Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How the Seattle Mariners Can Address Their BIGGEST ISSUE Without Doing Anything Drastic

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Mariners 2-3-4 has been by far the worst in baseball through the first week of the season. So if they decided to make some changes to it, what should those be? We'll discuss coming up here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors.

Starting point is 00:00:29 And it is Thursday, April 2nd, 2026. My name is Tiding Azales. and I'm joined as always by my co-host, Colby Pat. Now today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel during the tournament. FanDuel is offering $300 back and bonus bets every day for 10 days. Head to fanduel.com to get started. And on today's show, we've got some updates on a few Mariners minor league pitchers. And we'll go over the full contract details of Colt Emerson's extension now that those have dropped.

Starting point is 00:00:56 But first, we unfortunately got to talk about the 23, 4 in the Mariners lineup. It has been bad. and that is the understatement of the century, frankly. Obviously, we talked quite a bit about that stack yesterday because they had another rough day at the office and the mayor's 5 to 3 loss to the Yankees last afternoon. Now, obviously, the biggest hit of the day did come from that stack, but they want to combine one for 12 before strikeouts.

Starting point is 00:01:25 And now through the first seven games of the season or their first 91 plate appearances of the season, however you want to look at it. it. Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodriguez, and Josh Naylor have combined for an 086-187-099 slash line. That is a negative 5 WRC plus, Colby. That is 40% worse than the second worst 2-3-4 stack in Major League Baseball, which belongs to the Minnesota Twins. That 2-3-4 stack for the Marin as well is running a 35-5.

Starting point is 00:02:03 point two percent k rate right now so as we talked about yesterday this stack and the mayor's lineup has actively hurt them it has killed multiple run scoring opportunities or multiple instances over the course of the first seven games that you can point to where this grouping has been the biggest issue for this club to start the year and i i think temporarily while these guys are trying to find their footing, you need to break it up to a certain degree. Because this just isn't viable right now. Again, negative 5 WRC plus. That is a disaster.

Starting point is 00:02:49 So if the Marys did make some changes here, and I don't expect them to. But if they did make some changes here, it did break up the two, three, four. Who gets bumped and who gets bumped up? Yeah. Before we get into that, let's clarify a couple things here. First and foremost, nobody is suggesting that we move all three of the guys down to 7,8, 9, and punish them. Nobody is suggesting that these three hitters who are probably going to finish the year as your best hitters are bad now, and they stink, and we should panic.

Starting point is 00:03:28 There's a difference between panic and frustration, and panic is obviously should be a zero right now. there's 155 games to go. And the Mariners are kind of used to going three and four in the first week of the season. So it's nothing new for them. But when you just look at the numbers here, I like, I mean, Brennan Donovan is doing his job. And then some Cole Young is doing his job. And then some Leo Rivas has given you plenty of good at-bats.

Starting point is 00:03:55 The 23-4 have been given plenty of opportunities to drive-in runs and produce and help this team win. And they very easily could be six and one or five and two if they had just performed at an average clip. They're lost right now. You know, Josh is swinging at everything. Julio can't catch up to, you know, middle, middle fastballs right now. And Cal is chasing everything above his belt and can barely make contact with. The Cal Raleigh doesn't have a hard hit ball this year. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:26 In seven games. So we need to acknowledge the situation while also saying like, yeah, nobody's panicking. talking about taking some of your run scoring opportunities and giving them to players who are actually swinging the bat a little bit right now, putting somebody in between these guys to break them up and maybe take some pressure off of one or two of them. So as for who you move down, I don't know that it matters all that much. I think probably the answer is you move Julio down and Naylor down. Probably keep Cal's second. There's an argument to be made that you know, you want to get these guys as many at bats as possible so they get out of their funk sooner. And if you move them down, they get fewer opportunities, in theory, at least.

Starting point is 00:05:04 So there's point, counterpoint here. But I think the easy place to look right now is Luke Rayleigh, who seems to be swinging the bat really well. Again, you're going to deal with some of the same strikeout issues with him as you are with Cal and Julio right now. But he's actually putting the ball in play. He's driving the baseball. There's some legitimate power there. I think the only extra base hit these three guys have is the bloop double on Sunday afternoon from Cal Raleigh. So, you know, it's, I think the best way to do it.

