Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Crossover With Locked On A's Featuring Jason Burke

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

In the first crossover episode of the week, Locked On Mariners and Locked On A's come together for this conversation between Jason Burke and D.C. Lundberg. With all the news surrounding baseball and the delay of the season, the hot topics of the day were, of course, curling and Marcus Semien. 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.

Thank you for tuning in to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Well, that sure wasn't interesting few days. Baseball's on hiatus, curling world championships canceled, not postponed, not delayed, canceled. Anyways, this is Locked-on Mariners. We're not going anywhere, ladies and gentlemen. We're staying right here on the Locked-on Podcast Network. Download rate and subscribe to this program on Apple Podcasts.

podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Lockdown Mariners podcast. Follow the show on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-Skourners and follow me on Twitter as well at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-B-R-G if you're scoring at home. Gang, we have a special week of shows coming up for you right here on Locked-on Mariners and across the entire MLB family of Locked-on podcasts. Every day this week, we will have a crossover episode, another show from the American League West. Today is a conversation that I had with Jason Burke of Locked-on A's.

Ladies and gentlemen, here it is. How's going, D.C.? It's going great. How are you, Jason? I'm doing very well. A little bit bummed about, you know, the season being delayed, but obviously it's the right call. So, you know, we just wait for the news to roll in and go from there, I guess. Yeah, I mean, baseball will come back.

What I'm really disappointed about is the world curling championships, both men's and women's have been canceled. Not postponed, they've been canceled. I did see somebody saying not all sports have been canceled, and then they had a Roomba, and they were just doing it like a Swiffer in front of it, and it made me give up. That's his thing.

And you have a Roomba. You're set, buddy. Well, the other part of it is, my friend and I signed up for a Learn to Curl class, which was supposed to be this afternoon, and that got canceled, too. That's no fun. No, but hopefully they will reschedule them instead of just canceling those outright.

But we're talking about curling. We're not here to talk about curling. You're the host of Locked-on A's. I'm the host of Locked-on Mariners. We've got to talk baseball, don't we? I mean, I guess unless you get more curling stuff, I do not know anything about, I know how curling works. But I basically learn who the people are in curling when I watch, like, the Olympics or something.

Because it's a very fascinating game. I thoroughly enjoy it. I really got into it during the Olympics last year, yeah, and I never let go. For those who get the Olympic channel, if you've got some sort of advanced cable or satellite package, they show the world championships, and it's really fascinating to watch if you can get into it, if you've got the time. I can understand how it might be kind of tough to access on the surface, though. I just like all the yelling that goes on in the background.

And you don't know if it's like in the game that you're watching or if it's in the one next door. Oh, yeah. In the other lanes? Are they lanes? I don't know. They're called sheets. They're sheets. Ooh, I like that.

That sounds like. Seeing it live is something else because it's even harder to keep track. Because there's yelling going on all over the place, and sometimes you can tell where it's coming from, but it is so much fun to watch live. Because it's kind of, in a way, it's kind of controlled chaos with five games going on at the same time, which is something I'd never seen before because I'm used to baseball,

where there's just one game going on, or a bowling championship where there's just a one game going on in the finals that is. I know that there can be 30 going on during the week, but I've never seen that before. Yeah. So curling is fun. Yes, it's very fun. I love it. It always gets back around to that, doesn't it?

I've used up all of my curling knowledge. That is okay. Your team's going to have a better season this year than the Mariners are. So, you know, you can talk about baseball. I'll talk about curling for the rest of the program. Oh, okay. You want to, I don't know anything about curling. So I'm like, oh, who would be like the curling people's Matt Chapman?

I don't. Hmm. Star Gold Glover. I don't know anything about who is involved in curling. That's okay. I don't even know if they're really equivalent. I don't know if I could come up with an equivalent. And I do know the different curlers.

