Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Is Kris Bryant Worth the Possible Long-Term Risk?

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode break down the latest rumors that once again link the Mariners to Pirates OF Bryan Reynolds. Then, the two get into a heated debate about the potential pitfalls of signing free agent 3B Kris Bryant. Finally, Colby lists three pitchers who the Mariners could sign to compete for the fifth spot in the team's rotation.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariner's News and Analysis. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms, of course, and today is Thursday, November 11th, 2021. I am your host, Tiding Gonzalez, joined as always by my co-host Colby Patnode. Follow us on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners.

you can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-A-11. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone and become our 80th patron. But on today's show, the Mariners have been leaked to Pirates Outfielder Brian Reynolds once again. and we'll talk about the viability of a deal and if Pittsburgh could be swayed on its initial asking price of Julio Rodriguez. Also going to talk about the potential pitfalls of signing Chris Bryant. And finally, Colby's got some names. He wants to go over who he thinks could compete for the number five spot in the Mariners rotation. So if you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. We'd greatly appreciate it.

So starting with Brian Reynolds here, John Morosi, today. saying that the Mariners and the Yankees are among the teams that are interested in Brian Reynolds, young outfielder for the Pirates who still has three years left of club control coming off a five and a half F-war season. Colby, first of all, do you think it's possible to get Brian Reynolds without including Julio Rodriguez? Well, what you're really asking me is do I think that the pirates will be realistic? No, I don't. And I get it. Reynolds has, I think, three years of club control left.

It might be four. He's a very young player. He's already a star. He's been a six-win player a couple times now. He's still in his 20s. And so there's a lot of reason to say, well, we want Julio Rodriguez. But there's just as many reasons, if not more reasons, for the mayor's to say, no. So do I think they can't do it?

Yeah, I think they could, but I just don't think it's likely. I think what's most likely to happen is Brian Reynolds stays in Pittsburgh. You know, it's interesting. He mentioned the Yankees are also a suitor, which makes sense. The Yankees need a center field or two. But if the mariners or if the mariners have to give up Julio, are the pirates asking for Jason Dominguez from the, from the Yankees like

I here's I I would comfortably trade Jared Keltnik for for Brian Reynolds you know basically I trade any package of prospects that doesn't include Julio or Kirby for for Brian Reynolds but I just don't think that's going to work so I'm sure Seattle will continue to check in

but unless the asking price goes down unless we hear you know something about the lines of, you know, well, in July, they were asking for Julio Rodriguez, but now it appears that they're willing to take, you know, less or whatever. Until we see that, I just, I'm going to assume that Reynolds is going to stay in Pittsburgh. Yeah, same. The thing with Kellnick there that I agree with you on is I would trade him as well for Reynolds, because ultimately you're, and we've said this before,

you're hoping that Reynolds, or that Kelnick eventually becomes what Reynolds already is. that's an established big league center fielder who is a absolute star in this league at this point and so that's fine but the problem is you're going to have to add more on top of that even with Julio with them asking for Julio it's not just going to be Julio for Brian Reynolds straight up

that's not what they're going to ask for so you're going to have to factor in more it's kind of the situation that we talked about with other teams that are kind of on the lower end of things here that are going to out overvalue the few major league assets that they have because they have leverage, especially in center field. We talked about it yesterday that the market is just not great, both trade market and free agent market for center fielders.

So now there's a premium placed on that, which there's already a premium on center field in general, just like there is on catcher, just like there is on starting pitching. So, I, you brought up a good point here. Are the Yankees also getting asked for Jason Dominguez? Because if they're not, then there's no way that you need to be talking Julio Rodriguez. If you were, let's say, competing directly with the Yankees for the services of Brian Reynolds, then if they're not, if the pirates don't want Dominguez, because they shouldn't be asking for

Julio because Julio is the better prospect. There is an argument to be made that that, you know, trading Julio while it stings for Brian Reynolds, like you could rationalize it, you could justify it. Sure.

Because as much as we love Julio, it's still a big risk. It absolutely is a big risk. Because you know, you know what Reynolds is. We don't know what Julio is. We think he's going to be very good, but we don't know. So you can absolutely justify it.

Like I said, it's a justifiable asking price. If you're the pirates, it's totally reasonable for the Mariners to say no to that. But if it came across the ticker, you know, it's tough to swallow, but it does make your major league team better because there's basically no shot. Julio is better this year than Brian Reynolds.

And even really next year would seem to be a stretch. Right. Yeah. But is it worth finding out? Are there options that are out there that are obviously not as good, but allow you to keep Julio? And I think there are, including just kind of throwing a bunch of different guys out at center field. You're Lewises, your Kalnicks, you're maybe even Julio at some point.

