Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: Who Would Be in Mariners' Division If MLB Realigned?

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

On today's episode, the guys open up the mailbag to discuss WBC strategy, realignment, the rotation and more!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/Join our Slack!FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get startedBuilt 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.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of Locked-on Mariners, who would be Seattle's new division rivals of Major League Baseball expanded and re-aligned? And what are the biggest storylines we're tracking in spring training? We'll answer that and more here on Mailbag Monday. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. It is Monday, February 13th, 2023.

This is Taddy Gonzalez and Colby Patna out for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube, or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description below. Pitchers and catchers have officially reported. We're back to five shows a week and we're going to kick things off with Mailbag Monday, the show where we answer your Mariners questions.

But before we get into those questions, Colby, I believe you have something to, announce. Is that correct? Sure. We're doing a giveaway to celebrate the fact that we're back to five shows a week, despite there not being any meaningful baseball games for at least another month. But yay, that's fun. So yeah, I'm going to give away a card here. The way to enter is pretty simple. All you need to do is you need to subscribe to the channel, the YouTube channel. And you need to leave a comment. down below of any of the videos this week Monday through Thursday, I will pick a random video and then I will have a, there's a, there's a tool I can use to pick a random comment from that video.

So just make sure you're subscribed and that you leave a comment down below of any of the videos this week. We'll pick the winner a week from today, let's say, next Monday. We'll pick the winner. I'm going to give you guys, because we had some issues with this last time, I'll give you guys two days, to claim your prize and then if not, we'll just pick somebody else. So yeah,

you have a week. You have the next five days to enter. Again, just make sure you're subscribed and leave a comment down below and you'll be entered to win one of these cards. And I say one of these cards because we don't know which one it is

because Ty is going to try and break my heart. I have eight cards here that I am willing to give away. Ty is going to pick a number between one through eight and that will be the card that we give away this week. Can you show which ones it could be? real quick. No. No. Because I've already had them shuffled.

All right. We're keeping it all. I'll say this. Some cards include a Cowellie. Jared Kelnick, Mike Cameron. I think you guys have seen all these cards before. There's a Colton Wong card in here. Yeah.

And a handful of others. So, tie, since we don't have all day, please pick a number of one through eight. All right. I thought we were doing this, like, once we were ready to pick the winner. But all right, let's go for it now. Let's go with four for Jose Lopez. All right. So Ty passed up the Colton Wong card.

Oh. Mike Cameron. Ah. The Jared Kalnick and you son of a gun. Oh. The fourth card in the stack is my beloved Walter Ford. Oh, the vanilla missile. Let's go, baby.

Let's go. Make sure you guys subscribe. Leave a comment down below. I don't really care what the comment is. But do you think you're going to call me names and win this card? You're sadly mistaken. So, you know, maybe some flattery will get you somewhere, but it really won't. Some flattery.

Speaking of the comments, I saw some of you were complaining about Colby's mic being too loud on the last few episodes. That's mostly because a certain someone may have spilled a liquid onto his other laptop. that he typically records on and broke it. So he's on this other laptop, which blows out his mic quite a bit. I've been trying to turn it down here on Restream. So hopefully it's not too bad for you guys, but I believe you've ordered another laptop

and that's coming within a couple days, right? Hopefully by Friday show, maybe Thursday. We'll see. Yeah. So hoping that the audio is fixed. It sounds fine on my end. And we've tested it a little bit here. and it seems fine, but if it's still a little bit of an issue and not super balanced out,

it's just I kind of have to live produce this thing. And if I have to go in and edit the whole thing, it's going to take an extra hour or so for you guys to get this episode in your hand. So, yeah, just trying to do this kind of on the spot. Also, real quick, before we get into our questions finally, I just want to give a quick shout out to Dan Morris, who has been hired by the Seattle Mariners as a baseball analytics intern. This is really cool because Dan is a big part of Seattle Sports Twitter.

