Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Jerry Dipoto and Scott Servais Are Here to Stay

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

Join Locked On Mariners hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode as they relive Abraham Toro's grand slam off Kendall Graveman, update you on the health of Kyle Lewis and discuss Jerry Dipoto and Scott Servais' contract extensions, as well as Dipoto's promotion to President of Baseball Operations and what that means for Seattle's front office moving forward.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: http://patreon.com/controlthezone/Spotify GreenroomThis episode is brought to you by Spotify Greenroom. Download the Spotify Greenroom app and find one of our Locked On rooms.DIRECTVGet your TV together. Visit DIRECTV.com to learn more about DIRECTV STREAM. 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. This episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by Spotify Green Room. Download the Spotify Green Room app and find one of our locked-on rooms. Happy September, everyone. This is the Lockdown Mariner's podcast. You're home for Daily Seattle Mariner's News and Analysis.

I am your host, Tidea &-Gonzalez. You can find me at D-A-N-G-N-Z-L-L-S-E. and on Seahawk Maven at s.com. I am joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. You can find him on Twitter at CPAT 11. That's C-PAT-1. Big news coming out of Seattle today. Jerry DePoto promoted to president of baseball operations,

signing a multi-year extension with the Mariners, Scott Service, also signing a multi-year extension to remain the Mariners manager for years to come. And it couldn't have come at a better time, because last night was Depoto's proverbial middle finger, if you will, to those who dragged him for the Abraham Toro, Kendall Graveman trade. That's where we're going to start today's show. We're also going to talk about Kyle Lewis's health and then wrap things up by talking more about these extensions

and DePoto's promotion and what that all means. This is your first time joining us. Welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this. We greatly appreciate it. Also be sure to check out our Patreon at patreon. ground.com forward slash control the zone for more mariners talk we also talk some non-baseball stuff from time to time on there it's a pretty good time and there will be a new episode available to all

patrons later today so check it out well colby i don't know about you man but uh i got what i wanted after all the tweets after all the takes they said the mariners ruined their clubhouse their team chemistry by trading kindle graven they looked at the 300 and some odd career played appearances of Abraham Toro and said definitively. He's a bust. He's a scrub. He stinks. Well, I got news for all you doubters.

All you haters. All you suckers. Jerry Depoto doesn't take L's anymore. We talked about it on yesterday's show. We celebrated the one-year anniversary of DePoto absolutely fleecing A.J. Preller for Thai France, Matt Brash, Taylor Tremel, Luis Torens,

Andres Munoz. And on July 27, 2022, I suspect we're probably going to be doing the same thing. I'm talking about that time that depoto was the smartest guy in the room and embarrassed James Click and the Astros front office. But why wait when we can take our victory lap right now? I mean, Abraham Toro already did trotting around the bases. T-Mobile Park erupted. Kendall Graveman sulking on the mound after sending a 97-mile-per-hour sinker down the pipe and an eight-pits. battle with Toro who found himself down one, two, early on in the count.

A couple swinging strikes on, guess what? Sinkers down the pipe. Martine Maldonado, one of that eighth pitch down below the knees, but Graveman hung it, and Toro, you know, didn't miss that one. Mariner's ended up waiting for nothing, with all four runs coming off the arm of Graveman and the bat of Toro, grand salami time. It's quite poetic, right? It's why baseball absolutely rules.

We're going to ignore the atrocious offensive performance the Meriders put for through the first seven endings of this game and enjoy what was for me my absolute favorite moment of the entire season truly i i could not stop laughing and i could not stop smiling like a damn idiot colby what was your reaction to the torrell slamer sorry the abris slam as lydia cruz coined last night only lydia can get away with stuff like that but um yeah you know it was had this conversation so many times and I saw Graveman coming in on the 8th in the 8th and I was like, well, let's see. Is there any way that Toro could come up against Graveman and get like the game winning hit? And then, well, yeah, the bases would have to be loaded. And there'd have to be

one out. And so I was like, okay. Or, you know, obviously could have been guys on second and third whatever it was but I was like yeah there there's a possibility here and then of course of course we get the matchup we want and it's with the pace is juiced um you know it's it's like okay like is this is this gonna happen is this uh okay and then you know at that point though i'm just like can you just hit a fly ball like for the love of god get us at least one um and yeah it was it was a long ab bat he he bowled off a pretty wicked slider now the pitch before And, yeah, you know, he was right on that basketball, is the thing, the sinker, I should say. I found a couple similar pitches straight back.

