Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How the Mariners Can Extract the Most Value Out of Next Month's Draft w/ Oliver Boctor

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

MLB Draft writer Oliver Boctor joins Ty and Colby to discuss a plethora of draft prospects and how they might fit with the Mariners.Check out Oliver's writing here.DONATE TO OUR FEEDING AMERICA FUNDRAISERCheck 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 PistachiosGet 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! Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. 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.

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 Thursday, June 12th, 2025. This is Tiding Gazzalus and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Marys Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode is brought to you by Fandul.

Right now, new customers can get $200 of bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. 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 is click the link in the description of this episode. So unfortunately, Stream Yard and a bunch of other websites are down due to a Google Cloud issue. So we're unable to record video for this episode. If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, then nothing's out of the ordinary for you. But for our YouTube viewers, if you're watching and you're wondering why you don't see us, that's why. So hopefully that gets fixed by tomorrow.

But for now, we have a really good show for you today. MLB draft writer Oliver Bachter joins us to talk all about the mayor's draft. So let's get into it. It's time to talk some Mariners draft. We're basically one month away from the mayor is making the third overall selection. And we're pleased to welcome Oliver Bokter, former writer at FutureStars series now covering the draft on his self-titled medium.com page. I have a link to that in the description.

So you can check that out. Oliver, welcome to the show. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk some Mariners draft, you know, just that time of the year, you know, it's fun. Yeah, I'm glad we're able to still make this work because I was really excited to have you on and talk about the marriage draft. But this thing has been kind of a mess to get set up here over the last hour. So you had technical issues.

And then once you got those resolved, then Streamyard was down. A bunch of websites have been down. So now we're here on Zencast, we're recording this thing. but we have found a solution. You're here now. So let's get into it. Oliver, you did your mirrors mock draft 4.0 over on your medium back on June 3rd. I just kind of wanted to run through that real quick.

Go through the six selections that you have here for the mayor as you did rounds one through five. Just talk about each of these guys that you have mock to the mirrors most recently. So at third overall, you're going with Seth Hernandez, as the Corona High School prep right-handed pitcher. Why is that the pick for you there at number three? Yeah. So looking at this draft, I've kind of like talked ad nauseum in both these mock drafts and the board there at least a bit ago about how.

And if you follow the draft, you kind of know this. This class is not very good at the top. It's very like there's no as much as people want to gripe about last year's draft, right? There's no, like Travis Bazaana, like the only problem about the players at the top of last year's draft were that they weren't short stops or centerfielders, right? And the there's just not any, the top end talent just isn't here for this class, in my opinion. And I think that's an opinion that most people share in the industry right now. And the thing with Seth is draft people will tell you this, don't draft a high school pitcher in the top of a draft, especially. a high school righty there's just a lot of injury risk that comes with those players but if you're

looking at seth Hernandez against the rest of the players in this draft if i'm to be honest i think he's the like he's just the most talented player in this draft there's just not really a whole lot he can't do to be honest with you on the mound he just he throws a hundred right he's got a like the best change up in the class bar none he's got a very good curveball he throws a ton of strike breaks. It's just like, and they've kind of done this before, you know, like they've done the high school pitcher thing before. And I think the good thing is that this is more along the lines of a Ryan Sloan polish and like not trying to go for your type kind of a guy. And less of like the Walter Ford like, oh, this is just an absolute project and who knows what it could become if it all works out. So I think you're looking at. at a lot more like tangible floor to be honest with you than most prep arms kind of like Ryan Sloan was it's just he just does everything else a bit better then at number 35 you have them taking dean curly the third baseman out of Tennessee tell me about him uh yeah Dean

Curley's had a he said a weird year he was kind of there um for Tennessee last year whenever they won the national championship and um he kind of came into the year potentially as a top 10 pick if like he just kind of added on to his campaign and it just kind of hasn't really worked out for him to be honest with there's been some issues with being passive there's been some issues with being um like the defensive side of the ball has been a little weird he's kind of had the yips at points this year which is a little unfortunate and he's not a short stop he's going to be a third baseman at the end of the day maybe even like move to a corner but at the end of the day he just does a lot to that he just does a lot offensive that's very easy to like. He is power. He makes tons of contact. He is like a third baseman.

