Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Cal Raleigh Takes ACCOUNTABILITY For Seattle Mariners' Struggles
Episode Date: August 12, 2026Ty and Colby react to Cal Raleigh taking accountability for the Mariners' struggles, why Dan Wilson should be fired, and more. Check out our Patreon! Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDane...Gonzalez | @CPat11 Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolby Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Amazon This Back To School Season, spend less on your kids, with Amazon. With Amazon’s low Back To School Prices, just spend less on your kids. Because every dollar you don’t spend on them, is a dollar you haven’t spent on them. Nutrafol Find out why Nutrafol is the only hair growth supplement brand trusted by MLB. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you visit https://Nutrafol.com and enter promo code LOCKEDONMLB. Stance Check out the ICON collection from Stance—premium comfort, performance, and durability designed for whatever your day brings. Use promo Code LOCKEDON at checkout for 20% off your purchase. Learn more at https://Stance.com. Stance. The Official Sock Partner of Major League Baseball. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at https://Indeed.com/podcast KALSHI For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code LOCKEDON to get ten dollars when you trade ten. Kalshi. Trade on anything. Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. From the opening whistle to the final kick, Let There Be Goals on FanDuel. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started now. 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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Finally, someone on the Mariners took some accountability.
Colby, hit it.
You are Locked-on Mariners.
Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast.
Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.
Ahoy, sailors, it is Wednesday, August 12th, 2026.
My name is Taddy Gonzalez, and I'm joined, as always, by McCos, Colby Patnode.
This episode is brought to you by Fanduel.
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On today's show, we're going to talk about Dan Wilson's role in last night's 4-1 loss to the Yankees.
And then Colby wants to talk a little bit about the differences between firing a manager and members of the coaching staff compared to firing members of the front office.
But first, we start with what happened shortly after the final pitch last night, which saw Cal Raleigh strike out for the second time as the mayor scored just one run on three hits.
Raleigh now hitting under a buck 60 on this season.
Cal then called for an impromptu press conference and spoke with the media for about 10 minutes,
shouldering a lot of the blame for how things have gone this year saying, quote,
it's not good.
We're not playing well.
That starts with me.
I'm awful.
I've got to find a way to be better and to help bring the guys along.
We just got to play better.
We're just playing very, very, very bad baseball in every facet of the game.
We've got to pick it up from the energy standpoint to the execution to the little things in the game that help you win baseball games.
We're just not doing those things right now.
It's tough when things aren't going your way.
It's hard.
You feel like everybody's against you.
Things aren't going your way, but you've got to have a good attitude.
You got to bring that edge to play every single day because nothing's given to you.
We've got to go take it.
Sometimes when you're feeling bad for yourself, you get a little laxadaisical out there
and maybe have a little less energy or maybe you don't have quite the same edge that you should
have every single day.
That starts with me.
I need to do a better job of that each and every night.
Just being prepared and being ready to go every single night.
Ultimately, we've just got to play with a little more urgency.
The approach is just not there to me.
It's just off-balance swings, late to the heater, early on the off-speed.
I'm not pointing fingers.
I'm ultimately the worst of the group right now, and I understand that.
Now, if I read you the entire transcript from Cal's meeting with the media last night,
that would be like half of the show today.
So there are a couple quotes, other quotes that I do want to get into when we talk about Dan
in the second segment.
But if you want to read the full transcript,
Ryan DeVish wrote an article on the Seattle Times
with everything that you need to know.
So I'll put a link to that in the description of this episode.
Now, at times over this year, you know,
we've heard guys like Brian Wu say like, you know,
I'm playing like do do, right?
You know, but it's been few and far between
that we've heard someone step up and say,
this is not acceptable this year.
So this is refreshing to hear from Cal Raleigh, frankly.
So from what you heard me read out there, Colby, what's your reaction to that?
Yeah, that's what leadership sounds like.
And there has been, at least from the outside looking in, a lack of leadership and a lack of accountability for these 26 guys.
and we have been hopeful that Dan Wilson would step up and provide that,
that, you know, accountability and that leadership.
And he just hasn't, at least not in any way we can publicly see and point to.
So, you know, Dan's not going to do it.
It falls on the players.
And, you know, I think it's honest.
I think it's, you know, and I think it's important.
I really do.
I think it's important to acknowledge, is this going to turn things around?
