Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Could the Seattle Mariners Trade For Juan Soto?

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss whether or not the Mariners can avoid being swept by the Blue Jays, why Steven Souza Jr. should be cut from the team and if a trade for Juan Soto is possible.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/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Did you know every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONMLB. 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.

Mariners are going to have to try and avoid getting swept by Kevin Gossman and the Blue Jays tonight. We're also talking Juan Soto trades and unfortunately Stephen Sousa Jr. on today's episode of Locked on Mariners. 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, May 18th, 2020, and this is the Locked on Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first.

of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. I am your host, Taday Gonzalez, reporter and editor over at all Seahawks.com. Joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L-O- underscore Mariners. You follow me at Dane Gonzalez, that's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-E-P-E-P-A-T-E-N-E-L-Z. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we'd talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk

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subscribe button, turn on the notification bell, and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly appreciate it. So we're going to be talking about the game going on tonight as the Mariners look to avoid getting swept with Marco Gonzalez on the bump. They're going up against Kevin Gosman, who's been brilliant so far this year.

We're also going to be talking about Juan Soto and maybe if there's a possibility that the Mariners could get involved in his trade market because Buster only of ESPN reporting today that the Nationals might be open to trading him this summer, so we'll be talking about that a little bit. And we're also going to be talking about Stephen Sousa, Jr., who was definitely the talk of Mariners' Twitter last night for a variety of reasons.

We'll be getting into all of that later on in the show. But first, let's get into this game. The Mariners have just been flat out outplayed by the Toronto Blue Jays last couple days. Um, just the hitting has gone absolutely quiet again after busting out a little bit on Sunday, New York. Uh, they get shut out for the sixth time this season last night. Against Jose Barrios and company. Uh, they weren't able to do anything against you say Kikuchi either. Only got a couple runs in that game, basically in garbage time.

Uh, they got Marco Gonzalez on the bump, though, who has been kind of the giant killer for the Mariners, if you will. He's been kind of up and down this year, but he's gone up against the Astros, had a great start against the Astros and then went toe to toe with Max Scherzer and gave the Mariners a chance to win in that game. Now he goes against Kevin Gossman, who's arguably been the best pitcher in baseball this year for the BJs. So, Marco, against this lineup, what are you feeling, Colby? Not good. The whole righty thing doesn't scare me as much. You know, Marco right now is kind of living off the changeup. It's his best pitch and the change up in theory should be more effective against righties than lefties.

At least that's what we were always taught. What's the case? But it's just, it's one of those things where you kind of look at Marco's numbers overall this year. Still a little iffy. We never really know which Marco we're going to get. The, you know, the 338 ERA is nice. the 5-6-4 XERA is not. And just based on watching this offense for the last three, four weeks now,

he has to be almost perfect unless it's one of those rare games where, surprise, the Mariners score five or six runs. Seems unlikely with Gossmann on the mound. So, yeah, it's a little concerning because Marco has to be so pinpoint and accurate. Can you do it in back-to-back starts? I mean, that's going to be tough. So I'm not overly confident in this one. The change-up is going to be the key pitch here.

Again, the Blue Jays will expand the zone. They will chase because they are a very aggressive team. They love to hit the fastball. Marco, you know, he doesn't really have a fastball. So the change-up is going to be key for him to get these guys out. You want to see a lot of first-pitch swings. You want to see a lot of ground balls. guys out in front of that change-up,

and then you want to see Marco bust them inside with the cutter. It'd be helpful if the Empire had a bigger zone tonight. But, yeah, you just, you know, we know what the formula for success is for Marco. Get in on the righties with the cutter, away with the change-up. Stay out of hitters counts, and, you know, just kind of do what you can to limit damage

when those opportunities present themselves. and hope that your offense can pick up any kind of slack. So, you know, it's unfortunate that I don't have high hopes about Marco winning the start, and it doesn't really have much to do with Marco himself. Yeah. And if you're a Mariners hitter and you're stepping up to the plate and you have bases loaded or a couple of runners in scoring position with less than two outs, maybe try elevating the ball.