Defensive curls? Are there defensive people, or is it just like, I toss them real well, and that's how it works? Well, it's kind of tough to explain because the whole team, it kind of depends on how a particular match is going. If you want to play defensively or if you want to play offensively and try to score, it would take far too long to explain, really, on this program. I know how it works, but I know that there's got to be some momentum

that goes behind the, I forget what the name of the ball is now. Just a curling stone. Oh, but the stone, that's right, the stone. because you've got to do it with some sort of velocity and you want to do it with less velocity if it's closer or if you're trying to play defense and set it up or if you're trying to knock something out you want to do with more velocity

that stuff but I don't know more than that I don't know the strategy that goes into it yet on that front you actually sound like you know quite a bit quite honestly I have watched a few hours of curling learning a sport I'm like oh I need

know everything about this right now. Yeah. And if I can't follow it, then I'm like, oh, I'm not going to keep watching this. So I'm at least able to follow curling a decent amount. Well, that's good. That's more than most people can say. I attended the national championships because they happened to

be in a city 20 minutes away from me this year. That's about a month ago, actually. I had the time of my life, and I took a friend with me who had never really watched curling before, had no idea what was going on. They had learned to curl ambassadors throughout the stands where you could go ask questions to these people, what's going

on on the ice, what are they doing, how is it scored, and she is now the biggest curling fan next to me that I know. She got into it so much. It was really cool. Is curling on TV like generally, or is it just on the Olympic Channel? It's pretty much just on the Olympic Channel, or NBC Sports Network has Carling Night in America on Fridays the first few weeks of the season. Curling season is pretty much over at this point. It runs kind of It's just a winter sport. Couldn't it be all the time since it's indoors? You would think so, and I would hope so,

but generally just winter. Also, I don't know if there's really such a thing as a professional curler. These people generally have day jobs that they attend because they're not really paid for it. Okay. Well, that makes sense, I guess. So you kind of show up to the qualifiers and be like, I'm going to be a curling champion this year. Hopefully.

There is some of that. I mean, the United States has a junior program and what they call a high performance program that you can apply for and your teams can apply for. But there are teams out there, I believe, who can just qualify for the championship without being a part of that program. There's actually a group of former NFL players,

Mark Bulger is involved with this, who have a curling team now. And they tried to qualify for the national championships, and they just missed. which one was Mark Bulger? I'm thinking Mark Brunel and I'm like, nope, he's the lefty quarterback from the Jaguars in the 90s.

Mark Bulger is the quarterback for the St. Louis Rams who took over for Kurt Warner when he got injured. That's the one. Okay. Gotcha. I'm following. So before we started recording, you were like, hey, I'll just have an organic conversation. I'm pretty sure you had curling in your backpack

at this entire time. And you're like, no, no, we're going to do 20 minutes. I swear to goodness, no, I did. kind of the way it happened. I could just go off on a subject if somebody brings something up, or if I bring something up by accident, I just go off on it just because I know a lot about it. That's all. I do this at work all the time, but it's usually about baseball or somebody will have like a tiger's hat on. Like, hey, you want to talk about some tiger's stuff? And they're like, I just like the hat. I'm like, okay, I'm going to walk away now. I guess I get this same. Baseball and music were the two other ones that I could really go off on,

especially at work. Especially because, you know, we have the baseball podcast, so we're a little bit more plugged in than like casual fans and all that stuff. So I feel like our knowledge base is a little bit deeper sometimes than just people that go into, you know, for me or restaurants, and I'm just like, oh, I got this hat. I'm like, oh, you want to talk about this? And they're like, no, that's fine.

Like, okay. When I used to live in the Seattle area, and when I found out, or not when I found out, out. But when I chose to move to Spokane, I got myself an Indians hat and some Spokane Indians gear and I started wearing it to work and I, and I would get a lot of questions on it. And that was a great conversation started because people were genuinely curious about it. I got a Baltimore Orioles hat, you know, the one with just the Orioles face. Because I like, I like, in the offseason and people would be like, hey, go Orioles.

I'm like, what hat am I wearing today? What's going on? I got people yelling at me. And I was like, oh, okay, I get it. That makes sense. So, oh, there goes the rice. Oh, there goes the rice. That actually seems like a perfect time to take a break then, doesn't it? We should take a break.

