Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: Could the Mariners Land Blake Snell, Rhys Hoskins, or Jung-Hoo Lee?

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

What is the plan for Marco Gonzales in 2024? Could the Mariners pursue the services of Blake Snell, Rhys Hoskins, and/or Jung-Hoo Lee? Does Seattle NEED to reach a specific payroll number to appease the fanbase? Colby and Ty answer all that and more in this mailbag edition of Locked On Mariners!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.

Are Reese Hoskins, Blake Snell, and Young Hooley legitimate targets for the Mariners this offseason? Does Seattle need to spend a specific amount of money to appease the fan base? I'll answer that and more coming up here on Mailbag Monday. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network. Your team every day. Ohoy, sailors.

It is Monday, October night, 2023. This is Tyning Azales and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown. Marr's podcast brought to you by Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use promo code locked on MLB, $20 off your first purchase. Last minute tickets, the lowest price, guaranteed. 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. If you want to hear from

us even more, please consider sending up for our Patreon. You now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as their social accounts is in the description of this episode. This is Mailbag Monday, the show where we answer your Mariners questions. We're going to begin here with Evan, who wants to know what will be the Mariners plan, Marco Gonzalez. Colby? I don't know. Hope he retires. I like, uh, no. Uh, so Marco under contract for one more year. Uh, this is last year of his deal. He will not be resigned. Uh, that's it's, you know, pretty much locked in.

He's going to make $12 million bucks. You kind of can't, I mean, you could DFA him, but there's really no reason to at this stage because he's solid pitching depth. You're not going to get anything via trade unless you find a bad contract for bad contract swap. Kind of seems unlikely. But so I think what the, the Mariners are going to do is they're going to, you know, bring him into spring training,

see how he looks, make sure he's healthy. And he'll, I think. I think we might see a six-man rotation early in the year. And that's more about protecting Miller and Wu as they get going. But, you know, Marco's stuff doesn't play up in the bullpen at all. And, you know, despite Marco's struggles the last few years, in like 80% of his starts, you know, he's going at least six innings, which, you know, if you go six innings and you give up five runs, that's not good.

But how many times this year did we see somebody give up five runs in, you know, two and a third? and they couldn't get out of the third. So the Mariners had to go and use their bullpen. So at the very least, when Marco gets lit up, he gets lit up pretty efficiently. So I think the plan is just to roll with them into next year and see how everybody looks. And it's possible they could trade them. But again, that's a bad contract swap type of thing.

And if you're going to do that, like don't you value Marco's leadership? Don't you value Marco's, you know, dependability in that rotation more than whatever you could possibly get in trade for him? And it doesn't make sense to DFAM until at the very least the end of spring training. Make sure everybody's healthy. Make sure you're ready to go. Make sure you have depth at that spot before you do anything with him. So I think this is Marco's last year.

It would be amazing if you could find 2020 Marco somewhere in the next few months. But this will be his last year in Seattle. And I think he's probably going to start the year on the opening day roster. How long he lasts? How long does Seattle go to a six man? You know, kind of probably depends on, you know, A, how well he's. he's pitching and also the health of everybody else in your rotation. So it's probably Marcus last year.

He's been a great mariner. But I don't think he's in danger of getting DFA or anything like that this winter. Yeah, I just have a very hard time imagining that this team will eat that money. It's not even about the money, although obviously that plays a factor. But it's just like, why DFA now? Like you don't get them more money if you DFAM now than if you do it in March. And there's just no reason to. Yeah.

See what he's got. So, yeah, so I think he'll be on this roster, whether it be as part of a six-man rotation or as the mayor is number five starter if they trade someone like Miller or Wu. Next question here comes from Hater, who wants to know, do you guys see Blake Snell as an option on the market that we could use? Would be nice to get some depth back and maybe send off Miller, Wu, and or Hancock for some bats. Colby, what do you think about Blake Snell making his return to the Pacific Northwest?