I think that would be a good plan instead of, you know, completely whiffing or just putting it on the ground of Bill Bichette, which has happened too many times, to start this season. It happened again last night with a particular human being that we're going to be talking about later today. Yeah, it's been really frustrating. I don't know if I'm cursing the Mariners with my presence

or if this is just who the mariners are, and I mean, considering what we've seen out of the Mariners, this kind of looks like who the Mariners are right now. It's both. Let's say it's equally split 50-50. How about that? I'll take that. Like 85% you.

Yeah, Gossman is going to be tough, man. He is 100th percentile in chase rate. And yet he's 99th percentile in Wacht's image. Like he is, he throw strikes, he gets you to swing a pitches outside of the zone, 86 percentile and lift rate. Really, there's no weakness here. Gossman's been great. The numbers are all legit.

You know, he's going to throw the fastball up, but also is going to come to the splitter. So I think if you're the Mariners, your best shot is to just, I mean, you kind of just have to pick one pitch and hope you get it. Statistically speaking, it's probably the fastball, but if you're going to sit fastball the entire night. Gossman's going to throw that splitter and you're going to look foolish a lot. But maybe, just maybe, you guess right enough that you can put some hard contact out there and score a couple runs and get to a Blue Jays bullpen, which isn't very good.

But Seattle has not been able to take advantage of that either. Yeah, they had another opportunity last night against David Phelps, Mariners legend. David Phelps, of course, the reason why Pablo Lopez is now throwing baseballs for the Miami Marlins, unfortunately. Yeah, couldn't take advantage of that. They got into the bullpen after Kikuchi's six innings the other night. Couldn't do anything against them until it was far too late.

Yeah, this is a bullpen that you need to take advantage of, and they just haven't. They haven't taken advantage of any, you know, favorable matchups. You know, burios going into the last night's start. I'd given up six runs and five runs in each of his last two starts. And, you know, Kikuchi, I mean, we all know who you say Kikuchi is. couldn't take advantage of him either so yeah I just who knows at least burrios had like good stuff last night like yeah he was dotting the outside corner with a two seamer that was like 95 and it moved like 12 inches every time like it's like okay like yeah whereas cacucci was thrown

97 but it was middle of the plate and they were either looking at it or swinging through it like it was the cacucci start to me was much more frustrating than the burrito start but it doesn't mean the brillo start wasn't frustrating as well so it's very frustrating very frustrating and a big reason for that frustration was stephen suza junior of course we're going to be talking about him in just a moment but real quick a reminder this episode of locked on mariners is brought to you by linkedin with spring in the air it's a time of renewal and growth personally and professionally as your small business grows LinkedIn jobs is here to make it easier to find the people you want to talk to faster and for free

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Did you know every week nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash locked on MLB. That's LinkedIn.com slash locked on MLB to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day for your next listen. Check out the Lockdown Now podcast with recaps of MLB games with analysis from our local experts. Taking fans through the season like no other network. It is free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. So I was sitting front row near the Wrightfield foul pole. And so I was very much in the thick of Stephen Sousa Jr.'s night. Before the, you know, the diving catch that wasn't before the double

play. The fans in right field were, you know, giving him a normal time that you would see for a visiting outfielder. You know, they're chanting his name. They're booing him. They're telling him he sucks, all that stuff. Whatever. But, you know, he had been listening to that all night. And then obviously, grounded into the double

play and it just got worse. The heckling got worse and worse and worse. And then, you know, Springer hits the number into right and he takes an awful just truly, truly awful route to the ball and makes a terrible dive-in attempt which allows all three runs to score, Springer gets a triple,

the rest is history. The next inning after warm-ups sues a, through a ball into the stands. And the thing with the Rogers Center for those that may not know or may not notice on TV, it's a little difficult to pick up on TV,

but there's a pretty big device. between the bullpen and the actual right field wall where the stands are so to throw a ball into the stands you got to put a little something on it So he threw it into the section which was a couple sections over over for me And that was the section that was heckling him all night He threw the ball into the stands and I didn't see it at the time but I heard pretty quickly like hey someone over there is hurt so soon I hit a hit a fan I don't know where I would assume in the face, but that's not a confirmation or anything for me.

But the fan was hurt. As you may have seen on the broadcast, there was an ambulance that was coming around the stadium that I presume took away the person that was hurt. And I do want to say that I don't think it was intentional, just the way that he was doing it. It seems like just how anyone else would throw a ball into the stands. But also considering the fact that it was into the second. that was heckling him all night. It's a little strange.

There's also that clip that came out of him last night from back when he was with the race talking about, you know, hurting Toronto fans on purpose and his experience with Toronto fans in particular. So there might be some bad blood behind that as well. The point of saying this is that Stephen Sousa had a

terrible, awful, no-good night last night he shouldn't be on the Mariners, quite frankly. He gives them nothing. He did nothing well for them last night. He caused him through runs with his bad route on that fly ball from Springer. And he cost them even more runs with his double play when he was up to bat the inning before that or the half inning before that. And then on top of that, you know, of course hurts the fan.

and then also had a interesting tweet that he tweeted just an hour and a half before the game, which I don't know about you, Colby, but I don't know if I want my players on Twitter an hour and a half before they're supposed to be playing in a professional baseball game, at least replying to people in tweeting.

And his response, I mean, we don't need to spend a ton of time on this, but his response was to a, But to a tweet, calling kindergarten teachers. Well, I don't know a polite way to say this. You can find the tweet. It's surprisingly he has not deleted it, which should tell you everything you need to know. Not that it would matter.

It's out there. It's easy to find. By the way, I don't know if you also saw this because you were at the game last night, but somebody dug up an interview that Sousa did where he admitted to intentionally diving into the stand. so that he can elbow a Blue Jays fan in the face when he was with Tampa. So yeah, a great night for him.

You know, the tweet personally, I think he's a scumbag for saying it. I think it's embarrassing that the Mariners haven't DFAed him for that alone. They've had, you know, a day now. They know about it. They've done their research on it. I'm sure they know. They know. They can't see here and say, oh, well, we never saw it.

Yeah, he did. Shame on them for continuing to employ that man. shame on the Seattle media for not asking questions about it. Where were the questions? I didn't see, I didn't hear a single reporter ask, ask a question about it. And it's not because I want Scott's service to defend or not defend Stephen Susan Jr. That's not what I'm asking. I wanted to be put on the public record so that they know, that we know.

And we deserve answers because that's a despicable thing to tweet. Aside from that, the guy, like you said, gives you absolutely. nothing. Bad defender, bad hitter, bad dude. Why is he here? Yeah, agreed. So this also leads into the conversation of like Jerry Kellnick, sending Kellnick down to bring up Susa. There was some people on Twitter last night saying, well, Kellnick could have done this and Kelnick died for this and all this, you know, all these memes and everything. I'll say this about that particular situation. These two things don't have to be. mutually exclusive.

Steven Sousa can not belong on the team, and Jerek Kelnick could also still need AAA, right? They just need to have someone different out there than Steven Souser Jr. Kelnik needs AAA. There is no doubt about that. This is not a reason to call Kelnik back up or anything of that nature. He needs AAA.

Even though that he defensively, he definitely probably would have made that. I play in Toronto. Defensively, he's been great in right field. But to fix him at the plate, he needs AAA. And that doesn't change just because Stephen Sue is a junior is bad for the team. They just need someone else.

This is why we talked about acquiring an outfielder. And Kyle Lewis is not the answer here. We will reiterate this time and time again that Lewis, anything that you get from him is a bonus because you just can't depend on him to be able to play in the field consistently. He hasn't been able to do that down in Tacoma. He's been deaching quite a bit and he hasn't responded super well to play in the field multiple times in a row.

So the answer is not Stephen Sousa. It's not Kyle Lewis and it's not Jared Kelnick. And all those things can be right. And this is why we have talked for the last couple episodes about trades, about trade possibilities for the outfield because they need to do something here. They need more probability and they need to get this scumbag off the team. Yeah. Yeah.

Again, none of those guys are answers well. Today they're trying Adam Fraser out in right field. Toro's playing second. Frazier is okay out there. He's certainly not going to be significantly worse than Susa. And even if he doesn't catch that ball last night, you know what he's not doing? He's not diving and costing the team three runs. he's going to cost the team one run because he's going to play that ball in the bounce like you should,

unless you're absolutely certain you can get there. You have Dylan Moore on this roster for some reason still. Might as well use him. He's at least going to hit the ball hard on occasion. You have Billy Hamilton still sitting down there. In AAA, you have Sam Hagarty, who's working his way back right now. Again, if you're not going to go out and get a trade guy, which you should, then it just doesn't matter because Sousa is not so much.

better than any of those guys we just named that you just can't afford to be without him. He's not. But, yeah, it would be great if Lewis could be the answer. It would be a very easy and simple swap. He's not. You cannot rely on Kyle Lewis to play in the field once a week, let alone two or three times a week. So, you know, it's nice that Lewis is in the lineup back-to-back days, a day game after a night game, too. That's a good sign.

Both have been at DH. And I believe he's played one game in the field. It's just, it's not an option right now. So it doesn't matter who it is. It just, it shouldn't be Sousa. The guy just hasn't produced. And then now we, he had a rough night off the field. And then some of that is his own fault.

Some of it may have been accidental. But again, you just kind of add the preponderance of the evidence together. And you kind of look at it and you go, you know, Susa's probably not a fit for, for, for, yeah, on the field. the field, his inappropriate comments, his, you know, his poor play on the field is just none of it is good. There is no benefit of having Steven Sousa on the Mariners anymore. And arguably there never was, right? Not to mention the dude hasn't been good since 2017. Well, that, yeah, that's exactly the point, right? Like, even let's put all our feelings aside about the tweet, right? Like, the guy just

straight up just isn't a good baseball player like he's not he's not he doesn't help you he doesn't help you if this was 2017 maybe but this isn't 2017 this is 2022 five years of past half decade he's not good anymore he's he's bad

he's a bad outfielder defensively and clearly as we all saw last night he can't come through offensively either he had a single when it didn't matter right and it was it knocked the crap out of it too yeah

Yeah. Because that bats are poor. It just, he brings nothing to the table. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. And he's a distraction now. Yeah.

And it just, it doesn't matter that he's from Washington. I do not care. I could not care less. There is no, there is nothing about Stephen Sousa that is, um, worthy of being a Seattle mariner.

Yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much. And, I, uh, you know, I just want to reiterate. I'm,

I'm disappointed in the, organization for not saying anything. Yeah. And I'm disappointed in the Seattle media for not asking Scott about. Now, maybe they've asked you on the scenes. So I don't want to sit here and say that they don't care. But I don't, A, I don't believe that none of them saw it. And B, I don't believe that any of them thought that it would be inappropriate to ask.

That's your job, to ask tough questions. And they didn't. And they kind of gave the marriage a free pass. and Susa Jr. is still on the team today. I don't care, but that's because, well, you know, we're going to cut him tomorrow when we're out of Toronto and we can get some of our guys back. I don't care.

Don't care. Play with 24 guys. Get the dude off the team. He's not worthy to be a Seattle Mariner, so I don't want him around. And it's, it's disappointed that the Mariners are basically trying to ignore this, or their silence speaks volumes. Let's just put it that way. And the press corps that is in Toronto, it's not a good look for them either.

But again, I don't know what they asked behind the scenes. I don't know if they're working on it, you know, for a bigger story or whatever. I don't know. But nobody asked last night that I heard. So that's disappointing. Yeah, it's really disappointing. I know if, you know, a certain Major League ball club had credentialed me for this particular event, like I thought was going to happen.

and I would have asked about it. Absolutely. You know, but... By the way, it is what a... The ball club is not the Mariners that you're referring to. No, that is not the ball club. Yeah, no. For those that don't know, credentials are based on the stadium,

not the organization that you're looking to cover. So, yeah. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's... It's a really disheartening situation, and it just adds more to the disappointment of the start of the season in general. Yeah. It's just, it's taken a lot out of me this season. It's taken a lot of the, just the hope that I had for this team, the love that I, you know,

and I still love this team dearly. But like this particular group right now is just, it's frustrating. They're frustrating from top to bottom right now. And I do still believe in general, from just a pure success standpoint that they are going to get things back on track here. You know, they were in a pretty similar situation to this last May, and they were able to bounce back from that. It's just another annoying thing that you have to deal with.

Yeah, it's just another annoying thing. It's just another disheartening thing. It's just it's more fuel to the depression that has been caused by this team thus far through the first six or so weeks of the season. But hoping things get back on track. Let's lighten the mood here, though, and talk about a trade that will almost certainly never happen for the Mariners, but why not?

Let's dare to dream a little bit. We're going to be talking about one Soto in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Bill Bar. Imagine dipping your finger into that plastic tub of birthday cake frosting and then opening your eyes and realizing that was only 150 calories and 16 grams of protein. That's what it's like to eat a birthday cake puff from Bill. I just received my birthday cake puffs and I have never had anything like this before. They're available right now and we can't promise that they will be there tomorrow.

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Again, that's LLCKED 15% off your order at built.com. So earlier this morning, Buster Olney of ESPN kind of set the baseball Twitter on fire. a little bit with the report saying that Juan Soto might be on the move this summer. The nationals might actually be interested in trading away one of the best players in all of baseball right now. And of course, they kind of did that last year as well with Trey Turner and Max Scherzer.

They clearly have no intentions of winning now or anytime soon. And they did, of course, you know, make a contract extension offer to Soto this offseason that. he declined. He's betting on himself that he's going to be able to earn more money than he was offered. And frankly, I don't blame him for that. He probably will if he continues to play the way that he has. But if he does get moved, let's not beat around the bush here. We're not going to just list a bunch of names that we would trade for Juan Soto who's not Julio Rodriguez. Because I think you and I both agree that we would not trade Julio Rodriguez and a deal for Juan Soto. So let me ask you this. Could the Mariners actually get one Soto without including Julio Rodriguez in a package? In theory, yes. Okay.

In practicality, no. It's kind of tough. Soto is presumably if they trade him in July. He's going to have, I think, two and a half years of club control left. Yes. So it's going to be experienced. Very expensive. Very expensive. And the Mariners are, or the nationals are going to cash in. They're not going to trade, you know, arguably the best hitter in baseball for chump change. I mean, it's probably going to cost you two elite minor leaguers and maybe even a young major leaguer. So I mean, like, we could talk about would you trade Noel V Marte and either Logan Gilroy? or and George Kirby or sorry, Marte either Gilbert or Kirby and Kelnick and Brash.

Like that's probably what it would take. Is that worth it for Seattle? I mean, Soto is really good. But for two and a half years, you just gave up six years of Marte. Let's say it's Kirby, six years of Kirby, five years of Kellnick and six years of Brash. So you just gave up 23 years of, you know, a guy who is right now, or at least a number four starter, at least an everyday infielder, a former top prospect who was only 400 at-bats into his big league career.

And an insanely, a pitcher with insane stuff who, you know, is basically major league ready. Like, that's a lot. You're giving up quite a bit. now you have to go out and replace each of those guys for the Juan Soto trade to make sense. And now we also have to assume that you're not signing Wonsoto to an extension. I mean, it's- That doesn't play into the equation at all.

No, not whatsoever. And even if that was something you were interested in, it's $400 million. That's the starting point, at least. He's only 23, 24 years old right now. Yeah, because what was the deal that he declined? It was like 350? I think it was 10 and 350. So look, I would be thrilled to have Juan Soto.

I think the cost it would take for the Mariners to acquire him would outweigh the benefit of actually trading for him. And I know that's kind of a weird thing to say. We're talking about like some literally probably the best hitter in Major League Baseball, probably the best pure hitter in the league. and he's in his prime still or it's possibly he's even entered his prime he's he's literally twinkle he's two years older than Julio baseball and he has been for four years parts of five years now like it's it's it's insane I don't think it's worth it to the mariners because they have to replace all those other guys and their farm system well very good

and maybe the best in baseball isn't deep enough to absorb that hit because Because how are you going to like Martefine? Whatever. If you want to trade Marteafine, he's not going to be in the big leagues for a couple of years. But because of that, you're going to have to give up Gilbert or Kirby. That is a cheap mid-rotation starter who has upside to be a number one. You're going to have to give up Kelmick, who still has the upside to be an all-star. And you're going to have to get an interesting piece like Matt Brash for two and a half years of Soto.

I think you're, I think you're cramming your entire window. into the last two and a half years of Juan Soto. And if you do that type of trade, you're probably going to have to eliminate the rest of this year as one of those windows because now you have to go out and you have to trade for a pitcher better than Logan Gilbert. Right. Like it's just, I don't see it.

