Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Cody Bellinger and the Mariners: Real Interest or Leverage For Scott Boras?

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

It's Mailbag Monday! Ty and Colby answer some of your questions, including whether or not the Mariners' reported "lurking" in Cody Bellinger's market is legit, which of Seattle's top-30 prospects could debut in 2024, if the team could trade Anthony DeSclafani, and more.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.Jase MedicalEmpower yourself when you purchase a Jase Case, providing you with a personal supply of 5 antibiotics that treat 50+ infections. Get yours today at jasemedical.com and use code LOCKEDON to get $20 off your order. 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.

We're a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting, so of course you guys have plenty of questions, and we'll answer a few of those on today's episode of the Lockdown Marrars 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. Ohoy, Sailors, it is Monday, January 15th, 2024. This is Tiding Azales and Colby Patnaud for the Locked on Marys podcast. Brought to you by Jace Medical. Empower yourself when you purchase.

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We love to hear from you. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider sending up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link, as well as our social accounts, is in the description of this episode. This is Mailbag Monday. The show will we answer your Mariners questions. Let's get into them. We're going to start with Mariners to the moon.

Who says, I'm sure that it's just leveraging by Scott Boris, but all offseason, national media has continually referenced the Mariners as being one of the teams who are in on Cody Bellinger despite their financial restrictions. Do you think there's any smoke there given the consistent linking? Has it been consistent linking? I feel like Nightingale yesterday says that they're lurking, which isn't even really linking them to the Mariners just that they're. I'm trying to remember, because I have heard Cody Bellinger and the Mariners, a couple of times from national reporters. I think Morosi was just speculating like he always says.

He was just yapping because that's what he does. I think FeinSand might have said something about them and Bellinger as well. At some point, I can't remember though. I'm not super clear on that. I don't know because like we know for a fact that like they were linked by multiple national people to like Garver and Insular. I don't remember that same kind of, you know, attention being paid to Bellinger. But regardless.

No, I don't think there's much of a shot here. I think what's pretty interesting is that I think it's more the years that Jerry's going to hold his nose up at. Because the report is that Bellinger wants like 8 and 200. And A, that's a huge risk considering the guy has had one good year out of the last three. And there are some troubling exevalo and batted ball data that suggests that last year was kind of fluky. So there are some issues there with Bellinger. So 8 and 200, that's not going to happen.

But apparently the league has agreed so far. It only takes one team, but no team has stepped up. And so I think, you know, maybe $25 million a year. If Jerry could get that for four years, five years, he might be interested. But then again, if you're Bellinger, like if you can only get a four or five year deal, why not just take a one year deal? and just go back to Chicago or, you know, Toronto where, you know, offensive environment is a little more friendly to you and just try and hit the market again next year after some of the RSN stuff is figured out.

So you just, there's a very fine line where I think like the number that Bellinger is willing to accept is not going to overlap with a number that Jerry Depoto is going to feel comfortable offering him. I don't think there's really any overlap there. you know, because I think if you're Bellinger, you want to hit the market ASAP if you're not going to get the long term like career to find in contract this one. And it doesn't seem like he's going to. So I mean, you could like theoretically, even with their limited payroll, if they have as much as we think they have, could they afford to pay Cody Bellinger. Yes. Yeah. They could fit them under the payroll. You could backload it. You can, you know, buyouts and opt out. That's one of the ways that you could use that money that you freed out. by trading Rotter. Right. Yeah. I mean, it pretty much

take everything you have for this year, almost certainly, but, you know, the longer the deal, the longer the deal, the more you could backload it.

So if it's like a seven, eight year deal, like, yeah, you could pay them like three million dollars this year and still have $10,

$15 million in theory. Right. But that's just not going to work. Like there's too many red flags on Bellinger, the player. There's too many obstacles on getting a contract

that Bellinger will accept that is acceptable. to the Mariners. I just don't see a way that they're going to get that done because there's too many obstacles to overcome. So, Ellenger is a pretty good fit. And obviously,

if they figure it out, uh, be pretty excited. It's a big swing. But I think more than anything, it's the years that are going to, you know, kind of deter the Mariners because,

you know, I was thinking about this the other day. How many, how many, uh, contracts have longer than five years is Jerry Depoto, given out in his tenure as Mariners GM? One guy.

