Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Jerry Dipoto Is Making Mariners Fans Anxious Again

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

The Seattle Mariners were named baseball organization of the year by Baseball America, but Twitter is mad that the team hasn't committed $250 million to players who are still available in free agency. Colby and Ty discuss the drama and the one small tweak GM Jerry Dipoto should make in the future. But first: the guys' breakdown of how the Matt Boyd signing is good news for the Mariners, the rumored interest of Eric Jokisch, and the possibility of the team stealing another first-round draft pick in the 2023 draft.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/BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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.

Matthew Boyd will not be returning to Seattle, but his new contract with the Tigers might be good news for the Mariners. We'll talk about that more here on the Locked on Mariners podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. It is Thursday, December 1st, 2022. This is Tiding Gonzalez and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen. Subscribe like, turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube.

or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description below. And on the show today, we'll be looking at the contract. Matthew Boy just reportedly signed with the Tigers and discuss how that might shape the rest of the pitching market moving forward. We'll also talk about a potential target out of the KBO the Mariners have reportedly checked in on. And then Colby feels compelled to rant about people on Twitter again. So stick around to the end if you want to hear that.

It should be a good time. But before we get into all that, Colby, we are still running a giveaway. We have surpassed the 5,000 subscriber mark. Thank you so much to all those that have subscribed this far. But, Colby, there are still marks that we can reach before the end of the winter meetings for the rest of our tier. So remind the folks what those are. First of all, I feel disrespected that you're pushing my little tirade to the end of the show. I'm statistically.

I'm giving you prime time. I'm giving you part time. Actually, you're not. I've seen the analytics, but anyways. So we, the rant is for the real ones anyway. The real ones that stay till the end. Y'all know who you are.

Anyways. So we've reached pretty much all the giveaway plateaus that I thought were somewhat realistic. Except for one, the Jared Kelnick autograph card is still, not been that that plateau has not been reached yet. We are at last count about 200 or so away on Twitter from reaching the 3,000 mark, which will activate that giveaway. So right now, you know, we've already surpassed the Taylor Dollar, the Taylor-Tremel and the Cal Raleigh tiers. Jared Kelnick is sandwiched between Tremel and Rale, but we haven't reached that one yet.

I haven't looked at the latest subscriber count. But I imagine it's going to be pretty darn difficult for you guys to get us past locked on Astros here in the next seven days. So that Mike Cameron card will be staying with me. Thank you for your empathy. Thank you for your laziness and not getting that done. I will greatly enjoy keeping my Mike Cameron card knowing that none of you will have it, especially Ty. because Ty likes to think he's a Mike Cameron fan, but in reality, I'm the bigger Mike Cameron fan,

but hey, you know what? He's going to grab his little bat because Keith likes him more, but whatever. Yeah, I'm just totally not jealous. Yeah, let's just remind the folks. You know, what does that say right there, Colby? What does it say? It says that Keith likes you better.

Exactly, exactly. And there's probably a reason for that. Maybe, you know, whatever. Take a moment to look. I am who I am. Nobody's going to change me. why that's the case, you know, rather than just pointing fingers. Because you kiss, but, and I don't.

I tell it like it is, you know. I'm sure that, I'm sure, I'm sure that will become very relevant here in the next, I don't know, 20 or so minutes. But before we get to that part of the show, Colby, there was a very surprising move that was made this morning. That was reportedly made this morning. John Heyman, congrats, John. You were finally first on something. Oh, my God. John Hamer reports that the Tigers have come to an agreement with Matthew Boyd,

former Tigers pitcher, former Giants pitcher, former Mariners pitcher most recently on a one-year till 10 million plus dollar deal. Now, this is for a guy that's coming off of pretty major injury, has only thrown a handful of innings out of the bullpen since set injury for the Mariners and looked pretty good, you know, he looked fine. He wasn't like great by any stretch of the imagination. He wasn't bad. He was just kind of, you know, he was fine.

