Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How Much Impact Will Cole Young, Ryan Bliss Have on Mariners' Offseason?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Well, the Rangers and Astros come back stronger in 2025. How much will the presence of Cole Young impact free agency? And is this the Mariners' last chance to do something with their current core? We'll answer that and more coming up here on Mailbag Monday. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:30 Ahoy, sailors. It is Monday, October 7th, 2024. This is Tudang Azores and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Mariner's podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, every day. We're going to be opening up the mailbag like we do here every Monday and answer some of your Mariners questions. But before we get into this week's batch, shout out to our title sponsor today. Booking.com booking dot yeah, the right state can make you a fan of any city. Even your baseball rivals. Book today on booking.com, the official accommodation partner of Major League Baseball.

Starting point is 00:01:01 Get the booking.com app today. And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. The link is in the description. You can sign up for a free seven-day trial. All right. Let's kick off Mailbag Monday here with a question from Kip, who wants to know. M's missed an opportunity with a weak AL-West this year, but do you think Houston and or Texas comes back stronger next year? Is the window closing or can a quote, we're close Mariners team compete?

Starting point is 00:01:31 Well, they certainly can compete, considering they literally just did it. And not only did they compete with the Rangers and the Astros, head to head, they blew them both out of the water. So I think when you look at the rosters, I think Seattle's is just as good, if not better, than those other two. So they definitely miss an opportunity. And, you know, being close to being better than one bad team and one, yeah. pretty weak Houston team. Not really a consolation prize, considering they lost the division by four games.

Starting point is 00:02:07 But yeah, I think, you know, is Houston going to be better next year? I don't know. They have some monetary issues that they're going to have to try and work through. They have some pretty big holes in that, on that roster they're going to have to work through. And that's, you know, assuming that they acquire or they retain, rather Alex Breggman, they still have those holes.

Starting point is 00:02:29 If they lose Breggman, get significantly harder for them. Texas is an interesting case because while it's easy to point to you know, injuries and all that for them, Adoles Garcia was terrible this year. Jonah Heim was terrible this year. Marcus Simeon was terrible at the plate this year. Those are three huge bats that have massive years for them last year and were a big part of the reason why they had this super successful offense and they were all bad this year. So are they which is which? Are they these, you know, well above average bats or are they these poor hitters, these below average hitters? And then what are you going to get out of Corey Seeger?

Starting point is 00:03:08 Because obviously you're not getting a 2023 style Corey Seeger ever again, not for an entire year. Seeger was one of the best players in baseball in 2020. And this last year, he's so good, but he's not an elite player. And now he's been hurt. And there's back issues that we've heard about and how much longer is he going to be able to play short before he has to move? And they have a lot of other questions too around their talented, you know, a talented team.

Starting point is 00:03:35 But they still have a lot of, you know, question marks there mostly due to performance, not injury. So and plus they have pitching concerns. They've also spent a ton of money already as well. So how much more do they have to go out and get better and to improve those areas? So I think when I look at Texas and I look at Houston, it basically the question is, is like, is this just a one-off where the entire American League West? was mediocre at best this year? Or is Texas going to rebound? Is Houston going to rebound?

Starting point is 00:04:05 And if they do, how far behind is Seattle? Well, I don't know if Houston's going to rebound. I assume they will because they always seem to. But I think we might be starting to see Houston go from a perennial, you know, 95 plus win team to maybe an 88 plus win team somewhere in that range. And then Texas, I don't know because I didn't think they were going to be very good in 2023. And the offense was just otherworldly for about four months.

Starting point is 00:04:29 And this year they looked a lot more like I thought they would last year. So I don't really know what to make of Texas. But I would say Texas is somewhat significantly behind Seattle and Houston in terms of the roster builds as they stand right now. I think they're the biggest variable though. Because like, all right, what if they do get a healthy Corey Seeger? What if Marcus Simeon does that thing that he typically does where it's like, oh, it's an odd year. I'm going to be a fringe MVP candidate again. You know, what happens if, you know, Wyatt Langford and.

