Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: Time For Mariners to Move on From Chris Flexen?

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

It's time for another Mariners Mailbag Monday! On today's episode, Colby and Ty discuss another disastrous outing from Chris Flexen and whether it's time to move on. Plus, the guys break down lineup tweaks, some minor moves the Mariners should make, 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/Ultimate Pro Baseball GMTo download the game just visit probaseballgm.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo LOCKEDON (ALL CAPS) in the game store.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.BetterHelpThis episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp connects you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of self-discovery from wherever you are.  Visit BetterHelp.com/lockedonmlb today to get 10% off your first month. 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.

After another brutal start that helped cost the Mariners a chance to sweep the Cardinals this weekend, what do you do with Chris Flexen? We'll answer that and more here on Mariners 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. Ahoi, sailors. It is Monday, April 24th, 2023. This is Taday Gonzalez and Colby Patented for the Locked-on Mariners podcast. I told you I was going to say it.

This episode is brought to you by Ultimate Baseball GM ever dreamed of becoming an MLBGM and managing your baseball franchise. And this game is definitely for you to download the game. Just visit Ultimate BaseballGM.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo code locked on in the game. Thank you so much for making us to 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. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up 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 of this episode.

And this episode is Mailbag Monday, the show where we answer your Mariners questions. And we're going to start things off by addressing the Chris Flexen-sized elephant in the room here, Colby, because Flexon had another rough one yesterday against the Cardinals. This question comes from dime flows. What should the Mariners do with Chris Flexen going forward? His trade value has plummeted with these last couple starts. Do you DFA him and call up Tommy Malone or keep him as a long reliever and hope he improves? Colby, yesterday on our Lockdown Mariners Twitter account, you didn't miss mince words.

You said very, very bluntly Chris Flexen should not make his next start. In fact, he probably shouldn't even make the trip to Philadelphia and Toronto either. So do you still feel that way? About 24-ish hours after his blow up against the Cardinals? I don't even know anymore, man. Yes. Yeah. What Chris Flexen is giving you right now is not majorly quality.

That goes beyond his statistics. His repertoire, his arsenal is not majorly quality. His command is not majorly quality. His control is fringe. major league quality. He's not a major league guy. Right now, he's not. And the Mariners have, you know, championship aspirations and they can't be weighed down by Chris Flexen because of some, you know, bizarre hope that you didn't just waste $8 million. It's time to cut paid. It's time to DFA. There is no trade value with Chris Flex. And there really never was all that much trade value with

Chris Flexen. And now he's only gotten worse and has plummeted whatever little trade value he had. you're not going to get anything for him in July, even if he turns it around. You're not going to get anything. So what is the value of keeping him around in a long relief role that you don't even use? Like, remember Chris Flex in the bullpen last year? He would go weeks between appearances. Like, it's just not something you need, especially with the other four guys in your rotation being, you know, relative innings eaters.

And we're to that point of the year where, yeah, guys can start to push 100 pitches and stuff like that. So there's just not a lot of value to having Chris Flexen on your roster right now. He's not helping you. Every time he takes the mound, you're essentially punting that game or any real good shot you have to win that game. You're basically flushing it down the toilet. You need somebody who can keep you in games. Flexon hasn't even been able to do that his last few times out. He's just not giving you a shot.

And the Mariners, you know, they've given him that opportunity. They gave him seven runs to work with in Chicago, blew that. They gave him three runs early in yesterday. start. He blew through that really quick. And there's just nothing redeemable about Chris Flexen on the mound right now that makes him worth stashing on your major league roster. Eat the money, DFA him, and, you know, see what happens. He's not going to get claims. So is there a possibility he could come back on a minor league deal and you could send him to Tacoma that way? Sure, there's a possibility of that if you want to do that. But there's just nothing about Chris Flexen's

game right now that is valuable in any way whatsoever to the Mariners. Because he's not even eating innings, guys. It's not like, well, you know, he's, at least he goes five or six every time out. He's not even doing that. He's gone, I think he's gone more than five once. He's just, he's not good. He's not a major league quality pitcher right now. He's not better than even guys like Bryce Miller, Emerson Hancock, Brian Wu. And if you don't want to go that route, fine, totally get it. He's still not even better than Tommy Malone or maybe even Darren McCacken. The guy is just sub-majorly quality and there's really no value to keeping them around in a long relief role that doesn't really exist in you know 2023 for most clubs so there's just nothing of value here for chris flexing in

seattle and let's just say that you did put him in that role and he did end up thriving and kind of turning his season around okay great so as you mentioned colby that role has very little value to begin with to not just the mariners but any major league club and so if you kept him for the rest of the season, okay, that's like a 0.2.3 F4 gain overall, and that's on the high end of the upside, you know?