And maybe Markana, maybe Sayya Suzuki, whoever, just kind of rotating that spot through and keeping Julio and seeing what it is because there's going to be another Brian Reynolds available at some point. And so do you want to put all your eggs into this basket, the Brian Reynolds basket? Not all of your eggs, but a fair number,

your biggest egg into this one basket? Probably not. And also when you still need starting pitching when there's still other second base and needs. Yeah. And you know, we know that one

that they really like Byron Buckson, it's going to be a free agent next year. So do you just want to wait for a year and try to patch it together here with, you know, Markana, Sayas Suzuki, Kyle Lewis, Jared Kelnick, Jake Freilly, whatever. Then so be it. I think that's more than fine for the team that you want to build.

And you can still build a really, really good team. We talked about this yesterday with, you know, after Jerry DePoto's comments about the center field position in general. So you can still upgrade that position and not have to spin an arm and a leg to do it. And you've got to be creative. And there's really very few general managers out there that get more creative than Jerry Depoto does. So we'll see how that all comes together. We're going to talk about another player that is apparently in the Mariners crosshairs

that also would be exciting, but also has some. concerning things tied to them as well. We're going to talk about that in a moment, but real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by betonline.ag. We're back and better than ever. A new web interface for the start of the basketball season

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You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day like you do here every day. We greatly appreciate it. So, Colby, today, you stumbled across a video from MLB Network that covered Chris Bryant

and some concerning things about the free agent third baseman who might be of interest to the Mariners this off season. So break down what those were and how the Mariners might need to be a little bit cautious

here in approaching Bryant this off season. Yeah, so Andrew Baggerly, who covers the Giants, I believe for MLB.com, he was on the MLBN. network and he made a comment that he did not expect Chris Bryant to come to be back in,

to be back in San Francisco. He is, apparently the Giants were not very impressed with Chris Bryant, particularly with his defense. And they also are concerned that the swing may not age well. I don't really know what that means. But, you know, Baggerly would know. He's covered the Giants for, I think, 15 years now, 16 years. So he's very well connected to that organization.

He would know. And if he's saying that it's unlikely that Brian's coming back and the Giants just weren't impressed with that, I would go ahead and take that as a, as a, not quite a fact. But I would go ahead and trust that. trust that opinion. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. But yeah, it sounds like Chris Bryant or one of the biggest

competitors, at least most people thought, for Chris Bryant's services are not actually all that interested in him. I'm concerned about giving Bryant a rather large deal this soft season because you mentioned it there, the defense.

You know, the one thing that I see a lot on Twitter, especially Mariners Twitter when talking about Bryant and folks who want the Mariners at Bryant this offseason is well he's versatile he can play in the outfield and he can play third base

well he can't really play either of those positions particularly well or particularly above average and then you think about how he's starting to get older he's going to be 30 this season he turns 30 in January

and as he ages more and that defense continues to regress, are you eventually going to be paying for a first base DH type? Because you don't want to do that. These were the issues that you dealt with. A lot of guys that are just mostly first base DH types or guys that really are below average at the positions that they play for the sake of their bat. And also if there's concerns about the bat as well,

And the giants are a very smart organization. I just, that scares me a little bit. And when there's numbers being thrown out like five years, six year deals with Bryant, I don't know if I want to go down that road where I'm stuck with Chris Bryant at age 34, age 35, age 36, and all he can really do for me is DH or play for space. It just doesn't really help me. And I just, you know, and Jerry Depoto is someone that very much focuses on the five-year plan, as most GM should do. You know, it's not just about this year, even when they talk about this year.

It's still like we got to make sure that we don't handcuff ourselves down the road. Well, well, what year do you think matters to Jerry Depoto more right now? 2022 or 2026? 2023, probably. but right and this year are we are we assuming that bryant's just going to fall off of a cliff this year and next year because i'm not but do you want to get to a point where you're owning a guy 25 million dollars a year for three years and he's not at all the value that you paid him for i think i just i think that's especially when it gets to the point where you're where you might have to

pay jerich or julio rodriguez or some of those guys well if you signed chris brian to a five-year deal you're not going to have to you still have a whole other year with Calnick and probably two with Julio before they hit free agency. So that's not going to be an issue. The thing with Brian is, look, I don't love the fit. I know a lot of people really love him, but my thing with Chris Brian has always been that he's never been able to really repeat his 2015 and 2016 seasons, which were in 2017. Those first three years, he was fantastic.

