Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: Are the Mariners *Actually* Out on Shohei Ohtani?

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

It's Mailbag Monday! Colby and Ty answer a plethora of Mariners questions, including several about Ty France and Eugenio Suárez. Why did Seattle's corner infield duo struggle so much in 2023 and which of the two is the better bouneback candidate in 2024? Plus, are the Mariners ACTUALLY out on Shohei Ohtani or was the article from Daniel Kramer overblown by Mariners fans?Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.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.

On today's mailback episode of the Lockdown Merrittors podcast, we're going to talk a lot about Thai France and Auhinios Suarez because that's what most of the questions are about. What went wrong for them in 2023? Who's most likely to bounce back in 2024? And what if Swares gets traded? Well, a report from MLB.com said as much, are the mayor is actually out on signing show, Hey, Otani?

Colby and I will answer all that and more coming up. Let's get into it. You are locked on Mariters. Your daily season. Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors. It is Monday,

November 20th, 2023. This is titting is also Colby Bennett out for the Lockdown Mariners podcast brought to you by Fanduel. Make every moment more. And right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's $150 if your team wins. Visit Fanduel.com slash locked on.

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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. It is Mailbag Monday, the show where we answer your Mariners questions. And we're going to start here with Daisy in the dingo. Daisy wants to know, was there anything you saw from Ty or Gino this year that led them to regress? Like a certain way pitchers were pitching to them or anything within their underlying data. Colby? Yeah, you mean aside from them just sucking?

Is there anything that points to them regressing? Yeah, there actually are. particularly with Ty, a couple things stand out. First of all, never trust somebody named Ty. Second of all, he started chasing a lot more, and the chases were worse than they were before, because not all chases are created equal, right? If you swing at a pitch, that's an inch outside the strike zone,

you can still do damage with that pitch. If you swing at a pitch that's in the other batters box, as we saw France do multiple times, all you do there is make yourself look like an idiot. And that's what France did. And France has always been a guy who will expand the zone. He will chase, but typically it's he's chasing pitches that he can handle. He can get to.

And so it's not that big of a deal. Last year, his chase rate was 33.3%. So one out of every three balls that were thrown to him, he swung at. The big key here, though, is that his chase contact percentage dropped 6%. That's a massive number in a year. So the fact that his chases went up by about a percent and a half, but his swing and misses on pitches outside of the zone went, you know,

down by 6 percent. It tells you that he was chasing worse, not just more than he was the year before. Another thing when you look at the pitch data here, in 2022, Typhrance obliterated breaking balls, curp ball sliders. In 2022,

he had 297, against those pitches with a 518 slug. This last year he had 239, so about 60 point drop, and he slugged 351, 130% drop in slug. So Curballs gave him trouble. He wasn't that good against fastballs either. He only hit 248 against him with a 373 slug. That's about a 40 point drop from 2022 and about a 50 point drop in slug from 2022.

So Curb balls really gave him. issues this year in 2023 and they didn't really last year. So it's, to me, when I look at Thai France, I say, it's pretty clear he's chasing worse pitches and

he's also chasing more pitches. Which is, you know, not giving him himself a good shot to go out and get hits. So why that happened? I don't know. I think that he tried to hit for more power this season. He wanted to be a

25, 30 home run guy. And it just doesn't work for Ty France. He just doesn't have the bat speed really right now to generate that kind of power. So we'll see what he can change this off season. But it was bad. He's got to be able to hit the breaking ball. He's got to be able to hit the fastball. And he's got to be better with his chases.

He's got to, if he's going to expand the zone, he has to do it within reason. He can't be out there swinging at sliders a foot out of the strike zone and expect to have success. So that was the problem with Ty France. as for gino uh gino uh a little bit of a little bit of bad luck with gno um goes into play here certainly he uh i think we all remember five six seven fly balls that he hit that died at the warning track that were home runs last year uh that could be a bat speed issue um if he's not generating that bat speed like he was then fewer balls are going to leave the ballpark so um that could be something. I'm not sure where to get

bat speed data to be perfectly honest with you. So I'm not sure. It's a true media which only a select few people have access to. Right. It's where most of the batteball data or the bats bat speed data is. Right. I mean, you look at like his

stat cast page. He still arreled up the baseball plenty, 87th percentile and barrel percentage. Sixty-ninth percentile and average exit below, 85th percentile. And in sweet spot percentage 80th percentile and chase he walked plenty he swung and missed too much yeah you know at the end of the day and uh that sounds like uh you know well no kidding but it's it's the

truth i think part of the issue too with gno is it's just kind of a volume thing because he played so much so when we're looking at strikeouts from a pure counting perspective he was bottom three in the league but from a percentage perspective he actually you know slightly reduced both his K-rate and WIF rate from 2022. Both categories are still bad. I mean wrong, but the point is he's been able to produce at a high level

in spite of those marks. That's pretty much a testament to what we've been saying this off-season that, you know, you can strike out 28 to 33% of the time or whatever, as long as you're making up for it in other areas. The problem for me, really, was that he was hitting the ball

with authority less frequently and wasn't getting to his barrel as much. teams didn't really attack him any differently than they have in the past. He just didn't execute and he didn't take advantage of mistakes as frequently as he needs to. Yeah. You know, you look at the numbers, that's just the raw numbers, batting average only dropped by four points over last year, slugging or on base only dropped by nine points over last year. It's the slugging that did him in 60 point drop in slug. And Gino has to hit home runs.

Like he has to be, you know, 25 to 30 home runs. He has to be that guy. And if he was with the glove and he slugged 430 this year, he's probably a four-win players still. But, yeah, Gino's felt a lot more like bad luck mixed in with some regression, whereas Ties was much more about bad process. Yeah. Yeah, Ty, I just, like I looked at the zone.

charts on Savant for France and like the only thing that I really saw was like teams reduced how much they tried to nibble the outside corners with him you know they instead started going up and in and down and in on him a bit more but like I said the overall approach from pitchers didn't really seem to have changed much outside of that you know like you mentioned he just whiffed more especially in the sweet spots of the strike zone like like upper middle and upper inside third of the zone like for example if you look at his zone charts on baseball savant

go to baseball savant.com if you just go on a player's profile and you click zones you can see all the stuff that we're looking at his upper middle misses jump from 11 in 2022 to 19 in 2023 which like that doesn't sound like a lot but those are eight additional

potential hard hit balls just left out there I think it really boils down to a couple things for him that his lack of bat speed catching up to him and teams taking more advantage of that due to his struggles to quickly turn on pitches inside and then obviously like you talked about some uncharacteristic tendencies like really really chasing and bad chases we're talking about not just your average chases but really really awful swing decisions which is those just haven't really been really. part of his game until this past year. And I think he just started pressing and by virtue, you know, guessing more once things really started to unravel for him. So

yeah, he's got a lot of work ahead of him, but I think it's mostly pitch identification, more of a mental thing for France because like physically speaking, I don't think that he's going to, like we're magically going to

going to see Ty France come back and all of a sudden he's got a whole new setup and he's added like three to four miles power on his bat speed and all this like I don't think that's going to happen but we've been able to see him succeed in spite of those things and in spite of his flaws make it work he just needs to make better swing

decisions. Yep. So we'll see and we have a question about you know which of these two players are most likely to bounce back in 2024. So we're going to answer that and more in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode

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And you're listening to the Lockdown, Marys podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. And as a reminder, folks, Locked On has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. Locked on Sports Today is here for you, 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Lockdown,

plus our national shows covering every league. Go to Lockdown Sports Today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, every day. And a quick programming note for you guys in terms of tomorrow. I've already talked about this a little bit, but I'm going to be out tomorrow. So the plan is no show unless the Mariners do something.

If the Mariners do something, we'll do a show that night, kind of like we did on Friday. with the Luis Urea Steel. So just so you know, and I think the plan is to actually do a show on Thanksgiving. So you guys are going to get a Thanksgiving show. I love Thanksgiving.

All right. Let's get back into these questions. Jake wants to know, assuming both are on the roster for 2024, who do you think is most likely to bounce back next year, Thai France or A. E. E. E. E. E. Hennios Juarez. I think for all the reasons that we laid out during the first segment,

it's Gino. I also think that Gino just naturally has the higher ceiling of France. He plays a more important position. He's going to hit, you know, 25 to 30 home runs if everything hits for him, if not more than that. And I think he's closer just in general. I think he's working from a better foundation coming off of this past year than France is relative to both of their situations. That is, right? Sure.

it's a little tough. It's a toss up for me because it feels like there's a pretty good chance that France's issues are mechanical and that he can make an adjustment and, you know, be okay. Whereas it's possible Gino is just a guy who's past his prime now and the cliff is starting to come and he's 32 years old and, you know, he's lost some bat speed and this is just who he is now. that's possible. Whereas I don't think that's the case for France, who's still technically in his prime. So yeah, it's kind of like,

do I trust France more to make the mechanical adjustments he needs to? Or do I trust Gino to, I mean, I don't know, not regress more. Like, it's a little bit weird because, again,

when you look at a lot of the underlying numbers, they would tell you that Gino, more or less the same guy he was last year, just got a little bit of, bit unlucky and then obviously, you know, didn't do damage, enough damage on pitches he used to do damage on, but that could be a bat speed thing. And typically once bat speed starts to go, you don't really get it back. And that's a little concerning, especially for somebody who strikes out as much as Gino does.

So if depressed, I'd have to say I'd probably give the edge to tie just because he's got age on his side. And again, I think it's just a mechanical. I think it's just an issue with, you know, I think it was a bad attempt last year, a bad game plan by him last year. And now it's just about getting back to what you were, you know, and maybe adding some bad speed and naturally adding some power like J.P. Crawford did. So I guess I'd probably take France, but I think it's a toss-up because, you know, it's pretty easy to write a script that says, like, France has to undergo surgery this offseason on a swing. and Suarez just kind of needs a band-aid. He just kind of needs to,

you know, just add a little bat speed and he's there. And getting more literal with it too, health also kind of plays a role into what I'm thinking here. And I know it sounds weird to give the slight edge in terms of health to the older guy, but France hasn't been able to stay healthy. And some of that has been, you know, not really his fault.

Most of it hasn't really been his fault. But he does crowd the plate and he's going to get hit a lot of pitches. A lot of wrist elbow shoulder issues for for Ty France. Yeah. So, you know, that's just kind of part of it, right? That's just, that's just who Thai France is. And so I'm not sure if he's going to be able to stay healthy to have a consistent enough season to consider it, you know, much of a bounce back. Whereas like with Gino, I get he's older and he's naturally because of that,

just historically speaking, you know, when we look back on the history of athletes in general more prone to injury than than frances uh from that perspective but he's proven capable of staying healthy over the last couple years he obviously played in every single game this past year he shouldn't do that again you guys know our feelings on that but um yeah i think that should also kind of play a factor here when we're when we're talking about this i don't you know i i think it is a little bit of a toss up but i i'm i would give it to gno um because i think there's just a bit more of a better foundation to work with here for Gino whereas again like you said Francis I undergo surgery with his

mechanics this winter and and that might take some time and that might not be something that he adapts to or at least easily adapts to you know I think a lot of people see what drive line was able to do for J.P Crawford last off season and they go well that's just going to happen for Thai France and Josh Rojas and all these guys that are going to go to I was going to ruin my bit right but I was going to say did you notice that we didn't mention drive line once no free ads right right right so you know it's not a given right that he's going to go to drive line and things are going to get fixed and that he's going to adapt to those things right because it's ultimately up to him to adapt to those things adapt to those tweaks and execute them to their fullest so you know

it's not a one size fits all type of thing for every single player so we'll see um i just right now if you ask me you know who should i put put money on to be better out of the these two guys in 2024. I'm probably going Swares, but it's close. It's close enough. Dom Kanzon and Joyer wants to know, would you rather see an upgrade at first base or third base? First base? Get more traditional power output

out of first base. Sure. What we're learning is Ty hates his fellow Thai brethren. He's not even a tie. He's a Tyler. Whatever. Same thing. He's a fraud. He's a fraud. The, uh, same thing. So is Ty. Um, if you notice the Dom can zone and Joyer, his at was drunk Scott.

So it makes sense why that makes sense why you would enjoy Dom can zone, the guy who did literally nothing. Right. It's still like, oh my God, how do we get this guy at bats every single day in the lineup? Right. You don't. Right. That's how you do it. Um, this is kind of a weird off season because there's really not upgrades available at either spot. I mean, not in free agency.

Um, But yeah, I guess, I guess first base just by virtue of like, it's a little bit easier to fix that. In theory, yeah. So I guess first base, but like, why not both? But the real answer is probably neither. The mayor is going to roll it back with both of those guys because there's not really an obvious solution to either spot that makes more sense than just being like, hey, why don't we just? assume that Thai France isn't terrible after one year and let's not assume that

Gino fell off a cliff when there's some legitimate numbers that suggest he was fine. He's just a little bit unlucky. So they're not going to do it either, I don't think. But if I had to upgrade at one spot, I mean, upgrade assumes that you're going to get better than I guess I'd say first base, but like,

I mean, like ideally, like dream scenario. Yeah, I get a young third baseman with multiple years of club control. Great young. You get Jose Ramirez. Like, yeah, okay.

Or yeah. Jose Ramirez. Or yeah. Or yeah. Or yeah. Jose Ramirez. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, like what's real here. But like yeah. If I could get like Issock parade is great. Awesome. Cool. I mean,

that could upgrade either spot. True. In theory. So. But yeah. Like I would I would rather have that than, uh, I don't know, name of first baseman. Like,

but I would rather have, you know, Jose Ramirez. Issa. I pray it is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, given what the market is, probably for a space. Probably first base.

You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen here on Mailbag Monday. Got a question here from Dan Smith. I am a little confused by the Daniel Kramer article regarding Shohei Otani. Given how tight-lipped the Mariners are, Was there specific front office mention they don't anticipate being serious contenders? Or was it just based off their past spending history? Thanks for helping me understand this.

Love the podcast. So I can't speak for Daniel Kramer or his sources. I assume that he's talking to people within the organization. And at least some of what he wrote in his article is at least an indication that he got from his sources in terms of what the Mariners are thinking right now, that Otani is quote unquote not part of their realistic agenda for the off season which you know

he probably isn't part of the realistic agenda for most Mariners fans at least from the from the indication that I get from a lot of our listeners and a lot of people that I interact with on Twitter you know most people think that it's a pipe dream obviously they really want Otani but you know they think that's kind of a you know small percent chance

like we've maintained here on the show as well I'll say this though I think maybe the article is a bit overblown and maybe parts of it that where Kramer is more so speculating rather than you know giving out concrete information that he's received those parts have maybe been a bit more

overblown and treated more so just as straight up facts because Brian Dibbush went on Ben Reneery show the sea level podcast a couple days ago and he said essentially and I'm going to paraphrase that the Mariners issue is more so with the length of the contract and having to pay Otani as both a hitter and a pitcher and guaranteed dollars by like year 7, 8, 9, 10 in that deal where they're still paying him 55, 60 million dollars a year. He said that they would feel comfortable giving him

the AAV or require like 60 million dollars, 55 million dollars over more of like a seven year contract with opt-outs after year three, year four, year five, year six, etc. And that they think that Otani, and this is something that Colby and I have speculated for a while now on the show, that he values flexibility moreover anything else and control over his career. And they don't think that he's going to take necessarily the highest value contract that is offered to him this off season. And that's what the Mariners are essentially banking on.

So the Mariners are, it sounds like from at least what Divish is saying, the Mariners are preparing or they have offered a very creative deal to Otani, one that essentially they think gives them a leg up over other teams, or at least they're hoping gives them a leg up over other teams, and they'll see if he wants to take it, but they're not going to essentially do whatever it takes, quote unquote, and by whatever it takes, meaning like, yeah, man, here's $600 million for the next 10 years. Like here, yeah, you can, like, even if you stop pitching after year four of the contract, we're still going to pay you as a guy who does both. We're still going to pay you as a two-way player in year eight and year nine and year 10.

Which is honestly what you want if you're a Mariners fan. Like you don't want to pay a guy for something he's not ever. So while it may feel good to have Otani pitching year one through four, when he stops pitching, you realize he goes from a, you know, eight, nine win player to a five-win player. And now you're paying the five-win player, 60 million. dollars a year. Like he's probably still worth it. Don't get me wrong, but with limited budget space because your owner, you know, doesn't want to pay for Otani and run a regular payroll on top of having Otani on his roster, then yeah, I think, you know, you got to be smart with it.

And we'll see. I think what could very well be is that the Mariners have prepared or they're getting ready to prepare this, you know, unique offer. something we've never seen before in Major League Baseball. And the source is telling Kramer like, but yeah, they're not willing to go $500 million. They're not willing to go $600 million. So they're out.

And we don't know that because we don't know what Otani actually wants. And we also need to keep in mind. Otani has apparently told teams that if you tell anybody that we're talking, I'm going to hold it against you. Like he's valuing, his privacy essentially in these in these negotiations very highly

and that makes sense from what we know about Otani. So I don't think anybody knows as much as they think they know. I still don't think the Mariners are going to get him. Like I'd be shocked.

Shocked. Yeah. If the Mariners got him. Happy, but shocked. But I, and I, by the way,

I saw some people accused Kramer of clickbait. That's BS. Dude's doing his job. People are interested in Otani updates. Of course, they are. He's got a little bit of information and he's using what the information that's

available to him to try and update people on where the Mariners stand in their pursuit of showy Otani. This job. It's literally his job. So, yeah, I don't have any issue with what Kramer wrote. I honestly didn't read it because I don't care about, you know, this like, oh, here's what Otani's thinking on, on November 20th. And then tomorrow, here's what he's thinking. And then, oh, I saw him having lunch in L.A. again today. Is that mean, he's signing with, you know, the angel, I don't care about that. Talk to me when there's concrete fact about what's going on with Otani, then I'll care. Otherwise, it's just speculation and only one source, one source from a front office, not even the Mariners front office. We don't know. And we'll never know.

That's not enough for me to panic. It's not enough for me to freak out. And honestly, there's pretty much nothing that's going to cause me to freak out over Otani not signing here because I never expected it in the first place. So I'm chilling. Kramer did his job, but doing your job with limited information requires you to kind of fill in the fill in the gaps a little bit. And that's just where we are in the offseason. Not a lot has happened, although it's starting to pick up a little bit. But yeah, I mean, Divish is just as clued in as Kramer, if not more so.

And again, I mean, I, they're both, they both could be right. Like they legitimately could. Like, Otani is going to listen to the Mariners pitch, but maybe he really does want 500 million up front. We don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. We'll see what happens. But, um, no, neither Divish's comments or Kramer's article really move the needle for me at all. I'm just like, yeah, that's about what I expected. Speaking of Otani, we have a question here from a Maddie F. Brown. Never seen this person before in my life asking. How dare you? When does Otani sign? not only did you bring your mistress onto the show right right now you have the gall to pretend

like you don't even know who that I found I found this text on your phone oh that must have been my buddy who texted his wife I don't know how dare you sir I have no idea who this Maddie F. Brown character is how dare you this is like an episode of more so No, I know what Colby's actual answer is. Otani will sign when Maddie admits that Cody Barton is mediocre. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the cool answer. And I didn't watch your podcast yesterday, but or admit that Gino lost that game for Seattle and other players. But Gino too. Next question. Right. J.S. wants to know, what approximately would we get for Gino? Now, what package do you think we would opt to? go for would it be similar to the seawall deal?

I think they're listening on Gino. I don't think they're going to trade them because we've talked about this. How do you replace them? Now you could replace them with Rojas and Urias. That platoon, we talked about that idea on Friday night. Or I guess I would say, but you have to then go and replace the second base. So it just doesn't make a lot. This is a terrible, terrible infield group.

So if you trade Gino, then I guess if you get like Brandon Lowe or Lowe, whatever, if you get him and you move your second base, platoon to third base, then I guess you've made up the power difference. But it's just really hard to trade Gino because you don't have that replacement. Yeah, it's just not the market to do it unless you're getting an insane value for Gino. and I'm talking about like an extra 50% on the dollar. It might have been what you got in the Seawall trade. But like the Seawall trade, the issue is going to be that you're not going to go out and replace that player or you're going to have a hard time going out and replacing that player.

And are you actually getting the immediate impact that makes it worth it? Because for me, again, my main focus is 2024. So does trading Gino for what? whatever I can get for them, plus the headache of having to find some sort of replacement, unless that replacement is coming over via the deal, does that actually make me better in 2024? And there aren't many avenues that I see here. And, you know, like, Jerry and Justin love to get creative and they always find a way to surprise us, but most of the time. But I just, I can't see an avenue here where that actually happens, where they actually get better in

24 while simultaneously trading Gino because of what the market is. And the answer is not to go out and sign Matt Chapman. Matt Chapman is extraordinarily overrated. He's basically Gino. And he's apparently still asking for like $150 million. So I'm super out. I could not be more out on Matt Chapman.

You could cut the number in half and I'd still be out. Yeah. Jemir Candelario, I like. But given the market, he's probably going to get overpaid. relative to what he's actually worth. He's not even a third baseman, really. He's not even really a third baseman. So there's just like,

all right, if you could platoon instead of the second base platoon being Rojas and Ereas, it becomes the third base platoon, you can do that and then go out and get Brandon Lowe or Jeff McNeil or Jake Cronomworth. I mean, cool, but you're also, but you're also taking a shot

on Cronomworth actually turning it around. You're actually taking a shot on, you know, McNeil's injury not being that bad and that he's able to get back to the, you know, 1.20, 130 WRC plus guy that he's been in past year. You're still banking on a lot. And yeah, you're banking on a lot with Gino as well. But like, wouldn't it just be easier to just bank on Gino figuring it out for the next year rather than creating this massive headache for you and basically ending up in a relatively similar situation? I mean, at that point, it depends on what you get back for Gino. Right. So it's hypothetical on hypothetical on hypothetical.

I get up talking myself in circles here, but still. Yeah, until you would see the whole puzzle piece, it's impossible to like grade a Gino Svarez trade because like could they trade Gino and actually end up with a better roster? Sure. Yes. Yeah. Is it going to look that way in the, you know, the minute they make that trade? Probably not. Right.

So, you know, we'll see. I do, apparently a couple of the teams that have been sniffing around Gino, we, we know about Toronto. We know that they have, they have interests there. I've heard the Dodgers. And I've, which is, you know, kind of a little bit surprising, but whatever. I've also heard the rays. Like, what? Like, how do the race have Curtis Meade, Austin, Shin, Issock Parades.

And then who's the Candelario, right? Caminero. Caminero, yes. They have a lot of third basement, no shortstops. So, yeah, I don't know. Maybe that one's just wrong. They saw the 2021 Reds run out, Gino at shortstop. And they were like, yep, yep, we want that.

Give me some of that. But yes, we'll see. There are teams that are interested. And it makes sense that they'd be interested. This is a bad market for corner infielders. Yeah. But that also works both ways because the Mariners are trying to compete. So it's a really tight fit.

I did throw out a trade idea. yesterday, Saturday, and was pretty surprised by the response. I said, would you trade Gino for Jordan Romano of the Blue Jays? And at last check, it was like 55, 45, 45, yes, which again, surprised me. But if you could do something like that, and then you go and you get Brandon Lowe and then, like, okay, would you rather have Lowe and Romano or Gino and prospects, you know, depending on on which ones.

You can make an argument that you got better, but it's a tough needle to thread is what I would say. Yeah. All right. Next question here from Peter. Were there any takeaways from the Aaron Nola deal, like his AAB or the Aaron Bummer trade and its return that could impact or inform the Mariners approach to pitching this winter?

No. Nola took a little bit of a discount by most accounts. But I think he got about what he would have, you know, on the open market anyway. So I really don't see that. then the bummer deal is pretty unique because it's it's a lot of bulk it's a lot of names like guys that we recognize on top prospect list and guys who have performed a little bit at the big league level but it's guys who are coming off of injuries it's guys who have really struggled in the in the minors and they haven't lived up to their draft uh you know their draft spot and at least a couple of guys that were probably getting non tendered right so it looks like a lot of players and it is it's it's well was it five for one or whatever yeah but three of two at least two of those guys the braids were going to non we're going to we're going to we're going to non-tender anyway so they throw them into that deal it's a couple guys you're going to miss chunks of the season and miss a lot of last season anyway so they throw them into the it's a lot of bulk um so i

don't think there's a lot there um you know for seattle like i don't think Seattle could have done that trade for bummer right um but i i think really the only thing that that might have an impact on the mergers is the relief market and the braves have just been that entire market for the most part here. They re-sign Jimenez and Pierce Johnson to relatively similar deals, similar structures,

and then they signed Rinaldo Lopez today. They've spent a lot of money on their bullpen. But I feel like that's essentially set in the market for guys that we've talked about like Robert Stevenson. So you're probably looking at $8 to $10 million

on guys like that and that range. Just about what I'd expect. So yeah, yeah, the market hasn't blown me away. Like, this doesn't like,

oh my God, this is a player's market. Like, not yet. It has. Yeah. Um, I mean,

I think it should finally confirm to everybody that Blake Snell's not coming here. Like, I, I think, I think really the thing that we're all waiting for, though, is the first big shooter drop.

And that's just one of the hitters signing. And I think it's like, for me, it's more so one of the mid tier hitters to see like, are guys going to get overpaid? relative to what the market is. Like is Teo going to get like $18 million a year just because he just like even though that he's coming off a bad season, he's still probably like a top five hitter in the market.

Is Gurriel getting four, is Gurriel getting four and 50 or six and 90? Like what does he get? Like is Solair getting, you know, two or three years at 15 million or is he getting three, four years at 20 million? Like, what does that look like? Because Nola got about what I would expect him to get. You know, Lopez got an extra year more than I thought he'd get, but whatever, he got the AAV. Yeah. So far, those are the two big signings.

Lynn, today I got $10 million with some incentives. That sounds about right to me. So so far, it doesn't appear that the market is running wild, you know, for the players. but I don't think there's a weird bunch of players though that have signed so far like we've got the one big name in nola and then it's just like here's lance lynn and here's pierce johnson and here's you know a couple other guys like rinaldo lopez like it's just been all over the place so fair so but no i don't like you're i i think the bomber deal is a very special circumstance um i actually like that deal quite a bit for chicago and atlanta because it's it's literally atlanta going hey here's some spare parts give us this

lefty reliever who was really good last year or well two years ago and really unlucky last year but also has some warts but these are guys that we don't want on our 40 man anyways taking them like the definition of a bulk deal uh in chicago gets a couple guys who could in theory helped them at the majors this year yeah and have some gritcher mikes syroka like they need they just needed bodies for that rotation really and they got a couple yeah and a couple guys that they could flip at the deadline if they if they need to or want to So yeah, I just think that deals a special circumstance. With Nola resigning, he reportedly took less.

I'm not sure if I buy that because it looked like it was about what I'd expect it anyway. So no, I don't think the market's told us anything, really, because the prices are about what I thought they would be. So for me, no. It tells me that the pitching market isn't going to get out of hand. and we don't know what the market on bats is going to do until a couple of them signed. Right.

All right. Last question. We were going to answer this very quickly because we are well over time. Ryan wants to know, do you think the lower budget teams like the raise value Miller more than Logan due to his club control and salary or is the gap in talent too great? I think the talent disparity is still great because with Miller, there's still a lot of,

lot to dream on. There's a lot of good stuff to dream on. don't get me wrong, but it's still a lot to dream on. And I think his ceiling, production-wise, right? Not really stylistically, but production-wise is essentially Logan Gilbert. And you're talking about a, what, a two-year club control difference? Yeah. Three-year?

Yeah. Three-year? Two-year? Logan has four. Miller still as all six. Yeah. I don't think the raise. The race would much rather have Gilbert than Miller because, or Gilbert

doesn't even get that expensive for the next two or three years. Like he's a super two. He's going to make $4.5 to $5 million this year. Next year he's probably making $8.9. And it's only the year after that when he still has two years of club control that he's going to start making, you know, $10, $15 million. At which point the raise can still get a haul by trading Logan Gilbert with two years left to club control.

So they're in this particular case, they're definitely going to value Logan Gilbert. If Logan Gilbert had two years of club control left, maybe things change. If he was making real money, maybe things change. But the race have shown that they're willing to spend some money. They're not, you know, the Oakland A's. And Gilbert's not. There's still like bottom five in the league, but like there's a big gap between them and the A's. Sure.

I mean, they paid class now like 40 million for two years. Now they're trying to trade the last year of that. But you get the point. Like they're not, they're not non-tingering guys because they're going to make one five, you know. So, yeah, they would still value Gilbert because he's not making real money for at least another two years. And then at that point, if you don't want to pay Gilbert, you can just flip him for massive return right back. So, yeah, they're still going to value Gilbert over Miller.

Yeah, agreed. All right, that's going to do it for our show. Again, no show tomorrow tomorrow, and then we'll do a show tomorrow night. And that'll get out to you probably, I don't know, around 9 or 10 Pacific time. So keep an eye out for that if the marries do something. But for now, thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown

Marins podcast for Colby Patnode. I'm Tyne Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore earners you can follow me at dan gonzalez s d a and e g n z lz and colby at c pat 11 that's c p a t 1-1 you can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode and thank you again for making us your first listen have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time peace