Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Jeff Passan Thinks the Mariners Could Take the Biggest Risk of Jerry Dipoto's Tenure This Summer

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

J.P. Crawford was expected to make his return when the Mariners kick off a three-game set with the Orioles on Friday, but that may be put on pause after the shortstop was hit on the hand by a pitch in what was supposed to be his final rehab appearance in Tacoma on Wednesday night. However, if early reports ring true and Crawford dodged a significant bullet, how will Seattle reinsert its captain into the lineup? Ty and Colby answer that and discuss what ESPN's Jeff Passan told 710 Seattle Sports about the Mariners' farm system and the trade market. Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashGet all your Mother’s Day gifts, all in one place and get 50% off your next order, up to $15 when you spend $15+ on your next flower, convenience, grocery, or retail order now with code LOCKEDONMLB. That's LOCKEDONMLB. Order using DoorDash today. Terms apply. Monopoly GO!Get in the game and join your friends. Click HERE to Download MONOPOLY GO! now free on The App Store or Google Play. PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb for a first deposit match up to $100! eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning GUARANTEED That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – win or lose! 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.

J.P. Crawford's expected return this weekend has turned into an if instead of a win. But if he's able to make the trip to Baltimore, how will the mergers arrange their lineup? Plus, Jeff Passen thinks the mergers are more than capable of making a big splash in the trade market this summer. And he even mentioned a pretty big name to keep an eye on. We'll discuss all that and more coming up here on the Lockdown Marries podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariner's podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network.

Your team every day. Oh, hoi, sailors. It is Thursday, May 16th, 2024. This is Tiding Gisles and Coley Patnode for the Lockdowneer's podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. On today's show, we'll answer one of the most common questions we've received over the last few weeks. What do you do with the batting order once J.P. Crawford returns to the lineup? That is, of course, if JP is actually able to return this weekend, as expected,

after being hit by a pitch in the hand slash wrist area in Tacoma last night. We'll also tell you what ESPN reporter Jeff Passen had to say about the mergers and the trade market the other day. It's pretty interesting. But before we do that, a quick shout out to our title sponsor, GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code a locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. That is LOC, KED, ONMLB, for $20 off your first purchase.

Terms apply. And also, if you want to hear from me, and Colby some more and support us along the way. Check out our Patreon. The link is in the description and you can check it all out for free with a seven-day trial. So Colby, I have a bone to pick with you. You jinxed J.P. Crawford yesterday during the show. You said,

if something bad doesn't happen to J.P. tonight and lo and behold, something bad happened to J.P. Crawford last night getting hit in the hand. It looked pretty bad. He threw his helmet down. immediately basically took himself out of the game. So you need to atone for your sense on today's show, Colby. No. Well, lucky for you, we do have some good news from Daniel Kramer.

MLB.com reporter for the mayors. Update on J.P. Crawford, he says, sounds like the mayors have low concern with his right hand slash wrist. After tonight's hit by pitch at AAA Tacoma, how that impacts his status to be activated this weekend remains unclear. but he appears to have dodged a significant injury. So that's good news. And it did seem like maybe it wasn't broken when you look like he was able to use his hand to take his batting gloves off and all that.

But it still looked pretty scary when it happened, especially the video from our friend Chris Egan over at King Five Sports, where we didn't really have a close up look at JP. That was just a video from the stands. And again, JP spiked his helmet into the ground. and immediately walk to the dugout. So obviously, you're, you know, you can't help but think of the worst in that moment.

But it seems, again, like Kramer said, the mirrors have dodged a pretty significant bullet here. But we'll see if that means that he is able to still make the trip to Baltimore. So if not, do you think they stick with Leo Rivas? Do you think they do something different? Where's your head out with that? Yeah. When you watch the replay from the broadcast,

it appears it hits the top of his hand. hand, not the bone right there, which is usually the troublesome. You get hit in the wrist. That's usually pretty bad. You get hit in the finger. That's pretty bad. Right here is interesting. Now, again, it's not the highest quality.

It's AAA. You know, you're not going to see the same close up and slow mo and all that stuff. But it did appear that it hit the top of his hand, which I guess is probably best case scenario if you're going to get hit in the hand, wrist finger area. But still not great. It's what the Mariners would do. I would assume they just go with the roster as is. I mean, they're not using Rivas anyways.

