Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How Concerning Is the Mariners' Rotation Right Now?

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Following a big series win for the Mariners in Toronto, Ty and Colby answer your questions, including how much of a concern the rotation's lackluster start to the year is.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Wonderful PistachiosLooking for a snack that’s both delicious and nutritious? Get snackin’ and get crackin’ with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more.Supply HouseJoin the TradeMaster program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code S-H-5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com!UpworkVisit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free to connect with top talent and grow your business today! Just IngredientsVisit JustIngredients.us/Bryce-Harper and use code LOCKEDONMLB for 20% off your order! And for more wellness tips, follow @just.ingredients on Instagram.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with MonarchMoney. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLBfor $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Winters of four consecutive series, the mayors are enjoying a day off today in Boston. So it's a good time to open up the mailbag. That's what we'll do coming up here on the Lockdown 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. Ahoy, Sailors.

It is Monday, April 21st, 2025. This is tighting as awesome. Colby Pat noted for the Lockdown Marys Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch money. Use the promo code Locked on MLB. That's OcK-K-D-O-N-M-M-LB at Monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, you can check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out, click the link in

the description of this episode. It's time to open up the mailbag and hear what's on your mind, starting with Brumpier old man who wants to know. J.P. has been looking more competent at the plate over the last couple of weeks. Still no power by getting the bat to the ball. If sustained is 261, 404, 304, 304 over the last 15 games, and the defense he's been playing enough to keep shortstop from being a concern this year and or next.

Defensively, he's been pretty good this year. Also, it had some really bad errors. So it's kind of been a mixed back from him defensively. He's made a lot of spectacular plays. He's also airmailed a couple of routines. plays. So he's been okay there defensively overall. Yeah, offensively, he's really started to pick it up, especially over the last eight or nine games. I think since the 11th, he's posting like a 155 WRC plus. And that's mostly being driven by walks. Right now he has about a 19% walk rate. Is that sustainable?

No, that's like Juan Soto. But can he be 11, 12, 13% walk I? Of course, he's done it before. So, yeah, obviously you'd like to see a little more power. But if JP is going to play average defense and he's going to get on base 36, 37% of the time, the rest of his offensive numbers really doesn't matter. And it's not that you're not looking to upgrade over that. It's just that you're not trying to force it. Like you're not desperate to upgrade over it because odds are you're probably not going to. Yeah.

It'll be very difficult for you to upgrade over that. Yeah. As I'm still, you know, I'm sticking with what I said and what I've said for a while now. Like, I think he's pretty darn safe for this year. Like, I really don't think he's going to be moved off a shortstop this year. This winter, though, I wouldn't be shocked at all, even if he has a good year, if he gets traded. Because, you know, with Cole Young coming up and with Colt Emerson coming up down the pipeline here, they might be looking to go younger.

And JP's making, you know, 12 million bucks, which unfortunately for the Mariners means something. And so, yeah, I think JP is safe this year pretty much no matter what happens. I mean, they're not going to give that job to Dylan Moore. Yeah. You saw what that looked like yesterday, right? Yeah. You know, they're not going to give it to Leo Rivas. So, yeah, when Cole Young is ready, maybe, but you still have a second base that you can fill.

So I'd say JP's relatively safe right now, but if he does have a good season, and right now, I think he's up to like a 106 WRC plus, if he stays there, Like just the totality of his numbers right now. And he's a 106 WRC plus. Then you're fine. Shortstop's not a pressing area of need. And it might be enough. Like even if the Mariners want to go get like at Bo Bichette or if they think Cole Young is ready,

they might move JP to second base for a year and do that. But they might also trade him if he's having a solid year like he is right now. So yeah, I think JP is really safe for this year, pretty much regardless. But also regardless of what he does now, or whatever, regardless of what he does this year, I think he's in danger of losing the spot next year, unless, you know, it's 20, 23 JP. Then at that point, you just house that contract. We talked about this during the offseason and even in the days leading up to the season

when we were doing our position previews and all that stuff and fly player or all that. Anytime we had a chance to talk about JP, we talked about him finding the middle ground, right, between what he was last year, which was a disaster and what he was in 20, 23, which was incredible, right? Could you find that middle ground? Well, so far he has. 107 WRC plus. That's pretty much the middle ground.

