Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Just How Bad Was Ty France in 2023 and What Will the Mariners Do at DH?

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Colby and Ty grade Ty France and Mike Ford's 2023 campaigns and discuss whether the Mariners will run it back with Ford at DH, rotate multiple players through that spot, or go outside the organization to acquire a full-time DH.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Jase MedicalSave more than $360 by getting these lifesaving antibiotics with Jase Medical plus an additional $20 off by using code LOCKEDON at checkout on jasemedical.com.  eBay MotorsKeep your ride-or-die alive at ebay.com/motors. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More.Make Every Moment More. Right now, NEW customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED in BONUS BETS - GUARANTEED. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.SleeperDownload the Sleeper app and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details. Currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today!FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) 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.

It's our fourth time recording this. We're giving out grades to Thai France and Mike Ford and talking about what the Mariners should do at DH coming up 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. Uh, hooy, sailors.

It is Wednesday, October 11th, 2023. This is Tadda Gonzalez and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Brought to you by Fandul. Make every moment more right now new customers can bet $5 and get $200 back in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit fanduil.com slash locked on. That's OcKD-O-N to get started. Thank you so much for making us your first. Listen, subscribe, like, and 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're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below.

and if you want to hear from us even more, please consider sending up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. And this episode, like I said,

has been recorded at least four times now. We've made it through the first segment at least once. Colby, I've said this prompt and asked you the same question about three or four times now, but we're going to do it again. on the show today.

We're going to continue handing out grades to the 2023 Mariners. Yesterday we did Cal Raleigh and Tom Murphy. Today we're going to look at Thai France and Mike Ford. We're also going to talk about the DH spot in general, what should the Mariners do there in 2024? But first, Colby, I know you already know what's coming, but this is the first time anyone who's watching this has seen it. So we're going to talk about Thai France.

going to hand out a grade to tie france i i think most people you know know how we feel uh about tie france's season in twenty twenty three i think most people that are tuning into this most marins fans in general feel very similarly about the year that france just had uh we're going to go over the offensive numbers here for france in twenty twenty three he was not good not very good whatsoever. 250, 337, 366. That's his triple slash line. That's batting average on base percentage, slugging percentage in that order. 104 WRC plus. That's kind of the all encompassing offensive stat. Just a 0.5 war from fan graphs. 12 home runs, 58 RBI, 17.6% K rate, 6.5% walk rate. got hit by a lot of pitches 34 hit by pitches for tie france which is a career high by far um yeah

you got to give a grade to this guy i know you've already given it like three times over the course of this you know 15 or 20 minutes of us recording this but uh yeah yeah how did how did you feel about france's season yeah he gets a d and that might be a little generous there he was the spider man three of offensive players this year, just painfully below average, not even mediocre, really. Yeah, and you know, it's, it's, you know, 104 WRC plus in theory is pretty good,

but when you consider how much of that is driven by his on-base percentage and how much of his on-base percentage is driven by hit by pitch, it's not the most sustainable thing. And it's also not the most impactful thing. And when you factor in also that he plays first base, which is a position where you traditionally need to, you know, produce at well above league average rates to be an everyday player, he failed.

Like, there's just really no question about it. And the worst part is, is that, like, we all had to sit there and watch it. It wasn't one of those things where, oh, he's sitting the ball hard. It's just hitting it right at guys. It's not like he struggled with injuries like he did in the past. No, he just stunk. He stayed healthy all year for the first time in his career. So that's a plus.

He played solid defense, which is a nice bonus, but it can't carry your entire value. Not at first base anyways. So yeah, he just, he wasn't good. We saw him chase more than we ever seen. And we saw some bad chases. You know, it at times looked like France had determined before the pitch was thrown, whether or not he was going to swing the bat. You know, it was, it was bad.

It was ugly. It looked like he was guessing instead of reacting. Like he, it was bad. You know, strikeouts, while the overall number is still fine, we saw France strikeout more than we have in the past with more ugly at bats. He missed cookies down the middle of the plate. You know, he expanded the zone more and more like egregiously than he has in the past. He didn't make good swing decisions.

There was no power. You know, forget the 12 home runs. He slugged, what, you say, 366? 366. That's terrible. That's horrific. That's you would expect that from like a glove only second baseman. Yeah. Not a first basement. So no power. Pretty decent average, pretty decent on base. But that again, the on base is driven almost exclusively by, well, not almost exclusively, but pretty heavily by hit by pitches, which, you know, not a skill. And a 250 average is totally fine. It's above league average. Or it's about. at league average this year. But when they're all singles and you're a first baseman who can't run, like who cares what your average is if you're not putting it over the fence or into the gaps. So yeah, France is awful.

I can't, you know, I think I'm being pretty nice by giving him a D. And again, that's just because his batting average and on base were technically above league average, but barely and also, again, on base driven by hit by pitches. That's not a skill. you know that that's not a valuable thing so yeah he gets he gets a D and and I

honestly feel like I'm being generous because I think you could you could tell me he gets an F and I would be like yeah I totally agree so yeah the only thing keeping me from giving him enough because I'm going to give him a D as well as that I mean he didn't post Colton Wong numbers but this was such a high bar

to clear yeah right this was really bad though and to put his poor slugging into perspective here. 2009, Brennan Ryan had a higher slugging percentage than 2023, Thai France. Uniowski Betancourt had multiple seasons with a higher slugging percentage than 366.

So that's how bad Thai France was. That's not at all what you want out of a first baseman. You can get away with a 366 slugging percentage at other positions, but not first base, not first base whatsoever. And I don't care in the slightest about first base defense. I don't care how good he was or how bad. he was or whatever.

I don't care about that at first base. I need offensive output. I need power output, most preferably. And France provided neither, really. He wasn't able to, like, he didn't display, like, Ty France has to be a smart hitter at the plate. He has to make intelligent swing decisions. He has to have a concise approach because he likes. in other areas like bat speed,

which I think is one of the reasons that he's going to drive line this off season is to hopefully improve his bat speed like J.P. Crawford did last off season. But he's never going to have elite bat speed, even if he does make improvements on that front. So he has to have a solid game plan whenever he steps to the plate, and it looks like he just completely lost that this season, which is not normal for him. Ty France has in the past been a very intelligent,

hitter. But this year, it just seemed, especially once things really started to snowball for him, it just seemed like he was trying to hit his way out of it. And it was making things worse. And like you said, it just looked like he was guessing. And Ty France is not the type of hitter that can just guess on pitches. He can't. He cannot get away with that. He what really makes this disappointing, though, and I think he mentioned this. I don't know. We've done, again, we've done this segment like three times today. So I don't know if you mentioned it in this recording or the other one, but you got off to a really good start. You know, the first couple weeks of the season, he was slashing 339,

423, 500. That's 164 WSC Plus. He obviously had the game winning three-run, home run against the Guardians on opening night. It looked like, all right, after the injuries and everything that happened in 2022 and how poor his second half of 2022 went, it looked like, all right, Ty France is back.

Great. This is awesome. Like the top of the order, Thai France is here. We got that guy. And then it just all fell apart. And he was just never really able to get back there. I mean, there were a couple of glimpses here and there, you know, just a couple of weak stretches or like a one week stretch where he was pretty good, pretty efficient, was able to help them out offensively. But overall, we're now at basically a year and a half where we have data that mostly says that Thai France is a below average hitting first basement.

Like WRC Plus will say otherwise, but well, WRC plus is like the all-encompassing offensive stat. It's also not perfect. And it's not all WRC plus totals are created equal. It's not adjusted by position. So. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, yeah, it was a bad year for Thai France across the board. The Mariners have to have to do better there. I think they are going to try and run it back with him. I can wrap my head around them thinking like, yeah, he might bounce back.

That's fully fine because we've seen what a good Thai France can be and what a good Thai France can do for this lineup. But they need to protect themselves. They absolutely need to protect themselves this offseason in case he does or he's unable to take that step forward because, again, we have about a year and a half worth of data here that says that he's this guy rather than the Thai france that we saw once he, you know, shortly after he came over from San Diego. The Mariners overall at first base this year had the 16th highest or most WRC plus at first base.

They were 23rd, however, in an F4 at first base position. That's just not good enough. It's not good enough if you're a team that's contending for a division and a world series and all that stuff, if that's your goal. So, yeah, again, they have to do better there. Or at least they have to protect themselves in case France is, is not ultimately the answer there. We're going to talk about Mike Ford, who also shared some time over at first base,

mostly DH for the Mariners and save the Mariners from a historically bad DH situation in 2023. We're going to go over his season, give him a grade in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you by Fandwell. October baseball is back, folks, and you can make your postseason debut with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook.

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So head on over to fandual.com slash locked on right now. step up to the plate this postseason with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Make every moment more with Fandul official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Colby, we are now in uncharted waters. This is the furthest we've gotten in this recording. So we're on to new stuff.

We're on to stuff that is new to us. Fingers crossed that it stays that way. It's been a while since we've experienced technical difficulties. But for most of our listeners here, you know that Lockdown Mariners is. synonymous with technical issues. So it was, it was, we were due.

We were due to say the least. All right. So Mike Ford, he signed a minor league deal with Mariners last off season. He's been with the organization like four times. And, you know, he was someone that we talked about like,

hey, yeah, we might see Mike Ford for like a week or two or something like that. And, you know, he eventually got called up. And he was able to stick for the rest of the year. Had a great start to the year down in Tacoma. was able to make his way onto the roster,

especially with, you know, the issues that the mirrors were having with Tommy Lestella and Cooper Hummel, none of that worked out. None of those things worked out. Dylan Moore was obviously, you know, still rehabbing from injury, etc. Ford ended up slashing 228, 323, 475.

That's a 123 WRC plus. He was worth 0.6F4, 16 home runs. A couple of those being big-time home runs for the mirrors. 34 RBI, 32.3% strikeout rate. That's not good at all. 9.6% walk rate, however. Considering that, like, he signed a minor league deal,

you know, you're not really expecting anything of that. I feel like you kind of have to give him a nay because he was actually able to contribute. And he was, you know, at times, one of the bigger parts of this offense, which probably says more about this offense, the Mike Ford. But, like, he helped.

in some pretty big ways at times this year. So I think I have to give Mike Ford an A. Nobody gets an A this year. They miss the playoffs, except for one person, and we'll talk about that when we get there. We already gave Cal Raleigh an A minus. That's not an A.

Yeah. So Mike Ford does not get an A because he missed the playoffs like everybody else. But, I mean, is it relative to expectation than like, yeah, A minus, because, you know, he was a minor league free agent. Nobody cared. Is it relative to how he actually performed?

Then it's probably a B. You know, he did have some strikeout issues. He did have long stretches where he was, you know, pretty unusable. He also had stretches where he was, you know, the guy you kind of won it up in a big spot. So we'll always have the Fourth of July game, you know. But, yeah, Ford was. was pretty darn good, pretty important. You kind of caught lightning in a bottle.

Do they want to try and run it back? We'll talk about that, I'm sure, in a second. But yeah, Ford was solid. He was exactly what you needed when he needed him to be. And then, you know, unfortunately, you didn't do a very good job of making him replaceable. And in fact, you got so little production from other places in the lineup that he was essential. to be in your lineup pretty much every day. So again, that says more about the Mariners than it does Mike Ford.

But Ford was really solid. He's a solid addition, you know, provided you with exactly what you needed. So yeah, you know, B, B plus, maybe A minus. So, yeah, he was a really solid player. And I hope they don't need him next year. But we'll see what their plan is. Yeah, we'll talk about that in just a moment. but yeah the mariner's dh situation was a disaster to start the year again it was mostly cooper hummel

and tommy lestella filling out that role for about the first month of the season we all know how that went can't believe that didn't work yeah uh the the mariners ended up finishing with a 92 w rc plus from their dh spot which uh was let me sort here real quick it was 23rd and it major league baseball and their d h f war was negative point one which is 22nd in major league baseball uh and that's a significant improvement from where they were because uh ford i mean we just listed the numbers ford was pretty good and yet they were still unable to finish with a positive f war at the d h spot and ford was up for the majority of the year or two uh uh I think it was from what end of May until the end of the season.

And yeah, again, they were not able to finish with a league average WRC plus or a positive F4 from their D.H spot, which should put things into perspective how bad that spot was for this team to start the year. But Ford was a, was a blessing at the end of the day. And yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately, fortunately, whatever, however you want to look at it, ended up and one of the Mariners like five best hitters this year, which again probably says more about the mayor's offense than the Mike Ford himself. But, you know, props to Ford for coming up and being a big piece of this thing

and helping the help of the Mariners in a spot that was just an utter disaster for them. Speaking of which, we're going to be talking about that spot a little bit more here in terms of what it's going to look like in 2024. Are they going to rotate guys through that spot? Are they going to run it back? back with Mike Ford. Are they going to go out and get a full-time DH? We'll talk about all that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown-Ares podcast is brought to you by Jace Medical.

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Save more than $360 by getting these life-saving antibiotics with Jace Medical, plus an additional $20 off by using the promo code Lockedon at checkout on jacemedical.com. That's J-A-S-E medical.com. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. So as we just went over, the Mariners' DH situation in 2023 was abysmal

until Mike Ford arrived. And even, you know, he at times had some struggles. He had some stretches where he was not particularly good, but overall was able to keep the Mariners mostly afloat in that respect. But do the Mariners want to do something

different at that spot? We know that they and most teams in major league baseball prefer to rotate multiple guys through the dh they like to keep that spot open so they can use it to give guys a rest that usually play in the field or what have you right um unless you have a yordaun alvarez or a jd martinez or someone like that you're you're rotating multiple guys through the d h um so do we think that the mariners are going to going to try and go that route again they tried to do that last year with Tommy lestella and Cooper Hummel, which, no, thank you.

Not again. No, never again. No, no. Just don't even think about it. Or do we think they're going to run with a full-time DH? Whether that be Mike Ford, who's due or is projected to make a million and a half dollars in arbitration this winter, or do we think they're going to go outside the organization? Obviously, Shohei Otani would be the biggest answer here, but let's live in reality here.

do we think that they might go after another full-time DH, maybe someone like J.D. Martinez, someone else like Jorge Soler. I know you really like him. What do you think is, what do you think they're going to do this offseason? Jorge Saler is the answer. He's better than Otani. That's right. I said it.

No, so the Mariners have really not shown any interest whatsoever in having a full-time DH, even when it's kind of been in their interest. Remember how often they ran Domingo Santana out there in right field in 2019 and, you know, how quick they were to ditch Daniel Vogelbach and all that stuff. Like they, they haven't really been interested in running with a full-time DH, you know, since Nelson Cruz left, which, you know, I get, remember, depoto inherited Nelson Cruz. And, you know, you're not going to not start that guy every day. So I would imagine it's something like that. But at the end of the day, you cannot have the production you had last year from that spot again. Can't have it.

So, you know, what do I think they're going to do? I think they would really like their first and second options would be, you know, we have the extra outfielder for the day. He is dehing, which is kind of what they wanted to do last year with Pollock. And then Pollock just sucked, you know, and so, yeah, I think that is what they would prefer to do. but they can't just ignore full-time DH-only types like they have in the past. If Jorge Saler is the best bat you can get, you sign Jorge Saler, and you put them out in left field 15 times a year when you have to, and you just ride the offense, right?

If the best you get is J.D. Martinez, that's the best bat you can get, then you put J.D. Martinez in the D.H. spot and you ride it out. Like, you have to get production from that spot. Ideally, you get it with somebody who, can play, you know, a position. It's not a full-time DH. But at the end of the day, you can't just be like, well, we care so much about leaving that DH spot open that like our primary DH entering the year is going to be, you know,

a 100 WRC plus guy. You know, even that. And while that would be an upgrade over Tommy Lestela and Cooper Hummel on that plan, it's still not a good plan. It doesn't make it okay. You need legit, you need excess production from that DH spot. So can it be some combination of Kellnick and Canzon, you know, and a better, a good veteran? Sure, it can.

Could it be some combination of, you know, an infielder who, you know, can also play third and first and do all that? Yes, you can do that still. It could be, you know, but it's the best you could do is Jock Peterson. And you don't want Peterson playing in the field. Fine, I get it. But you don't really have a choice. You have to get. offensive production from that spot, period, end of story.

How you do it ultimately should be secondary. You have to have production from your DH spot. You have to have production from first base. You have to have production from third base. The Mariners got production from zero of those spots this year. That cannot be the case next year. And if that means the best you can do is, well, you know, I don't want to give Jorge Salar three years and $50 million because he's just a

DH, but I really believe in the bat. I guess you just suck it up and you live with it. and you figure it out from there. And I don't know, Hans Oler, first base glove a little bit. I don't know what to tell you, but you have to get production. And your production can't be like, well, we hope this 38 year old coming off of injuries is just going to be good again. Yeah. It can't be that.

Yeah. I mean, Jerry de Poto got on the show told us like Tommy Lestell is coming off with two Achilles injuries. But yeah, like he's, we believe in him. After three bad years of two Achilles injuries. And then, you know, we get told. about the elbow thing and whatever. Now I'm just ranting about Tommy Lassela. And Tommy Lassela is catching strays on the show.

But here's why I stand on the DH. I also prefer to just leave that spot open and rotate guys through that. That's the ideal situation. But if you don't have enough depth where it makes sense to do that, where your options there are, you know, Tommy Lestella and Cooper Hummel and A.J. Pollock, then you just don't do that. You go out and get yourself a full-time DH. I said this last year, turn the off.

season when it was shaping up to look how it ended up looking like you're not deep enough to utilize that strategy so if the mirrors are not like i sam hargurdy was getting dh reps towards the end of the season he started half the games at d h down the stretch in the last 10 games with your season on the line sam haggerty was the d h yeah no you can't do that what do we can't do that so at that point yeah at that point yeah you explore porre soler and you explore J.D. Martinez and you explore all these guys do it right away anyways, but sure. I mean, yeah, just build your roster that way then. Like, whatever. Just jump the gun on it and just, like, if you don't think that you're going to go out and get, you know, three new starters that are

going to push the rest of the guys down into more, you know, bench rolls or utility rolls or whatever, or you're going to go out and spend, you know, some money on, you know, improving your bench in general, uh, then just go out and just jump the gun immediately and just do it. Just go get J.D. Martinez, go get Jorge Salaric. Go trade for a guy. That is primarily a DH. Yeah. The one thing you absolutely cannot do is what the Mariners did last year. And that is when the music stopped, they were without a chair. They didn't, they didn't die for the last chair. They waited. They waited. They, oh, the market will come to us. The market will come to us. And it never did. And that's how you end up with Tommy Lestela and Cooper Hummel is your primary DH in a year in which you

thought you could win the World Series. Like, you can't do that. So, that means you have to jump the gun a little bit. And, you know, maybe it's, well, I don't, this is the last guy on the market. And, well, I think he's only worth $12 million. Like, after this, we're getting into the, you know, A.J. Pollock range. Like, I'll give him 14 and I'll secure that, that bat. Like, you can't be left without a chair again. Like, it's critically important.

The Mariners need offensive production from first, third, and DH this year. You can't just bring back those three guys who failed last year and be like, well, this year, they'll be better. You can't do that. So you have to, you have to have somebody there. Like you can't be left standing at the altar. You need production from this spot. And if that means that you have to early on in the process, look at the market and go like, I think our best bet to get production out of the spot is just to go with a full-time DH type, then you do it.

Yeah. I mean, hell, if you bring back Teo, let Teo be more of the full-time D-H. I mean, you can play them in the field sometimes. but like you know ideally you don't want him playing in the play like in the outfield in the playoffs you know or jock peterson but sure sure i mean just don't be afraid to do that right that's the point of saying this especially if you're not going to build the depth that is necessary to have you know the ability to rotate guys through the d h because there really is a very obvious situation where it just doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense

at all to do that, like last year. So if you find yourself in that spot or you just think that you're going to end up in that spot, you know, if you just foresee that's probably going to be the case and Dillamore and Sam Harherty might still factor into the roster. God, I hope not. But like if that, you know, if that's where you think that you're going to end up, then just jump the gun and just go get the bat. At the end of the day, you need bats. This is what you said last week when we talked about the biggest needs for this team is, yeah, I mean, they have positions that they do need to fill. But at the end of the day, they just need bats.

They need offensive production. So just go get the best bats you possibly can get this winter. You need basically the D.H should be an excess bat, a guy who's an everyday player that you don't quite know where to put him, you know, in the eight positions out on the field. So you go, okay,

well, today I'll put him here and then I'll move that guy to D.H. And then, you know, but like it doesn't really matter what the guy's primary position is. Like, if Mitch Garver is like the best bat you can get, then you just get Mitch Garver and he's your backup catcher.

slash first base slash DH. The Rangers have done it. Like, you just roll with that. And that doesn't mean you can't. Three catchers on their roster. Right. And that doesn't mean you can't just sign Tom Murphy to be the backup too.

It's fine. It doesn't matter what position that guy plays. Yeah, the Rangers have John. They have Austin Hedges and they have Mitch Carver. And like where they are right now. Like, right,

it's fine. You can make it work. You can care, especially because this year, the Mariners clearly don't want to carry 13 position players. Very clearly they don't. They don't use that last guy ever. on their bench.

They never use them. So why do you care of that guy's a catcher if he can hit? Like, why do you care about carrying two catchers on the bench if all three can hit a little bit? Which if you went Garber, Murphy and Raleigh, they can all hit. So you can rotate them through and DH and play first bait and all that stuff. Well, and generally speaking to, and this goes back to our conversation that we had yesterday about Gino Suarez and how much he played and how much Ty Francis played and how much Teo played this past year. Like, you need to build better depth. So you're not forcing those guys.

Because like, like, like obviously I do blame Scott's service on that. But I also don't blame him in the sense that like, yeah, the guys that he did force to play so much probably gave him the best chance to win on most nights. So like there weren't really better options on the bench either. Yeah.

Like why would you criticize a guy for not being so super, you know, like, oh, I've got to go use Tommy Lestella. Like it's hard to blame him when that's his other option. When it's still and more versus Tommy Lestella or when it's, Sam Haggurty versus, you know, pick whatever bum they called up from AAA for the day.

Like, you're going to go with the better player. So it just, it didn't work. Like there. And again, and I think we even said this last year, Tommy Lestella was most certainly not plan A for the D.H or plan B or plan C. But they got caught. They got caught. They got caught. Trying to wait for the price to get exactly where they wanted to. And they were like, oh, we can't have a full-time DH.

So we're not even going to consider J.D. Martinez or anybody like that. And they got caught. And it bit them, you know, well, it bit them, you know, where. And it's a big part of the reason why they're watching the playoffs right now instead of participating in them. So they can't do it again. Lestello definitely wasn't playing A. Brandon Belt was one of the plans before that. We know that.

I think he's even outright said that it was down to Toronto and Seattle. Not sure about that. But I think I heard something about that. that would be interesting but I'd been told about Brandon Belt last off season you know I had to heard that you know from people in Toronto as well

and I think that's probably someone that they look at again even though that he ran some pretty high strikeout rates again this year but he had a lot of success as well in Toronto this year and he's in the free agent market again yeah he can play some first base as well so that that not only covers your bases

on the DH front but it also covers your bases in case Thai France takes a step back like we talked about earlier in this show. So I would keep an eye on Branden Belt. We know how much that Jerry and Justin love to circle back on guys that they've targeted in the past. And Brandon Belt was apparently someone that they did have their sights on last off season. Just go get Jorge Salare. He's awesome.

Sure. I'm totally down with that. That's not what you said. I mean, he does feel like one of those high variants, right-handed power bats, you know, that do tend to struggle when they get to Seattle. But interesting. Hey, how many balls did Jorge Salare slice through the Marine layer when they came to Seattle? Oh, like three. Oh, yeah, that's interesting.

Okay. I'm not necessarily worried about the Marine layer. I'm worried about the high strike. Rides can't hit in T-Mobile. That's a myth that's been proven. Yep. Right. Never mind Nelson Cruz.

Like, ignore him. Right. Right. Or Mitch Hanager. You know, not him either. Right. But not Gino last year. You know, but all the other Rides, they can't hit at T-Mobile.

park. Gino in 2023. Gino in 2022. Gino in 2022. It was pretty good. Gino in 2022, that offensive profile with Gino's glove from 2023 is like a four and a half five one player. Oh yeah.

Yeah. So like that's an all star. Whatever. No, Julio Rodriguez can't hit a team old apart. Whatever. Right hand bad. You should probably trade him for Lars Neupar. He's a lefty.

He'll hit better because of the ballpark. Yeah. Exactly what I said. totally a thing. Yep, we're in agreement. All right. That's going to do it for a show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast.

Colby Pat Node. I'm Tad de Nogas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-N-U-N-Rer-N-Rer. You can follow me at Dan G-N-G-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pod11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first. Listen and have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time.

Peace.