Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Host Braves in Biggest Test Before October

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

With the postseason fast approaching, the Mariners will face their biggest remaining test before October as the defending world champion Braves come to Seattle. Colby and Ty break down the pitching matchups in this series, which Mariners need to have a big weekend and how MLB's rule changes will affect the Mariners in 2023 and beyond.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] up to date with all things Mariners at Inside the Mariners - a FanNation website covering the Seattle Mariners on the Sports Illustrated network.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11 | @InsideMarinersFor more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/ 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.

The defending champions are in town and we'll be telling you why this is a good test for the Mariners before October. Plus, major league baseball will operate a little differently in 2023. How about that impact the Mariners? We'll discuss here on the Locked on Mariners 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.

What's up, everyone? This is take four of the Locked on Mariner's podcast. we've had some technical issues. This show is brought to you by Bet Online. Bet Online has you covered all season long with more props, odds, and lines than ever before. Bet Online is where the game starts. It is Friday, September 9th, 2022. And thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day.

We are free and available on all platforms with new episodes dropping every Monday through Friday. I am your host, Citing Gonzalez. Join as always by my host, Colby Patnode. We cover The Mariners over at Inside The Mariners.com for Fan Nation over on the Sports Illustrated Network. be sure to follow the show on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. Follow inside the mariners at inside mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, the C-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-A-E-T-1-1.

Be sure to also check out our Patreon. Over at patreon.com, forward-slash control the zone. We post two additional podcasts on there every single week. Again, that is patreon.com forward slash control the zone. And if this is your first time joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe, wherever you're listening to this.

And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly appreciate it. On the show today, pitching matchup breakdowns and our thoughts heading into the Mariners Weekend series

with the Braves, including a player each we feel will be crucial to Seattle having a successful series. Plus, how will next year's rule changes in MLB impact the Mariners? And of course, as I said, at the top of the show, this is take four for us today.

We've been dealing with a little bit of everything that has impeded our recording. Hopefully this is the take. This is the one. If you're watching this, this is the one crossing our fingers. Before we hop into our topics, friendly reminder that we are doing a project here at the Lockdown Mariners podcast

and we want you to be a part of a very special episode of Locked on Mariners later this month. We are asking you, our listener, to submit a, roughly a 45 second to a one minute long video of you telling us who you are, how long you've been a Mariners fan, and what the Mariners ending their 20-year playoff drought would mean to you. Email us at Lockdown Mariners at gmail.com with your video submission.

And if you get it to us by Friday, September the 16th at 1159 p.m. Pacific time, or well, by 11.59 p.m. Pacific time on Friday at September 16th, you will be in the video. So please do so. Now, with that out of the way, I have said that spiel four or three times now today. So hopefully that was the last. Let's get into our topics for today. Our leading topic of the day is the Mariners are back. Mariners baseball is back tonight. Last night sucked. I would have much rather watched Mariners baseball instead of that really awful football game. Bill's just absolutely smack the crap out of the the Rams and the whole time

I was sitting there watching that game. I was just thinking about how much I would rather be watching Robbie Ray dominate the Braves and hopefully that will be the case tonight as the defending world champion Braves come to Seattle for a big three game series over this weekend.

Robbie Ray versus Charlie Morton to start things off tonight. It's Max Fried postseason and World Series Hero for the Braves against George Kirby. And then finally Marco Gonzalez goes on the bump for the Mariners on Sunday against to be determined. Everyone's favorite pitcher. But it currently looks like that is going to be Jake Oterizzi, former Astro,

who the Mariners saw in an Astro's uniform earlier this year, who will be making that start. He had a bullpen session the other day, told a Braves reporter that the tentative plan is for him to make that start on Sunday. Obviously, things could get in the way of that happening. But for now, it looks like the Mariners will be facing Jake Otorrizzie on Sunday. So Colby, let's get into these pitching matchups. How do you feel they favor, not favor the Mariners this weekend?

Let's go back a minute here because I got to call some people out on their lack of video submissions. All those people in the comments who like to call Colby negative and ask is Colby even a Mariners fan? He hates this team so much. And here I am giving hours and hours and hours of talk on so many different podcast episodes about this baseball team. and we turn it to you guys and say, hey, how about you guys send us a one minute video

of you saying, hey, I'm Colby. I've been a Marys fan since 2001, and this is what the playoff drought ending would mean to me. That's it.