5.3 B-WR, 7.3, 5.7. He was electric. He was, you know, almost dropped 40 bombs one year, and he was still a pretty good defender, one rookie of the year in 2015, won the MVP in 2016, 288, 388, 527. He hasn't repeated that. He hasn't been nearly as good. There are some, you know, there were some strikeout concerns earlier in his career. That's one of the things he actually has cleaned up. But, even though,

hasn't been able to repeat those numbers 268, 363, 479. I mean, that's basically what you think, what some Mariner fans think Mitch Hanaker is. That's like 2018, Mitch Hanaker. It's a good player. So to me, I look at this and I go, well, look, how important are 22 and 23 and probably 24? They're pretty important.

So am I willing to take the shot that, you know, maybe he can be a passable left fielder or third baseman, you know, three years down the road, sure, because the bad is still really good. It's not early Chris Bryant good, but it's still really good. Just the problem for me, though, is like, is Chris Bryant really the guy you want to take that shot on? Because you might only have one shot at giving out a superstar level contract. That's not true. I don't consider. We don't know that. I don't consider giving anybody $160 million, hypothetically, right? We're using the trade rumors contract.

Sure. I don't consider that a superstar contract. So that's what Patrick Corbyn got. That's what you Darvish got. Those guys aren't superstars. So I don't consider those superstar contracts. And we're talking about 28 million A.A.V or whatever, 27 million AAV. You can take another shot on a guy like that.

I'm not concerned about that. Well, you can, but will the Mariners actually do that? Why wouldn't they? They have a young controllable team. they're paying one guy a big salary this year if it's Bryant come on you're going to be fine you're going to be fine money is not going to be an issue I mean yes you are what makes you trust you 100% to be willing to make that kind of commitment because he's done it in the past because he's done it in the past he didn't give that money out though he didn't give that money he inherited it did did

did he force jerry depoto to trade robinson cano for whatever he can get did he force him to trade felix Hernandez for whatever he could get did he force him to trade kyle see They couldn't trade Felix Hernandez. It doesn't mean. They could have gotten something for him. Nothing good. But they could have saved a couple million bucks. Did he do it?

Did he force Jerry's hand on those things? No, he paid him out. He paid their salaries out. Jerry really hasn't had to make a dump trade. A salary dump trade. Mark Trumbo. Not under John Stanton. So, yeah, he hasn't really had to make a salary dump trade.

You know, the close to Jay Bruce, fine, but were they really going to get more for Jay Bruce than Jake Shiner? They had eaten all that contract? No. It's, I mean, even Edwin and Carnacio, they didn't have to dump salary. They got a legitimate prospect back for him. So I don't think that it's, I don't think that it's reasonable to sit here and say that, well, because Chris Bryant might struggle in 2024, it's not worth having him in 22.

and 23. Every deal you make is a gamble. Every deal is a risk. And especially in free agency, you bring up his age. This is why when you and I talk to people and they say, well, why do would you trade for a guy? Just go spend money. Just go spend money. This is why.

Because when guys hit 30, they hit that around that age, right? Things start to decline. When you trade for a player, you're typically trading for a guy who's already through either most of or part of his contract. Or you're trading for a guy who's young and still arbitration, you know, still in arbitration.

So he's cheap. That's why trading is important. So when people are always when, and you and I got asked us a lot, particularly on our live streams on Friday, is why trade, why would you trade Emerson Hancock when you just go spend the money? Because the guy I want to get has two years of club control left and is 28 as opposed to spend, and I only have to pay him $25 million over the next two years, as opposed to going out and spending $160 million on Chris Bryant and keeping Emerson Hancock.

Trades are important guys, even when you have the money. And Chris Bryant's a good example of why. Because there are question marks here. There are. I'm willing to take the risk on it. Now, here's the deal, though. And I say this as somebody who's basically been playing devil's advocate for the last five minutes. I would rather bet on Marcus Simeon.

Like, hard. I'd rather, I'd rather bet on. I'm very comfortable in saying that Chris Bryant of the, like the really good, you know, the top of the free agent class is pretty low on my list. I would rather have Simeon. I would rather have Trevor Story. Whoa, I would not. On a, on a shorter term deal. I thought we were talking to same money.

Which I think is realistic, which I think is pretty realistic that you could get Trevor Story on a shorter term deal than Chris Bryant. I'd rather have Chris Brian for 22 and 23. But then after that, who knows? So I don't know. It's just what Brian like, all right. If the mayor has signed him, great. Cool. I'm not disappointed in that.

But I would rather have Marcus Semyon. I would rather have a couple of other guys as well. Right. But you might not get that choice. I might not get that choice. And that's fine. It's just I do have concerns. My excitement, though, doesn't eliminate those concerns.

No, but you're not going to walk away from Chris. Brian because somebody said, oh, well, his swing might get bad in four years. Like, and that's the other thing, too, is like, oh, the swing's not going to age well. Well, is it going to be fine at age 30, 31, 32? Probably. Right. Because statistically speaking, he should still be in his physical prime. Maybe he's not.

But it's just, it's funny. I mean, we talk like, oh, Chris Brian, blah, blah, blah. He's like, dude was a 3-1 player last year. And that's based mostly on a. offense. So, I mean, you do have the DH available to you. Chris Bryant's. Chris Bryant's never had the DH. Yeah, don't get me wrong here. I'm not, I'm not saying that they shouldn't do it or they should avoid it because of those concerns, but you have to assume that risk. I'm wondering, honestly, sure, it's baked in. You have to assume that risk that at the, at the back end of the deal,

that's going to become kind of a headache for you. Sure, but I mean, you could say that about anybody who's, you know, in free agency. That's, again, that is, the problem with free agency is that there's a strong chance that in the back half of that deal you're going to you're going to hurt you're going to want to move that contract and maybe you can I mean mega contracts aren't as hard to to move as some people think we see it happen pretty frequently I mean you have to eat some money but chingarlo Stanton was traded Robinson Canoe was traded like you know max scherzer I guess towards the end though but he was traded like you can trade big contracts. So it's it's just there's just some there's just a gamble you're going to have to

take on somebody. And if you don't want it to be Chris Bryant, that's fine. But then who is it? Because you need to take that gamble on somebody. Yeah. No, I understand. And I think like if you have a legitimate shot at getting any of these guys, you should do it. You should absolutely do. You should absolutely make that statement. But again, you know, as a team, you can not, I mean, you've got to assume that risk. You got to understand what you can potentially get yourself into here and feel comfortable with that and make peace with that. So, and make sure that you know that that's not going, that you're not going to let that

inhibit you from doing other things down the road. Like, you have to get that out of the way. And that's really what my concern is, is ownership, mostly. Even though it shouldn't, it does concern me a little bit. Anyway, we have to hop on over to our next segment. Rickulby's going to talk about some pictures that could be added to the back end of the roster this offseason. So yesterday we talked quite a bit about the rotation. Jerry DePoto stating that the Mariners are going to add at least two starting pitchers this off season.

And we had some discussions on our show on Control the Zone on our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash control the zone about the number five spot in the rotation. And who could be in the mix there? We talked about Stephen Matt's, Tyler Anderson, Alex Cobb, a bunch of guys. So Colby, you have some other names, though, that are kind of projects, as you at least called them to me earlier, that you could see potentially coming to Seattle in competing for that number five. spot in the rotations. So go ahead. Who's on your list? All right. So probably won't get to everybody today, but that's fine.

So one of the names that jumps out to me a little bit here, Michael Lorenzen of the Reds, high fastball spin rate, pretty good curveball, gets a lot of strikeouts, has had success in the Reds

bullpen. It sounds like he wants to give starting a shot. He thinks he do that. And I think he can't too. He was pretty meh for the Reds this year, high ERA, but the XERA was better. The Wobo was below league average. The ex-WOvo was below league average. You know, he just caught too much of the plate this year. It's really not that, there's really not much else to say about it. His barrel percentage is really low, a career 4.3% barrel percentage, which is about two and a half percent lower than,

in league average. Average exit velocity is low compared to the rest of the league. Low launch angle, too. There's a lot of stuff in his bat at ball data that would suggest that he can get through a lineup multiple times, just a matter whether or not the stuff, if the stuff can get through the lineup a few times. The fastball is not going to be an issue. But again, he's generated so many strikeouts as a reliever.

If he can hold that velocity, you know, a couple times through the rotation, and it's definitely an interesting profile. And there's upside there. And of course, because we always have to make the joke, his primary pitch in 2021, the cutter. So there we go. Yes. Yeah, which was a change, by the way.

He is primarily fastball change up. That's what he's been in the past. The cutter was a bit of a difference. And it wasn't very good. So there's some pitch change possibility there. but yeah, fastball change up, cutter, slider, and a curveball that he throws every once in a while, but it's mostly fastball change up slider and a cutter.

And he can also play some mouthfield for you. Yeah, yeah. He has done that. So, yeah, you look at his 2020 chart. There's a lot of dark red. You look at his 2019 chart, same thing. So it kind of looks like 2021. Red is good for those that don't know.

