Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How Much Roster Turnover Can Mariners Fans Expect at the Deadline? (feat. Ben Ranieri)

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Ty and Colby are joined by Ben Ranieri of Sea Level to discuss if the issues the Mariners are currently experiencing are a bump in the road or indicative of who they actually are, how the team might maneuver Bryan Woo's latest injury, how much roster turnover can be expected at the trade deadline, and which high-end players Seattle should prioritize.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Tax Network USA Reduce your tax debt and get help from a team of licensed tax professionals call 1-800-549-1000 or visit TNUSA.com/lockedon. Booking.com The right stay can make you a fan of any US city - even your rival’s. Book today on Booking.com on the site or in the Booking.com app! Booking.com, Booking dot YEAH! LinkedIn Right now, you can try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDON. PrizePicks Go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONMLB and use code lockedonmlb for a first deposit match up to $100! SupplyHouse SupplyHouse.com is the reliable way to get parts fast. Shop for your next plumbing, h-vac, or electrical job and get fast shipping from coast to coast. eBay Motors From brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. FanDuel FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COM/LOCKEDON and add a big win to your summer bucket list! 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.

The Mariners need help people. They need lots of help. But where are they going to get it from? 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 Tuesday, June 25th, 2024.

This is Tiding Gonzalez for the Locked on Marers podcast. Part of the Locked on Podcast network, your team every day. Today's show will be kind of a Mariners State of the Union roundtable, if you will, with Colby, Ben Reneery, and myself will talk about this rough road trip. The Marys are currently on and what their approach to the deadline could be. But before we get into that, shout out to our title sponsor today. Price Picks. It's the easiest, the most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports.

Go to Pricepics.com slash Locked on MLB and use the promo code Locked on MLB. That's all lowercase for first deposit match up to $100. 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, and you can sign up for free seven-day trial. Ben Reneery is back on the show with us today. If you haven't seen any of our episodes with Ben,

I'd definitely recommend checking out his substack at c-levelBR.com. It's really good stuff. A lot of great analysis and interviews with players, including most recently an interview with Logan Evans, who should be in the Mera's bullpen here in the next week or two, I think. So, Ben, thanks for coming on. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

So let's start with this road trip, and Ben, you can kick us off here. I want to know, is this a bump of the road? Because look, good teams, they have bad stretches. They lose series to bad teams like the Mariners just did. It's a Miami. Or because the Mariners are so below average offensively and their bullpen is depleted, obviously the starting rotation has been great, but have they overachieved?

And is what we're seeing right now on the goalpins. this road trip actually who they are are they kind of coming back down to earth i think it's i think it's a little bit of that i think it's kind of a little bit of both it is certainly a bump in the road um which i do expect them to rebound from because this team has been really really good at rebounding all year basically um they've been able to stay away from sweeps and long losing streaks and and stuff like that um but i think you're kind of just seeing what happens when when you're three best players adversely, aren't performing the way that they can. And you can only go so long and you can only kind of fight that battle for so long

before you need those guys to produce like the back, their baseball cards suggest. So you kind of see what happens when your floor is pretty low when those guys aren't producing. And then last night you saw a little bit of some stuff that I've kind of been talking about since last September, even when they had Matt Brash, they just don't have a lot of swing and miss in this bullpen. And so you can kind of run into situations where teams put the ball and play on you. You can run into some kind of bad luck losses. I know there was a walk involved there and stuff like that,

but you are kind of seeing some of the cracks in this roster and some of the ways that they will lose games. I think it is a little bit of a bump in the road And I do expect them to rebound But I think that's certainly kind of what we've what we've been seeing Over the last week or so Golly Yeah, it's a team that's

They've got to find out Figure out how to win games on the road Good teams, bad teams doesn't seem to matter They struggle on the road And it's weird too Because the pitching struggle is on the road Kind of regardless of if it's a hitter park Or a pitcher park

or if the opponent's good or it's bad. They just, for some reason, they haven't quite seemed to figure out the road element to that. And if you're going to make a playoff run, you have to win on the road. And you have to be good teams on the road. And so, you know, I think it's easy to say this is kind of a blip.