That's all we're asking. And you can't even do that except for one person. Thank you very much. I forgot the person's name. Thank you very much. It was Mason. Mason.

Yes. So I don't know. A lot of keyboard warriors out there in the comments section calling me, you know, I don't know, negative or I'm not a real

baseball fan. even though you know I do two podcasts and like nine episodes a week and all this stuff and here you guys are not willing to submit a one minute video saying hey I think it would be really cool the Mariners broke their playoff drought so I don't know maybe go down in the comments section and complain about it but you know I'm up here recording stuff unlike you guys so whose fault is that called out really called called who's not the real mariner fan now that's what I thought that's for the pitching matchups I think I think they could be worse think the Mariners matchup okay here i mean morton's been up and down all year uh ray has been

kind of the same but on a pretty nice run as of late so uh you feel pretty good about tonight at least in terms of the matchup freed you're probably going to lose that uh almost regardless of who's pitching he's just that good he's that type of guy um but kirby's been on a nice little role too so you do you do have a puncher's chance there and then oda rizzi the marins have seen him a lot recently he's seen them a lot recently they have a good idea of how he's going to attack them And it's, you know, if Marco's going to pitch against the Braves in this series, you probably wanted to be against somebody like Oda Rizzi, somebody who, you know, the Mariners, it's not sprints or strider, right?

Like, it's somebody that the Mariners might be able to score some runs off of. So overall, the pitching matchups, I feel like they are like not ideal, but they're not bad. They're not terrible. It could have been a lot worse. But, you know, as it stands right now, you probably get the Braves a slight advantage heading into this one. But again, Morton's been up and down and, you know, Freed is likely going to dominate. It's kind of lefty, you know, premier lefty starter. Mariners haven't done too well with that, but it's baseball. And, you know, we've seen the

Mariners, you know, go to, go to Dinger Town on Garrett Cole and Justin Merlander. You know, an eke out wins against Shane Bieber and Tristan McKenzie while losing to Zach Plissac. So it's just one of those things where anything can happen. This offense certainly has the ability to put up runs in a hurry. We don't see it often, but, you know, they've been okay recently. So we'll see what they can do. Overall pitching matchups, I would still say favor of the Braves, but it's pretty close considering that you're not going to be able to throw Castillo

or Gilbert at them in this particular series. Yeah. So, you know, at least that you're going to have Ray, you're going to have Kirby. That gives you, you know, like you said, a puncher's chance. at least here. And, you know, it's going to be tough for those guys. So this is a really, really stacked lineup for the Braves. This is why, you know, I'm, I was saying at the top of the show, this is a big test. This is the biggest test that the Mariners can receive here from here on out before the postseason begins. Ronald Acuna Jr. Danesby Swanson, Austin Riley,

Ozzy Albies. The list goes on and on and on this team. This offense is absolutely stacked. They are, you know, 86 and 51. They're just a half. game out from the NL East lead you know think about how good the Mets have been this year the Braves have been able to keep in line with them this is a very good team and of course the defending champions so you know Robbie Ray George Kirby they're going to have to be on their A game this is probably the the best lineup that that George Kirby has faced I don't know if I'm maybe missing someone but this this might honestly be the the best lineup that George Kirby's face so that's a big test for him and for Robbie you know

He's faced some pretty good teams and it hasn't gone particularly well this year. And so we would like to see a better start from Robbie. He's had some good starts as well. Don't get me wrong. Mostly just against Houston. Yeah, Houston. Houston is really the big one. But yeah.

So, you know, it's going to be a huge, huge test for this team going up against a ball club like this. If they're able to get two out of three, I mean, all systems are go. Like I'm picking up what the Mariners are thrown down at that point. But, you know, hey, if they're only able to get one, I mean, you would like for them not to get swept here. It isn't the end of the world if they do. They still have a great cushion. But you would like to see them at least get one here from the Braves. And there's going to be opportunities to do that.

And this team has played very, very well against really good teams aside from the Houston Astros. I believe the Mariners have like the fourth best record in baseball against teams that were over 500. when Seattle played them. So yeah, there are certainly the Mariners are good, just that the Braves might be great. And so we'll see these matchups are always tough. But the Mariners bullpen should be pretty well rested at this point. You know, the starting staff did a really nice job of going deep in the, in the White Sox series at least.

And they have the off day yesterday to kind of reset everything. And so hopefully that'll help. You know, it's interesting. We heard Scott or we heard Jerry yesterday talk about. you know, we're going to start seeing Scott manage the bullpen a little bit differently. We're talking about guys going maybe one and two thirds instead of just one or maybe they go back out there to face another batter or two instead of just getting the last two outs. It's go time. So the Mariners are kind of making preparations and they're starting to treat these games like they're the playoffs as kind of a playoff like scrimmage.

I don't know exactly what word you want to use them. But they're going to start managing these games like their playoff games, just kind of getting the floor. of that of that style and it's it's a really good test to try and do that against the Atlanta Braves who are arguably you know top three team in all baseball so who or rather which player on the Mariners needs to have a good series in order for the Mariners themselves to have a good series we'll be telling you that in just a moment but real quick it's time for everyone's favorite segment here on the lockdown Mariners podcast it's time to talk about blue chew guys we all know that confidence can take you far in life and that's especially true in the

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That's bluechew.com promo code locked on to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more. details and important safety information and we thank blue chew for sponsoring the podcast. Colby, I heard some sort of noise while I was reading that and I'm incredibly scared to watch this episode back to see what you were doing. Anyway, you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast and thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. You guys know what we're talking about here, right?

Right, right. All right. So let's just move on from that. Let's talk about this series some more. Give me a player, Colby, who you think needs to have a huge series in order for the Mariners to have a successful series. You're going to say something like Abraham Toro or something, aren't you?

I think it's time for the fans to step up and, you know, send us videos. I'm trying to figure out how many times I want to get burned by Jesse. Winker before I stopped picking him for this type of stuff. It's just, I mean, holy cow, the guy's been so bad. I think you've picked him, like, whenever we've done a segment like this, I know. I think you've picked him like every single time and it's never worked out. The track record has been so good. And then just like this, like, oh, he's going to turn around.

He has to look at that track record and just. Nah. He's been better recently. He's like, no, I don't think I will. Yeah. It's, I mean, and he swings the bat like, you know, 180 year old Steve Wood. Yeah, I'm probably not going to go with him. I think Mitch needs to step up and have a nice series.

He's been in a little bit of a funk lately. And he's a critical piece of that lineup. If Julio's going to get on base and Thai France is going to get on base and neither France nor Julio had amazing series against Chicago. But they had been swinging the bat very well in Cleveland. So I think if those two guys are going to get on base, you have to have the guy who can drive them in. And, you know, Mitch is that guy.

You know, Gino's on a little bit of a heater right now, which is great. The Mariners need them to be. But I think Mitch, you know, just extending that lineup a little bit longer is something that is critical for this team's success. So I just, I feel like Mitch needs to come up. He needs to have a good series. You know, he just can we, can Mitch Hanigur hit like a single the other way

with a runner on second and third? Like that would be huge. Like that would be, that would be massive. So it's just one of those things where, I think if Mitch is going to have a good series, I think the Mariners have a legitimate shot to take two or three here from Atlanta, maybe even sweep. And obviously, you know, if Mitch has a great series,

but Julio and Ty France, don't, who cares? But I think it's time for Mitch to step up. He's been in a little bit of a funk as of late. Of course, after I said he went, was one for his last 20 and people hated me for it, he went like four for his next five. But after that, he's three for his last 20.

So that's not Ouch That's not very good He was actually going to be my pick But you picked him So but yeah So I had a couple of numbers there Basically Mitch is three for 20

Over his last 20 And that's not ideal So you need to get him back on track He's going to be big for this He's going to be big for the series Totally agree with that I'll throw out Cal Raleigh Let's see Cal Raleigh keep it going here

He's been he's been pretty big Over the last week or so And just let's see him you know, keep on there. How many more games can you hop on that guy's back and expect him not to fall down? That's true. It's true. But, I mean, he continues to go full Greg Jennings, man.

You know, just don't. I just, it feels like, you know, Gino and Cal right now are carrying the other 11 dudes on their back. You know, and the pitching staff is like, like trying to do their part too. But it's like, can somebody help these guys out? Like it's just one of those things where You know and again

Julio was very good on the road He just he wasn't good in that Chicago series It wasn't terrible but he wasn't great That that happens you know You can't expect everybody to be at their best at all times But like can you get three or four guys swinging it really well at the same time That would be amazing And you're probably going to need that in September so

Or in October I should say so It's one of those things Mitch is the one that I don't want to say I'm worried about Mitch But he's the one that I have the least amount of confidence in, is weird to say, in regards to like Ty France and Julio and Gino in particular, because I feel like we know exactly who those guys are. Mitch got off to a hot start, really slumping lately.