Love the player. love how much he wants to be in Seattle. He hasn't been shy about that. He streams and he talks about how much he would love to pitch on, he streams video games and he talks about how much he loves the Pacific Northwest and how it's his home and how he wants to pitch for the Mariners. So I love players who want to be here. And Snell's a pretty cool dude too.

So from all that standpoint, I'd love to have him. But there are some red flags with Snell. he's not a guy who's you know been free of injuries in recent years he's coming off of a bit of a career year he's probably going to cost more uh you know a hundred million dollars or more uh how many of those type of arms can you house uh on your payroll uh and he does still struggle with walks he's a bit of a nibler so um you know 13% walk rate last year i think uh it's it's pretty high uh so he's a good pitcher. He's not a great pitcher. I fear you might have to pay him like he's a great pitcher because he's probably going to win the Cy Young Award. And so I think it's at least a Robbie

Ray contract. And, you know, Robbie Ray is when you compare like durability, Ray versus Snell, it's not really a contest. So I just, as much as I love Blake Snell, I just, I don't see them doing it, even if they trade Miller or Wu, because I think they would just say, you know, we'll just go get Michael Waka for 1 and 12 instead of Snell for 5 and you know 125 or whatever yeah I've heard some rumblings that snell does have his sights kind of set on Seattle would love to be a mariner but I just don't know if the organization itself will explore that to make that a serious possibility but the idea itself of trading one of your pitchers to go get the bat or bats you need and then supplementing the loss of that pitcher on the free agent market makes a ton of sense because this is a bad

free agent market for hitters but a pretty good one for pitchers so if you can make that happen then yeah i think that's a great avenue to take with your offseason uh i just don't think that if they do enact that strategy that they're going to do it on that kind of high end with uh with someone like Blake's snow because you're talking about a very similar situation contract-wise and even just coming off of the last year looks very similar to Robbie Ray's Syung's season in a few ways so I just I think that's a little too rich for for the Mariners blood yeah wouldn't criticize them if they did it like I said love the player but I just I don't think that's I don't think they're going to want to spend the money and and I think in this particular case that's justified

considering where you're at with your rotation. Yeah, a lot of walks doesn't get deep in ball games and obviously has had some durability concerns like you mentioned. So I'm very hesitant when it comes to Blake's self personally. And I think the organization also has its reservations on that front. Next question here comes from Ammon is Reese Hoskins, a potential pickup to play for space might be affordable coming off of an injury as career WRC plus above 120.

So you mentioned the injury. It's torn ACL. He missed all this year. It's very possible, especially given the position that he plays, that he's going to have to sign a prove-it deal. And I just can't imagine that a right-handed bat who relies fairly heavily on power output, it's going to want to sign a prove-it deal to reestablish his market in Seattle.

It's been very hard for the Mariners to sign right-handed bats in general. And so in that situation, given the ballpark, the factors of the ballpark, all that. I just don't think that Hoskins will have any interest in joining Seattle on a one-year deal. Yeah, they haven't had much luck getting left-handed hitters to sign his free agents here either. So, yeah, prove-it deals are not something Seattle's going to, you know, not for power guys, particularly right-handed power guys. Now, prove-it deals just aren't going to be something that's likely going to work for them. So I like Reese Hoskins as a target.

I think, you know, D.H. First Base, like, he fits there. But the idea kind of falls apart when you say that, like, oh, you can get him pretty cheap. Not if you're the Mariners, I think, you know, for the Mariners to have a shot. Because, like, if you're Hoskins, you just sign with Philly. You just sign back with Philly for 10, 12 million bucks. And that's a ballpark you like. That's a run scoring environment that you like. You know that they need a first basement, all that stuff.

It just makes a lot of sense to resign there. I think for him to sign with Seattle, I think you might have to give him like three guaranteed years, which, yeah, yeah, probably not. So I would say, like, I like the idea. I like where your head's at. It's just a right-handed hitter needing to prove that he's healthy and he can still produce. That guy's not going to have Seattle high on his list.

