Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How the Mariners Could Get the Best Version of Ty France in 2024

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Ty is joined by Ben Ranieri of Sea Level to discuss the recent injury updates on both Matt Brash and Luis Urías and to take an inside look at what Ty France worked on at Driveline this winter.WIN COLBY'S STUFF TERMS & CONDITIONS!Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BackblazeReceive a fully-featured no risk free trial at Backblaze.com/lockedonmlb. Go there, play with it, start protecting yourself from potential bad times! eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelNew customers, join today and you’ll get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.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.

We have injury updates on Luis Urias and Matt Brash, and it is not good news for either one. Ben Reneery of Sea Level joins me to break it all down as well as what Thai France got up to a drive line this off season coming up here on the Lockdown Maras podcast. Let's sail. 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, February 29th, 2020.

This is Tiding Azales and Ben Reneery for the Lockdown Marreras podcast brought to you by Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code Locked On. That's L-O-C-K-D-O-N for $20 off your first purchase. Thank you so much for making us your first listen, subscribe, like, internal alerts. If you're watching on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform, if you like what you hear. And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you.

And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our page. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. So Colby's out of town for the rest of the week. So I'm joined today by Ben. How's it going, Ben? Good, man. Thanks for having me.

So we plan for a while to have you come on here to talk about Thai France and the changes he made this off season over at Drive Line. And we're going to do that still. But we also have some unfortunate news to get to you first. Now, we're recording this on Wednesday. This is dropping on Thursday, so maybe we'll have even more clarity by the time this airs. But last night for us, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times released his updated 26-man roster projection for the Mariners and dropped a couple of, let's say, alarming nuggets. One, Matt Brash still hasn't resumed throwing after suffering an elbow injury last week.

And sources have told Divish that Brash could miss a significant amount of time this year. if not the whole season. And two, Luis Urias isn't able to throw anywhere close to full strength with his shoulder injury. And to make matters worse, DeVish noted that Urius showed up to camp in, quote, less than stellar shape, which is, of course, very disappointing for a multitude of reasons. But let's start with Brash. What's your reaction? It's obviously really disappointing.

It's concerning, I think, whenever you hear about arm stuff, because it can really snowball, kind of like this one has. We've obviously heard that Brash has had this feeling before. I think he said he's had a similar feeling before, but you never know. It sounds like Divish indicated in that article that it was an elbow thing. Maybe this time it was like a, I don't want to speculate, but it's like maybe it was like a forearm type of a thing and then he started to feel it a little bit worse this time like maybe he's had for him just comfort in the past and this time it's just a little bit worse um so i guess that's what

we can kind of hope for is that it's a that it's just a forearm strain and that he can stay away from um tj because he's just so much fun to watch and if it is indeed a a season ender um man i'm going to miss watching matt brash pitch this year absolutely absolutely it's such a bummer from that perspective. And of course, it's a huge gut punch to the Mariners bullpen in general, which of course is one of their greatest strengths. And I don't think this would necessarily be a death knell for that unit or for this team if they lose Brash for the entire year. But how does this, in your mind, impact the dynamic of this bullpen? It's going to be interesting. I mean, they're certainly going to have to figure it out in terms of a role's perspective. We're going to have to

see if they kind of slide Santos into the brash roll. I know they wanted to keep Munoz. Kind of the buzz was if they wanted to keep Munoz as like the true closer, like the ninth inning guy. And I think there's no true closers don't really exist anymore, except for the fact that you're trying to give guys the expectation of like when they're going to pitch so they can get their bodies right and kind of get into the rhythm of the season.

So it's going to be interesting. To me, there's a lot of. jobs and rolls up for grabs in this bullpen now. We've seen a lot of guys that are super, super fun. And that's, I guess, the one bright spot in this whole thing is that the Mariners are very good at finding guys. And we've seen some guys with some electric stuff so far. Carlos Vargas is getting Ray reviews, it seems like, from his first outing and kind of some stuff that he's done in the backfields. and tie butchery i mean there's a bunch of different guys jackson coar i know that's your guy

um i thought he was up to 98 and he's got a really good change up and then that cody bolton breaking ball is something pretty crazy so they got some they got some options um obviously there's nothing that you can do to really replace matt brash but i think it's mostly going to be a rolls thing and i'm interested to see kind of how they they divvy up those roles and if they kind of keep munoz in the ninth inning or kind of how they choose to navigate this whole thing. So with the context of the brash injury, and let's just go worst case scenario here, he's out for the whole year. Do the Mariners have to hit on Vargas or CoR or someone like that?