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but still lost 4 to 1. In the fifth inning of this game, which Oakland Athletic hit the longest home run in Kingdom history? Mark Friggin McGuire. Well, I guess I don't have to think about it over the break because you've got the right answer. I do remember that. Yeah, yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be back right after the break. Stay tuned. And welcome back to the A's and Mariners combination episode where we talk about curling nonstop. I am noted baseball fan Jason Burke, joined by D.C. Lundberg of Locked-on Mariners. He's a good guy. I'm a good guy. We're having a good podcast.

And we're going to actually talk about baseball this time. So I heard that you have an A's question that you would like to ask me. So please, feel free, D.C. Sure. The one player that impressed me, the most of the most of the most of the most of the most of the most last season. Once it necessarily Matt Chapman or anybody like that, it was Marcus Simeon. When I first saw him play when he came up to the major leagues, he was such a terrible

defender that I thought to myself, well, he can hit, but there's no way he's going to be able to play shortstop. They're going to have to move him to first base, try him in left field, or maybe just a DH or something like that. Last season, not only did he obviously work on his defense, but he became a pretty good shortstop, and it just kind of seemed to happen overnight. Was I completely oblivious to this transformation or was it more gradual? It was a little more gradual than that, but I mean, last season was obviously the breakout performance for him.

His defense has been getting better and better for a couple years. He was working with Ron Washington after he left Texas and he came back as a coach and for the A's. He worked a lot with Marcus Semyon and he was and Semyon was putting in the work, putting in his time. And, you know, you just put it all together last season. Whether or not that's the new normal for him, I don't know. If he puts up a season like that again in 2020, we could probably kiss him goodbye because he's going to be worth so much money. You know, good for him, though. He's a local kid, and I know that he wants to stay with the A's, so we'll see what he can do.

But, you know, that's just hard work and dedication on Marcus Zemian's part. and you were right he was not great at defense when he came up and now he is he was a gold glove defender too so i mean not he didn't win but he was nominated of that caliber sure yes oh yeah he was in the top three of vote getters and whenever i say nominated on my podcast for one of these things i'm like i mean everybody's technically nominated yeah but uh yeah no he was uh he was a finalist so let's go with that that's yeah that's what the term is i i was very happy to see it. Whenever I kind of bag on a player, they're not going to be able to do this,

they're not going to be able to do that. I love being proved wrong, and especially through hard work and dedication, which is how Simeon did it. He's one of my favorite players on the A's now because of that. Matt Chapman is just such a solid defender. He has so much fun to watch. Oh, he is hands down my favorite player to watch.

And I said it on one of my podcast a couple weeks ago. I think he wins the MVP this year. You think he's the MVP this year? I think so. If you can do just a little bit more on offense. And he is, you know, a very dedicated individual. He said late last season after he'd been struggling for like a month,

he's like, this is going to be my worst season ever. And I've said that a few times now. But he just knows the grindstone. I want to be the best that I can be. And his defense is already great. If he could put up, you know, a little bit better offensive stats, you know, maybe hit 270, 280, I don't know, with, you know, five homers or something like that.

That's not a huge, you know, gap that he has to clear to get to that either. It just slight upgrades from there. Yeah. Oh, and he's already been, I think he finished seventh last year, so he's already doing it even though he's hitting like $2.50 and whatnot. So not a lot of upgrades that need to be done to Matt Chapman. So I'm happy about that. Absolutely.

Ramon Luriano is the other fun defender. You guys have some good defensive players, but Ramon Luriano is really the other one that I enjoy watching playing on defense, that is. Yeah. I mean, he harkens back all the way back to 2012 and, you know, 2013 with that assessment, that arm. Oh, man. Those are, you see somebody try to tag up. I'm like, oh, do it.

Do it. And then that's going, wow, that sucks. Okay. Well, well, he's a lot of fun. And, I mean, he can put it to go on offense or, you know, just stay healthy for the whole year because he hit fairly well when he was healthy and all that. Yeah. So he could be another big contributor. he plays a full season, however long of the season happens to be this year.