I mean, it's kind of easy to say this is the season crashing down on you, kind of however you want to interpret it. Because, you know, after this road trip, they have a really tough homestand against three, you know, well, two really good playoff caliber teams. and then one that's trying to kind of save their season. So, yeah, it's tough with the, just tough to kind of gauge one way or the other at the stage.

But I would say they're certainly not this bad, right? They're not worse than the Marlins. They're not, you know, worse on paper in the Tampa Bay. They're just not playing good ball right now. And, you know, when you talk about all the stuff, Ben talks about like when your three best players aren't the best players on your team and they're not really close, in fact, they're more issue than they are, you know, helping you solve that issue.

Then you're kind of relying on everybody else on this team to be something that they're not. And that doesn't mean they can't do it every once in a while. We saw the bottom of the lineup dominate the one game in Miami. You know, we know that Luke Rayleigh is certainly capable of doing some things. We know that Garber is capable of doing some things. We know that these lesser-tier players are capable of doing things. But if JP is going to be as bad as he has been on this road trip, if Julio's going to be as bad as he has been on this road trip,

if Cal's going to be as bad as he has been on this road trip, for an extended stretch of time, you're screwed. Like your pitching has to be so good. And right now it's kind of tough to trust Bryce Miller and you don't know when or if Brian Wu is even going to pick up a baseball for you. And if he does, for how long is he going to be able to throw it? So, yeah, it's a little bit of a mess right now. There are some reinforcements in the org, hopefully coming,

like Logan Evans, who might need. You might need to start all of a sudden again. Maybe we'll see what they do with Wu. And also Gregory Santos, who we got really good reports about yesterday. So that should help. But even Santos isn't a huge swing or miss guy in the bullpen. So yeah, this team definitely needs help. But I think that, you know, based on how they play on this road trip,

I would say this is more of just an inevitability. And this is why building up that big lead that you had was so key so that you could play like this for a couple weeks and still being a good position to make a playoff push into August and September. I think it also seems at least a little bit worse than it is because it's also coincided with the Rangers and the Astros both sweeping two of the best teams in the AL and now they made up quite a bit of ground on you and essentially that that 10 game lead that he had a week ago has been cut in half.

Right. You mentioned Brian Wu. we don't have any clarity on him at the time of this recording we probably will by the time this show drops because that's how things typically go when we drop this show as soon as the episode releases stuff that we talked about gets answered uh like within like 10 to 15 minutes but um last night we exited the game in the fourth inning this time it wasn't an arm issue which from that perspective is good but seemed like it was a hamstring issue we'll we'll get uh again, more clarity on that soon.

I believe he's supposed to go under or undergo an MRI later today. But look, we've talked about this, you know, within the context of his arm issues and just the uncertainty around that, that this team needs to go out and get some sort of starting pitching help. And maybe that's a guy that can also, you know, work out of the bullpen in the meantime or what have you. But another aspect of this that we've talked about is, should they go out and get a guy that's better

than Bryce Miller? Because once you get to October, you know, for the first two rounds of, you know, if you end up playing in the wildcard round and if you make it to the ALDS, you only need three starting pitchers.

Once you get to the ALCS, if you're fortunate enough to do so, then you need four, but you never need five. So do you want Bryce Miller starting games? in the playoffs and do you just want to go with you know go out and get an innings eater that can just get you to

October over the final you know two-ish months of the season or do you want someone better than Miller do you want to go out and actually spend what it would take to go out and get a legitimate you know number three or someone that's at least equal to Miller and obviously I think we all know kind of what that would take in terms of you know price tag So, Ben, what do you think about that?

I mean, to me, that's something that, like, yeah, it sounds great. I just have a really hard time seeing them actually doing that. I think they probably have a higher, hopefully his back is okay, but I think they probably have a higher opinion on Emerson Hancock than a lot of us and a lot of the general fan base would. and they will probably trust him to kind of slide into that five spot if something was is going to be wrong with Wu for an extended period of time. And I think we kind of forget how actually very, very good Bryce Miller is for a number four starter in Major League Baseball.