Or can, do you think they can still be a top end bullpen with what we expect to already be pretty good there, you know, Munoz, Santos, Spire, etc. I think they can still be pretty good. Obviously, you're not. Like, I'm sure that you guys have been saying this too, but I've been saying on my show for the past year now, like, they need another high leverage arm because, I mean, I think people made the joke a couple times. Unfortunately, it's not really a joke anymore that one of these times Matt Brashe's arm

was just going to go flying off with it because he threw in 78 games last year. Like, they've consistently, and I've talked about this in the past, they've rode those high leverage guys pretty hard. In 2022, Seawald was banged up at the end of the year. Swanson was banged up at the end of the year. So they've rode these guys hard, and they're going to need some guys to show out this year. They're going to need some guys to step up, and they're going to need, not to mention,

they're going to need Gabe Spire to be close to what he was last year. They're going to need, and Santos as well. I think Munoz will be all right. but they're going to need some guys to step up for sure. Luckily, the Mariners are pretty good at this. So hopefully they're able to rebound and kind of attack this. And hopefully Brash is not. He's not going to miss the whole season.

We don't know that at this point. But it doesn't sound promising. So hopefully they're able to kind of roll with the punches here. And I still think this bullpen is going to be pretty good. You still have better arms than a lot of other teams can say, to be honest. But man, it sucks to not have that three-headed monster we were all dreaming about. Obviously, you know, you don't want any injuries to occur. But if an injury were to occur on this roster, one that you could live through, it's, you know, something like this, right?

So in that bullpen with, you know, how you mentioned the Mariners have been able to churn out mid-leverage relievers like it's nothing. and again, they might have the upside here in someone like Jackson Co. are or Carlos Vargas to find another high leverage arm. So I think they'll be able to survive it, but it's still just a massive bummer because that one, two, three punch of Munoz, brash, Santos was so exciting. And, you know, hopefully one day we'll eventually get to experience that. All these guys are under clip control for a long time.

But, yeah, it's a bummer. We're not going to be able to see that at the very least. by opening day. It seems like that's pretty much set in stone that brush isn't going to be ready for then. But hopefully not a season ender like DeVish's sources kind of alluded to.

Yeah. At least if it's going to happen, like if you're going to have a injury like this, at least I don't think they're going to do this. But if they wanted to, at least it being in February gives them a chance. If they want to go out and sign Ryan Stanick, they could.

Do I think they're going to do that? But at least it gives them some time to kind of pivot. And there's still some guys out there that could certainly make a difference. So at least the timing, if it is a season ender, at least it's now instead of later during the season or whatever. And he might be ready by, if it is that, you might be ready earlier in the season next year. Right. So yeah. So we're going to get to the Louis Sirius.

side of the bad news that came out last night in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by GameTime. Buying tickets to your favorite events shouldn't be stressful. Game time is a fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy, and theater near you. And with killer deals on last minute tickets in their best price guarantee, you can stop stressing over the tickets and start getting hype for the fun you'll have. So forget planning months in advance. Game Time has deals on tickets right up to the day of the event. Sank the tickets without the stress with Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account and use promo code

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to the Lockdown Airs podcast. Thank you again for making us your first. Listen, and as a reminder, Lockdown has launched the first-ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. Locked-on Sports Day 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. Go to Locked-on Sports Today on YouTube and subscribe to the first-ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team, every day. So before we get back into our show here, today is your last day to get yourself entered into our Mariners' giveaway. Colby's giving away some of his stuff, and you guys have gotten us to 11,000 subscribers here on YouTube

Thank you so much. So Colby will be including the signed Kyle Seeger card and the Kyle Seeger Bobblehead. And he has also announced what you could win if you guys get us to 11.1K before the end of today. You guys have until 1159, 59 PM Pacific Time. I'm going to throw that up here on the screen. So you can see that. He tweeted it out.