He was on it. He was not fooled. And he got another shot at it. And he destroyed it. And as a result, the Mariners, Abraham Toro, Jerry DePoto, they all drink from the keg of glory this morning. And it tastes delicious. and it's the picture of Graveman spitting around to watch that ball fly out is going to be a it's going to be a pretty prominent one I think in the Mariners yearbook.

It's, of course, you know, it's followed up by the great quote by Aaron Goldsmith on the broadcast. I wonder what the vibes of the clubhouse are going to be tonight. And then, you know, the shade of Aaron Goldsmith, the subtle shade of Aaron Goldsmith is just fantastic. It was another great call by him. It's up there, man. It's, you know, if it's not your favorite moment, it's definitely got to be top five. I know it's your favorite moment, Ty. But, yeah, for a team that is so devoid of talent, really, compared to other teams that have, you know, that are in this playoff race,

they just keep finding away. And here they are. We go into September 1st, and they're three and a half games back of Boston, which is only like, what a game back of where they were a week ago, despite all those issues they had, they're right there, still have a shot. And it's because of guys like Abraham Toro stepping up, and it's because of guys like Jerry Depoto,

who acquired him and had the, you know, the intestinal fortitude to make what he had to have known was going to be an unpopular trade. And it's literally helped him win two games. Kendall Graveman has contributed to two months. Mariner wins, which is very gracious of him. Yeah, he certainly was a key to this team, right? He's been very key to this team over the last couple weeks here.

He was one of the main reasons they got back in that game down in Houston that they won in extra ratings. And now, you know, of course. And I mean, that was like a movie last night, right? Like you couldn't have scripted that any better. We had talked about this in just quite a bit. I mean, I had told you jokingly, I would give up a few wins this year for Toro to do that against Scraveman. And it actually happened.

I could not believe it. I quite literally could not believe what I was watching last night. My sides hurt from how hard I was laughing. I had tears of my eyes, man. I was laughing so hard. It was just an incredible moment. Just the funniest thing. This team has been so ridiculous this year.

And somehow they were able to top themselves last night with that home run. It was just, I still can't believe it. I woke up this morning and I thought it was a dream. It was just, it was everything that I could have possibly hoped for. And, you know, I hope, I hope John Hammond, you know, saw that. But we all know that he doesn't watch the Mariners, so probably not. No, then you might have to form an actual real opinion based on facts and logic and data.

But we know that's not what Heyman does. So, you know, the day of reckoning is coming where you'll have to admit that he's wrong. Or more realistically, he will go on MLB network and say, oh, yeah, I always knew this was going to happen. It was easy to see coming. but bad news for you, John, we kept the receipts. So good luck to you. But that day of reckoning's coming. So I would recommend that you start figuring out how you're going to try and spend this for yourself.

The thing that's unfortunately going to be overlooked here is you say Kukuchi's performance, seven innings of scoreless ball. We talked about how you could get back on the right track on yesterday's show. And while it kind of got shaky at times, I think he took a very good step in the right direction. And I mean, if you can go seven scoreless against the ashore. this is pretty good for you. If you, you know, the listener heard yesterday's show, I was not super confident in YK's ability to get it together against this Astros lineup,

but I am more than happy to eat a slice of humble pie. Four strikeouts, a couple walks for Kikuchi, 10 swings and misses, 27% called strikes plus whiffs on 62 fastballs. Use the change up effectively. He was pretty good. Anyway, eat your heart out, John Heyman. All right, coming up on an update on Kyle Lewis's health. will the latest setback in his rehab hold him out for the rest of the year?

We'll discuss that in a moment, but first a reminder, this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Spotify Green Room. Green Room is the first social audio platform made for sports fans. The app is free to download, and once you're in, you can talk with us, other fans, athletes, and insiders in real time about your favorite team or sport. Colby and I will be hosting a room once per week so you can finally join in on the conversation you listen to here every day on Lockdown Mariners. Green Room is the perfect place to start or join conversations about Major League Base

baseball and so much more. You'll find fans just like you on Green Room for watch parties, debates, post-game breakdowns, and of course reacting to big news or rumors. Go download the free Green Room app now, currently available on all iOS devices. Be sure to create a profile, link your Twitter and join the MLB group for all the latest league updates. And follow me at Dan Gonzalez's D-A-N-ZL-Z and Colby at Colby Patnode to be notified when our room goes live. I know you want to want to miss it. We can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts on the Mariners. So we'll see you there. changing the way we talk sports So Kyle Lewis was expected

to go out on a rehab assignment by now but things got delayed after he felt some general body soreness after participating in base running drills at T-Mobile Park on Monday. The good news is he ran the bases again on Tuesday and Scott Service said there is no thought about shutting him down for the season so Colby assuming this is just

a minor delay in his rehab. What can Mariners fans expect from the raining AL rookie of the year if he returns and how much of a boon would that be for this team? Yeah, you know, it's pretty tough to say because it's it's not good when, you know, a day before you're supposed to go out on a rehab assignment, you're sore after running the bases, you know, I believe not even at full speed yet. So it's going to be at least a couple of weeks before Lewis is even, you know, a part of the discussion to come up because you have to make sure that, A, he's healthy. and B, he needs to get those at bats. He hasn't played baseball since, what, early June? It's been a while for him.

And it's not like he's going to get a full spring training. He's basically missed, you know, he's basically missed the entire season. So he really has not got home. When does the minor league season end? It goes all the way through to October this year because they started in May. Okay. Right, right, right. So, yes, it runs through the same timeline as the major league season.

So it won't be an issue to get him, you know, playing time in AAA. It's just a matter of how quickly can he come back and be, you know, not look rusty. Because, I mean, Kyle Lewis by himself, like good Kyle Lewis is going to help this team a lot. But Kyle Lewis, who hasn't played baseball, with the exception of, what, 36 games out of 120 this year, or 130? I think it's a bit much to expect him to come up and just be fine. I mean, you hope he is. And then if he's up maybe by that Boston series, that could be big. But it's just really hard to know what to expect because we don't know how healthy he is.

We don't know, you know, is he going to be a DH only? Because if his legs are hurting him while running the bases, he's not going to play in the outfield. So it's tough to really peg what you're going to get from Lewis. Now, you hope it's a good, you know, a good Kyle Lewis. And even if he comes back and he just is what he has been this year in the small sample size, that's really helpful to Seattle. That's another above average bat that they could just plug into the. It's probably your fourth or fifth best bat.

Yeah, I mean, he's probably going to hit fifth or sixth when he comes back. And, you know, that's just lengthen's lineup a little bit. It would be great if he could play center field every day because it seems like Kelnick probably needs to go back down, but it's just, it's tough to feel optimistic about that. So thankfully, you know, he feels better today. He ran the bases and he was fine. So hopefully that means he can go out on his rehab assignment either tomorrow or Friday. But, you know, until you actually see it and until he gets through a few games in a row,

it's just tough to expect anything out of Lewis right now. Are the Rainers in Tacoma right now? I believe so. So in theory, you could go make it tonight if it feels good enough. But probably tomorrow. Probably or Friday, like you said. We'll see. But I mean, yeah, that would be huge for them to get,

even if it's just like you said, this year's version of Kyle Lewis, considering what they're fielding right now for, you know, the bottom half of their lineup, that's pretty significant upgrades. still so I would be excited by by Kyle Lewis's return I just ultimately the thing that matters the most of me is keeping him healthy yeah and I don't want to I don't want to risk another knee injury by putting him in the outfield I would still love to have him up and just DH him if that's all you can do I just I don't want to push the the envelope with that with him on the you know putting him in center field or even in left field or any corner spot for that matter I you know If he can at least provide you some value with the bat and you feel comfortable that he can do that and get through that healthy, then absolutely do that. But if there is even an inkling of concern that he might re-injure himself running out in the outfield, then yeah, no, just avoid that at all costs.

And I think the Mariners, they're pretty responsible with these things. I don't think they're going to push the issue there with him, even if they, even if this postseason race gets, even more serious for them. So we'll see. Anything else you want to cover here with Kyle before we move on? Just looked it up real fast here. The rainiers are actually off today. And then they spend most of the month of September on the road.

So Everett's season ends on Monday. So they're not really an option. So, yeah, Lewis is going to have to go out on the road with the rainiers and then travel and do all that stuff too. So it's, you know, it's not ideal timing, but it is what it is. So again, hopefully we see Kyle Lewis. Obviously, the Mariners are better when Kyle Lewis is there, but just baseball in general is better when Kyle Lewis is a part of it.

Absolutely. It's a, you know, it would be a boost that the team could probably use. And, you know, honestly, it would just be great to see Kyle Lewis play baseball again. Yeah, 100%. All right, we're going to wrap up today's show by talking more about Jerry Depoto and Scott Services extensions, as well as DePoto's promotion and what that means for the alignment of their front office. But first, a word from Bilt Bar. Don't you hate it when you're out and about in hunger strikes,

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months now and it finally happened. The season was starting to run down. Time was running out but the Mariners finally secured Jerry Depoto and Scott's service with multi-year contract extensions this morning. It's been suspected that this has been done for a while and they were waiting

to make this announcement at the first of the month, which they did. No clue if that was actually the plan, but the point is we no longer have to worry about it. Yay! After the year the the Mariners have had service and Depoto absolutely deserved to be rewarded. There was absolutely no question

about that service. For all the crap we give him about some of his endgame decisions is arguably one of the best culture builders in today's game. Depoto is still in the midst of seeing his rebuild play out and has knocked a lot of aspects of it out of the park already and it just

wasn't time for this ride to end because really it's just getting started. After Kevin Mather embarrassed the franchise earlier this year with the whole Rotary Club debacle and was relieved of his duties, the Mariners replace half of his job with Katie Griggs, who's now the Mariners' president of business operations.

And now Depoto fills the other half as the president of baseball operations. And according to the press release, the Mariners put out, he will remain the key baseball decision maker in Seattle's front office. But he's not referred to as the president of baseball operations and general manager. So it would seem that the Mariners for now have an opening at General Manager, which is pretty much all semantics at this point. Jerry's still the guy in the front office. But if I had to guess,

assistant general manager, Justin Hollander, is probably due for a promotion. He was a finalist for the GM job in Anaheim this winter before Perry Manassian was given that role. So I think the Mariners would like to keep Justin Hollander around. What do you think, Colby? Yeah, you know, it's we don't know. just because, you know, the press release didn't say that Depoto is, you know, president of baseball

ops and GM doesn't mean that he's not. But it does seem like Hollander is a very hot name, you know, in baseball circles. And he's going to be a GM somewhere someday very soon. So it does seem ideal to, you know, basically keep him around by promoting Jerry Depoto and then elevating Hollander to the GM job and having those two continue to do basically what they're doing right now, which is work together with the rest of the front office staff to build the development system, acquire talent, you know, give direction to, you know, the minor league affiliates, give direction to scouts and all the things that they're doing so well right now.

And I think it's a win-win scenario here. And, you know, if you're wondering how that power structure would look, it's pretty common. So Theo Epstein was the president of baseball ops for the Cubs. And Jed Hoyer was the GM. But at the end of the day, Theo had final say on everything related to baseball. And that's the same thing here. Oakland did it for many years with Billy Bean as the president and David Forst as the GM. It works.

So Andrew Friedman is the president. So it's not that hard. It's not that uncommon for there to be this power. structure. It's new for the Mariners. This is their first ever president of baseball ops, which is weird, but whatever, better late than never,

I suppose. And so, yeah, it's basically whether Depoto still has the GM gig or not, or whether it's Hollander is now going to be named the GM this winter. The power or the, the structure of the front office remains exactly the same just with some new guys and

just with some new titles for the same guys. Yeah. And for Hollander, you know, that would mean a pretty substantial pay raise, I would assume, and he gets that title. But, you know, Hollander has been, you know, someone that's been heavily involved in trade discussions and contract discussions and all that stuff already. So that doesn't really change. He's already established relationships with other teams and everything. That's not a big deal. Right.

My understanding is that Hollander does most of the negotiations anyways. He talks to agents. He talks to other GMs and assistant GM. and, you know, Jerry gives the direction, and Hollander kind of is the execution guy. So, yeah, it's, there's basically no way that this disrupts. It's, it's the same house with a fresh coat of paint, basically, is what we're looking at here. And that's good.

And I hope Hollander does get the GM title. I hope he sticks around because, you know, he's proven himself to be quite good at his current job. and other teams are starting to take notice, and you want to lock in those guys. And, you know, Seattle's front office is going to get, you know, pilfered. Somebody is going to take some of their guys. Somebody is going to take some of Andy McKade's guys. And that's a testament to how well the organization is running right now on the baseball side of things.

You know, on all the other stuff, but on the baseball side of things, things are going so well that other people are going to want to use your model. And they're going to want to take your ideas and implement them in their, system. And so we just have to be prepared for that, but that's a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great sign that you're doing something right. And the mariners over the last, you know, God knows how long have not been doing things right. So it's nice to finally, you know, have a, have a system in place that works and to be able to, you know, keep that together with these, with these extensions. You know, but of course, you know, there's, there's going to be

detractors everyone's got to have an opinion Colby you know trying to keep this thing PG what do you say to those who are not super thrilled about the Depoto and service extensions you look even more ridiculous

not admitting that you were wrong I mean it's dumb to sit here and for anybody to suggest that Jerry Depoto and Scott Service didn't earn these extensions but it's another thing to continually dig yourself in a deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper hole to avoid saying, you know, three words. I was wrong.

It's not that hard, guys. It's not that bad. So just this idea that, you know, there are still people out there like, oh, well, this is bad and this is, no, you were wrong. You want it to be bad because you care more about being right and getting to brag about being right than you care about the Mariners winning. It's that simple. There really is no other logical. explanation here. It's do you want the Mariners to be good?

Or do you want to be right? Because those people who are detracting from Jerry to Poto today, they can't have both. They can't live in that world. So either you want the Mariners to be good or you want to be right. There's no middle ground here. And unfortunately, there are people who just would rather be right and complain about the Mariners being bad forever than they would

that the Mariners be good. And it's sad. It's a really, really pathetic way to fan. But hey, you know what? that's the way you want to do it fun but uh it's it's frankly it's stupid yeah i i got to totally agree with you on that because it's just how can you watch this season and not think that either one of them don't deserve or sorry and and think that neither one of them deserve extensions i just i don't get that um especially like from depoto's standpoint especially and i mean even

Scott as well with with all the things that he's done with this culture and with this clubhouse but looking at Depoto I mean Paul Seewald Abraham Toro Thai France the list goes on and on and on and on and on how can you see that and not be like

yeah Jerry Depoto deserves credit for finding those guys for identifying those guys the guys that are leading the charge for this team to be in the middle of a post race postseason race when they had no business being in there whatsoever. That's just, you know, I just don't, the mental gymnastics that that takes to deny that

is incredible to me. It's really something to watch on Twitter. But, you know, whatever. You know, the point is now that Jerry is here, Scott is here for the long call. And they are being given the opportunity to see this rebuild out. We'll see if it all comes to fruition. and I mean, all signs point towards yes. So we'll see how it goes over the next couple years.

But that's going to do it for today's show. Quick programming note, Colby and I will be out of town on Friday. So there will be no new episode that day. We're also going to be recording tomorrow's show tonight after the game. So that might actually be on all your favorite podcast platforms a bit earlier than we usually post. So keep an eye out for that. We'll be talking about this afternoon's rubber match between the Mariners and Astros. will also get you covered on the roster moves

the Mariners made today calling up Justice Sheffield and Kevin Padlow as rosters expand to 28 players and we'll tell you what to expect from Sheffield in his return. Thank you for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners. After you hop off here, how about checking out an episode of Lockdown Seahawks? Yesterday, the Seahawks finalized their initial 53-man roster. Corbin Smith, Rob Rang, and Nick Lee will get you covered over there.

But for Colby Patnode, I'm Tideon Gonzalez. be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-N-R-N-R-N-R-E. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. That's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-Z-L-Z, and Colby at CPAT 11. That's C-P-A-T-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 tomorrow. Betting on Major League Baseball doesn't have to be a guessing game if you listen to the new Lockdown Betts podcast hosted by your boy Q and handicap and expert Lee Sterling. Get daily picks, blowout specials, wrong-te-favorid picks,

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