And Senator Gehield is a less offensive position, pardon me, than third bases. So, I would, you know, the offense that he produced last season, I would accept that from an exceptional defensive centerfielder. Oh, definitely. I mean, I think that Ramon Laureano is kind of what the Twinsertone-Hopin Byron Bucksman turns into. Yeah.

I'm not sure that's going to happen, but. Yeah. Well, he keeps getting hurt, though, that poor guy. I know. I love watching him play the events, too. He's fun, but he can't see... You're right, he cannot seem to stay healthy. And when he does, you know, put it together in little spurts, then he gets hurt.

I know. Always seems to happen at the worst times. Yeah. Like, there's a good time to get injured, you know? Staying in the outfield, though, Kyle Lewis came up, and you put up some numbers in, you know, like 18 games last year for the Mariners. What's the expectation for him? I know that he was a highly-touted problem.

suspect and he got hurt a little bit and it felt like he was rushed from the outside just because he was finally healthy and, you know, all of a sudden in the majors. But what's the expectation for him in 2020? The expectation for him, he's going to play every day pretty much. At least he's going to be, I believe, the everyday right field. He might be in right field because Mitch Hanigur is now hurt and nobody knows when he's going to come back. I believe he hit 268 when he, in his cup of coffee last September.

I don't know if he's going to continue to hit at 268, maybe 250 to 260. And the home run power that he showed, I believe, was an anomaly because he had never shown that type of power in the minors before. But then again, he peaked out, I shouldn't say peaked out, but he was at AA last season where they're not using the same baseball as Major League Baseball. And everybody showed more home run power than normal. But I think he's going to be a good doubles player, or doubles hitter rather. and he'll turn in solid defense as a corner. He came up as a center fielder. I don't think he's quite got the range to play centerfielder,

but he will be a more than adequate corner. And I think he's here to stay. I think he's the real deal. All right. I'm looking forward to seeing him play a little bit when the A's and Mariners get together. It'll be fun. I also want to know a little bit more about

Julio Rodriguez and Giacalek. What are your tool sets like? And when can we expect to see them in Seattle? I think Julio Rodriguez is a bit farther away than Kellenick is at this point. Rodriguez had a pretty poor spring training for what it's worth because we're probably going to have another spring training here coming up in a few weeks, in several weeks. But he's 19 years old.

I don't think he's as close to the majors as I thought he was a few weeks ago. I originally thought that he may be a September call up next season. I think 2022 is more likely for him. He's going to hit. He's going to play solid defense. I don't know if he's going to be a center fielder or a corner. but he's going to hit and he brings kind of some swag too which is nice and kelnick has a very similar skill set he's a left-handed hitter he's going to be a good line drive hitter i think and i think

he probably also projects to be a corner but he could play a pretty decent center field and he might be ready mid-season this year or maybe as a september call-up but at the same time i am not of the school of rushing players to the major leagues before they're ready i know some players can make the jump very easily from AA to the major leagues. Juan Soto is the most obvious example that I can think of, but it's a risk to do that. And

keep them in the minors a few months longer than you think that they maybe need to until they prove you wrong, until they prove, hey, I need to be at the show right now. So it's kind of up to them. I don't think neither of them are ready right now. They're both going to start this season in the minors. I think Rodriguez may be in advanced A. Modesto and Kellnick probably in

AA, Arkansas. But that's a guess. I mean, just that outfield trio is something that's going to be keeping my interest for many years now. Yes. For the Meredith. It'll be fun. It will be. Breakout guys that might, you know, break out in 2020? Because I know that it's a young roster and you're going to be seeing, you know, what guys can do and all that.

Well, I will say Evan White, the first baseman who has never played Major League Baseball. He's never played above AA ball before. The Mariners still thought enough of him to give him a six-year major league contract. He's the starting first baseman. He's at a pretty good spring. I'm very curious to see what he can do with the major league level on a full-time basis. He's a potential breakout guy, as Kyle Lewis is too, because they both have their rookie status still. So those are the two really that I'm looking at as far as breakout candidates.