Be sure to refer to the terms and conditions down in the description below. and good luck. So Ben, we've talked a lot about Luis Urius. You and I and Colby, we've been very high on the upside. We thought that was a really nice, sneaky addition. But there's also been a lot of skepticism.

And Luis Urius hasn't really helped his case here since spring training began and hasn't really made us look very smart. According to Divish, not only is he really struggling to work his way back from the shoulder injury he's got going on. He can't throw apparently, or he's having a really hard time throwing right now. He did DH the other day, but it doesn't seem like he's going to be able to play in the field anytime soon, and Divish kind of expects him to start the season on the IL until things significantly changed.

But on top of that, like I mentioned earlier, DeVis also reporting that he didn't show up to camp in the best of shape, which last year, that was the case with Ehio Horez, according to Dibish. So what's your reaction to that? Yeah, it's obviously unfortunate because, like, Erius was a guy who I was interested in for Seattle for a long time. And you'd hope that a guy coming off of the worst year of his career, after two really good years in Milwaukee.

Like, you'd hope that he would come into camp, ready and rear and to go. It sounds like, from what I've heard and what I've been told that he heard it during Winter Bowl, so whatever that was, I don't know exactly when he was playing there. And then after that is kind of when things with his not being in shape kind of went downhill, I guess. So that's not great. Obviously, I had high hopes for him. I thought that, I mean, he's a former top prospect. He was a highly touted guy.

And then had two really good years in Milwaukee where he was a really fun guy. So this is unfortunate. And you never really, I mean, obviously you said we liked him during the off season. And I definitely did. Like, I was high on this guy. And it's not over for him, right? Like, just because he's not in great shape, just because he can't throw right now. He could be back in a month and be fine.

Like if they are planning on platooning him with Josh Rojas, like maybe he lost his chance here of being like more of the everyday guy. But he could still come back in a month or a month and a half and be in against lefties like pretty consistently as the platoon option. So like it's not over for Louis Sirius, but it's certainly not, I'm not trying to spin it too positive like it's, like it's this great thing yeah well coming off of a down year injury plague season of course for him and then showing up to camp out of shape with your new ball club is one hell of a way to make an impression

so you know he's going to have to earn some trust back in the organization but now i kind of want to ask you where do the mariners go from here uh in terms of what's currently on the roster and in the organization i i've been thinking about about this a lot today. And maybe this is just because I'm like typically like eternally optimistic about this kind of stuff. But I actually don't think this is like as much as I've said that I think Urius is going to be a really good player. If they're planning on platooning them anyways, I actually don't think this is like the biggest deal in the world because Dylan Moore is actually pretty good over there defensively. Like I think he could, he's probably the best defensive

option they have over there. So getting to play him there against lefties. And we know Dylan can hit lefties. So like, I don't think you're losing a ton there. And it's not like you don't have a, he's, Dylan Moore's a proven player. Like, we know what he is at this point. He's a good defender. He adds value on the bases and he can hit lefties. And if that's all you're really asking him to do, I don't really see why that's that big of a deal.

Obviously, you're losing the ability to play Dylan Moore in the outfield if you wanted that. But one thing that I've been pretty happy with, so far this spring is like we know sam haggerty's a playmaker like he makes plays um and i would assume he would be the guy on the roster i just and this is all assuming that they would go with the dylan more rojas platoon at third but samad taylor's also really really impressed me yeah he seems like sam haggerty with maybe a little bit more upward potential here um he's really really fun and he's made some little tweaks in his setup um from last year in the videos that I've watched of him swinging.

It looks like he looks a little different. So Samad Taylor is a guy I'm really excited about, but they could also like shift Polanco over to third and then go Bliss. And they could go Dylan Moore and Rojas at second base to start the year and then end up going Bliss over there. Because I mean, Ryan Bliss is pretty close. So maybe this is just, you never know. Sometimes things shake out the way they're supposed to and guys get an opportunity because of an injury.

Think about Cade Marlow last year. He got an opportunity after Jared Kelnick got hurt. Maybe this is Ryan Bliss's opportunity. Right. This is Samad Taylor's opportunity. Like, sometimes it's not all a bad thing, but I think they certainly are more well equipped to handle something like this than they have been in the past.

