Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Jerry Dipoto Going on Recruiting Tour

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode get you caught up on Jerry Dipoto's latest comments to Mike Salk of 710 ESPN Seattle. Then, the duo breaks down the Mariners' 40-man roster moves to protect Julio Rodriguez, Alberto Rodriguez and Ray Kerr from the Rule 5 draft, as well as the possibility of taking on a big contract to lower the cost of a premier asset via trade.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. And today is Thursday, November 18th, 2021. I am your host, Tiding Gonzalez. Join, 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-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E, P-E-A-T-1-1. Be sure also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more. Also can get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com forward slash control of zone

for more information on that if you're interested. But on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners, Jerry DePoto made his weekly appearance on 710 ESPNC Adel this morning and had a couple of interesting things to say there. We'll tell you all you need to know about that. Meriters also added three players to their 40-man roster to protect them from Rule 5 eligibility this morning. We'll talk about that. And we'll also talk about the Maritters taking on some salaries to maybe acquire a young player and limit the prospect capital that it would take to acquire that player,

intent, possibly Luis Castillo and the Reds. We'll talk all about that later on to the show. and if you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. We greatly appreciate it. So starting with Jerry Depoto today talking to Mike Salk on 710 ESPN, Seattle, saying that some progress has been made with the free agents that they have been targeting, that they have been coveting this off season. So that's a good start. And that they have three to four visits set up with a few of those free agents over the next week before Thanksgiving. And it looks that,

it looks like Jerry DePoto will be hitting the road to make those visits as well. So Colby, I'm going to put you on the spot right here right now and ask you, who do you think those visits

going to be paid to? I mean, you would hope or like, I guess we would hope that it's story, Simeon, you know, Conforto,

uh, gossman, you know, but who really knows? Maybe it's Markana. Maybe it's, maybe it's, maybe it's,

Conforto. I don't know if Conforto's here, like, in town. I don't know where he lives in the off-season. But it's hard to know. Maybe it's Chris Taylor. Like, I don't know who it is. How would I have that information? It'll be interesting to see if anybody, like, post pictures of like, oh, Jerry Depoto's in San Antonio, you know, who lives in San Antonio in the off-season? Nobody, but I mean, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Right. I probably rule out Sayas Suzuki, unless he's in the States. I don't think Jerry's going across the Pacific Ocean the week of Thanksgiving for a one day sit down with the guy. But, you know, maybe they like him that much. Kyle Seeger, definitely a possibility as well. Just so you can knock on the door and be ignored. I'm going to guess at least one of these, though, is one of the big guys.

It's story. It's Simmy and it's Bryant. I'm going to guess Simian. I would think so too. I think he still lives in the Bay Area. That'd be a pretty short trip. So, yeah, I think Simian is probably one of them. It sounds like he's one of the few guys who would like to sign before the shutdown happens.

And obviously, we know Seattle's quite interested. So I would assume that one of them is Simeon. But I would bet heavily that at least one of the trips, is to see either story simeon or bryant and who knows maybe that's three of the four um but yeah it's it's nice to know that they're they're going out to visits uh the week of thanksgiving um leads me to believe that they want to get something done uh pretty quick so yeah yeah because i mean they just don't have that much time left after thanksgiving with the cb a negotiations looming the the cbAs and looming on December 1st

and we assume that everything is going to come to a halt right after so they got to get the stuff done here and they got to they got to kind of expedite all of this so yeah I would assume that if he's if he's going on visits he's trying to finish something off and of course he

said that he talked to some free agents or some agents of free agents at the GM meetings a couple weeks ago and they discussed term length not really money but just term length fit etc agents expressed interest in the mariners and felt that what the mariners are doing right now and the year that they just had was interesting enough certainly some

mutual interest here starting to grow between quite a few of the mariners targets and the mariners themselves so hopefully this allows for them to cross the goal line for lack of a better term here on some of these steals and get things push forward and finalize so they can finally make their first move of the offseason. It's been a long wait. It's been a long drought. And it's a little bit concerning with the, you know, obviously the CBA and all that stuff looming that you want to get as much as you can't done before that happens. And they're still putting up a goose egg on the board right now in terms of moves that they made. So, yeah, what's your confidence then that over the next week, the Mariners finally make something happen here?