And so they're going to call up somebody else to not use for two days until J.P. joins the team on Sunday. If there's even a delay at all, like, no, I think they would just keep Rivas. What's interesting is that, you know, obviously they can travel with a taxi squad member, but that guy can't be on the 40 man. So, you know, we'll see who goes on this trip with them. It's a 10-day road trip, so they're definitely bringing somebody with them. And just based on the injuries right now, you would assume it would be a position player,

just because Garver's dealing with stuff, Polanco's dealing with stuff, and now you don't quite know what's going to happen with JP. Although I'm sure the Mariners by this stage have a really good idea. We just don't know what they're going to decide to do there. So my guess is that they would just bring Rivas with them if they need JP, for a few more days if they think they want to keep them out for a few more days. But yeah, I mean, I think the position player going with them, you know, 10 days is a long time. So maybe it's Brian Anderson, maybe it's Jason Vossler, a veteran, somebody like that, going with them on the trip.

But I would say that, you know, I think if they do have to delay JP for a couple days and they would just keep the roster as it was on Wednesday, you know, unless, of course, they get not good news about or not good updates on Crawford and Polanco, then maybe they would make a move there. But yeah, I think Rivas is just here until JPs were called. Yeah, we'll have to wait and see. We'll probably not get an update today. Probably have to wait until tomorrow on that. If there's any swelling on the hand, you kind of have to wait for that swelling to go down before you can really assess the injury there. But at the very least, it doesn't seem like anything that's going to be too much.

of a setback for JP, which is very, very good news. And we'll just, we'll see how long it takes for him to get back. Hopefully it is tomorrow because, again, if they get JP back tomorrow, they will have their opening day position player group back together again. And so that creates for some interesting conversations, including what do you do with the lineup, which is a question a lot of you have had for us for the last few weeks. So now that we're at the very least on the doorstep, it seems,

of JP returning, we're going to answer that question in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the lockdown mirrors podcast is brought to you by Game Time. Game Time is now an authorized ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball, which makes getting tickets even faster and easier. Prices on the Game Time app actually go down the closer it gets to first pitch, and I get to see the view of every seat in the house so I know exactly what I'm buying. Game Time's last minute deals give you up to 60% in savings buying last minute for sports, music, comedy, more. And to avoid any surprises at checkout, you can turn on their all in pricing to see the full cost fees included. Take the guest work out of buying tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms

apply. Again, create an account and redeem the promo code locked on MLB. That's LOC, KED, O N, MLB for $20 off. Download the GameTime app, last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. You can catch the Mariners upcoming series with the Orioles tomorrow night on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. So once we get to Baltimore, lineup might look a little bit different, especially if J.P. Crawford is able to make his return tomorrow.

Colby, this has been your favorite question to answer over the last few weeks. What are the mayor is going to do with the lineup? What are they going to do with JP and Josh Rojas, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So what do you think they're going to do? I don't think they're going to move Josh Rojas down significantly. But I do think that JP is the leadoff guy. Rojas has slowed down a little bit on that homestand, particularly in the in the last series there. Not that he was bad, but he wasn't getting multiple hits in the game.

He wasn't driving the ball out of the ball. Had a big RBI yesterday. Yeah, sure. I mean, like I said, he's still helping. He's still going like one for four, one for three with a walk. Like he's still doing those things. He's just not driving the ball. Like he doesn't look like the best player on the planet, which he was for like a 10 game stretch there, which, you know, we knew wasn't going to sustain itself.

So, you know, you caught lightning in a bottle pretty much. He was a lead off hitter when he was at his hottest and that was great. But I think it's time for JP to come back and reclaim that spot. And I don't think because Ross is still, you know, swinging the bat pretty well. I don't think they're going to drop him back down to, what was he, seven, eight, nine or whatever he was. Yeah. Previously.

