Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mailbag: Why Do the Mariners Continue to Whiff on Big Offensive Acquisitions?

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

Over the past three offseasons, the Mariners have acquired several big-name hitters who were coming off good years but went on to see significant regression in Seattle, including Jesse Winker, Kolten Wong, and now seemingly Jorge Polanco and Mitch Garver. Why does this keep happening despite the strong track records of the players being brought in, and is it as simple as a front office or coaching issue? Ty and Colby try to answer that and more on Mailbag Monday.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashGet all your Mother’s Day gifts, all in one place and get 50% off your next order, up to $15 when you spend $15+ on your next flower, convenience, grocery, or retail order now with code LOCKEDONMLB. That's LOCKEDONMLB. Order using DoorDash today. Terms apply. Monopoly GO!Get in the game and join your friends. Click HERE to Download MONOPOLY GO! now free on The App Store or Google Play. PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb for a first deposit match up to $100! eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning GUARANTEED That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – win or lose! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started. 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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As we all know, the mayor's biggest offensive additions have mostly been disappointing so far. Why is that? Why does this keep happening? We'll answer that and more coming up here on the Lockdown Marries 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. Ahoy, sailors. It is Monday, May 27th, 2024. This is Tudan Gazzalus and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Marys podcast. part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team, every day. On today's show, we're going to open up the mailbag like we do here every Monday. But before we get into that, shout out to our title sponsor today, Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code Locked-on MLB, that's L-O-C-K-D-O-N-M-LB for $20 off your first purchase.

Terms apply. And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. The link is in the description, and you can sign up for a free seven-day trial. Let's get into your questions. start here with distraught. Distraught wants to know two-parter. At what point should we stop trusting the front offices process? I've been a Jerry and Justin fan the past couple of years,

and I've liked the moves they've made on paper, but they keep falling short. Do you have any idea why this keeps inexplicably happening? How long do you trust the process? Let's see. Have they been in a playoff position each of the last three years? Did they go through a rebuild in a much quicker time period than we all thought was reasonable?

have they rebuilt a farm system to be top level, not once but twice in the last five years. Yeah, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for a while. Do they draft and develop well? Yeah, yeah, they do. However, the one thing on their resume that they don't really have, like you said, is that they haven't had a lot of luck or a billet, whatever word you want to use

and bringing in the veteran hitters that come in and they perform well. So it's certainly a fair criticism, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for a while because they're really good at a lot of other things. And oh, by the way, they're in first place right now, albeit because the rest of the American League West is bad. But right now, we're 54 games into a season, we're a third of the way through a season in which the Mariners are still in first place.

So let's wait and see about whether or not Polanco works, Garber works, blah, blah, blah, because we don't know. I think we could start to make some pretty good guesses based on what we have right now. But we don't know for sure that they haven't worked. And a couple of those guys have multiple years on their contract. So blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, why have they had this bad luck? Like you said in your question, it's inexplicable, right?

We talked about this on our CTZ show the other day. I asked you quite literally the same exact question. Like, when do you stop trusting the front office's process? Yeah, exactly. But especially when it comes to adding major league hitters. Because again, like you said, they've earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to pitching, when it comes to drafting when it comes to developing. Like they've been really good in those areas.

But adding major league hitters, the hit rate has been so few and far between. Now they've hit on some guys, especially recently, like Luke Rayleigh, Josh Rojas, it seems like they've hit on those guys. You know, they, they, Gino was a huge swing because like, and that's the thing, right? It's like they haven't added too many guys that they've asked them to do something that they haven't really been for the last couple years. but Gino was one of those guys. He was one of those rare instances,

and that actually worked out for them. Now, they also did that, you know, more recently with like Mitch Hanager, Louis Sirius, where like they weren't coming off of good years. But for the most part, why we've been so supportive of these moves, why we've told you guys time and time again over the course of these past few off seasons like, hey, we like these moves.

We believe in these moves. It's because they've added guys who were good, right? Coming on, you know, that we're coming off of good seasons. Colton Wong coming off of a really good season. To Oscar Hernandez coming off of a really good season. Jesse Winker, when they acquired him, was arguably a top 10 hitter in all of baseball. Adam Frazier had a bad second half in 2021, but he was still an all-star player that year. You know, Mitch Garver, Jorge Palanco, coming off of really good seasons. So clearly, like, let's assume for a second here,

just for the sake of the discussion, for the sake of the argument that Jorge Palanco and Mitch Garver, they don't get it together this season. They're their disappointments, just like they've been through the first two months of the season for the rest of the year. Clearly the front office is missing something. But with the information available to Colby and I, I have no idea what that is. That's well above our pay grades.

Yeah, because like you said, it's not like you look at these moves they made and you're just like, oh, that's going to be a disaster. I know people think they know that about like Colton Wong, but they didn't. That was classic like,

oh, it's the mariner, so he's going to be bad. But also, but also for, for some of these guys like Colton Wong right it's not a five to 10% regression like it isn't natural regression like these guys have literally fallen off of cliff like Colton Wong is out of the league right now Jesse Winker is signing minor league deals after again literally like three

years ago was a top 10 hitter in all baseball like how does that happen I keep in mind he was like 28 when the Mariners signed him like he wasn't even like 33 34 where you're like oh well he was older that's why he fell off the cliff. Like, no. Like, that's not what happened. Really the only guy that I can think is that the Mariners have signed where like his demise or acquired some guys you trade for, blah, blah, blah, blah. Where like his like demise was like potentially like guessable, I guess or predictable.

Was A.J. Pollock because he was 37 years old coming off of a bad year. But even then, he still hit lefties in his bad year. And that was the only thing he was supposed to do. Tommy Lestella too. right which like that shouldn't have been as big of a deal as it ended up being right because they should have got them in spring training and not given them bads but yeah that it's one of those things where I don't know I wish I could give you a really good answer I wish you could tell you like oh well if you look all of their swinging misrides on fastballs were going down when they

were all acquired by the mariners or you know this is a problem or this was the problem they need to tweak this I got nothing because by all accounts Colton Wong should have hit at least enough to warrant that that deal working out. Jesse Winker should have hit. Uh, you know, Teoska Hernandez actually overall was fine. Yeah. Very streaky. So it's not like that was a big swing and a miss, but was way better on the road than he was at home. Oh, significantly. Yeah. So, yeah, some of that is that some of these guys are coming from hitters ballparks and they're coming into pitch, uh, you know, the extreme pitchers ballpark and they're not quite adjusting. Right. Quick enough. And so it takes them a while to adjust and then their whole season numbers get

dragged down. But yeah, for the most part, I don't know I don't know why I think some of it obviously has to be related to T-Mobile Park and transitioning to play in half of your season there at T-Mobile Park but I also feel like

that can be overblown to a certain degree and again when it's been now three off seasons where they've made these big offensive acquisitions and they haven't really panned out like again like Winker and Fraser in 2022 you know

Teo and Colton Wong and Pollock last year, now Garver, Polanco, etc. The front office must be missing something here. One thing that I think is you're in danger of, the fan base is in danger of kind of like overreacting its senses. You don't want this front office to stop trying, right? Go make another Jesse Winker trade. Like you should be trying to do that every single offseason.

Right. And, you know, just because like the alternative is you just sit here and you just waste this pitching staff and hope. that Cole Young comes up next year and is really good right away and he doesn't need a year or two to figure things out. You're just wasting Julio's prime and you're wasting the pitching staff and everybody's getting more expensive. Like, no, they need to be aggressive. They need to keep making deals like the Polanco trade like the winker trade. Like they have to keep doing it. So like the only thing you can't say is like, oh well, all these weren't as good as I hoped.

So they should stop doing it because they're not good at it. Can't happen. You have to keep going. But again, they're adding good players or like they're adding players. players who are coming off of good years is really the way that it should be worded. Right. So you with long track records to like how do you would how do you adjust to that? Right. Like it's not like they're assigning like one hit wonder guys either who had one good season. Right.

Like, oh, well, yeah, he's clearly figured it out. No, they're signing guys with long track records. Uh, you know, they're signing guys with lots of production. Yeah. And they're just not working out. It's just, I don't know why. Yeah. The only thing that I can think of is,

there's something deeper here that we can't see from our point of view that they're just missing, right? And they have to adjust for that. Whatever it is, they're missing. So we are going to answer a few more of your questions here coming up in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown on Marys podcast is once again brought to you by Game Time. Game Time is now an authorized ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball, which makes getting tickets even faster and easier. Prices on the Game Time app actually go down the closer it gets the first pitch and I get to see the view of every seat in the house so I know exactly what I'm buying. Game Time's last minute deals give you up to 60% in savings buying last minute for sports,

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that's LOC, KED, O N, MLB for $20 off. Download the GameTime app, last minute ticket's lowest price, guaranteed. And you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Marrers kick off a four game set with the Astros tonight. You can catch all the action on the Marriss Hometown broadcasts with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. Let's continue Mailbag Monday here with Jake. Jake wants to know, Jorge Polanco is currently sporting a 39,

WRC plus against the four seam so far this year. The pitch he has always been above average against. Some people seem to think it's a coaching problem. Something it's bat speed below average per baseball savant. What do you all think is the issue? Yeah, I mean the bat speed is below average per baseball savant, but the problem with that is there's only data for 2024. So we have nothing to compare that to unless you have access to true media's database,

which I don't. Colby doesn't. So I can't look back at 2023 and see if, you know, Polanco's bat speed was significantly higher last year and now it's taken a significant dive this year. Because then that would probably make some sense, right? But we don't have anything to compare it to, like I said. So I can't make any conclusions based off of the bat speed. I can't make any conclusions on the coaching front because in general, that's just typically pretty overblown.

But also, I'm not in the clubhouse. So I don't know what's, you know, what they've tried to work on with Jorge and what they've tried to change, etc. that might be leading to these issues. I have no clue. Colby, do you have any insight that maybe I don't have here on this? No. It's like you said. We can't tell you whether or not bat speed is a problem

because we don't know what it was last year when he was still torching the fastball. I don't think that age is a concern here. He's 30 years old. It's not like he's 33, 34, like Garber, where you might say, oh, maybe his bat, it would make sense if his bat speed went down a little bit. it doesn't make a ton of sense for a 29-year-old who's crushing fastballs to turn 30 and then not be able to hit fastballs.

That just doesn't seem like that's going to happen overnight. So I don't know if it's a bad speed issue. I'm pretty confident it's not a coaching issue because I think the one thing that people overblow is just like how much influence a hitting coach has on a veteran established big leaguer. It's not a lot. Right. In fact, like the hitting coach isn't even going to like not necessarily. going to work with the player, but like, Polanco has to go to Bram Brown. He has to go to DeHart and be like, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? Like,

they're not going to go to him and do that because he's a veteran. And that's just, that's not like hands off coaching. That's not like laziness or anything like that. That is the way it works. These are professionals. And when you have the track record that Polanco does, he has to be the one to initiate change. He has to be the one to be open-minded and to ask for help because that's just the way baseball works. It's on him to try and fix these problems. And when he's willing to admit there is a problem, he can go ask the coaches for help and stuff like that. And it doesn't mean the coaches aren't like, hey, you thought about this. He thought about this. Like, hey, look at this swing on the video. You know, so and so like they can make suggestions. But until the hitter is what is ready and

willing to make changes or thinks he has to, nothing's going to change. So I think just in general, the role that a hitting coach has or what a hitting coach gets, credit and blame for is just generally overblown. Because for most people, most professional, like big leaguers, established big leaguers, the hitting coach isn't there to, you know, hey, if you change this, then you're going to hit more fastballs like that. It's on the player. Right.

The player doesn't want to change. He's not going to. I'm not saying that Polanco doesn't want to change or any of that. I don't know. We're not in the clubhouse. I just think in general, people overestimate, you know, kind of what the job, the actual job of a hitting coach is. Mariner's to the moon wants to know.

Do you think there is a meaningful difference between what Jonathan Klossay and Cade Marlowe can offer the Mariners at the major league level? If so, what is it? If not, why do you think the Mariners are rolling with Closet over Marlowe? I think it's legitimately as simple as Jonathan Closay is a switch hitter. Yeah. Is there, like, throw the question back up there. I'm going to answer this one question at a time because there's like three of them.

Sure. Is there a meaningful difference between Closay and Marlowe? can offer the mayor's the big league level yes marlowe can offer them significantly more now if so what is it well marlowe's better so he could give them more he's a better defender he's a better base runner he's a better hitter uh if not why do you think the mayor's rolling with clausay over marlowe like ty said because he's a right-handed hitter hit he can hit hit against left hand he can stand in the opposite batters box yes because to to claim that jonathan class they can hit left-handed major league pitching is the biggest load of b s that this

this, you know, team has ever tried to sell anybody. Yeah. Dude's running like a 30 WRC plus right now. Can't hit anything at the bigger level, let alone specifically right-handed pitching or left-handed pitching. Look, I like the guy. Fun prospects. Maybe he can be something one day.

He's just not ready right now. He's 21. He's very clearly not ready. He's very clearly not ready. I don't know. This is what ultimately my issue was with them sending down Arias. It wasn't because they actually sent down Arias. it was who they sent him down for, right?

If you told me, oh, they sent down a Rias for Cade Marlowe or Samad Taylor or Ryan Bliss, et cetera, I would have been like, oh, okay, fine, cool, great. But for Jonathan Classe, who very much needs to work on some things down to the miners, like it's very apparent that he needs to do that if you want him to be anything, right? And the other issue that I have with this is that you keep on impeding his, his momentum. We talked about this when they called him up the first time. He had only really a handful of weeks of good weeks above the high A level last year. You call him up to AAA. He has a couple of good weeks in AAA and then it's like, okay, come up to the majors, man. And it was like, all right, well,

you're you're impeding the first real momentum that he's built. And then you send him back down. He struggles for a little while. Then he starts getting it together. He was, he was hidden really well right before they called him back up. And you've impeded that momentum again. For what? For what? Because God forbid we give Luke Rayleigh at bats against Patrick Corbyn, I guess. Luke really, who by the way, and it's only been 19 played appearances, but still,

121 WRC plus against lefties this year. Also, a whole track record last year, again, in very limited played appearances that says he hits lefties fine and his entire minor league career, which says he hits left, he's fine. literally zero evidence out there suggests that Luke Rayleigh and Dominic Anzon should not base any lefties, even bad ones. But, you know, Jonathan Klossick can stand in the right-handed batters box and take pitches. So I guess he's a better option than those two. It's stupid. It's stupid.

It's mind-blowing. It's mind-blowingly stupid. It's beyond stupid. All right. We're going to answer a few more of your questions coming up here in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by Supply House. Get supplies from the site that's made for the skilled trade. Supplyhouse.com.

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Every trade master gets access to a dedicated phone line, free shipping, and discounts on every order. Join the thousands of trade pros already benefiting from their free membership at Supplyhouse.com slash TM and order plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies from anywhere with just a few clicks at Supplyhouse.com. And you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Once again, Marers kick off a four-game set with the Astros tonight. You can catch all the action on the Marra's hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the

SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. Let's get back into your questions here on Mailbag Monday. Seattle sports fan wants to know as trade talks get loud. which prospects, if any, do you view as untouchable right now? Follow up. Who do you view as the most likely to be dealt come the deadline? Zero untouchables.

Now, are there players that are highly unlikely to be moved? I think there are a couple, sure. I think Colt Emerson is very unlikely to be moved. I think Johnny Farmello is really unlikely to be moved at this stage. And I think to a lesser. extent, I would probably throw LAS into that mix, but I don't know. I think that that's negotiable. And any of those guys could be in a deal for the right package. So zero real untouchables. As for who's most likely, I think in like in terms of like top prospects, I think one of Cole

Young and Harry Ford is probably getting traded this summer. Unless the team collapses and like they're not in it and they're not actually buying or they're not like, you know, maybe they're kind of doing that like, oh, we're kind of buying kind of nothing, then maybe they don't. But if they want to get an impact player, then Cole Young or Harry Ford gets traded this summer. I think this truly is going to come down to what player they're trying to get and how that team that has that player views those two guys. Because to me, they're pretty close in terms of like prospect value. If the team thinks Harry Ford can catch, they're probably going to prefer Harry Ford. If the team doesn't think Harry Ford can catch, they're probably going to prefer Cole Young. So, uh,

I think they're really about equal in terms of being the best prospect that could be traded. I could see either one of them getting traded. Wouldn't shock me. I think Lockler has a decent chance to be traded. And those are the three now. Like who's most likely to be traded? It's, you know,

it's like a Brody Hawkins type. It's, no offense, Brody. It's a- show now, Brody-Hawkins. You know,

it's like a class A type. It's, you know, there are guys who are more likely to be traded. But in terms of like the big names, which is I think what the question is really getting at here. I think the most likely to be traded is going to be either forward or young. I don't think they would trade both.

I don't see a player out there that they would trade both for. And then I would throw locklear in the mix as well. Next question here from smothered meatloaf. Okay. How do you explain or how do we explain the recent drop in strikeouts from the Mariners pitching staff? They have a five, six, eight, Ks per nine over their last 10 games. that's down from around eight for the season. I mean, for one, the bullpen's been a disaster.

Awful. So. I think they allowed 20 runs on this road trip, the bullpen. That's like the least mariner thing ever. Yeah. Really. But also, you know, we've seen Luis Castillo go out there as his last two starts. And keep in mind, he was pitching against the Yankees and the Orioles, like really good offenses.

Yeah. And he, you know, didn't have a lot of strikeouts. he was still effective because he didn't have his best command and control and stuff. Right. I think you kind of said the answer there. Right. Like over the last 10 games, you faced two of the best offenses and all of baseball. Yeah. And so plus a lot of one other thing to keep in mind is that like a lot of those starts like they got ambushed early. And they're kind of like their mode went from like, hey, keep them scoreless to like, hey, I got to get deep into some of these games because we're taxing the bullpen too much. So I got to be more aggressive.

I got to get them swinging so I can get deeper into these games. So I think that's part of it. But yeah, a big part of it is that the bullfin isn't very good. And, you know, your lost Brash, who's always a great source of strikeouts. You know, Munoz only pitched three times in the last 10 games, four times. So that's going to do something. And then, yeah, you know, Castillo didn't have big strikeout games. We only had one strikeout yesterday, I think.

So yeah, I mean, Kirby hasn't been very good this time around either. So a lot of times these teams are jumping the starting pitching. They're not getting to two strikes because they're being very aggressive early. And then the bullpen has just been bad, objectively bad for the last, you know, two weeks or so. And that includes Gabe Spire, who was racking up a ton of strikeouts. And, you know, Stanick has been really hit or miss all year. They don't have brash. So that hurts.

So, yeah, I think it's a combination. of things, but mostly I think it's just that over the last 10 games, they played seven against the Yankees and the Orioles. And, you know, we know what the strategy is. By the way, the Astros are going to use the same exact strategy. Every two missed. Yep. Get the fastball early, hit it. Take your swing at it. It's the best, it's the best pitch you're going to get, swing at it early. And so, you know, it's tough to strike guys out when they kind of refuse to get into two striking notes against you. So I think it's a combination of all those things. Last question here. Hunter. If you're Jerry, what trade are you making today to improve this team?

Something revolving around the bullpen. We just talked about it. Who's available? Right. But I think you could get Austin Adams from the A's right now. Sure. It's tough because, you know, bullpen arms, they actually kind of get more valuable the closer you get to the deadline because you have a clearer picture of who's in it, who's out of it. Yeah. So, yeah, it's tough, but I would say go get. I mean, go get Tanner Scott, I guess.

I don't know exactly. Yeah. Bullpen help. Bulpin help. But not in the same vein as like Mike Bauman, right? Where you're just taking a shot on a guy that you like, like legit established is doing well right the second bullpen help. Go get a bullpen arm that's going to hurt a little bit to give like to give up the process. Like go get an arm where like the prospect you're giving up to acquire him is going to hurt a little bit.

you're going to be like ooh. That's that's tough. Do it. It's worth it. All right. That's going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Locked on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Lockdown, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked On Sports Today now available on the free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for joining us here.

on the Lockdown Mariner's podcast for Colby Patnode. I'm Tiding Gizalas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tyane Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat-11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.