Yeah. Julio. Yeah. Robbie Ray was five years. They were willing to go five years on Simian. They were willing to go five years on story. Yeah. That's it.

Castillo got five years. Like, it seems like five is kind of the cutoff for Jerry. And obviously that's, you know, that's fluid. That's, you know, fluid.

He will alter like for Julio. But, um, I just don't say, I don't think that, uh, I think once you get under, under five or six years,

Bellinger's out on the Mariners. and I think the Mariners are out of Bellinger when he gets over four or five years. Yeah, I think Mariners to the moon here is right that this is just a leverage play by Boris to put more pressure on the Cubs who seem to be essentially the front runner for Bellinger for him to return to Chicago.

They might be the only team. I mean, the Blue Jays also getting mentioned in that article makes more sense because we know that Bellinger has gone to visit Toronto with his wife. So I assume that he's met, with the Blue Jays in some capacity. So maybe it's also to a lesser degree

to put some pressure on the Blue Jays as well. I mean, maybe he's met with the Mariners, and they've actually had some discussions, and they've swapped numbers and all that, and we just don't know about it, and obviously the Mariners notoriously don't leak things. So maybe that's been going on behind the scene. Scott Borrously does.

Yeah, that's true, too. So that goes both ways. I just, I don't really see this happening, because, I think the only way that the Mariners would land Bellinger is if it's a one-year deal or it's a one-plus-one and they could manipulate the money a little bit that way by converting it into a buyout and all that, some of it into a buyout. But at that point, if his market gets to the point where he's actually open to taking a one-year deal,

then a lot more teams are going to be interested in that as well. So it's like what separates the Mariners from that pack. that's really my question there at that point. But yeah, I definitely see kind of where the league is assessing him right now, where it's, you know, 2021 and 2022, we're very concerning. We don't buy 2023, especially with some of the underlying numbers, like you mentioned, Colby. So we need to see you do it again. So I think at that point, yeah, I think a one-year deal for Bellinger makes some sense.

He can prove that he can do it again for yet another year. And maybe at that point, teams are going to be more open. to the six, seven, eight-year deals, the Bellinger next off-season. All right, we got more of your questions coming up here in just a moment, but first a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown, Marys podcast is brought to you

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and bring home that win. Keep your ride or die live at eBaymotors.com. Again, that is eBaymotors.com. eligible items only exclusions apply ebay guaranteed fit only available to us customers and you're listening to the locked on mirrors podcast thank you again for making us your first listen and as a reminder locked on 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 locked on sports today on youtube and subscribe to the first ever national National Sports 24-7 streaming channel, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team, every day. And this is Mailbag Monday. We're answering some of your Mariners questions. Alex wants to know, do you think an all right-handed pitching starting rotation is necessarily a bad thing? And if so, should the team be more aggressive about trading for a left-handed pitcher?

No. Next question. No, I mean, like if the righties all, you know, are very good, right? Like if you're if all of your righties are Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Brian Wu, Bryce Miller. You're in a good spot. I don't really care what their handedness is. You're not getting a worse starting pitcher, you know, because of handed. Like no, you get the five best guys you can or well, you need like seven or eight.

But you know what I mean? Like the five best guys are the start of the year. They're in your rotation and that's that. Yep. So don't worry about handed this. What do you think of the minor league deals, the end? signed this week. Could any of the players make a potential impact?