So he needs to be in the top half of the lineup. It's just where is the question? Sure. The, the interesting thing here, though, is that the Mariners are facing two lefties or they're scheduled to face two lefties in this series tomorrow and Saturday. We know that the Mariners don't give Rojas at bats against lefties. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, do they, do they give them one game against the lefties. A lot of this is going to be based on Polanco too. Because if Palanco's healthy enough,

you certainly want him in there against left-handed pitching. He's a little bit better from the right side. But I think in general, again, the two lefties back-to-back kind of changes everything. But I think against a right-handed pitcher, which you're going to see 65, 70% of the time, the Mariners would probably prefer to do something like, I would say, JP leading off. I could see them go in Rojas too. I know Scott likes to alternate left, right, left, right, and do that. So I guess that would make Rojas hitting three. But I think you just want to stack as many good hitters as you can in front of Julio and Cal and hope that, you know, that allows them to see better pitches, you know, with guys on base

and pitchers pitching from the stretch. So I think you're going to looking at JP, Rojas, probably Julio. They can move him down, but there's just not a lot of great options right now. You don't have enough good players hitting. So I think you're probably looking at something like JP, and then it'll be Rojas, Julio or Julio Rojas. They'll be hitting two or three. And then I think it's probably should be Cal hitting four against Ritey's,

Rayleigh, hitting five playing right field. And then six is probably Garver or Hanager, whichever one you have in the lineup that day. and then seven would be Canzon, eight would be France, and then nine would be, well, I guess, no, I'm missing Polanco. Polanco probably,

sorry, Palanco's probably still going to hit five ahead of Rayleigh, even though that doesn't really make sense. So it probably goes to Polanco, five, really, six, Canzone seven, France, eight, and then whoever I haven't said, hitting nine, I didn't write this out in front of me, so I'm losing track. It's fine. It's fine.

You mentioned Rayleigh, though, and you mentioned Hanager, and we've talked about it. Once this position player group gets fully healthy again, this would be a great opportunity to start to use Rayleigh more and give Hanager more off days. Do you think they're actually going to do that, though? It's kind of the big question. It's like they should do it, but will they? I don't think they have a choice Like I don't Ideally I would like to see outfields of Domkanzone

Julio Rodriguez Luke Braley on most nights And then Hanager primarily plays against lefties And gets the occasional DH day against righties Yeah Yeah I think that's how they should try to deploy them And I do think that was originally their plan But they got spooked by Rayleigh Slow Start Which is just stupid of them

I mean, let's just call it what it is. I mean, I know the Mariners know more than us, but that doesn't mean that they're perfect. It doesn't mean that they don't make mistakes. Apparently, they were also trying to get him to work on some things. Sure, but not giving the guy an app bat for a whole week. Like, I don't care what you're trying to work on. That's not a sustainable game plan, particularly when you're running a 33-year-old out there who has like broken half the bones in his body seemingly. Like, you're not, you're not doing anybody any favors.

by running Hanager out there as much as they were. So they absolutely should. I think, you know, call me crazy, but maybe they should deploy the team, how they plan to deploy it, when the front office put it together over the winter. Because we really haven't seen them do that for any extended period of time this year.

And part of that is because of injury. Sure, they lost Canzon pretty early, but, you know, a big part of it is that they just ran away from their game plan because Mitch Hanigur hit a home run on opening day, and I guess that means he's got to play in the next 15 straight, like regardless. So regardless of how he's swinging the bat.

So, uh, you know, again, canzone getting injured kind of threw a wrench into their plans. Sure. Whatever. And then JP,

if you, you know, what, a week later or whatever, that also didn't help. But we never really saw this team stick to their convictions and give, you know, this roster a chance to perform like it was designed to perform.

They made a lot of tweaks and changes early. So hopefully that they correct that. And the front office folks are pretty smart too. They're pretty smart baseball people. And maybe if you give their lineup that they put together a chance to function in a way that it was designed to function, maybe it will in fact be better. So hopefully this means less of Hanager. And then obviously right now there's kind of some X factors out there like Garver and Polanco. are they ready to go?

You know, they haven't played the last two days. So, you know, are they ready to go, particularly with lefties on the mound tomorrow? So we'll see. But I do think that, you know, we talked about this a lot during the winter. It's not hard to give, you know, Mitch Hanigar and Garber. Like, it's not hard for those guys to coexist. So long as you're willing to, you know, be smart with how often you use both of them. And frankly, the marriage, they've used both of them a ton.

It makes a lot more sense for Garber since he's only D-Hed, but I'll never understand the idea of running Hanager into the ground, even with the early injury to Canzone. That just didn't make any sense to me, and it doesn't now. And so hopefully the Mariners don't look at the last two or three games where Hanigers had some pretty decent at bats and be like, oh, he's back. He's figured it out. No. And again, with the lefties on the mound this week, I imagine he'll be out there in some capacity, which is fine. Which that's fine, right? again, like I would like to see him primarily play against lefties and then get the occasional day against Ritey's and preferably in the DH spot against Ritey's.

But yeah, you know, overall this lineup has been better in the month of May. The numbers have been better. There's obviously been some, you know, bumps in the road like Minnesota. They only scored one against the A's. You know, they weren't great in the Royal Series though they had a pretty solid day yesterday despite the lack of hard hit balls. We talked about that. We've also seen Edgar's been around the team helping out with the hitters recently whenever the team has been in Seattle. According to Aaron Goldsmith, he helped Mitch with his hands recently.

And Mitch has been hitting the ball better the last couple days. So hopefully that's a sign of things here. And, you know, Ty France has been elevating the ball a little bit more. So hopefully that's a sign of good things to come. So, you know, there is a path here where this offense can actually be more than competent consistently. Yeah. Of course, nothing would help them get on that path faster and stay on it. Then, you know, Julio Rodriguez remembering he's good at baseball.

But, you know, you just kind of have to wait for that to happen. You can't force it. And in the meantime, you know, you have to play and deploy your players in a position that gives them the best chance possible to succeed and therefore help you win games. So that means, you know, Luke Rayleigh is we're in a cavernous outfield. And even though there's a lefty on the mound, like, I want, like, I want. Luke Rayleigh's outfield defense out there. He's going to start against the lefty, you know, versus Hanaker today because the outfield defense matters and all that stuff.

So my guess is that in some order, the first three, when we get to a righty, right-handed pitcher, which I don't think is until Sunday. I'm remembering how they have their rotation lined up. I think on that Sunday, and even then, I assume Sebis of all it will probably be catching. So we're not going to see like the full versus right-hand until New York more than likely. but I would guess in that instance the top three are going to be in some order JP Rojas,

Julio and I don't I'm not pounding the table for Julio to stay in the top three either. I just don't know if you have really any choices right now I mean I guess Luke Rayleigh but do you want to go three lefties in a row? I don't think that's something Scott would ever consider right. So the mayor is going

to Baltimore tomorrow and we all know how stacked that Baltimore farm system has been with all those bats and you know now a lot of those guys are starting to graduate a lot of those guys are at the major league level and ESPN's jeff pass and says the merits might actually be building or have built something pretty similar in their farm system we'll talk about what he had to say about the ems and the trade market in just a moment but first a reminder this episode of the locked on merriors podcast

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Once again, you can catch the Mariners upcoming series in Baltimore on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius, via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that this weekend is search the word Mariners. So Jeff Passon joined 710 Seattle Sports a couple of days ago and talked about the trade market, talked about the Mariners Farm,

and had this to say, quote, they don't have to make an uncomfortable decision with their starting pitching. They don't. Whether it is Colt Emerson, who I think the industry believes is the best prospect in the organization, or Harry Ford,

who's really good, but kind of blocked by Cal Raleigh, and you can potentially move Harry Ford to another position. He's enough of an athlete where he doesn't need to be a catcher. Lizarro Montes has taken a big leap forward this year, and people love him, Belnan Seleson and Johnny Farmello, too. And I think once the Orioles prospects graduate past prospect status,

and they still got a few of them left, there's an argument to be made that the position playing prospects in the Mariners' organization are the best in Major League Baseball. And so if you want to win now, trading from that farm system is a pretty good way to go out and do it. So what do you think about that statement? It's a pretty big statement that the Mariners arguably have the second best position player group in their farm right now in baseball.

Do you agree? I don't know enough about other teams position groups to really dictate. I think about the Mariners and the Mariners only. I have no side mitches. that I pay attention to. Sure. In this regard. But I will say this.

First things first. Yeah, Colt Emerson is the best prospect in the mariner system. If somebody is telling you otherwise, they don't know what they're talking about. Leave their website, leave their podcast. They don't know what they're talking about. Colt Emerson's the best. It's not close. Second of all, Harry Ford's blocked by Cal Raleigh.

Not really. He did. He did also mention that you can play Harry Ford out of another position. I know, but still, like. That's not a thing. Like, oh, he's blocked by Cal Raleigh. Like, okay, we don't know if Harry Ford's even going to be good. I mean, he's not on the doorstep of making his debut yet.

So you can't really say that he's blocked by anyone, no matter what position he's playing at. He's blocked by his own skill level right now. But let's not get hung up on semantics here, Captain Semantics. First of all, semantics are everything. Sure. But second of all, I'm just saying, like, position, like prospects being blocked by major leaguers. it's not really a thing, especially when you're as good of an athlete as Harry Ford.

But anyways, yeah, so here's the deal. It's not that you couldn't trade from your starting pitching staff. You shouldn't, but it's not that you can't, right? It's just that you don't have to because the Mariners have a very good farm system.

And while it's not going to crop up, and a lot of people's like, oh, it's a top five farm system, hey, that doesn't really matter for anything other than content. Like, you make lists, so people click on it. That's what prospect rankings matter. That's what farm system rankings matter. They're not that valuable. And Passland's right. Like Colt Emerson could get you just, Colt Emerson could headline just for just about any trade you could possibly imagine. Emerson is a

viable headliner. You know, Harry Ford is turning into a viable headliner. Like right now, Harry Ford is probably about as valuable as Noelvi Marte in trade talks. Like, you know, Mark, he's a very good piece. Now, is he like, can he get you an elite player for four or five years? No, but I mean, what elite player is available for four or five years that's on the trade market right now? But he's really hitting right now

in an upper level of the miners and he's showing that he can at least play a premium position at an average rate. Right. Average-ish. Yeah. Like the bad is so much better. Like if the bad is as good as it's shown,

then he can be a 40-grade catcher and still be an everyday catcher, which is insanely valuable in this league. But yeah, one of the Las Montes is a guy who's just continuing to take off like his bat is going to be coveted and yeah, Johnny Farmello is probably a guy that not a lot of people are talking about. Not a lot of Mariner fans are talking about because they don't think there's a ton of value to be gained from Farmello who's only played like what 30 games in the professional level.

Scouts are going to love Johnny Farmer. I guarantee you they already do love Farmel because he's a freak athlete. He's already showing power and hit tool and all that stuff. And he's 18 years old. you know, and there's a, there's a pretty good shot that he ends the year in Everett. Like the Mariners have more than enough to trade from their farm without touching their pitching staff and still get an impact bat. Passing's 100% right on that. It doesn't mean the teams won't ask.

Right. Oh, we sure love to get Brian Wu. Yeah. Click. Yeah. Like, okay, well, try again later. Like, it's not happening. So the Mariners can absolutely make impact trades by only trading from their farm system.

Or is there maybe one or two guys that might crop up and be. available where they would have to give up Wu to get involved. Sure, I guess. I can't think of anybody off the top of my head where that would be the case. But for the most part, no, the Mariners want something. They can get it done with just prospects. So one of the names, Jeff Passen mentioned, the mayors could use said prospects to acquire this summer is White Sox outfielder Luis Robert Jr. So what do you think about trading for Robert? What do you think about passing mentioning Robert by name? Robert is probably the guy who has the most star potential that is almost certainly going to get traded this summer. So it makes sense that passing would bring him up.

My issue with Robert isn't even so much that he's not going to play center field for you because that's kind of irrelevant in trade talks because the white socks aren't going to care about that. Yeah, that doesn't matter to the white socks. Let's make that clear that matters to the mirrors. And that's going to affect how they value Robert, but the white socks don't care about that at all. No. The bigger issue with Robert is that he's not available. Availability is a massive issue with Robert. He's had one full season in his entire career. And even this year, he hasn't played in a game since like April 5th. Yeah. He's only played seven games this year. Hip issue. Right. So I think he had a hip thing a few years ago too. So that might be a chronic issue. And again, you can't go out and you can't pay. Even if even if we pretend that you can get Robert for like Harry Ford and. Tyler Locklear and, you know, Thai Pete or whatever, which you probably can't. But even if we assume like a really favorable trade package for the Mariners, you still need that guy to perform.

You need that guy to be healthy. And that guy doesn't walk a ton. He's striking out a little bit. Like you said, the center field defense thing, like not really that big of a deal for Seattle, not that they couldn't use an upgrade in right field. And not that, you know, elite right field defense isn't valuable. It's just not valuable as not as valuable as center field defense. And you don't know how often this guy is going to play.

If he's only going to play 80, 90 games a year for you for the next four years, the contract and the club control, they're meaningless. They don't mean a thing. So you have to be really certain that this guy can play, you know, 140 times a year. And when you add on top of that that, the Mariners are already expecting a lot from Mitch Hanager and Mitch Garver and Jorge Palanco, all guys who have missed significant times in their career. it's a huge risk to take.

