seth lugo then so be it i don't care what side of the mountain he throws from i don't like you want some different looks out of your bullpen that's fine you want you want a guy who maybe but you can get different looks all from the right side you can have a fastball curfball guy fastball slider guy split guy somebody throws submarine somebody throws sidearm paul see well it's kind of low three quarters like the windups are different

you want different looks out of your bullpen. They don't have to be left-handed. Write a list of the Mariners relievers you trust the most this offseason or this last year. I don't know how far you have to go down before you get to a lefty. Six or seven, maybe eight. And is it Matt Boyd or is it Ryan Burrucky? Because that's pretty much it. We know Michavits isn't that guy.

So, yeah, you don't need a lefty. You just need guys who get, you just need good pitchers. If they happen to be lefty, great. But if you have a righty who can get lefties out, don't just look at that and be like, well, he doesn't throw a left-handed. So yeah, not really a fit here. That's dumb. So lastly, we've talked, and we're going to be talking even more about the big free agent shortstop.

There's four of them. There's Shrey Turner. There's Carlos Correa. There's Xander Bogarts. And there's Danesby Swanson. And the Mariners have said publicly, we want one of those guys. But Colby, if they don't get one of those guys, did they fail this winter? Not necessarily.

depends on what they do around the miss, right? It's one of those things. Like I think they're obviously they've stated, you know, they want to get one of those short stops. Ideally, one who would play second, but blah, blah, blah, that's lip service. They want to get one of those short stops. They're going to be involved in the market for those short stops. But there's going to be like 12 to 15 teams in the market for those short stops,

which means 10 or 11 are going to get, you know, left at the altar, so to speak. So you can't just say, well, we have to get that guy or our offseason sucked. You have to have plan B. and that's why I think it's going to be important for the Mariners to strike early. They need to be aggressive on these short stops. They need to know how soon they need to move on to plan B. But we'll get to that, I'm sure, in a later episode. But no, if they go out and they add, let's say they go out and they add a three-win second baseman.

They go get an outfielder who's worth four wins. They go get two relievers. You're going to give them one win apiece. And then you kind of go out and you platoon or you kind of create your other outfields. spot with a couple guys who you feel are going to be roughly three or four win players. You're telling me if you add 10 wins to this ball club without adding the shortstop, it's a bad off season. No, of course it's not.

And on top of that, if you're not spending big on a, you know, on a shortstop, whatever, maybe you go out and you get, you know, really crazy with it and go out a starting pitcher, one of the few bigger names starting pitchers that are all on the market. Maybe somebody's, maybe you can't get a shortstop to take your $35 million. dollars. Okay, can I get Carlos Rodon and Michael Conforto to take 35 million between? By the way, I want to clarify, I'm not saying Jacob de Grom. A lot of people are going to mistake that as me saying Jacob DeGrom or Justin Verlander. I'm not saying either one of those names. No, no, stop it. Stop it. DeGrom is a hard pass. Like you want to pay $40 million a year for a guy who's going to give you

16 starts. Get out of here. That nonsense. But yeah, there are more ways you can attack this. I still think the best thing the Mariners could do, like the best offseason they could have get one of the short stops and then get a uh get a good outfield or like a really solid outfield or everyday guy and then you know kind of maybe you get a platoon in the other spot maybe he's resigned mcchaniger add a couple interesting arms i think that's the best way they could go but if we're sitting here on february 18th and we're like oh man all they did was signed brandonimo and and zach efflin and they traded for willie adamas and oh look mitch hanniger's back but he's going to DH mostly because they also went out and they traded for like Hunter Renfro or Randy

or Rosarena or Taylor War like are we going to say or be like oh man they suck like total failure of course you're not you're going to be amped just get good players right yes ideally you want the shortstop but just get good players who cares what position they play get good get good players who are fits on your roster and just go from there that's the only thing Mariners fan should care about. Build a roster where you can conceivably say the Mariners have a chance to win the AOS. Yep. And go from there. Yep. Because also, you're not going to arrive at spring training with a perfect roster. You're not going to arrive at spring training with all your holes filled. It's just not going to happen. I mean, look at the team that's currently leading the World Series.

They still have holes on that roster. They're a terrible defensive team. Terrible defensive team. They're so bad. They're so bad. And they're playing actually pretty good defense right now. It's just weird. Like that's a bad defensive team. That is a team that's bullpen isn't exactly like terrifying. It's kind of a mediocre bullpen, honestly. Starting pitching is good, not great.

But they hit a lot of home runs and they're playing really well right now. It takes you all the way to the World Series and they're two wins away. You don't have to be a perfect team to win the World Series. You don't have to be a perfect team at any point in the year to win the World Series. but it's unrealistic for anybody to expect a team to be perfect on opening day. Yeah. That's just the team. The team on the cusp of winning the World Series is having Brad Hand throw high leverage

innings for them out of the bullpen. Yeah. And it's working. And it's working. The Phillies are crazy. I'm having a lot of fun watching this World Series, by the way. Same. By the way, can we stop with the whole like, what was Bryce Herbert?

talking to Alec Baum about. Can we stop with this thing? Like, why is it every postseason? Like someone, some pitcher starts tipping pitches and it's like, oh my God, it's a huge thing. I know. We got, we got to hop off. We got to hop off. But I'm just saying, man.

Tie me up all day to be the wet blanket so that you can sneak one here at the end when nobody's listening. I see how it works. Basically, basically. But, I mean, look, seriously. Can we stop with like getting mind blown by pitchers tipping pitches? It happens all year long. Players, they pick up on it.

Hitters pick up on it. It just happens, right? It's not some game breaking thing. It's just, you know, it is what it is, right? It is what it is. Stop making a huge deal about it. Who cares? Who cares what Bryce Harper talk to Alec Baum about?

Anyway, that's going to do a fair show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Merritts podcast for Colby Patnode. I'm Tiding Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on. on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-S-R-N-Rerrars. And you can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, the C-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-A-E-T-1-E.

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