Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Flag Day: 10 Mariners We Believe In More Than YOU!

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

It's flag day! Colby and Ty are picking 5 players that they are planting their flag on for the 2023 season. These are the guys they believe are going to have somewhat surprisingly good seasons and the guys are willing to hitch their wagons to. In other words, Colby and Ty pick "their guys" for the 2023 season. The only rule? Nobody can pick Julio Rodriguez. He belongs to all of us. All that coming up in today's episode of Locked on Mariners!We’re raising money for Feeding America! 34 million Americans are food insecure, including 9 million children. Feeding America turns every dollar raised into 10 delicious meals to feed the hungry. We have set up a direct donation fund you can access by heading to https://teamfeed.feedingamerica.org/participant/13390 If you can’t donate, remember that we are donating 10 cents for every new YouTube subscriber we gain in the next month. By hitting the subscribe button, you’re donating one meal to somebody suffering from hunger!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/Ultimate Pro Baseball GMTo download the game just visit probaseballgm.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo LOCKEDON (ALL CAPS) in the game store.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.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.

Colby and I are planning our flag on five Mariners each for the 2023 season. 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 Monday, March 27, 20, 23. This is Tiding Gazzalos and Colby PetNode for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Brought to you by Ultimate Baseball GM.

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And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon by scanning the QR code right above my head. The link as well as our social accounts is also in the description below. And a little programming note before we get into the show, we're recording this on Sunday night. I'm still in Peoria, and we've got a long drive back to my parents' place in New Mexico tomorrow. So I wasn't sure if we'd be able to record on time tomorrow.

We put out a little tweet a little while ago for Mailbag Monday, but so far we've only gotten like five questions. So in order to give you guys more time to ask, stuff will be moving this week's mailbag to Tuesday and instead we're making today what we call Flag Day. So Colby, tell our listener here what Flag Day is. Yeah, so Flag Day, the origins of Flag Day real quick. I'll go back to Christopher Harris, who used to write about fantasy football over at ESPN. He now has a fantastic podcast called, oh no, I forgot what it's called. It's a, the Harris football podcast. It's a great podcast. It's one of my favorite listens. But he started this

tradition a few years ago, about, well, 10 years ago called Flag Day, flag players. And essentially what they are is these are players that you like more than the general consensus. You are higher on this player in your head than the average person. It doesn't necessarily mean you think they're going to be amazing. It doesn't necessarily mean really anything. You can kind of make it mean whatever you wanted to mean. But essentially, you are planting your flag. You are claiming these X amount of players as your guys for the upcoming season. Just a fun little thing to do and look back on and see who's right or who was close or whatever.

It's just it's just a fun conversation, I think. But there are a couple of rules that we've implemented because sometimes planning a flag on a guy is too obvious. So yeah. Yeah. Neither Ty or myself are allowed to plan a flag on Julio Rodriguez. He belongs to all of us guys. So, Julio is nobody's guy.

He's all of our guys. And I think that's it. Ty, did you want to throw another restriction on there? Is it just Julio's out? Let's go Luis Castillo as well. I kind of feel like that's a very obvious one. Like,

look, Luis Castillo is going to be good. We all know that. Dude's one of the best starting pitchers in all of baseball. He's a potential. little Sy Young candidate. I think the rest of the roster, though, is... I was going to say, to be fair, you can pick players who are good.

It's just you have to think that they are better than I would say most people think. It's just kind of how I view it. Sure. Yeah, we're... Essentially, it's like, this is my guy. I'm riding with this guy. This is who I'm riding with. Yeah, that's essentially what it is.

It's, like I said, I'm not doing these in any particular order. I think we're going to have five each. I'm not, it's not five through one. number one is like the guy I think is better than anybody else. It's also a fun little thing here. No repeats allowed. So if I take a guy that tie wants, you can't take him,

which makes a little a little zestier and we get 10 guys instead of just, you know, picking the same five guys. And let's add a little competition element to. Let's make these teams of five guys each too. So you let us know which team you like more than the other. Fine, I guess. Yeah

basketball team Let us know which group of five guys Is that is that better? Yeah, yeah, it's a starting five. We got to put a guy at the one, put a guy at the two,

put a guy at the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, let us know which group of five players you like better than the other. Yeah,

right? Because I just, I want to beat Colby. Sure. Obviously. First time for everything. I just, I have to do it.

Yeah, of course. All right. Well, I'll let you start. This was your idea. We did this last year. We're doing it again this year.

I'll let you start. This is where things get interesting because I know Ty wants to take George Kirby. I could take him right now and prevent Ty from doing that. But I'm going to assume he's going to take Kirby first because he knows if he doesn't. I'm going to take him. So I'm going to leave Kirby on the board for Ty and I'm going to lock in the guy that I think Ty might try to steal from me. That is Robbie Ray. He is one of my five flag guys.

I think Robbie Ray will get Cy Young votes this year. I am all in on Robbie Ray. the fastball velocity is back. The splitter has showed some promise. The slider is as sharp as it's ever been. He's looked fantastic this spring. And I still think people undervalue what Robbie Ray did from like May 15 until September 1 when he was one of the best pitchers in the American League. And people just pretend that doesn't exist because he struggled against the Astros.

Like, sorry, I'm planting the flag on Robbie Ray. I think he's going to have a huge year. Would not be shocked if he was the best pitcher in this Mariners rotation by the end of the year. Yeah, I'm taking George Kirby. Fair enough. I have to. We've been talking about this for weeks, maybe even months now at this point. And I was just in Vegas for my brother's wedding.

And I put 60 bucks down on George Kirby to win the 2023 American League Cy Young. Spoiler alert for when we do predictions here later this week. Would you have a guy that can throw as hard as he can that has a repertoire as diverse as he does and can locate pretty much any of his pitches at will. That's elite territory. George Kirby is going to submit himself as one of the very few true aces in major league baseball this season. So that's how I feel about it.

And I really like the Robbie Ray pick as well, because like you mentioned, the velocity is up now. This is a different Robbie Ray than we saw at the start of last year. And getting off to a better start in 2023 than he did in 2020. 2022 is going to be huge for him. And if he can sustain a more consistent season, you know, I think we are going to see some Cy Young votes go Robbie Ray's way as well. I wasn't lying.

You know, I wasn't clickbaiting last week when we did our starting pitcher video. And I put in the title that this team potentially has four Salyong candidates. And George Kirby is certainly one of those guys. And I think Robbie Ray is certainly one of those guys as well. So who's your second flag player? time to shock the world I'm going oh shock the world I'm going with Jared Kelnick yes the guy who has been kind of damping down I did that because I knew you were going to take him soon yeah yeah yeah that was my number that was my number two that was my number two I didn't put these in a lot I just trying to get them before tie does but yeah I'm buying I'm buying

kelnick here's a deal I don't I don't care about the numbers this spring I really don't I don't even know what they are is he hitting 500 is he hitting 300 I don't care when you watch Kelnick at the plate he's comfortable the swing is repeatable. He's getting to more pitches than he has in the past. Remember last year he couldn't touch velocity up. We saw him handle 99, 100, 101 in this spring with regularity. He's staying back on breaking balls. He's using the whole field. We've seen the power, which we know is there. Kelnick's swing and setup are repeatable. He's not changing it on an app by app bat bat basis. The process is so sound. I don't care what the numbers are in spring training. When I say numbers in spring training mean nothing, I mean they mean nothing.

But the process and what we're seeing at the plate, I think that translates to the major leagues. And to be fair, for Kelnick to pay off this flag guy thing, he only has to be like league average. And that's 30% better than he ever was. So I think Kelnick is going to be at least league average this year. I think he is a guy who, if he is good enough to stay in the lineup every day, he's going to hit 25 home runs. And you know what? On top of all that, we've actually seen him handle lefties pretty well in spring training. So the idea that you have to platoon Jared Kelnick, I don't know, because he's never had platoon splits in the minors that suggested that.

So I think Kelnik's going to be good, at least by Jared Kelnick standards. And I wouldn't be shocked if he was good by just major league standards either. The talent has always been there. I buy what we're seeing out of Jerich Kelnik. I'll say that, you know. Obviously, I don't think he's going to be doing what he's doing this spring, you know, as we get into the regular season. but I think he's built enough confidence for himself to get out to a pretty nice start. And so that's why I was going to pick him at number two.

Now, my number two, you're going to have to find out after I'll tell you about Ultimate Baseball GM. This episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Ultimate Baseball GM. Ever dreamed of becoming an MLBGM and managing your professional baseball franchise? Well, your dream can come true. And this game is definitely for you. manage every strategic aspect of your team, play through the season, and lead your team to glory. You're responsible for hiring the right coaches and staff, managing team finances, scouting and drafting players, managing difficult personalities, navigating your franchise through free agency and all the ups and downs of a season.

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That's ProBaseballGM.com. Ultimate Baseball GM, start your dynasty today. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen on Flag Day as we plan our flags on five Mariners each ahead of the 2023 season. And before I get into my number two pick here, Colby, we got a couple things that we're going to be doing here on the show. Can you tell our wonderful listener here what those things are? Sure. So first and foremost, we're doing another giveaway, which you guys are very familiar.

with. This time I'm giving away more of my my stuff of course. It's a baseball card giveaway. Yes. So Ty's going to do what he does. He's going to pick a number between one through seven. Might be eight. And that's the card we'll give away. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five. Yeah, one through seven. That's the card we'll give away. All you have to do to enter is be subscribed and leave a comment down below on any video. This is going to be a little bit of a longer giveaway period though because we're also doing this with something else that we hope you guys are going to partake in let's say tie and i when we started uh locked or when we started control the zone and we kind of branched out on our own we always wanted to have a charity element

to our to our podcasting and we've gotten away from that as we've tried to build uh both ctz and we've been doing locked on but i think it's time to get back to that so i talked to tie while he was out of town. And I think we're going to do something, I think is pretty cool. So for the month of, for the rest of April and the month of, sorry, for the rest of March and the month of April, every time, every new, every new subscriber, we will donate 10 cents to Feeding America, which we have also set up a direct payment, direct donation feed, which is going to be on the screen here. We're hoping to raise $500. That's kind of our goal.

So if you guys want to donate money directly, if you're already subscribed and you want to help us raise this money, you can just scan that code and it'll take you and you can donate directly. If you can't afford to donate, that's perfectly fine and you still want to help out. All you have to do is subscribe to the channel. That's 10 cents. It doesn't sound like a lot, but keep in mind,

feeding America turns $1 into 10 meals. So 10 cents is one meal for somebody out there who's hungry. Hunger affects 34 million Americans, including 9 million children. and we would just want to we just want to get back so if you want to help out you can you can you can donate directly by going to the link uh it'll take you to our page uh if you just but if you just subscribe to the youtube channel uh we will also donate 10 cents of our own and and that'll run through the month of april there might be some some prizes mixed in and we reach certain

milestones tie and i are still discussing that but there was talk of a more permanent prize being offer on the table and tie i have your i have your notes guaranteeing that you would do it so sorry we'll we'll get there when we get there but tie for now if you want to just go ahead and pick a number one through seven we'll tell the people what kind of card they're playing for real quick before i do that if you're just listening to the audio version of this show uh there will be a link on your preferred podcast platform uh the the description of the show on your preferred podcast platform It's also team feed. Feedingamerica.org slash participant slash 13390.

That is the link that you can go to to our page to donate. But again, 10 cents to feeding America from us for every new subscriber we get between now and I guess May 1st. So, all right. Let's go with number three. You son of a gun. All right. Did I do it again? Kind of.