If you trade him, what are you getting? Ask yourself that right now. What are you realistically getting for Chris Flex and if he does turn it around for three months, essentially, because that would be about the time left on his contract by the time that you're ready to trade him, by the time that he, you know, turns things around enough for him to be traded. is that quad A guy that you're going to get Chris Flexen worth going through this for another

couple months trying to rehabilitate him, taking the shot on him, essentially is taking the shot on Chris Flex and Worth whatever 27, 28 year old reliever you're going to get on the trade market for him this July worth. Is it worth that? No, it's not. So move on now. Don't take that risk because odds are, especially with the way that your team has consistently developed quality relief talent, go out and bring up Riley O'Brien. Maybe Riley O'Brien can give you 0.2.3F4 this season. Maybe he can fill that void that essentially you're saying is the upside of Chris Flexen. Now, the other comment that I've received when talking about Flexon over the last day or so has

been, well, Jerry should have seen this coming. Why didn't Jerry go out and add more veteran starting depth? That doesn't really exist outside the, you know, the types of like Tommy Malone and Darren McCacken, the guys that you do have in the house. Honestly, you know, hindsight is 2020 now that we know, you know, Flexen is just not good so far this season at least. Maybe he's not dead for the whole 2023 campaign, but he's been really bad. He's been one of the worst starters in all of baseball.

But that, again, is hindsight, right? Hindsight is 2020. Yeah, they should have known better. But at the time that you went into the season, Chris Flexen was your sixth starter, pitching out of your bullpen. And he's two years removed from being a three-win pitcher. It really doesn't get better than that for your sixth starter,

aside from prospect depth, aside from, you know, top prospects that you have kind of waiting in the wings, which the Mariners have a little bit, and we'll get to that in a second. But you weren't going to go out and go after, say, Rich Hill and be like, hey, Rich, here's $6 million. Come be our seventh, eighth, ninth, best starter, and likely get pushed further down the ladder once Brian Wu is ready and Emerson Hancock is ready and Bryce Miller, et cetera. We're going to do that if Rich Hill also is getting offers to be like the Pirates number three, number three, number he's going to take the guaranteed opportunity to start, right?

Those guys within that realm, the Rich Hill tier of starting pitcher, which is essentially the tier above the Tommy Malones of the world at this point, those guys are, there's plenty of jobs around Major League Baseball to start as a pitcher. So there's opportunities for those guys to actually do what they want to go do instead of wait for three guys to get hurt in order for them to finally enter the rotation,

even though they'll have a chance to, you know, maybe compete for the postseason and, you know, all that stuff with the Mariners, whereas with the pirates, they're going to be on a rebuilding team or at least so we thought entering the season, you know, but that's just, again, that's just not going to happen. That's just not realistic to add guys of that magnitude to be your seventh, eighth, nice starters. They're just not going to do it, no matter how much, you know, money you're really throwing at them because those guys, they want to compete. So that, that to me, that's a dead end. If you're trying to pin this on on Jerry, the front office, the organization, etc. That's a dead end. No, they did what they were supposed to do. They were in a better position than most people are as far as their sixth starter goes with someone like flexen. But right now

yeah, you just, you DFA him, you wash your hands of him, and you go to Tommy Malone or Darren McCacken or whoever and you just hope that they can be a good enough bridge to Robbie Ray returning or Brian Wu, Emerson Hancock, Bryce Miller, to where you

you know get to a place where you feel comfortable in calling those guys up right so that's just that's what it is all right it's unfortunate man you know because like you really you know i mean you and i thought that flexing was better than marco heading into the season that's obviously not been the case you were hoping that hey you know again you had one of the better situations of baseball as far as that situation goes it would have you would have liked for that depth to actually show up here but that just hasn't been the case and so you guys you guys to move on, especially when you have aspirations like the Mariners do. All right, more questions coming up here in just a moment, but real quick, a reminder of this

episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by Ultimate Baseball GM. Ever dreamed of becoming an MLBGM and managing your professional baseball franchise? Well, your dream can come true and this game is definitely for you. Manage every strategic aspect of your team, play through the season, and lead your team to glory. You're responsible for hiring the right coaches and staff, managing team finances, scouting, and drafting players, managing difficult personalities. navigating your franchise through free agency and all the ups and downs of a season.

All this and a challenging and realistic game, World Ultimate Baseball GM is completely free and playable offline or you can play on the go as you want and when you want. It's basically the Jerry Depoto simulator. So instead of saying chills, depoto did it again, you can now say chills, I did it again. Download it now and Lockdown Mariners listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo code locked on in the game store. So make sure to check it out. Download the game, just visit Pro BaseballGM.com, scan the code, or look it up on the app store. That's pro baseball gm.com.

Ultimate baseball GM. Start your dynasty today. And you're listening to the lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for me. It's your first listening here on Mailbag Monday. And a reminder, folks, that the next three days, we're doing postgame shows for each and every single game in the Philly series because of the weird East Coast time hours.

So be on the lookout for that. And you can catch all of those games on the Mariners hometown broadcast on serious xm with the s xm app colby i've been talking for quite a while i'm sorry i'll let you talk now as we are now at the part of the show uh where we remind our lovely listening here what we got going on with feeding america we only got a few more days left on this uh what has proven to be a wonderful fundraiser uh with a lot of support from our listeners it's been really cool so uh where are we at right now and he's still talking um so yeah yeah so we have a week left, you know, before the official end of our fundraiser, I don't think the fundraiser page ever

actually goes away. But yeah, this will be the last week that we are actively seeking donations to Feeding America. 34 million people in this country suffer from food insecurity. Nine million of them are children. Feeding America is a great organization that can turn every dollar raised into 10 delicious, nutritious meals for those suffering from food insecurity. So if you guys want to donate directly defeating America. You can do so through our donation page by scanning the QR code that's on the screen right now or by clicking the link in the description of either the video you're watching or the YouTube or the platform that you're listening from. So it's very easy. Go fill in your your information, send the donation and it'll be added to our grand total. We started

with a goal of just $500. At last check, we were at about $64, $6,500. So just simply incredible. incredible. Like I said, we like to finish strong here. See, maybe we could push past seven, eight. If we do get to 10, if we do get to 10, this guy over here is going to be getting some ink, some tattoo, which he'll obviously video, you know, he'll record for you guys and we'll throw it up on the YouTube channel for you to enjoy. So, yeah, if you guys want to help out, please, you know, consider donating. Also, Ty and I are donating 10 cents for every new subscriber that we get in this month. We're closing in on 7,000 total, which I believe would be about, I'd have to look. I can't remember what we started at exactly.

But I think we're well past 500 new subscribers, which is 500 meals just from clicking the button. So like we said, it's been an incredible fundraiser so far. We thank you guys for all you've donated. We're hoping you can dig a little deeper and help us either by donating, subscribing to the channel or spreading the word and telling your friends and your family about this. awesome fundraiser and I don't know maybe it's time to start at in some you know at mariners and see if they want to put some money in this uh you know 81 million dollar profit $3,000 donation to get this guy to look at Colby trying to appeal to that corner of Mariners fandom I'm trying to put food in people's mouths all right so all right yeah don't try and spend this on

me but yeah also you guys already have donated go to your employer and see if they will match your donation. A lot of, a lot of companies will do that as well. So that's an option for you guys as well. So again, thank you guys so much for the support so far. It's been awesome. Let's finish strong. We have another week to go. And then, you know, we'll regroup for a little while. And then we'll probably do another fundraiser like this, maybe for a different organization, maybe for feeding in America again in a few months after we kind of recover from this one. But again, the support has been incredible. So thank you guys so much. Thank you guys. We, Absolutely appreciate it.

We got a lot of questions this mailbag Monday that were essentially some variation of one another. So that's why we spent so long talking about Chris Flexen because there were a lot of questions about Flexen. Here's another one that was at least a bit more different than the last question we answered. This one comes from Jace. Who would replace Diego Castillo, Tommy Lestella, and Chris Flexen if they were sent down or cut in the next couple of days? So you said along with Flexon, by the way, on our Twitter yesterday that Tommy Lestella, Diego Castillo, even for that matter, probably shouldn't make the trip to Philadelphia, Toronto, and Oakland. So what would be the three moves you would make if those guys all went away? Right. So your DFA and Chris Flexen, you don't need a starter for another four days.

So you don't have to call up a start. You can call up a reliever. Matt Festa is starting to throw the ball a little bit better down at Tacoma, so he's an option. You could also go get Riley O'Brien, who the Mariners actually like quite a bit. So I think it's just somebody like that. I don't think you're calling up, you know, Baroa or Wu or anybody like that yet. So it's one of those guys. And then eventually you'll have to make another move to add Malone to who I think should get the next start for flexing.

you know, you're DFA and Lestella. I think you would really like it to be Taylor Tremel since he's already on the 40 man. But how many appats does he need? You know, you get 20 days on a rehab assignment. I think he's on day like six or seven. Do you really want to rush him when he didn't have a spring training essentially? I don't know if you want to do that.

