Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Crossover With Locked On Astros Featuring Brett Chancey

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

Locked On Astros joins Locked On Mariners as Brett Chancey and D.C. Lundberg talk a little current M's and 'Stros, and look back at how both teams did in the mid-to-late 1990s. 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.

Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, J.M. once again, this is D.C. Lundberg, leading you into another episode of Locked-on Mariner's, part of the Locked-on podcast network. Please download, rate, and subscribe to this program on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, whichever podcasting app you care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariners and follow the show on Twitter. at L.O. underscore Mariners. Follow me on Twitter also. At D.C. underscore Lundberg, L.U.N.D.B.R.G.

if you're scoring at home. Another crossover episode for you today on this Wednesday. Today we will present a conversation with Brett Chancy of Locked on Astros. Enjoy. Hey, D.C., how's it going this evening? It's going terrific. How are you? Doing good. Hey, this is Brett Chancy with Locked on Astros. We have our Division, our American League West, Division Preview,

crossover show with the Mariners, and so we have several things that we could probably talk about. D.C., if you could let my fans know here in Houston, what it is you do, just kind of introduce yourself, you know, maybe a little bit about your background, and how about your favorite Mariners' memory growing up? Ooh, well, there's not much baseball background to speak of, really, I had done another show, another podcast for eight years as a regular panelist and contributor.

And for the previous two, I was co-producer and co-host with another locked-on host, Jason Hernandez, who does the Anaheim Ducks program. And that led me to this program here. That's really my commentary background, as it were, but I've been running fantasy baseball league since I was 16 years old. I know the game backwards and forwards. Everybody growing up knew that, hey, if you need a baseball question, go as DC over there. He's got an answer for you. My favorite baseball memory growing up,

I think probably has nothing to do with the Mariners. It's probably Cal Ripkin Jr. breaking the all-time, the consecutive games streak. And I was a big Cal Ripkin Jr. fan growing up, grew up rooting mostly for the Orioles rather than the Mariners, even though they were really good at that time. And then when the Orioles started to become pretty terrible, Cal Ripkin retired, the 2001 Mariners season. And that's my favorite Mariners memory. That's, 2001 season, which was just spectacular, the regular season at least. Ichiro kind of coming out of nowhere to just set the league on fire. I know he was going to do well.

I didn't know he was going to do that well. And the pitching staff was just a sight to behold that year, Jamie Moyer, Freddie Garcia, Paul Abbott even had a good year. Aaron Sealy in that 12 to 6 curveball was fantastic. And of course, it was the season after the Mariners had lost, so to speak, Alex Rodriguez to the Texas Rangers with that free agent contract. Carlos Guienne came in and played shortstop and did a very, very good job filling Alex Rodriguez's shoes.

And it was, the entire roster kind of came together. They had four very productive outfielders, Ichiro and Mike Cameron. Mark McLemore played in the outfield that year. Stan Javier was maybe the best fourth outfield of the Mariners have ever had. I loved watching him play. Charles Gibson was on that roster, who was one of my all-time favorite Mariners. That 2001 team, the whole regular season has to be my favorite Mariners memory. That's awesome. I remember some of those teams, you know, even being down in Houston.

Yeah. You know, the Mariners got really put on the map with, I guess really came into fruition when they had a young Randy Johnson, when they had, you know, King Griffey Jr., obviously, Edgar Martinez, you know, guys like that that came through. And then, like you said, whenever, whenever each year, join the Mariners, and he would hit and hit. And it was like, does this guy ever, like, is he a ninja? Is he a magician at the plate? And it was interesting because his swing wasn't like anybody else's swing. It was like a little slap motion, but he also could hit for power.

And you're like, who is this guy? You know, because he became a rookie. How old was he in his rookie year here in the MLB? 27, I want to say, 27 or 28, but you're right about a swing. It was kind of a sweeping motion. Dave Nehauer, and he said the word magician. Our announcer, a Hall of Fame announcer, Dave Nehous said, liken him to a magician using his magic wanders,

kind of placed the ball in the outfield wherever he wanted to. Interesting, and I would like to say I came by that knowledge because I studied the Mariners before we came on the show, but I think I just got really lucky. Maybe I shouldn't go play the lot of. It may help, you never know. That's right. But yeah, so the Seattle Mariners are in a period of rebuild, as you said before, we began recording the show.

And the Houston fan base is very familiar with those positions. We remember when Drayton McLean had the team. And after our subsequent first couple championship runs, 04 and 05, falling short, getting swept by the White Sox, which was terrible, We actually did not wear white socks for, I think, over a year. And I think to this day, every time the white socks coming to town, I don't know if you know this little trivia for Seattle fans, the White Sox Bat Boy wears the number 05 to Minutemate Park every time they play in Houston.

Are you serious? To remind us that they beat us in 05, yeah. And our current TV announcer, Jeff Blum, was actually on that team and hit a home run against us. Yes, he was. Wow. Yeah, so, yeah, so, you know, we've been there. We've been down that road.

I remember around, what, 12, 30, I mean, we lost 100 games, like three years in a row. And when Drake McLean just started just like, it was like he put the Astros out on the front lawn, and he didn't even, like, try to trade for anything. He's just like, it's all free. Yeah. And so. And you did it purely through the draft, through the most part, if I recall, yes? Yes, yes.

We did, we did repair it through the draft, and that was mainly when, when we got the new regime, which is now the old regime. But as, as mired in controversy as Jeff Luneau is, had he not come to Houston, we probably wouldn't be the dominant team we are today. That's correct, because you guys drafted very, very well. Mark Apple was kind of a mess. We'll forget about him. But everybody else has been not just a contributor, but a pretty major contributor.

Yeah, exactly. I remember George Springer. I remember the Houston fans were getting pretty upset that the Astros front office was slow walking him to the majors there. What are they doing? Bring them up here. And I remember I kept hearing about George Springer. I was watching that old game the other day. I was watching with my son.

MLB released the greatest games in different clubs histories. And it was the 05 NLDS against the NLDS against the. I'm Braves. And the first time we beat the Braves in the playoffs, my daughter was with me at that game, and she was like maybe two. Her mom was furious, because that game was like six hours long. It's like, I'm like, I'm like, it's, we're in inning 16. Roger Clemens is pitching. We can't leave, you know. And, but I remember back in that time, it was like the Houston Astros had just such a, they just had this magic about them in 05. And you can't, you can't easily like just whisk that away and forget about it. But you know what? And I totally forgot the point I was

trying to make. I'm sitting here getting lost in my memories of the game, picturing my daughter who is a senior going to be graduating in May. Oh, geez. Oh my Lord. Yeah, I'm old, man. Anyway, so why don't you pick up on some stuff here? Dude, I just completely lost where I was going with that story. That's okay. It was a great story, so it works just the same. Because of our time constraints, we're actually running up on a commercial break here. So we got a new sponsor we got to talk about, don't we?

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Should I go for it? Yes, let's do it. There is a current Astro who is the son of a former mariner, who is this father and son combo. Do you want to think about it over the break? We can do that, and I'll give you the answer upon return. And return, we shall after these messages. And we're back. with locked on Astros and Locked-on Mariners.

I'm H-Town Wheelhouse. You can find me at H-Town Wheelhouse on Twitter. D.C., where can they find you? They can find me on Twitter at DC-U-S-U-Sk-L-D-B-E-R-G, as I like to say, L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G, if you're scoring at home, and the show is on Twitter also, gang, at L-O-U-U-U-Riner's. Good deal. You know, we're back, and I, you know, I would like to say I know the answer to this question,

and I'm sure when you tell me I'm going to know, but I don't know the answer of that trivia question. That's all right. The Astro is Michael Brantley, and his father played for the Mariners is Mickey Brantley, also an outfielder. You know, okay, I remember, I believe Jeff Blone and Steve Sparks or someone who was either TV or radio mentioned that in a series when we were in Seattle. Yeah. At the beginning of the year when y'all were like red hot, like y'all were trying to be the Yankees or something. Yeah, I think that was one of the, trivia items that the Mariners put on their big screen when Brantley was at bat during a Cleveland

Indians game, and for some reason, that stuck. And, yeah, anyways, Mickey Brantley played 302 career games in four seasons with the Mariners. Didn't play for any other team. It was mostly a reserve, although he did start in 1988. Oh, interesting. Interesting. It seems like Sun got a little bit better baseball jeans than Dad. Well, he certainly had a much better career thus far, and a longer one for sure, yeah.

Definitely. So do you think the Mariners, I know they're in rebuild mode, do you think that there's any hope for them to catch fire like they did last year, maybe surprise some people, bring up the rear, kind of contend for a middle spot or a possible division in 2020? I think there's always that chance with a rebuilding team. I don't think it's a very good one, however. Definitely, because a lot of these, especially Evan White, the first Base when he's never played Major League Baseball before. To me, he's a complete wild card, but I think he'll do okay. Kyle Lewis just had a cup of coffee in September, did very well.

I still think he'll do well this season. For me, it's the pitching, and some parts are there and some parts are not. We talked briefly about Justice Sheffield before we started recording and all the hype kind of surrounding him last year and then coming into this season. I hadn't been too high on him, except during spring training, his control seems to have gotten better, and that was the issue for me. He had walked too many haters, put too many hitters on base, and that scared me. Not only has his control seemingly improved, he's got a new pitch that he's using this spring training. He's eliminated the four-seam fastball. He's using a two-seamer now that has

much more movement to it, which he can control a bit better, I guess, and it's missing hitters' bats. It's not on a straight plane as his four-seem fastball was that was getting hit all over the place. Yeah, well, that's good. I know he was real high, and I know when he was with the Yankees, I believe that's who you guys got him from. Yes. Was that in the John Paxson deal? Or like, how did he come to you guys? He was part of the James Paxon deal with Dom Thompson Williams, a minor league outfielder,

who's a little bit further away and is also going to miss this entire season, I believe, with Tommy John surgery. But he projects, I don't know how, how, how, how, Thompson Williams projects. I haven't seen too many scattering reports on him, but yes, he was part of the James Paxton deal. His not the first top prospect we've gotten from the Yankees. Years and years ago,

the Mariners traded for Jesus Montero, who was supposed to be this tremendous hitting catcher, and he sucked. I mean, and what's... Tell me how you really feel. I wish I could come up with a joke about an ice cream sandwich, which the Mariners audience will get.

In any case, Montaro had no back. speed. And that's, when I saw him, he was like, how is this guy getting hit? He has no bat speed. He also wasn't the greatest defensive catch in the world. Mariners tried to move him to first base, wound up deaching him for the most part in the minor leagues. And his attitude also was terrible.

He was lazy. He didn't want to work. And the mayor just gave up on him after an incident where he kind of attacked a scout. He was one of, that was the Michael Paneda trade. Oh, my goodness. The Mariners traded Michael Paneda, who was an officer. star at the major league level, but still something of a prospect to the Yankees for this great hitting catcher, and both teams kind of got screwed because Pineda was always injured. So it was

a bad trade for both teams. Wow. And, you know, that usually doesn't happen where, you know, you both get sour grapes in the trade. I mean, it's, it's bound to happen. I guess you've got a 50-50 shot, you know, when the guy comes to your team. But from a, from a Mariners perspective, do you do you see the Houston Astros as the clear frontrunners to win the AOS Division? And if you do, what do you think is maybe a key thing for the Astros in order to clinch another division title? I can only speak for myself. I don't want to speak for other Mariners fans, but I certainly see them as the top contenders in the American League West. And for me, it's the pitching.

I know Garrett Cole is it there anymore, but you mentioned before the show that Justin Verlander had some surgery. Would you please talk about that before I finish my answer? Yes, he actually, he was scratched from his very first spring training start a few weeks ago. Talked about soreness and his growing. And it was just reported today that, which I'll say today on March 17th, in the a.m. of the day he had surgery on his growing. And he will be out at least six weeks, I believe. And so not too, too bad, but hey, as a lot of Astros fans are saying, that's perfect. he can now be our opening day starter since we're not maybe starting until June 1.

Exactly. I mean, if he's out six weeks, that really doesn't have an effect on the major league schedule. It may have an effect on whatever spring training they want to have before that. But again, for me, it's the pitching. Any team with a good rotation is always going to be a threat. Justin Verlander, I was impressed by Jose Orkitti, what I saw from him in the postseason last year. I think he could have a pretty good season. Zach Granky was very impressive at times.

during the postseason. And again, I know Garrett Cole is not there, but I still think the Astros have the pieces to put together in the rotation to be able to form a good rotation. And to me, that's always going to be a key for any team. And it strictly comes down to that. Yeah, exactly.

And we have three really solid guys fighting for that number five spot. Now, if Justin Berliner is out of that number one spot, you would have to go Green Q1, McCullors 2, or Kiti 3. And then my prediction is Josh James gets the fourth, and then they're going to give Austin Pruitt the fifth because of the spin rate.

And you still have for Emperor Valdez. You also got a guy, Christian Javier, who was impressing people left and right with his strikeout rate, with the rise on his fastball, his velocity was there, and he got reassigned to minor league camp. But we have, I think, a really, really good situation where Chris DeVincike came into camp this year looking really good in 2019. He looked like an Orioles pitcher more than an Astros pitcher. And he just was not, he just didn't have a good year.

But he came in and he was doing good things. And it's just, you hate to see the season delayed because it seemed like these Astros were just chomping at the bit. Lance McCullors was quoted as saying, the wolf is hungry and the wolf's got to eat. And so these guys are ready. You know, in the offseason, Lance went and got a tattoo of the huge. Houston Skyline on one of his arms with a space man, and the spaceman is holding a World Series trophy. That's pretty bold. Yeah, you know, and Lance is bold.

We actually spoke about him on a show. Well, actually, my co-host, Eric, and a friend of his, the baseball lawyer, was on, and they were talking about how Lance was going to have this inning restriction. And I put that quote, one of those little quotes where you can hear the person speaking, like, here's a sample of our show on Instagram, and Lance McCuller's actually responded, and he said, actually, I'm not going to have an innings limit. I'm going to pitch as much as I want, but I'm not going to do it to the detriment of the team because our goal isn't to get to September. Our goal is to play through September.

So they're laser-focused right now. I like that he said, what the wolf was hungry, the wolf was want to eat. All that made me think it was Duran Duran. Hungry like the wolf. I don't know. Yes, great stuff. Great music, for sure. Great music for sure. Sorry. There was something else I was going to ask you all, so we were running out of time,

so this probably is going to wrap up the show. But I remember the Astros teams of the mid and late 90s being very, very good. Of course, with the Killer Bees, Hall of Famers, Beggio, and Bagwell. They added Berkman, I believe, 99, I want to say. Derek Bell was on those teams. Scott Service was on those teams also, the Mariners current manager. Yes, he was. And Randy Johnson was traded to the Astros at the deadline in 1998, which wound up being a rent-a-player for you guys, but it turned out to be an excellent trade for the Mariners, because it got the Mariners Freddie Garcia, John Halama, who was a pretty serviceable pitcher, and Carlos Guillen, who wound up being a very serviceable infielder as well. Do you have any memories from the Astros in that time period?

I always thought that they just kind of, why did they come up short, if you can even answer that question in their postseason opportunities when they did come, because I thought those were some darn good teams. Well, two words, Kevin Brown. Okay, there you go. Kevin Brown was the reason why the Astros didn't advance past. Because, I mean, when you go back and look at that Padres team, I mean, they had Gwen, you know, they had a good team. Yeah.

But Kevin Brown was almost like what Mike Scott was to the Mets in the 86 NLCS, where the Mets knew that if they didn't win that extra innings game in Houston, and they didn't clinch, that they knew they had the next game they were going to face Mike Scott, and they'll, they will tell you to this day, there's no way they were going to win that game if they had to face Mike Scott again. And so Kevin Brown was that game changer. I was in the last home game of the Astrodome where the Astros clinched the division. They were playing the Dodgers, and I remember thinking there's no way this team gets beat. Like, this team is going to absolutely wreck everybody in the playoffs.

Well, it didn't happen. And, you know, one of my fondest memories growing up, I can say this, is actually takes me back to before that late 90 season was in 1989 when Craig Bejo was a rookie. Yes. I actually got his autograph on the very first program that I ever received that I remember buying. I mean, I bought many before, but I bought one. I had Craig Bejou on the cover, and he signed it. he's sitting in a desk in a schoolroom and Yogi Berra is at a chalkboard like he's teaching him how to catch. It's really cool.

And so that brings me to this. I had the honor of meeting King Griffey Jr. and King Griffey Senior at a sports collector's show when I was a kid. And I have a baseball signed by King Kirby Jr. on the Sweet Spot. And then another baseball on the sweet spot with both him and his dad, one on top of the other, signing on that sweet spot. And so I had fond memories. I remember wearing the old Seattle Mariner's hat with Griffey's number on the back, you know, and the little fuzzy number on the back. But those late 90 teams, I mean, I would say Randy Johnson.

I got to see him win his first game as an Astro in the Astrodome. That was unreal. I mean, there's, what, 50,000 people there probably watching that. It was like a World Series game. If memory serves, he pitched very well that game. Am I wrong about that or am I thinking of something else? No, he did. It was, and the only other pitching performance I've seen, liking it to others, and I'll make this real quick.

Number one was when I saw Greg Maddox pitch against Roger Clemens, two 300 game winners. That was a great game. Oh, yeah. And then my son and I were at the game where Garrett Cole struck out 15 batters, and we'll never forget that. I told my son, I was like, you'll never see another pitching performance like this again. one more thing very quickly before we wrap up because we're already over time but i want to bring this up anyway maybe the most impressive pitching performance that can spring to mind right now was or maybe for the best timing at least was for my audience mike scott clinching the

national league west in 1986 with a perfect game that does not happen every day it does not know you're right and that is that is one of the five greatest moments in astros history Oh, it's got to be. It's one of the more important moments in, you know, in Major League history. It's one of my personal favorites, at least. But like I said, we're already over time. I think we have to wrap this up. Brett, thank you very much for talking. Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for, you know, thanks for coming on. And maybe during the season when we have our first Mariners Astros series, we can join up together again. Absolutely. I look forward to it. One more time for the Lockdown Mariners audience,

where can we find you on Twitter, sir? Find me at Hachown Wheelhouse, and then you can find me at Stros 411 on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Perfect. And for your audience, you can find me on Twitter at DC underscore Lundberg. The show is at L.O. underscore Mariners. I do a weekly mailbag segment. Send me any questions at all to Locked on Mariners at gmail.com. That goes for both audiences.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks, D.C. for joining us, and we look forward to getting this. thing started and ramped up as soon as we can. Absolutely. It was a pleasure. I look forward to it. I look forward to the season whenever that may happen. Thanks again. Yes, sir. And that was Brett Chancy and myself in a conversation we had last night for you on this Wednesday morning. The Locked on Astros, Locked on Mariner's crossover. Hope you enjoyed it, ladies and gentlemen. Remember to download rating and subscribe to this program on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast,

Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcast, if you personally care to use, ask your smart to play locked on Mariners, locked on Astros, locked on anything. I mentioned the Twitters already numerous times throughout this program, so I won't do that again. I will ask you whoever to ask your smart device to play locked on MLB. Upon the conclusion of this program, we'll be back tomorrow with our crossover with Locked on Rangers. In the meantime, have a great day.

This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked on Mariners, part of the Locked On podcast network.