He did what he needed to do. But $10 plus million for that is pretty wild. And after seeing what Mike Clevenger got from the White Sox, $12 million for one year, it's this pitching market, especially the secondary and tertiary levels of it, are starting to shape up pretty favorably for the Mariners and possibly their hopes of trading Marco Gonzalez and or Chris Flexen, right? Sure seems that way. I mean, Boyd's only thrown, I think, 14 endings this last year, all in relief.

And the Tigers gave him, you know, number four starter money, essentially. It is $2 million more than Chris Flexen is going to make. It is $3.5 million more than Marco is going to make this year. Marco does have that $12 million hit next year, which, you know, still makes it difficult to move. But yeah, you kind of look at what the, you know, what the market's going for right now. Anderson gets 13 A.A.V. Off of one pretty good year. You know, Clevenger was okay last year.

He gets 12. And you look at obviously today Boyd, who barely pitched last year, he gets 10. Flexing that eight is a better bargain than all of those, all of those arms. I guess you can say Anderson's better, but really you're going off of one year, which, that's, I mean, okay, go for it, but you're never going to see that Tyler Anderson. Statistically, Tyler Anderson was helped out by his defense more than any other pitcher in Major League Baseball as well. We should mention that. Right.

I would say at worse, Flexen is in the same tier as those arms, maybe less upside than somebody like Clevenger, but statistically speaking, just as good at run prevention, which is the whole name of the game. So, yeah, I think, you know, I think the mayor is probably going to have to wait a little bit, let the marketplace self out a little bit more. But there's more, there's more need than there is supply. So eventually the Mariners will find somebody to take flex in that. I really don't have any doubt on. Marco is a little bit trickier because of the second year of the $12 million. But, you know, based on the early return of what pitching is going for in the free agent market, yeah, I'm confident. I'm feeling more confident that they can get.

something that's not just a salary dump type of deal for both of those arms. So probably nothing significant, but they're not just going to, you know, here's Marco for Jake Shiner. You know what I mean? It's not going to be like that. So on the flip set of this, does this now make you more concerned about the Mariners ability to land a starting pitcher if they do trade Flexen or Marco? And if so, does that make you more willing or open to the possibility of keeping at least one of those guys and just rolling with them as the number five to start the year?

I think the, I don't want to say the plan, but I think the way things shape up right now is that the Mariners will not trade both until they have a starter, like a legitimate starter. They're not going to just roll into, you know, the spring training with Matt Brash as the leader to be the number five. They're not going to do that. They're going to make a trade or they're going to sign somebody in free agency. I don't think this is the type of market. the Mariners were going to sniff around anyways. These are mostly fives in the Mariners rotation.

I think if they are going to spend money on pitching or trade assets, I should say as well, I think it's going to be for somebody they believe can pitch in the top half of their rotation. So that would be, you know, somebody who's better than Gilbert and Robbie Ray probably, or at least has the potential to be. So I think the plan is they move one of the arms they have right now. and then they know where the pitching market is about, and they go from there. But I can't imagine they trade both unless they sign a starter,

and they have them in their back pocket before they make those deals. So stop me if you've heard this before. The Mariners have been linked to a free agent. This one, a little more non-traditional. This guy's coming from the KBO. We're going to be talking about him in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariner's is brought to you by BetOnline. Betonline.net is your number one source for sports betting info, stats, news, and analysis.

Get the latest odds and trends for every professional and amateur league out there from football to basketball to soccer and esports. We've got it all at BetOnline.net. And if you love sports podcasts, you can find those at BetOnline as well. We're always the fastest and easiest way to get your betting fix. Head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more. Bet Online is where the game starts. You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen.