No, it's not a rallying cry or anything like that.
Like, we're not going to go there.
But I do think it's important for your leaders and for the players who are supposed
to be your best players.
When they suck that they stand up and be like, look, I suck right now.
Like, I am the biggest part of the problem.
I understand that.
I'm trying to work on it.
But, you know, I'm falling short still and yada, yada.
It didn't sound like excuse making.
It didn't sound like there's a lot of baseball left.
It didn't sound like I'll get it big.
it out. It sounded like real accountability. I am the worst of everybody right now. I need to figure
out how to play with more energy. I need to do this. I need to do that. And so yeah, it's,
he's saying I. He means we, but this is how you do it, right? You take, you shoulder most of the
blame. And it is also not really shots, but it is also like, hey, look, I know that I'm,
the biggest reason we are where we are right now.
But we as a team are not executing.
We as a team are not playing with the fire that we need to,
with the intensity,
with the concentration that we need to right now.
And again,
this is what leadership sounds like.
And the Mariners really have,
I mean,
we talk a lot about Cal being a leader and all that last year,
but really the guy is JP is still,
I think,
the leader of this clubhouse.
And he's been on the IL three different times this year.
he's probably leaving in for agency.
Like, and obviously we know Dan is not this guy to, you know, step up and lead a clubhouse.
So somebody has to do it.
And it just kind of felt like all year they were just waiting for somebody else to do it.
And to Cal's credit, if he was hitting, I think he would be more willing to do it.
But it's tough to do this when you're struggling.
You know, it's kind of the whole thing.
You can't be a leader from like the ice tub, you know, like you have to be in the lineup.
You have to play every day.
You have to produce.
And then you feel empowered.
to take the reins of the clubhouse and Cal's been on the IL this year.
He's really struggled this year.
He's not performing this year.
And so it's really hard for him to kind of assume that mantle in the clubhouse.
But that's what this felt like.
You know, like enough is enough.
We're going to or I'm going to take responsibility for this.
We know this isn't good enough.
We know it's no longer a long season.
We know that we're running out of time.
And I need to do better.
And again, it's not going to solve anything because, like,
saying you need to do better.
Like Cal has known he needs to do better for six months at this point.
Well, not six.
But you know what I mean?
Like since, you know, the start of the season, Cal knows he needs to be better.
So it's really easy to be jaded and be like, who cares?
And this is just, you know, word salad and blah, blah, blah, blah.
But this is important.
It is important for the Mariners best players.
The players that like it or not, this team is going to try and build around for the next, you know,
three or four years at the very least.
And for those guys to be the ones to step up and say, I am the problem.
I need to be part of the solution.
I need to be better.
This is not acceptable.
And this is not the way we want to do things here.
It is important for you to do that.
And Julio has done it in the past.
But yeah, this is really important for Cal.
This is kind of his team.
It's kind of his clubhouse now.
and it will be even more so when JP more than likely exits via free agency in the winter.
So, yeah, I think it was really important.
And it was good to hear.
It was good to hear anybody on this team take any kind of accountability instead of the, you know, we got time.
Oh, we'll figure it out like, no, man, no, that's not going to fly anymore.
And I would happen a little sooner.
but I think Cal absolutely did the right thing
and you did an important thing last night.
Look, the players are the biggest problem with this club.
The play on the field is the biggest problem with this club.
Your stars are not being stars,
as we talked about a couple weeks ago.
That's why I got it on the show after that Rangers game,
and I said, I'm out.
And so it's important for the guy
that is having the biggest impact on your issues this year,
by far.
Cal Raleigh to come out and say stuff like this.
This needed to happen.
Now I would also like for, and this is kind of going to go into what we're going to talk about here in the second segment,
I would like for the manager of the team, the quote unquote leader of the team to also
say things like this, you know, not exactly about, you know, his own performance, but just
just say like, hey, we need to be better.
This is unacceptable.
It goes back to what we said
When he was asked about the booing
A few days ago
And he goes
You know, we'll get it going and all that
It's like dude, we're running out of time here, man
And now you're eight games under 500
Like
Honestly, this was long overdue from Cal Raleigh, frankly
But I'm glad that he finally did it
Like you said,
I don't think this is going to change anything
Or fix anything.
But like
At this point, like you
you owe it to your fan base to come out and take some responsibility to have some accountability
here for what we're all having to watch right now.