Starting point is 00:04:59 Evan Carter are able to take that next step or, you know, Josh Young, if he's able to stay healthy. What does a full year of Kumar Rocker look like, et cetera, et cetera, there's a lot of questions. Are we going to have? Right. There's a lot of questions with this team. And if the answer to most of them is yes, then yeah, I think they're going to be a pretty competitive ball club and you're going to have to at least deal with them. Maybe not worry about them, but deal with them. Sure. And then, and then Houston, I mean, yeah, like you said, you know, we talked about this, what on Thursday's episode that

Starting point is 00:05:30 Dana Brown, their GM said that they're going to have to get creative with payroll. So what does that look like, right? Are they going to be able to bring Alex Bregman back? Is that going to lead to a tough decision like having to trade Framber Valdez? What are they going to do if Bregman leaves? Are they just going to roll with Shea Whitcomb or do they have something else in their, you know, farm

Starting point is 00:05:52 system? Are they going to go out and, you know, trade for a third basement? We know, we know very well how weak the third base market is, especially after you rule out Alex Bregman. So what does that look like? How do they approach that? The Astros don't have a super deep farm system. They don't have a lot to trade for impact. They just traded two of their best pieces for Yusay Kukuchi, who's also a free agent after this year.

Starting point is 00:06:18 Well, now he's a free agent. And by the way, all this is to say that Kyle Tucker is a free agent after next season as well. So they have to deal with that down the road. So yeah, Houston's got a lot more questions. and they have answers right now. But it's Houston, right? Like they're going to develop. It's Houston.

Starting point is 00:06:35 And they still have a great foundation with Yordon and Altuve and Tucker and Pena. For a year. Diaz. Yeah. So they're going to be very, very competitive. They're going to be very strong heading into next year, even if they stand pat, even if they lose Bregman and they do nothing. They're still going to be a pretty darn good team.

Starting point is 00:06:53 Right. I wonder with Houston if we've officially reached the stage where they've gone from, great team to good team and that's just kind of where they're at now for the next couple years until they can kind of reset everything but maybe not like like we said when the mayor's had a 10 game lead do not write off houston ever not until they're dead do you write them off and we don't know when that's going to be but uh from the mayor's perspective could you feasibly win the division by winning 90 or by winning 89 games next year sure I guess but you should win it by 95 that should be your goal.

Starting point is 00:07:30 The goal should be to win it to build a team that everybody looks at and says, oh, they can win the World Series. Yeah. All right. So Jake wants to know, and Jake, obviously from Raise the Triton on YouTube, check out Raise the Triton. Do you think the Mariners will try to land any free agent relievers, or do you think they'll roll with what they have, considering Brash and Santos should be good to go?

Starting point is 00:07:51 I don't think they're going to roll with what they have. They shouldn't assume that Brash is ready to go. he's ahead of schedule, but he's probably not going to be ready for opening day or anywhere close to that. All-Star break at the earliest. Yeah. So they have to add at least one reliever, preferably high leverage. And then we talked last week all about the arbitration eligible guys. How many of those guys are they going to bring back?

Starting point is 00:08:15 How many of those guys are they going to tender? Are they going to tender, you know, Trent Thornton at $2.1 million? They go into tender Austin Voth at $2.2 million. Are they going to tender J.T. Chagua and Taylor, Sosato, Gabe Spire, et cetera. So that, you know, depending on what the answer is on, on those five guys, you have several other holes to potentially address. Look, they, they haven't given out a significant reliever deal, significant being used generously here. Because they've never really done anything like, you know, how the, the Astros just did with Josh Hater or anything like that. They're never going to do that.

Starting point is 00:08:55 Yeah, they're never going to do that. But like the Juan Nacosios of the world, the Mark Sopchensky's of the world, are they going to do something like that? Well, they haven't in seven years. I don't like so. I think could they do what they did, you know, earlier this year where they signed Ryan Sanek to like a $4 million deal? Sure. I think at most, though, they're probably given someone six. And that's it.

Starting point is 00:09:18 That's like the hard, hard, hard cap. Right. And they probably prefer for that to be four plus, you know, incentives and all. that stuff. So I think they can do it once, but I think when you look at what they have or what they're going to have in theory heading into spring training, Munoz, Santos, Taylor, Snyder, they're locked in. They're all either making minimum or they have a guaranteed deal. They can always trade one of those guys, but let's just assume for now. Those four are locked in. And then Bizarro was really, really good in the second half. They clearly like him. He's out of options. He's

Starting point is 00:09:51 probably, you know, number five. So you're going to have three spots open in. And depending on how many of those guys you bring back, you know, there's what, five, five, you have five guys locked in. You have five guys who are in arbitration. So it's possible that they take, I don't know, both spire and Saucato and that's the eight. And then they go, you know what, we're okay. And maybe then they take shots on guys like Carlos Vargas, like different, not actually Carlos Vargas, but guys similar to that.

Starting point is 00:10:20 And they see what happens in spring training. And if they need to move on from one of the guys they thought was. going to be a fit they do that but i do think that maybe they have room for one uh you know kind of either like mid upper market reliever six seven million bucks somewhere in that range or maybe a couple of like three four million dollar relievers um but you know relief pitching is expensive and when you have a a budget problem like jerry depoto and in hollander almost certainly have uh this spring you have to be really careful with how you spend it so my guess is is that uh they're they might bring in one Ryan Stanick type.

Starting point is 00:10:59 And that be it. And the name that's out there that makes a lot of sense. Paul Sewell or Eric Swanson, both probably going to make about three million bucks and both coming off of disappointing years, both very familiar with Seattle and both totally viable middle relief types who do have high leverage experience recently. Yeah. So then the other question that you have to answer here is, like, Like how much better is the guy that I'm getting for three to four million dollars than Trent Thornton at 2.1? Yeah. You know, awesome vote at 2.2.

Starting point is 00:11:34 So, yeah, I don't think they're going to go out into free agency and add a bunch of those guys, right? I think it's one probably. And then the rest of the guys that they bring in are via the waiver wire and via the trade market. If they add a significant reliever by that, I mean somebody who goes into the high leverage mix, it's going to come via trade. I do think they would do like if they could find another Gregory Santos trade they would do it absolutely they would so I think that's if they bring in like a

Starting point is 00:12:02 like a really good reliever that's the way they'll do it via trade it's not going to come via free agency well and I think and I think they should because Brash isn't going to be back if you can find it sure I think the most optimistic outlook on Brash is June

Starting point is 00:12:18 but probably the all start break probably post all start break and if you're building the team or not, we're speculating, but if you're actually building it, you should build it in a way where you're expecting zero pitches thrown by Matt Brash. That is how you have to attack your bullpen this winter. So we're going to answer more of your questions here in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Errors podcast is brought to you by Arena Club.

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Starting point is 00:14:14 We're going to be doing team awards for the M. So team MVP, Sight Young, all that good stuff. Sports lover wants to know which players are lack thereof and the minor league system will have the biggest impact on the front offices plan this winter. Will the idea of Cole Young as the opening day's second baseman make them want to focus on first base slash third base? Will the lack of real rotation depth make them chase an arm, etc? So I really want to attack the Cole Young portion of this question because I think it goes hand in hand with the lack of options in general that we've talked about on the market, both at second base and third base. I think if you're the mayor is this also applies to Josh Rojas a little bit by the way.

Starting point is 00:15:00 I think if you're the mayor is you have to legitimately ask yourself. Like, yeah, there's this veteran second baseman that we think is a safer bet than young or Bliss or whoever. We think is better than Josh Rojas. But how much better is he? And what is the dollar value on that? Like is he worth the prospect capital? is the difference worth the prospect capital I would have to trade to acquire him

Starting point is 00:15:29 right because once you get past the first few names whether it's be a trade or via free agency we're talking about guys that are essentially in that Josh Rojas realm right and at that point it's like okay well do I just want to roll with Rojas and at that point is Rojas is the safety

Starting point is 00:15:52 and the difference in talent between Rojas and Young and Bliss worth $4.3 million, which is what Rojas is projected to make in arbitration? The most important question before we move forward on all this, though, is that the Mariners' front office and their scouts and the whole team, right, who puts the other ball club, they have to answer this very simple question. What are the odds that Cole Young is ready to be a major leaker by March 27th of next year? right because if you think they're 50-50 you need to have a contingency like a good like a good one and maybe that's Josh Rojas maybe that's Ryan Bliss right if you think it's like 6040 70 30 then maybe it's just hey you know what if you if he just so happens to need a couple in like a month down there we'll just roll with Ryan Bliss we'll roll with Dylan Moore we'll roll with this guy or whatever and then we'll assess

Starting point is 00:16:49 from there so yeah so do you do you think that you're just signing a bridge essentially or are you signing someone that Cole Young is eventually going to compliment on the roster? Right. So, yeah. Young is, I think he's got a good shot to be the opening day second basement next year. I don't like banking on it. But like you said, because of the lack of options that are out there, you're going to have to take a shot somewhere on this roster. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:19 And to me, second base is the best place to take that shot because you do have, I mean, again, they're not ideal, right? Ryan Bliss is an everyday second baseman for a month plus is not ideal. Neither is Dillemore. Neither's Josh Rojas. Like, so they're not ideal. But you can weather that. You can survive that for a little bit.

Starting point is 00:17:39 And, you know, whereas the third base, like, there's no third basement in the system right now. I mean, Cole Young could play third. So it's really second base, third base, whatever. But Cole Young is going to be a second baseman. That's where he's going to end up ultimately. But yeah, that's the guy who has probably the biggest impact on how the Mariners attack this offseason. It's Cole Young. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:00 So, again, what is the threshold for determining if you bring in someone or not, right? Is a Med Rosario good enough for you to give him $3, $5 million, whatever it's going to cost to sign of Med Rosario? Is he worth non-tenoring Josh Rojas? Is he worth not putting Ryan Bliss on the roster? Is he worth not just rolling with Cole Young? So we'll see. And again, like you said, a lot of that just depends on how confident are they that Cole Young can come up relatively quickly and be good, right?

Starting point is 00:18:39 Or at least be serviceable. Right. Ideally, average big league hitter. Yeah. At the very least. But even if it's like a 90 WRC plus, like, okay, that's, you survive with that. I do think a moderate is aerial. would be a nice fit because like you said,

Starting point is 00:18:55 he compliments Cole Young. If Young is there and he can play every day, no problem. Rosario can still get in the lineup in multiple spots. Real fast, the pitching aspect of things, they don't have impact in their in their system right now. No, probably not,

Starting point is 00:19:13 but they do have Hancock. They do have, for now, Evans, they do have Morales, they do have Garcia. So while they probably don't have like a mid-rotation guy in their system right now, They do have plenty of like filler type. Yeah, back in like they can start for a month and not kill you like Emerson did at the start of this year. So yeah, I think I don't think that their lack of impact starting pitching arms in their system is going to cause them to go out and chase a, you know, like, I mean, if you can get like a veteran who's been there before and you can get them on a minor league deal and stash them in AAA, like fine, whatever.

Starting point is 00:19:51 But no, they're not going to go. they're not going to go out there and spend $12 million on a number six starter. All right. So we have a couple more questions of yours to answer here in just a moment. But first reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you by booking.com and fandul. Explore those U.S. cities you always secretly wanted to learn more about. With hotels, bed and breakfast, vacation rentals, resorts, and so much more on booking.com, you might just find your perfect stay even in your baseball rival city during the postseason.

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Starting point is 00:21:11 Yeah, you heard that right. $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. That's fandul.com. And you're listening to the Locked-Oamara podcast. we're answering your questions here on Mailbag Monday. Last question of the day comes from Ryan, who wants to know, is this the M's last real chance to win with this core of players next season?

Starting point is 00:21:36 Bills are only going to go up for our best players. If the season goes sour, do they blow parts of the team up and begin again? I think essentially what you're asking is, is Cal Raleigh going to get traded after this upcoming season or Logan Gilbert or George Kirby? Probably one of the pitchers, right? Also, by the way, I reject the premise because salary prices aren't going to go up for your best players.

Starting point is 00:22:01 Julio is locked in at 19 for the next like five years. So, ha ha, take that. Clearly, that's who he was talking about. Yes, obviously. I didn't get to use my catchphrase this time. So, you know, I had to shoehorned in. We need to get a, we need to get a graphic or something for that. Yeah, or a counter or something.

Starting point is 00:22:19 We need to get something that pops up when you, when you reject the premise of the question. Yeah. We should keep track starting next year, January 1 to the end of the year. Right, right, right. I'm not going to do it. But, you know, somebody out there wants to do it. So with this current core as currently constructed. And not to get two of the weeds here, but the core is, I'm assuming we think the core is the same.