So coming from Twitter yesterday was an interesting report from a reporter in Houston. He's on one of the Houston television networks there. I'm trying to get the tweet up here. But it links the Mariners to a KBO pitcher named Eric Yokish. that's spelled J-O-K-I-S-C-H. He is a former Cubs pitcher. He's a left-handed pitcher who recently has spent the last four seasons in the K-B-O with the Key Womb Heroes and has more or less dominated down in Korea to the tune of a 272 ERA over 117 starts. Yeah, Ari Alexander from K-R-P or so,

sorry, KPRC2 in Houston is reporting this and says that the Astros, or sorry, the Mariners, Angels, and Marlins, rather, have interests in Yokish, who's a bit on the older side. I believe he's 33 years old. Yeah, 33 years old. And again, really has dominated over the last four years down in Korea. What else do you got for me on Yokish, Colby? well we might have some really interesting news by the way coming out about the 2023 draft it's a little unclear we'll get to it in a minute yokish from what my

understanding is there's very limited video on him so you're kind of doing box score scouting type of things but based on what i've been able to find uh pretty good slider the change up took a step forward in 2022 it's a sinker slider profile he's a lefty he doesn't walk anybody that's evident by his numbers doesn't really miss a lot of bats which which, you know, yeah, he's a very pitchability lefty type of guy. My understanding is that he's probably more of a guy who you give one in like $2 million to. He's not even Chris Flexen. He's just a guy that you're kind of back into the roster.

Maybe we can get a little more out of him type of guy. He's a fringe 40-man guys is my understanding. But there are enough, there are enough teams, interested in him because of the slider, which is pretty good pitch, and because he throws a ton of strikes and he's left-handed, that he's probably going to get a major league deal. So I wouldn't, you know, freak out about this move. Like if it does happen with Seattle, he's probably a guy. They throw into the fifth starter competition and then see what happens from there. So, yeah, there's not a ton here. This isn't like, you know, Yoshida or, or, uh,

or Senga, it's not like that high of a profile. But it is an interesting arm. Again, slider, throw strikes. I mean, those two things alone probably peak the Mariners' interest. So we'll see where it goes from there. But yeah, this isn't like a mid-rotation starter at the big league level. He's 32, 33 years old even. Yeah, he's just kind of a guy.

Like this isn't even as exciting as like Chris Flexen was a few years ago. But yeah, at most it's an interesting flyer to take and you know, maybe he's someone that that helps out of the bullpen. Might fit what the Mariners are looking for. Yeah. All right. So some other news revolving around the Mariners that came out today. The Mariners have been named the organization of the year for 2022 by baseball America. Great achievement for this team, which of course ended a 20 year playoff drought.

Had the rookie of the year and Julio Rodriguez was able to. to add quite a bit of talent with Luis Castillo, thanks to a budding farm system, thanks in part to a budding farm system, at least. And that does play, and, you know, this does play a part into, you know, how the, how baseball America decides on this award as well. You know, all those things come together. Everything that makes an organization great is taken into account here for this award. And the Mariners were, of course, named the best organization of 2022.

So what's your reaction, if any, to the Mariners winning this achievement? It's almost like the baseball ops people are incredibly good at their job, and they should just be allowed to do their job. Funny things happen when you just let the baseball people do the baseball stuff, and they're pretty good at it. Baseball America is an independent organization. They don't, you know, they're not paid by the Mariners to say they're the best or anything like that. And yeah, you know, do I think the Mariners are the best run organization in Major League Baseball?

No. Are they in the top five to ten? They're certainly getting there. They're not already there. So yeah, just a recognition. And it's not hard to look at what, you know, that organization did. They're one of, I think, five teams to win 90 games in the last two years, each of the last two years. You know, they obviously the rookie of the year. The sixth place rookie of the year, Cal Raleigh would have been, you know, top five rookie of the year candidate as well. They've drafted. They developed very well. They've made big trades. They went out. out and they got A. E. E. E. E. Hino-Swarres and they got Luis Castillo and they got Jesse Winker. And, you know, it's just, it's a well-run baseball organization. There's just no denying that.