Well, this is what we were talking about with the depth that they've added and how you and I have talked about both on your show and on this show, that it, you know, go get a little too much on the back end of your roster. This is exactly why you do that, right? Because now, you know, Eureus goes down and you're not having to hope on someone being something that they haven't really been, or at least someone that, like with Samad Taylor, with Dillam Moore, with Sam Harriety, there's at least upside or proven track record there. Yeah.

And you're not asking them to do something that they're not good at, right? Like, you're asking them to hit. left-handed pitching and play a good defense. Like all those guys can do that. Like they've all done it and they've all proven it. So like, I don't know. Sometimes I don't think it's the worst thing. Last night though, I did tweet that, you know,

well, I still don't love or even like the idea of Matt Chapman. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit more on board with the idea. Now after learning this about Eureas, what about you? How do you feel about that? Yeah, I guess I haven't really changed with Chapman. Like I said, Aureas could be back in like a month. And the relatively like what they have isn't terrible. Like I think they can find a way to adjust.

Really where I'm at with Chapman and kind of my hesitancy is if you are going to sign Matt Chapman, you would theoretically, unless John Stanton and this ownership group is going to give you a little bit of leeway and a little bit of bump in what you're able to spend. you would need to find some other way to pull a trigger to release a little bit of salary. And to me, that lever has always been Louis Sirius. And that's not happening, right? You're not getting rid of that. So where's the lever that you can pull if they're not allowing you to have that freedom? I've very much been in the camp.

If Matt Chapman, if signing Matt Chapman does not allow you to do anything at the deadline, then it's not worth it to me because you cannot, you cannot run into a 2018 situation again. You can't. That is the worst thing that could happen, like falling short because you didn't have the money at the deadline specifically. I feel like is worse than the marginal improvement, I guess, that Matt Chapman might have at third base right now.

So, yeah, like it makes a lot of sense. And if it falls to the point where they're comfortable doing it, and if they can structure the contract in a way that makes sense, I guess I'm down for it, but it's just, it's a lot to know, to not know, I guess. So I've been led to believe, and I believe you as well,

that the mayors have made an offer to Chapman at some point this off season. I don't, we don't know exactly when that was. So if it was, you know, three months ago, I mean, context is way different and that offer is probably not even on the table anymore.

But if it was as, recent as the last couple weeks. I mean, that signifies two things to me that they do have money to some degree, or at least there's been an exception made for Chapman specifically. And two, they knew that this Eurea stuff was going to be a problem. Yeah, I think they've known the Eurea stuff for a while, because I don't know when, like I said, I don't know when he played in Winterball, but I would assume he should have told the club that he was injured when it happened. So I don't when that happened, but if that was a while ago, like, he's been dealing with this for a little while. And on the Chapman thing, like, it's not necessarily the biggest deal ever that they've,

if they have given him a contract offer, because they'll do that. Like, they'll, they'll say this is how far we're willing to go. Kind of let us know. And a lot of teams do that. Like, how far we're willing to go, get back to us if it gets there, essentially. We're not willing to go higher than that. So it wouldn't necessarily, it's not like the big. biggest deal ever, but it's certainly, it's certainly interesting. And the context would be nice.

I mean, who knows? Who knows when the last time, if they've approached him with an offer or if they've made contact. But yeah, this is certainly not ideal. Well, with the recent smoke about Chapman and now the news about Urias, it starts to make a little bit more sense and starts to make me think that it's been a bit more recent, that's the news. they've shown that interest in Chapman i think so too because uh i was thinking about this today like john hayman is like for whatever you want to say about john hameman like he's a pretty notorious like he's he's a boris yeah like he's the guy one of the guys that boris goes to um and he did like his little show and i saw a snippet of it today and it's consistently been

when talking about chapman it's consistently been blue jays giants mariners like it he said that today. Like he didn't say he said that those were the teams that make sense. And I'm assuming that that has a little bit of inside knowledge from him to say that. And like there's also some intuitive fits like the Mariners need a third baseman Bob Melvin's with the Giants. And the Blue Jays also have a huge hole at third base. So yeah. So on the on the on the Giants thing specifically, the one thing that I would I would keep an eye on here is if they did sign Chapman. Maybe J.D. Davis is available.

Maybe he makes some sense for the Mariners. It seems like he made a tweak defensively last year. He ended up being plus six outs above average over at third base. After being horrible there for every other year beyond that. You guys know how I feel about defensive metrics. They're not great. So I would take that with the smallest grain of salt. But it's something to monitor.

It's interesting. and Davis's bat is really good. So I'd definitely keep an eye on that. And of course, you know, the Marraiser and Giants love making trades with one another. Yeah. Womer Flores is there too. Yeah.

Pete, I mean, they're probably not moving Wormor Flores, but you never know, maybe. Yeah. And if you just want a bat from them, maybe Lamont Wade makes some sense. Maybe Mike Yostromski. So there's some names to keep an eye on there in San Francisco that Chapman could maybe make less important for them if he does sign there.

So I think there's still a way, like even if they don't sign Chapman, for them to benefit from wherever he does sign. All right. So we're going to get to the ultimate reason that I wanted you to come on the show today is to talk about Thai France and drive line. So we're going to do that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdowner's podcast is brought to you by Fandul.

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That's Fandual.com slash LOC, KD-O-N. Fanduel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. And you're listening to the Lockdown-Ares podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. So, Ben, the reason I wanted you to come on this show today before all this other stuff about Eureas and Brash came out was to talk about Thai France and driveline because you're very much well connected with Drive Line.

You recently had Tanner Stokey, the director of hitting over at Drive Line on your show, to talk about Thai France. And, of course, that's been a big topic of discussion this offseason. We know what Drive Line did for J.P. Crawford last year. France is coming off of a rough last year and a half, really. And we know that, you know, at his peak, he can be an all-star caliber hitter. So what have you learned from your discussions with Tanner and just, from your observations of France so far in spring and just the videos that have come out of him. What are your thoughts on France right now?

Yeah. So first of all, before I wax poetic here, I just want to say it's not the end-all-b-all fix for every player. I've had really good experiences with Drive-L. I love those guys over there. So I want to put that out there first. It's not an end-all-b-all, but it is a really, really good tool for guys to go and figure out, like, even if it's not necessarily the tweak that ends up being the tweak for them, it helps them to identify some of the things that they struggle with. So Ty came in to the off-season

wanting to improve bat speed and hit the ball harder. And so I also in that interview had Zach Settles, who's their strength coach, one of their high-performance coaches over there. And so when you go into drive line and you do an assessment, you do a mobility and strength assessment. And so Ty came in and had really limited hip and shoulder mobility. So I think it was his internal rotation of his hips. So what that means is it's really hard to separate. He also had about pro average strength for a first baseman, not major league average, pro average. So they wanted to see that go up. And his bat speed grade, was slightly below league average.

So Tyo basically had a really upper body, like hand dominant swing. And like I said, like I said, he had limited hip mobility. So he was having a hard time like getting into his back leg and like loading into his back leg. So he couldn't control his forward move and his hips would kind of slide, which would cause everything to his hands to kind of push. get really tied up, especially on like inside pitches. And so we saw he had a lot of troubles with his pull side contact.

And so they kind of went in knowing some stuff about tie as a hitter. And then some of it was confirmed, but some of it was also not confirmed. Like when they looked at him, his raw bat speed was actually really, really good. But his sequence in his swing, so like the way that his. swing like triggered and sequenced together was really, really off, especially when he would go to live. And so he was having a hard time expressing that bat speed in games. So they've, they basically worked on a lot of like, of what Tai wanted to accomplish, which is improving his bat speed. But they did that kind of by improving his mechanical efficiency. So getting his

sequencing better. So he can express the bat speed in the games and have more. more quality pullside contact. And as Tanner said, like, he's seen the Mariners Twitter stuff, like hitting in the double plays and stuff like that, like cleaning up his sequence. And to me, the biggest thing that I took away was like, and check out the interview. I won't spoil the whole thing. But one of the biggest things that I took away was that he's been a really good hitter in the past with like suboptimal mechanics, essentially.

