Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: Seager's Replacement, Favorite CF Option and More

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

It's Mailbag Monday on Locked On Mariners as hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode answer your questions on Kyle Seager's replacement at third base, their favorite options in center field this offseason and which Mariners major leaguers could be traded this winter.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. 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.

You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariners News and Analysis. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. It is Monday, October 18th, 2021. I am your host, Tiding Gonzalez. Join, as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode.

follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-S-R-N-Rerner. You can follow me at D-A-N-Z-Z-Z and Colby at C-P-P-A-T-1-C-P-A-T-1-B. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more. Also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. New episode dropping for our tier 2s and threes later today. Visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone for more information. Today on Locked on Mariners, it is Mailbag Monday. We asked you to provide your Mariners questions on Twitter last night,

and we got three last night. So we're going to go over those. If you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. We greatly appreciate it. We're going to start here with a question about the third base position for the Mariners asked by Slater at Christian Slater with a K. They ask, who should the Mariners target to fill?

and at third base for Kyle Seeger, who we assume is going to have his club option declined. Obviously, it's not official, but they've bid their farewells and all that, and we've talked quite a bit about Seeger on here. But Colby, who do you think the Mariners should first target to replace Seeger? Pretty big shoes to fill.

Well, there's really not that many free agent third baseman that are clear upgrades over Seeger. I mean, there are a couple. It's Chris Bryant who, yeah, I would target. And Eduardo Escobar, who, yeah, I would also target. Both represent, you know, relatively big upgrades to Seeger. With Bryant, it's about 30% of offensive improvement over Kyle Seeger. With Escobar, it's about 8 to 10%.

But other than that, there's really not a big fish out. there who's a third baseman there are some other guys who could play third like one of the short stops but we've talked about why that's not going to happen and even marcus simi could play third but you'd be signing him to play second or shortstop so yeah if you're talking about you know who who's my who's my number one target i'm going to go see if i can get Jose ramirez and failing that then i'm going to go see if i can get chris brian and if that fails, then, you know, there's a few other options out there that I can look at before I head back into free agency.

But, yeah, I mean, it feels like if Seattle's going to make a significant addition at third base, it's probably going to come via trade, but I wouldn't rule out the Chris Bryan idea just yet. Yeah, for me, it's Jose Ramirez, really, you know, he's going to be in my personal off-season plan. I would give up a lot for him, to be quite honest. I mean, he is a perennial MVP candidate, you know, solid glove at third base, going to give you a ton of offensive production.

You know, just obviously, you know, keeping things within reason. Obviously, I'm not going to trade Jared Kelnick, Julio Rodriguez, and Noel V. Marte, all in the same package for him. But, like, I'm willing to probably give up at least one of those guys, along with, you know, a couple of other really strong prospects and maybe even some major league talent as well. And we also have a question on that as well that we're going to get into later about major league talent that you'd be willing to trade from. But yeah, that's the guy for me. That's the big target because, I mean, you have a chance at getting a, like I said, a perennial

MVP candidate who's not even making that much money right now. So he's not, you're still going to be financially flexible after you acquire him. So you can still do quite a lot of cool stuff, even if after you get them, it's going to hurt in terms of what you're going to have to give up. But again, you know, we've preached this for quite some time now on the show that just worry about what you got in return, which is one of the best players in baseball on that front. So if Cleveland is willing to deal him, I do quite a bit to make that happen in Seattle. I don't know if you saw the, you were probably asleep by the time it happened. But I don't know if you saw the interaction or really the name calling that was happening on our Control the Zone Twitter account at Control the Zone. Somebody had asked, you know, what's the biggest deal you'd be willing to make as a free agent or as a GM that you think the other team would accept?

And I said, I said, Noel B. Marte, Emerson Hancock, Abraham Toro, and Zach Deloche. for Jose Ramirez and people did not like that price. And I was kind of surprised because honestly, I think I lowballed it a little bit. So that's how good that's how good Jose Ramirez is. Oh, that's nothing compared to the deal that I put together for him and my personal long season plan. Why we won't be taking it in our master plan. But yeah, he's, he's, the point is to guys is to say that he's really good.

And if you don't think he's worth that, you don't know how good he is. plain and simple. Trading for Jose Ramirez is going to hurt. But on the flip side, you get Jose Ramirez. So it's all good. But yeah. Jose Ramirez is a top five, top 10 player in baseball. Like, let's not get a twisted here.

This is an incredible baseball player we're talking about. I believe since 2016, which is the year he kind of, the year he first played more than a hundred games. games. Since that season until the end of this season, he has the third highest F-4 in all of baseball, trailing only Mike Trout and Mooky Betts. Dude's a superstar, and you get him for two years at about $25 million, total. Not each year, total. So, yeah, you should be pretty excited about that. One other name I'll throw out here at third base before we get to Toro.

You know, I know you've balked at it in the past, but Josh Donaldson, um, I can still really, really hit. And he's actually pretty decent, uh, he's still pretty good defender at third base. Yes,

he's 36. Yes. There have been some injury issues and the bigger issue is probably the contract. It's, it's two years at about 22 million guaranteed, uh, per year. And then there's an $8 million buyout.

Uh, but, you know, so are you willing to pay him to a 50, one or whatever it is, probably not. But if you trade, you say Kukuchi in the deal and Donaldson becomes two at, you know, two years at 19 million AAV,

that might be something you could stomach. And he's worth 19 million where Seeger is not. So just throw that out there. Sure. Yeah, it's injury concerns are really the big thing with that and the money. You know, he's older. He's getting up. they're in age and is you know lower half of his 30s now um but uh you know good players still

obviously so you know depending on what that cost looks like i'd be down for that especially if that's your plan d plan e at that point you know if you exhaust your other options which is you know ramirez brian um maybe even look at Trevor story we've talked about that a little bit maybe moving him over the third. So, but you have options at least. You know, and we've also talked about Matt Chapman as well.

We were even asked about Matt Chapman last week. There were a couple of mock trades that we that we looked at for Chapman on Friday's episode. So Chapman's another interesting guy, Donaldson, Ramirez. I think the Mariners are going to come out of this offseason with a good third basement if they want it. But they could also just, stick with Abraham Toro, who, you know, of course, skidded a little bit towards the end of the season,

but overall was really solid for the Mariners since coming over in that trade in late July. And his best fit defensively is third base with the arm, with the athleticism that he has. So what do you think about Toro being the starting third baseman in 2022 instead of going out and adding someone? Yeah, it's fine if you go out and you add, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, right, at the end of the day, anything's fine, so long as you add probably three above average bats. And one of those bats probably has to be plus. It's just third base is one of the few spots

where you can add one of those big bats without really blocking anybody long term because Toro can play, you know, you can play second, he can play third, he could maybe play the outfield. He could be a utility guy. And when you start looking to say, okay, well, we'll just go get a left fielder.

And it's like, well, you know, you want to get Kelnick at bat. So, well, we'll just go get a right field or a center fielder. So, well, you want to get Lewis at bat, so you got Julio coming up. So third base is one of the only places where you don't really have a, you know, a young stud or a young player that you think is a stud. You know, you don't have somebody there who could conceivably be ready in 2022. So it's fine, but you got to find somewhere else to upgrade the bat pretty significantly. And if you remove third base is one of those options, it's pretty much second base.

center field D.H. and catcher is where you can add the big bats and yeah those aren't exact those are all up the middle positions they don't typically have big bats behind them so

yeah third base is just kind of the easiest place to to find that huge improvement but if you can do it elsewhere and Toro's your third baseman you should be fun yeah and you know and I've talked about this before with Toro obviously you're losing some power there

from Seeger to Toro, but you can also make up for that at second base. Sign Marcus Simeon. Obviously, that's a lot easier said than done, but that's certainly a possibility here in it. It feels like Simeon is going to be their top target

this off season. And then if they lose out on him, which could happen pretty quick, it seems like Simeon might make a decision pretty early on in the off season. So once they know what's going to happen there, then, you know, and they lose out, then they can start turning their

attention to, you know, the Donaldson's, the Chapmans, the Ramirez's, the Bryant's, the stories, et cetera, et cetera. But again, they have options. So I feel pretty confident that they're at least going to come away from this offseason with one really, really good infielder. And if Toro's the other guy, then I think that's totally fine. Like you said, as long as you get three quality bats in the lineup, the rest doesn't really matter. Just figure it out. So we're going to be answering more questions in just a moment, but real quick, want to remind you this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by DirecTV. Does this sound familiar? You've got one device that lets you catch the game live, another that lets you stream your favorite shows, you're watching

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You can learn more at directtiv.com. That's directtiv.com. Compatible device required. Content varies by package. You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. every day. We are free and available on all platforms. Let's get to another question here from Alex Ledbetter 15 on Twitter. They ask favorite potential centerfield edition. It sounds like Seattle wants to add a centerfielder.