And he also has options. So that doesn't even really matter at the end of the day. But he is still technically on your active roster. He's just on the I.L. Yeah. I think I would probably just do Ford, Mike Ford. Michael Harrison Ford, baby. Yes, the Mariners have two Harrison Ford's in their organization.

How great is that? So I would probably put Ford on the bench and, you know, get him some D.H. Fats here and there. So I think I would probably do Riley O'Brien for Flexin. I'd probably do Ford for Lestella. And then I think I would do Castillo's interesting now because there's little bit of gray area here, but you might actually be able to option him down without DFAing him because he does have two options left. There's a cutoff with service time where you have to get the

player's permission to send you down. And Castillo is close to it. I don't know if he's exceeded it or not. It's kind of a gray area. So you might actually be able to not DFA. You might actually be able to keep Castillo in the organization, let him work out his stuff in Tacoma. If you can do that, then I think you probably just make the swap with Vesta, somebody who's already on the 40 man, because it's more of a short-term thing anyway. So I think for me, it would probably be something along the lines of O'Brien, Ford, and Festa. I think they're probably the swaps I'd make, unless Taylor-Termel is healthy, and you feel like he's ready after six games, which feels unlikely.

Yeah, so O'Brien would be, in this instance, the long-term relief option addition, rather, ideally. And then Festa is kind of the short-term minimum guy until you have to call up Tommy Mollinger. or Darren McCacken to make that start in Toronto. Right. You might do that anyways. So maybe O'Brien's not the right call. Maybe you just call him alone because you can't send a guy down, you know, after calling him up. There's a, there's a time limit thing there unless there's an injury.

So yeah, maybe one of those moves is Malone. You don't need the extra guy in the bullpen right now. But if you wanted to, you don't have to call up a starter. If you DFA, Chris Flex, and at least not for a couple days. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I would make those moves as well. I think look, I get that there probably isn't going to be many opportunities for Mike Ford to actually get to play because it also seems like they're starting to do what I was hoping they would do and play AJ Pollock against Ritey's.

But I still don't care about that. I'd rather Mike Ford be on the roster. I don't really care about burning the call up with him. There's a pretty good chance he'll clear waivers and even if he doesn't, oh well. But I just, I think that, you know, at least one of these games coming up, you're probably. going to need someone to play in that Tommy Lestella's spot, you know, whether that's Lestella himself or Ford or whoever. And I just straight up, even if it's just for one game, I'd rather have Mike Ford play that game. And if that's all his, if that's all his contributions are

this year, then so be it. All right. Next question here comes from Jace as well. Jace also wants to know both of you were really high on Bryce Miller. You have mentioned some struggles. What is the outlook projection on him now? I mean overall long term, about the same. Nothing has really deterred me. Same as it was three weeks ago. Yeah. As far as

2023, I mean, there's a chance, but there was always a chance that he wasn't going to be a part of your rotation in 2023, even with how high we were on him. We acknowledged that that, you know, there was a fairly high likelihood that if he was going to pitch in a Mariners uniform this year, it would be

out of the bullpen. So that's still a possibility for him. It hasn't been a good start for him down in double A. I think he's running like an ERA of 9 or 7.5 something in that range, which whatever, ERA isn't everything. It's really about the quality of pitches that he's throwing and what his development looks like. But there's been

a few not so great things to come out of AA so far for Miller, but it's still really early on in the season. He'll figure it out. Yeah. So yeah. The off speed stuff just isn't where it needs to be right now. to get through a lineup multiple times. So fastball's still very good.

He's still generating high whiffs on the fastball. It's still, you know, 97 to 100 with ride at the top of the zone. So, yeah, what do we say three weeks ago? His floor is probably as a high leverage reliever. His ceiling is as, you know, number two. I think that still applies here. It's just, it's been, what, three starts, four starts. There's just nothing we're going to consistent.

There's just nothing we're going to see that's going to lower him, significantly in our in at least in my ranks. I could say this. He's not number two anymore, but he's like number three. So who really cares? You know? So yeah, Miller is, uh, Miller's, you know, sealing his role is like, honestly, I haven't changed it much in my mind, uh, despite the start.