Like he's never really had a swing coach. he's kind of always just been a feel hitter and has kind of just gone out there and like tried to get into a good position when his front foot lands and just kind of go. So for him to make some improvements, I think it's really interesting. You also flatten his bat out a little bit in his preset just so he can kind of get the bat into the zone a little bit easier because it was very, very vertical. And sometimes it's a lot of work to have to get that thing turned around. And in the zone, especially if your sequence is all messed up. So it's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting to see what Ty looks like.

Obviously, we can't get a ton from spring training. But I think it's going to be really interesting. And I think he's certainly focused on the right things this off season. We'll have to see if it translates. So he's clearly slimmed down any other takeaways so far. I mean, we've only been able to see three games on TV at the time of this recording. So anything else you've seen from France? Yeah, he definitely, they focused a lot on his,

his upper body strength was really good, but they focused a lot on his lower body strength, and just as raw strength in general. I know they got that up a lot. And he certainly slimmed down. Like he, and that's not necessarily something that guys have to do. Like I think sometimes it's a bigger,

I know we talked about Arias earlier, but sometimes it's a bigger deal than not, especially for a first baseman. Like you can be a big dude and play first base, but you have to be able to be mobile and you have to be able to get into the right positions to hit. And so I think, like, it's going to be interesting to kind of just pay attention to him

as spring goes along because another thing, like it's not going to necessarily come right away. Like he's still going to be finding his timing a little bit. He's swinging a different way than he swung his entire life. So if the results don't come right away, I would encourage you if you're listening to this. Like don't bury the guy. He's got, he's learning a new way to swing. And so it's going to be interesting to kind of see how he goes along this spring.

But yeah, he definitely worked his butt off this off season. And so I'm excited to see what he can do. It's a huge year for him because I think the mayor has had a long discussion. this off season about potentially non-tendering him. And if he doesn't get it together this year, I think that's all but certain to happen this upcoming winter, which is disappointing because, again, we know what France can be at his 100th percentile,

or even his 90th percentile, a really, really good hitter and a quality defensive first basement as well. And if the Maris can get that, if they can get that guy, or just 80 percent of what France has been at his peak. The mayor's offense should be in a pretty good spot this year. Yeah.

Everything that they have. Yeah. Tye's hit his whole life. And so that was my biggest takeaway is like he's hit his whole life. So if you can improve the way that he's getting there and the way he's getting it done. Right. And the thing that we've heard from both Tanner and Tye is that this wasn't just about getting him back to 2020. 21 Thai France.

No. 2020 Thai France. This was getting him beyond that, making him more, making him the best possible version of himself, getting him to his true 100 percentile.

So that's exciting. If it actually works, what does that look like for France? Yeah. I mean, like, it's easy for us to just kind of think about the last two years. But I think the,

like the back half of 2020, was injury, that was a lot of injury stuff that had to do with that. Like he was having a hard time, I think. And I think he probably developed some bad habits. If you just want my pure speculation, I think he probably compensated for some things in his swing, developed some bad habits, and then just didn't know how to get himself out of it in 2023. So I don't think that it's crazy that we could see something similar to 2021 type France or

something that's similar in terms of like the raw output like the WRC plus numbers. I don't think it's crazy that we could see something similar to that, but maybe it looks a little different. Like maybe he, um, his averages down a little bit, but he hits more jacks. Like maybe it just looks a little bit different. But I think in terms of output, like, I don't think it's crazy to say that we haven't seen the best of Thai France. Like I think we could see a better version.

I don't think that that's crazy at all. Um, dude's a really good hitter. And another thing that Tanner talked about is like, he's got crazy bat to ball skills. So he has that part of it. He's never really swung and missed. And so they did more than just fix his mechanics this off season. They talked about kind of like the strategies and everything and the pitches that he struggled with. Like they went full in depth with them.

So I certainly don't think it's crazy that we could see an improved or at least the 2021 version of tie again. well ben appreciate you coming on and filling in for colby that's going to do it for our show thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown mirrors podcast for ben reneering on titha and gonzalez be sure to give us a follow on twitter at l o underscore mariners you can follow me at tideane gonzalez and ben at ben rennery ten you can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode thank you again for making us your first listen have yourself a beautiful baseball day we'll see you next time peace