He's, of course, the creator of the Wooded Dong bot, which shows you if a batted ball would have been a home run in which stadiums that would have been a home run in. Very popular bot that unfortunately can now not be used on Twitter because of certain someone that runs Twitter now and is just completely derailed that whole thing. That's a whole other conversation. And he's also, or he was at least the editor-in-chief over at Davey Jones-Ley. locker room, which is the SB Nation blog for the Cracken. So you guys probably know who Dan is, even if you don't know exactly who Dan is, but this is a really cool opportunity for Dan. So congratulations to Dan. Really cool to see. All right, let's get into these questions finally. Starting with Max. This was kind of a big topic on Twitter. Last week, Jim Bowden did a mock

realignment of Major League Baseball if they expanded to 32 teams. And so Max wants to dive into that a little bit deeper here with us. He starts here by asking, well, I think there were some issues with Jim Bowden's geographic realignment. I like the idea of changing the divisions a little. If you guys were in charge with Nashville and Vegas as expansion teams, what would be your divisions or at least who's in Seattle's division? So this one's interesting because like, all right, so I assume that it would be four

divisions per league, like how the NFL operates with 32 teams. So with that, I mean, there's two teams that stand out automatically to join Seattle and what I would assume would be a Pacific or a Northwestern division essentially. That would be the A's and the Giants. But after that, it gets a little bit difficult here because, you know, you look at the two L.A. teams, that's kind of where I start here is the two L.A. teams are well, well, the Anaheim and L.A. teams. and but with with one of those it's like you're kind of damned if you do damned if you don't because it's like if I pick the angels well why not the Dodgers and if I pick the Dodgers well why not the angels and so on and so forth and then there's teams like the Rockies and Padres etc but I think I would go angels here for their other division rival essentially and whatever division that is and then the southwestern division I guess would be LA San Diego Colorado, Vegas or Arizona, probably would have to be Arizona.

But yeah, what do you think? I think for me, it's Seattle. I don't want to break up the Dodgers and the Giants. I know that they would still play each other quite a bit. But I just, I like those two being in the same division. So I think for me, I would actually do Seattle, Oakland, and then probably Colorado and Vegas and then kind of leave the California teams

in their own division. So San Francisco, L.A., the Angels, and the Padres. I think is kind of how I would work that. And then, you know, Arizona, Houston, Texas. They're kind of the South teams, Nashville, I guess maybe, in there. But I think it's interesting because obviously if your Seattle priority would be, let's cut down on the travel a little bit here.

So instead of having to go to Texas, what, 12 times a year now with the new realignment. Now the farthest we go in division is Vegas or Colorado. I think that's probably the right way to go. Yeah, well, I guess so in this instance, Vegas would be an expansion team. It wouldn't be Oakland. Right. In the hypothetical proposed. Yeah, in the hypothetical proposed. I don't think those two things

would coexist though in the real world. So yeah. And also the other conversation that has to be had here is do the American League and National League still exist? Or is it more of like a Western Conference, Eastern Conference? It's probably more Western Conference, Eastern Conference, yeah. Yeah. So then geography plays a really key role in that. And so, yeah, like, let's just, let's go from a more realistic standpoint then with this and go, you know, Oakland moves to Vegas.

You add two teams, I don't know, where do you want to add the two teams, Nashville and Montreal? sure it's kind of a bummer that they're both on the east side but what are you going to do there's not a ton of west side locations that makes sense if we're taking Oakland to Vegas which I don't think they should but I think it's likely going to happen so Seattle Anaheim Arizona or Vegas Colorado I at that point I think I probably still have to do San Francisco then because I think Seattle and the Bay Area are kind of natural geographic rivals. So I want that to be part of the division.

So I still think that Seattle and the Bay Area are going to be in the same division. It's just a matter of which Bay Area team. And if Oakland's not really an option, then it probably has to be San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah. I think San Francisco has to be included there. But then, again, the problem that you mentioned there is that you essentially lose the Giants. Rogers rivalry. Yeah, they're still going to see each other like three times a year,

but that's not enough for those fan bases and just for the baseball world in general. And honestly, major league baseball, right? That's less marketing and, you know, all right. On the plus side, though, they would get more Yankees Mets. They would get the same number of, I would assume the same number of Yankees, Red Sox. They'd get more White Sox Cubs. So. Right. You know, because obviously those teams are going to be in the same division. And the Northeast Division is probably what Red Sox Yankees, Mets, Phillies.

Probably something like that. And then you have like the Metro Division, which will be Baltimore, Nashville, Washington, Cincinnati, Cleveland. Pittsburgh. Atlanta. Pittsburgh's in the center or in the northeast. Yeah. So yeah. Oh, Montreal.

I forgot about Montreal would be in the northeast. Yeah. Which is weird because they'd be in the northeast, but then I guess the Blue Jays would probably be in the north. And that would be like Minnesota, Cleveland, Detroit, and Toronto, something like that. I mean, Montreal's more eastern, so that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's unless baseball, when I do like the Southwest Division is like Vegas, Colorado, Arizona, San Diego.

I guess that would make some sense in the Southwest Division. But then, yeah, it's Texas, Houston, kind of getting left out. So I think for me, Seattle, one of the Bay Area teams, and if, you know, there's only San Francisco left and it's just San Francisco, Seattle, the Bay Area team, Colorado and Vegas, I think, is probably the way I would align it. Yeah, at the end of the day,

I don't think there's going to be a perfect answer whenever they do expand and ultimately run the line. Like just some teams are going to seem out of place in their respective divisions. The Indianapolis Colts play in the AFC South. Yeah. Indianapolis. Like sometimes it's just a name. Yeah. Yeah. And even in the NBA,

there's a couple teams where it's like, they should be in the Eastern Conference, not the Western Conference. Are the Thunder still in the Pacific Conference or whatever? The Northwest or whatever? Northwest, yeah, they're in the north and western division. But divisions in the NBA don't even matter at this point. Like, it's just, get rid of them. Well, they matter less, or they're mattering less in Major League Baseball than they have in the past.

Yeah. If there's only four teams in each division and you're playing everybody regardless. So, yeah. Well, whatever. And then you just have two Wild Guard teams, which is, you're looking at essentially the old NFL format of, you know, three or so years ago. All right. We got plenty more questions to come in just a moment. We're going to be talking a bit about this current Mariners team,

talking about some spring training stuff, all that. In just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Fandul. The midway point of the NBA season is here and now is the perfect time to download Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. Because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000.

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Fandul an official sports betting partner of the NBA and you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen. Let's get back into these questions here on Mailbag Monday Ham Swaggerty 69 on Twitter asks

besides spots one and five in the rotation how would you guys personally set it up? I would thank Kirby Ray Gilbert from a handiveness standpoint and we know that Scott service is going to favor-handedness somewhat at least. Robbie Ray probably is the number three in this rotation, even though that he should be the number

four. I would personally set it up as Castillo, Kirby, Gilbert, Ray, Marco, or Flexen. But I think what is going to end up being, at least I would hope, just kind of staying in the world of realism here a little bit. Castillo, Kirby, Ray, Gilbert, Marco, or flexing. But maybe Gilbert goes number two and Kirby's number four, which I think would be a massive mistake. But yeah.

I don't care. I just, I don't. I really don't. Castillo's one, Marco's five, put the other three in whatever order you want. I wouldn't be shocked if Ray was the two just because he's the vet. And that's kind of how they like to do things sometimes. So, you know what? I hope it's Ray to just because it'll tick off a lot of you guys.

Castillo starts game one, Robbie Ray starts game two. You know what? Put Kirby in the five spot. I don't care. I don't put Kirby in the five spot, though. That would be dumb. But I really don't care about what the rotation is. I like as long as there's five good pitchers in it.

And there's certainly four. I'll say that. So that's pretty good. And then we'll see what happens with the fifth spot. But yeah, I wouldn't be shocked at all that it was Ray. And the two, I think I would. order it. I think I would probably order it. Castillo,

Kirby, Ray Gilbert, just because again, service likes to break up the lefties traditionally. So, but we'll see. I could easily see it going. Castillo, Ray, Gilbert, Kirby,

Marco. That wouldn't shock me at all. Next question comes from Daisy and the dingo. Is there a conceivable world where Bryce Miller and Emerson Hancock have good seasons this year and the Mariners float Logan Gilbert in trade talks after this coming season for a big bat. Why is it automatically Gilbert? Why wouldn't it be Bryce Miller or Emerson Hancock?

That said, though, I don't think that unless injuries just pile up, knock on wood here, that at least one of those guys is going to get enough of an opportunity to have what I would assume you would classify as a good season. I think Bryce Miller is going to have ample opportunity at some point, just even if he, if, all that happens is that he just replaces Marco or flexen in the rotation and no other injuries occur. Hancock, though, like Hancock's got to prove that he can get value out of his fastball and he's got to prove that, you know, his secondaries are working properly and like he can get guys out and he can miss bats efficiently.

Like he's, he has quite a ways to go before he even factors into the conversation of being involved in the rotation because right now Taylor Dollard's likely ahead of him. whoever loses that number five spot is is ahead of him as long as they stay within the organization and you know hell if they don't think that he's ready at a point maybe they go tommy malone for a spot start someone like that you know so brian woo or brian woo yeah maybe brian woo is ahead of emerson hancock at this point in their eyes they try perlando bro i i don't know so um the answer to the question is no because you still need gilbert in addition to those guys popping because you're not replacing Gilbert in the rotation, you're replacing Marco.

So Miller pops and Hancock pop. Then your rotation is, Marco's out and then probably Hancock is the odd man out. But Hancock has six years of club control still at this point. And he's going to be making the league minimum, essentially for three years. That's an incredibly lucrative trade ship. And you can get a lot more for him than you can't Marco, who would at that point would only have one year left on his deal. You could just kind of eat that money if you have to. So no, I, would be shocked if the Mariners traded Logan Gilbert before 2026, you know, whenever his, maybe when he has two years left to club control, they would consider it. But no,

right now he's pre-arb, he's cooking. And they haven't even hit his ceiling yet. So like if Gilbert goes out and he puts up the kind of numbers he did this last year in 2023, you're probably not selling as high as you possibly can on Gilbert either because there's still more in the tank for Logan Gilbert. So no, I would be shocked if they try. traded Gilbert or Kirby, really before they hit for agency. I'd be pretty surprised, regardless of what happens below them in the minors. Wifsky asks, going a little deeper this time, how should the Seattle Mariners aim to improve from an operational strategy and coaching

perspective this year? I would like to see more aggressiveness, urgency, and essentially everything that they do. that can be a lot of different stuff. Some examples would be aggressiveness on the base pass. They have guys that are better equipped to do that than they did last year. I don't think that they're going to steal a lot of bags still, but they got more athletic this off season, and they got guys that are notorious for running the bases pretty well.

So it's stuff like, you know, instead of just cruising into second, maybe, you know, push it for that for that extra base and get to third, you know, stuff like that. maybe even some more aggressiveness earlier on in counts. Aggressiveness in terms of the bullpen management, you know, especially having a,

you know, a quick hook on guys earlier on in the season. But the biggest one for me, when I say aggressiveness and urgency is really, you know, if Jared Kellnick's struggling and he's not hitting and there really aren't any signs that suggests a turnaround is imminent,

you don't wait it out for a month and a half. you you you yank him after a couple weeks and that's just what it is and then you go on to the next guy you put in your next guy next guy's kind of hard to find in May though you know because like next guy's like tremel or marl well that's the thing right and then you just you just see if you have something there in tremel and if you don't have something in tremel then if you don't have something

in marlowe then if you don't have something in marlowe then you got to figure something else out you know it's kind of tough though because you don't want to pull the trigger too fast on that because the ideal situation in that case is that one of those guys you have is the guy, because then you don't have to go out and get that guy. So that's absolutely ideal. So you want to give them enough time to prove that it's not them, essentially. And I don't know what that time is. Is it three weeks?

Is it a month? But yeah, obviously that's a big one that we're probably going to talk about until one of them actually hits. So that's probably going to be a huge topic of conversation all year for us. I really, I can't say anything about the coaching and, and the deployment of like bullpen arms because I don't have all the information they have. They know, they have more data. We do. They also have, you know, better ideas of guys' health and who needs a day off and who really should be pitching today and blah, blah, blah.

The one thing I would say operationally in terms of like baseball ops, I would like to see Jerry and Justin not ignore rentals at all. costs because very good one yeah yeah when we get into july jerry has shown zero interest in trading anybody that we would describe as like a real prospect for three months of a guy which i get i really do but sometimes you have to pull the trigger on that because it makes you a better team and it helps you advance further in the playoffs uh now this not a great example but like brandon jewelry right this last year by all accounts the mariners were not interested in jewelry maybe they just don't like the player and considering they weren't in the play or considering they weren't on him and for agency at all. That seems like they just didn't like the player, which is fine.

I've been told a couple things that, yeah, they did not like him. Right. So, and that's fine. Like, obviously, you trust him on that end, but you shouldn't just say, I'm not going to, I'm not going to trade, you know, um, per lander, Barrow for Ian Hap at the deadline, right, for two months of Ian Hap because we think Barrow can help us for six years. No, you pull the trigger on that because Ian Hap could help you win a World Series this year. Right. So I think, I like because I'm willing to give Jerry some benefit of the doubt over particularly the last two years because it's a little too early to be going the rental route, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Not this year. This year it's time to go. So if you get to July and there's a rental out there that

really helps and it's going to cost you like a top 15, top 20 prospect for a couple months of that guy, I hope they pull the trigger on. If it makes, if they feel that guy helps them advance in the playoffs, they should pull the trigger on that. And so far they haven't done that. So I really hope that's not the case this year. Well, and that kind of goes hand in hand with being more aggressive as a whole as just like your philosophy right because now it's go time you've made the playoffs you've ended the drought now it's about i want to win a division i want to go win the world series how do i make that happen it's about you know putting more emphasis on on you know each individual game especially division games because division games are even more important now that you have fewer of them um and

again like you said from a from an acquisition standpoint it's about being more aggressive with your assets. So yeah, just overall, just I want to see more urgency out of this team. I want to, I want to see that, you know, that they're kind of on the cusp of this thing. And there's only a couple of things that they really need to do here to get where they want to go. And, you know, so yeah. I would just say real, to be fair to them, they did win a literal sweepstakes for the best pitcher on the market last, just less than a year ago. Yeah. They went out and they paid the freight for Luis Castillo and they beat everybody. They were very aggressive in their offer. So it's not like they won't do it. It's just that

I would like to see them do it more is essentially what I'm saying. Yeah. But even with someone like Castillo, right? That's a year and a half of club control. Obviously you didn't know at the time if you were going to extend them or not. So yeah, you're essentially trading for just the year and a half club control. But that's different than like you said, three months of brand injury or whatever. Yeah. So but yeah, I would I think that it's absolutely crucial that they're open to those possibilities and those possibilities are going to be, you know, right on their doorstep in July as long as they're in a position to, to add at the deadline, which they, you know, should be again, knock on wood. All right. We got a few more questions to go over here in just a moment, but real

quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Built Bar, looking for a delicious treat, but don't want all the fat and calories, and you've got to try a Bilt Bar. We just got through the holidays, and I know my goal is to eat a little healthier this year. And if you're like me, where you want to eat healthier, but don't want to compromise taste. The man, I've just the thing for you. You got to try Bilt. With Bilt Healthy is actually tasty. Seriously, they're so delicious you won't think they're good for you, which is perfect for your New Year's resolution. What makes Bilt bars so good? Well, for starters, they are all covered in 100% real chocolate. That's right. Real chocolate and they come in unbelievable flavors like churro, peanut brownie, and coconut almond.

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This time asking, do you think the Mariners and Teoska Hernandez are still working on an extension or are they prepping to go to arbitration hearings? It's been very quiet on that front as of late. So yeah, Teosker, I believe, is the only mariner left and that's arbitration eligible who's not agreed to a settlement yet. I would think, I mean, you know, we do see these instances, especially with with guys that just got acquired over the course of the off season where the arbitration here, you know, the arbitration stuff kind of lingers on into spring training. But I would think or at least hope or maybe I'm coping here that the reason for the delay on this is because they are trying to essentially buy out that arbitration year and add a couple of years onto that via extension at least. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's a, it's an interesting situation that, you know, we got to keep an eye on here because, look, if there are some issues here, you know, you just brought this guy in. Uh, if you have to go to an arbitration hearing, that's, I'm not saying that that dams your relationship with the player, but it's not a great start to your relationship with the player. Uh, so yeah. So, yeah, so best case scenario here would be that they are working on an extension and that's why they haven't agreed, uh, on the arbitration yet. And they were just trying to buy out that that year. But anything else you want to add on this?

Colby? No. You know, once the arbitration hearing is scheduled, you know, you get the answer in a couple days after. But we don't know if it's been scheduled. We don't know. And it probably got scheduled the day that they couldn't come to terms. So I think you just kind of have an waiting game here.

I really don't foresee an extension before we get an ARB hearing. So I think they're just kind of waiting for the process to play itself out. I'm not saying there's a zero percent chance they extend tail. I would just be really surprised that they did it before opening day. Next question here comes from Teddy. Will the Mariners be putting their core in games early in spring training to get them reps before the World Baseball Classic? Or will they hold them out a bit more for stamina with the WBC? I think it's the former that they're going to try to get them more reps.

here because I mean you know those guys are going to go into the world baseball classic essentially being expected to play you know at least 90 like 90% speed if not full on speed because these are games with stakes and these guys you know they this is this is something that they really want to play for here so yeah I think you know just to put them physically in the best position possible you know it's a really difficult situation because these guys none of these guys are ramped up and then they have and then they're expected to play at that kind of level you know a couple weeks into spring training it's ridiculous so

yeah I think you just try to get these guys reps and get them as in as best shape best baseball shape as possible before they they head off yeah you're kind of in a tough spot though because if you push them early in spring training you know you might have some some hamstring issues might have and then you kind of anger the player

because now well now they're like if if Julio pulls a hammy or hurts his wrist or something in spring training he is not playing for the Dominican, like that's not happening. He's done. And so you kind of have to really be careful with the position players. The pitchers that the Mariners are sending, they're all relievers. They're only going to pitch an inning at a time, give or take. So I'm really not worried about them all that much. Maybe they get one or fewer inning at the start of spring training than they normally would. But particular guys like Festa and Brash, there's a high chance that they only pitch in any for their country in the world. baseball classic maybe two maybe brash or or can't uh canada or italy advances but that would be somewhat of a surprise um so yeah i'm really not worried about the pitchers it's hulio and it's teo that i'm most worried about how do you kind of manage them um i think with teo it's probably business as usual he's a vet he kind of understands how this thing is done um julio's a great

worker but you know it's it's his first spring training where he knows he's on the team you know it's just a little bit different. He's got to kind of figure out a routine that works for him. So yeah, it's a little tough. You're in kind of a tough spot. I think it's mostly business as usual, but I think if you're going to air on the side of anything, for your position players,

it's probably we, you guys kind of have to hit the ground running here, right? Like you have to be mid-spring training shape by the time you get to spring training just because that's just the reality of the situation. So yeah, I don't know. It's a really good question. Somebody should ask Jerry about that. Yeah. And I mean, you know, we've seen

Tay Oscar and Julio working together. So maybe that's, you know, some of that is just the process of trying to get ahead of the game here. But yeah, you know, it's such a difficult situation, especially if you're a team that's trying to make this this work throughout this whole thing. It's just such an awkward, awkward time to have this thing.

I just, you know, there really isn't a perfect time to have a tournament. like this really in baseball because the off seasons are you know you know or during the winter months and all those stuff so it's really you know yeah it's just i think it's an it's annoying from being just a fan you know just being a fan of the team and like you got like some of your star players are are heading over into that thing it's annoying it's scary right and for for mariner's fans in particular too we're scarred from the whole soggy arm drew smiley situation so it's just well yeah that and if like if julio gets hurt in this thing you're screwed yeah

like game set like if he if he god forbid pulls a hammy or tears a hammy and he's out like eight weeks like taylor trammell or something like that you're screwed like your season might be over before it even starts so yeah it's it's terrifying so you know i hope julio has a good tournament but i i would be very happy if somehow the dominican went oh and two and they were done like yeah no offense to julio and teo and and you know i'm happy they're playing for their country but i'd rather you play for the mariners Yeah. All right. Last question of the day comes from Jason. The biggest question you hope will be answered during spring training.

Trick question. No questions will be answered during spring training because it's spring training. Literally nothing will get answered. Yeah. I mean. If Jared Kellnick goes out there and hits 800, are you all of a sudden filled with, oh, he's an all-star now? No, I don't care what Jerry Kellnick does in terms of the-old. numbers but I do care if Derek Kellner comes in the spring and is looking a little bit more trim and has made some mechanical tweaks that seems to lead to a more fluid swing. That is something that I'm keeping an eye on.

That's a question that I'm hoping to see answered, yes. Swing analyzer tied in Gonzalez here. He's going to notice all the little difference. That's right. Differences. I am. The only objective I have for spring training. Let me revise that.

I am hoping that he comes in there with some mechanical changes that someone else who's way smarter than I will identify and then tweet about on Twitter. Like you're just hoping to see that Joe Doyle tweet like, oh, look at what Kelnick did here. He's the bat staying in the zone longer. Yeah, I totally saw that. Joe and I were like this.

Yeah, exactly. The only thing I care about in spring terrain is that everybody is healthy, as healthy as possible going into the regular season. Statistically, nothing is going to happen. That changed in my mind. Honestly, I'm hoping that Dylan Moore and Sam Haggertie getting some games because it sounds like their availability for opening day is at least questionable at this point. So, yeah, for me, it's just about health.

Obviously, you would prefer a guy like Kell and go out there and hit like 375 and hit like six home runs in spring. That'd be great. But ultimately, it really doesn't matter. So it's kind of a trick question. I don't think there's going to be any questions that are answered. Maybe some fun ones like, hey, Evan White does look healthy. You know, maybe something like that. But sure, in terms of just, you know, is there anything that's going to happen on the field?

It's going to make me change my roster projections or anything like that. Probably not. There isn't a Julio situation this show. No. Like last year, there was actually like some questions that were answered in the spring. Like, oh, wow, Julio can actually play center field. And wow, Julio is forcing the Mariners. hand right now. That doesn't exist. Because like it's Bryce Miller's not going to do that.

Right. Cade Marlowe's probably not going to do that like no. Yeah. Maybe Taylor Tremel. Maybe, but it's not really a swing thing with so. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. You know, I say that now, but then like on March like like 19th or something, I'm going to come on the on the show and be like, boy, I tell you it's going to be awfully hard for the Mariners not to put Cade Marlowe on the team based on what he's doing out there. So. Yeah, I say that now, but we'll see what happens, you know, in a couple weeks. Yeah, we're still in that stage where we're very ignorant of what's to come potentially. I think it's more like we haven't like been excited by like watching baseball, just any baseball in general. And so we're like, oh, yeah, nothing can happen. But then we see Bryce Miller go out there and go like four innings against the Dodgers, like a, a lineup and go for scoreless. We're like, yeah.

Did you see him strike out mucky bats? Yeah, the brain hasn't been simulated. the dopamine. It's not here just yet. But then, you know, Bryce Miller goes out there, strikes out 12 in a row against the Dodgers. And it's like,

yeah, no, this guy actually should start on opening day. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. He actually is Spencer Shredder. All right.

That's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby Pat Nod, I'm Tadangazas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, the C-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat-E-E-E-E-E. You can also find all that stuff in

the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen. Now make your second listen. Lockdown MLB Prospects host of Lindsay Crosby as a prospect encyclopedia. And he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. It's free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. And with that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day. And we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.