That's pretty much what we were aiming for when we were talking about that. That was anywhere from, you know, 105 to a 115 WRC plus. But you can give me that. I feel great about JP. Yeah. I think you'd like to see more average right now. Yes. But, you know, because he's walking so much that that's really inflating his value.

The power's never really been a bit of. part of JPM's game with the exception of 2023. But if he can hit just, you know, 250 with the amount of walks he normally takes, then he's going to be a 360, 370 on base guy. And that's that's, you know, actually

a good leadoff hitter. It's a number nine hitter. So yeah. Yeah, I think JPM's in a good spot right now. And I think that as I've always thought, that like 2025, like JPM's a short stop period. Next question from Rayleigh fan. How worried

are you about the starting pitching right now. Besides Wu, they don't seem to be able to get through more than five innings consistently. You would be correct in that. And even with Wu on Friday, he got through seven, which was huge for the rest of the series, by the way, with how much they needed the bullpen on Saturday and Sunday. You know, he still gave up 14 hard hit balls. The Blue Jays found a ton of grass against him. They were still falling off a ton of pitches, even though his pitch count was still, you know,

fine enough for him to go seven. And yeah, it wasn't a great start for, for, I mean, it was great in terms of the impact that it had on the next two days. But, but yeah, yeah, this rotation kind of been the problem with this team. Like the offense, as we all expected. The offense has actually been really good, especially over the last 10 days, two-ish weeks. And the bullpen has been nails. And it's been put in some, for the most part, and it's been put into some pretty difficult situations here, especially on this road trip.

It's come through more often than not. Yeah, I mean, bullpen's had to cover four innings plus a night, pretty much every night for three, four weeks now. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I know we got a lot of questions about, like, how concerned are you about Luis Castillo? and yeah, Luis definitely had the worst start of the three guys in Toronto, but I wouldn't just single out Louise here because it's kind of a rotation-wide issue right now. I mean, like you look at Logan's start on Saturday. He had nine Ks and four and two-thirds.

That's really great in a vacuum, but he needed 102 pitches to get through those four-and-two-thirds and to get those nine strikeouts. Like strikeouts are great, but if you're taking you know six seven eight nine pitches to get them every single time then

that's a problem so yeah I mean to quote Crash Davis the great Crash Davis stop trying to strike everybody out besides that strikeouts are fascist throw some ground balls they're more democratic and we are pro democracy

on this podcast shocking I know but yeah it's been you know it's funny like Luis is kind of like the target right now because he's been bad his last two starts. And it's like, Luis was the only guy getting deep before these last two starts.

So it's kind of one of those things. But to answer the question directly, am I worried? Not really. No. They'll figure it out. Too much talent. By the way,

I don't know if you noticed. I don't know if you looked at the updated. The Mariners are 13th and runs scored in all of baseball. And they are sixth in WRC plus. Yeah. Top 10 offense. your Seattle Mariners. And the bullpen has more than held its own,

considering it's had to cover more innings than anybody in baseball. So look, at some point, the bullpen's going to, like, collapse under the weight of itself because, A, that's just how bullpins work. And also, B, like, you can't ask them to cover this many innings and be this good for an entire year.

And the offense is going to regress at some point. Of course it is. Like, the Mariners aren't going to have a top 10 offense. Like, not in terms of, like, WRC plus. They're finally over 80, contact rate on pitches inside the strike zone. And they're not last anymore. They're 29th.

81%. So yeah, it's just one of those things where it's like, look, the offense is going to slide back at some point. That's just baseball. The bullpen's going to slide back at some point. That's just baseball. And thankfully for the starting pitching staff is as they've slid back right now, the offense in the bullpen have been gangbusters.

They've been great. And so the timing's worked out very well. So if you told me that on April 21st, we'd be sitting here being like, oh, the road. Rotation's a concern and I'd be like and I'd say what the Mariners record was. Have you told me 12 and 10? I wouldn't believe you because if you told me the rotation was the sketchiest part of this, this ball club through 22 games, I would have told you like, oh no, are they like 7 and 15?

Yeah. Like are they, no, they're 12 and 10. So am I worried about the rotation? No, I, I, I, they all have too much of a track record to be all that worried about them. Now if somebody else gets hurt and we're not getting updates about George. and, you know, like, I'm worried about the depth of the starting rotation. Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. But no, like, I'm supposed to believe Gilbert, who led the league innings pitch last year, is only going to be a five and fly guy all year. Oh, it's not going to happen. So I'm not all that worried. And Bryce, you know, had a very nice start in his last outing. And so I'm hoping that the kind of the soreness that he's been working through, maybe he's starting to get past that.

