Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: The Bare Minimum of Success For the 2023 Mariners?

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

It is time for this week's instalment of Mariners Mailbag Monday... on a Tuesday. Topics from the mailbag include reasonable expectations for the 2023 team, what to make of their $83 million profit, Opening Day lineups, Bryce Miller, and more!We’re raising money for Feeding America! 34 million Americans are food insecure, including 9 million children. Feeding America turns every dollar raised into 10 delicious meals to feed the hungry. We have set up a direct donation fund you can access by heading to https://teamfeed.feedingamerica.org/participant/13390 If you can’t donate, remember that we are donating 10 cents for every new YouTube subscriber we gain in the next month. By hitting the subscribe button, you’re donating one meal to somebody suffering from hunger!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/LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONMLB.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” 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.

What does a successful season look like for the Mariners in 2023? We'll answer that and more on today's mailbag episode of the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day. It is Tuesday, March 28, 2023. This is Taday and Gazzalas and Colby Pat Node for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first.

Listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts. on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider sending out for our Patreon by scanning the QR code right above my head. The link as well as our social accounts is also in the description below. On the show today, we're doing a rare mailbag Tuesday. We'll be answering your Mariners questions over the next 30 or so minutes and be sure to stick around until the middle of the show to find out more about the giveaway and fundraiser we announced yesterday's show. But first, Colby, let's get into these questions starting with Bing Bong the Archer, who asks, what do you all think is the bare minimum for this season to be considered a success?

Would you take more player progression over making any noise in the playoffs? Colby, you can start, my friend. Yeah, well, first of all, apologies for Ty recording in a dungeon. We only have a couple more days before we're back, each back to our normal setup. So that'll be nice. The weird month is almost over. And hey, it's opening day week. Get excited, folks. Yes. It is.

To answer the question, no, I'm not willing to trade player development for, you know, playoff appearances. Not anymore. But as for what would make a successful season, I think, you know, I think you really have to take a step forward this year. And that doesn't necessarily mean wins. I think it means that you need to be a legitimate threat to the Astros when all a sudden done.

And we saw them close that gap last year. I think they closed it a little bit more this off season. But if you're not challenging the Astros, then it's probably a mild disappointment if you're not challenging them for the American League West. But it's kind of hard to say, you know, you made the playoffs. You have a legitimate shot of winning the World Series, but you did it as a wild card.

It means it's not a successful season. You know what I mean? So for me, I think, you know, you're always going to worry about player development, obviously you're going to give Jared Kelnik's opportunity to stick this time around. But you have to be willing to pull the trigger on guys because your whole like, oh, well, if it doesn't work this year, it'll work next year. I think that goes out the window because your window is now open.

So every time you don't take advantage of your window when it's open, it's a missed opportunity. So I don't think it really is like they have to win 94 games or they have to get to the ALCS. I don't know putting that kind of like strict. you know, requirement to be a successful season makes a lot of sense because a lot happens in a 162 game season. We don't know how this team's going to look at the playoffs. We don't know how healthy they're going to be. But I think, you know, ultimately to say that you took a step forward this season instead of stayed neutral. I think you have to legitimately, you know, battle the Astros for the American League West and then, you know, get back into the

playoffs somehow. Agreed. You know, you alluded to it just a second ago that there's just so much variance here. And this team is still so young that I think it would be fair to say World Series or bus this year. We're not there yet because this team is going to have more opportunities just given the age, given the club control that they have on a lot of these guys on their core essentially. So

that's not really how I view this season. I just want to see them be able to compete with the Astros for real. I want to see them actually be able to go toe to toe to with that club and hopefully go into 2024 being the best team in the American League West. That would be ideal for me. And if they can

get to the ALCS, World Series, that are great. But again, there's so much variance. We don't know how healthy they're going to be. They might not be able to go far in the playoffs and it might not have anything to, you know, to be their fault really, right? Like it might not be their fault at all. You know, because just guys could get hurt.

You know, Julio could get hurt, knock on wood. You know, Cal Raleigh could get hurt, knock on wood. That could happen and that could just derail their playoff hopes towards the end of the season. And that's not really indicative of who they are truly as a team at their core. So, you know, you just want to see the growth, right? You want to see, you know, that Cal Raleigh's breakout was real. You want to see, you know, Julio take that next step into superstardom. You want to see Jared Kelnick, hopefully be, you know, solidify himself as a part of this core.

That would be nice. You know, you want to see those things. You want to see George Kirby be the guy that we all think that he can be. We want to see Logan Gilbert, you know, take that next step. We want to see a really nice bounce back out of Robbie Ray. You know, hopefully we get to see a breakout campaign from Bryce Miller, someone like that. If those things happen, but they don't go far in the playoffs, you still feel really good about where this team is, just given, again, how young they are. Sure, but if all those things happen, they're probably the best team in the American League.

They're probably, yeah. Yeah, it's just one of those things. And like I said, like you still want to develop guys, right? You want to give Jared some leash and see what he does with it. you want to get Bryce Miller starts this year. But at the end of the day, you know, if those guys aren't getting it done and you feel like you've given them enough time, to be blunt about it, screw them.

We have to win. Like, we have, winning this year is the priority still. You could get to a point, you know, where everything kind of just goes against you and you're kind of a middling 500 team. And, you know,

maybe it makes sense to just kind of like, yeah, you know, let's just wait a year. We'll push this back and we'll see what happens. But just based on, you know, the talent of the roster and everything else.

Yeah, playoffs, I think, is a reasonable expectation. And if the playoff appearance comes with growth from the players that you're hoping are a part of this core, then that's great. And if it does happen, it probably means that they have closed the gap on the Astros. I'd say it like this. I don't think the Astros are won in this division by 16 games this year. Yeah, absolutely. Now, yeah, if the Mariners are still 12 games back, I don't really count that as like a huge step forward. They need to be, you know, within striking distance in middle of September, I think.

But at the bare minimum, you need to get back to the postseason. Yep. You know, unless, again, things that are completely out of your control just start to snowball, health, right? Yeah, the obvious caveat is always health. Health, right, because those things, again, variance. It's very important. All right.

So, Nick here asks, do you think the Mariners lineup is losing out on potential length by not having a more dedicated DH bat? What attributes in a player do you think this lineup is deficient? of dependability, consistency, I guess. That's really it, right? Like, it's really just towards the bottom half of the lineup, because I think this one through six is great, no matter how you really stack them.

It's just that seven, eight through nine that you just don't really know about because, you know, Kelnick, what is Kelnick going to be? Is A.J. Pollock going to be able to play almost every day because that's kind of how they currently have it constructed. unfortunately. He should probably be more of a platoon bat. But he's your DH right now. So you do have a DH bat there. And I've talked about Pollock at length over the last couple of weeks about how I think, you know, maybe last year was a little bit of a fluke. He has hit both sides, you know, for both handednesses for pitchers, you know, pretty well besides last year. He was a 137

WRC plus guy in 2021. Like he's not too far removed from being essentially an all-star caliber player so maybe that is the dh right maybe that is the answer there but i don't know we we don't know yet um and then who you know who knows where you're going to get out of jp you know you're probably just going to get jp you know typical jp offensive numbers which is fine out of your number of nine hole but he needs to be better defensively we talked about this what yesterday is show or maybe last week but uh but yeah that's really again it's just dependability right like there's just not a lot of certainty is a better word there i was trying to think of the word certainty is really what this uh offense is deficient of at towards the bottom and on its bench right now yeah the mariners are

still i think a bat short and it has nothing to do with the position they play i i really don't care so like should they have gone and gotten jd martinez i mean like maybe but i actually want a better bat you know like i want a bat that is you know got a higher upside than that i don't care what position they play because because you know the mariners don't have that that full-time DH. I have that luxury of not caring if the guy is, you know, a third baseman or a corner outfield bat. I don't care because I can still get him at bats and rotate him through. So DH specifically no, but I do think they're a bat short. I think there's something they're going to have to get at the deadline. And because they didn't get it this off season, like Ty

said, you're really counting on guys that have legitimate question marks. If Jared Kellnick or AJ Pollock don't hit, now you have to go get two bats. And bats at the deadline are pretty darn expensive. So, yeah, I think they need at least one. And if Jared hits and Kelnick hits, then maybe that one bat that you need is more of a platoon bench type instead of an everyday bat. But based on where everything sits right now,

I would say they're at least an everyday bat short. Yeah, at the very least, at minimum, you're probably going to need someone that's better than Sam Haggerty or someone that's better than Tommy Lestella, which, I mean, one of those guys are. that now anyway. One of those guys are probably going to be replaced by Dylan Moore. Whenever he comes back,

we'll see how healthy he is and how much the, you know, lost spring for him impacts him and all that stuff. But maybe that's the answer there for one of those spots. But you're going to need at least another bench bat at the very least. And that's, again, that's if Pollock proves that he can actually be an everyday hitter for you.

And if Jared's actually a league average bat or better. And those are, you know, again, pretty big ifs considering the years both of those guys are coming off of. I know we really like what Jared has done this spring, but that we're going to say it time and time again. We need to see it in actual regular season games when pitchers are actually game planning for him. So it's still very much up in the air.

So yeah, right now at least one bat, at least one bat short. And it doesn't really matter where they play. All right. So we got more questions coming up here. And we're also going to tell you how you can win a. signed big dumper card and also help with a very great cause in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder, this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

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Thank you again for making us to your first listen here on Mailbag Tuesday. Now, Colby, on yesterday's show, we announced a couple things that we're doing. We are doing a giveaway and we are doing a fundraiser. So could you tell the folks, about what we got going on. Sure. So we'll start with the easy one. We're giving away, or I should say, I'm giving away.

Yeah, you're giving away. This Cow Raleigh autograph card, you can see it if you're watching on YouTube. Really nice card. We're giving that away. Again, to enter is very simple. Just make sure you're subscribed to the channel and leave a comment on any of the videos we post between now and essentially May 1st. And we'll randomly pick one of the comments and you'll get the card.

Now on to the more important, impressive thing. Ty and I are partnering with Feeding America. We're doing a fundraiser for them where we are essentially raising meals for the hungry. Food insecurity affects 34 million Americans right now, 9 million of which are children. Feeding America is a great organization that can turn $1 into 10 meals to feed those who are hungry. It's really a fantastic bang for your buck. we have a direct link to our fundraising page, which you can click right there on the video as soon as Ty puts it up.

And that will donate directly. If you want to help out, but you don't have the extra money to donate right now. That's totally cool. We understand it. Ty and I will donate 10 cents for every new subscriber we get, starting from yesterday's show until today. I think we've added almost 50 subscribers in a day yesterday. So, you know, that's 50 meals right there.

So, yeah, subscribe if you can't, if you can't donate directly or even if you can, subscribe, and it's another 10 cents. So yesterday was the first day. And actually, we had some people drop some coin in the, that some people dropped some coin in the donation. Got a quick little cameo there for my pops in the background. So yeah, guys, we also, we got a large donation from one support. of ours, Travis Robey, who donated $100 to our fund here. We want to say, that's amazing.

Thank you so much to Travis. I'm not sure if he wanted us to say your name and bring this to everyone's attention on the show, but we were flabbergasted by that, to be quite honest with you. That was incredible. It was our first donation. That was our first donation. Yeah, the entire thing. That's incredibly generous of you.

Thank you so much, so much for your generosity. Right. And guys, you don't have to drop $100. Like, no, no. We appreciate it. $1. $1.00 would be amazing. $1.00 is 10 meals, guys.

$0.10? 10 cents. Even. Donate 10 cents. Yeah. It really is. It all adds up. And, you know, obviously, you know, Bryce, you know, Bryce donated, Freddie donated,

Tim donated. And we had, Mark, of course, donated. Mark's our second highest donation right now. And, oh, actually. third. And we had four anonymous. You guys don't want us to read out your name. That's fine. You just, you know, make an anonymous donation. Just know that we appreciate it. And like we said, every single dollar does count. Every dollar is 10 meals is 10 meals. And if you don't think 10 meals is a lot, go talk to somebody who's starving and ask them if they would like to have their next 10 meals given to them. So every dollar counts and every subscriber counts. So make sure you guys do that. Again, the link will be in the description down below. If you didn't scan the QR code while you. you're watching. If you're listening and not watching, the link is also going to be in the description of the episode. So please help out, guys, where we want to get to, we set ourselves up at $500 for the next month. This will run until May 1st. And we took a good chunk out of that

yesterday. But please continue to donate. Please continue to retweet. You know, if you see this in tweet form, that would help a lot. Share it on Facebook, whatever it is, you, however it is you think you can help. It really does help. So subscribe, you know, so we can raise more money that way, donate directly. And if you've already done those two things or if you, if you can't do those two things, then a retweet, a sharing on Facebook, you know, whatever it is would also help a lot. So thanks, guys. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. You're all awesome. And thank you to everyone that's already subscribed or donated. Super cool. All right. Let's get back into these questions here, Colby. we got one here from L.A. Sportsgirl who asks, what do you think the opening day batting order will be? Do you think Colton Longstay is at the number two spot or will he be moved lower down with Thai France and the two spot like last year? I think we've pretty much seen the opening day lineup here in spring games. The big question mark is if J.P. Crawford's going to play or not. Sam Haggurty looks like he's going to be the backup shortstop. And so it could be Haggody. Crawford wasn't placed on the injured list, though. He's on the 26-man roster. So,

I am going to assume for now he is going to play and he's going to be the number nine hitter on Thursday night against Shane Bieber and the Guardians. But I think we've seen the opening day lineup more so over the last few days here with Julio Rodriguez leading things off, which is our preference. We are very happy about that. Colton Long at two. Ty France at three. Tay Oscar Hernandez hitting cleanup. And then Cal Rale at five. So you kind of break up the Ritees.

And then A. E. E. O. Hennieu. Sour is at six. Jared Kelnick at 7, AJ Pollack, the DH at number 8, and then as I mentioned, J.P. Crawford at 9. So I think that's what they're going to be rolling with here. Any tweaks you would make, Colby, or do you think that's pretty good? I would swap France and Teo. And then honestly, I would probably swap France and Chino. I think I would do Julio Wong, Teo, actually probably Gino, then Cal, then Thai. that would be my one through six but obviously you know ties a really good hitter so you don't want him to be that low in the lineup but then again look at the five guys you're ahead of them you feel okay about it but yeah uh yeah there's really not a wrong way to do one through six there are ways that we would prefer they have them

like julio hitting lead off instead of second or third uh but yeah you just get those six those are your six best guys put them in the lineup you know as often as you can and let it roll and yeah i guess there's an outside shot that maybe cooper hummel's the dh maybe it's Lestela, but I think they're going to get Paul at the nod. He's the bet. And, you know, he's got quite a few outbats off of Bieber. So I think they'll give him the shot on opening day. Let's go here now to Maddie Wyatt, who asks, hey, guys, big Max Kepler guy, just like us.

Another outfielder I have my eye on, though, is Alec Thomas. The debacks are outfield heavy and could trade him. Could also help give J. Rod some DH slash off slash corner. outfield days. What are your thoughts on Thomas or any of the D-backs young outfield? So I'll start here. The D-backs have about as much of an outfield log jam as the Mariners did about a year or two ago, right? When everyone was like, oh, the Mariners have so many outfielers. What are they going to do with them? I don't think anyone thinks that nowadays because some of those guys just frankly did not pan out. And Alec Thomas is one guy that really exciting. Colby is a big Alec Thomas guy.

and he just hasn't panned out so far at the major league level just in his rookie year. It didn't get a ton of action this past year, but, you know, just didn't work out for him. I think he posted like a WRC plus somewhere in the 70s in his first season at the big league level. But here's the thing. If the Diamondbacks were to trade Alec Thomas right now, they'd be selling low on him. That's just what it is. You know, it's kind of a very similar situation to the Jared Kelnick situation, right? where it's just like, yeah, you could trade that guy and get something useful back for him,

but you're not going to get what you think his value could be eventually. So why would the Diamondbacks do that right now? Yeah, they have Jake McCarthy. Yeah, they just acquired Lourdes, Gurriel Jr. Yeah, they have Corby Carroll. And, you know, maybe Gabby Moreno could play in a corner outfield spot of catcher doesn't work out for him. You know, Cattel Marte obviously can play in the outfield a little bit. they have options there, but they're not handcuffed.

They are going to be able, and obviously Kyle Lewis is involved in that mix, but who knows if he can actually play any sort of defense. Did he even play this spring? Because I know last time we checked, he hadn't yet. He got into the last few weeks. He looked good. He looked like, you know, Kyle Lewis. That's good.

That's good to hear. Yeah, we stand Kyle Lewis on the show, even though it's no longer with the Mariners. Yeah. Yeah, the Alec Thomas thing, like I, they don't have an outfield. logjam because Jake McCarthy, we don't know what he is. We don't know what Paven Smith is. We don't really know what Corbyn Carroll is. There's certainly a lot of hype around Corbyn Carroll and there should be.

He's a really talented player, but we don't know that he's like a big league star or anything like that. So I don't think they have an outfit logjam. They also could tell Marte they could play out there. Like, I don't think they have a logjam. Yeah. Alec Thomas would be interesting. The issue is that he's not a proven commodity. And if you're the Mariners and you're going to trade for a bat, you want the proven

commodity. Essentially, you're requiring another situation like Jared Kellnick again. Right. And you don't, you, you want one of those guys, not too. Yeah. You don't even really want the one, but you're willing to live with it because Kellnick is your guy. I think for the, for the diamondbacks to be interested in moving Alex

Thomas right now, they would want somebody like Bryce Miller. Bryce Miller is way more valuable to the Mariners than Alex Thomas would be. So it's just, it's dead on arrival. So yes, I like Alex Thomas quite a bit. I'm a big believer in him. Yeah. He's just not a fit. for the Mariners right now.

And honestly, he's a pretty good fit for where he is right now in Arizona, where that's a team that, you know, have a couple things break right. They could compete for a wild card, but they have the at bats to give still. And they have no reason to give up on them. Yeah. And, you know, the Diamondbacks, they do weird stuff. But I think if, but I think if they were to trade Thomas and again, you know, saying, you know, going with what I was saying about how they would have to sell low on them,

they know that. Right. So if they are going to trade them, they're going to ask for what they actually think his value is. And I don't think the Mariners are going to be willing to make that deal for someone that just doesn't carry any sort of certainty. It goes back to our discussion about what the Mariners are missing right now offensively.

That's certainty. And Alec Thomas does not address that. No, like if you can get them for Emerson Hancock, fine, whatever. You deal with that later. But I think it's going to cost Bryce Miller and the Mariners just aren't in a position to trade Bryce Miller. He means more to them than Alec Thomas possibly could.

This year and probably in the future as well. All right, so we got one, two, three, four more questions to go here on mailbag Tuesday. But first, before we get into those questions, let me tell you about built bar. The built March Madness bracket is here. And we know you have a favorite bar or puff. So now's your time to make it count. Go to built march madness.com to vote for your favorites. And when you vote for your favorite bar or puff, you will be automatically entered into a drawing where 50 lucky locked on listeners will get a free box.

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Listen, it is mailback Tuesday. We're getting back into these questions, starting with Samuel, who says the M's didn't realistically pursue any big free agents despite making 83. $1.3 million in profit last year and $71 million in profit in 2021, but have the 18th highest payroll with most of the farm graduated and next year's free agent class sparse. How do the Mariners improve their roster to contend for the AL West? Well, while the mariners don't necessarily have the farm that they had a couple of years ago with Julio Rodriguez and George Kirby and Jarekelnik, etc., I still think their farm is pretty good And I think they're going to surprise a lot of national folks that have, in my opinion,

underrated them going into this season. There's a lot of interesting prospects still. Guys like Harry Ford, Bryce Miller, Brian Wu, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the other thing, too, they're going to be able to add three essentially first round picks coming up here in July. They got the three top 30 picks that they're going to be boasting in that draft. They obviously just added Felman-Sullesden as well. So the Mariners farm system is in a pretty good spot still. They're going to be able to make some noise on the trade market.

And yeah, free agency is sparse. And yeah, there's still a lot of money available. But again, you know, in theory, right? That's ultimately up to John Stanton and Mariners' ownership if they want to spend that or not. But obviously, there is one big name that is sitting the free agent market this winter that could potentially be of interest to the Mariners. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. So maybe that's what the plan is. plan is there. Who knows, again, that's ultimately up to Stanton and ownership to decide if they

want to pursue that or not. Right. Let's go back to the first part of the question, because I would challenge the premise that the Mariners obviously didn't go after any of the big free agents. Sure. That's an assumption, right? And it's an assumption where it's pretty easy to draw the lines how you came to that assumption. They didn't sign any of the big name free agents. They weren't really connected to any of the big name free agents, therefore they didn't even try. No, that's not how that works, right? The Mariners, as we know, are notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to free agency.

The Robbie Ray thing last year, right, literally came out of nowhere. So I reject the premise of the question in the idea that they obviously didn't go out and try to get any of the big guys. We don't know that they did. We don't know that they didn't. We talked about this last week. I think that they did go after, you know, the big four free agent short stops, or at least a couple of them.

I think they talked to him, but... And what ended up being prohibitive wasn't the money. It was the amount of years. Well, like, Trey Turner was not going to come to Seattle,

period, end of story. Sure, yeah. Doesn't matter. There's that, there's the Danzby situation with him wanted to go to Chicago. Danzby wasn't coming any further west than Chicago. Yeah.

Carlos Correa, legitimate, legitimate injury issues, and we don't know if the marriage were involved at that market either. They had two chances at them. They didn't appear to be interested in the time. And he ended up having to sign with the team

that knew him best. Right. And then Zander, you want to give Zander Bogart's you know $300 million over 11 years because that's probably what it takes to get him away from San Diego like that was yeah whatever it was

that's a yeah that's a ridiculous contract the only one they really probably ever had a shot at was Xander and they were not going to go to 12 years on a 31 year old right they're just not going to do that so I would question I would challenge you on the premise of your question however the second part

how do they get better without free agency the way they got better this winter they trade they develop, they grow, right? And it's the same way the Atlanta Braves get better, right? The Atlanta Braves are not huge spenders in free agency. They develop. They get growth from within.

They trade. And then they supplement their roster in free agency, right? They go and they get a Charlie Morton to kind of fill in the gaps, which is honestly similar to what the mayors have done. They went in a free agency and they supplemented with Robbie Ray, right? So the idea that you have to spend in for agency to get significantly better on a year-to-year basis, It's just not true. The Atlanta Braves don't do it that way.

Honestly, the Houston Astros haven't done it that way. The Houston Astros have not been big spenders in free agency. Yeah, they had the like pre-first championship for the Astros they did kind of with McCann and Redick, etc. But since then they have those were like $60 million deals though. Yeah. And they were like for four or five years. We're not talking about mega deals. In fact, the guys that they would have had to give mega deals to, they let walk.

They let Garrett Cole walk. They let Justin Verlander walk. They let Carlos Correa walk. Right. So how do they get better without free agency if they're not willing to spend money, which again, I challenge that. But whatever. It's I understand the argument behind it. I told it's obvious to see.

Yeah. Yeah. When you see the profit numbers and all that, I get it. I totally get it. Yeah, absolutely. They were number one in profits this past season. So according to Forbes at least. Right.

But how do they get better? Like there's always something that should be. said at the start of any payroll conversation, right? The Mariners, or should I say, John Stanton should spend more money. Nobody's ever argued that. Nobody. Yeah, we're not arguing that. We've never argued that. He should spend more money. But we work in a reality where we assume he's not going to, and that's where we base our

conversation on because that's where the real conversation is. Because we just get on every single show and say, John Stanchett should spend more money. Thanks for listening to the Lockdown Mariners. That's not fun. That's not exciting. show. Yeah, so. Yeah, I talked about this with Javier Rez when we did our little crossover and just kind of talking about how, you know, obviously the Padres have spent a lot and they're typically not a team that has spent in the past. And so, you know, but the Mariners have been willing to do certain things. It's just been more so with the guys that they've already had in house, right? Luis Castillo,

Julio, Julio Rodriguez, et cetera. I would ask you this, right? Look at how much money the Mets spent on their roster. Look at how much money the Padres spent. on their roster. Does it look like those two teams, when you compare the roster to the Seattle Mariners, does it look like they spent $120 million more dollars in Seattle? It doesn't. You can build a championship team

on pretty much any amount of money. But again, yes, Stanton should spend more, but that's not the conversation. How do they get better? Trades. Yeah. Just one quick note on the Stanton should spend more. Yeah, like the Mariners should go after

Shohay Otani this offseason. We will be, we will make that very clear when we, when we get there that the mariner should absolutely do whatever it takes to go sign Shohei Otani. Right. Now, not whatever it takes, but yeah. I mean, again, that goes back to the whole question. If John Stanton were to get the checks. Sure. If there's an unlimited amount of funds, let's just live in a dream world here for a second.

If John Stanton stops being John Stanton, yeah, yeah, yes, the Mariners should go after Showy Otany. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if John Stanton's like, okay, you can sign Otani. but you can't keep Teosker Hernandez. You can't extend George Kirby or Cal Raleigh or any of those guys. Then probably not because, again, Jerry Depoto has to work within the budget that is set for him. And so he has to do whatever he can to build the best ball club within that budget.

And, you know, if that means not signing Shohei Otani, then that's kind of the sacrifice that you have to make. All right. Anyway, we've spent a lot of time answering that question. Let's try to quickly wrap up these last three questions here. Who are your picks to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on opening day? This one comes from SBR. Thank you for the question. Shane, I say this with the utmost respect.

I could not care less. Oh, here we go. Hi, back to you. Rick Riz. There you go. I don't care. I literally couldn't care. When I saw this question, the first name that popped.

in my mind, it popped in my mind was Jamie Moyer. I don't know why, but let Jamie Moore throw out. Cool. Yeah, cool. Whatever. John Allerud. Why not? I like John Allerud. Gino Smith. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the best answer. Yeah, Gino. M.V. Gino. Get MVP.

All right. There you go. Whatever. And let Gino Swarres be the guy to catch it. Then I'll get it. Yes. Yes. Now we're talking, right? There we go. There we go. There we go. But my serious answer is Rick Riz. Okay. Yeah, I like it. Good. or Goldie, let Goldie do it after signing his extension.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Chowder-headed Yokel asks if Bryce Miller becomes the locked-in fifth starter by the end of the season. What do we do with Marco? Marco performs similar worse than last year. I can't imagine we can trade him for much of anything since he's going to be paid $12 million next year. Do we keep him in the bullpen? No, you did not keep him in the bullpen because the stuff does.

Yeah, you get rid of him and you. just eat that money and that's just what it is because you're at the point now where you have to make decisions like that right marcoo gonzalez doesn't make sense for a roster trying to contend for a world series if he's performing if he's performing the way that he did last year doesn't make any sense and it'll be sad and i'll miss him and i'll wish him well but ultimately i want to win the world series so if i had to sacrifice marco gonzalez to to make that happen then i need 12 million dollars to do that yeah then that's what's going to happen that's just yeah that's just what it's got to be you know some deals just don't

don't work out. That's just what it is. And so, you know, again, it just doesn't make sense, right? Like the Chris Flex, Chris Flexim makes more sense for the bullpen than Marco Gonzalez does. Right. That's why they're going on with Marco is the number five here. Yeah. You just can't force it. Yeah. Just can't force it. So if Marco, you know, for lack of a better word, sucks again this year, then you move on. And that's it without real hesitation either. All right. Last question. it's another one on Bryce Miller. If the Mariners thought Miller had a chance at rookie of the year, would it make sense to start him on the opening day roster,

given the possible draft pick compensation? It's just, look, the rookie of the year field this year, it's obviously not as, I don't think it's as competitive as it was last year with guys like, you know, Adley and Bobby Whit Jr., and obviously Julio and Jeremy Pena. But I think there are more guys that are going to be, be vying for it with like gunner henderson at the top of course and also it's just it's it's hard

for pitchers to win unless you're like spencer strider and even spencer schreter didn't win it was michael harris uh who who ended up winning it uh in the national league last year so that that's one part of it the other thing too is miller has thrown like what 50ish innings at double a and he didn't really force the mariners hand this spring either he was he was fine you know he He got blown up in his last start against, I think, the Giants. But he was fine. But he didn't have a Julio-esque spring where he was like, you have to put me on the roster. I am one of your five best starters right now.