Look, you know, I've been confident that things are going to happen for the last, you know, few weeks. And every time I say that, nothing happens, except, you know, each year old gets inducted into the Team Hall of Fame or whatever. So, yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know. I don't want to get burned again, but it just feels like Seattle not only wants to, but they have to get done. something done before the shutdown. And if it's not going to be for role players, it has to be for one of the stars, quote unquote, that you'd think Seattle has interest in. So that would be Simeon, Story, or Bryant.

Like, you have to get one of those guys. If you're not going to, before the break, you're not going to sign on, I don't know, Suzuki and, I don't know, Alex Wood or whatever, then you probably need to get into the, go into the shutdown with. with Simeon or Story or Bryant or one of those guys already locked down. It feels like a have to. Yeah, it's just a pretty big necessity. I mean, we talked about it on Tuesday with Marcus Simeon situation.

You just kind of have to make a statement here, especially if you're trying to, you know, garner interest in your destination and your team from other free agents to make a statement like, hey, here's what we've already done, right? And especially if the lockout lingers into February, March, and then there's just going to be a slew of moves being made once the lockout eventually comes to an end. You know, you got to get out ahead of that. You got to get in front of teams on that front and give free agents a reason to be like,

hey, I like what you're doing and I want to sign with you and I want to be a part of that. So, yeah, I think it's imperative. that they get something done at least with one of these guys that they're visiting, whoever that may be. And just get on the board here and move forward with that because, I mean, you just kind of have to. You're just, you're running out of time right now and you don't want to get to the point where the lockout happens and you've done nothing. And then when you, and then eventually, you know, because we don't know if trades are still going to be able to be made during the lockout. but you're you're not going to be able to sign anyone until February or March most likely

and you just don't want to get there where you only have three weeks to go until spring training or whatever it's going to be and uh and you got to scramble to sign guys it's just uh that's just not the position you want to be in that's not the position that a lot of teams want to be in but especially the mariners who aren't going to be able to just wow free agents on location

and all that when there's the Yankees, the Dodgers, Red Sox, all those teams. You got to give them a reason. And the only way to do that is by adding talent. So I just, yeah, I look at this next week

as a very, very, very, very important one for the Mariners this offseason. Maybe the most important week the Mariners will have all offseason if the lockout goes on for quite some time. If a lockout happens, of course, that's not finalized, but we all kind of expect it to happen. So we'll see.

We'll see how it goes. The Mariners did make a couple moves this morning, though. Kind of minor, kind of to be expected. But we're going to get into those in just a moment. But real quick, I want to remind you this episode of Lockdown Mariners. It's brought to you by bedonline.ag. We're back and better than ever, a new web interface for the start of the basketball season and more props, odds and lines than ever before.

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favorite sports. Bet online where the game starts. You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day just like you do here every day. So today was the final day for the Mariners to protect players from the Rule 5 draft.

All of their Rule 5 eligible guys from the Rule 5 draft from being selected in that in December. Not sure if that'll still happen or not with the with the lockout I would assume not but usually that happens at the winter meetings uh but today the the mariners protecting Julio Rodriguez Alberto Rodriguez and Ray Kerr from rule 5 eligibility Kerr of course hard throw and lefty alberto rodriguez the outfield prospect who's popped up in a lot of people's top tens now for the mariners

who was acquired in the Taiwan Walker trade with the blue jays about a year ago and uh obviously you guys know Julio. I think the first thing that we need to acknowledge here, Colby, before we get into the rest of these moves, is that this doesn't at all mean anything for Julio Rodriguez's chances of making the Major League Club. This had to happen. He was Rule 5 eligible. They had to protect him.