You know, there's a big question about whether or not he's going to come back. I think Mitch needs to have a big series here. And again, you're facing a bunch of tough pitching. Mitch is going to have to be the guy to kind of stir the drink and get things going. So I'll take Mitch here. This would be a great time also for somebody at the bottom of the lineup, not named Cal Raleigh to step up. I mean,

can Adam Frazier get on base? That would be nice. That would be nice. That'd be nice. That'd be nice if Adam Frazier could do that. But yeah, I think, you know, just my pick's going to be Cal though because he's going to be able to, you know, he's your best chance of doing damage at the bottom of your lineup.

So if guys like Adam Frazier, J.P. Crawford are able to, you know, get on base a couple times in the game, Cal should be able to drive those guys in. And so, you know, we'll have to see how, you know, the game progresses and how much Cal plays this week. And I would assume that it's at least going to be two of these three games. And, you know, having that power at the bottom of your lineup against the team like this, you're going to have to be able to get the big home run in the series. If you're going to beat the Braves, you're going to have to get the big home runs.

You're going to have to get those big, you know, the plays that do damage in one fell swoop. you're going to need a big double you're going to need a big basis clearing double you're going to need a big home run three run home run something like that Cal Raleigh can do that and so you know because like it's look the top four hitters

you know obviously those are the guys that are driving the train for you here but they're not all going to hit in the same series we haven't seen them really do that in any particular series so you're going to need someone at the bottom of the lineup to do that Cal's the hot hand right now and you know I think he has the best chance to

of any of these guys at the bottom of the lineup to actually do damage against someone like Max Fried or Charlie Morton. It's certainly not going to be JP or Adam Frazier. They've been rough to watch as of late. Well, I mean, and even that damage, right? Like that's what we're talking about here. So it's one of those things. You're going to get in a situation where you're going to load the bases

with one out or no outs this weekend. You can't just be sacrificed fly strikeout ground out. And you get one out of it. You're like, oh, well, that's good. No, you're not going to be able to win these guys. games two to one. No, you're going to have to hit that double. You're going to have to, you know, hit that three run, home run. You're going to have to string together some hits at some point. And that's not just for this series. It's going forward. At some point, you have to,

you know, get that big hit and saying, oh, well, you know, got the job done, productive out. It's not really a thing, especially when you have the base is juiced and there's one out. And you hit a sack fly like one runs better than zero. But it's not impactful. One run usually isn't this massive, you know, difference in a game. There's very few chance. There's very few times where one run in that situation is a good outcome, like a great outcome is to get one. So, you know, and the Mariners for a lot of this,

they've gotten zero or they've gotten one. And I can't even remember the last base is clearing double. So just one of those things. Somebody's got to step up. And I think Mitch is a good candidate because you talk about, you know, can Frasier and JP and, you know, at the bottom get on? Can Julio and France continue, pick, kind of pick up where they were on the road trip and all that stuff?

And, you know, in that point, it's up to Mitch. So we'll see how it goes. But, yeah, they need Cal Raleigh and Gino need some help. And so does this pitching staff. So we'll see how it goes. But you never know when this offense just pops off for 11 runs. It happens every once in a while. And it's a beautiful thing to watch.

It really is. It really is. And it would be beautiful to watch against the Braves. That would be optimal. the opposite of suboptimal. All right. So let's talk about the MLB rule changes that basically got finalized today and how that impacts the Mariners moving forward in 2020 and beyond.

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Head to the website today or use your mobile device and learn more about the trends and action. Bet Online is where the game starts. So today, Major League Baseball finalized rule changes that we all expected to to go into place in 2023. There were no surprises today. It's just that this has been finalized now. The bases are going to be extended by about three inches to,

nice. And in order to get players to be more active on the base pass, incentivize them to steal more bases, just get more motion on the base paths, basically. That's what they're trying to accomplish with that. I think it can also open up for like, base cams and stuff like that to be more of a regular part of the game as well. So it also kind of improves the viewing experience potentially.

On top of that, the pitch clock is being implemented. We don't know exactly what time will be allotted for pitchers in the season. We do. But it's, oh, we do now? Oh, we do now. What is it? 15 seconds with nobody on base, 20 seconds with somebody on base. Gotcha.

All right, cool. Thank you for that. So 15 seconds. Yeah. Feels a little light, but we've seen the returns on a pitch clock down in Meyer League baseball, and they're cutting down games by like 30 minutes, like 2030, even sometimes 40 minutes down in the Meyer League. Less baseball. Yay. And then on top of that, the shift has been banned, which a lot of people are going to be

very happy about. I am not one of those people necessarily. I think it's just a part of the game. It's part of the strategy. But it doesn't mean that, you know, you can't just, you know, you can't do anything with your defense now. There will still be like particular defensive alignments that teams employ. But it's got to be two, two defenders on each side of second base now. I can't have, you know, three guys out in left field.

And you cannot be in the outfield grass either if you are a infielder. So that's going to cut down on that a lot. And I think that impacts the Mariners in quite a big way because the mariners have some of the hitters that have been shifted against the most this season. There was actually a tweet that I saw. I bookmarked it. And nope, it's not there anymore. But Cal Raleigh, Jake Lamb, some of those guys have been at the top of the league in terms of getting shift for hitters that have at least 100 played appearances this year.

So that bodes well for those guys. But on the opposite end of things there, Colby, it also impacts the Mariners defensively in a negative way because their defense has been so. good. And now to me, I think this puts even more an emphasis on acquiring a middle infielder who actually has some range because Adam Frazier has taken a significant step back defensively this year. And you're going to need someone that has more range, someone that can cover more ground naturally because you're not going to have that help. You're not going to have that help. So first off, you know, what's your reaction to the rule changes? And then after that, what's what you feel on how this impacts the Mariners moving forward?

Yeah, I like the bigger bases one seemed like a no-brainer for a while now. Stolen bases are incredibly exciting, but also bigger bases means maybe there's a slightly, you know, better chance that Ty France doesn't get his elbow crushed backwards because there's more of a base for the runner to run to and for the first baseman to have. I still like the idea of putting another first base in kind of, we see that in in fast pitch where there's two first base and one is for the field or one is for the for the runner. It's to avoid injuries like that entirely. So I still think that is something they should explore,

but this should help with that. It should help with some base running things. It's also worth noting that apparently they also passed the pickoff limit rule. You can only pick over twice in an app bad. And if you pick over a third time and you don't get the guy, then he gets a free base. I think that also includes stepping off once you step on the rubber. So obviously that will change the running game as well.

quite a bit. So that's my favorite part of this. The shifts, I get what they're trying to do, but I also don't believe the argument that like, oh, well, without the shift, hitters will go back to cutting it down and just try to get singles. I just, really, you think after the home run revolution that hitters are going to go back and just try and, you know, serve the ball through, you know, the six hole? No, they're going to still try and hit home runs. Pitcher stuff is still going to be incredibly hard. It doesn't sound like they're going to shrink the strike the strike zone, at least not yet. They haven't announced that, which I think would have a bigger impact on balls and play and things like that because you still want home runs, right? You still want

home runs over singles. So it's one of those things. I don't think the shift is going to have as big of an impact on hitters approaches as a lot of people seem to think. But I do think it will lead to a few more hits here and there throughout the game, which I guess is what MLB wants. And then, you know, the pitch clock, I'm fine with it. I just, I think it needs to be a little bit longer. I think there needs to be a grace period, especially early in the season, because that's a huge change for a lot of guys. So I think for me, you know, I would say 18 and 24 seconds seems like a good place to be. And I would, I would absolutely ban the, like, you don't need the pitch clock in the playoffs. Because, you know, playoff baseball is all about the time in between pitches. That's that's what makes that sport special. So it's one of those things

where I'm fine with it. I just, I hope they're smart about it. They're not like super rigid about it because the one thing that baseball has always been that nobody, no other sport is, is it's timeless. Could take five hours, could take two hours. We don't know. And, you know, it's all the space in between that makes baseball great. So in theory, I'm in favor of the pitch clock. I just hope that in a practical sense the way they try to enforce it. There's some logic and some some just common sense involved in how they regulate that. And I would like to see a, you know, in the playoffs, I would like to see that go away.

So I found the, uh, the tweet that I was talking about. This comes from James at Mr. James Johnson on Twitter who I did a little research on, um, uh, baseball savants. So Cal Rale is number two in, uh, most shifted against. in all of baseball for all major league hitters with at least 100 played appearances this year. Taylor Tremel is number five. Jared Kellnick is 20. A. E. E. Henni Oswarez is 41. Abraham Toro is 46 and Jake Lamb is 47.

So that bodes well for those guys. And there's been a little bit of a meme on Twitter today that the shift ban is going to fix Jared Keltnik. Colby is the shift ban going to fix Jared Keltnik. No. Kellnick is a guy who actually hits the ball the other way a fair amount. Like it's not his biggest issue. His biggest issue is actually, you know, the fastball up in the zone. And then he expands his own to try and reach that pitch. So actually, if you want to fix Kelnick, I think you should be advocating for shaving, you know, two or three inches off the top of the strike zone. I think that would actually help Kelnick quite a bit because then he can eliminate that and he can get down into his powers

which is, you know, thighs to knees. So I think that is probably the fix for Kelnik if you're looking for, you know, Major League Baseball to step in and then save Jared Kalkenik. So, yeah, I just, I don't think the shift is going to, you know, like, I don't think we're magically going to see like, oh, now there's 50 guys hitting 300 all of a sudden, like, no, no, that's not going to be a thing. So we'll see, though, I'm open-minded to it. I get what Major League Baseball is trying to accomplish.

I just think changing the strike zone would accomplish more of what they want. But, you know, the pitch clock and the bigger bases I'm, I'm in favor of. Again, I just, I hope that there's some common sense may, you know, given to the pitch clock rules. And I do think that they should be extended a little bit, particularly early in the year. There should be like a until May 1st, grace period or May 31st, whatever it is. That just to me, it makes a lot of sense. So Cal Raleigh hitting 270 next year. Book it. going to be kind of hard to do with this 35% strikeout rate, but okay. I mean, the shift is going to fix everything, Colby.

Like you said, there's going to be 50 billion hitters that suddenly hit 300 next year. That's exactly what you said, right? Do we really want that? Do we? I mean, you know, I mean, Major League Baseball thinks the fans want more offense. Well, I mean, maybe more offense, but I don't think the fans are clamoring for more singles. like ooh more single same amount of walks and strikeouts yeah walks and strikeouts are so much we want 40 minute long

innings half innings and uh that's a quick that's a quick way to like completely get rid of everything that the pitch clock does everybody's just slapping singles the other way and like i don't know man like got teams batting around twice and one half inning are singles really that much more like thrilling than walks and strike breakouts. No. I mean, if it's It's Eitro, if it's Eitro, it's Echro. But unfortunately, Eitro does not play baseball anymore.

I mean, even though he really wants to. Do you want a guy who hits 220 singles and 15 doubles? Like, is that, is that? Or would you rather have a guy who hits 50 doubles and 150 singles? Like, I just, you know, who's, who are the teams going to pay? Are they going to pay the home run hitters? Are they going to pay the guy who's hit 310? I think we know the answer.

So good luck getting players to change their strategy because they might make $7 million a year as a 3-10 hitter when they can make $25 million a year as a 30 home run guy. Joey Gallo hitting 375 next year. No joke. Joey Gallo will be like everybody's like fantasy baseball darling. Oh, yeah.

He's going to hit for such a high average. And he's going to strike out 35, 36 percent of the time, walk 18 percent of the time. the time and hit dingers. Oh, it turns out he's the same player. No, no, no, his average went from 180 to 220. Like, oh, oh, yeah. Watch out. We got Tony Gwit over here. Like, what are we doing? Whatever. All right. That's, uh, that's going to do it for this, uh, unhinged episode of Lockdown Mariners. Thank you so much for joining us here. And, uh, for Kobe Patnode, I'm tidying Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter.

at hello underscore mariners. You can follow inside the Mariners. And inside Mariners. You can follow Dane Gonzalez. Yes, I had to clear my throat, sir. Does that offend you? Dane Gonzalez is spelled D-A-N-E-G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby. Is that C-P-E-E-N-Z-L-E?

That's C-P-A-T-1-1. Hey, we need C-Pat 11 back. No, we don't. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. Now make your second listen. the locked on MLB podcast MLB expert Paul Francis Sullivan brings humor, passion, and unique perspective on every team and the biggest stories around the league.

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