So not all that surprised. I thought maybe they'd give it to the Astro since, you know, they won the World Series. And they're also a very well-run baseball ops organization. But yeah, it's well-earned and it's cool. I mean, there's no like real value to it. It's just the opinion of baseball America. But it's cool. So, yeah, I would just kind of leave it at that. Yeah, and I mean, it's, you know, something that's big enough for the organization itself to acknowledge it as well, right? They sent out a press release and did a tweet and all that stuff. So, yeah, congratulations to the Mariners on that. It was a fantastic year for them.

And, you know, it really showed, you know, what some of the hard work they put in over the last few years has done and has been able to accomplish. All right. So before I give you the floor, because you, you. I'm going to do exactly what you asked me last night to just sit there and stay out of your way. So I will. But I just want to acknowledge, you know, some of the comments that Jerry Depoto made today on Seventh and Seattle Sports because I know we're going to get asked about it. Oh, right. We have, we have news.

Right. Let's get into that first before I go on my spiel. So this is very, first of all, the honching tigers are going to post Shintaro Fujimami. pretty interesting arm probably a reliever but another interesting you know Japanese league pitcher to keep in mind I haven't seen anybody linked to him yet but they are posting him and he is

an arm that will be pitching in the major leagues I would assume pretty soon so there's that also major league baseball announced the competitive like the competitive balance picks interestingly they put the Mariners

as getting a competitive balance a pick. Now there's some, they did not specify in the press release if this was the Julio pick, it seems like it should be the Julio pick because it is the number one pick in the competitive balance round A pick,

competitive balance round A. But they have not specified that. So there is a small possibility, I suppose, that the Mariners might actually get another competitive balance round A pick in addition to the first round pick they have and the one they won from Julio.

Oh my God. It's possible. Again, I would say there's a 99% chance that that is the Julio pick, and they just didn't specify that in the press release. But, you know, it seems like too big of a coincidence because then in theory, the Mariners would have picks 21, 29, and 30. That just doesn't seem like it's right. But it's out there.

Again, there's been, there was no clarification on. whether that was the competitive or whether that was the draft pick earned because Julio won rookie of the year or that is another draft pick. I would assume that that's the Julio pick. But just something to keep in mind here, I'm sure it will be clarified here in the next few minutes. But it did, you know, it was interesting that you open up that document. It says Mariners competitive balance round A pick, number one. And you're like, well, yeah. Without a mention of Julio.

So that's the thing, right? is like, I'm pretty sure the pick is just a competitive balance around A pick. But they also call it something different, right? They call it, what is it, the PIP or something like that? Call it something like that, some acronym. So. Performance initiative, something. Yeah, yeah, something like that.

So I don't know. That's interesting. Something to keep an eye on. All right. So let me get back to where I was here, though. So the comments that Jerry Depoto made today. This is a prime example of Jerry to Poto being way too open and talking way too much. This is the one issue that I do have with Jerry is that he just says way too much, especially because he today got into like baseball theory when it comes to building a roster and sustaining, you know, maintaining a healthy, you know, product.

for years and years, like a decade plus. That's kind of what he was talking about in terms of, I'm sure you guys have all seen the crest quote from today, from 7-10 ESPN Seattle, where he said that the Mariners expect to hit their crest in 2026. A lot of people have taken that as, oh, they're moving the goalposts in terms of what their actual contention window is. He's more so talking about that's when the money will kick in for Julio's contract,

and that's when Ty Francis' contract is expiring. He Hennigo Swares his contract is expiring. Cal Raleigh, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, their contracts are going to be nearing expiration as well. So you're going to have to handle that down the road. And that's why he was saying that, you know, sometimes we do prefer shorter term deals because of what is down the road.

So he is saying that. Nevertheless, he shouldn't be getting into all that. He shouldn't have said the words 2026. He shouldn't have said any of that. that because look most people don't care about that stuff most baseball fans just don't care about hearing about four years down the road five years down the road they don't care about baseball theory they don't care about what it takes to build an organization to build a major league product and sustain that over the course of a decade or more so my advice to jerry depoto is just to stop

with that because he's going to get himself into more trouble than he's not especially with this fan base that is craving, desperately craving a World Series contender. It is desperately craving the opportunity to close the gap between the Mariners and the Astros. And I do think that today's comments further prove that they're likely not going to get one of the big short stops, which I don't think, you know, dams their whole off season. I still think that they can have a really, really good off season. And you're going to talk about this more, Colby, without landing one of the big short stops. But yeah, overall, Jerry should just, as simple as it is,

Jerry should probably just stop talking as much as he is. Yeah, Jerry's only crime is that he assumes that Mariner fans care about how a baseball team is built. They don't. They don't. But anyways, time for my thing. Okay. there is an epidemic of stupid people pretending they understand baseball and then commenting about it on Mariners Twitter it's an epidemic and some of these people have big platforms why because they

write for they wrote for websites decade ago ooh great fantastic the general consensus among the stupid people among the inflicted is that the Seattle Mariners are cheap because they will not spend money. Right now, their latest target is they won't spend money on a free agent bat. You know, never mind the fact that they just added a $14 million player via trade. Apparently trades don't count. You have to acquire players through free agency. Jerry DiPoto has acquired bats such as Mitch Hanigar, A. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. H. H.J. Winker. He's acquired Adam Frazier. He's acquired Carlos Santana. He's acquired Thai France. he's acquired all these players via trade.

That's not good enough. Apparently that's not good enough. Because the only way you can get better is to spend money. That's all that matters. End of the year payroll is all that matters. The stupid have forgotten that Major League Baseball is actually pretty simple. The most important thing in Major League Baseball is to score more runs than you allow. That is the end of the game.

So, Ty, here. We go. Let's run down this list real fast. Here are the 12 best run differential teams in all baseball last year. Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, Atlanta, the Mets, the Cardinals, the Blue Jays, the Mariners, the Guardians, the Phillies, Tampa Bay, and San Diego. Here are the 12 playoff teams from last year. the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Astros, the Braves, the Mets, the Cardinals, the Blue Jays, the Mariners, the Guardians, the Phillies, Tampa Bay, and San Diego. Is there a correlation there, people? Of course there is. You do not buy players in the offseason. You buy wins. You buy wins by buying runs, either preventing them or scoring them. The Mariners have already improved their ability to score runs. It is December 1st.

opening day is three full months away. What are we talking about? Actually, it's closer to four. The mayors have already improved their ability to score runs. They've also already improved their ability to prevent runs. Yes, Teosker Hernandez is a better defender than Mitch Hanigar. Who knew? The mayors have acquired a player who helps them in the two most important areas in all of baseball

over what they had last year. Now they're being linked to other players who will help them score more runs and take more runs off the board, and it's not good enough for you. Why? Because they're only making $10 million this year instead of $25. Who cares? It does not matter. The infliction of stupidity among, let's say, the vocal majority of Mariners' Twitter

is reached epidemic proportions where even reasonable people, people, even people who understand long-term building, team-building, are jumping on the ship. Why? Because they don't want to be accused of being a bootlicker. I don't care. I don't. I believe in Jerry's plan. And I believe that when Jerry says, hey, you know what?

We have to think about this long-term. We can't just throw money after money after money on this roster. We have to think about this four or five years in advance. That is amazing. Because you know who didn't do that? The 2016 through 2018 Seattle Mariners put all the money on it right. now and anything that happens afterwards, we don't care because we want the instant gratification. We want the love that comes from signing Robinson Canoe to a deal $70 million more than anybody

else in baseball was willing to spend. And we're going to go get Nelson Cruz and we're going to call it an offseason. We have our core. How did that work out for you? It didn't. You failed epically. Jerry DePoto just wrapped up his fourth year in a rebuild. One of them, by the way, was only 60 games long.

Shh. Don't tell the depoto haters. He's basically had three and a half years. And in those three and a half years, he has rebuilt the farm system to a place where it has already acquired him. Luis Castillo, Jesse Winker, A. E. E. Hineos Juarez,

just in the last year. He has developed Julio Rodriguez. He's developed Cal Rale. He's developed Logan Gilbert. He's developed George. George Kirby. He's acquired from other teams. Ty France.

He's acquired Matt Brash. He's acquired Andres Munoz. And we're sitting here complaining that he hasn't signed a free agent bat in five years. Which one do you want? You want Chris Bryant, who at like a buck 60 last year? You want Trevor Story who put up a 100 WRC plus. Really? You're going to complain that he only spent $14 million on Teoscar Hernandez.

says, you're going to complain that he got Julio Rodriguez to sign the biggest contract in baseball history that he went out and he got Luis Castillo. He outbid the Yankees for Luis Castillo and then paid him. And you have the nerve to complain that he's sitting here going like, you know what? Sure would be nice if we could keep Cal Raleigh and Logan Gilbert and George Kirby long term. So maybe don't overpay Trey Turner by $20 million. And I might be able to extend them a year early. I might be able to get them for another year beyond what I think I could. It is beyond stupid that Mariner fans listen to these people who have no business talking about baseball

and have no agenda other than to try and make the Mariners look bad. And here's the thing. Those people don't have to try that hard. It's not that hard to make the Mariners look bad. It's not. But you can't do it by attacking their baseball acumen because, as Baseball America has already said, this is the best run organization in baseball. And it's been building that way for a while.

teams want what the Mariners have. Okay. Teams want to build like the Mariners do. And before you sit here and you say, well, they should just go spend more money and that will make everything go away. Point to the big deal the Atlanta Braves have signed. What big free agent did the Atlanta Braves go out and get that made them arguably the best team in the National League? Which one? I'll wait.

Matt Olson was a trade by the way. Charlie Morton? Just for those others. What's that? I was just saying for those that are going to say Matt Olson, Matt Olson was a trade. Trade. Charlie Morton. That's the one.

And Charlie Morton gets one and two year deals at $20 million a pop. That's not a big free agent contract. It's not. What do the Atlanta Braves do? They draft, they develop, they sign their own, and they go out and free agency and they use free agency. Not as something to put them over the top. No, they use it to build. They use it to complete the roster.

The Mariners have acquired, last year the Mariners broke a playoff drought, right? The 21-year playoff drought, every single player on that roster. Acquired by Jerry Capoto. Do you care if he did it via trade or free agency? Was that running through your mind when Adam Frazier hit the double down the line in Toronto? Oh, man, if only they had signed Adam Frazier and Free Agency, that would have been even sweeter. Get out of here. If you're in the business of trying to make the Mariners into something they're not,

it's shameful. It's shameful. It is, there's no, there's no place for it. The Seattle Mariners have a lot of wards and their ownership group has a lot of wards. Nobody's denying that. Nobody's sitting here saying, I don't want Carlos Correa on this team. Nobody's sitting here saying, I don't want the team to sign Zander Bogart's. you're creating strawmen to try and push this narrative that you've created because you have something to sell. It's really that simple. Seattle Mariners are a well-run baseball organization. They deserve time.

It is December 1st for crying out loud. They deserve the entire offseason to see what they have to see what they can get done. They deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the draft. They deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to player acquisition. They have earned that. And for you not to even give them a month in the off season, before you decided that they're trash after they just broke a 21-year playoff drought, you should be embarrassed.

And Mariner fans should shun you forever. Stop listening to those people. They're not interested in the truth. They're interested in their narrative. And that's it. Yeah. I'm just tired of the overreactions to rumors and GM speak at the end of the day. And, yeah, again, I'm going to go back to what I said that, you know,

Jerry DePoto is not doing himself any favors with the stuff that he says on the radio either. Now, is that necessarily his fault? No, because he's just speaking in the way that he knows how, which is, you know, he's speaking as a general manager. And he's a little too open for most baseball fans' tastes and for most baseball fans' knowledge, really, of the game and their interest level in the game as well. But, you know, I do think that he would be better served just to not do this, right? To not do this as much as he does, to not talk about future payroll. as much as he does and all that stuff because it's just it's not going to go over well you know only a certain audience is going to get what he's saying i mean hell even you know more a duly of

seven 10thensia sports when she tweeted out that quote about the crest and all that stuff like she had to clarify afterwards like yeah no he's talking about payroll he's talking about he's talking about who leo you know money kicking and starting to kick in he's talking about raleigh and kirby and all these guys that they're going to have to sign and therefore payroll is going to naturally kick up quite a bit, especially when you're talking about players at premium position. So you're talking about, you know, you're talking about two starting pitchers here, a catcher. If those guys, you know, continue to go on the rise that they are, like George Kirby might cost 30 plus million dollars. Logan Gilbert might cost 25 plus million dollars. Cal Raleigh might cost 25 plus million.

20 million. Yeah. So that is going to add up. That is going to be very, very expensive. and so you don't want to get to a point. I know a lot of people are going to say, I don't care what happens in 2026. I want to win a World Series in 2020 and 24, so do I. Right? So does Colby?

But at the end of the day, you are going to be upset in 20206 if they don't win those World Series and even if they do. And then they say, and they come to you and they go on the radio and say, well, we can't afford Cal Raleigh. We can't afford George Kirby.

We can't afford Logan Gilbert. Time to rebuild. Exactly. So it hurts now. It hurts to hear now. It hurts to hear and come to the reality that, yeah, they're probably not going to sign Trey Turner or Carlos Kray or Zander Bogartz or Dansby Swanson, which sucks. I would love for them to sign one of those guys.

It would be awesome. But they're probably not going to. The thing, though, is they can still build. They can still build a really, really, really good team that can compete with the Astros and build upon that mid-season at the trade deadline. to a point where maybe they can get themselves past the Astros without signing one of those guys. Because they can still go out. Like, look, you know, yeah, they've been linked to Colton Long and Glaber Torres,

but they've also been linked to Brandon Lowe. But we talked about how, like, when he's healthy, he's one of the best second basement in all of baseball. He's the top three, top five second baseman when he's healthy. Like he was a five-win player back in 2021. He's only making $4 million this year, right? again, it's about adding wins. It's not about adding money. You don't get a trophy for spending the most money.

Just ask the Mets. Just ask the Dodgers this past year. It's about winning the damn thing at the end of the day. And there are many different ways to get there. There's no one specific way to eventually get there. And so I'll end on this. The Mariners so far, while it sucks that they're not willing to go out, and get the big free agent.

It would be great if they did, but they're not going to. Aside from that, they have really done everything right. They've done everything that you would want them to do in a rebuild. They've been able to turn this thing

around a lot quicker than most rebuilds go. Most rebuilds don't even sniff the places that the Mariners have gone to over the last couple of years. Back-to-back 90-win seasons. They end the drought this year, and they didn't do it

in some Mickey Mouse fashion either. It's not because they took advantage of the added wild-cart spot, right? It's not because of that. And they got into the playoffs and they did damage too and they played the Astros really close and we talked about it. It was like only like four so innings that they didn't have the lead in that game or in that series, right? Like it was something crazy like that that they were either tied or had the lead for most of that series. Just they weren't able to finish it because they need to get better.

And so far this offseason they have gotten better like Colby said to Oscar Hernandez is a sensational addition who's going to be fantastic for this team. and yeah comes with a pretty hefty price tag at $14.3 million. That's what he's projected to have to earn in arbitration this year. So, you know, they are spending a little bit of money so far. They have done that. And I do think that they're going to continue to spend some money. I just don't think that they're willing to go six, seven, eight years on a guy who's going to make $25 to $30 million and therefore make things harder on them to lock down at Logan Gilbert, a George Kirby,

at Cal Raleigh. because not all these guys are going to sign for the deal that Julio did, right? Julio, you know, while he's getting paid, right, he's getting his bag. He's also taking the security, whereas if he hit the open market, he'd probably make a lot more than he's going to end up making on this contract. But not every contract is going to be like that. You're not going to pay for one of the best baseball players in the world $18 million. That's just not going to happen every single time.

you're going to have to come to the table with some real big boy money for guys like George Kirby Logan Gilbert, Cal Raleigh, Thai France, etc. You're going to have to at some point. So that's ultimately what they're talking about here or what Jerry is talking about specifically today that it's his job. That's his job at the end of the days to project five years down the road. And for us as fans, yeah, we want the immediate gratification. Who does it, right?

You're not a baseball fan if you don't want the immediate gratification. Like, that would be amazing, right? We'd be through the roof if the Mariners, you know, it turned out they signed Carlos Correa later tonight. It'd be amazing. But they're probably not going to, right? And so, but they can still build a great baseball team at the end of the day. And that's it.

So if you have anything else to add. Yeah. All right. So real fast, this is just to kind of go back off of something we talked about in the last segment. And then we'll wrap. We're running long. Initially, Joe Doyle had responded to a tweet. And Joe is like a draft guy.

typically when he says it, it's right. He'd responded to a tweet and he had said that the Mariners, the 29th pick or whatever, that is the Julio pick. He has since tweeted, and I'm just going to read it here, quote, I'm digging into this a bit, but I'm not entirely sure this pick is the Julio compensatory pick. Seattle's in the lottery for competitive balance picks every year. It's possible their ping pong ball was drawn

and they'll end up with the 22nd, 29th, and 30th pick in this year's track. Wow. It's too bad this team can't run it. I mean, man, just think if they were good at baseball ops. Like, oh my God. That would be something. But we'll see again. I'm hoping Major League Baseball clarifies that,

hopefully by tomorrow. So we can tell you guys or you guys can, you know, obviously see it. Yeah, before we do. But yeah, I would say that would certainly change things. Yeah. That would change things. That's more bonus pool money.

That makes the first round of that draft really, really fun. It's like another $2.5 million in bonus pool money. I would make things very interesting and a hell of a lot of fun. And we'll see. Oh, snap. Cho Doyle just tweeted 30 seconds ago. I'm waiting on confirmation here, but it does sound like Seattle will end up with the 22nd, 29th, and 30th pick.

Wow. Wow. Wait for confirmation, but Joe, like, he's not making this up. He's hearing this from somebody. Yeah. So I trust Joe, minus when he talks about Dylan Moore. But other than that, I trust Joe a lot. So, uh, it maybe tomorrow we, tomorrow, I'm assuming by tomorrow's show, we will

be able to confirm or we'll just tweet it out at that point. But right. Yeah, guys. The Mariners probably just have in their first three picks, they're going to have roughly $8 million. to spend on the draft, just in the first three picks. Yeah. And this also gives you more reason to go after a qualifying offer guy, just saying.

Yeah. Just saying. So, yeah. And also, none of those picks can be taken away from you, correct? Right? So. No, because they're a competitive bout. Yeah, it would be your third highest native pick, which for the Mariners would still be their third round pick.

Oh, also important. I should note. And again, I know we're running along. So last thing, Ty, get ready. After I finish this sentence, you wrap this episode. All right, I will. I will. Competitive balance round picks are tradable.

And it is assumed that the bonus pick for rookie of the year is also tradable. Mariners might have two first round picks that they should throw around in trade talks. Chills. All right. Well, I'm going to go look a boot after this, but that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown. Yeah, right. That's correct.

Silly me. I'm the Canadian half of this. Yeah, I'm the Canadian half of this show as well. So, you know, look at me. I'm not doing my part. For Colby Patnaud, I'm Tyne Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-O-U-U-N-E-S-G-N-Z. You can follow me at Dane-G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat-E-E-B.

You can also find all that stuff in the description. of this episode and thank you again for making us your first listen now for your next listen check out the lockdown sports today podcast featuring the biggest stories of the day plus instant reactions big game recaps on the take of the day it's available on the odyssey app of youtube and wherever you get your podcast just like us and with that have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow fan fiction friday peace