So we're talking about Kirby Sneed, Jonathan Diaz, I'm ignoring you, Corey Abbott. We'll also throw Mauricio Levera in there, even though he wasn't a minor league deal. He was a waiver claim, so he's a 40-man guy,

but we'll talk a little bit about those guys. Abbott's got a nice curveball, but not a lot of success at the major league level. We'll see what they do with that. You know, the thing that we always say with, relievers and the mariners is that you know they typically they identify

one thing that you're really good at and try to emphasize that even more so so I think with Abbott they're going to really hyper focus on the curveball with him um seed has a really nice slider um he I think he only

gave up like a 29.3% hard hit rate this year something like that so uh generates sweet contact uh probably should get him throw on the slider more maybe get away from the sinker and have him throw his four seamer more. Jonathan Diaz don't know much about him. I just think that he's kind of a camp body. There isn't really anything there that impresses me. And then Maricio Lavera, similar idea to Justin Topa, sinker slider guy. Did give up quite a bit of hard contact this year, but he missed barrels,

which is good. And he was able to keep the ball on the ground quite a bit. So yeah. Good slider shape kind of throws from a unique arm slot. It's not crazy or anything, but it's just a little bit different, a little bit different release point than most pitchers. No, I haven't seen anybody who I think is going to make an impact. And you forgot Michael Chavis, who probably has the best track record of all of them. Yeah, Michael Chavis, utility infielder for the most part. He has played some corner outfield, but.

not a lot. Yeah, solid defender. I can run the basis fairly well. Just hasn't been able to hit at all. 2019's his career year in that regard. And he was a 96 WRC plus guy. So he was slightly below average in his career year offensively. Yeah, you know, he's probably this year's Colin Moran.

Sure. But I, you know, I haven't seen anybody yet that I'm looking at. And I'm going like, oh, that could be your Mike Ford this year. Maybe that guy is Mike Ford, by the way. So hasn't signed. So, yeah. Um, yeah, based on who they've signed so far, nobody's really jumped out. No, they all just kind of seem like camp bodies and triple A debt to me.

But with the pitchers, you never know. Yep. You never know. You never know. All right. Patrick wants to know, what kind of return could trading Anthony Descliffeani get the M's and would they have to eat some of his contract? Uh, yes. And that's like the reason that you would, uh, trade Descalfani is to get rid of as much money as possible.

there's really no prize to trading Descliffeani other than getting as much money off of your books as possible if they feel the need to do that. Right. Again, you know, going back to the start of the show, if you need a couple of extra million to comfortably sign Cody Bellinger, yeah, trade Anthony Desclafani. And I think with how much money like number fives are signing for, you know, they're signing for roughly $8 to $10 million in this. market right now. I think there will be teams that are interested in Descliffeani, especially if the Mariners are willing to eat half, make him essentially like a $5, $6 million pitcher for whoever requires them. I think there will be some interest in that. But I also think the Mariners do see some value in him as they're,

essentially their six-starters swing man type out of the bullpen. And I think that, you know, they're more than willing to hold on to that if they don't really get a deal that they like that. allows them, you know, or if they, if they don't really see any practicality to freeing up that money. Yeah. So basically there's three type of trades you can make with Desclyphani. You could either eat, you know, a good chunk of that salary. Yeah. But at some point, you're eating so much and you're losing the valuable role that it just makes more sense just to keep them.

Because you're not getting anything of significance for Desclafani. No. So either you, you know, eat most of that money. You get like a 28-year-old. old double a prospect. And now you have to go out and get a number six starter, which is probably going to cost you roughly the amount that you saved. So there's a problem with that. The second option is that you could try and trade him for another high price contract and, you know, just kind of a either a bad contract swap or, you know, just you use him to pay down the price of another guy that you're trying to acquire.

For example, Josh Bell is making $16 million. The mayor is one, Josh Bell, they trade Descliffeani, and now Josh Bell is only a plus $4 million player for them. Not that that makes any sense. Of course, Miami doesn't need pitching, but you get the point. The third way is probably going to be the least popular way, and that's that you attach another good player to Desclavani to move his salary, the Jared Kelnick method.