Like, I'll throw Bryce Miller up against pretty much any number four in baseball and take my chances with that, especially. Now, if this was last year's Bryce Miller, then that's, maybe a different story. He was kind of running up against an innings limit that he hadn't really reached before, and he couldn't really get lefties out. But this Bryce Miller, when he's got his good fastball in terms of command and he's in the right spots, the splitter has really helped him out.

I would not have any issues with him starting a postseason game, because when he's on, he's very, very, very good. And I'm stacking him up against any number for him. in baseball. Now, if you want to, if you're talking about maybe upgrading the fifth spot at the deadline and grabbing another guy for innings purposes, like absolutely. I think that that's a fair question. But I don't really think that this organization is going to see a need to necessarily upgrade over Bryce Miller. Colby, we'll get to your answer in just a moment. But first, a reminder this episode of the Lockdown Marries podcast is brought to you by Tax Network USA and Supply House.

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And you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast. You can catch the M's and the race tonight and tomorrow on the Marrious hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. We're here with Ben Rennery of

the sea level substack for a roundtable about kind of the general state of the mariners, what they should do in the trade market, how this road trip is currently going, all that. And we just left off talking a little bit about Brian Wu's injury and what the mariner should do on the back end of their rotation. We just got Ben's thoughts on whether or not they should go out and get someone that's equal to or better than Bryce Miller or just go out and get a number five starter to just eat innings. Colby, what are your thoughts on that? I think you're going to have to go get somebody. Right now,

you just, you can't trust Brian Wu to, you know, go more than a couple innings at a time. And I think eventually you're just going to have to bite the bullet on that, move him into the bullpen, if you're going to extract any kind of value from him this year. But you also can't really trust Emerson Hancock, who, you know, left his last start with a little bit. the back issue and he has his own workload limitations. So I mean, do we really want Jonathan Diaz and Dallas Keikle to be getting, you know, big innings and then try to eat five, six innings at a time and give you a shot to win? I mean, probably not.

The tricky part is, is, you know, can you find somebody as good as Brian Wu can be in your price range while still, you know, addressing your offense and your bullpen? I mean, good luck. I'd say that that's probably a bit difficult. there are going to be some guys out there though i do think you know for example if texas continues to struggle or they go back to struggling however you want to word it and they're pretty much out of it in a month i think somebody like michael lorenzen could make a lot of sense i think if you want to go more on a high end you can look at a guy like you say cacucci

for toronto that'd be interesting uh jack flarity from detroit another interesting arm uh maybe somebody like spencer turnbull uh from from philly once Taiwan Walker comes back. Maybe he becomes available. So I think there are some guys there that are kind of that four, number four, number five starter. A couple of those guys are having better than number four seasons. But they're all rentals.

They're all not going to cost a ton, but they're going to cost something. I think maybe you can attack that. But there's going to be so many buyers for pitching at this deadline that I think you're going to have a hard time, you know, getting somebody better than Miller or Wu while still having enough, you know, left over. so to speak to go get the bats that you need and the bullpen arm that you need. So you kind of have to triage this. You kind of have to pick and choose like where you want your, you know,

what you trust your in-house options to help you fix the most. But I do think they should look at pitching. I just have a hard time imagining that they're going to find the right combination of, you know, upside, trade cost, salary, club control, all that stuff. So, yeah, and, you know, that market just got even thinner now. Lizardo is probably going to be out past the deadline as well. So, you know, I think they should go get something. I don't know what.

But I also don't know if it makes sense to sacrifice offensive upgrades or bullpen upgrades or a, you know, a number four, number five starter. So I think ideally, like you go and you go get Bo Bichette and you say Kukuchi. And you just kind of kill two birds with one stone. but good luck to you. Like it's just a tough needle to thread. Right. If you're able to, if you have the opportunity to get someone like Tyler Anderson a few years ago

where that costs you, you know, Carter Benz, do that, right? So we'll see how they maneuver it and, you know, hopefully they get some good news here on Brian Wu.

But let's dive a little bit deeper into the deadline. And let's talk about just the state of this roster right now. Obviously, again, and there are a lot of, I mean, let's just say it holes across this roster. How many new players do you think they'll realistically bring in? And then second part of this is how many spots do you think they could realistically swap out in general? The over-underer's probably on new players is probably, what do you guys think? Two and a half?