All right.
Well, coming up, let's talk about the Dan Wilson of it all because it was another bad night
for him in the dugout at Yankee Stadium.
We'll go over that in just a moment.
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Dan Wilson finally made me crack last night, Colby.
And again,
the Marin's offense was the biggest problem last night.
But can we stop with this whole insinuation
that just because the offense and the play on the field
is the biggest problem that we can't talk about the other problems
with this club.
Dan Wilson's part of the problem.
He might only be 5, 10, 15% of the problem,
but he's a problem.
And once again, that showed up in the seventh inning.
So what did you make with that whole situation?
Yeah, it became pretty painfully obvious
that Gabe Spire wasn't available last night.
Obviously, that is the correct time to use him.
One run lead, four, five, six,
bunch of lefties coming up after that.
Like Gabe is elite against lefties.
Like that's the time to use them.
So he's not available.
So instead of going to Sir Anthony Dominguez,
who was kind of supposed to be a part of that group,
instead of going to Bizarro, who I know has struggled recently,
but is still one of those guys.
They go to Michael Rooker, who, again, at times looks pretty good.
And at times, has thrown the ball pretty well
and not particularly well on the road
and not particularly well in high leverage spots.
But anyways, they go to him, which first mistake,
you need to go to Bizarro.
Like whether you trust him or not, you need to go to Bizarro.
And my guess is they wanted to save Bizarro for the 8th.
You don't get to make those calls.
You know, unfortunately, well, we'll get to this in a minute.
But I have to agree with John Schneider, of all people.
The Blue Jays, John Schneider, about something.
We'll get to that in a second.
I don't want to do it, but he's right.
He's out of line, but he's right.
So, yeah, the Rucker decision was bad.
What was made worse is that he kept him out there well beyond his expiration date.
When you get second and third and one out, you need a strikeout in the worst possible way.
And for all of his flaws, Sir Anthony Dominguez can get strikeouts.
And Rucker ends up walking that guy anyways.
So his first base open, you have an opportunity to get Dominguez.
is out there. If he walks a guy,
which is one of his problems, oh, well,
you know, you were okay walking
the, was it Jones,
you're okay walking him anyways.
So, and
if Dominguez gets a strikeout, then you have a
very good shot of getting out of that inning.
Any out at that point get you out of it.
So I think
the decision to go to Rucker, again, well, I kind of
get it, like,
just like without any
context, it's like, okay, well,
we want to save Bizarro for the eighth, and then
Munoz for the ninth.
Blah, blah, blah.
Rucker's been throwing the ball pretty well recently.
Like, let's go to him.
We don't have Gabe, yada, yada, yada.
Brian only went five instead of six.
So now we can't use Ferre.
Like, this is what we talk about, though.
Like, Dan, when everything doesn't go according to the laid out plan, he panics and he makes really stupid decisions.
And I would argue that leaving Rucker in with runners on second and third and one out is worse than the decision to go to him in the first place.
Oh, oh, yeah, absolutely.
I kind of understand going to Rucker in the first place, especially with Spire down,
because Rucker has thrown the ball okay as of late.
The problem, though, with that is, like, Rucker has been god awful on the road.
After last night, his ERA on the road is now 8.3.1.
Right.
And he's also been bad in these high leverage spots.
Like, you remember the blow up in Cleveland?
He's really pitched very well in the mop-up duty and in the up-by-four or five in the like two times that's happened.
in the last, you know, six weeks.
He's been very good in those spots.
But he hasn't been good in high leverage spots.
And again, like you're saying, like once it becomes second and third,
and once he walks Spencer Jones especially,
it's like he doesn't have it.
And at that point, how many pitches was he deep?
25, I think.
Yeah, somewhere around there.
So it's just like, dude, why are you running him into the ground?
You have Dominguez ready.
You have Bizarro ready.
do I like your odds of getting out of that situation?
You know,
better than rolling with,
you know,
Rucker the rest of the way there.
By a lot.
No.
No,
because Bizarro's been bad lately and Dominguez obviously has had issues as well.
No idea what's that.
But clearly Rucker doesn't have it.
Go to someone else.
See what happens.
Dominguez looked fine when he pitched the eighth.
So,
yeah,
it just,
again,
to make a huge difference.
Maybe not, but you have to chase those margins.
You have to chase those little two to three percent like increase in your odds by going
to your better pitchers in those spots.
And if you're not going to ever use Munoz before the ninth inning, then we obviously
brash is hurt and Gabe is down.
So like you don't really have that many leverage arms.
You have to utilize your leverage arms you do have at the right opportunity.
And Dan failed to do that again last night.
So just one of those things you worry about the eighth.
and then next thing you know, you get to the eighth and you're down four to one
and the game's over because you couldn't get through the seventh.
Like it's just, it's bad on all accounts.
So like even if you want a factor and like, oh, well, Gabe was down.
So like, you know, what are you going to?
And Wu only went five.
So he really didn't have any choice but to go to Rucker.
A, he did have a choice.
And he chose incorrectly.
And then B, he got like kind of a bailout opportunity.
Runners on second and third, one out, a big swing and miss guy at the plate.
I'm going to go to my swing and miss reliever out on the pen.
And if he gives up the three run Jimmy Jack, oh, well.
Like, I'm probably going to lose this anyways.
Instead, you stick with Rucker who walks him.
And then you still stick with him, knowing you need a strikeout.
If you're not going to use Munoz, your best strikeout guy in that bullpen is Sir Anthony Dominguez, like it or not.
That's the situation the Mariners are in.
And that's, you know, a strike against Jerry and Justin.
But again, we'll talk about that later.
Well, yeah.
It's just, oh, go ahead.
Go ahead.
It was just failure.
across the board. Like every level
like every logic step
that you make along the journey here,
it's a failure. Like,
should you,
should you have gone to Rucker? No.
Should he be stuck with Rucker? No.
Should he have gone to Bizarro
instead of Dominguez in a situation where you need to strike out?
No.
Like, even going back, like,
should Ferreira have been pulled after one inning?
No.
Yeah, I mean,
Ferreira was already in 19 pitches.
So I guess,
I guess I understand that.
But like,
I still this is where I go to the out of line but unfortunately correct in this case John Schneider
when asked about you know hey is is the way you're using the the Blue Jays bullpen right now is that
sustainable he basically said sustainable isn't a thing anymore like we have to win games
now and we can't worry about sustainability we have to win tonight's game and worry about
tomorrow tomorrow that's exactly where the Mariners are you don't get to worry about
what you're going to do on Wednesday or Thursday if you use for rare for for five outs you just
have to get the five outs like I'm sorry but you're in a position where essentially every game
is a playoff game for you because you have to I mean you don't have to run the table exactly
but you know what I mean you have to go on a run here and by the grace of God the rangers and the
Astros refuse to run away from you so you actually didn't lose any ground in the division last
night, but you don't get to do this whole like long term, oh, you know, well, we got to think
about the bigger picture here.
Nope, you don't get that right anymore.
I'm sorry, you lost it.
This is what you get for playing like, you know, the fifth worst team in baseball through
the first 120 games of the season.
You lose the right to have the patience.
You lose the right to think, have the long term vision.
Either you care about making the playoffs this year or you don't.
And if you do, you need to start expecting, you need to start expanding guys roles because you
have to best utilize the players you have.
And so, you know, the whole idea like, well, we don't want to push for rare because then we might not have them for the rest of the series.
Who cares? You got to win tonight's game. And then you figure out how to win it tomorrow.
Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And again, like, yeah, the onus is on the offense last night.
It's on the play on the field, the lack of execution. It's on Michael Rucker, right?
But you had a chance to win. You had a chance to win the game. You had a lead with not.
nine outs to get and you push the wrong buttons.
That still has to fall on Dan quite a bit.
It has to.
So Cal Raleigh after the game says,
quote, ultimately the players decide the outcomes of these games.
Obviously, Dan has the saying who comes in the game and he writes the line up and we
understand that.
But at the end of the day, those 26 guys have to be ready to play and rely on each other.
That's where the performance comes in.
Dan's not out there playing.
Edgar isn't out there playing.
Pete Woodworth is not out there pitching.
It comes down to the 26 guys in that locker room.
We can't point fingers.
We can't say it's Jerry's fault, Justin's fault or Dan's fault.
We can't.
It's not their fault.
It's our fault.
We're the ones that are underperforming and we have to accept that.
That's the tough reality of it.
As a leader of the team, I feel responsible.
I just have to do a better job of getting ready to go and being prepared and bringing that edge and
that readiness each night.