And yeah, I just think that at the end of the day, he's also a sophomore eligible player. So I think that if you're Seattle and you're looking at this guy, you're like, hey, he was coming in as a top 10 pick potentially. There's not really any like massive red flags, just kind of like stuff that hasn't really all come together yet. and maybe we take this guy and he just continues to develop and turns into an impact header. And then at number 57, the Mara's second round pick,

you have them taking a prep up the middle player Tate South Ossine out of Nevada. What do you like about him? Oh man, I love Tate, man. I kind of have him in like this comp a second round range. You might even sneak into the back end of round one to be honest with you.

But this is just trying to, This is me trying to kind of detail what you do if you really just want to get aggressive in later rounds with money and with players that might drop of it. And Tate is, his brother was a fourth round pick of the Cubs last year. It's a baseball family. But he's just like, he's super athletic. He's just like, he's small, but he has some of the most sneaky power. You'll find out of anyone in this draft. He's like 510, 160.

And he puts up massive exit velocities. And in the box, you're just looking at him. He's just so fluid. And he's so, like, connected and athletic and able to do so many different things. Like, he can play gap to gap. He can launch one of the pole side. He can shorten up, be a bit sloppy, right? It's just there's, it's a bit of an interesting profile because I think the big thing that

people would say is there isn't really a carrying tool, which, okay, that's fine. if you're drafting someone at like 57 you don't need them to be a star you need them to be a big year and need them be a good player and that's kind of what he is is i just think he's just a very solid likelihood to be a good player and he just checks us a lot of boxes and then finally in rounds three four and five you have the mayor has taken a trio of arms couple of college arms and tanner franklin out of tennessee and uh dominic fritton out of nc state who's a lefty uh you also have them taking Luke LeCourse prep righty out of Michigan in round four. Just tell us a little bit about those three guys, why you like them?

Yeah, Franklin's an interesting one. I'm actually very curious to see where exactly he goes in the draft because I think that there's a lot of potential outcomes here. I think that I've seen some people who strictly view him as a relief prospect just because he's like, he's interesting. He was a transfer from Kennesaw State. he's touched 102 this year. He's done a ton of strikes this year

with a fastball that just really the Mariners have really coveted. And the kind of the weird thing is there's a ton of strikes. There's a really good body and really good body control delivery, all that, a really good fastball. But just kind of everything else is a little lacking. Like there's not really any tangible secondaries other than like a cutter. And he hasn't really been stretched out to be a like a starter. But I think that if you're Seattle, you're looking at it,

you're like, hey, this guy throws a big fastball. He throws strikes. He has fuel to spin. We can add, like, we can give him a sweeper. We can give him a slider. We can give him a curveball. We can add a ton of things. Maybe teach him a splitter if we really want him to.

They've had success with that. So I think that that's something where if they get him at 91, I would be very interested. With Luke LeCorpos, I'm just trying to, like, I think my goal with this mock draft is really just trying to be aggressive and trying to, um, show how they could be very opportunistic because I think that at the end of the day, like what they've done more the last couple of years is more they'll like go slot with your first pick and then go overslaught with your later picks rather than do underslot with your first and then and then uh overslaught with your later picks. So, um,

Lecours is just kind of like me trying to illustrate, hey, this is what this is them trying to take a player who maybe be able to, take a bit of like a deal relative to other like prep varieties who maybe isn't valued by a lot of people as a third rounder but maybe the Mariners value them as like a third fourth rounder and it's like okay this is this is a money pick essentially right this is a money pick where you're trying to be opportunistic with the talent you're getting and there's a lot to like here he spins the absolute heck out of the ball he has um he throws plenty of strikes um he really popped off at the super 60 event in February, which is a big showcase.

So yeah, I just think that this is very good clay. And then round five is kind of like where the being creative with the money thing kind of has to like the downside of it, right? And it's Dom Fretton's 22 years old. He's not a bad player at all. He's a he's a prep. No, he's not a prep. He's a college arm that college lefty that's got a very good fastball that they, to

typically like and um but he's 22 the secondaries are kind of mediocre he's kind of more of a relief prospect at the end of the day but you know that's just kind of the nature of the draft right you have to give to get sometimes colby any of these guys uh you have any questions about anyone stand out to you uh not specifically these players uh but i do think that there's a really interesting you know thought here is that the mariners have a really unique opportunity obviously they not only did they jump up the lottery, but they also got the comp around A pick. So their bonus pool is massive. And so you've talked about this team, at times they've had a couple drafts where they've kind of put all their eggs in one or well, two baskets.

And then the rest of the draft is kind of bulk. It seems like this would be a great opportunity to do kind of the opposite and spread out the money. So I'm just wondering you talked about this draft not being great at the top. Is this a good draft to really kind of maneuver your bonus pool? And can you get, like, how many, realistically in the top 10 rounds, how many, like, legit prospects do you think this team could get with the bonus pool they have and all the extra pick and the extra pick that they have as well? Well, it really depends.

It depends on both stuff like price tags, but also stuff like how you try to navigate things. Also, to a certain extent, luck, to be honest with you. Um, like you want to look last year. Um, and like, you can compare what the guardians did with the first overall pick to what the brewers tried to do last year. And it's like the guardians got like, the guardians got like seven or eight legit prospects out of their draft in the first 10 rounds, which is ridiculous. And it's, it was hailed as one of the better drafts we've seen in a long time. to be honest with you versus the brewers try to be very aggressive with prep players in later rounds and at the end of the day they couldn't sign like three or four of their players and we're kind of just left in the dust a little and um I think that like if you like with the guardians they like at the top they didn't have to go very underslot to get all of that and I

think that's kind of what you're looking at with the mirror is that they have enough money where they don't have to go significantly under slot at their first overall pick. And to be honest, with their first pick. And to be honest with you, if you're getting picked at like three, most of the time you're not getting slaughter over money. You just don't have leverage. I mean, last year, Charlie Condon got overslot money at the third overall pick. But like, it doesn't happen that often.

And especially if you're getting college player, you're probably not going to be paying. over slot money. But yeah, I think that this year, you really do have to be opportunistic with money. I think that's the case in any year, but especially this year, just because, as you're saying, like, the draft is pretty poor at the top, in my opinion. And kind of as a result, you just want to, like, take as many bites at the apple as possible. Like, what they did last year was, like, I kind of said, on draft day like i don't love what they did i i didn't hate what they did but i didn't love what they did because i don't like putting all your eggs in two players baskets and now like yeah like as you're looking at it now like i mean how many legit prospects do they have out of that

draft right um i mean it's very early still and all these players can do stuff but um brian sloan looks great gerangelo is sainta not so much to be honest with you and And a lot of the, and that, and it kind of turned into, okay, well, both the guys that you took didn't turn to legit prospect. So what do you do? So like now you just have a bunch of relief prospects in your system, which isn't that helpful, to be honest with you. More from our conversation with Oliver in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Locktime era's podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. The NBA finals are well underway and every night delivers highlight worthy performances, major momentum shifts. and can't miss moments.

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If it wins, you'll get $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with Fandul, official sports betting partner of the NBA. You're listening to the Lockdown Marys podcast before we get back into our conversation with Oliver. We're having to record this just audio only, but we're still going to remind you about our Feeding America fundraiser. At this point, we have raised $4,644. We are not able to see any of the donations, though, and maybe that's due to the Google Cloud thing that's happening. I don't know. Basically, half of the internet is down right now.

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Food continues to get more and more expensive. So Feeding America does a great job of working with wholesalers and retailers to buy food at drastic discount so that they can give more meals to people who need them. A great thing about feeding America is they turn every dollar they raise into 10 meals. So you get a fantastic bang for your buck there. So at the $4,600 we're at right now or whatever, we've already raised 46,000 meals for people who need it. And we're still going.

We have about a month left in our fundraiser. And we're excited to see how high we can take this thing. We set out with a goal of $2,500 and you guys have already destroyed that. Last time we did this, we raised $15,000. We had a couple really big donations at the end to push us there. So we're on a good pace right now, but we would love to continue to see the donations for it and continue to raise money for this awesome charity. So if you guys want to donate,

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So link is in the description, both on audio platforms and on YouTube. All right, let's get back into our conversation talking about the MLB draft with Oliver Bachter. How many prospects in this draft would you rank ahead of Colt Emerson, who I assume is your number one prospect? Kind of the standard right now in the Mariner system. How many guys in this draft class are better? than Colt Emerson, in your opinion? Right now, I have a 55 future value on Colt Emerson, and I do not have higher than a 50 great future value

than any of the players in this draft. So nobody. Which is pretty common, to be honest with you. I mean, not these guys don't come out of the draft typically as top five prospects in baseball, just because the amount of stuff they have to do in the difference of competition. competition can be a bit challenging.

Is there anything you hope they don't do at pick number three? Whenever we've had people on to talk about the draft, I've typically asked them like, what would you like to see them do it at number three? But is there a player you don't want them to take, a trap you want them to avoid, anything like that? I just think that trying to, I think the big thing is just trying to avoid need, which they've been good at doing. I think that what they should do and I think what they've been good at doing is targeting what the strength of the draft is and doing that later round specifically.