Right, of course. The darker, the red, the better. The lighter the blue. that's when you get into issues. But again, high fastball spin rate, works the top of the zone, throws hard. I think this is a guy who could pop

if given the right shot to start. And Seattle seems like a pretty good place for him to do that. And if you can't win the rotation spot, you got a flame throwing right-hander to put in your bullpen. So I like that idea. Yeah. Probably get them on a one-year deal. Yeah, I like Lorenzen a lot.

All right. Who else? So next up on the, We have a the Mariners taking a shot on Chris Flexen 2.0. You guys probably remember him. His name is Nick Martinez.

He used to pitch for the Rangers. Went over to Japan. They needed him to beat the A's back in 2014. He couldn't do it. Couldn't quite pull it off. But he was absolutely sensational this year for for SoftBank in the Japanese League.

a 162 ERA, 149 innings pitched. Not super high strikeout guy, just 8.8 in Japan. But the fastball's up to 96. There's some pretty good breaking stuff here. And he throws strikes, which is something he was able to do fairly well in the majors. But it's taken a step up. His stuff has gotten better in Japan, and he's coming off his best year. Probably a one or two-year deal.

probably not going to get much more than Chris Flex and money. But it's just a shot, right? And if he can't win that rotation spot, will 96 in a good slider play up in the bullpen? Yeah, it will. So I would take a shot there because, again, it's probably, I mean, there's a decent chance Nick Martinez doesn't even come over because he might make more in Japan because he's 31 years old. Again, not the best track record in Major League Baseball, although not God awful either.

I kind of like taking the chance on another Chris Flexen type. I would probably rather have Lorenzen than Martinez, but that's just a name I would watch. We know how heavily Seattle scouts the Asian leagues. Yeah, for sure. Obviously, they talked about having scouts out to look at, say, Suzuki, and I assume they probably scouted some other guys in some of the other international leagues as well.

and Nick Martinez is certainly a guy that's gotten quite a bit of talk lately. So he's probably going to land a deal somewhere. And yeah, why not? After the success of Chris Flexon, who knows? See what you got there. All right. So one more guy before we hop off here. Which one do I want to choose?

Okay. I'm going to choose the guy I really want. I'm going to go with Chris Archer. Yes, that Chris Archer. Yes, the guy that you were clamoring for. for years. Not, maybe not Utah,

but you, the listener, we're clamoring for years. I like him. Yeah, it's been a rough road since he was traded. From Tampa to Pittsburgh,

he didn't pitch in 2020. He was injured, barely through in 2021, only got in 19 innings. Numbers aren't great, but what hasn't really wavered is his ability to get strikeouts. Walk percentage was elevated in 2019 and 2021.

there are some, you know, injury rationale behind that. Home run to fly ball rate pretty high. This is a guy that doesn't have great command. He throws strikes, but he is known to leave pitches up and in the middle of the zone. It's going to be interesting to see what the teams want to do is fastball velocity was down in 2021. Again, obviously injury concerns there. But if he's healthy and if you can get him pitching like he was in Tampa, which are two big ifs, it's a number four number three starter and it's probably going to cost you a year and maybe two million bucks with some incentives.

And again, if he doesn't win the job, I think he, I think his stuff can play up pretty well in the bullpen. 33 years old. I can't imagine he's going to get a multi-year deal from anybody. And there's a non-zero chance that he might take a minor league deal. But I would give him the major league deal. And if it doesn't work and he just doesn't look good, he just DFA. and it's $2 million. It's really nothing to worry about.

So I like Chris Archer. Yeah, that would be pretty fun, especially for the fact that he's been one of those guys that has kind of always been theorized to be a mariner eventually, you know, kind of in that same vein as Jay Bruce, if you remember. Yep. Thai France was another one of those guys,

and that worked out a lot better than Jay Bruce. quite a lot better. By the way, I want to give a shout out to someone that emailed us today who says they're new to our podcast and really enjoy it. And they say, so thanks from a Canadian Mariners fan.

For those of you that don't know, I'm also in the Canada area, up in the Toronto area. So always appreciate to hear from some fellow Canadian friends. Thank you so much. for joining us here on Locked-on Mariner's for Colby Patnode. I'm Tidane Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-Rerner.

You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. This is D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-A-11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do every day. And we'll be back tomorrow with Fan Fiction Friday, one of our favorite shows to do every week.

So be sure to send us your trade ideas on Twitter or via email at Lockdown Mariners at gmail.com and we'll be able to read and grade those live on air. And in the meantime, make your second listen to the day Lockdown MLB prospects. Host Arm Leighton is a prospect encyclopedia. And he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. And just like us, his show is free and available on all platforms. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day. and we'll see you tomorrow.