Yeah. I wouldn't read too much into it other than, you know, other than it's official, which we already knew it was going to be. To me, Julio is the least, the least interesting ad here because we all knew it was going to happen. So, I mean, there's really not much to add here. It doesn't change his timeline or anything like that.

Yeah, so to me, he was actually like the least interesting one. The other two guys who were added are certainly interesting. And I wouldn't have considered them to be like obvious ads. I think they were both kind of borderline guys. And it's interesting that they got added to the 40 man, which by the way, now sits at 39. So they still have a, they still have a free spot.

But as we've discussed in the past, it's really easy to clear 40-man spots. And there's no real roster crunch, despite what Jerry will tell you. There really isn't a roster crunch. So don't worry. These guys aren't taking away spots from, from guys who deserve it more, so to speak.

I'm pretty surprised about Alberto Rodriguez, quite frankly, because, I mean, the guy hasn't played above high A ball. And even when he played a high A ball this year, he slashed 20, 208, 321, 250. And that was just in seven games, by the way. So I don't know. I just, I didn't really think there was much of a threat there for a team to, to pick them up and carry him on their 26-man roster. And even if they did, you know, and this is kind of the same thing for another player

that they did not protect Sam Carlson, who's also in that, you know, in a similar range there in terms of where he's at and his development. I mean, I just don't think that either guy would really survive that for a whole season on someone's

26-man roster, whether it's, even if it's a bad team, like Baltimore or what have you. Was that surprising to you? A little bit, but I mean, they obviously like Rodriguez a lot.

Just turned 21 years old. he dominated Modesto and again granted that's that's A ball um but again he dominated it right he dominated it uh after not playing at all in 2020 uh he was maybe the best player in that league 15 uh sorry 15 stolen bases 10 home runs you know 383 on base at the 484 slugging hit 295 um look there there are some things that Rodriguez needs to work on I don't It's not that he's close to the big leagues. He's not. He's probably at least a year and a half away. But there's some legitimate tools here.

And you wonder if, what's the, the, the, Badoo, right? The, from the Tigers. A Kel Badoo. Yeah. He was kind of similar. A lot of skill, but kind of,

you know, far away. And somebody took a shot on him. And he was actually good, you know, very valuable. So it's, if you like the guy that much and you don't want to risk losing him, then put him on your 40 man. Because like we said, they really don't have a crunch there. Kevin Padlow is still on the 40 man.

I mean, like there are plenty of other ways. They, plenty of other guys. Aaron Pudger. Right. Et cetera, et cetera. Right. And I mean, you could, you can non-tender Dylan Moore. You know, you know what I mean?

It's just like there are plenty of easier cuts to make. So if you, if you had an inkling that maybe you're going to. guy might get taken, then protect them. Why not? I feel like Seattle has a pretty good track record of knowing when other teams might take their Rule 5 guys because can you think of a Rule 5 player who's been taken from Seattle in the last few years? I don't think so.

Nobody really comes to mind. So it seems like they've done a pretty good job. It seems like they've done a pretty good job of just knowing the market for their own players. And so if they do this, I assume it's because they know that somebody was willing to try it. And, you know, you don't want to stunt the guy's development by having him go to a different team and then asking him to try something else. And then if it doesn't work, then you have to try and refix it. So, no, it was a little bit of surprising at first, but I totally get it. I mean, the guy's a really talented player. He might be, he might have the best hit tool and

power tool that we're not talking about in the system. And then there's Kerr, who, uh, I felt was the one guy in the Mariners system that was Rule 5 eligible that had a pretty decent shot of getting taken. They do protect them mid to upper 90s, uh, from the left side. That's fairly rare in terms of lefty relievers. Uh, obviously has, you know, average 13.91 case per nine and, uh, in AAA, just 11 innings there, but 13.5, case per nine in 28 and two-thirds endings pitch down in double A as well this year.

