Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Flag Day: Picking Our Guys on the 2024 Mariners

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

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It's Flag Day. Colby and I are going to plan our flags and five Mariners each claiming them as our guys for the 2024 season coming up here on the Locked On Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Oh, Hoy, Sailors. It is Friday, March 22nd, 2024. This is tying as awesome. Colby Patnaud for the Locked on Marriss podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube, or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below.

We'd love to hear from you. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. It is Flag Day here on Locked-on M's. I believe this is our third time doing this on the show. the second whatever uh if you knew around here just don't know what flag day is colby's going to

tell you all about it colby oh sure may colby do all the work that's right so flag day is a very simple premise we all have players that we tend to like claim some sort of like ownership stake in every year we're like oh that's my guy like that i like i liked him more than you ha ha ha like that type of thing. So Flag Day is just the day where you declare pretty much your love for a player that, uh, you know, the other person has to respect. Uh, and, and, you know, back off Colby. This is my guy.

Yeah, this is my man, uh, type of thing here. So yeah, it's flag day, you know, it's the my guy game like whatever. Well, I think pretty much every fan does this. They like just glom onto a couple guys that they really like. And, you know, they kind of. stake their reputation on it. And, you know, if you want to know how good we are at this, last year, I believe our picks were Robbie Ray, Jared Kelnick, Teoscar Hernandez. Colmong might have been in there.

Yeah, he might have been. We kind of blocked it out. So who knows, really. So basically what we're saying to the 10 guys we're going to mention over the next 30 or so minutes. We're sorry. Yeah. Sorry. We're sorry.

but yeah there are there are some rules this year because like as we discussed last year there was a Julio clause because Julio is everybody's guy like he's not he's not eligible for this but we did add a couple more because well the seasons they had last year and where they're out in their careers it just doesn't feel right to have one of us too obvious too easy too boring for you guys we're here to create content claiming Julio right Julio belongs to us but there are a couple more so tie why don't you tell the people who are not eligible, who is not eligible for this list. All right.

So Julio, of course, J.P. Crawford. We're also putting it in here. Cal Raleigh, Luis Cascio, and George Kirby. So five guys, five exceptions. And everyone else is free game. So let's get underway here. Coley, who's your first guy? Well, Ty, as you know, I am a man of the people.

But I am also a little bit of a contrarian. And you're not a sheep. That is right. That is right. I am the shepherd. Sounds kind of culty, doesn't it? Yes. I bet. So anyways, I am a man of the people, but I also like to try and educate the people.

And when I see the people falling all over themselves for dominant can zone, I can't help but look at that and go, where's the love for Luke Rayleigh? Luke Rayleigh has infinitely more success. at the major league level than Dom Canzone has. It's not remotely close. So why are we as a community sitting here and crowning Dominic Canzone as the Jared Kelnick that never was when he hasn't done anything at the major league level with any consistency to warrant that buy-in? So while you people want Dominic Canzone to be on this flag list and he's probably on

ties flagless because he's an uncreative little, you know what, it's not going to happen here, not from my side because I will stand Luke Rayleigh and we will see who is right at the end of the year. I don't care that he's hitting a, you know, not even a buck 50. I don't care that he's hitting 50 in spring training this year. I don't care that he had a 93 WRC plus at the end of the second half last year. I care that this is a guy who does everything Dominic Canzone can do and more because he can play some defense and steal some bags. That's the guy I'm going to plant my flag in.

So you can have Dominic Canzone. I don't want them. I'm taking the better version of Dominic Canzone, the one that everybody's overlooking, the one that everybody's panicking about. And I'm taking Luke Rayleigh as my first flag guy this year. I will take your Dom Canzone and give him to the comp section, because I'm not picking Dom Canzone. I'm picking Bryce Miller for my first guy here.

Yeah, I figured you should. Who I also picked last year, by the way. I would like to let the record show. Yeah. I got a little too aggressive with my prediction on him. We won't rehash it though. But he's still on a pretty good year. He still had a really good rookie year.

I think he's going to build upon that. And I'm going to bet that for the sake of this exercise, that the splitter is real, that the splitter is a legit weapon that's going to help him elevate his game. And he's going to have a similar, not the same, but a similar step forward to what Logan Gilbert had last year.

Well, it's funny that you mentioned Logan Gilbert because he's on my flag list this year. This is the best player that will be on my list. I assumed this much. I didn't even include him on my possibilities list because I was like, he's going to take Logan Gilbert. I mean, like one of us was going to, so it just a matter of who did it first.

Because I think we're both on the same page here. Logan Gilbert has primed for a breakout season. You know, we saw the splitter really take off last year, and that became his primary secondary pitch. We know that he gets, you know, good value out of the fastball, not quite as elite of a pitch as it used to be.

But still, he's going to get value out of the, fastball. Then it kind of comes down to what is the, what are the breaking balls do? Like, what does the slider do? Uh, he's been toying around with a cutter. We'll see how often he uses that as well. Gilbert is a mad scientist in a way, uh, for pitchers. You know, it's not enough to say that he tinkers, uh, because, you know, Jared Kellnick tinkers. It doesn't mean it works just because you, you know, you make some slight changes here and there. But Gilbert gets in the lab that he's big into, you know, pitch FX. He's big into, you know, the data of his pitches. He's big into studying hitters and how they react to his pitches.

Like Logan Gilbert is, you know, a professor. He does the research. He's a scientist. He looks at what hitters do against him. He looks at how he can best impact those hitters, how he can change things, how he can tweak things. We know he's going to throw a ton of strikes. We know that the swing and miss stuff is there. And we know that Gilbert hasn't reached his ceiling yet. He's been very good. his first two full seasons in the majors, but he's got another step next left to take. He is a plus 1,900, I believe, for a Cy Young odds right now. That's pretty good odds if you can get it. I think Gilbert could have a five, six-win season in him, and that could happen this year.

This guy's only, what, 27 years old, still in his prime. He's still tweaking. He's still, you know, refining his pitch mix. If you can get back some of the value he's lost on the fastball over the last year, he could be a legitimate, you know, low-end number one, you know, even a cheap, I guess we'll call it cheap ace for a lot of teams. So I think this is the year Gilbert kind of explodes. And I think this is a year where I think a lot of baseball sees, you know,

the Mariners is having a three-headed monster at the rotation. But it's always like Castillo Kirby. And then Gilbert's pretty good too. I think this is the year where Gilbert, you know, kind of claims. his rifle place in that trio. It's the respect he deserves. Right. Is mentioned not just as, you know,

kind of the third guy in the three-headed monster mix, but solidly a foundational player for the Seattle Mariners. So why did he not make our exception list? Good question. Because he has not had an all-star season yet. Like, I mean, now JP and Cal have never been on an all-star team, but they've had all-star seasons last year. They're all-starchers.

Right. Right. So, you know, I think when you kind of look at this, you go, who are the five most popular players on the Mariners? It's probably the five guys that we excluded from this list. I think Logan's probably six. So he's close, but I think after this year, he won't be eligible for this list again. So, yeah, I think this is Gilbert's true breakout year. All those other guys have kind of had their breakout year. And Gilbert has stayed consistently good, but hasn't quite creeped into the great category. And I think those other guys have. creeped into the great category for their positions. So my second flag player is going to be Jorge Polanco. I don't know if you were considering him or not. I mean, he's on the list, but a lot of guys are. Yeah. In case there was overlap.

So, yeah, I have like eight or nine guys just in case. Because, you know, if it wasn't made clear, he and I can't pick the same guy. So, um, Palanco has been hitting the ball over the part. this spring and he to me I think is going to give the mayor

is something that they haven't really had since Robinson Canoe was traded they got a pretty good season at second base out of Dillamore in 2020 and that's about it in terms of second base production

since Cano's departure Polanco is an all-star caliber hitter I am a little concerned about the defense but we won't focus on that today he can hit from both sides of the plate very well at an above average clip He can provide above average power output from second base, which you're not getting a lot of power output from most guys that play that position. He hit 33 home runs just a couple of years ago.