Starting point is 00:22:44 It's Julio, Cow, Logan, George. Are we going to put Wu and Miller in the core yet? I think you should. Okay. So it's those six guys. And then everybody else is kind of like J.P's, fringey. Luis. Castillo? Yeah, but Castillo's probably, this is probably Castillo's last year with the Mariners. So if you think he's part of the core, then yes, this is the last year.

Starting point is 00:23:12 It could be is my answer to that. But it doesn't have to be. Like they're not at a point yet where those guys are making so much money. They have to move on from one. Oh, it doesn't have to be. No. But with Logan Gilbert specifically, it's going to be two years left on him, heading it to 2026.

Starting point is 00:23:31 So do you want to take advantage of selling one of the top starting pitchers in baseball with two years left? Probably the height of his value is going to be next winter. Yeah. Although it probably won't be that much lower if you wanted to wait until the summer to do it. But if you're contending, why would you trade? I think he's the biggest variable because I don't think they're going to trade Cal. and I don't know if they'll trade Kirby with three years left.

Starting point is 00:23:55 I think they would just wait like the old, you know, like they would potentially do it here with Logan until he has two years left. We'll do it. I guess the other variable here is that John Stanton, we should actually take John Stanton at his word. No. Yeah, yeah. The answer is no.

Starting point is 00:24:19 Trust John Stan? No. Yeah, no. that oh on free agents is a strategy and the strategy is because $200 million on our own guys

Starting point is 00:24:31 but not anybody who might make us better exactly that's essentially what I'm getting to is like they are willing to increase payroll to you know 180 plus for their own guys but yeah how do you make them your guys if you never bring them in in the first

Starting point is 00:24:48 but yeah the answer your question is maybe like it truly is maybe um cal and george their first year are guys they're not that expensive especially relative to what they should be making um so no castillo if you consider him part of the core i would bet pretty heavily this is his last year in seattle um miller and woo no shot and the next couple years or very small shot. But in terms of the second part of your question, like, might they actually do like a mini rebuild? No. No, no, no.

Starting point is 00:25:30 Because even if they trade Gilbert, they're going to get some nice back for Gilbert. They're going to get a lot back. And it's going to be something that can help them right away or in the following year. So no, I don't think they're going to go through like an actual like what we would classify as a rebuild for at least, you know, five or six more years. years. No. No. Well, and now with Julio still in, you know, in hand. Well, and at 2026, maybe you've added someone to your core. Maybe Cole Young is a part of your core. The core can change. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:01 You know, or at least by 2026, you're starting to talk about, you know, some of your top Colt Emerson, Las Montes, Michael Arroyo. Yeah. Now those guys become a factor. And now you're kind of entering the new era of Mariners baseball and the new era of what this core is going to going to look like, which is still going to be made up by some, some of the guys that are making up this current core. Right. I think it's like fine to be like, hey, we have like six or seven core guys, but within that core, we say core a lot. There's like a subcore. There's like three guys. There's tears to it. There's tears to it. Yeah. And so the mayor is not going anywhere. Right. The mayors have already picked one guy in their in their onion of core players, right? Sure. He's going to be in the middle.

Starting point is 00:26:45 Like, he's going to be one of them. I think they're going to pick one of these big three. to be the second player that they throw into this like borderline untouchable core list it's you know kirby gilbert or cow i think one of those guys will join that yeah um and by that i mean like they'll get an extension uh yeah so yeah seattle's got one of those guys that got the extension he's not going anywhere for a long time i think they're going to add another one here pretty shortly from one of the other guys in the outer core i think they add two you think they're going to get like cow and logan done or something like that. I think they're going to get Call and Logan done. I think George is going to get traded in the next

Starting point is 00:27:21 couple of years. And that'll be fascinating because the entire, did you pick the right one? Did you pick the wrong one? Yeah. All right. So that is going to do it for our show. Thank you everyone for your questions. Before we get out of here, a reminder that lockdown

Starting point is 00:27:37 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 channel's app. Locked on 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 the Lockdown Sports Today now available on the free Fire TV channels app.

Starting point is 00:27:58 Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast for Colby Pat Nod. I'm Tiding-A-Zallis. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tiding Azales and Colby at C-P-E-E-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How Much Impact Will Cole Young, Ryan Bliss Have on Mariners' Offseason?

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