I think, I just don't think it's going to be a fit for Seattle. Counterpoint. Counterpoint. It's Juan Soto. I mean, it is one. Soto. He's very good at baseball. But as we have seen with the nationals,

he cannot carry a team by himself. No, no. No one can, obviously. But like, you make that move. And to your point, you're going to still have to fill other needs. Yes, you're going to have Wann Soto. That's great. You're going to have Jesse Winker. That's great. You're going to have Thai France. You're going to have Julio Rodriguez, etc. That's all great, but you still have holes in this team, especially if you trade Kirby and Kelnick eventually.

And, you know, well, I mean, the Kelnick part is fine because, I mean, in a way, you're kind of replacing Kelnick with Soto in this situation. But on top of that, you're also given away Noel V. Marte. It's a big trade ship that could help you fill other needs. George Kirby, who, you know, could be a big part of your rotation or be a big trade. chip for filling one of your other needs. And then Matt Brash, you know, etc. Whoever it is, right? Harry Ford, Emerson Hancock.

Doesn't matter. All these guys, these are massive trade chips that now you're going to be losing to fill, you know, that could help you fill other needs. I just don't know if the mariners, the way that the mariners are going to be good eventually, the way that if the mariners ever get to a point where they're actually contained for a world series within the next two, three, four years. They're not going to be doing it by acquiring one big superstar. They're going to have to do with the route that

they've kind of done it now where they're getting really good players who you've really never heard of. You know, the guys like Ty France and J.B. Crawford and Jesse Winker who are very good baseball players, but the national spotlight doesn't really shine on.

That's how the Mariners are going to have to make this work. And yeah, there's going to be some recognizable names that they acquire a the way but there's I don't think that they're ever going to land that big fish that big superstar because especially via trade because it's just going to be so constricting of your farm system right now especially as the farm system gets weaker as guys graduate and everything it's just by the way Julio Rodriguez graduated yesterday for prospects status he is no longer a prospect but yeah this it's just you're taking more bullets away and one

swing and it's not going to fix the problem. It's going to fix a problem, a major problem, in a big way too, but it's not going to fix everything for you. You're still in a pretty big hole there. No, I mean, I think honestly like, and again, I'm guessing at the package for all we know,

the nationals are like, oh yeah, we want Kirby and Gilbert. You could keep No Avi Marte. We want the two pitchers. Sure. I mean, that's no. Yeah. Because what are, what, if you trade those two guys, are you even winning more games this year? was then you would without Soto.

I don't think so. Soto's going to be a six, seven, eight win player. Gilbert's probably going to be four. Kirby's probably going to be two. So maybe you win two extra games on paper, except now those two pitcher spots are filled by who, Justice Sheffield and Matt Prash. It's a wash.

I mean, at best. Yeah, you would need to get like a, yeah, you would need to get like a pitcher back from the, from the nationals, but they don't really have pitching to offer. So it's like Joe Ross, really? You want to take on the contract of Patrick Corbyn? Yeah, it just doesn't fit. It's not going to be a fit.

I think when you look at kind of like, you mentioned the superstars. I think the superstars, the mayors are going to go after are going to be the Trevor Stories, the Marcus Simeans, the Kevin Gossman, the Robbie Reyes. The guys that we knew that they were attached to this winter and they did try to go get some of them. actually did land raid that's the caliber of player they're going to spend money on those guys

and also guys who they grow like Julio is probably if any mariner in the next decade gets 200 million dollars it's probably going to be Julio or of any baseball player i should say any baseball player gets a 200 million dollar check theoretically from the Seattle Mariners it's probably going to be who leo roger is so um i don't see being anybody else outside the org nobody in it right now Um, so yeah, it's, it's going to be, you're, you're kind of like, in theory, you're trading, you know, $20 for one. You're training for $10 bills for one, uh, you know, $20 bill. Like if they're, if they're, if they're getting to a point where they're in a spot to compete for a world series and they're doing it kind of on the cheap, but they have room to wiggle where they're, they're willing to add payroll and they should be willing to add payroll at that point if you know

if we're saying like in this example maybe they're at 110 120 130 million dollars whereas you know have been at 160 170 you know maybe they do go after one of the big names and free agency at that point and make a splash like that but right now i just don't foresee that um because also when it comes to free agency you know both sides have to have to come together here it takes two to tango and you know we learned that the hard way with quite a few names this off season and i just feel like if if wandsoto's going to get traded it's going to be to like the dodgers like yeah it's going to be to a team that thinks they can win the world series this year and next year and the year after and to me that's the dodgers

podres and i maybe but the podre system do they have enough to go get him that's the other thing Probably not. Yeah, probably not. The Padre system is overrated. You kind of start looking around, okay, where are the teams that have the farm system, the money, and the timeline that fits what we're looking at here.