Starting point is 00:05:37 You don't want to move Donovan. Obviously, you need Donovan to hit lead off because that's the whole reason we're having this conversation is that he's getting on base. And I don't think you want to move Cole Young up yet. I think you want to keep him comfortable, you know, hitting eighth or ninth. I really don't see the point in doing that. So I think you're looking at the rest of the guys who could be an option here. It would be Canzone and or Rayleigh that need to move up. So I think I would do Rayleigh.

Starting point is 00:06:02 I think I would probably go something like Donovan 1. And then the 2 spot, if you want to keep Cal there, fine. But Randy could come into play here. He's swinging the bat okay. Rayleigh could come into play here. Canzone can come into play there. If you don't want to stack the back-to-back lefties in the 1-2 spot, especially when you're committed to this platoon with, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:24 Rayleigh and Canzone, fine. Then I think you do something like you do Canzone or you do Donovan, one, Randy, two, maybe Cal three, Rayleigh, four, Julio five, Nailor six. And that's kind of how you break it up a little bit there. So I do think Randy needs to be hitting ahead of Nailer at the very least, particularly against left-handed pitching. I don't know, even if Nailer was swinging the bat well, I don't know why Randy wouldn't be hitting ahead of Nailer against left-handed pitching,

Starting point is 00:06:53 but whatever. I think Randy needs to move up. He's the obvious guy here. And if it's as simple as even just moving, you know, Julio to four, and Randy to three or Nailer to five and Randy to four. I think Randy needs to be the guy that moves up here. And then you can have a conversation with Rayleigh. Should he hit above one of these guys for now or not?

Starting point is 00:07:14 I think that's a legit conversation to have. But yeah, you can't do everything, but you have to do something. And you have to try and maximize these runs scoring opportunities. And right now, you know, again, you don't want to mess too much with Cole Young. You want him to be comfortable. So Randy kind of feels like the guy who needs to be hitting. two, three, or four right now. And then maybe we could talk about Rayleigh as well.

Starting point is 00:07:35 What you don't want to do here is like, okay, we're going to push Cal, Julio, and Naylor down, but they're still hitting back to back to back. No, like you need to put someone in. Anything. No, you need to put someone in between them. That's really the point that we're trying to make here. It's like you're still kind of run into the same problem,

Starting point is 00:07:50 even if those guys are hitting five, six, seven, right? Oh, God, I said it. Now, I just see what you've done to me. Rubbed off on me now. Anyway. Nobody was going to mention. it until you said something. Someone was absolutely.

Starting point is 00:08:04 Someone was absolutely going to say something. Someone was absolutely going to say something. Yeah, I know our comments too well. Anywho, yeah, right now, I mean, obviously, very small sample size, but like Luke Rayleigh, 100 percentile and expected slugging, 100 percentile barrel rate, 99th percentile and launch angle sweet spot percentage. You know, like, he's putting quality contact together more often than not. I want that guy probably hitting in the top four in my lineup right now.

Starting point is 00:08:31 And then, yeah, maybe you want to bump up Randy as well. But in the end, what it ultimately comes down to is just putting someone in between those three guys. All right. So we got full details on Colt Emerson's extension. We're going to go over those in just a moment. But first a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by Indeed. Workplace chaos. Deadlines stacking up, inbox overflowing, and the one position you have to fill still sitting open.

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Starting point is 00:10:13 Mariners. And also thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. Baseball is finally back. And to celebrate, I'm giving you a full month of the Everyday Club for free. That's right, me. I'm giving it to you personally. Colby's giving you nothing. Go to Lockdownerrs.com.com. Use the promo code finally. That's F-I-N-A-L-Y. You'll unlock every episode to add free and get access to our private listener group chat. Tap the link in the description and use the promo code finally to claim your free month.

Starting point is 00:10:45 Right now, you can also find the link to vote for the championship round of our top 50 Mariners Moments Tournament in the description as well. How's that going right now, Colby? Fine. Oh, you're hoping for more details? Yeah, I was actually. Okay. Well, the Google forum poll, which again, a reminder, guys, you can vote twice.

Starting point is 00:11:10 You can vote on the Google forum and on the Twitter poll, which is pinned at the top of our profile. And again, L.O. underscore Mariners on Twitter. Yes. And again, I noticed that the work email addresses and the personal addresses are not much of a different. So I know some of you have voted twice on the Google forum poll, which fine, whatever.

Starting point is 00:11:33 But yeah. Yeah. Let me pull one over on me. Anyways, you have 225 responses on the Google forum poll. The double is in the lead, but it is pretty darn close, 51.1 to 48.9. So basically 5149 on the forum poll. And Ty, I assume you looked up the Twitter poll while I was talking because that's what I'm going to be the most. do. That's right. Okay. That's right. So with 153 votes three days ago on the poll,

Starting point is 00:12:07 Eggers double is leading 55.6% to 44.4% for Cal's drought ender. So definitely still within within reach for the drought. I'd say it's probably just rough math off the top of my head, about 53347 for the double right now. Sure. I will trust you on that. So yep, still, still time to turn this. I mean, it is a race right now. I mean, that's only 3% difference there.

Starting point is 00:12:40 So still up for grabs, only 300, almost 400 or, yeah, almost 400 votes now. So a nice little ballot run of 20 votes or so could really tip the scales in either direction here. So yeah, make sure you guys do that. Again, you go to Twitter. It's our PIN tweet on our profile at L.O. underscore Mariners or you can go to the Google Forum link, which is linked in the description down below. All right. So Cole Emerson, obviously, signed an extension back on, what was that, Tuesday?

Starting point is 00:13:13 Tuesday. Tuesday. Yeah. Getting my days all mixed up. But, yeah, obviously, it was the most expensive contract for a player that's never taken a major league played appearance. And now we have details on how that money ultimately breaks down. So in 2026, Colt is going to count towards $2 million of the mayor's payroll.

Starting point is 00:13:36 He got a signing bonus. So it's $9 million in total. And then next year he'll make $3 million. He'll make $10 million in 2028, 13 in 2020, 19 and 2030, 16 and 2013, 16 and 2013. 17 and 2032 19 and 2033 and then there is a 25 million dollar club option in 2034 there aren't details yet on the escalators like what triggers the escalators to make his overall earning potential go up it's based on MVP voting all-star selection and silver sluggers yeah we just don't know the exact specifics of what each of those uh tiers are to activate the bonuses, but yeah, based mostly on how he hits. So thoughts on the contract? You're in it all broken down.

Starting point is 00:14:30 When he signed it. Great. Home run for the Mariners, home run for him. Essentially what people don't seem to realize is that basically the Mariners doubled his minimum salary for the first two years and then started paying him in his arbitration numbers a year sooner than they would have otherwise. That's literally all that happened. And what do they get in exchange for that?

Starting point is 00:14:53 They get his prime years, his age 26, 27, 28 season for about half of what they would have otherwise had to pay to keep him here. And one thing to keep in mind, and again, I don't see very many other people talking about this. In the new round of CBA negotiations, if the owners are going to hold steady on a salary cap, the players are absolutely going to get free agency after five years instead of six, which means, by the way, they would also more than likely be eligible for arbitration after year two instead of after year three. So in a very real way, the Mariners may have not, you know, paid an arbitration year early at all. Maybe the mariners are reading the tea leaves here and being like, look, minimum salaries are probably going to go up in the next round of CBAs. We're probably going to have a cap, which I don't think the players are going to cave for, but the mayors might feel differently. And obviously, they have more knowledge of what's likely going to happen than we do.

Starting point is 00:15:49 So let's lock in this $40 million year player for 18 and 25 when you know, you would be a free agent. Minimum salary goes up. So we're barely paying him over the minimum. And we know he's going to be ARB eligible in 2029 or 2028, whatever, whenever the real money kicks in anyway. So let's just pay him now and pay him a little bit more. Again, this is about buying the really expensive, you know, coat because it's going to last

Starting point is 00:16:14 you 10 winters instead of buying the cheap $5 one because you're going to, need to replace it next winter, right? And the Mariners are in a position where they can do something like that. They have the money to do it. So this is just smart financial planning on their end. If you're, if you're, uh, Colt Emerson, you get $95 million guaranteed whether you're successful or not and you get to hit free agency again at the age of 29 as a shortstop. Like, you're going to get a second big contract. So what did you really leave on the table by taking this deal? maybe a hundred million total when you're probably going to make

Starting point is 00:16:52 300 million in your career you guarantee the money now without taking any of the risk. It's a home run for him. It's a home run for the Mariners. And the people who don't want to acknowledge that or the people who are like, well, there's no reason for them to do it now.

Starting point is 00:17:07 Now they're just paying him without any reason. They're paying him barely above league minimum in the grand scheme of things. And he's not. never going to make throughout the course of this contract he is never going to make what his market value would be he's going to be below it every single year and honestly if he's a two-win player throughout the duration of this contract he will pay off this contract by year three well in an underrated aspect of this as well as that the specific timing of getting this deal done

Starting point is 00:17:37 pretty clutch for the mayor is because connor griffin and the pirates are now talking and that deal is going to be more expensive than than colt emerson's i would expect you know there's There's still four other up the middle players that are consensus ranked ahead of Colt who could also sign extensions that are going to be more expensive than Colts and could have potentially, you know, boosted what Colt would eventually, you know, command in an extension. You know, I was talking about like, you know, DeVries and guys like that. So this is standard practice in baseball. And these contracts are only going to get more expensive because this is where the real value is. for a lot of teams signing guys like this and i mean jerry mentioned it in his press conference after he got officially announced like cole emerson if he hit free agency when he was supposed to

Starting point is 00:18:28 would be a very young reagent and it's not often that we see it's not often that we see 26 27 year olds hit the free agent market it's very rare and when those guys do typically they're getting a bag so being able to buy out those free agent ears. That is extraordinary value. And yeah, for some, you know, players and for some teams, that's not going to work out. That's the risk that you assume, though. And when you're an organization like the Mariners who roster build in the very specific way that the Mariners do, whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent, that is an extraordinary value.

Starting point is 00:19:07 That's a, that's a move that you make 10 times out of 10. All right. So we got some updates on some Mariners, some minor league pitchers. mostly good, mostly optimistic. One kind of bad, though, really unfortunate. We'll go over that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the longtime airs podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. The tournament is here.

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Starting point is 00:20:00 It's perfect for the tournament because every day there's something new, different matchups, new storylines, and more ways to get involved as the bracket unfolds. So visit fanduel.com to sign up today. That's fanduel.com to get in on the action. And you're listening to the Locktime Marries podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. As always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, we have a Patreon. It's called Control the Zone on there.

Starting point is 00:20:28 We talk Mariners, Seahawks, all that good stuff. For more information, go to patreon.com forward slash control the zone link in the description of this episode. So the Mariners have announced all of their minor league rosters, and I was looking for one name in particular and did not see him anywhere. that was Griffin Hugas, one of the mayor's draft picks from last year out of the University of Miami, right-handed pitcher, who we've talked about a lot as a guy that could establish that mid-tier of prospects in the Mariners farm system. You know, we've said that that area of the Mariners Farm system has been kind of light and that Hugus could be a part of, you know, reestablishing that part of the farm.

Starting point is 00:21:11 But it looks like that's not going to be the case. this was actually reported a couple of weeks ago. It just got buried because I think it didn't actually make it to social media. It was just in an article on Lookout Landing, but Lookout Landing had reported that Hugus was set to or is still set to or maybe he's already had it by this point. So you undergo Tommy John surgery. So that's really, really unfortunate news for a guy that the Marys were really excited about and still are. Like obviously Tommy John surgery is not a death knell or anything like that. I'm not trying to characterize it as such.

Starting point is 00:21:48 But, you know, he obviously really impressed at high performance camp a few months ago. And so, yeah, the fact that his first professional season is going to have to wait, really, really sucks for him. Outside of that, you know, the big news here, really just in terms of all the minor league assignments, Kate Anderson and Ryan Sloan have both been assigned to AA Arkansas, which is something that we thought was certainly a possibility, but it is aggressive. And why that's ultimately important is that has been the final step to the majors for pretty much all Mariners,

Starting point is 00:22:29 Meyer League pitchers. You know, Logan Gilbert only made one start in AAA Tacoma. Ryan Woo and Bryce Miller, the only time they ever stepped foot, in Tacoma was for rehab starts. So this is typically it. Obviously now the question though is just like when and how do these guys, you know, make it to the major league roster, make it to their MLB debut.

Starting point is 00:22:56 Because obviously right now, the mayors have five guys win healthy that they feel pretty good about in their rotation. So how do we see Kate Anderson? how do we see Brian Sloan this year? What do you think this means ultimately for their 2026 seasons, Colby? I mean, I honestly don't see how they crack the rotation, barring multiple injuries. Now, there's a possibility that maybe they run with a six-man rotation sometime in the middle of the year to kind of, you know, save innings and all that. I think that's a possibility. And, you know, perhaps if they clinch everything by like the middle of September, maybe then they try it all.

Starting point is 00:23:38 also to try and keep guys fresh for the playoffs. I don't know. But, you know, it's right now, assuming that the five guys, and I'm including Bryce Miller and that, assuming they're healthy in June, when we could actually start to have conversations about whether or not Kate Anderson and Ryan Sloan or Major League Ready. They're healthy. Well, I mean, I guess also depends on how well did Hancock pitch over his next handful

Starting point is 00:24:06 of starts that he's going to get. What's he doing now? Is he converted fully to the bullpen? Is he in AAA? Because he's probably the six if he's pitching well still over those two guys. So at that point, like, even if they do go with a six-man rotation, it's probably going to be Hancock over them. So it feels like the bullpen is the place that they can, that they can impact most.

Starting point is 00:24:28 Sloan certainly looks like a traditional reliever in terms of like, throws very hard. He's got the wipeout slider, like he throws a ton of strikes. Anderson is more of a true starter and that he doesn't throw as hard and he's kind of a kitchen sink guy and you know he understands how to pitch he's not going to blow you away with just like raw stuff

Starting point is 00:24:47 which is kind of how you picture a reliever these days. So yeah, I don't see again short of an injury, probably too. I don't see either of these guys cracking the rotation in a permanent manner. Again, maybe they get a spot start here or there. Maybe they go to a six man and somebody's hurt

Starting point is 00:25:05 and they kind of jump in to fill in. But I think by June or July, we could start to have conversations about, you know, do you add these guys? Are they ready for the major leagues? But if everybody's healthy, like I don't foresee them benching anybody in their rotation for one of these guys. So it kind of is all about health. And, you know, by the way, it's also about health for Anderson. He's got a Tommy John in his recent past.

Starting point is 00:25:31 And he's got to build up. And I don't know how aggressive they're going to be with their workload. And same goes for Sloan, who certainly has the physique of a workhorse, you know, with the size and the strength and all that. But he threw, what, 90 innings last year? I don't think they're going to want to push him about 180. So it's kind of one of those things, like how much ammunition do these guys have left when you get to August? And do they even have, you know, the necessary innings left to give and to keep them stretched out? or do you just throw them in the bullpen and say,

Starting point is 00:26:06 you know, heck, this is, Brian Sloan is our mid-leverge reliever now, and maybe he becomes a high-leverage guy after we give them opportunities in August. I'm not sure. So, yeah, I think ultimately both of them are likely to make their debut, barring injuries, which are, of course, likely. Well, I mean, they're possible.

Starting point is 00:26:24 We're talking about pitchers here. I think it's very likely that both of these guys make their debut in either a relief role or as more of a spot starter or short-term starter because there's a small injury or because they want to roll with a six-man and something like that. But, yeah, bullpen, I think for both is probably the most likely way they impact the 2026 Mariners. All right.

Starting point is 00:26:48 Well, that is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locktime Marriss Podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And once again, if you never miss an episode, it's time to make it official. Join the Lockdown Every Day or Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only, Discord and more all built for our most loyal fans. For Colby Pat, note, I'm Tiding Azalus. Be sure, give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marrers.

Starting point is 00:27:09 You can follow me at Tadigalus and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-PAT-11. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How the Seattle Mariners Can Address Their BIGGEST ISSUE Without Doing Anything Drastic

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