You know, you listen to Jerry's comments about how anything they get from Kyle Lewis in 2022 they're going to look at as a bonus. And that's pretty odd considering that he's, you know, widely expected to be ready to go by spring training. So that would seem to indicate that, you know, if Lewis ends up being the centerfielder because he's the best guy, fine, but they're not going to give him that job. And so, you know, Kelnick, you know, he's okay out there, but, you know, he has regressed some since he's gotten bigger. He's added more muscle. He's lost a little bit of his speed. So he belongs in a corner, but he can manage out there in center just fine if you want to delete that. But short of those two guys, you really don't have an option out there in center field right now.

you know, Jake Frailey's not it. So, yeah, I do think they are looking to add a centerfielder. And I think they're probably going to look to add one who can legitimately play centerfield. I mean, Lewis is pretty good out there. But if you're going to make Lewis earn his spot back, you're going to want an upgrade at, you know, defensively. Because finding an offensive centerfielder who's better than Lewis might be hard. There are a few guys out there. My favorite is his Byron Buxton.

There were rumors that he was being shot by the twins at the deadline. And there's rumors that Buxon's already rejected multiple extension offers from Minnesota. So it sounds like he's out after this year. And Buxon is a premier defensive center fielder who's hit like an All-Star or MVP, really, when he's been healthy over the last three years, which is an issue. But he is a plus defender. He might be the fastest guy in baseball. he's got tremendous power.

He makes everybody around around him better. And so if you get lucky and he happens to play 140 games, you probably have an MVP candidate on your hand. So Buxin is my favorite. There's other guys out there, Keirmeyer as a guy to watch into trade. I know you like Miles Straw.

Really not a great centerfielder class in free agency. I don't really want Starling Marte to be my center fielder. He was fine there last year, but he belongs in left field. He's a left fielder. And he's 34. You're going to have to give him multiple years and you're paying for his career year, basically. And that's just not who he's really ever been, at least not since like 2016.

So, yeah, I would steer clear of Starly Marte a little bit here. So, yeah, I do think Seattle one status centerfielder, but I think they want a legitimate centerfielder, one who can play there every day and is actually an asset to them defensively, not somebody who can manage, like Starlight. Marty, if that makes sense. Yeah. I think I'm with you on the Buxon thing in terms of just pure favorite potential outfield target because the upside is incredible and it's probably not going to cost you as much as you would think. It's still going to cost you something nice. Like it's going to

hurt to acquire Byron Buxon, but he's only got a year left. There's obviously the health concerns. He's really only been good at, you know, at the plate for a handful of games. grand scheme of things compared to the rest of his career. He's mostly been bad at the play, but he's one of the best defensive center fielders in the game. And now he's figuring it out with that. And as long as he can be healthy

and you can, you know, and you're comfortable in banking on that being the case, then you should absolutely do that. Because the upside is just exponentially high, especially relative to the cost.

So if you can grab Buxton, you might have a potential MVP candidate on your hands and for maybe a fraction of the costs that it would take to go get Jose Ramirez, for example, since we were on the topic of that earlier. If you're looking for that kind of upside, obviously Ramirez is more safe. There's, you know, some other guys in free agency as well. You know, Simeon that's probably more safe, especially from the health side of things. But yeah, if you if you want that kind of player if you want to add that kind of player this year oxen might be the guy because

again the ceiling is just so incredibly high for him are there anyone else uh you know maybe on that has flying flown under the radar that you've looked at maybe like a garret hampson or someone like that for centerfield um hampson would be would be pretty fun but again i think i want somebody a little more experienced out there

um so yeah it's It's kind of tough that centerfield is a really tough position to go out and fill. And there's only a handful of guys who help you both defensively and offensively. And that's why I like Buxton so much. That's also why I'm not willing to go up on Kyle Lewis in center field either. So it's a very hard position to find, you know, sometimes you get lucky. But for me, it's, you know, just pay up for that guy. if it's Buxton and you have to give the, I don't know,

if you're offering Hancock for Buxton and, you know, Minnesota's like, well, we like Hancock, but we'd also really like, you know, Levi Stout, just do it. It's worth the extra because that is such a hard position to find somebody who helps you both offensively and defensively. And so, yeah, I would just pay the extra to get the guy who can do that. And there's only five or six of those guys out there anyways. And we only know of one or two who are available this winter or who could be available this winter.

So just pay the extra. All right. We got one last question to go over. But real quick, want to remind you this episode of Lockdown Mariners is also brought to you by BiltBar. Don't you hit it when you're out and about in hunger strikes, but the only convenient options are unhealthy and going to make you feel worse in the end? That doesn't have to be the case anymore if you choose BiltBar. Bill Burt Bar is providing folks with a healthy, nutritious and delicious alternative for snacking. Bill Bar has a plethora of delicious flavors ranging from coconut to cookies and cream, mint brownie, and so much more.