So, yeah, that one didn't go over too well last time. So I doubt they're going to do that again. all three of those are highly unlikely because, again, you can't really find the bad contract swap you want to make. So I think if you're going to trade Desclafani for anything that makes it worth trading him for, you're going to have to attach a pretty good prospect or a pretty good young player to the deal. So I just don't see a point, you know, unless they really think Desclafani is cooked and they just want to, some teams out there willing to, you know, pay Desclavani six million bucks and you just say,

okay, here, you can have them. Or again, they feel that they need the $6 million to help them get, again, for just the sake of the example, Cody Bellinger. And they'll just take the 28-year-old double-A prospect, like you said, and take that $6 million and go give it to Cody Bellinger, right? They'll just trade Chris Flexen for Taylor Muck and Hearn. Right. Yeah, it's basically. Basically just be that. So I think that should be on the table for them, depending on what waters they're swimming in.

It should be. I mean, it's probably something they would like to do. But again, they still have to go and replace that role. Like Desclyfani's role is actually an important one. And the marriage just don't really have an answer there. So yeah. Yeah. All right.

So we got a few more of your questions coming up here in just a moment. But once again, this episode of the Lockdown Marries podcast is brought to you by Jace Medical. So I know we looked at sports to escape from some of the, you know, the crazy realities of real life. But can we talk just for a minute? about actually preparing for real life, because I can't imagine a more helpless feeling than, you know, for example, if a loved one of mine got sick while a supply chain issue was all that was keeping them from the life-saving medication they needed. But thankfully, we'll be okay because of Jace Medical.

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And you're listening to the Lockdown Marys podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen here on Mailbag Monday. We're going to continue here with Connor. How many of Seattle's top 30 MLB pipeline prospects can we realistically expect debuts from in 2024? We've answered some form of this question a lot this offseason about who we could see come up from the farm. but specifically looking at pipelines list. I'm actually going to bring that up right now for the Mariners. I think there's like five guys because you're also asking about debuts, right?

So I think like Perlonder Borough doesn't count. Tyadcock doesn't count here. So looking at the names on here, Blake Hunt, Jimmy Joyce, potentially, Zach DeLoch, Ryan Bliss Tyler Locklear Yep I think that's it I think that's it

I don't think we're going to see Alberto Rodriguez or anyone like that And then again like we like we've said You know Cole Young kills it again this year Maybe maybe in August or September We'll see him But he's going to have to have another year

Like the one that he's coming off of Dollar's kind of the X factor here You have to kind of figure out how he's doing On his major shoulder injury And if the mergers think that he's healthy, he could be that Desclaphani replacement. So it's just do you want to have Desclaphany or do you want to have Dollar and Hancock as you're like six, seven when both of those guys have had shoulder issues? Like recently, that's risky. So yeah, just based on the top 30, like and not counting guys who've already made their debut, maybe Claise, but he's got a lot of luck to do.

Maybe Claise. but Locklear probably Bliss, yeah, probably at some point. Yeah, then it's Dollar, Deloche, Joyce, and Hunt, I think. Not a ton this year. Next year, it's going to be a different story because

next year we're probably talking about we're probably talking about Emerson having a shot even, but we're talking about Ford, we're talking about young, we're talking pretty much most of the top 10th. I mean, at that point, certainly Clause, if these guys are still here, obviously.

Gonzalez might make sense at some point in 2025. So yeah, next year is kind of the year where these guys can, where a lot of guys can make a jump and help you. But this year, a lot of role players. Class A definitely makes a lot of sense in terms of, you know,

and this depends on how his year goes, but like he makes a lot of sense just at least, you know, from a, you know, September expansion, roster expansion standpoint. Fifth, six outfielder who can, you know,

still you a bag in a certain situation. if you need them to. Same with like if you have a playoff, you know, if you make it to the playoffs, you could put Jonathan Klossay on your playoff roster and he probably helps you at some point. So, um, yeah,

so I don't know, six, seven guys on the pipeline, uh, top 30 that can potentially make their debut this year. So keep an eye on those guys. All right. Next question here from Kip.

Has your outlook on ownership changed any with teams like Texas, also holding back, on spending due to cable deals. No, not at all, not whatsoever. Just because other teams are doing it doesn't make the actions of Mariners ownership less bad. Nope, a group of bad people is still a group of bad people. It's just part for the course with MLB owners for the most part,

who showed us their true colors. If we hadn't already seen them before, they showed us their true colors during the pandemic, during all those negotiations in terms of ramping the season back up, the next year with the lockout, all that. Yeah, just, yeah, we, we know what they're about. We know what their bottom line is. We, we know what their main goal is, at least most of them.

Sure. The owners do not care about you. They do not care about baseball. They care about their bottom line. And just because most of them are that way doesn't mean that we don't get to criticize John Stanton. Right. Yeah, I think the only thing that this says is, you know, this isn't a problem that's

exclusive to the Mariners. this is a leak-wide issue that, you know, should be addressed. Probably never will be, though. No. Even Rob Manfred knows that this should be addressed. Yeah. He's just powerless to do anything about it. Yeah.

All right. Last question here from Christopher. Would love for y'all to talk more about international signing, its significance, and the process. Basically, it's South America and Latin America. technically you can be involved in this if you're from Japan or Korea, but most of the time those guys play in their league for a couple years. So usually it's just kind of central in South America, free agents. Teenagers older than 16 by, you know, date X.

I'm not sure what it is. But they're typically now 16 and 17 when they sign. They're free agents. They're free to sign with anybody. every team has a bonus pool, just like they do for the MLB draft. There are penalties if you exceed it. But basically,

you can sign as many guys as you can fit in that bonus pool. And there is no limit to the size of the contract you can give, big or small. If you want to sign a guy, a teenager to $5,000, you can do that. I'm pretty sure how they got $5,000, like at an open tryout.

So you can sometimes find gems like that. But yeah, It's pretty much It's really a cedey Like scummy type of adventure too Like these teenagers They're they're you know Picked for like these academies at like 1112

They have handlers They basically have these agreements in place for Yeah like from 12 13 years old I mean Starlin Aguilar is one of the names More recent names that come to mind where I remember seeing pictures of him And Mariners gear years ago Right. Typically, you kind of, it's about relationships down there, right? You get in good with a trainer, like an actual, like a trainer who at an academy and they kind of nudge their, you know, their impressionable young kid to take that money. And then they usually get a kick back, basically for acting like the kid's agent. Technically, you can't sign until you're 16, but, you know, you can, you can exchange numbers and have handshake agreements at 14 years old, 15 years old.

15 years old. It happens all the time. And basically, we know who everybody's going to sign with a couple of years in advance because there's like this handshake agreement amongst every team in baseball that you don't poach another team's guys. So once the 14-year-old decides he wants to play for Team X, again, at 14 years old, basically there's an agreement from everybody else that you stay away from that player. So it's it's not a good thing. It's an important thing, but it's not good.

It's not well regulated. A lot of these kids, they get taken advantage of. They get bad advice. They get locked into these decisions. Imagine how different, like, think about when you were 14 and when you were 17, like how much different you were in between those two ages. It doesn't matter these kids. They said they wanted to be a Padre when they were 14.

So no other team's going to offer them a contract. So they're just stuck being a Padre, right? Or a Ray or whatever. So, yeah, it's pretty standard, right? You can sign anybody you want. I think Australia is technically also a part of this, but typically it's central, South America, the Caribbean, those countries. You can sign anybody who's over the age of 16.

Yeah, pretty much anybody who's over the age of 16. Every team has a bonus pool that they know about, and that's the pool of money they use to sign these guys. you can go over, but there are penalties. You could spend none of it. It's pretty wide open. I just, I choose not to follow it. It's just, it's kind of gross, honestly.

All right, that is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast for Colby Patnode. I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat-11. 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.