Yeah, I think two and a half, maybe three and a half. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the way that I've sort of been looking at it is like they're probably going to have, I think they're going to feel, my fear is that they're going to feel okay enough about the bullpen to just kind of send it with the guys that they're going to have coming back. Especially once I get Evans and Santos and Santos and potentially Spire. I still think that you could use another guy that can actually get some swinging my fear is that they're just kind of kind of roll with it sort of like what they did last year

even though I know that was kind of more of a sideways move I would still like them to go get that and then at least like I think you at least got to try to get too bad so that's kind of where I'm getting out with the two and a half I would probably take the over on that just because I think they need to kind of cycle some guys through and get some new guys in here. And I think there is enough guys on the current bench right now that you could kind of get off this roster pretty easily. Even though Ryan Bliss has done a good job, you can always send him down. Victor Oblis has also done a nice job in his limited role, but like that's another spot that's pretty easy to. Also, you're still going to need depth. You're still

going to need to pass the deadline, right? So pushing Bliss or maybe even, you know, someone like Dom Canzone to Tacoma could help you long term, right, over the final two months of the season because injury occurs, okay, I have Dom Canzone and Tacoma. I have Ryan Bliss down in Tacoma. I have Tyler Lockler, etc. Uh, yeah. Uh, first of all, we should clarify. We mean, players not in the organization right now. So yeah, not Santos, not, uh, Evans or any of like that. Yeah, I think two and a half is probably the right number. I think expecting them to get four or more new guys is probably a bit much.

It doesn't mean they won't, you know, pick up some guys on waiver claims and stuff like that. You know, they made a small trade last year that nobody really cared about, but it's paid some pretty big dividends. Remember that when they went out and they got Trent Thornton and like nobody really counted that as part of their deadline because it was a waiver deal a couple weeks before. he's played a pretty big role for you in the last two years. So, I mean, it's possible they get four. But I think, like, in terms of, like, what we would classify is deadline deals,

I think it's going to be two or three guys. And I think, you know, Robles is the easy one. Bliss is an easy one. And then there's plenty of levers you can pull in that bullpen right now. You're already going to have to pull a couple to get Santos and Evans onto this roster, you know, maybe in the next week, maybe in the next week or two. So we'll see how they want to manage this. But yeah, there's definitely three or four roster spots that you can pretty easily maneuver right now.

You have guys who have options. You have guys who, in theory, are going to be replaced by better versions of, you know, of that player. Victor Roba has been the main one there. So, yeah, I think two and a half is a really good place to set the over under in terms of like 26-man additions from outside the org. if you want to factor in, you know, the guys who are going to be added, hopefully, pretty quick, then I would suspect between now and deadline day, we're going to see 20% turnover on the 26-man roster, give or take. So, yeah, I think two and a half outside the organization is a good over-under.

I would say I think they're going to bring in three, like, no doubt, impact type of guys to try and you know scotch tape this roster together as best they could for their playoff run from a position player's standpoint I think there's seven spots you can kind of wrap your head around that they

could essentially swap out for new guys there's three obvious ones which is Robles and then you can send down Bliss you can send down Canzone like we talked about and then you get into the group of guys that are making money or what have you so tie france Mitch garver

Mitch Hanneger those guys and uh that doesn't mean that they're going to replace all those spots but maybe it's some combination of like we're going to send down bliss and and bf a roblis and we also got a team to take on Mitch Hanneger's contractor we got a team to take on tie frances contract or hori polanco's contract whoever right right um I think this team really does need three bats, to be honest with you. I think they'll end up getting two, but I think they really do need three. I mean, that third bat, either way, kind of has to be Julio. Like at the end of the day.

Sure. You get three really good bats. Yeah. And Julio's still doing this. Yeah. Probably not going to help enough. But in terms of just outside additions, I think three is really where they need to land, but it's probably going to be two.

that third bat and maybe even the second bat probably ends up landing somewhere in between 100 to 110 WRC plus or maybe that third bat is more so it's not even a bat it's more for defense more for outfield defense specifically Colby you and I on our Patreon show yesterday we talked a little bit about Jose Siri

who we've seen in this series with the raise maybe it's someone like that maybe it's someone like Austin Hayes in Baltimore who not having a great year maybe Baltimore goes out and they swing for the fences and they get Luis Robert and now all of a sudden Cedric Mullins or

Austin Hayes is available and maybe the mayor is get in on that. Something like that also would allow you to maybe have a maybe just make the Rayleigh platoon that you've kind of created and you could make that at first base as well

if you can't find an upgrade there so yeah for sure that's kind of another thing that you could do So I want to get into specific players who the Mariner should get most aggressive on on the high end. And just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you by Price Picks. Price Picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members. All you do is pick more or less on two to six players stat projections and watch the winnings roll in.

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That's the promo code. Locked-on MLB on prize picks for a deposit match up to $100. Pick more, pick less. It's that easy. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariner's podcast. Once again, you can catch the M's and the Rays on the Marriss hometown broadcast, Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word merrier.

So, guys, I want to get into specific names now. We've talked so much over the last month or so about this team going out and essentially acquiring the Luis Castillo equivalent of bats. and there have been a few common names. We've gone over with that. Even just recently in an article on the athletic, apparently the White Sox have been scouting the Maris Farm System recently. So Luis Robert is one of those guys, of course, that comes to mind.

There's also been talk about Jazz Chisholm, who we just recently saw over the course of the weekend. Brent Rooker over in Oakland, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., if the Blue Jays decide to blow it up. and then I'm also going to throw Catelle Marte into this mix because I think he's pretty interesting and obviously the

the Mariners have had a lot of trade chemistry as of late with the diamond back. So of those five guys who would you like to see the marries get the most aggressive on? And if you want to rank them one through

five, go for it. I think I would probably, I mean, do I think that the dimebacks are ultimately going to part with Cotel Marté and how, with how friendly that contract is? Probably not. And that's also probably going to cost a lot because he's a dark horse MVP candidate in the National League right now. That's going to cost a lot. He would probably be number one out of this group. But I don't know if. that's actually realistic. Of the others,

it's got to be, I mean, it's got to be Luis Robert Jr. For me, I, the impact is just, it's tantalizing. And the price,

it's going to cost you. It's going to cost you for sure. But of those other guys, I just don't know, what is it? It was Chisholm, Rooker, and who was the other one?

It is Robert Chishol. Ruggard, Vlad Jr. and Katal Marte. Yeah, so I think Marte would probably be number one. Probably followed by Vlad for me just because he's, the price is probably going to be a little bit more reasonable. And he's going to have a little bit of a higher ceiling than some of those other guys. And then probably Robert, then Jazz, then Rooker for me. I just, to me, they need a little bit more athleticism. And that's why Rooker is number five.

he's just he doesn't really have a position i know i'm not saying that you know vlad is a shining beam of athleticism but like they need a little bit more just of a high ceiling offensively and those top three guys all provide that i think they would probably be more willing to go after a guy like vlad that has a year and a half of control left i think that's just a little bit more of a sweet spot than how much you're going to have to probably pay for Luis Robert. Like it's probably going to cost you, I don't know, one less piece for Vlad or two less pieces for Vlad or however it ends up shaking out. But that's probably how I would rank the five.

On the note about they need more ceiling, couldn't you argue that that's kind of what their offense is built on right now, though? And that really what they need is stability? Yeah. Because I look at it. Brent Rooker is like, look, he might not, yeah, obviously he doesn't really have a position. He doesn't make you more athletic, all that stuff, which you do need. You really do need to add more athleticism.

You need to add more versatility to your roster right now. But offensively speaking, I mean, they just need to score runs. And I feel, because there are a lot of, you know, there's obviously red flags in terms of the health with Luis Robert and also with Chisholm. I don't know if the, the Js are going to be willing to trade. Vlad. They don't have to technically. They might try and just run it back next year. And then obviously, you know, for all the reasons that you mentioned,

I don't think Ctele-Marté is all that realistic either. But Rooker, I feel pretty confident the bat will play anywhere. And again, I think at this point I need some level of confidence that the bat's going to play and he's going to post. That's sort of why I like Vlad, too. That's sort of why I put him in that second spot because he does have a pretty good blend of like the ceiling. He's been he posts like he plays a lot. He does.