And it's the Dodgers, maybe the Yankees. Yeah, like the Mariners have two of the three, right? They have the farm system and they have the money for it. But they don't have the timeline. The timeline isn't right there. Yeah. Yeah.

Like if this was next year maybe or the year after that and there was two and a half years of Juan Soto out there to acquire, I'd be like, okay, that's probably more within their wheelhouse. But right now, it's just where they are, it's just, hmm, I don't know. It's, it's difficult too because it's like you go into next off season with Juan Soto, just for example, I mean, maybe you get more aggressive in the free agent market. Maybe go after some bigger names, et cetera. but it's also like who are those bigger names. The free agent market isn't going to be fantastic this off season. Right. And you probably have to because you have to maximize those final two years

because you cannot assume that Juan Soto is going to sign an extension with you. And at that point as well, considering that you fired some of your best bullets in a Soto trade, you're probably going to have to go on free agency. Yeah, you're going to have to spend, right? And we know how risky it is. And again, I know we've got to go. So I just want to reiterate this.

I know there's some people out there who, or it's only money, it's only money, it's only money. That's great. And we lived in a world where owners cared and spent as much as they could on their baseball teams, I'd be right there with you. We don't. We have to work in the reality that we live in. And the reality that we live in is that Jerry DiPoto has a budget.

And it's not as high as we want it to be. It probably never will. Even if they spend $180 million, we're going to complain that they didn't spend $200. because John Stan can afford to, right? But we have to work in reality here. We want to complain that owners don't spend enough money, that's fine, but that's a completely separate conversation. When we talk about the Mariners acquiring these big name players

or in the future when we talk about, you know, Trey Turner, love Trey Turner. I'd give them $300 million. The Mariners aren't going to give them $300 million. It's just they're not going to be that team. And it can be frustrating at times, but that's the reality we live in. and that's the reality we're going to continue to pursue here on locked on mariners. Yeah, and maybe they surprise us the soft season.

You never know. I would like for them to surprise us. But yeah, right now, just going off the signs, just going off of everything, just the way that they've operated, the way that Jerry DePoto has handled himself pretty much wherever he's gone. Because, you know, in Anaheim, that's Artie Moreno. That's not Jerry who gave Albert Pooleholes and all those guys, all that money. you know so

just going off of that just going off of how Jerry approaches things typically I just I don't foresee a Soto trade I don't foresee any sort of big name coming to Seattle in that way and that's not necessarily an indictment

on the way that they do things because you can I mean we've seen it with teams like the race you can win baseball games without having a superstar you know you can go deep into the postseason without having like that big super star name on your team. It's possible. It's just a more difficult way to do it. Yeah, the Braves won the World Series last year without their superstar.

Yeah, without Ocuna. Obviously, they still have Freddie Freeman and guys like that, but yeah. Yeah, but they've lost a superstar and they won the World Series. Yeah, and it's just, it's just one of those things. There are a lot of ways to win consistently. And the Rays do it. You know, the White Sox do it. Do they have a superstar right now? I would say no. They have a bunch of really good players though and that's how we make it work so superstar is a term anyways like we don't know what the definition of it is make up your own but yeah just having a good roster top the bottom

San Francisco Giants do this every you know every year it seems like their World Series contenders and their best players brand and belt yeah well and the Giants are especially interesting too because they do spend money they are willing to spend money and they're kind of a similar team to the Mariners in that sense, right? So slightly bigger market so they can they can pay a little more. But yeah, I mean, there's no reason the Mariners can't be the American League version of the Giants. There's none.

Yeah. All right. Well, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby Pat Nod, I'm Taday Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez and Colby at C-P-E-E-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-E-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of the

this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every day. Now make your second listen to the day, the Lockdown MLB podcast. That's where Paul Francis Sullivan and please call him Sully brings you his unique perspective on the major league's president pass. It's free wherever you get your podcast just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we will see you tomorrow. Peace.