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Most likely a major leaguer to get traded is probably either Steckenrider or Seawald. Sure, yep. In terms of like the young major leaguers, I think we can eliminate Kalnick and Gilbert. I don't think they're going anywhere. So I also really don't think they're going to trade Luis Terens. I know you hate him, but some of us have seen the light and understand that Terence can hit. and we want to keep that around. So, yeah, so I think they like him.

I think they keep him. They seem to really like Toro. We know that they got interest, you know, after they acquired Toro. Other teams reached out to them immediately. CVU was available. And they said no. So that would seem to imply that they really like Toro.

They have a very specific role for him in mind. So, you know, by process of elimination, and based on, you know, kind of the, the tone of the answer given by Topoto, seems like they might be open to trading Kyle Lewis, which, you know, would be a bummer because I really like Kyle Lewis and he's awesome. But also, if he helps you land, you know, Jose Ramirez or, you know, Luis Castillo or Hermann Marquez or whatever it is, Sandy Alcontra, like, fine.

At the end of the day, you just want to win. And so would I like to win with Kyle Lewis on my team? Sure. But if it helps my team win and to not have Kyle Lewis on my team because I'm trading him for something better, then that's fine too. So, yeah, it feels like Lewis is probably the most likely one out of that big group there. But just raw, like which guy who ended the year on the 26-man roster is most likely to get traded? it's one of the relievers

it's it's Tom Murphy it's you know it's one of those guys yeah stack and rider is probably the biggest one like you mentioned because we've we've heard that quite a few times now from folks that are in the know that

stack and rider I mean and we've talked about his his trade value as well and taking advantage of that and you might be able to get a major league piece that helps you elsewhere maybe you get a utility upgrade over over Dylan Moore or something in return for a second rider.

I think that's certainly within the realm of possibility. You could take advantage of Paul Seawalt's trade value. If you're not buying into him being that kind of reliever, which is a top, you know, five to ten reliever in baseball, which is totally fair, especially with relievers, you know, you never know. So yeah, take advantage of that if you can. If that helps you get something nice, and then my personal off-season plan, I traded Seawald

to do just that, to take advantage of it. of that and get a, you know, a quality major leaguer elsewhere that's going to help me at another position of need. So, yeah, I would say it's those two guys for sure. I'm starting to talk myself into trading Kyle Lewis, though. I got to be real because I think there's quite a bit of value there and that might help me go get someone, you know, like a Jose Ramirez without maybe given up a Julio Rodriguez. You know, maybe it might help. me limit that prospect capital. I'd like to add for the record because we brought it up there.

I don't see any reasonable trade target in which the Mariners would give up Julio Rodriguez. I don't think that's going to happen, even Jose Ramirez. I think, you know, if push came to shove and there was just no way to get it done without giving up Julio, maybe they do it, but aside from that, I don't think they're going to do that. I think they just add another really good prospect. I think Julio is as close to untouchable as anybody on this team can be. It's not just because obviously he's an extremely talented player.

They love his attitude. They love his makeup. They love his leadership skills. They love his buy-in. They love everything about Julio Rodriguez. So, you know, short of some insubes, insane package where it's like, hey, we'll give you Jose Ramirez and Shane Bieber, but Julio's got to be in the deal.

Short of something crazy like that, I don't see Julio getting traded this winter. I think Kelnick is more likely to get traded. Probably the three least likely players to get traded this winter are probably Logan Gilbert, Julio Rodriguez, and George Kirby. Yeah. And honestly, I probably, I don't think. I think Kellnick's going anywhere either, especially after the September that he had. I think they're ready to move forward with him.

Obviously, you don't want to, you want to build a roster where he's not necessarily guaranteed a starting job every single night. But that you saw some really great growth out of him towards the end of the year there. And you certainly want to go along with that because there could be pretty big things in the store for Jared Kellnick in 2022. if he keeps going on that upward trend. So that's going to do it for today's episode of Lockdown Mariners. Thank you so much for joining us here for Colby Padnode. I'm Taday-N-Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-N-Rer-Nors.

You can follow me at Dane-G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat-E-N-E. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making Lockdown Mariners your first listen of the day. Every day. We'll be back tomorrow with Mock Trade Tuesday. at some of the most ridiculous Mariner's trade proposals being made on baseball trade values.com

and the occasional decent one that sometimes sneaks on through. Now make your second listen of the day Locked on MLB where Paul Francis Sullivan and please call him Sully brings you his unique perspective on the major leagues president past. It's free and available on all platforms. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow.