Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners 2025 First Half Review + What to Watch For in the Second Half

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Ty and Colby reflect back on the first half of the Mariners' season then discuss the second half ahead.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Supply HouseJoin the TradeMaster program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code S-H-5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com!OpenPhoneStreamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonmlbMonarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com/lockedonmlb for 50% off your first year.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.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.

The Mariners are back at it tomorrow, but before they hit the field again, let's review the first half of the season and talk about what's to come. 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 Thursday, July 17th, 2025. This is Tedding Azores and Colby Patnaud for the Locktime Marys Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

This episode is brought to you by Game Time. download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code Locked-on MLB, that's LOC, KED, O NMLB, for $20 off your first purchase. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby, even more and help support the show, you can check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out, click the link in the description of this episode. Today, we're doing our first half review and second half preview for the Mariners. And then the first half, the Mariners went 51 and 45.

They obviously finished things off on a really strong note. with a sweep of the best team in the American League of the Detroit Tigers. You also look at the offensive numbers for the Marys. They're fourth right now in Major League Baseball and WRC Plus. So how would you summarize the first half of the Maris season, Colby? Very inconsistent. At times looks like, you know, one of the, if not the premier team in the American League and that they could go to the World Series.

and they could beat anybody in baseball. And other times, it looks like they're the Oakland A's or the Las Vegas A's now. And they're just, ugh, you know, and even between those two, sometimes they look like the same old Mariners where they get some starting pitching, but they don't get the offense or they get the offense and the bullpen blows up. And so, like, it's just been a very inconsistent team. And I think that's what happens when, you know, A, you have a talent efficiency. that you need to address, but also be that when you build your team around starting pitching and it's not there when you need it to be, yeah, it puts a lot of pressure on the offense.

It puts a lot of pressure on the bullpen. And those are not units that were necessarily designed to carry the weight that they've had to. So overall, you know, when you when you factor in what the pitching, starting pitching in particular has gone through this year, the injuries, the ups and downs of the performance, all that. You know, I think the offense has also been inconsistent, but mostly good overall, especially relative to our expectations. And the bullpen, you know, it's had its ups and downs, but you've got a first-year manager who's trying to figure out how to pull all the levers in the correct order.

And there's been some growing pains along the way there. And, you know, unsettled roles early in the year and a whole bunch of things and still some things to clean up there. but I think overall six games over, you're in a playoff position, you're technically not out of the division race. You've got three big games coming up here with Houston to possibly get right back in it.

I think it's tough to say it's been good or it's good enough because it's not. You're five games out of the division lead and you're hanging on to the last playoff spot. but I think when you factor in the problems with the rotation and some of the problems with injuries on the offensive front and poor performances, I think this is about as good as you could hope for,

considering that you basically got nothing from Logan Gilbert in the first half. You got very little from George Kirby in the first half, and Julio didn't take the step that you needed him to take. Polanco's saga, you know, you're rolling with Rowdy Tellez for, Most of the first half, Luke Rayleigh was out. Like there's a lot of, a lot of things here that kind of come together. So all in all, I think it's pretty successful first half. But it's also, you know, a little disappointing based on where we thought this team was going to be in February.

Like has been the case with a lot of these teams in the Depoto era, this organization was baking on a lot going right. And that really went out the window in the first week, first 10 days of the season. I mean, Victor Robles gets hurt. He's done for pretty much the entire year. We'll see if he's actually able to come back in September. Ryan Bliss done for the year. He was supposed to be your starting second baseman out the gate. And then obviously the rotation injuries.

I mean, you lose George Kirby before the season even starts. And, you know, in the what, the second series of the entire year, you got Luis F. Castillo pitching for you, third series of the year. you got Louis F Castillo pitching for you. Like you were in a really bad spot. And then we saw some really cool stuff where, you know, we saw like that next man up mentality where the bottom of your order was actually contributing quite a lot and you were getting actual real contributions out of guys

like Leo Rivas, Miles Master Boni. And you went on that series win streak and then boom, you got, you know, a division lead. And I mean, looking back on it now, I mean, that's really why you're staying afloat at the moment. and while you're still really in this thing. And now, you know, obviously Cal's having the season that he's having, but also Randy or Rosarine is having maybe the second best season of his entire career. J.P. Crawford has having the first or second best season of his entire career. And, you know, we still don't know, like, what is Julio going to look like in the second half?

If this rotation can turn things around. I mean, the things that are the biggest issues with this team are ultimately good things to bet on turning around. So there is a nice level of optimism there. But it's also, you know, again, kind of the, the biggest cause for concern here and what this, what this team's ceiling ultimately is. But obviously, you know, towards the end here, we started to see a little bit more consistency out of the rotation.

They're probably the healthiest they're going to be because Bryce Miller, even if he is able to return to the rotation again, he has said that this thing that he's been dealing with isn't going to be fully resolved until he has. actually has the surgery. You know, we'll see if they can kind of continue that momentum. And obviously, you know, Julio looked great in Detroit, but that's only three games. So we'll see what that means for the for the rest of the year. And what else he, you know, maybe he has done over the course of this all-star break to

kind of get things back on track for himself. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's, I don't know how to feel about the first half, honestly. Because again, like there were so many things that went wrong. and there were also so many things that went right and there's so many reasons to be optimistic but also the reasons to be optimistic or reasons to be pessimistic about the team.

So yeah, it's just a weird team to cover probably the most conflicted I felt about a team since you and I have started covering the bearers. Yeah, it just feels like we don't know what their identity is. Yeah. Like is this a team that just hits homers

and that's how they survive? Kind of, but also really only Cal and Randy are like on pace to do anything special with their home run totals. I mean, Julio over the last couple of games, three and three days. And honestly, it took Randy what,

hitting nine and 14 days for the power to really be a factor here. Polanco's power has been wildly. He had nine home runs in the first month. I think he's had five cents. So are they a team that just relies on the home run? Are they a team that draws walks and puts the ball? in play not really they walk but they don't are they going to be a wild steel base you know wreak havoc type of team they were for a minute and then they weren't and now they're kind of somewhere

in the middle there uh all right and i think what we all thought is like well this is a run prevention team so they're going to pitch really well and and they really haven't they're middle of the pack in most categories and the pitching stuff so it just feels kind of like what are you banking on with this team. And the pessimistic route is that you're banking on Cal Raleigh having the best catcher season we've ever seen and just one of the best seasons

from any player, regardless of the position we've ever seen. And that's what's keeping you afloat. But, you know, the optimist point is like, we're counting on all stars to play like they played in the past. Like not be better than they were in the past. Just be as good as they were. And for most of the first half, those guys haven't been.

So, yeah, just a weird team. I'm not quite sure what the identity is. I'm not quite sure, you know, who to trust to turn this around and who to not, because you're going to have to trust somebody. Like, you just can't go out there and fix every and put a brand new team on the field, essentially, uh, over the next two weeks. You can't do that. So you're going to have to pick and choose who you trust and who you're going to place bets on that they are going to turn it around and, and, you know, move resources to the areas you don't, you don't have trust. And so, um, You know, it's very similar to Dominic Canzone where it's like, do you trust this guy?

Yeah. I mean, because when we've seen what bad looks like with Dominic Canzone and it's horrific. But we've also seen like this version of Dominic Canzone, like this version we've seen of the Mariners over that 23 game stretch that we said it was so important that they go 11 and 12 or 12 and 11 just keep their heads above water. well, they went 14 and 9. You know, so it's one of those things. And easily, by the way, they left four or five extra wins on the table across that 23 game stretch. So it's just one of those things where it's like, I don't know whether to buy this team

or to not really buy into it. And that's not a comment for the front office. The front office should buy into this team and they should invest in this team. But for me as a fan, I'm sitting here like, I have no idea how this is going to go. I don't know. It feels like it could just go either direction. and we're just kind of stuck in the middle waiting to find out how it plays itself out.

So yeah, it's just it's a weird feeling watching this baseball team on a night-to-night basis. Yeah, to echo what you said in short, I just don't know what to trust. Again, I think the perfect way to describe this team is just wildly inconsistent. Yeah.

All right, so we're going to talk about the second half, just kind of in general and then talk about the deadline a little bit. maybe hand out some predictions, all that good stuff in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Locktime Marys podcast is brought to you by Game Time. Have you ever decided at the last minute to head to a Mara's game, either by yourself or with friends or family? You know, maybe it's game day and suddenly you realize I want to be in the stands. Well, that's exactly where game time comes in.

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Mariners game. Be sure to tune into the Marriss Postcast with Anderson-Herson, Christopher Crawford, available on both the Lockdown Marys YouTube and podcast feeds. Those guys will be getting back after it tomorrow after the Marr's Astros game. Yeah. I wish we could take a freaking week. off but whatever. Hey, Anonymous came through with $20 yesterday on our Feeding America fundraiser. And then I donated my half of the subscriber count that we got over the course of our fundraiser.

So again, if you missed it, every subscriber that we added between the start of the fundraiser and the All-Star break, we donated 10 cents to Feeding America, which is one meal. So my half was $21.35. So I donated that last night for the 427 subscribers that we added. So thank you very much if you donated via subscription. I also threw in an additional $100. And then we got our biggest donation of the entire fundraiser from Sean, who came through with a $1,250 donation, which brought us over the $15,000. thousand dollar mark, which is really freaking cool.

So thanks so much to Sean. We also got a $29 donation from a different Sean. So we are now at $15,030 raised on the Feeding America fundraiser. So I know we said on Monday that we were going to like stop mentioning it on the show, but special circumstances here. People keep donating. Yeah. And you technically can too by using the link in the description down below. You guys know the rest of it by now.

So we'll just move along. Thank you for the big donation and the small donation, Sean's small as you feed almost 300 people. I think about it that way. And that is why we love partnering with feeding America. Ty, do you know one in five children? But yeah, thanks. Thanks so much, everybody.

And again, if you guys want to continue donating, that's awesome. The link is in the description. but yeah we we promised you guys less of the spiel or the spiel would be gone and it would have been but you know we we dropped somebody dropped $1,200 donation we probably should mention that yeah yeah for sure um we're also coming up on a pretty cool milestone for us personally uh we are almost at 14,000 subscribers on the YouTube channel we're at 13,997 at the time of this recording so we're three away. So maybe we can get there today, but yeah, that's really cool to see that we've gotten to that mark.

And obviously, 15,000 is like a really, really special number. So hopefully we can't with a five or zero. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Hopefully we can get there by the end of the season. That would be really cool. So yeah, really appreciate it. Really appreciate you guys' support, not only just here on the channel, but with the fundraiser.

So, yeah, thanks so much, guys. So what gives you optimism here for the second half? Now Raleigh's a pretty good place to start. He's having an incredible season, obviously. We know that. The fact that Randy Rose Arena has been everything you could ever hope for since you've acquired him and then some. Julio, his final three games in Detroit, certainly, something to build on. And you hope that it continues.

And you also hope that Julio does what he's done literally every year for his career in his career. and that is be significantly better in the second half than he was in the first half. And yeah, you know, you hope that the, or there's hope that these pitchers who have done X for their entire careers, but did X, you know, minus 20% in the first half will just give you that extra 20% in the second half. So the pitching staff is still incredibly talented. The offense features one MVP candidate and two other top 30. 32, 33 players in baseball by F4 in Randy Rosarana and Julio Rodriguez, despite, you know, Randy not really hitting for any power for all but two weeks of the season.

And despite Julio not really being consistently good at the plate for much of this season, J.P. Crawford is having a plus year and he should have been an all-star consideration. Munoz and Brash is a great place to start in the bullpen. And you have one of the more aggressive front offices on the trade market. And a loaded farm system that you should have no issue trading from this summer. So I think this team, I think this is a very talented roster that still needs more talent added to it. But you have the ammunition to not just go get marginal upgrades,

but to go, you know, shop at the top shelf of the market. And that might not be as high as it has been in the past, but you still impact players you can go get. And there's nobody that you can't. outbid somebody for. There's some there's doesn't mean you have to outbid everybody for these players

but like if you really want a guy go get them. There's nothing stopping you. Yeah. And so hopefully you know the aggression of Jerry DePoto and the desire to acquire prospects in the summer versus in the winter

and the just the overall you know star power that is on the current roster that just needs to play like it. I think that gives you some hope. And you know, you still have what, six games, I believe against the Astros left. And you're five back. You don't have to win all six. Be great if you did. But yeah, you know, you kind of get an opportunity here to make up some ground. And, you know, catching two games on them in the last, you know, four or five days of the,

of the first half was nice. I mean, it feels, five feels much more doable than seven. So there's lots of reason for optimism. We talked about some of the reasons for pessimism in the first segment. But yeah, you know, there are a lot of really good players on this team that are not performing the way they just have. Again, we're not asking them to be anything more than they already have been in their careers. And if those guys do it, Kirby, Gilbert, Julio, if they do that, they just get back to their baseball cards for the second half, I still think the Mariners are more talented than the Astros without any of it. additions. And so and the fact that they have the,

the ammo to go get those additions to make it no contest, it does fill me with a little bit of hope. But obviously, you know, hope is only, uh, valuable if there's a payoff to it. So we'll see what it goes. But, yeah, there, there's plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the second half. Yeah. So among the things to watch for over the course of the second half is obviously Cal Raleigh's home run count. Sure. He's on pace right now to reach 64, which would be the American League record.

He has to get to 49 to beat Salvador Perez for the all-time catcher record for home runs in a single season. He has to get to 55 to beat Mickey Mantle's switch hitter home run record. And then he has to get to 57 to beat King Griffey Jr.'s Mariners' home run record, which Griffey did that twice. so yeah and then obviously he's pretty good baseball player wasn't he yeah and then obviously 62 is the uh the judge record so he would have to get the 63 to uh break the american league home run record i i'm gonna throw out a prediction i think he gets all the records except for the american league record i think he gets the merrars

record i think he gets the switch hit a record i think he gets the catcher record i just i think he falls short by let's call it five home runs of the American League record. So you're predicting he gets 58. Yeah. I think my number would probably be around 50. Do you think he's only going to hit 12 for the next two and a half months? Six a month is really, you hit six a month, that's 30 home runs.

Like, I just don't think people understand quite how like absurd, absurd the pacing is right now. He's basically hitting 10 home runs a month. like that's absurd like if you hit five a month in the regular season you're hitting 30 you had a great year and five a month he's doing twice that and he's catching pretty much every single day he's gotten two full days off this year the mariners are two and oh in those games by the way uh so it turns out you might be able to survive a game or two you know a month without hulio or without uh cow rale uh but uh yeah and just the wear and tear of catching all those innings and and all that. Plus, teams are not going to pitch to them. I mean, we literally, how many,

we saw AJ Hinch pull the biggest word I can't use move in baseball when he intentionally walk Cal Raleigh down by four in the ninth inning. Like, that's going to happen. And Cal's not going to expand the zone. He's going to take his walks, which he should. So I think he's just going to see fewer pitches to hit. I think that the wear and tear of the full season of catching is going to, is going to get to him. And that's not even counting the possibility that he takes, a foul ball off the toe wrong or whatever and he's on the IL for a couple weeks. Sure. I mean,

that can happen to anyone. It is a much bigger risk to happen to a catcher because he can take those foul balls at the plate or when he's behind it. We're not going to pretend that catchers don't have a higher risk of injury than other positions. And again, that's not even counting the general wear and tear of just his entire life. Like,

this dude doesn't take days off and he's a catcher. So, yeah, I think he's around 50. I really don't think that this. pace is sustainable for an entire year for a catcher. You also didn't think that he was going to win the home run derby, so. No, I didn't. Neither

did you, by the way. You took James Wood. How did he do? That's what I thought. At least my pick made it to the finals. So, yeah, it's one of those things. I think it's just the tie reverse jinks working again. Well, then maybe you should say he's going to hit 38. Yeah, you know what? Thirty-eight

home runs for Cal. Tys is not hitting a home run for the rest of the second half according to tie. So there you go. First app back, boom. So yeah, I think 50 is like maybe 51, 52. I. So he gets to catch a record, but he's not going to get the Switch hitter record or the Mariners record. I don't think he's going to get the Mariners record.

He might get the Switch hitter record. I know that's a very small difference to make. Yeah, it's like close enough. Right. Like I'm not saying it's like I would be shocked if he got. to 60. Shocked. If he got to 55, I'd be pretty surprised, but

that's more in the range of like, okay, that seems reasonable. So, we'll see what he does. But yeah, I think he gets the catcher record. I don't know if he gets much else, but oh no, my catcher only hit 50 home runs when he was on paste. It's 64. Darn.

So yeah, I do think at some point he's going to go through a bad three-week stretch where he's just not hitting for any power and he's just drawing walks because they're afraid to pitch to him. And also, you know, he's caught four days in a row and he had a DH day mixed in there. And he hasn't had an inning off in, you know, two weeks. Like I just, I don't. And the alternative is that they actually do give them those days off. And then he's getting less at bats, obviously. So it's harder to hit home runs. So to your point about teams being scared to pitch to them, that's where, you know, Julio and

Randy have to eat and maybe whoever else you might bring in here over the next couple of weeks. I mean, they're still going to to walk cow. Like it doesn't matter how good Randy is. They're going to pitch to it. They're not going to pitch to Cal when they can pitch to Randy Roserena. But that's why Randy has to perform because you have to make them pay. Yeah, like Julio has to capitalize on on heading ahead of Cal and Randy has to capitalize on heading behind Cal. Yeah.

Or whoever else they bring in. Yeah. Gino Swaras, Josh Naylor, et cetera. crossed yeah speaking of what has been harder to gauge over the last month the draft or the deadline probably the draft yeah um just to picket three and to still have all that uncertainty until like five seconds after brimner is announced as the picket two is insane to not have like, yeah, this is like it's going to be this guy or this guy. Like the week before the draft, we were like, there's like seven, eight, nine dudes that it could be.

And that's not even counting if Kate Anderson falls to them somehow. So I do feel like the deadline, you know, we roughly know who's going to be available. There's always the possibility that one team wins seven in a row and they're not sellers anymore. One team loses seven in a row. And now they're sellers like Arizona could go and be buyers and Tampa could be sellers. where right now we kind of think it's the opposite. So that aside, I think the draft was harder to gauge just because, man, it just, there was no consensus. Even at the end, even at the end.

The room was apparently split pretty heavily between two guys. And apparently, according to Kylie McAnneville, the two guys weren't, it wasn't even Arquette. It was Bremener at a huge savings or it was Seth Hernandez. So, yeah, I just had no feel for this. this draft and and who the mayors were going to take. And again, they had the third pick. And I still didn't have a clue who they were taking until the Angels took Brimner. And then I knew straight away.

So, yeah, I think the draft was a little bit harder to gauge this year. You're listening to the Locktime Marys podcast. So we talked about this on the Patreon yesterday. The Mariners have a slight conundrum. I wouldn't consider it to be a total problem. problem but yeah but obviously first base is first base is the most common area that you're going to get a bat an upgrade at the deadline but then that would push luke raley to the outfield which hey there there you go now you got your outfielder but him and dom can zone are a bit redundant with

one another and dom can zone's obviously performing at an incredibly high level right now so you want to be able to give him playing time, but obviously, you know, Luke has a track record and Luke has been pretty good since he's come back from the aisle as well. So I kind of feel like one of those guys are going to get traded here in the next couple of weeks. I also kind of feel like Ben Williamson might get traded. I do feel like the Bears are going to trade off some pieces that have actually contributed to them in 2025. Yeah, I think because of the whole Rayleigh and and Canzone and let's just say Naylor or O'Hern, let's say they had one of those guys.

Okay, well, you could still get Canzone his at bat. It's just now they have to come at the DH spot. And Jorge Polanco has been pretty good for the last, you know, two, three weeks in that spot. And he's a switch hitter, whereas Canzon's a pure lefty. And, you know, Polo can also help out at second base a little bit. I'm surprised I'm giving him a first base glove yet. But yeah, you know, they can like, it's not an easy call to just be like, oh, well, just, you know, DFA polo or put polo on the bench.

Like he's the veteran. He's actually performing right now. Yeah. And zone has an option left. And really, if you option can zone down, he's only going down for a month. And then that's it. There's no injuries. He's going down for a month.

And then he's getting called back up on September 1st. So it is kind of weird. But because of that, I do also think Polo might get traded. He's making a little bit of money. And if you want to bring in Gino, if you want to bring in Naylor, like these guys are making a little bit of money. Yeah. We don't know how much ownership is actually willing to expand payroll.

So you might have to clear some space. And that might mean trading Polo. And that might open to the DH for Canzone. And then that's how you solve your kind of your thing there. And so, yeah, it is a bit of a good problem where you have too many productive players. Well, not right now. Now you don't. But if you get like a nailer, then you would have essentially four players for three spots.

And they're all like they don't mesh well together on the roster. It's not like, oh, well, those two are the perfect fit for each other. No, they're all lefties. They all probably shouldn't play against lefties all that much. And so at that point, you have a problem. Right now it's fine. You kind of live with Rayleigh's defense at first base, which, man, I mean, Ron Washington is like that meme is Luke Rayleigh playing first base. But yeah, like right now it works.

It's fine. But when you go and you add a player, which you probably still should, then things get a little dicey. So yeah, it's one of those things to look out for this summer. Yeah. So it could be polo. It could be Rayleigh. Again, I think if, you know, you go out and you get a Willie Castro or an A. Yonnie Oswara, you might use Ben Williamson to help you go out and get something.

So I do think that someone that has helped help the Mariners in 2025 is going going to get traded here in the next couple weeks. I do feel pretty strong about that. All right. I'm going to ask you just, I don't need names here. Just how many players are the mayor is going, how many new players are the mayor is going to have on their roster on August 1st? From outside the organization?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Four. Yeah. I think it's the same as last year. We talked about. I mentioned this when I was talking to Stacey Joe Ross yesterday,

but you and I talked about this on Monday on the Patreon. They have five needs, and it's reasonable to expect that one of those is probably not going to get done. But we've seen them go out and get four players before of varying levels of impact. I think they do that again. Yeah, hopefully it's much more last year versus 2022 when it was Luis Cassidy. and Kirk Casale, Matt Boyd, and Jake Lamb, whereas like one big piece and then like,

whereas last year it was like one big piece, one leverage reliever who unfortunately got hurt, so that one didn't work, one just kind of line up lengthener, and then one just kind of middle relief guy. I could see them doing something like that. Maybe they replaced the middle relief guy with the number five starter type or something like that.

Yeah, I think it's four. You might be able to get away with, three if it's a big impact is is one of the guys and I think that's not a rental like I don't think that has to be someone that we're not expecting to get traded right right so we'll say I think it's four though I don't see any reason for it not to be because again like even if they only go get like let's say they go get Gino and they're like we're just going to live with Rayleigh Rayleigh in Solano at first it's like okay fine cool like that that can work canzone can't play every day in right field so you need to go get an outfielder so there's another player and then it's like well you know are we really comfortable with with thornton and sasado and legumina in the last spot in the bullpen well no let's go get another guy and maybe maybe it's not even like four players are added and the mares have to get rid of four guys on the 40 man maybe like you said it's yeah they added four new players or the 40 man but they also shipped off legamina in one of the packages or they shipped off greatly

in one of the packages and they do it that way. But I do think there will be four new players on the Mariners two weeks from today. Agreed. Two weeks from tomorrow. Yeah. And going back to the whole Rayleigh, Canzone, Polanco conundrum, if you add a first baseman and you move Rayleigh or, you know, or you just roll with Canzone and you trade Rayleigh or whatever, you still need to go out and get a right-handed platoon partner for Canzone or

Rayleigh. You just can't, unfortunately, you just can't be like, oh, well, Robles will be back in September. I mean, you hope. Yeah. And even if he is, is any good after missing five months of baseball? So, yeah, you need a right-handed hitting outfielder. You need some kind of impact added to your infield, impact bad add to your infield. You need at least a medium high leverage arm out of the bullpen and to be great of it. You got like an actual high leverage arm.

You probably need a number five starter and you probably need another, you know, Bizarro or Thornton when you got those guys a few years ago. So, yeah, like there's four or five guys, four or five positions you really need to be filled. And I don't know if they fill all of them, but I think maybe they double down on a couple spots. And I think four is is like I would set the over under at three and a half. Yeah. And I would take the over barely. At what point, if any, is a Luis Robert Jr. acquisition acceptable?

If his salary doesn't prevent me from adding other pieces like Gino, who's making a little bit of money, then fine because he's the right-hand hitting outfielder who's actually, despite all the stuff he's not done this year, he is crushing left-handed pitching. He also steals bases. He's a plus defender. So again, so long as that money isn't preventing me from going out and getting a true impact player or two or three impact players, then I'm fine because I really don't think that that is going to cost much of anything.

Like, maybe it costs you like Tyler Locklear on the high end. but like yeah so it's more about the money we've heard the white socks are willing to pay that down they're willing to pay down enough that i ownership is still like yeah you can absorb all of of soraes's contract and you can absorb all of this contract or most of this contract fine i'm interested if it's going to prevent me from doing anything else i'm not interested so the mares have 66 games left yep record prediction on the second half give it to me i mean 33 and 33 is the most fair. It's probably the safest bet to make too. Yeah, so they have 51 wins right now.

Yep. So they go 500. They'll go 84 and 78, which sadly might be enough to make the playoffs. But I do think they're going to get better over the next couple weeks. Obviously health is the unknown factor here. Yeah, you've got to make some assumptions here about who they're going to come away from the deadline with. I also have to make some assumptions about like, do we ever see 2024 Logan Gilbert this year? Do we ever see 2024 George Kirby for more than five innings? You know, is Cal going to regress? If so, how much are they going to be able to make up for that?

Is Julio going to be able to, you know, long and so 66 games? I think they're going to go. Like 36 and 30. Yeah. 37 and 29. Like I think they're going to finish the year around 86, 86, 87 wins. And I'm trying to factor in like some of the stuff we talked about happens. Some of it doesn't.

But yeah, like if Julio explodes and the pitchers get back to who they've always been and they added this deadline, I wouldn't be 100% shocked if they were, you know, one of the best teams record wise in baseball. the second half. Like they have that talent level. It's just they're not performing to it right now. But yeah, I think somewhere between 34 and 37 wins in the second half would be my estimation.

When I asked you the question, I was thinking 35 and 31, which would get them to 86 ones. 86 and 76, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's enough to get in there and one of the wild cards. Probably. Yeah.

This, in this American League, unless someone makes, you know, kind of like a tiger's 2024 run. The team that I'm kind of looking at as a possibility to do that is another, you know, honestly one of two AL central teams. Honestly,

one of three AL central teams. I could even see the Guardians doing it, but the Royals and the twins are who I'm talking about in that regard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, keep in mind how bad the mirrors were last year and how poorly they played for like six weeks.

It literally took the tigers going on a historic run to knock them out of the playoffs. Yeah. That's even, even though they only won, what, 85 games last year? What did they win last year? I think they were 85 and 77. But yeah, 86 and 76. Okay. So, but it still took an historic Tigers run to knock them out and they missed the playoffs by one game again.

So, oh, wait, were you talking about the Mariners record? I was talking about the Tigers record. No, yeah, so the Marys won 85 and 77. They finished game back. And again, the Tigers had to win like, was it, 60s? percent of the games they played in the second half. It was something crazy. Yeah. It was crazy. Now, to be fair, it's happened to the Mariners before last year.

Remember, the Oakland days back in like, what was that, 2018? So it is kind of that like, oh, same old Mariners. Of course, it would happen to the Mariners type of thing. But it literally had to happen last year for them to miss the playoffs, at 85 wins. I think the American League is significantly worse this year than it was last year, even. So I think if they get to 88, I would feel really comfortable that they're going to make the playoffs. I think if they get to 90,

91, I think they have a good shot to win the division. So we'll see. I do think that, you know, the next six games you want to come out strong, but three and three is totally acceptable, kind of as long as, you know, two of those three wins comes against the Astros. Yeah. Yeah, if you're going to have a stinker here in these first two series, make it the Brewers.

Yeah, absolutely. Which is why I think it's important to stack your three best guys against the Astros. But. Agreed. Yeah, I still, I think I had them at like 88 wins before the season. And the fact that I think they're going to add significant pieces at the deadline this year and they're still only going to get to 88. Kind of tells you how I feel about the first half of the season. So sure.

We'll see. You never know. I again, like trying to predict this Mariner team is a fool's errand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get, I just, I have no idea what to buy in on.

So, you know, I'm just going along for the ride. these next two and a half months. We'll see what happens. Yes, Brandon Warren, Lockdown Twins, a host. I think he says it best, man. Just enjoy the journey because the destination sucks for 29 teams a year.

Ain't that right. All right. Well, that is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marriss podcast for Colby Pat Node. I'm Tiding Gazzalas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marrins. You can follow me at Tadigalus and Colby at C-Pat-11.

We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby, and the show at Lockdown Mariner's. You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Marrars. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.