So I don't think it's, I don't think it's, you're going to get the type of deal to where it would make sense for Hoskins to, you know, to sign Hoskins. Yeah, love the idea of Hoskins really like the player himself. I just don't think that it's possible unless you give him something that he just is not expecting to get this winner. All right, we got a few more questions to answer here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. But first, a reminder of this episode is brought to you by Game Time. Buying tickets to your favorite events shouldn't be stressful.

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Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem promo code Locked on MLB for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. And you're listening to the Lockdown Airs podcast. Thank you again for making us your first. Listen here on Mailbag Monday. Let's get back into your questions here with Andy.

Says we actually have a two-parter here from Andy. Thoughts on if slash should the Mariners could acquire Younghoo Lee from the KBO. Also bonus, and I get this as specific, do you think the Rays will let Austin Shetton be eligible for the Rule 5 draft? I would like to steal him back now after cooking in the Rays organization. So on the Shetton thing, I do believe that they will let him go into the Rule 5 draft or they will look to trade him.

And I think the mayors will have quite a bit of interest in that, given that, according to Ryan Divish, they were pretty close to trading to Oscar Hernandez to the raise for Austin Shitton at the trade deadline. So, yeah, on Shetton, he's someone that when we do our offseason plan at the end of this month, I think there's a pretty good chance that he's going to be included in that for the reason that I just laid out. Yeah, I'm a big Chitton fan. so like more more so than tie uh i think that's always been the case like i don't think i'm wrong there i think i always had a higher prospect ranks and all that so yeah i'm a big you know austin shen

fan uh i'm terrified of the idea that the mariners might trade for him and be like well there's our first slash third base you know insurance and and he might play second base for us and yeah like that it's it's the same problem i have with like just being like oh ryan bliss is second base insurance like no, that's not insurance. Yeah, but he hasn't proven it. Also, he's an older prospect. That's like, yeah, he's doing essentially what he needs to be doing down in double A and triple A. But like what, what have you trade for him and you give him significant at bats and he's

Cade Marlow? And he's just putting like a 73 WRC plus. Cade Marlowe didn't help you down the stretch. And I fear Shinton might be the same guy. But I'd absolutely have him back in the org. He's definitely worth a 40 man spot. And he's definitely worth, you know, bringing to spring training and giving him a legit shot to make the team. So yeah, Shitten I'm in on because I don't think it's going to cost all that much either.

But I'm not okay if it's like, well, we have France. We have, we have, you know, Gino and we have Shinn. So we're good on the corners. Like, no, you're not. No, you're not. Yeah. Keep going. Yeah.

So Young Hulie, what do you think about him, Colby? Well, his nickname is grandson of the wind. So that's pretty good. His father, of course, is the son of the wind. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, he's an interesting player. Obviously, he's kind of the big international free agent coming through this year. It's an interesting profile.

Power is kind of fluctuated up and down in the KBO. He's kind of followed a tradition. He started playing in the KBO at 18 years old. And every year he's added a little bit more power. He's probably a 15 home run guy at the big league level. makes a ton of contact, draws walks, pretty good speed, not an elite base deal or anything like that. He's won gold gloves in center field, you know, in Korea. But I think most people believe that he's a corner outfielder, which is great because you need a corner outfielder.

So I like the player. I think he's, I think his bat is actually a really nice fit for Seattle, the ballpark and all that stuff. It's kind of a slasher, you know, doubles, triples, line drives, that type of stuff. amazing back control. You know, even when he chases, he can make hard contact with pitches out of, out of the zone.

I think he's a really nice fit. You slide him into left. He's probably hitting first or second. At some point, maybe, you know, maybe you ease him in and he hits seven. I think,

you know, he could be, he could be Yoshita, a very similar type of player. Only, only he's younger than Yoshita. So there's still more upside play left. But I do think that's the idea.

I think he's probably going to look for something roughly. in the range that Yoshida got, 590-ish in that range. And based on what I know, and again, I haven't seen him play. I'm just reading reports like everybody else. I'm looking at numbers like everybody else. Based on what I know about him, I would be pretty comfortable offering that. So I'm in, I'm in. But, you know, there are some legitimate questions there and there are some concerns.

And we talk about, you know, go get a proven major league player. He's not. So it's a little bit of you're taking a risk here. But I do like the skill set. I think he would fit, you know, Seattle quite well for what they need and how the ballpark plays for him. All right.

Next question here comes from Gregory. Is $40 million added to the payroll of budget increase that would satisfy you and the fans? Build a good ball club. It doesn't matter what the number on your payroll looks like. The only thing that I ask of the Mariners as far as payroll goes is, is don't let it be something that hampers you from getting better. Yeah.

The number itself is pretty irrelevant. It's just about, when we talk about the mergers are being cheap, it's not because their payroll is at $175 million. It's because they're like, oh, our payroll's at $175. So no, you can't have the extra $6 million to go get this guy to come off the bench or this bullpen guy,

even though that guy might put you over the top. Like that's cheap. And, you know, one other thing I do want to clarify, because of course this is going to come up a lot, you know, throughout the offseason. The luxury tax number and the cash out number are different things. Okay. Remember, the luxury tax is how they calculate that. That is strict AAB. All right.

So if you sign it's not like the NFL, right? Or like you sign a guy in the NFL to five and 200. There's guaranteed money and you can cut them after this amount of time. And like you can kind of fluctuate like the first. year only makes 12, but the last year he makes 28. It's not like that. If you sign a guy for a five year, a hundred million dollar contract in Major League Baseball, your luxury tax number is $20 million for the next five years.

Like that's what he's counting against. That's different than cash out because you can, you can pay a guy less than one year and then you pay him a little bit more. You can, you know, front load or back load a contract all you want. But the luxury tax number is just strict AAB. So remember that. Something to keep in mind. It's not the luxury tax number is kind of the, one that people think about, but cash in, cash out is kind of a big one. And the Mariners were bottom 10 in cash out last year and payroll wise and

luxury tax wise. I think they were like 18. So they do need to spend more. But it's not just about like hit 200 million and we're satisfied. No, you don't have to do that. What does that look like? What does that look like? Because you could go spend just an egregious amount of money and not build an actual

World Series consider. I mean, look at some of these other teams that have spent a lot of money and they missed the playoffs this year. Like, right. I mean, what ultimately, what ultimately matters here is building a good ball club that can help you win a division that can help you win a world series. And so if you do that mostly by trades, whatever. And that doesn't add a ton to the payroll, whatever. But again, if you have an opportunity that presents itself to you this winter where you do have to spend money, but that will make you significantly better. But maybe you need to spend, you know, an extra couple million dollars more than the next person that I'm put in an offer or you need to give it an additional year or something like that you should not let that hinder

you yeah and so you know I understand the CS spend and all that and like all the slogans that are going to you know and spend money and just spend money you have to be top 10 in payroll and it's like you don't you have to be good okay that you have to build a good baseball team so would I love for them to spend an additional 40 million dollars on top of what they're already going to have to pay guys who are going to have pay increases? Sure, absolutely. I'd love it if they spent $2 more than they're spending right now. That's not my money. I don't care. Right. But at the end of the day, if they spend $40 million and the players are all Colton Wong, do you care? No, you don't. So for me, there's not a

number. I'm not going to, you know, criticize them if they don't hit $180 million. Like, that's not, I just care about who they bring in. That's really all I care about. Players in, players out. Did you get better? And did we hear about like, oh, you could have had this guy, but he wanted an extra $3 million a year over the course of, you know, a seven year contract. And you said no, like that's being cheap.

And we'll criticize him for that. But like, yeah, 100%. You know, it's different than just being like, oh, no, this guy wanted $25 million more and an extra year to sign here. Like, that's different. Those are different things. So it's not about the money per se. It's just about showing commitment to winning the World Series this year.

And sometimes that'll manifest itself as spending money. Other times it'll be just getting good players. So, yeah, the overall number for me completely irrelevant. Yep. And you can mostly add via trade and still add a significant amount of money and payroll as well. So, you know, even if they do prefer that route, doesn't mean that they're necessarily taking the least expensive route, right? Or they're going the cheap route, right?

Yep. You're listening to the Lockdown Marys podcast. Thank you again for making us your first to listen here on Mailbag Monday. We got a couple more questions here to answer from you guys. D. Panky wants to know, do you agree the Js are arguably more dysfunctional than the M's? Ross Atkins threw John Schneider under the bus regarding the Jose Burrios decision. I retained him as manager.

Jays also don't seem to have leaders such as J.B. Crawford and Cal Raleigh. Seems the Ms just need to be willing to spend. Yeah, I wouldn't classify the MERS as dysfunctional. I would just classify them as incomplete. And so with the Js, I think the Js are, I don't know if the Js are necessarily dysfunctional either. I think they have a moron for a manager

who's cost them at least two playoff wins potentially here over the last couple years. But I also think that they're in a, and more of a time crunch right now, because they had an opportunity here to take advantage of the window where Bichette is cheap, where Guerrero is cheap.

Now those guys are getting close to having to be paid. And while the Blue Jays haven't been scared to spend money, and they've ranked, I think, fairly consistently in the top 10, top 12 and payroll, that is going

to take up a significant amount of the payroll that they've been willing to spend. I just don't know how much they're going to be willing to supplement their roster around that once Vladdy gets paid, once Beshett gets paid. Plus, they're about to lose Kevin Kiermire, who was a big part of their team this year. They're going to lose Matt Chapman, which, whatever, he was terrible after that amazing month of April. But they're going to start losing some pieces here.

Guys are going to start to get older. And also, Vladdy took a step back. Bo, while he's one of the best short stops in the league, hasn't been able to stay healthy. Like, the guys that are supposed to lead the charge for them haven't really done that. they definitely haven't come up for them in the postseason. And the fact that they haven't been able to even win a playoff series with the score yet when they were supposed to be at least a year ahead of the Mariners in terms of their rebuild, that's kind of a failure for them.

So I don't know where they go from here, but I don't think that the Mariners are in a similar boat as the Blue Jays. I think the Blue Jays are in a much worse situation. Whereas the Mariners, I think they just kind of took a step back of a year in terms of not making the playoffs, etc. But I think they're still very well positioned to do whatever they want for next year and years to come. Sure. I can't really speak to the Blue Jays dysfunction. I do know their manager is an idiot. I do know that a lot of fans are really upset about the front office and all that stuff. So I can only speak to that. And that sounds like Seattle minus the manager being an idiot, according to some. But yeah, it's, I can't really speak to that. that I don't think the Mariners are dysfunctional.

I think I think what the reason why a lot of people think they're dysfunctional is is more about poor communication skills than it is about actual dysfunction in the baseball ops side of things. So right. Yeah, I don't think that the Mariners are dysfunctional. So I guess I kind of reject the premise of the question. I think they had a really bad week, you know, following a really bad month. And obviously that that's led to a lot of people piling on. but I don't think the Blue Jays are ahead of the Mariners. I think the Mariners window is going to be open longer than the Blue Jays.

So I actually like the health of the Mariners organization much more than I do the Blue Jays at the moment. Even though I'm sure the Blue Jays will be pretty good again next year and probably the year after that. But it's, you know, they haven't taken advantage of that window. And for Seattle, they still have, they still not paying, you know, Gilbert, Kirby, cow, like Miller, Wu. like they're not paying these guys anything still and you know jp they're only paying 10 million a year bargain like hulio's a bargain right now so uh yeah i don't i don't think the marries are dysfunctional i just think they had a horrendous week which happened to follow a horrendous month

and so it just makes the whole thing look 10 times worse than it actually is well and again when i when i say incomplete i'm just talking about the roster i think the roster was incomplete i don't think there was a good enough supporting cast both on the pitching and offensive the front and that in part had a negative impact on scott services job and what service was able to do and not able to do you know down the stretch there so you know as far as like comparing john schneider and and service on that front i i give service a little bit of leeway on that front just because of that um but yeah i think you know just these issues of like cow speaking out to the media and Kirby speaking out to the media after the Tampa thing and all.

I think those are more isolated issues. I don't think those are long-term issues. And then, you know, we've talked about the press conference ad nauseum. I think that was just poor communication. That's Jerry getting into baseball theory that, you know, most people don't want to hear about.

And just a complete failure to read the room. But do I think that that puts them in a worse position than a team like the Blue Jays? In terms of like future outlook, No, the Blue Jays were supposed to accomplish a hell of a lot more than they have up to this point over the last couple of years and they just haven't. Whereas the Mariners, you know, it's been a little bit of give and take, but they've at least been able to accomplish some of their goals here. And I think they're way better positioned to accomplish even more of them than the Blue Jays are. I just, I still, I don't really know where the Blue Jays go from here with their roster build. All right.

Final question of the day comes from Max. Who are your ideal trading partners this off season? You mentioned Cleveland and San Francisco. Any others? Tampa Bay, New York, Boston, Colby? Yeah, there are 29 teams. Like, you don't exclude anybody. I think San Diego's got some pieces that are pretty interesting.

Tampa, of course, has some pieces that are going to be interesting. You know, aside from that, like, you're not necessarily like targeting teams because they have this, but you're just targeting players and whatever team they happen to be on. That's how you figure it out. So I think there's some interesting fits between Philadelphia and the Dodgers, you know, going one way, but I don't know if the Mariners have what the other side wants.

So it's a little tricky, but I think San Diego is a team I'm going to look at. Minnesota is a team that's got some lefty bats that I'm interested in. I say um Tampa just because always uh you know and so I think you're looking at Cleveland's I mean they have Jose Ramirez but more more importantly they have nailer and maybe some some arms some bullpen arms who might be able Eli Morgan uh people like that but yeah no I think you know you're not excluding anybody but I do think that the Padres have a few pieces.

Tampa has a few pieces. The White Sox, maybe, but they kind of have to want to sell and it doesn't sound like they want to. San Francisco has a couple of pieces that I'm interested in. But no, you're not excluding anybody and everybody in baseball

has one or two players that you're interested in. Milwaukee has a couple of guys that might make some sense. But yeah, it's, you know, it's pretty much Arizona also. Yeah, I was going to say Arizona. I was going to say St. Louis. there are a lot of teams that on paper could be a Baltimore.

Baltimore is another one. Yeah. So Toronto is always like. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. You're just you're not excluding anybody. Right.

The red side. Like if somebody's got a player, like I don't think the Mariners look at the board and be like, well, we line up really well with Baltimore. So who do we like on Baltimore? I think it's more about like, hey, we like this guy.

and how do we get him? You know, like it's a player focus, not a team focus when they're thinking about trades. So yeah, I think, you know, again, a lot of the same as you would expect, but San Diego, St. Louis, Baltimore, Arizona, to name a few more.

It does help, though, when you try and look back and maybe look for some clues here. And you think about teams that Jerry has talked to recently and maybe, you know, have, had, you know, some deeper trade talks with where like both sides pretty much know where like you stand on certain guys, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that helps a deal come along not only quicker, just a lot more efficiently. Because you might not have to start from the ground up on that front once we get to the off season. So that's always something to keep in mind there as well. So again, like if those Cardinals talks were real that were being talked about heavily during the, during the summer, maybe those get picked up.

once, you know, the acquisition period kicks back off here. So, yeah, so that's really what I look at. But overall, yeah, like Colby said, it's just more player-based. You like the player? All right, figure out how you can go get him. That's really it. All right, that's going to do it for us. Thank you for us for joining us here on the Lockdown Marries podcast.

Colby Patnode. I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-Rerner. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, and Colby at C-P-E-N-Z-L-E and Colby at C-Pat-E-E-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again. Making us your first listen,

have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.