If he's able to stay on the field, three and a half win season, I think is certainly not all the question for Jorge Palanko this season. So done our first two guys. We've got three more coming up each in just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown-Arens podcast is brought to you by Ibata. and Fandul. For many people, the new year means resolutions to save money. So stop shopping without getting anything in return. Start getting cash back on every purchase you make with IBATA.

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That's LocKD-O-N and bet on college hoops until they cut down the nets. And you're listening to the Lockdown Merritt's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first. So listen and just a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube and Amazon Fire TV in the free Fire TV channels app. Lockdown Sports today is here for you 24-7. 4-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on, plus our national shows covering every league. Find locked-on sports today,

now available on the free Fire TV channels app. By the way, yesterday, a lot of you really enjoyed the barbecue talk. So we asked our patrons the other day for barbecue recommendations in Washington or just the Seattle area. I'll ask you guys, leave us some barbecue recommendations down in the comments below. It doesn't really apply to me because I don't live in the area.

but hey maybe colby will take you up on a recommendation or two so let's get back into our flag players here colby who's your number three flag player okay first of all i want to i want to specify these are not ranked in any order okay so these are just guys i like uh but i don't think this will come as a surprise to anybody here i've spent most of the spring talking up josh rojas as a guy who seems to have figured something out since he's joined the Mariners. And I think part of that is just kind of this idea that Mariner fans have that like, Oh, Rojas is just a dude. Like he's just kind of another body.

And I don't think people understand how good this guy was in Arizona. Was you your traditional third baseman who was going to hit 30 bombs? No. But this guy got on base yet for some average, played pretty good defense, get some doubles. He came over to Seattle last year and he was one of the best second baseman in baseball, according to outs above average, despite only playing second base for the Seattle Mariners last year for two months. He can field his position.

He was perfect and stolen base attempts last year. He also came over and he turned into what looks like to me, legitimate 18 to 22 home run power from the left side that's going to play very well at Team Mobile Park. Josh Rojas is a guy who's not getting enough respect in general. He's coming off of a down year that's pretty easily explained by a major issue that he had, an injury that he had in the middle of it. He came over and he really was a significant player for Seattle, especially in August.

And he was fine in September. I think this is a guy who a lot of people kind of just, he's also, you know, he's just, yeah, he's part of a platoon. And he's not the one that people are talking about at all. And I just, you know, have to wonder, like, this guy who's got to want 10 WRC plus season under his belt. He's got a three-win season under his belt. like this dude has been an everyday player in the past and now he's part of a platoon he's kind of

your marwin gonzalez you move him around and people aren't jacked about that in fact they're like well maybe you could trade him to save some salary we'll just dump uh josh rojas like what are you talking about dude's good he's a good major league baseball player you have him for what three million dollars this year steal like this guy is a legitimate good baseball player if you have to play him every day, that's fine. He can do that. I think he's in for a pretty good season this year. I would not be shocked if he's on a 20 home run pace.

It kind of depends on what his partner at third base does. Kind of see how they divvy up playing time. But to me, I think that Rojas, you know, we'll see what the actual counting stats are. But I think his pace will be 20 home runs. And I think it'll be about 20 stolen bases as well, plus really good defense at second base and third base. Well, speaking of his partner over at third base,

I'm taking Luis Erius. So I already picked him as my breakout player. You guys know the deal. You know what I like about Eureas. You know my thoughts on his past year and all that stuff. I think last year is an outlier. The guy is 26 years old. He's a former top prospect.

He already has two win seasons under his belt, has shown the ability to hit 20 plus home runs in the season. I think he's going to get back on track. I think the bat is going to play. A little concerned about the defense and how the shoulder is going to impact the defense over the course of the year and we'll see if that heals over time or not. But I think the bat at the very least is going to be a valuable asset to the mariner's over the course of the year. I believe in Luis Urias getting back on track for sure.

So number four for you, Colby. Interesting how we've kind of done a like a 180 on the Ureus front. For the record, I also really like Ureas. So it just, tie has kind of picked up that flag literally over the last about month, I would say Ty has kind of morphed himself into the Luis Urias guy. Part of me also just wants Mariners' Twitter to get proven wrong. Very, very bad. That's like half of my list.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just, I'm just looking against Mariners' Twitter mostly here. I mean, yeah. If you're not doing that, by the way, you're missing out. It's awesome. Yeah, so number four on my list. I'm going to go with Brian Wu. You took Bryce Miller.

I'll take his other rookie counterpart, Brian Wu. Love it. It is a. delivery that is as smooth as Tennessee whiskey, a fastball that is a sweetest strawberry wine. And I think he's going to take a step forward. He throws strikes. We know that he gets insane value out of his fastballs.

So the question is, does he have something to help him against left-handed hitters? We haven't seen it yet, but just because he didn't add a new pitch, doesn't mean that he didn't find a way to attack lefties. So it be in a pitch mixing, maybe he refined a pitch he already had. Maybe it's just location

of the fastball when he goes up against lefties. I think he's going to figure it out. He's a smart dude. He is a pretty polished pitcher despite not having a ton of pitching experience. I mean, really since what? He was a sophomore in college. So the delivery again, it's just, it's so smooth. It's so effortless.

The fastball just jumps out of his hand. It's two elite fastballs. Like, there are no kidding here. Brian Wu might have the second best fastball in baseball. The only one I can think of. it's clearly better than Brian Wu's is Spencer Strider. So could Brian Wu be this year's Spencer Strider? Probably not.

Strider also has a really nasty slider, which Wu hasn't shown yet. Flashed a pretty good cutter, though. He's flashed a good breaking ball, flashed a good change up. So it's just a matter of can he put one of those pitches together with his four seam and his two seam? I'm going to say yes. And I think Brian Wu is the guy who went to see how they handle him. They're probably going to short script him once in a while. they're probably going to have to skip a start because again, like I said, while he looks incredibly

polished and it looks like he's been pitching for 15 years, he really doesn't have a ton of work in his craft over the last four or five years just in terms of innings pitched. Like you kind of still have to take it slow with him. Blew through his career high and innings pitched last year. I don't think they're going to ask him to add another 60 innings like he did last year to his career high. So we'll have to wait and see kind of how they maneuver it. They might skip a start here. They might, you know, short script them.

Maybe they piggyback him with, you know, Tyson Miller or somebody like that. But I believe in Brian Wu. I think Wu is going to find a way to manage lefties to where his domination against righties and his serviceableness against lefties will combine to make for a really, really good starting pitcher. I would not be shocked at all. Brian Wu had a four-win season this year. I like it.

You know, Wu is another guy on my list. And I have quite a few names to potentially call here at number four. And I'm going to tell you who I'm going to pick in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown podcast is brought to you by Amazon Fire TV. Fire TV is your destination for sports from live games to highlights to in-depth analysis. Fire TV offers amazing viewing experiences with smart TVs as well as the Fire TV stick that you can plug into your existing. TV that provides access to millions of movies and TV episodes as well as free and live TV. Whether it's opening weekend for baseball or the college basketball tournament, you're going to

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And you're listening to the Lockdown Maron's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen here on Flag Day. We've gone through, well, Colby's picked four guys so far to plant his flag in. I've picked three. And now it's time for my number four.

And that number four is going to be Mitch Garver. Oh, my list too. Okay. Nice. So I will say this. He did not crack my top five. I think my number five will, delight a lot of people.

So for context, right before we started doing this third segment, Colby was like, you're going to pick Mitch Hanager, aren't you? And I was like, yeah, probably. And he's like, well, you better. So there you go. So Mitch Carver, really love the signing. The more time that has passed since the signing has happened, the more that I like it, especially once we've started to see some of these other deals that guys have signed,

you know, some of these DH types have signed. really love the fit for Garver in Seattle, right in the middle of this lineup. Look, this is a guy that hit in the heart of the World Series champions order. He was the cleanup hitter for the Texas Rangers in the World Series. Literally one of the best offenses we've seen in quite some time. This guy was hitting right in the heart of that order.

Like, Mitch Garver can really hit. Obviously, the big question mark, though, is can he stay healthy? Because he just hasn't been able to, just like his Mitch counterpart, Hanager. right but I think that the fact that they're not going to catch him it seems like that that has been made pretty clear

by the Mariners organization that only in emergency Mitch Garber is going to catch by just deaching him I think they are going to be able to keep him healthy I think he's going to play a career high in games this year and I think he's going to hit a ton of home runs

and a ton of doubles and he's going to finally finally give this Mariners lineup kind of that you know, I know people look at JP as this guy or Jorge Polanco as this guy. I think Mitch Garber is actually truly the Robin to

Julio's Batman and we're going to see that play out over the course of the season. Nice, nice, nice, very nice. So, yeah, Garber was on my list too. But now we've reached the end and we will have a few honorable mentions here at the end because we do have some time for those. But Ty, it's time to put some

respect on this player's name. not only is he a good base runner i know i know exactly who this is not home does he hit home runs not i'm so glad you did this i'm so glad you did this i'm so glad you did this third best outfield but for three of the last four years he has been an above average hitter at the plate yes he strikes out but yes he hits home runs clutch home runs i might add he steals bases he takes walks he is who he is he is the utility man he He is the one, the only Dylan Moore. Let's go.

2024 Seattle Mariners. Demo. That's right. I'm back on the bandwagon. I'm so glad you did this. I was one of the earliest adopters of Demo. And then he burned me in 2021. But I'm back.

I'm all in. Dylan Moore. Awesome. He is going to be in a position where he only has to place left. He's going to be in a position where he comes off the bench to steal bags. He's going to be put finally in a spot where he doesn't have to be in. anything that he's not. He's going to strike out. Live with it. He's also going to draw walks. He's going to hit Dinger. He's going to hit the ball hard. He's going to play really good defense at like

five spots and he's going to steal 20 bags. Accept it. Move on. Yes, the swing is hideous. Doesn't matter. Dylan Moore flag player 2024. That's right. I'm back on the bandwagon, baby. Get on or shut up. The heel turn. Amazing. I love it. I love it. I'm so glad you did this. I was hoping, praying that you were going to do this at some point today. truly truly a man of the people truly given the people what they want i don't know how to follow that up because i can't follow it up it's impossible but um i have quite a few names here um you know the rest of these guys one of them sure ison miller no no that's mr miller did not make the guy uh you know what opening day roster either apparently

I'm trying to decide Because like You know we're going to mention some guys as honorable mentions But they didn't make the cuts So technically we cannot consider them our guys right We didn't plan our flag in them Sure So who do I want to give this last spot to it's down to two guys

I'm going to go Mitch Yeah I'm going to go I'm going to go Mitch Hanger I can't not do it I can't not do it Mitch is awesome right And I hope is crazy And like I talked about yesterday and yeah, while I took the under on the plate appearances and all that, I really hope that Mitch is able to stay healthy because when Mitch is part of this team, it's so much fun. I love Mitch Hanager. I was so excited when I got that text. I was like Mitch Hanager is back and all that. I couldn't believe it. That day was so much fun. We know about an hour and a half before you guys that that was happening and that was really hard not to just start sharing pets and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, I was losing my mind. I was losing my mind. Like absolutely losing my mind about that. Mitch is.

is the best, the absolute best. And he's having an insane spring right now. Man, if he can actually carry that, just a little bit of that into the regular season, you have an actual valuable bat. We know exactly what a good Mitch Hanigar looks like. And it's not that long ago that we saw what that looks like. You know,

it's hard to think that it's only been one season since he was last in a Mariners uniform. It feels like a longer time than that. But it's very possible that you can still get a very, very good Mitch Hanager if he's able to stay healthy. And the fact that he's like kind of right now, your fourth outfielder, I think is great because you can kind of afford right now

with the way that the roster is built to kind of look at him as a bonus, whatever you get out of him as a bonus. And you know what? Screw it. I'm going to say that you are going to get that bonus. You are going to reap the rewards of Mitch Hanigar and actually get value out of dumping Robbie Ray's contract and get a pretty good bat.