And I will also add somebody on the pitching side who I have complained about on this show a lot. But my opinion of him is changing, and that's just a Sheffield. What I didn't like about him was the lack of control. He'd walked too many hitters in the minor leagues before. However, this spring, his control seems to have improved. He's also not throwing the four-seam fastball anymore. He's gone to a two-seam fastball that has much more movement to it, and it's befuddling hitters a little bit more.

So he might be a great breakout candidate. Excellent use of the word but fuddling. Another pitcher that got some play in spring training, was Usa Kikuchi. He added some velocity? You think it's going to hold up? Or was that just one start and then I didn't hear anything else about it? The velocity has kept up for Kikachi throughout spring training.

He got kind of he got away from his natural delivery last season and over the off season and during spring he had been working to quote, simplify things, end quote, according to an article that I read, and get back to his natural delivery. The velocity has,

he's been consistently around 93 to 96, depending you know, on the day, which is certainly an improvement over last year. The thing about Kikichi, though, is he gave up too many home runs last season, and his control was not very good, especially in the second half. And his control, this spring training also has not been the best. That kind of worries me a little bit. I could see that for sure.

It'd be nice if, you know, they got some 15th and whatnot. They have enough pieces where they're going to be an interesting team. I mean, for me, I like the Aids, obviously. but also like teams that are on the rebuild or you know have something interesting about them like the Padres for the last couple of years the tigers are going to be interesting because they got a bunch of young outfielders

also when you like fantasy baseball too so yeah just little guys here and there and the Mariners got some pieces that I'll be keeping my eye on for sure I think the bats are a little bit head of the pitchers right now in terms of prospects there are a couple more pitchers who are a little bit farther away that I don't have time to get into today but I'll just say that Logan Gilbert and George Kirby are the two names

that I'm sure that the Locked-on Mariners audience knows about, but if you're a locked-on A's listener, please look into those two gentlemen, because they are going to be pretty good Major League pitches once the time comes. There are a couple years away, though. That sounds good.

I'm going to definitely plug them into the Google machine and do all that stuff. It'll be fun. All right. Yeah. Just about out of time, I believe. I think we are, yes. We are.

Where can they find you? In Spokane. No. On Twitter, they can find me. at D.C. underscore Lundberg, at L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G, if you're scoring it home. And my show's Twitter address is at L-O-U-U-U-U-N-R-Rer. Same question to you, sir.

I am at By-JasonB on Twitter, and you can find the show at Locked-on A's. And if you have any questions for us, you can email us at Lockdown Athletics at gmail.com. And if you have any questions for me, Locked-on Mariners at Gmail.com, that goes for both audiences. I want to hear from both of you.

Yeah, we have mailbags every week or so, and if a Mariners fan has a question, I will definitely answer that. I'll take all baseball questions. I'll take all questions, period. If you've listened to my mailbag segments before, ladies and gentlemen, not every question has to do with baseball. Send in silly questions, opinion questions. I don't care what they are just as long as our family-friendly, please.

And also, curling questions should be directed to D.C., not me. Yes, thank you very much. Jason, good to talk to you. You too, man. Always fun to talk to Jason. and I'm looking forward to the A's Mariners matchups throughout the season, so Jason can come back on the show

and I can go on his show. We can talk a little bit more baseball. That's today's crossover. Hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow will be a crossover with Locked on Astros. Please download, rate, and subscribe to this program on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio,

whichever podcasting app you personally care to use. Download rate and subscribe to Locked on A's while you're at it. Also, ask your smart device to play Locked on Mariners, locked on A's, locked on anything. Follow this show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. Follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg. Hope you enjoyed today's conversation with Jason Burke. Ask your smart device to play locked-on fantasy baseball upon the conclusion of this podcast. We will see you right back here tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, have a fantastic day. This is Joey Martin saying join us back here next time for another edition of Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.