And the strength of this draft is prep headers. And that is a good thing to lean into when you have the most money in the draft. And I think that that's what they should really lean into. I mean, like, another thing is, I think another thing is you can get a college arm at three, but there's also a lot of college arms that are available between 35 and 57 that are also very talented. I mean, there's kind of like a block of eight or nine, like college arms in that range who are all, like, very good. And Mariners fans should be thrilled if they pick up one of those guys.

It's just like, at the end of the day, just try to get like, just, I think the big thing is that the big thing I'd say is don't go for a project at three, you know, I don't want to go with a project at three. I don't want to go with a, this might be a hot take. I don't really want to go with a, like, Liam Doyle at three, to be honest with you, because I kind of view him as like a bit of a project because Liam Doyle just scares me to be honest with you. but I don't want them to go with a if they think that Ethan Holliday is hit as a project they should not go Ethan Holiday at three so just kind of avoiding that right okay all right interesting uh you you mentioned Liam Doyle um obviously a lot to talk about the college arms for the Maras at number three kind of how do you view

kate Anderson Kyson Witherspoon Jamie Arnold you're already pretty much given your thoughts on Liam Doyle, but how do you view those four guys compared to one another and then within the context of the mayor is potentially selecting them? I think most of them are pretty, I think those four arms are pretty close together in terms of like how you, how the industry views them. I think the top of the bunch is, I think the best players of those players you just mentioned are Jamie Arnold and Kate Anderson. And I think I'd put Doyle and Kyson just a bit behind.

I think the thing with, I like Kyson, but I think when you look a bit closer, I don't think the fastball is performing as well as it should, which might be a bit of a yellow flag, to be honest with you. So as a result, I think I'm kind of shying away from that option at the three, even if you're getting a bit of a money save with Arnold Anderson and Doyle, the three lefties. I think it's weird because I think all three of them match what Seattle has targeted at the top of the draft to some extent.

And Jamie Arnold kind of embodies this like low slot, like hyper athletic, big extension, like launching fastball. from that low release, right? The Brian Wu, the flat approach angle like Bryce Miller has and, uh, and Louise Castillo. Um, I think that Kate Anderson kind of embodies like, really, I think cave Anderson's really interesting because I don't think people would really attribute him to being like a

quote Mariners guy because of the fastball velocity. But to be honest with you, he kind of has like this, he has this touch and feel like touch and go kind of thing. like Kirby had and Gilbert has like this pitch ability, intelligence ability to like pick up pitches that I think would really fit in their system very well. And if you have

them, if you have them living 93 to 95, like kind of averaging around 94, I think you've got a mid-rotation starter pretty easily there. I think the upside comp I've brought up before is Max Fried. I've heard someone bring up Cole Hamels too. That's a, like, that's kind of the

upside is that you're getting more of a pitchability over stuff guy right now. But also, if you look at the big leagues, there can be guys who are pitchability over stuff guys that are top end starters and remain now for a while. Doyle has the massive fastball. And that's what really is appealing about him. And maybe you're the merrients and you look at it. You're like, hey, we gave Bryce Miller like all these secondary things to supplement like this big fastball. do it with Doyle.

To be honest with you, if I'm going to pick between the three, I'd prefer. I would honestly rather just go with whoever is taking less money between Kate Anderson and Jamie Arnold. But I might, but I'm going to lean Anderson in terms of talent. What are your thoughts on Navar? Ivar Aket. Boy, where to start? I love Iva.

For those who do not know, I am going to UW. I watched Iva a ton as a sophomore. I had him fifth on my initial board when not a whole lot of people were at that point with him. And he's kind of performed like a top 10 pick. Iva is a prospect that is, it's like there are plenty of things he does very, very well. And there's also a fair few yellow flags. Um, he is, his feel for the barrel is incredible.

He barrels up everything. He can hit it. He can hit bombs pole side. He can hit bombs the other way. Um, he's incredibly athletic. He's a great defender. He is like, he just has, he nails all the fundamentals and what a defensive infielder should be, whether that's at shortstop, second base, third base, whatever, right?

Um, there's also some yellow flags in the sense where he just, he's going to chase a bit and he's going to whiff a tiny bit. It's not prohibitive. He's going to deal with some like V-Lone on the hands can be annoying. Sliders away has been the big criticism, which Mariners fans might be a little triggered by at this point, given their struggles with the outside slider. But I think at the end of the day, it kind of tails back to this conversation of price tags. And if they want to, and I'm fine with them taking Iva at three if they get the proper price tag.

And I do, I do. And as much as I love Iva, though, I do have to kind of take my bias out of it and point out that this is a player that could, that is not facing premier stuff, has not faced premier stuff between his time at UW in the PAC 12 and with Oregon State as an independent. So I think that if you're taking that into account, maybe you kind of just want to like lay back on that one. Maybe let another team take that chance. But it's also, but also if they do take them and I kind of want to emphasize this too, no matter who they're drafting that like players are not at this point in the draft where their top 10, top potential top 10, 12 picks in like all. all these guys can be very good players in one way or another. It's just about like picking the right player for your system who you like the most, right, and trying to adjust for that.

Like people are going to get hung up on stuff like, like, I mean, in 2023, people got hung up over, oh, why wasn't Dylan Cruz a number of an overall pick? Everyone had him as the best pick, right? And it's like, well, now, now I don't think any Pirate fans are regretting that they did not take Dylan Cruz. So yeah, it's just a lot of things can happen in the draft. And sometimes the best thing to do, especially when you have a team like the Mariners who has such a good track record with drafting, maybe you can just give them the benefit of

the doubt a bit, you know. More from our conversation with Oliver in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Mara's podcast is brought to you by game time. Have you ever decided at the last minute to head to a Mara's game either by yourself or with friends or family? You know, maybe it's game day and suddenly you realize I want to be. to be in the stands. Well, that's exactly where game time comes in. It's the easiest way to grab

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Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the promo code, L-O-C-E-D-O-N-M-LB for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. Last-minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. You're listening to the Locktime Marries podcast. We're here with MLB draft writer Oliver Bokter. Colby, what do you got for Oliver?

Yeah, I think one thing most Mariners fans know, and if they don't, they should by now, when Joe Doyle, who's been on the show a few times, when he says something about the Mariners and their draft ideas, you pay attention. In his recent mock draft, he had Jojo Parker going third overall. Now, he did also mention that the Mariners have done extensive work on Arquette, and they really like Anderson, as you've already stated. So, but he went Jojo Parker, which is probably a bit surprising to a lot of people. But again, when Joe says something with the information that we know he has, should pay attention.

So what do you think about the idea of Jojo Parker, who is he? And do you think that's a real thing? Or do you think this is just kind of more of a, you know, shuffling around some different ideas before draft boards start to get finalized? Yeah. So I have a lot of respect for Joe. and his work, he's a very good friend. He is an actual reporter and he reports on stuff on the draft. I'm kind of more of an evaluator, to be honest with you.

So I don't track connections as heavily. So if he says they've done extensive work on player A or B, I would just kind of, I would trust that. And I don't really have anything else to say on that front. But Jojo Parker is a very interesting player, very, very, um, data oriented player, to be honest, to be metrically driven. He absolutely tore up the summer circuit last year. He posted fantastic, like, whiff rates and fantastic chase rates.

He tap into some power. He is a, he's like this left-handed infielder that people are going to talk about, like, Cole Young and Colt Emerson. and he's kind of not quite like in that mold like he has he's like two or three inches on cole young in terms of height and he's not quite as athletic as colt but like the power is kind of already there and the thing with jojo's i kind of like i've kind of talked about like i kind of view jojo on this like on this like pickum scale between kaysen cunningham um eli willits and jojo parker where you're getting like, um, like each player, like Willits is the best defender of the bunch. Jojo's probably the worst defender, but Jojo also is the best power. And Willits also has the worst power in case and cunning game's kind of in the middle. So, um, yeah, it's like, I think Jojo is a very interesting player.

And I've talked about also the fact he's been getting some like there's a, I mean, he is a very talented hitter, which, um, I've always, Also, like very talented hitters at the top of the draft who have like very good hit tools and very good approaches tend to have a very good track record. These guys have been seeing good stuff on showcase circuits for a long time. So they're more advanced than I think some people will give them credit for. And if you're looking at it, I mean, the top like, as you like, as we've stayed, like Cole Emerson is one of the top prospect. in this draft. Kevin McGonigle is one of the top five prospects in baseball, right? Like this kind of like second base, third base plus hitter with pretty solid power can work out

to be a very good player and a very good prospect. So if they want to take that chance and save some money, I would not be, I would be none the wiser. I would think that that would be very interesting and see what they do with it. Sure. Just to clarify real fast. Not to you. Obviously, you know this, but to the people listening, when we say save some money, we mean draft pool money. They're going to spend the money. It's just they're going to spend it on a different player. When you start saying save money

around Mariner fans. Rightfully so, they don't start to twitch. Yeah. So I just want to clarify to the people listening. Most of you know this, but some of you don't. So just to clarify there, they'll spend the money elsewhere. There are some rumblings of like teams

trying to do that back in COVID of like not spending. But at the end of the day, like the draft is like the draft in the international free agency are the two like least expensive ways to get talent into your organization it's stupid to not use all your money yeah are there any other names we should keep an eye on at pick 35 that you like um 35 there's a lot of things that can do at 35 um I think a couple guys that stand out specifically specifically prep players um I think that one name that I like a lot is Cameron Appenzeller at 35. He's a left-handed pitcher out of Illinois, I think.

Might be wrong about that. Might be Indiana, whatever. He was for some people, like arguably the best prep pitcher coming into the year, but he's just, and he checks a ton of boxes, man. I mean, he is incredibly projectable. He's incredibly athletic. He has a very fun three-pitch mix. kind of like the velocity isn't really there yet but he also like he hasn't really had time to

fully build up because this spring he was focusing on basketball and other sports he's just an incredibly athletic player and so i could see seattle biting on that 35 just because it's very very very hard clay to find um some hitters i think makes some sense i think jaden fowsk um i think he's out of Illinois. Yeah, he is out of Illinois is very interesting. He's just a he's one of the more like polished hitters in this class. Kind of where he, where he lands defensively is kind of a bit of a question, but he's athletic enough. He'll work in a corner outfield if he needs to. And it's a very, very good hit power combination. I think a couple, I think a couple college arms make a lot of sense at 35.

I kind of talked about like this block of college arms, like 70 guys that could make sense. I think the, I think a couple that stand out the most, I would say, are Marcus Phillips out of Tennessee, AJ Russell out of Tennessee, Gage Wood out of Arkansas. Those three are all incredibly interesting possibilities there because they do a lot of things extremely well. and and um with seattle i mean if you get one of those guys at 35 i'd be very interested what they

could possibly turn into um and then college hitters um i kind of went over dean curly um i think in general though um teams try to typically avoid going college in the comp apex they typically like to go with prep players just to be opportunistic with money so um but i mean I mean, you could say, like, Ethan Conrad is kind of interesting at 35. He was maybe a top 15 pick if he didn't get hurt this year. Mason Neville's got a ton of power. So, yeah, I mean, there's some players that could make some sense conceivably. Before we let you go, Colby, you got anything else for Oliver?

Yeah, it's a question we're asking everybody who comes on to talk to at the end of the interviews, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a near unanimous answer. And it's kind of a weirdly worded question. We haven't quite worked out the best wording for it. But essentially, what do you think is going to end up being the most valuable asset from the Mariners draft that they're about to have?

Is it the difference between the pick they should have had at 16, 17, versus three, is it that quality of player? Or is it the money that they get from the comp picks and all that is, which is going to be more valuable to the mayors at the end of the day. Picking third or the extra money that they get and how they can spend it throughout the rest of the draft. Oh, absolutely the money. I mean,

the money is money talks. And that has been the case since the Astro selected Carlos Correa with the first overall pick, the first year of the bonus pool. And money is just the way that you're able to get so much. I mean, I brought up earlier, but look at what the Guardians did last year. I'm not going to go over every single pick, but man, I mean, I don't think you can ace a draft better than that. It's just because they, like, the most money. And you can do so many things.

I mean, look what the pirates did back in 2021 with the first overall pick. I mean, they, okay, yeah, Henry Davis hasn't worked out, but you know who has worked out, like Bubba Chandler and Anthony Solmetto and all of these other guys they got with those picks. it's just like you can money is like money is the difference between doing what you did last year and having all your chips invested in two players for the Mariners and having your chips spread among five or six you know they have like they have like three more million dollars they don't have to do that what they did last year you can find Oliver on Twitter at O Bachter and check out his work on medium Oliver you got anything on the way that we should be keeping an eye out for?

I'm actually not really fully sure to be honest with you. My school year just ended. So I got plenty of free time, no idea really how to fully utilize it. But I'll just be trying to post stuff and put out my thoughts out there. So, yeah. Well, appreciate the time. Appreciate all of your insight. Thanks so much for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. That's going to do it for our show. Thank you again to Oliver Bachter for joining us. and thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast. For Colby Patnaud, I'm Tadigazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marrers. You can follow me at Tadigazolus and Colby at CPAT 11. That's C-PAT-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. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Merrers. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.