It's basically where it was at the start of the year. Yeah, I would just say that the likelihood of him maybe not pitching out of the rotation for the mirrors this year has gone up slightly, but it, but it, that's about it. That's as much of a change as I. as I think. Right. I guess I would also say that like if the Mariners needed a start and they needed to win and they had to call somebody up to start that game, I'd probably pick Brian Wu right now ahead of Miller. But long term, I still like Miller more than Wu.

Sure. Yeah. I agree with that. All right. Got quite a few more questions coming up here in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Bill Barr. If you're like me and you want to make healthier snack choices but don't want to compromise. on taste. I've got just the thing for you. Built bars and built puffs. Built bars are healthy and

taste amazing. Seriously, they taste so amazing you won't think they're good for you. You got to try this. What makes built bars so good? Well, for starters, they are all covered in 100% real dark chocolate. That's right, real dark chocolate. And they come in unbelievable flavors like churro, peanut butter brownie and cookies and cream. I'm not sure how Bill does it, but these bars taste like a candy bar while maintaining amazing macros. And what's even better is that they're healthy. Only 130 calories and 4 grams of sugar with a whopping 17 grams of protein. And now you don't need to wait around to get yourself a box.

For years, we've been talking about ordering your built bars at built.com. But now you can get them at your local Walmart or Sam's Club while you can still get your specialty flavors over at built.com. That's right. Head to your nearest Walmart today. Walk to the pharmacy section and grab yourself a box of built bars. You can pick up a four-bar box of cookies and cream bar, double chocolate bar, or coconut puff. And if you're close to Sam's Club, run in and grab a 13-bar box with our hit flavors,

brownie batter puff, and churro puff. You can thank me later. This episode of Lockdown Mariners is also brought to you by BetterHelp.com. Getting to know yourself can be a lifelong process, especially because we are always growing and changing. Therapy is all about deepening your self-awareness and understanding because sometimes, We don't know what we want or why we react the way we do until we talk through things. BetterHelp connects you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of self-discovery from wherever you are. Therapy can be helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries.

It can empower you to be the best version of yourself. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched. with a licensed therapist. And if you don't feel that your match is suitable for you, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Discover your potential with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Lockdown MLB today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Locked-on MLB. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen here on Mailbag Monday. And again, the Mariners and the Phillies Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, all on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. Let's get back into these questions here, Colby. We got quite a few left. This one comes from Jamison. Has Jerry Kellnick done enough so far this season for you guys

feel comfortable that he will be at least an average major league level bat or better the rest of the way? Yes, to me. Colby. Colby, I think you're going to, yeah. No. No. 80 WRC plus the rest of the way. You're such a hater. Yeah, the answer is yes for me. But I'll get into why. You go first. You go first.

No, yeah, I think, yeah, probably. I think the real like selling point right now is yeah, Calnick's hit a lot of home runs and he hit a couple more in this last series, including a couple of impressive opposite field home runs. And like, it just looks different. But to me, the cool part about this is even when Kelnick is, struggling in this little stretch. He's found a way to get on base or he's made a great play defensively or, you know,

he's hit the sacrifice fly. He's drawn a big walk. Like every single game, he's finding little ways to not be a disaster, right? And to not be just like Ty France had probably the worst three game stretch we've ever seen from Thai France. It was awful. Jared hasn't had that yet this year. Jared has found a way in every single game he's played.

played in to help in some way. And that tells me that he's in a really good headspace because, I mean, yeah, he's only had one over where he hasn't gotten on base. But that's, that is in of itself is a good sign. He's not chasing. He's not expanding the zone. He'll have a bad at bat and the next that bat. He'll have a great at bat or he'll have two or three bad at bats in a row. And then he'll go and then opposite field double. Like you're just like, he looks so much more confident at the plate. And it's just hard to imagine right now that anything is going to sink that confidence to a level where he's not going to be league average. And I mean, Remember, league average is like 243, 20, 400.

Like, it's not that hard. If Jared is, you know, a 95, 90 WRC plus guy the rest of the way, he's a league average bad at the end of the year. So yeah, it's, to me, you know, all the stuff between the fun stuff about Jared Kelnick is really selling the idea that, yeah, this guy's a legitimate major league bad. And at the very least, I think he's, you know, a league average major leaker. Yeah, one of my co-os over on Seattle Overload, the Seattle Seahawks podcast that I

do with Mattie F. Brown and Griffin, Sturgeon, Griff, he tweeted he tweeted, shut up, he tweeted during the, what was it, Saturday game, that Jared's just having these little like, as he called them, tasteful outings in between all these games

where he's going like two for four with like a home run and a double, etc. It's been nice to see, right? It's nice to see him go one for three with like a little bloop single and a walk, right? that's good that's good to see the thing for me is this little tasteful little tasteful outing yeah nice job griff nice job but i'll allow it i i you know we've seen the league adjust to to jared a little bit and we've seen him adjusts a little bit back and that's going to go on and on

and on over the course of the season because he's going to do different things and pitchers are going to do different things and so on and it's just it's a never-ending battle right um but so far so good, right? You're seeing everything that you would want to see out of Jared so far with the approach that he's taken against left hand of pitchers with what he's doing to sliders down in the, you know, bottom third, bottom inside third of the zone, fastballs on the bottom outside third of the zone. He's doing it all right now. And he's not, the most important thing, too, is he's not laid on the fastball anymore. That's been a big thing for him. That's, that's changed everything for him because the way pitchers are pitching to him hasn't really fundamentally

changed this year from the last couple years. He's gotten cookies in the past but just hasn't done anything with him. He's now doing that. And on top of that, he's hitting some really difficult pitches, right? I don't like the cliche of, you know, professional hitting or a really good piece of hitting and all that. But that's what we're seeing, right? We're seeing what would be considered a really good piece of hitting out of Jared Kellanke right now. Those pitches that are on the outside of the plate. Jared Kalnick is a professional hitter. But those pitches that we see on the outside part of the plate,

he's just doing something with them, right? He's not trying to do too much. Yeah, he's not trying to do too much. He's not trying to send the ball like 600 feet out of the ballpark. And the home runs are just naturally coming to him because he's just naturally that strong and that physically gifted. So that's just going to happen, right? on top of that, he's getting on base.

He's getting those singles when it's not really working out for him. Again, he's having those tasteful outings and it's really nice to see out of Jared. And it makes me very confident that, yeah, he can maintain at least 70% of this, right? And be an above league average hitter in 2023. So you know what? Jared Kellogg's going to post a 191 WRC plus all through the year. So, oh, yeah. Somebody's higher on a carrick than somebody else.

all I'm saying. Next question comes from Andrew. Colby, you mentioned Ty France. How many double plays is Ty going to hit into this year? Good God, Andrew added, by the way. Okay, I know that it felt that it feels like a lot, but that's really only because, like, he's hit into three in the last, like, five games.

Yeah, three in the last three. Three in the last three. But would you believe me if I told you that he only has four ground in double plays this year? Yeah, all in the last four games. Like, let's not pretend for a second that Ty France was good against the call. He was the worst player on the field full stop. Like he was awful. And yet the marriage was found a way to take two or three.

No, no, no. I was saying on the field. I was like Tommy Lestella was present, but he didn't play. So. Yeah. So yeah. No, he was awful. And the Meritor still found a way to take two or three, which was nice to see the team pick up tie for once.

But he's going to ground to a lot. Ty France hits ground balls. He doesn't have fly balls. as low. And he's really slow. So, yeah, he's going to hit some, particularly, you know, if Julio's leading off, Julio's going to get on base. In Thai France, he hits a lot of ground balls. A lot of those ground balls find holes and they become base hits. So it's just kind of a tradeoff that you have to make with Thai France. He's going to grind into some double plays. Yes, he's also going to, you know,

shoot the gaps and he's going to go the opposite field and he's going to, you know, he's going to take advantage of that hole on the right side because the first basements holding on Julio and the second baseman is shading up the middle. France is going to take advantage of that too. So it's just one of those things. It's a trade-off thing. He's going to end into double plays, though. He's slow and he doesn't lift the ball particularly well. So, yeah, it's going to happen. Yeah. Look, it's the give and take of, you know, even the best players in the game.

Julio has some give and take as well, obviously. I've talked about that in the past. Perfect. Obviously, yeah. What is Ty hating on Jared Kalanick, hating on Julio? Like, good Lord. look I don't know I guess I'm just toxic today all right

but in all seriousness you know with tie it's it'll be fine everyone has a bad series it's gonna happen yeah he's gonna grind into some double plays but the the given take of that is for as many you know for as few double plays as he hits or whatever there's also going to be some really really great moments

as well so you'll take it all right coming from Nate I know we don't want to mess with Jared Kellnick but when will it be appropriate to all heard the one through six in the lineup. I eventually like Jared at two and Gino down at six. I think it's time to make some minor tweaks to the

to the lineup. I think right now with the way that Cal and Gino are hitting, there's no reason that they should be hitting ahead of Teoscar Hernandez and Jared Kelnick. So here's the deal. I'm fine with them moving Kelnick ahead of Raleigh and

Orogyno. I'm also fine with them just leaving him right where he is. there is something to be said about just a comfort level of knowing you're going to be in the six whole every single day in the lineup and you know not trying to burden not trying to change the mindset of Jared Kalnick which admittedly we don't know if it would or it wouldn't but why risk it so if they want to move them up then fine I get it if they don't I also get that but there's legitimately no reason for Tay Oscar to still be hitting fifth he's figured it out he's hitting very well he had a good series got robbed a few times even or would have been an even better series. Like he has been on a nice little role the last few days. Teosker's back to what to what we thought he was going to be. And he should be hitting three. For no other reason, he's one of your three best hitters, like full stop. That's the end of the thought experiment, right? Yeah. And then however you want to stack them, I would still keep Raleigh in the in the cleanup spot just to kind of break up the righties a little bit.

You can do that with Jerich Kallnick as well. You could. You could. But if I'm moving Kelnick up, I'm probably moving them up to two or three. Yeah, I was, I was thinking move him up to three and then let Teo hit four. I'd rather get Teo and at bat in the first, but like, fine, whatever. I'm open to pretty much anything at this point, but I'm also, like, I'm totally okay. The mayor's just want to keep Kelnick where he is and just, just let him ride that, that wave that he's on right now. But I would definitely swap, at the very least, I would swap Gino and Teo, because Gino's, you know, they wrote the hot streak when he was hot. And as we know, Gino is a streaky hitter.

He's on a down, he's on a cold streak right now. It's time to flip him to the five hole where he doesn't get as many opportunities with guys on base. Because Julio and JP are doing their job, JP especially, getting on base. Let's give, you know, a guy like Teo who's hot right now, a few more opportunities to knock him in instead of, you know, the strikeout machines that are Cal Raleigh and, and, and, you know, E Eugenio Suarez, who both are in a little bit of a slump right now. Would you consider hitting JP any higher? Like seven? No.

Nope. Okay. Why? Why would I? Elaborate. Why? We're out of time. Like, we got three more questions to go, my man.

Why not? He doesn't want to answer the question. He's scared to compete. Okay. I'm actually just worried that you're going to get an email from our boss telling me to wrap it up because we should be wrapping it up right now. But look, at the end of the day, JP's in a great spot in the nine hole. It's he's exactly what he needs to do.

He's drawing walks. He's getting just enough hits. What is hitting him seven do? Who are you going to hit ninth? You're going to put Tommy Lestella ninth? Really? That what you want to do? Better than him heading seven.

It's not, because then Julio gets nobody to drive in. So no, I wouldn't consider moving him up. I saw somebody ask this question that JP hits better when he hits higher in the order. and I thought that was interesting. So I actually looked it up. I have the stats right here. This is why I asked, by the way,

was because of that question. When J.P. Crawford hits leadoff in his career, which is the spot in the lineup he has the most career at bats, he's put up a 98 WRC plus. About league average, a little bit below, nothing special.

When he's hit second, it's an 86 WRC plus. When he's at third, it's 34. Now, would you believe it? When he hits cleanup, J.P. Crawford is at his best.

Believe it or not, J.P. P. Crawford has a 163 WRC plus as a cleanup hitter. Are we all of a sudden going to say put JP? How many games does he have in the cleanup spot? Like three? It's irrelevant. But also, by the way, when he hits fifth, it's 122, when it's 6, it's 130. When it's 7th, it's 91.

When it's 8th, it's 131. When it's 9th, it's 86. There's no correlation. So clearly he should be hitting 8th. That's, yeah, sure. Actually, technically, he should be hitting forth. So, yeah, to answer two questions and one, Gino is not, or JPM's not better at the top of the lineup than he is at the bottom.

That's just not an accurate statement. So, no. Keep JP 9. Calling our listeners liars now. I'm calling them misinformed. Peter here asks, what is the ideal bench and DH situation once Tremel and Marlowe are deemed ready, relatedly how concerning is Murphy's slow start with regards to not running Cal into the ground? Cal obviously seems to be dealing with something with his thumb and his recovery from surgery.

Ideal bench with Marlo or when Marlowe and Tramela are ready to go. Something like Murphy Cabiero slash Haggurdy because really those guys are kind of redundant. And then Marlowe Tramel or I don't I think you keep. Both Haggrity. Yeah. And then I think you keep Marlough down. in AAA. Okay. Yeah. Because Marlowe hasn't done it in AAA for long enough for me to feel good like he's a, he's a definite major leaguer. And Taylor to me just has. And he also has a little

bit of a track record that says, hey, you know, he might be a major leaguer. So yeah, I'm going to keep, because I don't need, like, Haggerty is the fifth outfielder. I don't need a fifth outfielder. Actually, Tremel's the fifth. I don't need a sixth. So, yeah, I'd keep the more versatile guy in Cabriero and Haggurty. Now, if Haggerties continues to struggle, and I noticed Dillmore wasn't in the mix, which I think is smart, who knows when he comes back,

if Haggurty continues to struggle, then you can make the case for Marlowe. But for now, I think, you know, ideally, next, by some time next week, you're looking at, you know, maybe when the Mariners get back home, you're looking at a bench of Murphy, Caviero, Haggurdy, and Tremel, or Pollock.

A Pollock, yeah. Kind of depending on. matchup. Well, it's also going to be interesting, too. I mentioned that they're starting to hit Pollock against Ritey's more, and he's had some success against Ritey's. He had another good day yesterday, despite putting up the, I don't think he actually had a hit

yesterday, but he had a couple of hard hit balls. Yep, got robbed and left. Got warning, got Marine layered in center. Yeah. So are they going to keep on doing that when Tramel's around? Like what probably? It's not going to be a handedness matchup. It's just going to be this guy has a really good change up.

Tramel doesn't hit the change up that well. Let's go with Pollock, blah, blah, stuff like that. And by the way, the Murphy's poor play hasn't stopped the Mariners from, hasn't made the Mariners run Cow Raleigh into the ground. They just gave them three days off in a row. So like, clearly they're

feel okay enough about the rest of the team that they're willing to give Cow time off if he needs it. Yeah. All right. Last question here. Very quick from Harry to Poto. If you were forced to sign Jerry Kellnick long term tomorrow, what contract extension would you offer him? So force? Is he forced to

sign it because then 10 years 10 million dollars all right so if we're looking to buy out his arbears let's say that he is projected to make 4 816 in that order uh over his three arbears so that's what 28 that's 28 let's round it up to 30 let's make it probably super he's super 2 as well so okay so super 2 it'll be about 30. Yeah. So let's round that up to 30 and then make it 32 if you want to bump them up to like a million bucks a year for this year and next year. And then all right. So then I'm paying let's go like extra. So the year that I'm buying 20 million dollars. In free agency? Yeah. I don't know. If I'm Cal I'm probably or if I'm Jared, he'll be 27, 28. I think is. I'm probably saying 30 million. Like why wouldn't I? Yeah. Because I don't need. I'm probably. I don't need. But an extension done. Yeah. You want the extension.

I don't. So like if Ty is playing the Mariners and he says, hey, we'll give you seven and what we decided like, 53. Sure. Yeah. I'm probably,

if I'm Jared, I'm like, why not seven, 70? You know what I mean? Like, mm-hmm. So,

and if you're the Mariners, you're going to say, well, Jared, you've only been good for 20 games. Like, yeah. So the idea that I essentially had was that you buy out one year free agency and then club option.

after that for like four five years at like 20 5 to 30 type of guy but maybe well but that's been the structure with a lot of these so like your idea like the one

the one guy that I went to was kie brian hayes when I thought about this we'll give you 6 and 50 which is or 6 and 53 is which is a little bit of a bump over if you just play it out and then we'll offer you like four year, like a four-year club option at like 25 million each. Yeah. So that would be like,

so if you, if we max out, then it is a 10 year 150 million dollar contract. Something around that area. Yeah. I mean, I don't think so that it said that it. But I think it's probably text. The question was if we were forced to offer it to him. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't have to take it. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd probably shoot for something like something with that similar structure, but I think I'd probably try and get away with it for like 120, 125. I just don't think Jared would take it. But that that's something that protects me enough that like if this turns into an Evan White, it doesn't like completely derail future plans.

And you can kind of backload it in a way that or front load it. You get structured in a way that makes sense financially for the team right now. So yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to that offer. All right. That's going to do it for our show. We're well over time. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown. on Mariners podcast for Colby Pat node. I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow

on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z-C-N-Z-E and Colby over at C-P-A-T-1-1. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok as well over 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 here on Mailbag Monday. We've got post-game shows coming to every single day for the next three days. So join us shortly after the Mariners-Filly's game tomorrow night. And you can listen into that whole series on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM

on the SXM app. But for now, have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow night. Peace.