Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Bats Explode, Bryce Miller Bounces Back, and Eduardo Rodriguez's Trade Market

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

The Mariners' offense has slowly been turning things around the last week, and last night, they finally exploded. Behind a ferocious attack from J.P. Crawford, Julio Rodriguez, Ty France, Teoscar Hernandez, and Eugenio Suarez, Seattle dropped eight runs on the red-hot Marlins and cruised to an 8-1 victory. Colby and Ty discuss the offenses improvements, an unusual start from Bryce Miller, and which top prospect is getting promoted. Plus, they dive into the interesting case of Tigers starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez and discuss if he could make sense for Seattle at the trade deadline.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 | @CPat11GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. 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, Bryce Miller fights some shaky command to keep the Marlins at bay. Gino Swarres continues to heat up and what would it cost for the Mariners to land Eduardo Rodriguez. All that and more coming up. 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 Tuesday, June 13th, 2023. This is tighting is Alice and Colby Patnaud for the Locked-on-Merner. Aaroner's podcast brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account,

and use promo code locked on MLB to get $20 off your first purchase. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. 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're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below.

And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial. to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts. It's in the description of this episode. On this episode, we're talking about Bryce Miller's outing in last night's eight to one blowout win over the Marlins. We'll also talk about A. Eugenio Suarez, Thai France, and the Smarerner's offense. And we'll wrap things up with a look at Tigers pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez.

See if he can be an option for Seattle later this summer. But before we dive into Miller, Colby, we actually have a little bit of news, some minor news, some minor league news. that is Michael Royal one of the mayor's top international signings over the last couple of years one of their I would say top 10 prospects pretty solid infield prospect of course 18 years old played four games in the complex league to start his season and now he's getting the call up to low a Modesto what do you think about this yeah it's pretty exciting because you know as you mentioned he's just 18 years old and he only played four games in the complex league before getting the call up. You know, I think there's some thought that this is pretty aggressive, but I mean, Arroyo's been doing work down in extended spring training. The guy is just a hitting machine. He's, I haven't, you know, read a Skydun report that doesn't think this guy's at least an average bat at the big league level. I've seen a lot of like one year rebate type of like comps

thrown on him. But this guy he can hit and he's 18 years old. He, he, he, he's, he, He's probably ultimately going to be moved to third or second, probably not a shortstop long term, but he's okay there for now. And, you know, there's really no reason to move him off of that spot quite yet. So at least for the time being, it looks like we might get in a Royo, Cole Young double play tandem in Modesto. We'll see. I think I think Young's probably going to move up to Everett here before too long. But for now, you know, it's arguably the two best pure bats in the Mariners entire system are both playing for Modesto. So that's a lot of fun.

And Arroyo's a guy, he can hit. I think he's maybe the Mariners prospect that Mariner fans don't know enough about. He's underrated in Mariner fans circles. And, you know, you know why, because he's 18 years old and he's three, four years away from the big leagues. But kid can really hit. And there's a non-zero chance that he's fast-tracked because the hit tools, legit 60 great hit tool. And the power is just kind of,

we'll wait and see if it's third base power or second base power. But the kid, it's a good player. And this is, this is exciting news. It's fun news. And I think, you know,

Arroyo might be one of those guys that, you know, gets dealt and carries a lot more weight in a trade than Mariner fans think he might. But for now, he's, you know, he's fringe top 10 because he hasn't really done it in,

in the States. He's somewhere in that eight to 12 range, I think, in most people's ranks. By the end of the year, if he's still here, he's probably top five. Like, the kid can flat out rank. So, I'm excited to see what he can do. You know, in low A.

Yeah, phenomenal hit tool, like you mentioned, 199 played appearances last year in the DSL, 314, 457, 484, with four home runs, 22 ribs. Four stolen bases. Struck out 16.6% of the time, walked 13.6% of the time. And then this year, and the four games that he

played in the Complex League. We don't have extended spring training numbers, obviously, but he went seven for 11 in his four games in the Complex League. So looking forward to seeing what Arroyo does an affiliated ball, starting pretty quick here. All right, so Bryce Miller last night. Wow, I really took myself off of baseball savant to look at Michael Arroyo's numbers. Look at me, not planning out ahead.

But Bryce Miller was, I mean, he was able to get back on track last night. night. I think we can at least say that. It certainly wasn't a great start. The box score to me is a little bit skewed. He only gave up, what, three hits, one earn run, which was the home run to Nick Fortez. But he walked three. He was really struggling with his fastball command at times. A lot of glove side misses, which has been kind of a trend, especially in the last two starts against the Yankees and the Rangers. fortunately this time like I mentioned he did not get blown up but still you and I last night we were talking during the game and we were he was through four when we were talking and it was like how has he not given up a hit yet like what's going on like he had only given up two hard hit balls up to that point he finished the night with just four hard hit balls allowed

you know one of those of course being the home run he gets through six he only had one hit allowed actually that was the home run. So I again, though, considering the lack of command there was, I was pretty surprised that he got through the start as clean as he did. What did you see from him last night? And were there some positives that you took away from that? I mean, the fact that it never got away from him is pretty good. There was some opportunity.

I think at one point he threw seven straight balls and then like nine out of 10 pitches were balls. I think it was in the second. And that's obviously not great. But the fact that he was able to kind of manage that work around that is certainly good. And obviously, you know, Miami helped him out a little bit expanding the zone at times when they probably shouldn't have. But you have to earn the, you have to earn the swings outside of the zone. You do. You have to be around the zone enough.

You have to have good enough stuff where they have to honor that. and they're willing to chase a little bit. So, you know, you give Miller some credit, but this is why it's important not to box score scout, particularly starting pitchers, because you watched the game last night, Miller wasn't very good. He was fine, you know,

but he wasn't very good. It wasn't like the start against Oakland or the start against Atlanta or where he just, you know, dominated and you're just like, wow, like this could be, it was, you know, fairly pedestrian stuff. The fastball velo was actually down. We saw a lot of 93s. Now, I don't know. know if that was fatigue or if that was just him, you know, trying to throw strikes.

So he was taking a little bit off of it. I don't know. But, you know, he did go, he did throw 89 pitches. There is no reports of anything after the game. So it seems like maybe Miller was just kind of trying to take a little bit off for better command, uh, of the pitch. But we'll see. I mean, he still averaged 94.6.

His yearly averages 95. But we saw a lot of 92, 93s last night. So that was a little something that was weird. We saw the gloves, or the glove side misses quite a bit. But I do think we saw a pretty good and consistent slider. It didn't generate any whiffs on the pitch, but they didn't hit a ball hard against the slider. Average exevalo on the slider last night was 72.8. So just not a ton of hard contact at all, but particularly against the slider.

And he was able to use it at the bottom of the zone to kind of set up the fastball. Uh, so overall it was, it was a solid night for Miller. I mean, I, I think, you know, you don't want to fall, fall in love with the box score too much, but at the end of the day, six scoreless endings against one of the hottest teams in baseball, um, you know, you kept a rise off the bases. You kept, uh, you kept Solair, you know, in the, in the ballpark. Um, and you kept De La Cruz off the basis too. And those, those three guys right now are carrying that offense. And Miller handled them just fine. So again, you don't want to be too critical because at the

of the day. He held a pretty good lineup to, you know, no runs and one, or one run and one hit over six innings. But there's still definitely some things to clean up there. There are some, you know, minor things to keep an eye on in his next start. But overall, pretty solid day for Bryce Miller. Yeah, he was able to generate a lot of weak and middling contact. So, you know, good on him on that front. But yeah, there, there are certainly still some concerning signs that I see here, especially last night, didn't really get anything out of his secondaries. He didn't really throw his secondaries that much. He threw his slider 20 times according to baseball Savant. After that though, three sweepers, one change up. And on the slider,

he only generated six swings on those 20 sliders and only got four cold strikes on there and didn't generate a single whiff. All of all 12 of his whiffs came on the fastball. I mean, yeah, but it's 12 strikes out of 20 sliders. So that's an important note. um, I mean, four called strikes right. The fouls. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Like I thought the slider was pretty good last night. It's, it's interesting. He called, he said he threw a lot of cutters. So I don't know if, you know,

stat cast is differentiating the sweeper from the cutter or the slider from the cutter yet. But, um, it was pretty firm. It was, you know, topped out at 88 on the slider. That's about what the cutter should be. Um, so. Actually, no, no, isn't that? No, it's, isn't it. Isn't it, isn't at six strikes on 20 pitches? He's six strikes. Four called strikes. Yeah, but two of the swings are fouls though. So it's 10.

Yeah. 10 out of 20. There you go. Okay. Yeah. I was like I feel like I'm missing something. I was looking at the numbers. I was like I feel like I'm missing something.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, either way. Sorry to get derailed there. But yeah. No, no. He was around the zone with a slider, though.

Not too many bad misses. Everything kind of at the knees. are lower. Like the slider was fine last night. And yeah, you know, Miller right now, he's just not really a strikeout guy. Like it's fine. He doesn't need to get with. Right. Um, you like we see in a lot of his starts, there were a ton of foul balls last night. Um, and that's actually a good sign. It means that, you know, the hitter isn't picking up the fastball as well. If they're fouling it off a bunch, those are pretty harmless. So, uh, Miller was fine. Uh, but, you know, obviously the real story is, is the offense. And I'm sure we're about to get into that. But overall, like Miller, I would

give him like a 55 like I don't think he was dominating but he was okay he's okay yeah certainly not his best start but a a significant improvement from the last two and so you got to feel good about that hopefully this is at the very least a good confidence boost for him heading into his next start which is going to be against Chicago so on the weekend what Sunday Saturday somewhere in there Sunday I think Sunday so yeah so we'll We'll see how that goes. That's a lineup. Obviously, the White Sox have really struggled this year,

but that's a lineup that certainly has some talents, some guys that can do some damage against Miller. So we'll see how that goes. But for now, good stuff from Miller overall and great stuff from the offense, which is starting to heat up a bit, especially their top guys like Ehio Horez and Thai France. We're going to be talking about them.

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for $20 off your first purchase. terms apply again create an account redeemed promo code locked on MLB for $20 off download game time today last minute ticket's lowest price guaranteed and you're listening to the lockdown Marreras podcast thank you again for bringing us your first listen we're talking about the marries eight to one win last night over the Miami Marlins and you can catch game two of this three game series on the mayor's hometown broadcast series XM via the SXM app tonight so this offense eight runs last night, put one in the air for the Baron's offense because they were smoking the ball as evidenced by the distances on A. E. E. Henni Oswres and Tai Francis home runs. I know you like that one. Yeah. 840 combined feet between those two home runs. You can do the math. Also,

stomping Tom Murphy came through with a home run late in this one as well. So they were crushing the baseball. Julio with an RBI. Teo with an RBI double Geno with what the hell was Brian De La Cruz doing the first inning I want to talk about Gino though

because he had a couple hard hit balls he has seven hard hit balls over his last four games and you know obviously he had the home run he one of the other hard hit ball that he had was the one to De La Cruz which he dropped and then he also got on base again with a single So he finishes the day, you know, two for four.

It's starting to look like he's turning in the corner, right? Yeah. You know, we started to see it on, what was that, Saturday night against the Angels. You know, three hard hit balls went over for like 300 mile per hour line drives right at people. And then, you know, he continued it. He had a pretty good game Sunday. It might have been Friday. He had that game.

But yeah, Gino's been on a little bit of a tear. Obviously, you need to see it a few more times through before we start to. to, you know, say that he's made the adjustment and all that stuff. But it certainly is a step in the right direction. He looks better. The home run yesterday was to right center field. That's a great sign. You know, he's still, you really want Gino to go on a run here this next week or so

where he puts up like three, four home runs in a week. And that's when you can kind of feel like, hey, you know, Gino's back. But he is hitting the ball a lot harder. His that bat's just looked better in general over the last few days, not striking out as much. He's always going to strike out. That's always going to be part of it, even when he's going well. But you just don't want the bad strikeouts.

You don't want the bad at bats. And Gino is stringing together a lot of high quality at bats, you know, over the last four or five days, which is great because, you know, Thai France and Teosker are both on a tear right now as well. So you kind of get those three going. JP been pretty consistent all year long. Julio starting to get going again, you know, had the hit, had a walk, got robbed of a second walk in his first at bat. terrible strike zone last night, by the way. Good Lord. Yeah. Yeah. But when you have those five that are going pretty good,

it takes a lot of pressure off of six, seven, eight, nine. And last night, you know, the Mariners didn't use Jared Kalnick. They didn't need him to score eight runs. They didn't need Cowellie to score eight runs. And that's, that's obviously, that's a good sign because for long portions of the season, those two guys have had to carry you. But now one through five is getting the job done. We'll see how the lineup looks tonight against Cabrera.

He's a tough pitcher with really good stuff, in particular, great changeup. The Mariners probably shouldn't use Kelnick tonight. They probably shouldn't use Raleigh again tonight just because the changeup is that good. Cabrera is a reverse splits guy. We're talking, you know, 100 points better in batting average against right handers. Same with on base, and it's like 200 points higher and slug. Like right handers are much better bet against Cabrera. So we'll see how the Mariners want to manage that.

but, you know, one through five from last night should pretty much be the same today. Because one through five, last night, they all had two hard hit balls apiece. They all reached base at least twice. And obviously, you know, there was damage done with the home runs by Gino and anti-France. So, you know, kind of the, I don't want to say it's forgotten because I'm sure people notice. But just six strikeouts last night for the Mariners. which anything under 10 is pretty darn good for anybody, but especially the Seattle Mariners.

And they were able to do that against a pretty good pitching. Like Lazzardo is not a pushover, not having an incredible year, but he's a pretty good pitcher who strikes a lot of guys out. And the Mariners just had a great game plan against him. So overall, very encouraging by what we've seen from the Mariners, really since the first game against San Diego, the Musgrove start. And they're taking walks. They're not striking out as much.

working deep counts. They're hitting the ball hard. They're starting to hit the ball out of the ballpark. The offense is on a nice little roll right now, which is perfect. Now, the key is, can they do it for more than five games? Like, can they do it for more than a week? But the offense certainly is getting rolling right now. And if the pitching can kind of turn the corner and get back to what it was, this is a team that's capable of going on a run, especially at the top five guys in your lineup are going to look like this for an extended period of time. Yeah, great approach, great game plan, great execution against Lizarro. grinding him down and then taking advantage of the mistakes.

You mentioned the strike zone earlier. This game could have easily been three nothing mariners coming out of the first inning. Julio took a called strike three, which could have easily been ball four. But alas, you also mentioned J.P. Crawford, who led this game off with a double down the line. We're trying to send him to the All-Star game. Hashtag JP for ASG. Send us your ballot with J.P. Crawford getting voted. into the All-Star game and you will enter for a chance to win a signed Luis Castillo card.

You can send your ballot to us via email at Lockdown Mariners at gmail.com or on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. Anything else you want to note on this offense before we move forward? I know, just that it's, you know, I saw the comments yesterday. It's only one game, calm down. It's not. It hasn't only been one game. Sure.

It's been probably about five now, four out of the last five at least. Again, they did it against Musgrove, they only scored four. Okay, fine. They did it against Otani. They only scored four, right? They did it against Santaval. They scored five. They did it again against Canning.

They only scored four. They were one hit away from being just like seven, eight, nine runs again. That's the margin of error. And then they did it again last night against Lizardo and they scored eight. If the Mariners scored four runs every single night, you're going to win a lot. lot of ball games. Especially with this pitching staff, what this pitching stuff can be. Right.

If you're just going four runs every single night and then like every third or fourth night, you're putting up six, seven, eight. You're going to win a ton of baseball games. And that's all this offense needs to be. Just be consistent. And again, they're doing it against not terrible pitching. Luzardo is not bad.

Sandoval is not bad. We know how good Musgrove is. We know how good Otani is. These are not awful. Even canning is not bad. He's a majorly quality starter. They're not doing this against the Oakland. who by the way I've won six in a row they're doing this against the raise last night I they're doing

this against legitimate starting pitching if they can just continue to do that I don't know if it's enough to give them a 910 game win streak or anything like that but it is going to be enough to win series limit damage go on the road against these tough teams like the New York Baltimore trip and finding a way to split those games or maybe even win both of those series the offense puts up four or five every single night they're going to do that type of thing so this is a good sign it doesn't mean that, you know, they're back. Like we're back. We're going on.

No, we're so back. We're so back. Yeah. It just means that the offense is, in the last five days, it just looks so much different and so much better than the previous 55 games that it's worth noting. And it's worth, you know, kind of getting cautiously excited about because we've seen what this offense can do. We saw the second half last year. When they execute the game plan, they are very capable of putting up four or five, six runs every single night.

beating around some pretty good pitchers. They did it at the end of last year. They're doing it right now. Can they continue to do it for a big enough stretch of time to get back into this thing? We're about to find out. You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Again, you can catch the Mariners and the Marlins game two tonight on the Marriss hometown

broadcast of Series XM via the SXM app. Hey, congratulations to Ty Adcock on making his major league debut last thing. You look good. I thought he looked good. He looked like a middle reliever, which is fine. Like first three guys, uh, knock the crud out of the ball.

Uh, all over a hundred miles an hour. Just right at people. Three of the first four. Uh, but second inning, you know, lots of soft contact.

He just looks like a middle guy to me, which is fine. Sure. That's all you need him to be. He's, you know, 95 to 97 can touch 99. I thought the slider was actually pretty.

It was kind of more of a, like a 126. Like it looked like a curb ball almost at times, like a short curf ball. But, um, I think he's going to generate some whiffs as time goes on, but

kind of looks like Justin Topa a little bit to me, minus the arm. Which is fine. Which is fine. Which is fine. Which is totally fine. That is a high quality middle reliever. So, and, you know, his ability to go to what was nice just because you don't want to, if you don't have to burn another arm in a seven run game,

don't burn another arm in a seven run game. And then, yeah, Spire came in and he only had to throw nine pitches to get out of the night. So, yeah, I thought tie, uh, tie look pretty good. Thanks. Yeah. No.

By the way, two ties on the team? I'm I'm levitating right now. Yeah, neither one of them as good as Colby Rasmus, but okay. What a poll. What a poll. All right.

Eduardo Rodriguez. He is the target of our trade-a-day today. This is very aggressive because arguably he might be the best pitcher available at this year's deadline. He is hurt right now. He is on the 15-day IL with a finger issue. We'll see how long that keeps him out.

But presumably he should be healthy before the deadline comes and goes. And he's someone that certainly could be on the move here from Detroit to somewhere else. He had a great start of the year. he's obviously making a bit of money still has a couple years a couple years left club control on his deal no no am i wrong on this is this is part of what makes him so much fun and why i wanted to talk about him okay uh he has an opt out oh he does yeah yeah he can opt out of the last i think it's five years 90 million something like that and the expectation is is that he will opt out of it, mostly because he and the Tigers had issues last year.

And honestly, with him pitching as well as he is, he's probably going to do better on a thin market, free agent market. So this is part of what makes him so interesting is that you're probably not even going to get to use them until late July, probably post-all-star break. The Tigers are miraculously still in it because the AL Central. troll is a joke. So do they even want to trade him? They probably should if they think he's going to opt out and he's almost certainly going

to opt out. So it might be a rental or it might be a really expensive long term piece. You don't know because does Rodriguez at 5 and 90? I think that's what's left on the deal. I don't know for sure. Maybe Ty can look that up. It was 571. I think his AAB is just 15 and a half per.

I feel like there was another. Well, whatever. Either way. I'm going to check another website. Yeah. Either way. Or what's his overall contract? I feel like five,

maybe he signed. It was a five year, 77 million dollars. Oh, okay. So I was thinking of somebody else. He, all right.

So next year, if he does not opt out, it's $18 million. After that, it's 16 and 20, 25 and then 15 and 26. He's, he's opting out.

After the year that he's having, he's going to get more than 18 per. He's going to get, yeah, 20 mil a year, at least 25. Yeah. I mean,

time on Walker got 18 I mean it's possible he comes back from the injury and he's just terrible and maybe that tanks the numbers a little bit for him but he'll just opt out get 15 million and then be a free agent again at 32 sure like so he's going to opt out almost certainly but there's still a shot that he doesn't and in which case are you willing to pay are you the mariners with the amount of starting pitching you already have

are you willing to pay Eduardo Rodriguez what's that come out to 3 and 50 something like that I don't know like you probably should be willing to but you have a lot of pitching already the interesting thing here I mean this all comes down to how the tigers

are going to value him are they going to value him as a rental are they going to ask for a return that reflects a rental pitcher or are they going to ask for a return that reflects a club controlled I don't middle the

rotation starter. I don't think they have a choice, but to trade him as a rental, to be perfectly honest. Because you are going to lose him. There's just no question. If you're not going to keep Eduardo

Rodriguez beyond this year. And what are the odds that not only you can make the playoffs, but that you can win a playoff series with Rodriguez. They're not great. So to me, you don't really have a choice but to trade him as a rental. And I think the market itself will dictate that price to,

uh, to Detroit. But because, like you said, he's probably the best, maybe the second best of Stroman, you know, like he's one of the two best pitchers that's likely to get moved at the deadline

this year. So you are going to have to pay up for him. He's not going to be cheap. And he's coming off of an injury and he might not be ready to, you know, August. Like how much is eight starts, eight, nine starts of Eduardo Rodriguez instead of Marco Gonzalez or,

or instead of Brian Wu, how much is that worth to you? Right. It's, it's, this is, again, this is part of the reason why I picked him today. It's tough because are you a better team if Eduardo Rodriguez is in your rotation? Yes. It is not debatable. Yes. If you add a healthy Eduardo Rodriguez to this rotation, are the Mariners the best

rotation in the American League? Yeah, they might be. They very well could be. But again, you might only get 10 starts out of them. You're not even in great position to make the playoffs right now. maybe in July, maybe in a month, that's different. But right now you're not. The tigers, they don't have to trade him.

They're also kind of still in it. Rodriguez to me is fascinating because I think you can, like, would you trade Clase for two months of Rodriguez? Yes. Yeah. Would you trade Michael Oroyo? I'm saying no. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm saying no because to me, like, then the strategy is like, okay, I'll just go find this year's Tyler Anderson and give up Zach De Loach for that guy. And then I'll keep a Royo and maybe I'll flip a royo for the bat that I want instead. You know what I mean? So Rodriguez is super interesting because like in a vacuum, yes, he makes sense and he also doesn't. Like it's a fascinating discussion because he helps you.

He's a good fit. He's not going to be super expensive because he is going to be. going to be valued as a rental, but he's not going to be cheap because he's very good and it's going to be a thin starting pitching market. Can you thread that needle? I don't know. And it's not like Detroit has a bunch of guys that they could tack on to this deal to make it more appealing to you, right? There's not really a broken arm that they're going to tack on. You're like, oh, well, yeah, it's only half a year of, or it's only two months of Rodriguez, but I also get, you know, two years of this middle reliever that I like that has, you know, upside for high leverage spots.

probably not going to do that. Like, why would the Tigers do that? So Rodriguez, to me, is just a really interesting guy. Ultimately, I think the Mariners would rather spend the assets on bats and then kind of just go get a back-in type of guy. But there's a non-zero chance Rodriguez is a guy that they like enough to go after and free agency. Anyways. And if they can get him at a price, that makes sense. You have to be okay with just giving up a player.

the player you give up, you have to be okay with him being essentially an everyday player, knowing that you're only going to get 10 games out of Rodriguez. Who's that prospect? What is that prospect package? That's a tough one. It's tough one. Thinking even further beyond the regular season and into the postseason, am I going to need Rodriguez for the postseason?

You'd probably throw them. I mean, I mean, what is Gilbert? Is Gilbert still doing this hopscotch between good and great? Well, yeah, so there's obviously that. You know, Kirby's obviously been, you know, kind of inconsistent. Castillo's been fairly inconsistent as of late. But obviously you're starting Castillo in a playoff series. You're obviously starting to it.

It comes down to it's between Gilbert Rodriguez and Kirby, which two do you trust more? Right. So if I'm more than fine with going, you know, Castillo, Gilbert, Kirby for most of the postseason, how much are those 10 regular seasons games, regular season games actually worth to me? They're worth a lot if they help you get into the playoffs. They're not worth much if you miss the playoffs. Again, that is what makes the conversation. Well, and how.

So bizarre. And look, this is probably going to seem like a dumb, question on the surface, but how much of a, sure, how much, like, let's say that Marco is able to come back, right? How much of a better chance does Eduardo Rodriguez give me in those 10 games of Marco? Like, how much is, like, how much is that upgrade actually worth? Because obviously, it is an upgrade. Obviously, he does give me a better chance, but how much is that actually worth? See, and that's another point that we haven't even discussed. What about Marco? Are getting Marco back at some point this year?

We don't know. Right now they're fairly optimistic, but they were optimistic on Robbie Ray with a very similar injury. And bam, Tommy John. And if Marco has to get Tommy John, which we're not saying he will, but it's a possibility. If he does, then you don't have him for next year either.

Rodriguez doesn't really help with that. But now you're two starting pitchers down going into next year. So does that make the Mariners more aggressive on controllable starting pitching? If Marco comes back, are they just like, no, we don't need it? because now we're just Wu like Wu's gonna start

for the next month when he's done and Marco's back and healthy he's the number five is it really worth going out and spending assets to get a marginal upgrade over Marco Gonzalez no probably better off just going and spending those assets on bats yeah we talked about this

yesterday I think you know whether or not Marco is able to go I think a pitcher that's of the Marco Gonzalez caliber would make sense for this team. Someone that's under club control for next year as well. Starts to get a little bit price here.

The Mike Leak idea, right? Right, but I mean, they already said no to what's his name from Cleveland. He's basically Mike Leak. So, ooh, I don't know. Do you want that guy, though? I mean, is that, is that a very special situation, though. But if you're getting another, if you're getting another Marco, right, like, if that's the plan for.

next year. Wouldn't you be better off just letting Wu and Hancock compete for that spot? Because those guys are at least number fives in a year. Well, but are you trading one of those guys? I don't know. We don't know. Yeah.

So that's the other thing too. I just kind of, I don't know. I feel like maybe some insurance, some major league back into the rotation insurance might make some sense, might make some sense for this team. Can't you just go and buy that in the winter for like four million bucks? How much is a Marco Gonzalez going to make in free agency this year?

Six to eight million? And isn't that guy basically Chris Flexen? Yeah. So I just, I don't know. I don't know what the Mariners are going to do with their pitching. I don't. Again, a lot of it will depend on where they're at standings-wise as we get closer to the deadline. A lot of it will depend on how Marco feels as we get closer to the deadline.

But Rodriguez is a guy who probably would be your number two. right now. He's probably a little bit better than Kirby, probably a little bit better than Gilbert, but it's two months of that guy. But again, you know, it's a finger issue too. I don't. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If that. Like, yeah, I don't know. It just seems really dicey. Like the only aspect that and again, this is just such a slim chance that this happens. And if it does happen, it probably means that something's gone wrong. But the thing that really entices me here is paying rental prices for a club-controlled middle of the rotation starter, right? Yeah, but if you're the Mariners, you have to assume that you're only buying two months.

And if you're the Tigers, you have to assume that you're only going to get rental prices. Yeah, I'm just saying as a fan, that's what entices me. But yeah, from a purely like operational standpoint, yeah, you have to go into that, you know, into those negotiations, like in that he's only making 10 starts for me at most. If that, yeah. Yeah. So it's an interesting discussion. What do you guys think about Eduardo Rodriguez? I would say, go after him, pass on him. I would say probably not. I'm probably out. But I think it's too complicated. I think it's too much of a headache. Yeah. So, so for that reason, I'm out. All right. I think that's going to do it for us. Anything else you want to touch upon before we get out of here? All right. Cool. Again, you can. can catch the Mariners and the Marlins on the Mariners hometown broadcast with SiriusXM via the

XXM app tonight and that's going to do it for our show thank you so much for joining us here on the locked on marries podcast for Colby Pat node I'm tied in gonzales be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore mariners you can follow me at dame gonzalz and colby at cpad 11 that's CPAT 11th follow us on instagram and tick talk as well over at locked on mariners that's one word locked on mariners you can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode Thank you again for making us your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day. See you tomorrow.

Peace.