Look, I appreciate Cal trying to shoulder all of the blame there.
But yes, we can blame Dan a little bit.
We can blame Jerry and Justin a little bit because like, all right, you want to talk about, like,
oh, well, who's Dan supposed to go into it, go to you in that situation?
situation. Well, that's why you were supposed to go out and get like Lake Bacher at the deadline.
Yeah.
You know, so it goes back to the deadline and how it was reported that they wanted to go out and get another reliever, preferably two on deadline day after already adding Dominguez to the mix and then they got zero.
Yeah.
So that's on Jerry and Justin right there.
That's a Jerry and Justin problem for not giving Dan the tools that he needs.
And then it's on Dan for not pressing the right buttons in that situation for not for not, for not.
recognizing that, hey, Rucker, who sucks on the road, clearly doesn't have it tonight.
I need to try something else here.
And then pulling the trigger on that after the damage had already been done and after you had already lost the game, basically.
So, and that, look, I respect Dan as a man.
I respect his playing career, but he is a joke of a manager.
The decisions that he makes in some of these games, and this goes back to last year as well,
Game 7 of the ALCS, all of that, right?
And then the fact that he has like two things that he says to the media over and over and over again.
And guess what he said to start his press conference last night?
Yeah, another tough one tonight.
Dude, it's so disrespectful to us as fans, to the people that cover this team,
to the writers that travel cross country to cover that last night,
that, you know, lined up there in the halls of Yankee Stadium or where,
they held that press conference to get that sound bite.
The sound bite that he's given them, you know,
64 times this year.
That's how many games they've lost now, right?
Yeah, 64.
Yeah.
It's the same thing.
Every single night.
Yeah, another tough one tonight.
Yeah, that's just baseball.
Dude, you got to say something else, man.
Something.
Give us something.
When asked, why did they go to Rucker?
He said how we like the matchups.
What about them?
Dan.
What about the matchups did you like?
It's just, again, I have no doubt Dan Wilson cares.
I have no doubt that Dan Wilson is a smart guy.
I have no doubt that he is a good guy and I have no doubt that he is a Mariner legend
who should be overall celebrated.
But his brain as Mariners manager, particularly this year, has damaged his legacy
severely. It has hurt the 26-man roster. And, you know, just to throw this out there, because I know,
Ryan did a really good piece about, you know, why Dan's unlikely to be fired, you know, and all that.
Like, and a big crux of it is that the team really, really likes and respects, Dan. I'm sorry,
you guys are eight games under 500. Why would I care who you feel, how you feel about the manager?
Because clearly it's not working. So the, the players rushes.
and running all over themselves to defend Dan Wilson.
In a way, I get it.
But in another sense,
why would I care what you guys think?
You're not performing.
You're not, you're, you're bad.
You're bad baseball players right now.
I don't care if Cal Raleigh likes Dan Wilson because he's not performing right now.
Cal Raleigh shouldn't have a say in this right now.
Nobody in that locker room has earned the right to have any say over the future of Dan Wilson.
So they can sit here and be mad if they want,
if Dan gets fired.
Dan deserves to be fired.
Dan deserves to be fired.
He's not above criticism.
And sorry that if that hurts your feelings,
but that is the truth.
Dan Wilson is not an adequate manager, period.
That is a statement of fact.
Yeah, he pressed the wrong buttons that led to them not being able to go to their
first world series in team history.
And now he is spearheaded.
And again,
I don't think this is like, at most it's like 10% his fault,
10 to 15% is his fault,
but he's still spearheaded the most disappointing season
in Seattle Mariners history.
And this is how sports work.
You can't fire Cal Raleigh.
You can't fire Julio Rodriguez.
But the manager, the head coach, whoever,
they get fired when things go wrong,
run office, etc.
And Dan Wilson,
especially with just all the things that we just laid out.
And I have never said,
anything like this before on this show.
So you know it's bad when I say this.
Dan Wilson should be fired.
It's important for the Mariners to do that to show that this to them is unacceptable.
Yes.
That this level of play is unacceptable.
100%.
Because if you allow him to step down in the off season, that cheapens it, frankly.
It gives you an easy out.
Why do you want to ease now?
And frankly, it doesn't show that you're taking this serious enough.
No.
No. Dan Wilson needs to be fired.
So to wrap up here, I know you want to talk a little bit about firing the manager compared to firing the front office.
So we'll get into that in just a second.
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So Colby, you believe there's a pretty big difference between firing the manager versus
firing the front office.
What is that?
Or what are those differences?
Yeah.
A couple caveats here.
Hey, I know some of you will listen to this.
And even as I'm telling you this right now,
some of you will listen to this and say,
oh, you're saying don't fire Jerry, don't fire Justin.
I'm not.
Okay.
If the Mariners want to move on.
Look in those boots.
Yeah.
If the Mariners want to move on from those guys,
I'm fine with it.
you know, not going to hurt my feelings or anything like that.
I understand it.
So I would say this also, like this point I'm about to make is specifically because of the upcoming off season.
The reason why it's easier to fire the manager and why it may not be so easy to also fire Jerry and Justin at this stage is we're entering a lockout season.
and the Mariners have basically one month,
everybody in baseball really has basically one month
before the lockout hits from the end of the season to the lockout
to do most of the work of their offseason.
Because the overwhelming likelihood is by the time the lockout is lifted,
this offseason is going to be maybe two more weeks at most.
Like that's just the way it's going to work.
And we have the template of this.
We'd look at what happened last time there was a lockout.
there were a bunch of moves made, big moves made in November in the days leading up to the lockout.
I think we're going to see the same thing here.
So if you fire Dan, or sorry, if you fire Jerry and Justin, then the month of November becomes about replacing them.
And you're not making moves and you're falling further behind everybody else who is making moves.
Whereas if you fire Dan, you don't have to have a manager named by December 1st.
You can take all the time, you can take the entire lockout to find your manager and have this exhaustive.
search like you don't need a manager to run in the off season you don't he doesn't really do anything in
the off season so firing dan is easy because like hey if i don't hire a new manager which by the way
i can still do during the lockout it's not player acquisition i can just you know i can interview
bob melvin on december 15th and hire him as the manager on december 20th if i want you know like
nothing's going to prevent me from hiring the manager but if i spend two three weeks of
the four week off season trying to replace members of
of my front office, I've essentially taken my offseason and I've taken it down to one week,
maybe two at most. And that's not counting the guy who then has to go out and rebuild his front
office with all of his new employees. So it's just kind of one of those things where like firing
the manager, because of the particulars of this off season, are you willing to sacrifice
one full off season to fire Jerry and Justin and get them out of here? Some of you,
you maybe. I don't know that I am simply because Jerry and Justin on paper have done their job.
They put together a really good team and it hasn't worked.
I guess the counterpoint to the sacrificing the off season thing is do they even really
do anything during the off season anyway? So what's the difference?
Right. So but again, this is a team. It's going to have a little bit of money. I've already done
the math on a lot of the ARB. And again, I'm just projecting ARB there. But they're going to be
about 25 to 30 million under where they are right now, even after factoring all the raises
and all that stuff.
So, you know, they have some money to spend.
They have some obvious holes that they need to fill.
And there is nothing about this team or nothing about this franchise right now that says,
we're looking to reset it again.
Now, they're looking to kind of rework it and reload and then try to win again in 2027,
as they should be.
So again, it's like, look.
do Jerry and Justin do enough good things to wait one more year before you ultimately fire them if that's what you want to do?
Maybe they win 95 games next year.
And then you're not worried about firing them.
Like it's just it's a timing issue here.
How much time of your very limited window player acquisition do you want to spend interview?
Like everybody else is going to make moves.
Everybody is going to be in a rush to do things in November.
And if you're one of the teams that's hiring,
trying to hire a new front office,
you're going to fall behind other teams
who have their front office in place
and are already making moves.
So you can't,
you can't fire them and hire new people
like during the lockout?
I'm confused.
No, you can.
But again,
like let's say hypothetically,
you fire them on October 1st.
Uh-huh.
Right.
You fire them on October 1st.
You have three weeks,
give or take.
Oh, you're talking about pre-lockout.
Okay.
That's where I was getting confused.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
Because you can't make, you can't do the front office stuff.
You can't do that during the lockout.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The hiring of the staff, you can't do during the lockout.
Yeah, I get what you're saying now.
Yeah, so if you, so hypothetically, if you cleaned house, right, if you fired Dan and you
fired Jerry and you fired Justin, which I don't think both of those guys would go, by the way,
just, just throw that out there.
