Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Let's Talk About the FUTURE of the Seattle Mariners' Front Office

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Ty and Colby weigh the pros and cons of the Mariners' current front office and determine how the team should proceed.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!AmazonThis Back To School Season, spend less on your kids, with Amazon. With Amazon’s low Back To School Prices, just spend less on your kids. Because every dollar you don’t spend on them, is a dollar you haven’t spent on them. Clutch ParlaysGo to https://ClutchParlays.com today and use code LOCKEDON for your first month free on a monthly plan. Pick Smarter. Parlay Sharper. StanceCheck out the ICON collection from Stance—premium comfort, performance, and durability designed for whatever your day brings. Use promo Code LOCKEDON at checkout for 20% off your purchase.  Learn more at https://Stance.com.Stance. The Official Sock Partner of Major League Baseball.Dose DailyReady to give your liver the support it deserves? Head to https://DoseDaily.co/LOCKEDONMLB or enter LOCKEDONMLB to get 35% off your first subscription.  5-Hour ENERGYGet candy-flavored chaos with Fruity Rainbow 5-hour ENERGY®️ Shots - available online at https://5hourENERGY.com or Amazon Clutch ParlaysGo to https://ClutchParlays.com today and use code LOCKEDON for your first month free on a monthly plan. Pick Smarter. Parlay Sharper.  KALSHIFor a limited time, Download the Kalshi app and use code [LOCKEDON] to get $10 when you trade $10.  GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COMto play Daily Dingers and make your free pick on who’s hitting a homer this MLB season.  FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Should the Marriers make changes in their front office? Away it all coming up. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariner's podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors, it is Thursday, September 3rd, 2026. My name is Tading Gonzalez, and I'm joined as always by my co-coast.

Colby Patnode. This episode is brought to you by Fandul. College football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited. And this season, FanDuel is. Fan duel is given fans even more ways to get in on every matchup. Join all the action at fanduel.com. On today's show, we're going to weigh the pros and cons of the front office as well as what firing them and keeping them would mean.

And then after we do that, we're going to give you our final verdict. But let's start with the pros of this front office, specifically Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander, Colby. What are those? Yeah, you know, I think first and foremost, the big feather in their cap is that this front office has been drought enders. They ended the 21-year playoff drought in 2022. They ended the divisional title drought in 2025,

and they pushed this team further down the line than any other team in the history of the franchise. So we could talk about, you know, what that says about the franchise, you know, in totality, but this front office is not responsible for the first 40 years of the franchise. right so that's really not here nor there so at the end of the day this team or this front office has provided two of the best teams in franchise history arguably the best team if you just want to go by how close they got to the world series they've ended two massive playoff related droughts and the question we're going to try and answer today is do they deserve more time to try and end the biggest drought that hangs over this franchise the drought of never making it to or winning a world series

But at the end of the day, if we're judging them based on where they are right now, this team has ended two significant droughts in the last five years and push this team further than any team has gone. And at the end of the day, that's what we care about. So if we're going to start with the pros, we should start with the fact that no front office has gotten this team further along the path towards the ultimate goal than the current one. And they did it by breaking a couple of really long 20 plus year droughts. And furthermore, and this matters more to ownership than it does the fan base, but it's a very important piece to this. They have been highly competitive every single year since 2021. Now we'll see about this year.

We'll see if they can still stay in the mix of things here over the course of this month of September. But since 2021, they have been one of the more consistent teams than the entire American League in terms of just being right there on the doorstep. And sometimes actually making it into the playoffs, you're late into the season. You know, for ownership specifically, Jerry Depoto and Justin Hollander have done the thing that really matters most to that ownership group. And that's keep butts and seats, especially late into the year, keep interest in the Seattle Mariners at a relatively high level pretty consistently throughout the course of the season. And we've seen the attendance numbers, especially as of late as well. That's a big part of this thing. You know, the other thing, too, is like they were able to turn around a rebuild way quicker than most teams typically do,

especially going into the type of rebuild that the Mariners decided to go into after the 2018 season. It took two years for them to get back into a competitive window, even though that 2021 kind of look back on that. It's pretty fluky, but they won 90 games. You know, that happened. right there's no taking that away from that club and then obviously the next year they they pay that off with within the drought you know so they have built a consistent contending playoff contending team have they gotten there more often than not no but that's the fact of the matter right and i i think you know as is the it's the overwhelming or like the overhanging point to all this is is, is that you have to factor in the ownership group. A, what does ownership care about? And B, how good of or how supportive of a group is the ownership group to the current front office?

And I think you and I would both say they've not been a supportive group to this front office. We know several times they've told this front office that, hey, your budget for this upcoming year is this. And then two or three weeks later, right before the start of free agency or sometimes after free agency has started, they've come back and said, actually it's 20% less than that or it's 10% less than that and they've ripped the rug right out from under them. So we always do have to keep that factor in mind. We're not going to mention it consistently, but ownership does obviously play a role here, both in like, are they likely to keep their jobs? And also like, hey, here are the things that they don't do well.

How much of that is a reflection on ownership? How many other people would do well with the current ownership group? That is a part of always. Exactly. That brings me to really the biggest con that I have with the idea of firing them, which is, if you bring in another group, are they going to have the same issues that this group does, while also running the risk that you are going to lose some of the things

that this front office is good at? Sure. We'll get to that later. But speaking of things the front office is good at, and one of the things you'd be afraid to lose, the draft and develop system. I mean, the Mariners are by just about anybody's accounting, one of the top five-ish organizations in baseball,

when it comes to identifying talent in the draft and developing them into big leaguers and valuable trade chips. And the Mariners have done this twice. They have more or less completely rebuilt their farm system twice with this run office once obviously the first rebuild in 2019, the winter of 2018 into 2019. And it took two years. And by then they graduated Kellnick. They graduated Gilbert. They graduated Kyle Lewis. They graduated Evan White.

Again, some of these guys didn't work. And then the following year they graduated Kirby and Wu and Miller and Julio, like in Cal Rale. So there was a big influx of young talent added in 21, 22, 23. And then there was a dip when all that talent graduated. There was a dip. Your farm system ranking went down a little bit. But it didn't stay down all that long because the Mariners went out and they drafted and developed or they signed an international free agency, Arroyo and Laz.

And, and Cade and Sloan and Emerson and Young. And we're already seeing some of those guys at the big league level contributing right now. And there's still a good amount of talent left in the farm system that is still developing. So this is a team that has twice in 2018, when they decided to rebuild, they had pretty consensus the worst farm system in baseball. By the next year, they had one of the five best. And then they graduated. They traded a lot of good players as well. And they got good pieces back.

We'll talk about that a minute. And there was a dip, and they rebuilt it again. And again, it only took two drafts for them to get back into the top 10. And right now, I think even the most conservative of, you know, scouting, you know, circles would say the Mariners are about a top 10 farm system. That's with the graduation of Colt Emerson, who most people agreed was a top 10 prospect in all of baseball. And now they've taken Cade out of that farm system. They've taken Lazz out of that farm system. And it's still a good, solid.

farm system and the early returns on their draft picks this year, by the way, very good. So, yeah, this is a team that, you know, however you want to phrase it, however you want to, whatever line that you want to use, the demarcation line here, this is a team that has been, or it's the front office that has put together a team that is consistently ranked very high in drafting and developing, identifying international talent counts will count that as drafting, but the amateur game and then developing them into pros who have either trade value or help your major league team, this front office is one of the best in baseball at doing that. And that is a very real thing, particularly if you're going to be, play this mid-market game

with your payroll, that process is extremely important. And this front office has proven that they can nail that more often than not. A lot of fans still weigh the first part of Jerry DePoto's tenure heavily, the pre-rebuild part of his tenure against him, where, you know, he, you know, he's, He inherited just an absolute mess of a situation from Jack Sorenzic in that regime where there was so much money tied up into really like four players. Ownership didn't want to move payroll any further than that. And they had the worst farm system in baseball for him to potentially trade from. The avenues for him to go down to acquire talent were very few and far between.

And that led to frankly some of the worst trades in franchise history, you know, the Freddie Peralta, trade, the Chris Taylor trade, all that. But really, it hasn't been since then that the Mariners have made a trade, especially in the post-rebuild world, or post-rebuild era, I should say, where the Marines have made a trade, and in hindsight, the return that they gave up in that trade

just absolutely killed them. Like, they have obviously made plays. plenty of trades in the post-rebuild era that haven't worked out. But in terms of giving up that that top prospect that turns into a six, seven, eight-win player or anything, like that hasn't happened, right? They haven't had a Freddie Peralta situation. They haven't had a Pablo Lopez situation. They haven't had, and I just use this for the sake of the example, not that this was a bad

trade because obviously they got Gene Seguera and Mitch Hanigur in the deal and that, you know, and Cigaro eventually led to J.P. Crawford, but they haven't had it, they haven't given up a Catele Marte. Right, which hilariously is, you know, arguably one of Jerry's better trades, but we're not here to talk about that today. That's probably a conversation for the offseason because, but yeah, this is a team that's been still aggressive in the trade market, still makes a lot of trades relative to their, to their peers. They make trade for impact players, obviously Donovan, Polanco, Gino, Wink, Naylor, Gino again. Like they're not afraid to make those

Randy or Rosarena, Justin Turner. Like they're not afraid to make these big impact trades. And they're still swinging big. And they just haven't given up that prospect. That makes you just like, man,

I wish they never would have made that trade. When they miss small. And when they hit, they've traditionally hit pretty big in the trades. And that is something, again, under the lens of ownership, this is going to be a mid-market payroll.

you have to be really good at two things. You have to be really good at trades and you have to be really good at drafting and developing. You have to do those things well. And this front office does those things well. The trades they make are usually really good and more importantly, they're a sound process. You understand the thinking.

You can follow the logic line to the logical conclusion. And very rarely do they give something up that we're like, yeah, that's a lot. Like, no, typically it's like, okay, yeah, that feels about right. they don't overpay. And that's kind of an important thing. Again, when you have the limitation that this front office does.

So I think when you're looking at the pros overall of this front office, I think it's the resume of ending droughts. I think it's the consistent competitive nature of the ball club over the last six years. The high hit rate of the draft and developed team, the scouting director, the player development ops, that's been a hit with changes, by the way, to the player development. situation and they're still producing. So that's key.

And obviously they're very good at making these trades and they make good smart trades, good savvy trades. And they do this all under the umbrella of not having that supportive of an ownership group overall. So I think when you're building the case of the pros for this front office, I think that those are probably the biggest pros that we have to offer. And they're pretty good. They're pretty good.

Any other pros before we move on? I mean, there's always like, little things. But no, I think we hit the big things there. And I think it's a fair case. And I think it's a compelling case. But we do have to talk about the other shoe because that is maybe an even more compelling case or at least an equally compelling case as to why or as to, you know, what this front

office doesn't do well. So we're going to get into that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the lockdown era's podcast is brought to you by Amazon. This back to school season, spend less on your. kids with Amazon. We all know how crazy the back-to-school shopping experience can be. It starts with a few items on the list. Then suddenly you're shopping for supplies and clothes and lunch gear and tech and about 10 other things you didn't see coming. It adds up fast. Like when your kids spends days planning the perfect first day of school outfit because they want to make

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because every dollar you don't spend on them is a dollar you haven't spent on them. shop back to school at Amazon and spend less on your kids. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariner's podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you so much for making us your first listen for all things, Mariners. And also thank you for making the lockdown the number one sports podcast network. So we just went over the pros of the Mariners Front Office.

Now let's get into the cons of the Mariners Front Office. There are quite a few that I want to get into. I think we need to start, though, with, you know, our biggest criticism personally of the front office. And that's the moves that they don't make. We like the moves that they that they do make for the most part. We understand the process of them. We more often than not agree with the process behind them.

However, this team, this organization, this front office specifically, has failed to put the cherry on top of some things. And then in the off seasons, I mean, they're off seasons for the most part, since the lockout off season have been mostly lethargic and they have

gone out to the media and said we want to add X, Y, and Z and then they do some of those things but not all of those things. Like this previous off season, for example, where they're like, we want to go out and we want to get a couple of relievers they went out, they got for rare, they didn't get another one though. No.

Same thing at the deadline. Hey, you know, ideally, you know, it gets reported and this coming from Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander or at least one of them. It was reported the morning of the deadline. They feel confident that they're going to be able to land at least one reliever. Ideally, they would like to land two.

Instead, they got none. We've talked about this almost every single deadline that they just haven't been able to put that cherry on top. Yon-Duran is probably the biggest one of them all, though. Sure. we should note that, A, based on some things we've heard recently, I'm not mad that they didn't give up the package it would have taken to get Duran, but whatever, their pivot was still Caleb Ferguson.

You know, so here's, actually that those are two cons built into one. The first one is, like you mentioned, the one that we hate the most, is that they always just kind of leave a little bit on the table. Like they needed this to push them over the top. They won't go do it. They don't find a way to figure it out. and get it done. And I mentioned this at the last deadline.

And it's from Casey Bellin, who's a Mariners content creator part time. You mentioned, you know, this front office, they don't pay for the last eight outs. They don't pay that little bit over the top, maybe in prospect capital, maybe a little bit in money to go and build the team that's capable of getting those last eight outs

that you needed to go to the World Series. They fall short. The moves they do make, they're good, but they need to make more of them. And this has been really a consistent theme for us, I mean, really, since the 22 deadline, they got Castillo. That's great. Home run.

And then they followed it up with Casale, Lamb, and Boyd. And it's like, you kind of needed like that, that you needed somebody in between those two groups. You need somebody between Castillo and the bench guys. You need to add that guy in the middle. The 23 deadline, they traded Paul Seewald. Okay, that's fine. Can you follow it up with a veteran outfielder or something? Like, again, we're not asking for them to win every deadline.

And probably the closest they came was the 24 deadline where they got Randy. But then they also got Turner and they got Garcia. But if you remember, that was coming off and off season where they really didn't do anything except for Jorge Polanco. And even that was, I believe, what, late February, early February before they got that done. And like you mentioned last winter with the relievers, they fell one short. Like you mentioned, you know, at the deadline last year, they fell a reliever short. Like you mentioned this winter, pretty much felt like it was Donovan or bust. And thankfully they did get that done.

Unfortunately, didn't really work because of the injuries. But still, like you said, it's the moves that they make. They're good. Like typically we like them. We understand the process.

And even though we don't love the player, we understand like, okay, this is what they're going for. That makes sense. That's a good fit. Blah, blah, blah,

blah. But it's the moves that they don't make. And the moves that they kind of leave on the table. And this is kind of part of a third thing that we'll get to in a minute here. That really sting. And the other thing you mentioned there is this front office, not the best communicators to the fan base. Hollander is good, but he doesn't like to talk all that much, which is fine.

And Jerry has a tendency to overshare. And we know that Jerry is also pretty convinced that he's the smartest guy in the room. And he's not afraid to, you know, it almost comes off condescending when he tries to explain things. The 54% fiasco, it comes to mind. and you know oh well the market just didn't break our way after you promised or this is what we want to do and then two months later it's like oh you know what do we it's not our fault the market didn't go our way but she laid out those expectations Jerry and that's the problem this front office is they're poor communicators with with the fan base I mean let's just let's just call it for what it is the mayor's front office specifically Jerry Depoto on a couple of instances as unnecessarily embarrassed the franchise and the fan base yes like on a national scale, specifically the 54% thing is what comes to mind there. Right. And it's just, again, and it was not just that.

It was then the kind of condescending like, oh, well, people who know Ball know what we were talking about. And it's like, Jerry, no, that that's not, you can't insult the fan base. And again, I think obviously since then, Jerry's really stepped back from the, from the media. And, and Justin's been asked to do it. And when Justin does do it, he's very good at it. But he doesn't do it often. And he's not comfortable with it right now.

So this front office, they kind of don't have that guy who can step up and say like, hey, this is what our plan is. This is what we hope to have happened. And when they do, you know, kind of leak those things through the local beat riders, they come up short a lot. So not only are they poor communicating with the fans, they also consistently set the bar here and then fail to reach it because they publicly set it up here.

And again, some of that is, is ownership related, I'm sure. But the simple fact of the matter is, is you tell people you're going to get X, Y, and Z, and then you only get X. They're going to think you failed. And so that comes down to poor communication skills as well. So, yeah, the fact that they consistently feel like they're a couple pieces short after every transition period and the fact that they either sound condescending at times or they're talking down to the fan base or they promise this and then they under deliver instead of. under promise and over-deliver it. Like there's just poor communication skills. That makes it, I think,

for a lot of the fan base, it makes it hard to trust these guys. Yeah. Going back to roster build related issues, I mean, another major issue that we've had with this front office is that they leave too many things up in the air, that they bank on this has to go right, this has to go right, this has to go right, and if that happens, then we'll get to where we all,

want to go. And a big part of this is ownership and the financial limitations that are on this front office. We do need to acknowledge that. But still, you know, you look at other teams across the league that have and other front offices across the league that have even lower payrolls and they haven't had issues with some of the things that this mayor's front office has had issues with, specifically building depth, building out a bench, building out a bench, building out a,

deeper bullpen all those kinds of things yeah exactly yeah they're not good at it they're not and like the one time that they've had like a pretty good bench they kind of just stumbled into it and they've tried to recreate that but they have

they've never really actually like invested into the bench until like maybe they've pushed some guys down into bench rolls like right now like Taylor Ward has kind of been pushed down into more of a part time bench-ish role.

I mean, Taylor Ward's been bad, but you get what I'm saying. Like that's a, you know, typically a legitimate player. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like Luke Rayleigh needed to be more of a pure bench role instead. He was an everyday player, more or less. And the players that they have invested in in the bench are one-dimensional older players that just have not worked out at all. You talk about AJ Pollock, you talk about the Mitch Garvers.

You talk about him Garber ended up being fine because he could catch a little bit. Well, Garber wasn't intended to be, I mean, like, I guess the, year he was, but like, right, right. Yeah, Gower was supposed to be a middle of the order bat. Right, right,

right. Yeah. So maybe that's not fair, but Pollock, ref Snyder, like these guys who are literally brought in, Solano, these guys who are literally brought in to do one thing.

They have one skill set at their advanced stage. And when they don't do it or they struggle at it, the Mariners are screwed because they didn't anticipate that the 37-year-old might fall off the cliff, you know, and they don't have a backup plan for that. And that really has been a key frustration. And early on, they were able to get Haggerty on a minor league deal.

And they signed Dylan Moore to the minimum before he made his debut and all that. And they kind of accidentally fell into, not accidentally. That's not fair. But they went cheap on the bench and they found production from some guys on their bench. And that just led them to the idea that they could do that every year. Just not the case. And this year they tried it with Leo Rivas. How long were we screaming?

Go get Renhifo. Go get Castro. Go get any of these guys. And they said, no, we're going to trust Leo Rivas. And then what happened? JP got hurt at the end of spring or kind of in the middle of spring. Had to start the year on the IL. Rivas has to get thrown in there.

And then what happens shortly after that? Donovan goes on the IL. So now Rivas is still in the lineup. And he's playing every day. But that means you have somebody on your bench who is not prepared to help as a utility guy. So the Mariners are never prepared for that second injury. Like they think that only one injury at a time will happen. And that just hasn't been the case this year.

And we've seen them try Weston Wilson and Patrick Wisdom and Connor Joe. and they've gone through this list. It's because they are only willing to give these guys minor league deals. They're not willing to invest in the bench. They're not willing to invest real money or real prospect capital in, you know, part-time players or players who are like, you know, sixth inning types in the bullpen, seventh inning types. And so that leads to them, hey, let's try Davila. Let's try hoppy. We have to try, you know, Rucker and all of that.

And some of these guys have been fine. like they've hit to some degree, but not nearly enough of them. And they're always constantly chasing that. And like you said, you look at a team like the brewers. Okay, they have a good bench. They have like happier payroll. You look at the raise. They have a good bench.

You look at a team like the guardians. They always find a way to have some decent options off the bench and to have a deep bowlpin. So it's not like it's impossible with their payroll to do this. They're just not good at it. And part of that too is early on in the tenure. they were very good at identifying those minor league free agent arms and finding that seventh eighth any bullpen arm out of nowhere they haven't been good at that the last three years yeah that that's something that i wanted to make sure we mentioned before um you know we moved on is that they have significantly regressed in that regard and they have let some arms go that have that have gotten better i oh elsewhere you know again i i i talked about like how you know we haven't seen much of the whole like players get better once they leave seattle thing as of late but like that has been the case or that hasn't been true rather

with regards to some of these relievers like Drew Pomeran's left and he was really good for the Cubs last year. Tyson Miller they traded him DFAed him whatever and he went to and he went to the Cubs and he had a very productive season with them. Luke Weaver has

obviously turned into one of the better relievers in baseball since leaving the Mariners organization Riley O'Brien has turned into an all-star reliever since leaving the organization and they never even really gave him a shot when he was kind of led to believe that he was going to get a shot. There was plenty of opportunity to give him that shot. Yeah.

And this one, because like there was no room for him to start, but I'll still mention it anyway just because it has happened this year. Randy Dobnack left the organization. He's been one of the best starting pitchers statistically in baseball, you know, in the second half of the season. Sure.

That one I'll give him a little bit of credit. Yeah, I'll give them a pass on that. But still, like, that's another one. Right, right. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, when you, when you look at this, I think, I mean, kind of the one that a lot of people say is that they stink in free agency.

And they do. Don't get me wrong. They haven't had like a really good free agent hit since, I mean, what, Robbie Ray? And obviously some people would argue that wasn't a good free agent hit, even though he was very good in the one year that he was here and then he got hurt and blah, blah, blah, whatever. Not important. But they're not good in free agency.

But again, that one is almost certainly directly linked to the poor ownership group. So it's tough to know how they can't take the shots they want to take there because they don't have the ability to swing and miss. So they have to spend the $7 million on Rob Raff Snyder. They have to spend the $12 million on Garber because they can't go give, you know, Alex Breggman $28 million. They're not allowed. So but regardless, either way. They're not good at free agency. So I think when you're looking at the pro or at the cons of this front office,

is what they don't do well, poor communicators. They don't win on the margins. They've really struggled to identify cheap bench and bullpen talent at this level. They punt free agency pretty much every single winter, whether that's because they have to or not, whatever. And, yeah, they've lost the touch of identifying these arms that were insanely valuable to them and cheap, which led them to have more money to spend elsewhere on this ball club. So I think when you're looking, and, you know, I think maybe I'm sure somebody out there is screaming this right now. So I'll just mention it even though it's a little more complicated than I'm going to make it sound here.

Two playoff appearances in 11 years. At the end of the day, that's what they've done. And we can talk about contention all we want, but you have to make the playoffs. You have to pay those off and they haven't. So I think it's communication. It's the lack of interest in winning on the margins or the ability, inability to win on the margins. It's just two playoff appearances in 11 years. And it's sucking at free agency.

It's sucking at the 18 to 26 roster build there. And I think those are all very real tangible facts that we can sit here and say like this front office is not good at those things. And those are important things too. All right. So coming up, what would firing the front office look like? What would keeping them look like? what are some of the different ways they could do all of that? And then we'll give you our final verdict.

Should they say? Should they go? In just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by Fanduel and Kalshie. College football fans, it's time to put your knowledge to the test with college football pickem from Fanduel.

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forward slash control the zone link in the description of this episode. So let's talk a little bit about what keeping the front office would look like, what that would mean, and then what firing them would look like what that would ultimately mean and all that.

So you've talked a lot about obviously how the impending lockout complicates things because you know, once the World Series ends, you're going to have roughly a month to make some stuff happen before the lockout happens and then

we don't know how long the offseason will be once the lockout ends leading into whenever the regular season eventually begins in 2027. I think after the last lockout it was two weeks after the lockout ended spring training started. Yeah.

So. So here's what I wonder. Could the Mariners make some changes in the front office, but not all the changes, right? And what I mean by that is, could Jerry DePoto be fired

and Justin Hollander be promoted to president of baseball operations, and then he hires a GM either from within or from the outside, or do they just do away with the president of baseball operations role in general, and just Justin Hollander is the GM, and that's it. He calls the shots.

Or I guess the other thing here is does Jerry stay and Justin get fired and they hire a new GM? Or possibly, does Jerry get fired? They keep the president of baseball ops and they hire from outside the organization to fill that role. And Justin stays in his role. Obviously, a lot of variations here that could happen. But it is possible to have change in the front office without wholesale change. without, you know, just, you know, cleaning out the entire front office. Well, and especially with the uniqueness of this upcoming off season,

I wonder if the Mariners do, if ownership does want to make some sort of change. And maybe it's because they feel that Jerry and Justin are doing a bad job, or maybe it's just to kind of appease the fan base or whatever. Maybe, you know, maybe they could do that while also maintaining some continuity. as well and not having to take on this huge thing of having to rebuild maybe an entire front office depending on who wants to say and who wants to go and who they want to keep

and who they don't want to keep. All while trying to get a few things done before the lockout hits. Right. And specifically, if they do want to appease the fan base a little bit, I mean, firing Jerry DePoto, I think, would accomplish that because I think most people's issue is with Jerry.

Not really with Justin. I do see people that are like fire Justin, all that. They do love them in into that as well. But Jerry is kind of like public enemy number one here when it comes to the fat base.

Number two. I think Dan Wilson is cool. But yeah. Of the front office, yes. Of the front office, yes. I mean,

there's obviously like ownership is also there as well. But yeah. Yeah. It is really a kind of a precarious situation here because of the lockout that is part of it. And also,

you know, again, like a year ago, Well, I mean, a year ago at this time, the Mariners weren't in too dissimilar of shape. They weren't eight under 500, but they were, you know, three or four games out of a playoff spot. And then they won 17 of 18. So 11 months ago, 10 months ago, we wouldn't have even thought of having this conversation.

And are you really going to let one season in which Jerry and Justin actually built a team that most people in baseball agreed was one of the most talented teams in baseball? Like, is it their fault that they've all underperformed? No, but. people still have to pay for that, you know? And that just goes back to what you said at the end of the last segment. Two played off appearances in 11 years. And we saw this after 2022,

where you had the disappointment of 2023. You know, we had so many hopes going into 2023. Like, oh, you know, now we got a taste of the playoffs. Now let's go win the division and all that. And they weren't able to do that for, you know, two more seasons, right?

we had to go through two seasons of no playoffs before they finally won the division last year and frankly that took quite the run yeah yeah like they weren't really you know in prime position to go do that so like that's the other thing that we have to acknowledge here as well their two playoff appearances have been you know at least i mean yeah booed by like major win streaks or win streak in 2022 and winning 17 of 18 in September and last year. Exactly. Exactly. So even when they have gotten in,

it's taken something crazy in order for them to do that. So, yeah, it is one of those things. Like this is, this is a complicated situation. And I do think that the pros and the cons, each have really good,

you know, there's really good arguments to be made for, for firing Jerry and Justin, or maybe just Justin, or maybe just Justin. or whatever the variation is, right? Changes in the front office or no changes in the front office and you roll with it one more year. So I do think that is interesting.

I don't love the idea of firing somebody just to appease the fan base. I mean, Bobby Maggianis is sitting at home for no reason because of that idea. But that is, again, like we talk about a lot, may not be fair, but that's the reality of professional sports. That's the business you work in. People will get fired for, you know, silly reasons all the time. And like we just talked about in the last segment, there are legitimate reasons to question whether or not this,

this front office should continue to have jobs. So it's not even like it's that silly of a reason. So yeah, it really is an interesting situation. It is a difficult decision. And, you know, kind of for us, it's a different perspective as fans.

It's a different perspective for us because we care very much about the product at T-Mobile Park. That is what we care about. And because of our jobs and I think a lot of people, they also care about, you know, arm system because they understand that like hey that's going to be kind of how we sustain this and all that blah blah blah but ultimately we care about what's happening at team mobile park and and how many games

the mariners win whereas john stanton and chris larsen care very much much more about their bottom line and you know who's good for their bottom line jerry depoto and justin hollander because they're competitive they stay under budget for the payroll and the mariners this year are still i think third in the american league in attendance despite having this terrible season so you know, it's what does ownership want? What do we want? There are probably two different things because I've seen nothing to indicate that that, that, that Larson and Stanton and that group give a you know what about the wins and losses on the field until it affects their bottom line, which right now it's not doing. So it really is two conversations. Do I, what do I think they should do? What do I think will happen? I think those are two different things. But yeah, it is a compelling case to be sure on both sides. So again, as I mentioned earlier in the show, if you were to fire Jerry and Justin because of the ownership element of all of this, you do run the risk that, you know, you bring in a new group and they wind up basically just doing the same thing at the major league level as Jerry and Justin. And you also potentially, you know, get worse at the things that Jerry and Justin and this regime are good at. right the the big thing that i i think anyone who is concerned about what the future of this franchise

could look like if they did fire jerry and or justin is the potential of losing scott hunter justin tulle those guys that that the glue of this regime the glue of this organization right parts of the front office that basically nobody can say is doing a bad job exactly exactly So, you know, the hope is obviously very clear that you bring in a group or you bring in a new GM or whatever that is able to push this thing forward. Essentially do the same thing that Jerry was initially hired to do back in 2015, but just with a way better situation, with way better resources at his disposal and a way better runway in front of him. Sure. We're going to deliver our verdicts here in a second. but before we do regardless of this,

one thing that has to be stated as a fact. This is not up for debate. If the Mariners do move on from Jerry to Poto, he has left this organization in a substantial and significantly better place than when he inherited it. It is not up for debate. That is not a question that we will entertain.

The Seattle Mariners are a better franchise today than they were the day Jerry took over. It is not close. So that needs to be acknowledged before any of this. So, Ty, I think we've reached the point. We're out of showtime here. We've gone over. But I think we do need to, if we were asked, essentially, our verdict, if we were asked by

Stan who just loves us and Chris Larson, who obviously values our opinion very much, if they did, they'd have five trophies by now, but whatever. If they ask for our recommendation, what would we recommend to those gentlemen in that ownership group? What would our final recommendation be? Or at least what would your final recommendation be? again because of the uniqueness of I don't know

if making wholesale changes is the right way to go about it I would personally fire Jerry to Potto and promote Justin Hollander and then have Hollander hire his own GM and see how that goes and I would give him a fairly short leash yeah that's always the tricky part

I think I would do the same with this caveat. The new GM has to come from outside the organization. Agreed. You have to have fresh eyes. Yeah. You have nothing to do with this build or whatever. They need to come in and they need to have, you know, the honesty and the, you know, almost the, I don't know, whatever you want to call it, to look at this and be like, yeah, I don't like that or hey, this is where you're screwing up or, hey, this is where we can. get a little bit better here.

You need the fresh eyes. I don't want somebody, I don't want the assistant GM. I don't even know who that is right now. I don't want Dave Cameron to be the new GM, you know, or whoever. I don't want John Stanton's son to be the new GM. Like I want somebody who ideally has a background in small midmarket roster building, somebody from Milwaukee, somebody from Cleveland, somebody from Tampa. But the right person, like not just, hey, he was an assistant GM there.

so he's going to work like no, no, no, take the time. And this is kind of the beauty of it. If you retain Hollander and you keep him as the president of baseball ops, you can still have that entire month of November to make trades and do all that. And then you can use the lockout to hire as many candidates as you want to be the new GM and pick the right person. Don't rush just to fill that role. It's an important role. It's a critical role. And I don't know what Justin's Rolladex looks like in terms of contacts. I don't know how much interest there's going to be. be to still be a number two in a in a structure where they would have to answer to hollander but like if i can get now matt i forgot his name now matt something out of cleveland who's been the assistant gym there for a while or i can get there's another matt matt klein i believe out of milwaukee who's got a background kind of in analytics and also scouting a little bit who's the assistant

gym there if i can get one of those guys to come in and he is maybe not 50-50 with hollander but like a hollander has the final say but it's like a real background like very similar to the to the relationship that John Schneider and Pete Carroll had to use this football term there where two guys who are pretty egoless, they're just here to talk it out and they're going to come to a decision and they're both going to share their perspective. They're not going to be afraid to do that and to have these honest conversations. If I don't feel like Hollander can do that, I just don't feel like his Rolodex is deep enough to do that, then I think I'm okay giving this front office one more year as it's currently constructed. but if I'm confident that Hollander can hire the right guy, then I think I'm promoting him. I'm thanking Jerry for his 11 years of overall quality work.

And I'm moving on because I want fresh eyes on this ball club. I want fresh eyes on this franchise. Yeah. I think just with the reputation that Jerry Depoto has created for himself, I think removing that from the equation could do some good. even if you do keep things relatively the same. And I would be interested in seeing if Justin would handle things

a little bit differently than Jerry does. Because Justin at the end of the day still has to answer to Jerry. Right? So that doesn't necessarily mean that Justin and Jerry agree on everything and how they build the roster. Right?

So like this idea that like Justin would get promoted and it would just be the same thing as always. Maybe, but I don't think that we can say that for certain. And so I would like to maybe try. Because I think Justin is a very smart baseball mind. And I think Jerry is as well. There's just so

many other things that come with Jerry that have been problematic. Justin is very well liked by his peers, by writers, by, you know, and he doesn't have the same stink as Jerry does. Sure. With the fan base and all that as well. So

I think that's probably the best way to move forward. Again, like if they don't feel like they can get that done because of the short and lockout or because of the short and off season. I would understand giving them one more year, but I would really like to have fresh eyes from outside the org, come into the org in a prominent baseball role and say, this needs to change, this needs to change. Because what they're really doing right now and what they've done for the last four or five years, just not quite good enough. It's close, but it's not there.

And I think a small change there could be the difference. All right. Well, there you have it. That is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day from Colby Patnode. I'm Tadangazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners.

You can follow me at Tadingazalus. Colby at C-Pout 11. That's CPAT-1-1. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at MLB Colby in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Marinerers. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.