And he still might be one of your five best starters right now. But he didn't necessarily make that statement this spring. He didn't perute with it. He didn't force it. So no. I really, I don't think the rookie of the year thing has much to do with Bryce Miller in particular. I think it had something to do with Julio last year. I think they looked at that and they said, you know,

they said as much. I think Justin Hollander said that. Yeah. It's like, you know, we could service time them and put him down for a couple weeks in AAA and just make sure everything's on the up and up. But, you know, we thought that he could handle the major leagues. We didn't think he was going to kill us up here, even if he did struggle and the opportunity to get that first round pick, we thought was real.

Remember, if you don't start the day, if you don't start the year on the, on the roster, you can still win rookie of the year but the team doesn't get you know compensation for it and that's why somebody like Anthony Volpe who in the past probably would have gotten service time is going to be the Yankees opening day shortstop because they think there's they think he's close enough

and they want that shot at that draft pick so the draft pick thing is working by the way teams are certainly service timing guys a lot less that's why we saw Volpe I think yeah right and so it's a good thing but no I don't I don't think Miller's in the same category as Volpe and Julio last year. Gunner Henderson, yeah.

Yeah, I just, I don't think he's quite there. I don't think he's the type of guy who warrants special consideration because of the rookie of the year possibilities. So I think the mayor's did the right thing. I think he's where he should be, which I think is probably going to be double A to start, which don't read too much into that, by the way. It doesn't matter where he starts. Double A, AAA, AAA, and double A over the last few years has historically proven to be a

better spot for pitchers to actually figure figure things out because i mean the pcs warmer earlier in the year too yeah and the pcL is just it's like arcade baseball essentially so uh it's not a it's not a great place for pitchers to truly devolve in my opinion triple a is just it it's lost its value it's lost its shine a little bit um but yeah you know like i said yesterday on yesterday show when we did our flag players like i think we'll get to a point where we have a conversation about brys miller getting of the year votes where he's you know kind of pushing for it um i'm that confident that he's going to be that good uh this year um but uh i don't i don't i don't know just given the circumstances heading into the season and just kind of you know everything that i just said earlier i just don't

think that the mariners really needed to uh to force the situation there and push the envelope with them and uh you know um because i don't think there's any any sort of tangible guarantee there that he's going to be able to contend for the rookie of the year, at least right now. But we'll see. All right. So tomorrow, just to kind of give you an idea of what's going on for the rest of the week here, tomorrow we're going to be doing bold predictions for the Mariners season. And maybe like some bold major league predictions, but probably just Mariners focused.

And then Thursday, before opening day, before the game against the Guardians, we're going to be doing just general MLB predictions, Mariners predictions, going to be doing stuff like team MVP Julio, Teams I young, Kirby, team, you know, whatever, you know, some some team awards, put a bow on it.

And then, and then Friday, we'll just do a recap of the Thursday game, preview Friday's game, all that stuff. Okay, there. That's the schedule. Now we're wrapped up, pal.

Like, don't, don't blame it just on me. Read your script, buddy. Whatever. Whatever. All right, let's get out of here.

Let's get out of here. Thank you so much. for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast and for helping support our fundraiser again you can find the donate donation link down in the description for colby pad note i'm titan gonzalus be sure to give us a follow on twitter at lo underscore mariners you can follow me at dame gnzalz zl z and my coqs colby at c pat 11 that's cpat 1 1st follow us on instagram and ticot as well at locked on mariners that's one word locked on mariners you can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode and thank you again for making us your first listen now for your second listen check out locked on fantasy baseball when you're

league by listening to matt and dom every day is they bring you the best fantasy draft strategies it's free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us part of the locked on podcast network your team every day and with that have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow peace