No, again, like, I'm, what I am worried. heard about is that the pitch starting pitching doesn't quite get back to where it needs to be when this offense inevitably takes a step back when the bullpen obviously inevitably implodes. And we already saw the bullpen really struggle in one of the games. But thankfully the offense carried it because as we know, the Mariners are a team that absolutely should be built on hitting a lot of home runs and scoring a ton of runs. Because that's the way you win at Team Mobile Park, of course. Right.

It took you a second. All right, we will answer more of your questions here in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you once again by Monarch Money. Ever check your bank account and wonder, where did all my money go? Between dining out, online shopping and entertainment, it's easy to lose track. That's where Monarch Money comes in, your personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances. Monarch Money isn't just a budgeting app. It's a complete financial command center.

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It is Mailbag Monday. Let's get back to your questions. Erud wants to know. Top rivalries with the Mariners in and out of the division. It seems like the Blue Jays might be high on the list. Yeah, I think it goes Astros 1. Maybe Blue Jays, too? Are the angels?

I think the top three is Astros, Blue Jays Angels, so right? Yeah, it feels like the Blue Jays kind of have to be too. And that kind of makes sense. They're expansion partners, you know? Expansion partners, they had a recent playoff series. They take over the ballpark every time they come to town. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people hate that, but they won't buy tickets.

There's the Cal Raleigh aspect of it. Right. I mean, the rivalry might be Cal Raleigh versus John Schneider, actually. and now Jose Barrios apparently Yeah By the way Don't poke the bear Yeah

You're stealing my pitches It's like you're telling me what pitch you're throwing dude What do you? Yeah Yeah What are you problem No John Boy breakdown on that yet by the way Trusting

Yeah I think it's Houston Toronto and then I'd say Texas But that's been pretty one-sided recently I think it's I think it's the Angels Yeah I feel like

that might be just an us thing though there's the brawl yeah i feel like that's most trout has trout has been like cow raleigh to the blue jays yeah you know with with with the mariners i kind of feel like that's mostly an us thing though like we create that rivalry like i don't think other angels and mariner fans care that much about each other but like yeah yeah they just they don't really have that many robin yeah definitely the astros yeah definitely the blue jays no question yeah um the blue's Jay is yeah after after Saturday's game now I went to went to the train station I overheard this the guy who works at the train station acts some Blue Jays fans he's like

you know how did our Blue Jays do and this guy goes it's always Seattle man so you know isn't this the first series they've won in Toronto since like 2019 regular season first regular season series they won the series in Buffalo in 2021 but Whatever. Buffalo. Yeah. Like, no, my memory seems to be Seattle, despite, you know, having 90% Blue Jay fans in Seattle, the Mariners typically win the series when it's in Seattle.

Toronto typically wins the series when it's in Toronto. Yeah. But, yeah, it really is Cal Raleigh versus the country of Canada is probably the biggest rivalry. Band base-wise, though, it's Houston in Seattle. Yeah. Yeah, there's just unfortunate. There's probably never going to be Yankees, Red Sox. level rivalry for Seattle, unfortunately.

But yeah, the Houston rivalry is pretty good. It's pretty solid. It's an underrated rivalry in the sport. I'll say that. Yeah, plus we've had the, you know, the bench is clear a few times with them. Yeah. Yeah.

Like I said, we're probably never going to get Giants, Dodgers, or Dodgers, Padres. I would love for Yankees, Mariner's to be Dodgers and Padres. Yeah. The Mariners aren't on that level. yet. Rivalries are fun though. I mean, like when the Seahawks on the Niners were going at it,

remember that was actually all to 2014. Yeah, yeah. And you never know when they're going to disappear to because there's always that like, where they're like even though Yankees Red Sox that was at its height in the early 2000s. That's when that was big. Now it's like it's a rivalry because ESPN says it is. You know, but yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like Dodgers, Padres. That's a rivalry right now, a good one right now. Yeah. Seattle, Houston, underrated, but that is number one. B wants to know. I know it's early, but how are the top prospects doing so far? Any guys standing out? Anyone you might be worried about?

I have a few takeaways on some of the top guys. I'm not worried about anybody. Yeah, too early to be worried about anyone. But I do have some just some general thoughts on some of the top guys. You know, Harry Ford's still not heading for any power right now, but he's getting on pace a ton. That's what he does. It's what he does.

He's basically catcher J.P. Crawford. But so far, the idea of, like, you know, putting him in a more favorable spot for power output, you know, in the PCL. That hasn't come to fruition yet. Hopefully it does eventually, but yeah. Cole Young also, like, he's sitting the ball hard, but he's not hitting for a ton of power. He's slugging under 300 right now. Last time that I checked. A lot of ground balls.

But he's also getting on base quite a bit. well. So pretty similar starts to their AAA careers for Cole and Harry. Both of those guys very young for the league as well. Yeah. Yes. Lazz looks like he needs to be in double A. Kind of feel like we're wasting time having him in Everett. I don't think so. But like, I don't think there's anything wrong with getting him a month and a half, two months in Everett. Because there's really no reason to rush the guy whatsoever.

No, no. The bat is legit. Then it'll play fine in double A and June and all of that. And so, yeah, but Laz's certainly off to a good start. What's the, do you know what a strikeout rate is at? Let's look that up real quick. While I'm looking that up, Felon has been awesome. I said this a week or two ago.

I emptied out the mailbag on Twitter. And somebody asked like, what's your hot take? for a Mariners prospect, and I said that Felon will end the year in AA Arkansas. And, like, A, I think that's a really good hot take. And B, like, maybe. Yeah, maybe. He's clearly the best guy on the field of Modesto.

Laz right now running a 22.9% K-Rit after 23.6 last year. I'd like to see that go down a little bit more. In the minors. It was 29.6% in, his 51 games in high a last year. So he's lowered it by about 7%, 7%. Yeah, I think that's probably going to be a pretty typical last thing.

He's going to go to the next level. He's going to struggle for a little while, and then he'll make the adjustment because he's a really good hitter. Yeah, he's also walking 17.1% of the time right now. I mean, I wouldn't pitch to him either. Yeah, 268, 400, 607, 160 WRC plus. Has he have like a couple triples, too? Yes, he has two triples, three doubles.

and four homers. Yeah. So, Blas will be in double A at some point this year. No doubt. Assuming he stays healthy. Yeah. Logan Evans,

I think, has earned the opportunity to pitch here at least once before George Kirby returns. You know, again, props to Emerson Hancock for what he did in Cincinnati, but I would like to see Logan have its pitch. Logan's a northeast guy. Let him pitch in Boston.

Ryan Sloan, we were both too low on Ryan Sloan. Yeah, Marish might have done it again. Oh, my God. Yeah. Ryan Sloan will be in my top five when we do our re-ranks, regardless of the day draft.

Yeah, yeah. Holy smokes. Yeah, and the crazy thing, he's 19 years old, and he's already like six foot four. And like, oh, yeah, he doesn't really have any growing to do physically. No, like he's physically mature. Really for him, it's just reps and building up stamina.

That's literally all it is. The stuff is major league quality already. The control command is already major league quality. The size, the physique is it's all made. He just has to get reps and he has to stay healthy, obviously. And he's got to build his workload. But yeah, he looks like a guy. He could be pitching in the big leagues by the time he's 21.

Jared Sunstrom, I continue to stand by him being a sneaky like major league cup of coffee guy this year. Yeah. Can move a little bit. Pretty good athlete. Yeah. Samad Taylor, although he's not really a prospect, but he's been crushing it. A lot of homers from Samad this year,

Ty Locklear is having a really nice season in Tacoma, as he should be. You know, I haven't gotten a chance to watch him, but the numbers look good. And it appears the wrist injury that kind of hampered him last year might be behind him. And, you know, the Mariners might need a first baseman here pretty soon,

although probably not for another week or two now. But, I mean, I mean, you could have Locklear do what Solano is doing right now. Ties already jump ship on Solano and it's sad. Friendship with Donovan Solano is over. Now, Rowdy to Les is my new best friend. Rowdy barrels, baby.

Rowdy barrels. Sure. But yeah. So I would say Ryan Sloan and Felon and Celston are probably the big bright spots. Tai Pete's taken to center field very well defensively as well. Yes. So Pete is definitely a guy to watch. But yeah, mostly all positives from the, from the farm.

So and again, it's really too early to, like, I'm not worried about Cole Young because he's, you know, slugging 300 and AAA. Like, I don't care. But. Yeah. Yeah, Locklear, Sloan, Felon, Lazz, all really eye-popping stuff right now. Yep. you're listening to the locked on mirrors podcast Alex wants to know in the winter you all answered a question of mine about position offensive profiles last week's

discussion of limited options at third base made me wonder if positional profiles are still a thing I pulled some data from baseball reference and the answer is maybe do you think they are due to think they are overrated Alex included some graphs with the with the tweet that I'm not able to include on here. But basically they showed that third base slash lines right now are of the lowest they've been in the last 10 to 15 years. I mean, so we talked about how there's just not a lot of good third basement out there. So that makes sense. So yeah.

So because of that, has that kind of changed how you feel about position profile, specifically at that position? Value is value. So if you can be a three-win third baseman on defense and on base, then sure, you don't need the power necessarily. But I think the idea here is that like, look, if you have, if you're getting power elsewhere, then you don't need it from third base also.

It's just that typically when you're looking, okay, where's my power going to come from? It's the corners because that's where the guys who hit home runs. That's where they play because they're just bigger dudes. usually, right? And you're focused on the offense more than the defense. So you typically don't want those guys playing up the middle because they get hurt more often, blah, blah, blah. It's just a different skill set. So it's one of those things where it's like, look, do you need a third baseman who hits 25 homers? No. Okay. But if you don't have one at third base, you better have one at first base and DH because you do need power. Power is still an important part of the equation. So what you can't do is like, oh, well, I don't need power at first base and third base. And then you go like, okay, where's the power going to come from? Well, There's not a lot of power hitting second baseman or shortstop or center fielders or catchers. Right. So it's kind of one of those things where you look at the Mariners specifically.

They do get above average power from the catcher position. They do get above average power from center field. And then I would say they get probably about average power from the corner outfield spots. And then it really comes down to third base and first base. Ben Williamson is not going to hit a lot of home runs, although he does have one. Roddy Tellez is not going to hit any more home runs. He should probably retire. Never getting better than that.

Go out on an eye note. Yep, exactly. So yeah, it's one of those things where it's like in general, like do you have to have power at first base? No. But you have to make up for it somewhere else. Right, right. And finding the places to make up for it is hard because,

again, there's just not a lot of short stops to it for tremendous power. There's not a lot of second base. We talked about this last year. Yeah, we talked about this last year with Rojas and Polanco. Like you're not going to get a ton of power out of Rojas, but you should be able to make up for that second base with Polanco. It didn't work out. But that's generally the idea, right?

But yeah, I think right now, you know, as far as third base goes, like, if you don't, if you don't have Jose Ramirez or Matt Chapman or Alex Bregman or whoever, right? If you don't have one of those like three to seven dudes at third base. you should be kind of looking at third bases teams have looked at shortstop right because there just isn't a ton of power output at third base right now and some of these guys that are more middling players at third base that do hit for power the defense is so bad that they probably shouldn't even be playing third base like think about like jake burger right yeah for example like so But yeah.

Yeah, but like you're talking about those guys, right? Like if you're going to get power, you're sacrificing a ton of defense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think just kind of a general rule of thumb here is that you want to average about 20 homers from every position. That'll get you to 200 on the year.

Well, yeah, on 180 on the air and then the bench, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But. Right. So like if you're only going to get 10 from third base, you need to make up 10 homers somewhere else. In the Mariners case, their catcher is probably going to hit 30, maybe 40. So they might have 40 this year. Yeah, they're making up for it in a different spot, right?

So I think the good general rule of thumb is like, let's average 20 homers across the board. And if we're not, then we have to make up power somewhere. It doesn't have to be at the position. It's just like, again, if you're going to upgrade power at third base, or you're going to try to upgrade power, the place you're most likely to find it, it happens to be third base or first base, you know, so. Yeah. We'll see.

But again, the Mariners do have above average power outputs from catcher and also probably center field. So they do have a little bit of extra bank built in. But yeah, like they are going to eventually need some power from their corner infield spots because I just don't think a Rosaraine is going to hit 30. I don't think Luke Grayley is going to hit 30, you know, and obviously JP is not going to hit 20. and I don't even know who's playing second base, you know, at the end of the year. So minimum 50 plate appearances, want to take a shot at how many third baseman right now in baseball

have a slugging percentage over 400? Four. It's more than that. It's nine. Eight. Yeah, it's nine, but I mean like Gino only, Gino's the ninth guy.

It's 421. But yeah, Jose Ramirez, surprise, surprise is number one. 556, Junior Caminero, 521, Bregman 506. Those are the only guys slugging over 500 right now, though, at third base. And then Machado, Riley, Young, Aronado, Chapman, the usual suspects.

Sure. I would say specifically to the Mariners, like, if you're in a role with Ben Williamson for most of the season, assuming he's not a disaster at the plate, fine, but then you desperately need an upgrade at either second, first, or DH. you just have to find power at one of those spots. Yeah. Yeah, but the Ben Williamson profile might be the profile that a lot of teams that don't have one of these top guys have to deploy at third base because you have to get some value. And if you're not going to get a ton of power output, that doesn't require you to sacrifice pretty much everything else in order to get it.

Then you probably should defense and on base. All right. final question of the day speaking of them uh scott wants to know initial thoughts on ben wiliamson has he earned more time what should he work on to develop um i mean it's been a really good start to his career a ray has hit his first career home run had his first career hit in his first game his first career rbi i and his second game like yeah and the defense so far hasn't had a ton of opportunities to really flash the leather so i can't be like oh it's been amazing or anything like that, but he's, he's been fun.

So yeah, given the options that you have available to you and the situation with Polo still, like, yeah, Ben should play almost every day. Sure. It does kind of seem to be more and more likely that when Polo can play in the field, he's going to be the primary second baseman. That kind of seems to be the way things are trending, getting him off. a third and back at second, which would open up more opportunity for Ben. The one thing Williamson is just watching his at-bats, he's almost like a fencer.

Like he's just trying to like repel the ball. He's not actually trying to drive the ball. And his bat speed is well below average as a result. And there's just not a lot of power. It's a very flat swing. So he's going to hit a lot of ground balls and a lot of line drives. Ex of Velo's are fine in the minors. Like he's not been, it's not like he can't hit the ball hard, despite.

at the below average bat speed. But yeah, it's very much like, hey, don't strike out, put the ball in play type of profile. And I do think he needs to drive the ball a little bit more. Now, he had a double and a homer on Saturday. So that's good. And, you know, he'll steal some bags too. Like he's not any kind of slug on the bases. So, yeah, I think overall he's looked pretty good.

Again, the approach is very, very passive. It really does feel like he's trying to take the ball out of the catcher's glove. with every swing, almost like he's like swinging a bat underwater at times. And hey, you know what? It works for Luis Reyes, like he's elite at it. And if Luis Reyes could play Ben Williamson's type of defense, I would have been pounding the table for that guy instead of laughing at people who wanted that guy. By the way, I hope Luisarize is all right.

Yeah, well, that's, that looks bad. But yeah, so Ben, certainly there's no better option than him right now. so he should be continuing to play quite a bit. I would not operate under the assumption that Williamson is going to be the third baseman all year, though. I just don't think he's quite an everyday player right now. No. For the time being, he's your best option, so you should play him. Yeah.

I think there's a solid chance to a six with the big league club all year. But everyday player, starting at third base every single day, probably at some point this year, you should look to do better, if possible. But again, not that many options at third base in general. So that that profile that Williamson brings, that might be similar to any guy that might be available out there. And you might go, is that really worth giving up X, Y, and Z for?

Maybe not. But we'll get there when we get there. But so far, yeah, Williamson's looked good. He's provided more offensive production than I expected here in the first week of his big league career. and obviously my mind hasn't changed about the defense at all. So again, like I said or like we both said when he got called up, if he can just give you something offensively on top of giving you above average defense,

great. That's a success. Right. Right now he's giving you that. We'll see what happens when the league makes their adjustment to him and see if you can adjust back fast enough. Yeah, so far so good. That is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown.

Marr's podcast for Colby Paddode. I'm Tiding Gazzalus. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marrers. You can follow me at Tading Gouls and Colby at C-Pat-11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB-Colby, and the show at Lockdown Mariner's.

We're also now on Instagram or we're posting more on Instagram over at Lockdown Marriss. So be sure to give us a follow over there as well. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day. And we'll see you next time. Peace.