He's got the ceiling and he, I mean, while he hasn't necessarily lived up to like the star billing, he has had a pretty decent baseline level of production. And I think that's why like outside of this list of five, just thinking about somebody that I would feel really good about producing. like somebody like Andy Diaz who obviously we saw last night I think he fits really really well just like his batted ball profile how hard he hits the ball how little he strikes out you could put him in a lot of different spots in the order I would feel pretty good about somebody like that kind of a blend like I think what you're looking for is a blend of of probability and and production and high level production if you can if you can possibly find that and so I guess that's kind of where I'm how I'm thinking about this tier of hitters. Colby? Yeah. You know, I think the, I think if you're looking for like the Louise Castillo type of hitter,

I think it is a Vlad or it's a Bichette. I think it's one of those two guys who are just, you know, really good. Same club control. Right. But they're really good. They're probably, you know,

we've seen their peak and it's just like MVP, but in reality, they're not going to be that guy ever again. And I think they're going to, cost roughly the same, give or take. I think you look at, you know, if they traded Bichet, I think they'd probably want Francisco Lindor type of package, which was, what was that?

That was Rosario and Jimenez. Jimenez. So, you know, a couple of guys who were already at the big league level. So I think something like that or something close to that. But I do think that, you know, fans should be open to the idea that, like, maybe it's not like we go get Vlad or a lawn. or, you know, we don't go get this big name guy. Maybe it's, you go get Lamont Wade Jr.

And Jock Peterson and Mark Kana. And it's like, all those guys carry pretty high floors. All those guys are going to hit somewhere in the middle of your lineup. And you got to play some matchup with them. Sure. But that's fine. You can do that. You have the lineup to do that.

So, you know, I think, you know, we talk a lot about the impact guys. And obviously, Robert's the big name out there. Totally get it. Paredes is the guy we've thrown out there. but maybe instead of that, maybe it's Yandy Diaz or Randy Rosarena and then you go get, you know, Lamont Wade or Michael Conforto or somebody like that to do kind of the number two. And so instead of like going and getting the 140 WRC plus guy and the 110 guy, why not just go get a couple 120s and you kind of figure out the fit later.

And you just kind of, I don't like to use the word hope, but you just kind of hope that Julio remembers that he's Julio and he can be that big kind of addition and you just fill out the lineup around him so that, you know, it's not, hey, we need Mitch Garber to be what he was last year. Probably not going to happen. We need Jorge Polanco to be what he was last year. Probably not going to be, probably not going to happen. So just go get as many like really good quality hitters as you can and build your lineup

around that instead of focusing on like, oh, I got to go get Luis Robert. If you can, if you can go get Parades, if you can go get, you know, Robert, if you can go get Vlad or Bichette and if the price works, absolutely, go do it. That would be my preference. But if you can't do that or the prices get a little bit out of whack, I still think that that there's more than enough quality of bats out there. And, you know, you have to embrace rentals too. You have to be willing to pay the, you know, your number 22 prospect for two and a half months of Marcana. You just have to do it. Like, you have to be willing to do stuff like that. So I think specifically when I look at this deadline, I go, yeah, you know, I'd love to have Robert.

I'd love to have all those guys that we mentioned, but like they really need like a Lamont Wade or a Michael Conforto or a Mark Kana, you know, somebody like that. And this isn't an issue that just one guy, no matter how good they are, is going to fix,

at least in terms of someone from the outside, right? Because like Julio could fix quite a bit of what's going on right now. Fix about half of it himself. Yeah, like like you talked about and, you know, also Cal Raleigh and JP Crock. uh too but um yeah like even if they do go out and they do you know acquire one of these high-end guys like a robert or chisholm or whoever they still also need to get their mark cana they still need to get their lamont way their their michael conforto they still need more on top of that like they

can't like we've talked about again you know this is like the idea is essentially the louis cascio of bats but you can't do what you did after you got Luis Castillo, this deadline. You can't afford to do that. We're, all right, we got our big addition. Now,

let's just, like, kick the tires on some guys that were kind of interested in, like Jake Lamb and Matthew Boyd. Like, you can't do that. Glorified waiver claims. Right. Yeah.