So number three is the autographed cow Raleigh card. So yeah, if you guys want to win this Cal Raleigh card, make sure you're subscribed. If you're not subscribed, again, 10 cents defeating America. If you are subscribed, make sure you leave a comment so you can enter for this card. Giveaway dates a little up in the air. We'll see how the, you know, if we hit certain milestones, but that card will be given away, obviously, later than May 1st. So make sure you subscribe and make sure you leave a comment down below and you have a chance

to win a Cal Raleigh card. How perfect is that timing? Because we're getting back into Flag Day here. And my number two pick folks is Cal Raleigh, big dumper. I was hoping that you wouldn't rule him out as one of the guys that was off the limits. And I would have had an argument about that too because I don't think that. he should be off limits here. What an amazing turnaround it was for him last year.

So unexpected. I still don't understand how he did that to be sent down to AAA. And then not even a week later, it comes back up and is just an entirely different dude. And then goes on to have the year that he did. And seeing the postseason run that he went on, considering just everything that he had to do, all the work that he took on, just the giant, the massive amount of workload that he took on despite playing through essentially half of his thumb being broken off. Like, he's just a, he's a monster, man.

He's just so incredibly impressive as a baseball player, as a human in general, really. Dude's just a freak of nature. And the thing that really makes me intrigued to see how he plays. plays this year and to see the growth from him this year is the presence of Tom Murphy and getting Cal some more days off because like I mentioned, the amount of workload that he took on as a catcher is ridiculous. That's not something that an everyday catcher should have to endure. And so getting more time off, getting more breaks in between, getting more DH days and really letting that bat shine, I think it's going to do wonders for Cal Raleigh. And we've already talked about the moment.

momentum that he's riding off of this past year and into this year and and the potential for him. I mean, because he was already a four and a half-ish win player this past season, despite, you know, the first couple of weeks of the year being a complete wash for him, I think that he's going to get MVP votes this year. I think it's going to be down ballot. Yeah, I don't think he's going to be, I think he'll be like fringe top 10 MVP vote getter this year. But considering what the bat does, considering that he's one of the best defensive catchers in the game, he's going to be an incredibly valuable player at one of the most premium positions in all of baseball.

I'm really excited for Cal's season this year. I'm really excited to see if he can go from very, very good to elite this year to one of the five best catchers. And one can make the argument that he was already that at the end of the season. But I want to see if he can actually submit himself as that dude this year. And I think he will. All right. So I guess my number three, and again, these aren't in any particular order.

I could be mean and take a guy that I think Ty's about to take, but I'll go a different direction here. My number three flag player, I'm going Colton Wong. The disinformation on Colton Wong has gone way too far. We see it all the time. Like, oh, he's just Adam Frazier. He's not that good. Blah, blah, blah. It's not even an upgrade.

You're objectively wrong if you think that Colton Wong. isn't an upgrade over Adam Frazier. He has a longer track record of hitting at the plate. And you're based on this whole idea that he can't play defense anymore based off of one, a one season sample size. No, no, that's not how that works. You have to look at the totality of defensive metrics. Colton Wong is going to be an upgrade defensively over Adam Frazier.

He's going to be an upgrade offensively over Adam Frazier. He's going to be an upgrade clubhouse-wise over Adam Frazier. Colton Wong is going to play an important role in this team. I think he's probably going to hit second in this lineup, at least to start the year. We'll see how he goes. And just everything that people have to say negative about Colton Wong, they're basing that off of one year of sample size. For example, Colton Wong can't hit lefties.

Well, he has the rest of his entire career, but all of a sudden, he doesn't do it in 2022 and it means he can't anymore. Colton Wong's been above average second baseman his entire career. He wasn't in 2022, so all of a sudden he can't play defense anymore. Nonsense. Colton Wong's going to have a really nice year for Seattle. he's going to be a sneaky good player he's going to be one of those guys that we look back on and we go hey you know what the teosker hernandez thing that was awesome and that was much needed but that colton wong

pick up man we we really slept on that well you just mentioned ameer our my number three pick here is teoscar an and i was i was a little worried uh as well as you know calrale that maybe he was going to be one of those guys that you would deem you know off limits because of just how good teosker is but i mean teosker is kind of coming off of a down year by his standards and really most of that is is skewed by an injury that he suffered early on in the year and whatnot but after returning from the injury he was essentially you know i've said this before on the show that he was essentially another Julio Rodriguez at the plate and so i've seen what teoscar nandez can do in person many many many many times i wanted this guy on the mariners for a long

time i talked about wanting him on this team this off season and they went out and they got him and a really nice trade. And all I've seen ever since that deal, and I don't know why from this fan base, is that he's essentially a lateral move from Mitch Hanninger, just like you said with the Colton Wong and Adam Fraser thing. That is ridiculous. No disrespect to Mitch Hanager.

None whatsoever. I really like Mitch. I appreciate everything that Mitch did for this organization and that he was able to state. And I hope that he has great success in San Francisco. But Tay Oscar Hernandez is in a different universe than Mitch Hanigur. That's just what it is. Mitch Hanigar at his 100 percentile is an all-star.

Taye Oscar Hernandez at his 100th percentile is a fringe MVP candidate. Those are two very different things. And Teasca Hernandez is going to prove to all of you that have said that this is a lateral move that is very much not in 2020. All right. So we're going to be doing our final two flag players here in just a moment. And I have a really fun one that I hope Colby doesn't try and snipe because he might just despite me. And I think he knows who I'm talking about here.

I think he does. Look at that. Look at that smirk on his face. Now, to be fair, he always has a smirk on his face. But I think he knows what's up. But before we get into that, let me tell you folks about Fandul, because this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Fandul, and the tournament is heating up. And now is the perfect time to download Fandual, America's number one sportsbook,

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to learn more. Make every moment more with Fanduel an official sports betting partner of the NBA. And you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Thank you. again for making us your first listen here on flag day as we decide our final two or four flag players here on flag day and uh colby your number four pick who is it do you want to go first so i don't take

your guy tie let's just see if you take my guy i'm gonna i'm gonna roll the dice i'm gonna live life i don't think i'm going to all right uh because i don't i don't think you have the stones for it Well, just wait until I take this prospect. No, actually, I'm going to play. It's safe relatively. I'm going to take Loken Gilbert. Gilbert was good last year. We've talked about him in the pitching preview.

He was good last year. End of story. There's really no debate about that. So can he be better? Yeah, absolutely he can. And I think the splitter is going to play a role in that. We saw the splitter throughout the spring. It got a little bit better each time out.

It's a legitimate pitch for him. We know the fastball value is going to be off the charts. And the fact that he has another pitch that he can tunnel with the fastball thrown at the same arm speed as the fastball that goes in completely opposite directions and all of his other pitches, I think he's going to play up big. So I think Gilbert's going to throw more strikes. He's going to get more strikeouts. He's going to go deeper into games as a result.

Logan Gilbert is already a workhorse number three starter. I think he takes another step forward. I think we're talking about him as a number two by the end of the year. And I think we're getting to a point where there will be a legitimate debate in September who should start game one of the wild card round or the divisional round, whoever, because I think the Mariners are set up to have four legitimate options if everybody stays healthy. Agreed. And, you know, I saw in the comments that people thought I was bashing Logan Gilbert because I, you know, I was just voicing my concerns. That's it. That's all it was. But nevertheless, despite my concerns,

I think he actually is going to figure it out this year. I think we are going to see Logan Gilbert take that next step. I do feel confident in that. Now, what I don't feel confident in is that I'm going to be able to get through this next round without you taking my very unique pick. So I'm going to do this here with my number four pick. Careful. I'm taking Bryce Miller. That's why I threw the prospect line in there.

Yeah, yeah, you scared me a little bit when you said that. Yeah, I'm taking Bryce Miller here. Because look, I was, I'll start here. I was in Vegas this week, like I said. And, you know, I was at the sportsbook. I was at an unnamed sports book, not Fandul. I was on an unnamed sports book. And I was looking through their odds.

A great alternative, Dave. If you can't get to Vegas, though. That's right. I would prefer to use Fandul over any other sports book. Let's just get that out of the way. Love you, Fanduel. Appreciate you guys. But I was looking at this unnamed sportsbook, and I was flipping through their odds for A.L.

Rookie of the Year. And they had a Mariners pitching prospect on there at plus 6,600. It just wasn't Bryce Miller. It was Emerson Hancock. No one knows who Bryce Miller is, it seems, outside of Seattle. He's our little secret here. and it kind of reminds me in a way of how Spencer Strider was in Atlanta. I think a lot of people in Atlanta knew who Spencer Strider was,

but we really didn't even, you know, us who keeps up with the game quite a bit. Like Spencer Strider came out of nowhere, really for me. And so I think Bryce Miller is going to be that guy for a lot of people. I don't know if he's exactly going to be Strider. I don't know if he's going to do exactly that. But I think we're going to see a big year out of Miller. I think we're going to see him actually truly contend for a rookie of the year. And I don't know if he's actually going to get it.

But I think we're actually going to have a legitimate conversation about him potentially getting votes. And if he's worthy of that. I'm really excited for Bryce Miller's season. So so far I've gone, Ray Kelnick, Wong, Gilbert. Not a lot of risk per se. I think people are down on Ray enough. Everybody's type on Kalnick. So, you know, whatever.

So I could do something. I could play it safe and I could pick Thai France. I go A Eugenio Suarez, which might tick off tie. I could also go Matt Brash, which I think is the way he's going to go with the fifth pick, Slider God. Or I could go prospect, you know, I could mix things up a little bit there. But I think what I'm going to do, yep, I'm going to do it. No, I'm going to do it. I'm going to take Cooper Hummel as my number five flag guy.

What the hell? Right. Coming out of left field. Are you actually, are you serious? Are you actually doing this? Are you actually doing Cooper? No, no, no. I'm going to take a prospect, though, actually in line with you.

Did I bull you out of it or you actually, you were actually Yankee my chair? Okay, okay. I'm not prepared to hop on the Cooper home on the manwagon. That's what we call a fake out. We had a couple extra minutes. So you actually, you actually got me. I'm going to take a prospect, just like you did, except for my prospect is going to be Perlander I think he's going to come out of the pen by, you know, the middle of May, maybe early June.

And I think he is going to play the same role this year that Matt Brash did last year. Perlander Baroa is going to be a high leverage reliever in September and October. He's going to strike some guys out, some really good hitters out. And he is going to be that guy who becomes the bridge guy, much like Matt Brash was last year for Seattle. Now that Brash is kind of taking on a more high leverage role. So Plander Barrow, number five on the flag list. I wasn't going to let you have all the prospects. Now you can go ahead and take Matt Brash and be your boring, safe self.

But that's my five right there. Ray, Kalnick, Wong, Gilbert, and Baroa. I like it. I like it. Take your problem. You won't. No, you got me. You figured me out.

You figured me out. You nailed me down. Matt Brash is my number five here. I had a ranking here on my, notepad, you know, I had a draft board, if you will. And Matt Brash was actually four. I had Bryce Miller five, but you took it, or sorry, I had, because I had Kellnick at two. I had Brash at five and Miller at six, but, you know. So, yeah, Matt Brash, I mean, he throws hard, all that stuff. Who cares? Slyder God, as you said. This is one of the nastiest pitches in all of baseball.

And you saw what peak Matt Brash can be in game three of the ALDS last October. I think we're going to see a lot of that in 2023, especially with him being fully ramped up as a reliever heading into the season. He knew what he was going to be, what his role was going to be heading into the season. and with that preparation with him having some level of security now and knowing that he's going to be a part of this thing from the beginning, be a part of this bullpen, I think they're going to go to him in a lot of high leverage spots right out of the gate. And for good reason,

because he's the guy that you go to when you need a strikeout. And he's going to make a lot of hitters look really, really, really silly this year. And I think that we're going to see Matt Brash go from, I think he's going to get, you know, the walks are, the walks are still going to be a little bit of an issue. But I think he's going to get it under control somewhat enough to the point where we can consider Matt Brash to be one of the 15 to 20 best relievers in all of baseball. Okay. So before we go, you got any honorable mentions? Yeah. Another guy that you mentioned, E.

Oh, Hennio, Suarez. Yeah. Because I've seen a lot of concern trolling on Twitter, you know, about him regressing not just a little bit, but significantly because of the, you know, two years before last year. But again, there's there's so much context there, you know, of why that happened, why he had those struggles that I just, I don't buy into that really. I think he's still going to be really good. He obviously had a great WBC. He's been really good this spring. He had, I think, two hits at the game that I was at today.

something like that he had a pretty good day it's like the same dude to me yeah he just looks like the same guy so I don't know if he's gonna post a 131 WRC plus I think that's what he posted this past year he was in the 130s but I don't think we're I think

even if we see some regression it's not going to be massive I think he's still two and a half three win player he's still probably a three one player maybe we see some regression on the on the defensive end of things because I didn't expect that last year That was probably the most surprising thing about Gino, really, when we look at his 2022 as a whole.

But yeah, I think even if he's like, even if he regresses some, he's still going to be like a 1, 15, 120 WRC plus guy and still hit like 30, 35 bombs. And that's a really, really freaking good player. So. Yeah. You know, in an alternate universe where he doesn't get hurt, Taylor Tremel is probably on my list. But unfortunately, with the hamlet injury. Just tough to know, you know, when he's going to be ready and how he's going to look coming back. But I was getting pretty excited for Tremel this year before that happened.

Same with Cade Marlowe. I think he was kind of an interesting one. Thai France is a guy that you think about. But, but Thai, it's just, it's all about, is he going to be healthy? Because I feel like if he is, we know who he is, roughly. Yeah. I mean, like, I think for me to say, like, I'm planning my flag in Thai France, I have to be willing to say, like, I think first half,

France is the real Thai France and he's going to do that over the course of an entire season I was willing to go that far but I almost threw in Dylan more just to mess with you too but I decided to go Cooper Hummel instead I almost wanted to pick Sam Haggary to mess with you I mean it's your funeral I do I think Sam Haggurdy is going to help them win a couple games like you know and so for that reason I kind of considered him but I don't know there's there's a lot of better options So is there anybody that neither of us picked that you're a little bit surprised by as we wrap? Not particularly.

I think we hit all the ones that I thought we would. You know, Kelnick was obviously going to be the biggest one. I'm kind of surprised that neither one of us took him number one. Well, I'm not surprised that I didn't take him number one, but I'm kind of surprised you didn't take him number one, you know? I didn't, you know, rank these. Like, I just pick five guys. I didn't. Right.

Yeah, yeah. Although it did kind of work out. You didn't have a draft board. No. Although it did kind of work out because I do think that like I think I am the high guy on Robbie Ray this year, at least based on what I've seen. So. Yeah.

I mean, and look again, like I said, for good reason, because he's just in a different spot right now. He looks like he's in a really good place. I'm really, really excited to see him to start the year. And I think he's going to surprise a lot of folks that have kind of written him off, you know? Yeah. And hopefully he doesn't.

I'm right back. A Seattle sports joke. All right. Let's get on out of here, Colby. That's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on Locked-on Mariners for Colby Pat Note. I'm Taday-N-G-N-G-N-G-N-G-G-N-Zless. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-N-Z.

You can follow me at Dane-G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-Pat-E-E-Pat-E-T-E-Pat-E-E-T-A-T-O-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-F. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok as well at Locked-on, Marinerers. I know I need to start posting on there more consistently. It's been, I've been busy the last few days. I promise we'll get a little more active on there. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen.

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