And I think probably one of them would say.
But if you did all that, right, like there is no timeline on which you have to hire your
manager. You take your time with that one. You have a lot of interviews. But when it comes to the
front office, you have until basically November 1st to have a GM in place to have your whole new
staff of analyst and assistant GMs and all that. You have to put all that together. You have one
month to do it before the offseason starts. And your off season is one month. Can you do it? Yes,
you can. I think you could. But it would be very, very difficult to get it all done. And you're going to
miss things in the meantime.
So it's just not quite as easy.
Again, I'm not saying don't do it.
Right.
It's just a little bit harder because of the, you know, what we are assuming is going
to be a very condensed off season.
And then somehow also very long off season for us fans.
But it just makes it just a little bit more difficult than the manager.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Again, if the mayors want to move on, fine.
I really don't have a problem with that.
just understand that it may come at the cost of having a decent offseason
just because of the situation that we're entering with the lockout.
I mean, the other thing that we need to at least acknowledge here is,
is ownership going to reduce payroll again because of the disappointing year?
Yeah.
And because of the lockout, that which might cost.
And because of the lockout.
Yeah.
Yep.
Very real possible.
Oh, we're so concerned about how this is going to impact.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah, I
Very real possibility.
Can't say I would be surprised if that was the case, which is very unfortunate.
And keep in mind that Jerry does like for all of his flaws, all of his flaws, and there are many.
He does do the one thing John Stan cares about the most.
And that is he builds a competitive team on a budget and then goes out there and takes the arrows from the press as to why this team is spending more money.
money. He is, he is, in a lot of ways, he is, he is, uh, Stan's like ideal GM because he's
confident enough to put a good team out there. He's confident enough to build a farm system.
He's actually really good at that. He makes big moves and the team has won in Stan's mind
enough to keep the fans coming back. Like the marriage are still like fourth in attendance this
year, like despite the, the terrible season they're having. So, uh, unfortunately.
you know, that's going to carry a lot of weight here.
So I do feel like Jerry is like the perfect John Stanton GM or baseball executive.
But also, you know, there's a point of diminishing return there.
And we talk about, you know, how the Mariners' GM job with a terrible owner, that's not going to be that appealing.
There's only 30 of these jobs.
Yeah.
And you still have a court, even with how this year has gotten, you still have a court full.
Rodriguez, Cal Raleigh.
You're not starting from zero.
You have a loaded farm system.
You can do basically whatever you want to do
as long as it works in the budget in terms of trades
and how you want to build the team and all that.
So yeah, it's a very appealing job,
even with the headache of ownership.
So again,
we'll see what they want to do.
But I, my,
my hunch is,
is that the front office
gets one more offseason because,
largely because of the lockout.
Yeah.
And I don't think largely because of the lockout.
I think they're going to they would get another season regardless, honestly.
Right.
And I'm not saying they, I'm not saying they should or they shouldn't.
Like if you want to fire, I either am I.
I just, that's my guess is that no matter what the situation is.
If you want, if you want new leadership in the front office, I understand it.
But also, you know, again, how do we feel about this team five months ago when it was put together?
felt pretty good about it.
On paper, it's a good team.
And that's really all the front office can do is put together a good team on paper.
And they've succeeded enough.
It's not like this is a continuation of like disappointment and just like the Mets, for example,
who just been disappointing three years in a row.
The Mariners have the mayor's front office has, you know, the fallback of like,
I mean, look how unlucky we've been this year and we're still in the playoff race.
and we were just a year removed from, you know,
being the second best team in the American League.
So again, that kind of glosses over all the warts of the current mayor in front office.
I understand that, but just to clarify, you know,
Dan Wilson should be gone.
The mayor should fire him, not let him resign, fire him.
The front office, I will hear arguments either way.
I think, you know, if they want to give him one more year, I'm fine with that.
If they wanted to move on, I'd be fine with that as well.
I think they're going to give them at least one more year.
though that would be my guess that's where I'm at yeah all right that's going to do it for our
show thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown mariner's podcast part of the lockdown
podcast network your team every day for colby pat node i'm tiding gzalas be sure to give us a follow
on twitter and l o underscore mariners you can follow me at tennas and colby at cpat 11 that's cpat
one one we're also on blue sky you can follow me at m lb colby in the show at locked on mariners you can also
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time. Peace.