You can't do that. You have to add more impact after that move as well. Right. Or maybe it's before that move. Whatever. But you get what I'm saying. In addition to the big bat, you need supplementary.

pieces as well. It could also be like a big bat and then like I don't know maybe you take like Dom Kanzone or Jorge Polanco and a prospect or something like that and you make like sort of a sideways move for somebody that's like got like I don't know a year and a half of control or two and half years of control that's like more has gives you more probability of producing and then the other team gets, you know, more control of like a Dom-Kan zone or a Jonathan Classe and a Ryan Bliss or something, something like that. Yeah. Well, the other thing, and I think this is just kind of an inevitability at this point, given how things look around the league, I wouldn't be all that shocked if they ended up, if they ended up making one, if not multiple deals with teams that are currently in it. even in the American League, which is not as stacked as the National League, of course,

in terms of just all those teams that are fine for playoff position. But again, I mentioned like the Austin Hayes idea with the Orioles. Like maybe that's something that happens here because, again, not a lot of teams are clear-cut sellers right now. And which teams are going to be willing to, you know, if they don't fall out of it, which teams are going to be willing to do what the mayor's did last year and maybe, you know, trade off like guys that are either approaching free agency or maybe they're a year and a half away from free agency like we'll trade those guys we're not trading long term pieces but we'll trade guys that have like a year and a half left of club control like how many teams are going to be willing to do

that and then how many teams are going to look to you know like we'll we'll add a mark cana and then we'll just see what happens or how many teams are just going to stand pat right so i i feel like yeah this might be a case where like what if you traded ryan stanick to a team that needs bullpen help. And this is just an example or maybe Trent Thornton, whoever, pick a guy in the bullpen for, you know, a fourth outfield type or like a platoon outfielder. One thing that has crossed my mind too.

And this is a little bit unhinged, but they could, they could think about trading Matt Brash even. Yeah. That, you and I talked about this, actually. Yeah. Yeah. It's possible.

Yeah. Yeah. I do wonder if there is a team out there that's like, all right, yeah, we'll take a swing on Matt Brash and we actually see like value in that. And, you know, I mean, like, if you're the mayor, it's like you're not just including him. Like, you need a team to properly value Matt Brash to at least a certain degree. I mean, it's not going to be, you know, what he would have gone for, you know, earlier this, this off season or last year, right? but like you need some team to value him at least like 75% of that to probably do it but yeah maybe there's a team out there that that that would I think just about anybody's going to be

on the table for the Mariners except for obviously Julio you know Logan George Bryce Luis I think just about anybody's going to be on the table including guys like Rayleigh and Canzone and maybe even Santos. Like I think there's a possibility that all those guys could be shopped or traded in an effort to kind of shore up other spots. I'd rather extend Luke Rayleigh. But, you know, if it's the difference between me getting Robert and Feddy or not, then, yeah, I might have to move Luke Rayleigh in a deal to make that happen.

So, yeah, I think, you know, there are a lot of guys that we're not talking about and we're so focused on the buying trades as we should be that those sidewerelly. deals or maybe even those deals that kind of look like selling trades, but they repositioned the chips in a different direction. I think those are also deals that we need to be thinking about. All right. Well, Ben, thanks so much for hopping on with us and doing this. It's always a fun time. Let the people know where they can find your work. Yeah, you can go check out my substack at C-levelBr.com. You can follow me on Twitter at Ben Runeary 10. Yeah, go upgrade to paid subscription or just subscribe, do daily podcasts and get stuff out there pretty much every day.

So if you're a baseball sicko and you're looking for more, go ahead and go check me out. And that's going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, 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 joining us here on the locked on

marries podcast for colby pat node i'm tida gonzalez be sure to give us a follow on twitter at lo underscore mariners you can follow me at ty dane gonzales and colby at cped 11 that's cpat 1 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