Misses a lot of bats. Like I said, the velocity and all that stuff. It's pretty interesting. So, you know, they've invested a little bit here into Kerr in terms of just protecting him. So what do you think about Kerr? And what do you think about Kerr in terms of helping this team in 2022?

I think he's certainly going to pitch for the Mariners at some point this year, assuming health and all that. Would I have been, would it have been a bad thing if he got taken? No, not necessarily. He throws very hard. He's the lefty who throws hard. And there are some pretty good things happening with the breaking ball. But it's not like he is a high leverage guy.

You know, like he, that's not who he's going to be, at least not yet. Maybe he turns into that. Maybe the Mariners think he can be. that's really not what he is. He doesn't have the breaking ball quite yet to pull that off. So really, he's still a project, but they did promote him to AAA at the end of the year. And so they clearly believe in him.

And again, if you believe in a guy and you have the roster spot, why not at him? It's fine, especially if there's a shot somebody can take him. There's a pretty good shot that he is better than Aaron Fletcher right now. So why not? Fletcher's protected on the 40 man, and if you have to make a move, then you could DFA Fletcher and you have Kerr there to replace him.

So none of these really surprised me too much. Obviously, Julio was fine and Kerr I get, although I'm not a huge fan of Ray Kerr. I mean, I just think his upside is limited. And Rodriguez certainly has high enough upside that I get wanting to protect him. But yeah, other than that, I mean, this was most. as expected. I'm a little surprised maybe that they picked Kerr over Devin's suite. I think Sweet has a little bit more upside. It doesn't throw us hard, but the change up is, it's 80 great sometimes. So I thought maybe they should have protected

Sweet, but other than that, this is, there's, there are no surprises here, no shocking decisions either way about not protecting anybody or protecting somebody. So earlier we talked about Jerry DePoto, visiting some free agents, but of course the trade market is still going to be a big part for him this off season. We're going to talk about some creative ways Jerry DePoto could add some talent via the trade market in just a moment. So Colby, you and I have pretty much exhausted every single avenue that Jerry DePoto could take with this off season from free agents from trades. And I mean, because you kind of have to with Jerry depoto. The guy is not going to leave any stone unturned here. And one thing that's

been coming up as of late and he even talked about this today on 710, was taking on some money, taking on someone's contract to limit the prospect value that he would have to give up to get the, you know, the main piece of the deal that he's, you know, doing. So like the main example that's been thrown around as of late is acquiring Reds right-handed pitcher Luis Castillo and taking on third baseman slash second baseman Mike Mustakis's deal and I believe he's making like 16 million a year

over the next two years to help limit the cost of that of acquiring Castillo and also getting a guy who might be a pretty solid bounceback candidate at a position of need. So what do you think about that idea in general the Mustakis Castillo deal

and then just the general idea of just taking on money to get, you know, a big piece. It's certainly something that Jerry would consider. Obviously, he said that. But I think it's also something that Jerry would actually go out and look for because, again, you know, there's, he has money, right? But it's not a great free agent class, particularly for starting pitching.

So when you look at it in particular for that Castillo deal, Wusakis was bad in 2021. but aside from that, he's been a steady and consistently average third baseman, average player in general. He's played some second base. He's better at second base than Thai Francis, but I mean, that's not saying much. But he's probably still an average third baseman, fringe average. And the bat, again, aside from last year, has been relatively safe and consistent.

assistant. Right. So yeah, he's probably going to hit 240. He's probably going to put up a 315 on base and he's probably going to slug somewhere between 460 and 500. He's still a valuable player despite having the bad year. He's just not worth his contract, especially not to a team like the Red. So Musacus and Castillo together makes a lot of sense for Seattle because you could fill two holes. At the very least, Mustakis is a lateral move. from Seeger, I would say he's better than Seeger still, but at the very least, it's a lateral move. And then you get the huge upgrade in the rotation without having to give up, presumably, Hancock, Ford, whatever. So that particular instance, I think it makes sense in terms of like the overall idea of it.