And you might honestly be better off going out and getting a worse player. And what the layman will say, you know, being cheap and going out and getting a guy who's going to play every day, that's an upgrade and spending a little bit less on prospect capital than going out. And, you know, what will almost certainly be giving up three of your top five or six prospects to get in the conversation for a guy who you have no idea how often he's going to play. it's such a huge risk. I'm pretty much out. Obviously there's a certain point where you just go, okay,

that price is too good to give up. And that could even be just like, Colt Emerson. It could be in the package. And you're like, okay, well, I mean,

that's still such a good deal. I think you have to take it. But what the Robert deal is going to hurt you is with the secondary pieces and the tertiary pieces, like we're not talking about the secondary pieces being, you know, Aidan Smith or we're not talking about it being Jonathan Claisse. We're talking about the secondary.

Yeah. Right. We're talking about the secondary piece being it could be Harry Ford. Like it could be Las Montes. That's the second piece that you have to give up. That's not even the headliner. So to me, no, I'm not a fan of the Robert idea because I don't trust him to stay healthy. And I think the Mariners can go out and they can get similar impact that will cost less, cost less. And it has a higher floor than Robert does because the floor on Robert is that he plays 65 games a year for. you and he's basically Byron Buxton and now you just you just leverage a significant portion of

your farm system to go out and get this guy that who cares if he's got three years of club control left he's only going to play in 162 games over that entire three-year stretch so who cares you basically got him for one year so I'm not really a big fan of the Robert idea yeah there's at least not at the price that I'm assuming it's going to cost yeah there's a lot of risk involved here and the Byron Buxton comparison is actually pretty accurate I would look elsewhere if I were the mirrors. And again, because the White Sox are going to put such a premium on Robert is not only a high upside hitter who has multiple years of club control. He's also a premium defensive center fielder.

And that just doesn't apply to the merrars. And that does boost the cost. And if you're the merriors, you're just not going to want to pay for something that, again, doesn't apply to you. Right. there's an old rule, one of Billy Beans rules and trades, is you can always recover from the deal you didn't make, but you may never recover from a deal you made at the wrong price. And leveraging significant portions of your farm system to go out and get Robert. If he plays 130, 10040 times a year for the rest of his career or for the rest of his club control for you, home run of a deal, pretty much no matter what you give up. because he's that good of a player.

Sure. If he doesn't, you may have shorten your window. We know how much Jerry cares about his window. You may have shorten your window significantly without any ability to recover, you know, that which you gave up to get the player. So and when you look at that, you say, okay, well, you know, isn't that worth the risk? Maybe if the risk was 50-50, but you go look at Luis Roberts' career and you tell me what is more likely that he suddenly figures out how to play 145 games a year

or that he continues to miss significant portions of the season as he gets older as he gets more wear and tear on his body. It's a gamble, but there's still odds, right? It's not just a 50-50 coin flip. There are odds being laid on this, and you have to be smart. You have to be the card counter at the blackjack table. You have to kind of look at the board around you

and say, is this the best move I can make? Maybe the Mariners think it is. I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to see it that way, though. but yeah if I'm if I'm the mayor is that I'm going to spend that kind of prospect capital I think I'm more into the idea of Isok Paredes who obviously has his own concerns right with like the bat speed how is the bat going to apply to playing an NT mobile park for half of the season etc but that's someone I think I'm a bit more comfortable trading that kind of uh or making you know paying that kind of price tag for uh just again given all the concerns with Robert given the fact that again a big part of his value doesn't apply to me, all that. I think there's just a better way to extract value from the kind of prospect package that would take.

Agreed. Or at least a more safe way to extract value out of that prospect package. Because again, like you hit on Robert. If Robert does play, you know, 150 games a year for you over the next, you know, three and a half, or three years, right? then home run. Like there's no one that you could possibly get at this trade deadline that would be more valuable to you if you get that player.

If they did it, okay, cool, fine, great. Like, I'm, I'm into it. Like, I'm excited. I'm excited, but yeah, there's, there's a lot of risks. There's a lot of concerns that come with that. There are a lot of red flags. It would be far and away the riskiest move Jerry Depoto has ever made. Nothing would come close.

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. All right, that is going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app.

Lockdown Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Lockdown, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Lockdown Sports Today now available on the Free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrins podcast for Colby Patnode.

I'm Tiding Azal. Let's be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Ty Dan Gonzalez and Colby at CPAT 11. That's CPAT-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day. And we'll see you next time. Peace.