You know, somewhere in the 6 to 8. eight range of your lineup. That's the other thing, too, right? Like Mitch Hanager, even a good Mitch Hanager in this lineup, you know, unless a lot of things go wrong in the top half, probably hitting towards the bottom half of your lineup, which like, think about just, you know, a year and a half ago. Mitch was sitting, what, four, five in your lineup. Again, now he's probably going to be hitting six, seven, or eight. And probably to start the season, eight. And Mitch is just awesome, man. So, yeah, Mitch is my fifth flag player. Mo Mitches, no problem for the AL West.

That's right. Also, yeah, I couldn't pick one Mitch and not the other Mitch, like on the flag team, right? My flag team or whatever. There's no side mitches here. Right, yeah, no side mitches, you know, just. I just got two main mitches. Yeah, that's, that's right.

That's right. That was a better way to word it than how I was going to attempt to do that. Anywho, yeah. King of applause. Yeah, thank you for, thank you for stepping in and saving me from that. Anywho, honorable mentions. Who did not make your list that you did consider?

Well, really probably no surprises here. Cade Marlowe is certainly a guy that I really appreciate. Although now that he's not on the big league team and neither is Clossey, comparing the two just kind of lost its steam. But once again, I'm on the other side of what Mariners' Twitter thinks. Jonathan Closset is some kind of star. Surprise, surprise. Hey, you know what?

It's amazing how often I'm. I'm right. Okay. So that's right. The masses don't know what they're talking about. Right. You got to leave it to the experts. The sheeple.

Like me and Thai. Yeah, we're experts. Experts. The local experts of the lockdown podcast network is, if you will. Yes. Yeah.

So yeah, Cade Marlow certainly has a shot to come up and make his mark on this team like he did last year, even if only for a couple weeks. His contributions right after Kelmic, went down or kind of forgotten because it didn't end too well. But Marlowe, I still think there's a good major leaguer there. You know, I feel like Carlos Vargas, but he's, you know, kind of far down the list.

Like I just threw him on there. I'm still a Vargas fan, but it's very clear he doesn't have, you know, the command yet of his pitches that the Mariners are going to trust him in any situation. So hopefully that gets figured out because if it does, he's legitimate, you know, for, high leverage guy for you in this bullpen. You know, I thought about Gabe Spire a little bit through him on there. Just because I think people forget how good he was last year. And when you consider the number of lefties, like dangerous left-handed hitters that are in the American League West, spire is going to be incredibly important.

He threw a ton of strikes last year. Good slider, 95, 96. So Spire was the guy that I considered as well. I bet people don't like that we left Dominic Canzone off, but that's because we're not cheap. Okay. We think for ourselves. I got to say like the amount of people that would pick Dominic Canzone that have picked Dominic Canzone is like their breakout player, all that has kind of, it kind of turned me off from putting him on this list or mentioning him as my breakout player the other day. You know, I just feel like it's a little too easy, a little too on the nose. So yeah, that did factor into my decision here.

He was on my list, though. I did consider him. You know, obviously, Andres Munoz Matt Brasch, like they weren't on the exception list. Like, either one of us could have picked either one of those guys. How about Gregory Santos, right? 103 mile per hour sinkers and mid-90s sliders. Like, yeah, sign me up for that.

Obviously, he's hurt right now. But I think that he's going to be able to get healthy at some point and be able to be a part of this whole minute at some point. I feel like Brash and Santos are more like X-factor, like players. like if they're healthy, then, you know, kind of seesaw players, but like to the extreme. Right, right. Because like not having one of them all year won't sink your entire bullpen, but if you have both of them, they're both healthy, oh, good luck.

So that is going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, once again, a reminder that lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels. app. Lockdown Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Locked-on, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked-on Sports Today, now available on the Free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for making us your first listen here on the Lockdowne Marrace podcast. Colby Patnaud, I'm Ty Dangazzo. Be sure to give us a follow on

Twitter at L.O. underscore Marrers. You can follow me at Ty Dame Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat-11. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. yourself a beautiful baseball day we'll see you next time peace