It's fine, but I don't think you can take on a contract of a player that's not valuable to you. So what I mean? Using the Reds as the example again here is that Mustakis helps you. So it's fine to take on his contract. Shogo Akiyama has no value to you. So why take on his contract? So the player that the player whose salary you're absorbing has to be a benefit to you as well. If I'm going to make a move from this.

Are there any other deals, though, that you've thought about with, with this strategy that might make some sense? I know Joe Doyle of lookout landing and prospects live put out some ideas today. but have there been any others that you've thought about? No, you know, Joe's list was pretty comprehensive of where I was at. You know, you, the listener might not know this, but I've been, I don't know, pitching's the right idea, but I've been interested in the Will Myers type of acquisition here for the last few months.

The dude can still hit. I mean, he's a bad defender, but hey, you know what? Again, so is Mitch Hanager. So you need the outfield help. You need the bat. And that's a guy who maybe you could take on. I think he's got one year left at $20 million. Might be two.

Another guy that I don't know if I can't remember if Joe mentioned on this list, but same team. What about somebody like you, Darvish? Right. He was pretty bad last year, but he's got one year left at $20 million. dollars you know is that something that you could you could absorb to get i don't know insert whatever young pitcher you want in there um maybe so uh yeah i like the will myers thing

uh he's got one year left uh 22 and a half million with a one million dollar buyout um you darvish very similar so uh somebody like one of those two guys i think could make sense because again the player whose contract you're buying still has value to your 2022 major league roster. And I think that's the key. I think it can work with just about anybody. So long as the player whose salary you're absorbing can still help your 2022 team. Don't just absorb trash to lower the prospect costs.

That's a waste of money. And even though it's not our money, it's still a waste of Jerry DePoto's money. And he does have a budget. So you have to keep in mind that Jerry is working with a budget. so that when you say, well, it's not my money, you're not wrong, but it is less money that Jerry has to spend on somebody else. So you can't just take money willy-nilly. It has to still make sense for your ball club.

It has to be someone that's going to help me this year. It has to. I'm not interested in practically setting $15 million or $10 million or whatever. It's going to be on fire just for the sake of getting. a specific player. Like I would like someone that can help me. So if that's Donaldson, if that's Mustakis,

I feel good about those guys helping me next year. Even someone like Mustakis, who, again, had a down year last year, but besides that, has been pretty good at the plate. So I like taking a chance on that, and I like taking a chance on someone that might be a solid bounce back candidate that a team is

maybe more inspired to move on from. I think that's really an interesting avenue for them to take. And they have the financial flexibility to do it. Might as well use that to your advantage. Yeah. It's one of those things where it's like, look, like, Akiyama is making $10 million.

Right. That's just the example I've been using. And Luis Castillo is worth $17 or is worth $7, I think, this year. So is Luis Castillo by himself worth $17 million? Probably. But is he worth $17 million? and Brandon Williamson, Connor Phillips,

and Alberto Rodriguez. Probably not because, again, Akiyama, Akiyama, like, hurt you. He's not, he's not an asset. He, he hurt you. So, and you're probably not going to feel comfortable,

just DFAing him. So, yeah, it has to make sense for Seattle. To have, it has to make sense for the player, Seattle is acquiring. to help them in 2022 or it's just it's a non-starter for me

at least right now. All right. Well, that's going to do it for our show. So thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners. For Colby Patnaud, I'm Taday Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, this D-A-N-Z-L-Z

and Colby at C-P-E-E-T-1-E. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you every day. Assuming that Jerry Depoto doesn't do anything between now and tomorrow, we'll be doing fan fiction Friday. So be sure to send us your Mariners mock trades on Twitter or via email. That's Lockdown Mariners at gmail.com. We'll read each and everyone and grade them on the show tomorrow. And in the meantime, make your second list of the day, Locked on bets, your daily one-stop shop for all

your gambling needs. Locked on bets hosted by your boy cue with expert analysis. an insight from Lee Sterling. And just like us, their show is free and available wherever you get your podcasts. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow.