Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Looking to Turn Things Around With Cubs in Town

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

The Mariners are back in action tonight, hosting a talented Cubs team for three at T-Mobile Park over the weekend. Ty and Colby get you set for the series, breaking down Chicago's roster, what to look for in Bryce Miller's third start of the year, what's going on with Luis Castillo, and what the difference between wRC+ and WAR is.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!RobinhoodRobinhood has the only IRA that gives you a 3% boost on every dollar you contribute when you subscribe to Robinhood Gold. Now through April 30th, Robinhood is even boosting every single dollar you transfer in from other retirement accounts with a 3% match. Available to U.S. customers in good standing. Robinhood Financial LLC (member SIPC), is a registered broker dealer. Amazon Fire TVFire TV recently created Fire TV Channels to deliver a constant supply of the latest videos from your favorite sports brands, all for free. That includes all of us at Locked On and most of the big pro leagues and college conferences as well. To Learn More, visit www.amazon.com/LockedOnFireTV PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb for a first deposit match up to $100! eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. FanDuelNew customers, join today and you’ll get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As we talked about on Wednesday, the mayor is ended a bad road trip on a good note, but now it's time to see if that win in Toronto will actually stop the bleeding as the Cubbies come to town for a three-game set. We'll talk all about it coming up here on the Locked-on Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors, it is Friday, April 12, 2024.

this is tiding azales and colby patnode for the locked on marries podcast brought to you by fanduel make every moment more right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed that's a hundred and fifty bucks win or lose visit fanduel.com slash locked on lock down that's lckd on you to get yourself started thank you so much for making us your first listen subscribe like and turn 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 we'd love to hear from you and if you want to hear from us even more please consider sending 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 is in the description of this episode the mariners are playing host to the cubs tonight at t mobile park and this is a team both colby and i picked to make the playoffs in our preseason predictions a couple weeks ago tonight it's bryce miller versus jordan wicks we'll get into that match up a little later on in the show but for now let's just focus on this cubs team which we're which is pretty talented. You look at this offense, it's guys like Ian Hap, Sea Suzuki, of course, Cody Bellinger, who re-signed with the team this off-season.

Christopher Morel is really talented. Dansby Swanson, Michael Bush, Nico Horner. And then they have a pretty interesting bench as well with guys like Jan Goams and Garrett Cooper and Nick Madrigal. And then you look at this rotation,

which, of course, took a hit early on in the season with Justin Steele's injury, but they still have plenty of talent in this rotation. We're going to see Jordan Wicks tonight, like I said. We're going to see Shoda Imanaga, who's off to a really nice start in his major league career tomorrow. I don't believe they have a confirmed starter for Sunday that might be Javier Assad or Ben Brown. We'll see on that. And then it's a pretty decent bullpen as well with, of course, Hector Neris, who, you know, has some beef with this team, has some history with this Mariners team.

Adbert Alzali, Drew Smiley, a favorite of ours. So yeah, pretty solid roster across the board here for the Cubs. What do you make of them heading into the series here in the early going? Yeah, it reminds me a lot of last year's Mariners team. There's a lot of power in this lineup. There are a lot of guys who will swing and miss on occasion, but they should be balanced out by high contact guys like Nico Horner, who's one of the more underrated players in baseball.

They have, you know, on paper, really good pitching with a couple of young arms that have really stepped up and have a bullpen that is filled with pretty good arms that not a lot of people are talking about. You know, one of them, like you said, they're one of them very familiar to Mariner fans in Hector Nairis who, yeah, not the most beloved character in the game and has some beef with the Mariners and notably Julio Rodriguez. That'll be an interesting thing to watch. But, you know, it's a lineup that's pretty balanced, but it is a slight lean to the right-hand or heavy, which should help Bryce Miller tonight. We'll talk about that when we get to Miller. But, yeah, I mean, this is a team that's going to be really solid defensively,

right up the gut. Dan Spey-Swanson's very good defensively. Nico Horner might be the best second baseman in baseball defensively, and we know that Ballinger can certainly go get it. So they're going to pitch. They're going to throw a lot of strikes. you know, on the mound, they're going to strike out some, and they're going to try and hit home runs. So it is a pitching, strong defense up the middle, defense on the corners, and then their game plan is to draw walks and hit home runs.

And that's very similar to what we saw last year for the Mariners. So it's a very talented team. It is a team that, again, I think can make the playoffs. The bullpen is kind of the X factor here, but they have a lot of big arms in that bullpen that can generally. rate lots of strikeouts and get them out of any tight spot. So it's going to be a good series. I think these two teams, you know, they played 100 times. I think Seattle's probably going to win 60 of them.

But Chicago playing a little bit better baseball to start the year than the Mariners are. So we'll have to kind of wait and see how these two teams come out and play. The Cubs, I believe, did just drop a series to the Padres. So, you know, both of these teams coming off of a series loss and the Mariners certainly are not playing well yet. So it would be nice if they can come out and get a big win. But, you know, when you kind of look at the pitching matchups over the weekend, you probably feel pretty good about Sunday, except Louise Castillo hasn't been great. And we don't even know who the Cubs are thrown. But Saturday, yeah, that's an L.

we'll get to that and we'll get to that a little bit here but but yeah the Cubs come into the series 7 and 5 we've talked about how the Mariners have really struggled to control opponents run games the Cubs enter the series dead last and stolen bases in baseball they just have

two meanwhile first place in stolen bases this year the Washington Nationals they have 25 steals already through what 12 games yeah 12 games for them so but the the Cubs have been hitting the ball pretty well. 112 WRC plus as a team

heading into the series. That's 10th in Major League Baseball. So, pitching staff going to have to be on their A game here for the Mariners. So we're going to talk a little bit about that in just a moment with Bryce Miller who's making tonight's start. But first, a reminder of this

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Thank you again for making us your first. Listen and just a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube and Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Locked on sports today is here for you 24-7 covering the first ever. the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on plus our national shows covering every league find locked on sports today now available on the free fire tv channels app so bryce miller is coming off of one of his best starts of his young career in milwaukee now he faces a pretty tough cubs lineup like we mentioned they are 12 or their 10th rather and wrc plus with a 112 wrc plus here in the early

going so what are you going to be looking for here from miller and his third start of the the season, Colby. Yeah, I'll be interested to see how often he uses the splitter. That's kind of the new pitch for him. And we know that the Mariners are concerned about the usage of that pitch so much so that they used it to justify taking him out with, you know, 78 pitches in the eighth inning of a game in which he led three to nothing. So that's their story and they're sticking to it.

You guys by now know how we feel about that story. but we'll see how he uses the splitter. He's shown that he's willing to use it against righties and lefties, but that is a primary pitch to get out lefties. And so tonight, presumably, he'll be facing Bellinger, Bush, and Hap, at least. So that'll be an important pitch against those three guys. But also the slider, there's going to be some righties who can do some damage in this lineup as well. So I think, you know, for Bryce Miller, it's about, you know, having command of at least one of those secondary pitches.

And we know that the fastball is typically Miller is going to have good command of the fastball. That's something you can kind of bank on. It's not 100% certain, but you feel pretty good about Bryce Miller being able to kind of control the fastball and put it roughly where he wants it. And he'll have to do that tonight because the Cubs are a very patient team like we talked about. They want to hit the ball out of the ballpark and they want to draw walks. They're middle of the pack and home runs right now, but they are second in all baseball and walk percentage. They walk 12.2% of their at-bats so far, or plate appearances so far, that's quite high. For reference, the Mariners right now are running a 7.8% walk rate.

So he's going to have to be in the zone, but he's going to have to be smart with the zone. He can't be in the middle of the plate. They will hit home runs off of them, even if it is in Seattle and in April. So, you know, he's got to be very, he's got to be on the corners and he's got to find at least one of the secondary pitches. to have consistent success with. So, you know, again, he should be well rested. He only threw 78 pitches his last time out. He did get an extra day's rest because of the day off yesterday.

So it should be in a good spot. He should be able to go, you know, 85, 90, 100 pitches and we'll see how far he can get there. But yeah, I think tonight you're looking for the splitter or the sweeper. One of those two pitches, it would be very beneficial if he could have, you know, know, at least 50, 55 command of one of those pitches today, or control at least. Get swings with it outside of the strike zone. Throw it for a called strike every once in a while. Keep these guys honest, keep them on their toes and, you know, give your offense a chance

to work against Wix who is off to a very good start, but doesn't have incredible stuff. It's a guy that in theory you should be able to get to, but so far the numbers are fantastic. So I think it's just, you know, like we want from all of our starting pitchers, but particularly the young guys, the two young guys at the end, just keep your team in the ball game. Yeah. Go six or seven, give up three or less and, you know, give your offense a real fighting chance against, against, you know, a Cubs lineup that's pretty good, pretty deep. So let's talk about Jordan Wicks here, who has started two games so far this, the season has only gone through eight and two thirds over the course of those two starts. but 13 strikeouts to just four walks over that time. So what do you think about Wix and what are you looking for out of this offense against Jordan Wix?

I mean, of course, don't strike out 15 times. But other than that, what are you looking for from this offense? Or hear me out, strike out 15 times and score six or seven runs. I think you take that. Call me crazy. But yeah, Wix is not really a prototypical. lefty, but he's a guy who throws a lot of strikes. He is fastball in, you know, 92 mile per hour range with a very good change up. The change up is his best pitch. He has very good control and

command of that pitch mostly. So Wix is going to be, the Mariners are probably going to stack as many Riteys as they can in the lineup tonight. That's just what they do. Now, that could be counterproductive because, again, Wix's changeup is that good. And typically left on left, you don't see as many changeups. They're not as comfortable because that pitch tends to drift into that power zone, but the Mariners have almost exclusively just done straight platoon splits, not necessarily matchup base. So I suspect we'll see Dylan Moore in the lineup tonight. We'll probably see Eureas at their base for the next couple days. So we'll see how they handle the change up. If you can lay off the change up, if you can avoid swinging and missing at that pitch,

get him to throw you a fastball in a fastball count. He's not going to do it often. and get him in the middle of the plate, you have a chance to do some damage against him. So Wix is an interesting arm, but it's a very low floor, or sorry, a very high floor type of arm. So it's the guy that you could score some runs against,

but you have to be disciplined at the plate. You can't chase the change up. You have to get him up in the zone and, and, you know, attack when he does make a mistake. So you got to be aggressively smart. Like, you have to be aggressive with a purpose against him,

because if, if you start to expand the zone, particularly off the outside corner, he will eat you alive. You have to keep them in the zone. And if you do that, and you can kind of, you know, spit on the change up in those big, you know, 2031 counts where he's probably going to give you a change up instead of a fastball, force him to throw you that basketball in the zone, you're going to have a chance to put up some runs tonight. But it's easier said than done. I feel like this is a good opportunity for someone like Dillamora,

who's been swinging the bat pretty well lately. And hopefully this is a good opportunity for someone like Julio. know to actually find some grass and maybe do some damage actually if he if he finds grass not just hit for some singles but maybe you know get a double maybe even a triple or help put one over the wall put two over the wall that would be great uh Mitch garver as well uh is someone that desperately needs a really good game so we're going to talk about the other pitching matchups here in just a moment but first a reminder this episode of the locked on errors podcast is brought to you by by Fandul and LinkedIn.

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Now let's talk about the next two pitching matchup. So tomorrow it is, of course, Emerson Hancock against Shoda Imanaga. And Imanaga has yet to give up a run, earned or not, in his two starts in the major leagues. He has thrown a total of 10 innings over that time. He hasn't even walked anyone during that stretch yet. So I'm gonna off to a really, really good start in his major league career. And of course, I'm gonnaa was someone that we had in our offseason plan for the Mariners here on the show a few months back.

So Hancock, we've talked about it. He, I mean, you just flat out said he should, they should send him down. They should convert him to a reliever. He shouldn't make his next start. But as I predicted and as you agreed, the mariners are not doing that and they are going to allow him to make his next start and I assume that he's going to make every start he is scheduled to make until Brian Wu returns which you and I both do not agree with so I won't even ask you about Hancock I'll just ask you

about even though here because I think we all know what you're going to say about Hancock what have you what have your impressions been of Shoda Imanaga here in the early going Yeah, you know, about what I expected. Just, you know, overall, the stuff is definitely major league quality. There was really no question about that. He's come over and the stuff's played really well. Is he going to, you know, go an entire year without giving up a run? No.

Is he going to get roughed up every once in a while? Sure. I mean, that's just how it happens. But I'm an interesting pitcher. He's a lefty. Throws, you know, 92 to 93, but can touch 96. There's some deception in the delivery. so it's actually a quicker 92-93 than it looks.

And the split is his best pitch. That is the strikeout pitch. I think he's running like a 60% whiff rate on that right now. So clearly paired with the forcing passball and then the split, both are wrong with deception. Both are hard to pick up right away. That is a deadly combination. He throws a lot of strikes like you already mentioned.

So the Mariners offense will have their, you know, they'll have their hands full with Imanaga and you hope. that he leaves some pitches in the middle of the plate. You hope that maybe the split doesn't have quite as much bite as it normally does and maybe he hangs a couple and you can take advantage of that. But you're going to more than likely have to try and scrape a few runs together off of Yumanaga, if that. So, yeah, for the Mariners to win on Saturday,

they need Emerson Hancock to have the game of his career, which, I mean, frankly, is not a high bar to clear, but it's one that I mean even his best probably isn't enough to give you know the Mariners a good chance at winning that game but baseball's weird you know so you never really know how these things go you can look at it on paper all you want and say yeah that that's an easy win for so and so but that's just not really how it works look I've been doing this show long enough with you to know that Emerson is going to go out there and somehow some ways spend like six six settings, two runs, and people are going to flood the comment section.

Good. It's good for the algorithm. That's fine, but you know what? I'm still right. So eventually, you guys will all come to the realization. Oh, Colby was right. And you'll never admit it to me. That's fine.

Because I know. I know when I won, you know, the point. And that's all that really matters. So, yeah, you know, if Hancock, you know, just wants to go out there and surprise everybody. and the Mariners can win on Saturday. That's literally stealing a win that you shouldn't have. You have no right to think you deserve to win when you start Emerson Hancock. So every time you do win when he's out there, it is a massive bonus.

I just wish that the Mariners weren't willing to effectively punt one out of every five games this early in the year, particularly when they're not playing that well, and when they talked about how important it was for them to get off to a hot start. and yeah they're just like oh well you know maybe one four out of five but we're definitely not ever going to win five out of five with emerson hancock in our rotations so you know i just priorities but uh like i said just you know it's only a matter of time i feel bad for emerson hancock i don't actually he's he's not good like don't get me wrong here he's not good like we've addressed this we've gone over this but just as a person

How much you rip into this guy, I feel very bad for him. First of all, Emerson's not listening to this. Second of all, I'll continue to rip into him as long as the Mariners keep on trying to force him to be something. He's not. Third of all, I do feel bad for him because I would like to know what his career would have been like if he never suffered those shoulder injuries. Because this is not the guy that the Mariners drafted out of Georgia, completely different pitcher. And the only way to explain that is the toll that a couple of shoulders. or stories I've had on him because I think there's one thing we can we can

pretty safely say about the Mariners they can develop pitching so I don't think this is an instance where the Mariners are doing him dirty with development or anything like this I just think this is a guy who shell what he was even just a few years ago and he's trying to make it work and and he just he can't he doesn't have the stuff he doesn't have the command so he's just he's just not a major league quality starter it just those are facts so Sunday, it's Luis Castillo. We don't know who is pitching for the,

the Cubs. We haven't talked about Castillo on this show since this start in Toronto. So what's going on with the guy? Because you go back to last September, it's been pretty rough more often than not for him. Yeah. The interesting thing with Castillo is that it's not stuff. Typically, you know, guys struggle like this. The velocity's way.

way down or, you know, the slider's not quite as sharp or the change up took a step back. And it's not really that. Velocity is fine for Castillo. Stuff is totally fine for Castillo. And the interesting thing is that in all three of his starts, we've seen extended glimpses of like, oh, there's Louise Castillo. There's the guy that, you know, we traded for it. And there's the guy who, you know, is incredibly important to our success, not only this year, but for the last year and a half prior,

you see it for like one time through the rotate, for one time through the lineup and then something small goes wrong. And then he just can't quite seem to find, you know, the repeatability of his release point. So it's it's there. You can see it, right? You don't have to dream too hard on Luis Castillo getting back on track. The stuff is fine.

Yeah. It's very clear that he hasn't fallen off. Right. It's just something's not quite. right here. Something's not quite clicking. I don't think it's injury related. Again, the stuff and the velocity, they're all fine.

Velocity is actually up from where it usually is this early in the season. Castillo is also a notoriously slow starter. So, you know, it was only really last year that he got off to a really good start. Other than that in his career, he's got knocked around early in the year as he kind of tries and, you know, gets a feel for his command. But I think it's pretty simply, this is a command and control issue. He's not walking a lot of guys, which is good. But he's running a lot of three ball counts.

He's running a lot of deep counts. It's not uncommon for him to have six, seven, eight, nine pitch at bats, you know, a couple of them. Rough a night. And that's really doing a number on his pitch count. And those are exhausting at bats because every pitch has got a little bit of extra, you know, leverage to it. And he's giving up some damage on two strikes as well. Yes. Right.

I mean, that's because the command. It's because Cal Raleigh will set up for a fastball away, and then it'll run back into the middle of the plate. And they're not missing that. And then, you know, you set up inside and it's running too far off the inside corner. And he's not even making competitive pitches against left-handed hitters with his fastball. So it's really all about command. Mechanically, I don't see anything so horrible that, like, my untrained eyes could see it.

But I've also, you know, listen to some people who do know that. And they seem to don't think that it's like anything major. They think that it's just a tweak here and there. It's not like he's drastically lowered his arm slot or anything like that. He's flying open on occasion. His front side flies open, and that's going to lead to pitches running out over the middle of the plate, particularly if you start him on glove side. So he's got to stay closed a little bit longer, but it's really just about throwing better quality pitches.

And again, in all three of us starts, we have seen two or three. means where he looks like Luis Castillo and you're like, this is great. This is exactly what you're supposed to look like. And then inevitably, you know, he'll have one long at bat. He doesn't locate. He runs a deep count. That guy gets on base. And then, you know, bada bing, bada boom. It's just gone for five, six, seven hitters in a row. And that's when the opponent strikes. And that's when Castillo gets into trouble. Once the bleeding starts, he's been very bad at stopping it. And it's not realistic to say like, oh, well, just never get into, danger. Like every starter is going to have some moments where they have to pitch around some

trouble. And so it's just like, oh, well, just don't let anybody on base. It's like, okay, well, if he could do that at will, he would be in the Hall of Fame and he would have, you know, 200 perfect games. Like, so he's going to have to figure out how to stop the bleeding. Like, giving up a run in an inning isn't horrific. It isn't like the worst thing in the world. Giving up three or four is unacceptable, particularly for a guy with Castillo stuff. So, I think he's got to stay closed a little bit. He's got to really refine that command. He's got to find that sinker.

I do wonder maybe there is a point where he just kind of, like when we think of Luis Castillo dominance, I think most of us think of that start in Toronto in the playoffs. Yep. That wasn't a high strikeout game. That was, I think, five or six strikeouts in seven, and that was just 97 with a running sinker and then go in, change up and slider off of that.

And that was pitch to contact Luis Castillo as much as, you know, Luis Castillo can be. So I do wonder maybe there's kind of a emphasis on going back to the sinker tonight instead of the four seamer just to try and see if you can get something. But Sunday night, I should say, Sunday afternoon to be technical. So yeah, we'll see what happens. I do know that he's flying open a little bit on the front side, which again, if you're aiming for his glove side, that is going to cause the two seamer and sinker to cut straight into the middle of the plate. And that is a dangerous, dangerous place to be for anybody. So I think it's just command right now.

So before we get out of here yesterday, we explained the scouting scale, the 2080 scouting scale. And we asked you guys in the comments below if you would like us to explain other terminology and other stats that we use here on the show. And we got a comment from Will Narvaez asking us to explain the difference between WRC Plus. and war, which are two stats that you and I both use quite frequently here on the show. So WRC Plus, just to start with that one, WRC Plus basically takes your overall offensive production and gives it a numerical value. It is park adjusted. It does not treat every ballpark as equal.

And it obviously values, you know, doubles, triples, home runs more than, say, walks or singles, etc. As well. The league average, if, you know, because you don't really need to know the nitty gritty

of how WRC Plus works to kind of just generally be able to read it and understand it. But the league average WRC. Yeah, there is a formula. If you are interested, you can go look it up.

Right. Yeah. But, but very simply the, the league average WRC plus is 100. That never changes. That is always the league average. Right.

It's, it's worth noting that WRC plus is very simple in that every point, every single point you are above or below 100, that just represents 1%. So if you are a 100 WRC plus versus a 105 WRC plus, the 105 is 5% better than the 100. You've probably heard us on the show over the course of this off season, talk about how someone took a 20% jump or a 30% decrease, you know, etc. et cetera, et cetera. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about that base off of WRC plus.

Right. And it's, again, weighted runs created. Weighted. Right. So not everything is valued the same. That's why we like the stat is that it's a stat that on base percentage counts home runs and walks is the same. Well, we know they're not the same. You know, slugging doesn't account for walks at all. It doesn't. Batting average treats a single as equal as a home run. Yeah. Right. And, you know, slugging doesn't account. for hey I hit a home run but other than that I went you know one for 10 it's like okay well you're still slugging 400 even though you're one for 10 with nine strikeouts right so WRC plus is just an attempt to kind of encapsulate the overall picture of a hitter WRC plus is hitter only we'll get to the difference here between war in a second and just kind of tells you like versus the league this guy is X percent better and that percent

is however many points above or below you are of 100 so if you're a 70 WRC plus guy, you are 30% below league average. You're 130, you're 30% above league average. That's all it is. It's just telling you how much better than average they are is really what you use it for. Yeah. Yeah, it's basically if you want to look at it in a very simplified way, it's just a score for a header. It's a grade for a hitter essentially.

All right. So now what is war, Colby? Yeah. So war is, it's another mathematical equation. Now there's a couple. Yeah, it stands for wins above replacement. Replacement level players are zero. They are,

replacement level players are essentially AAA Tacoma players. They are, and not top problem. They are like Jason Vossler, right? Like just a guy who can come up and just kind of survive in the big leagues. They are not that valuable overall. So wins above replacement,

that's what a replacement is, is zero. So yeah, war is a cumulative stat. So it values playing a lot. It values, you know, producing over an extended period of time. That's how you get the really high wars. It's really hard to get a six war if you're not playing in 140 games, right? So it's a cumulative stat, which doesn't make it perfect.

But essentially what it does, it tries to tell you how many wins this guy would give over a player that would replace him in triple. So how many wins would Julio give you over Jason Bossler, right? If Julio is a six-win player, then they estimate that he is six wins more valuable than the replacement level guy who would come up and try and, you know, take his place. So it's, there is a formula for this.

There are two different wars that are commonly used. There's B-war, which is baseball reference war, and there's F war, which is FanGraphs War. They both have their own formula, so they're not exactly the same. And it kind of depends on how much you want to weigh certain things. There's a difference in how

I believe like home runs versus home runs per nine is a big one in FanGraphs versus baseball reference. So, you know, you kind of have to look at both of them. I think most people have their preference. I know Ty really likes fan graphs. That's just because you know, since I started really getting

into advanced stats, I just read fan graphs right it's not it's not because i necessarily prefer their formula over the other it's just what i'm used to right so war it while w rc plus focuses only on swinging the bat war tries to encompass everything and there's pitcher war and there's hitter war too so there's no wrc plus for pitchers that's only offense war is simply how many how much better are you than just a replacement level player they factor in defense they factor in base running they factor in in offense, home runs, stolen bases, strikeouts, pitchers,

it's innings pitched, like everything goes into it. And it's just trying to get how valuable that player is down to a number. If you're two wins, you're considered an everyday player. Like you can play 145 games a year for a team. So when we've talked about Louisa Reyes, right?

Yeah. Just to use him as a specific example here. In 2021 and 22, Luis Erez was worth two wins. in each of those two seasons. So when we have said, Luis Rias has been recently removed from being an everyday player,

that's what we're talking about. That's what we're referencing. Right. Typically, four wins is about when you start to get to all-star range. Six wins is pretty much perennial all-star. And then once you start getting above that, seven, eight, nine wins, those are legitimate MVP candidates.

And again, it encompasses everything. it's fielding, it's pitching, well, it's fielding, it's base running, it's hitting. If you're, you know, an offensive player, if you're pitching, it's how many things do you pitch? How many strikeouts do you have? Like, you know, what's your ERA? What's your whip? Like, all of it. And this is, but again, keep in mind, particularly for pitching, war is a cumulative stat. So starting pitchers, like an average starting pitcher, just a two-in starting pitcher, is deemed more valuable than almost every single reliever in baseball. because most relievers, they're just not going to have enough innings to put up a high war.

So when you see a reliever who's worth one win, that doesn't sound like much, but that is a massive number for a reliever. That's top. I believe there were only three relievers this past year that accumulated two plus F war. Matt Brash was one of them. Yep. I think Batista was the other, one of the others, and Evan Phillips, I believe. Evan Phillips, yeah. I think it's Felix Battista.

Yeah. But yeah. So I'll double check it. But yeah. Yeah. So at the end of the day, right? It's very simple. War is just trying to tell you,

it's just trying to put one number on the value of a player. Is it perfect? No. By no stretch is a perfect. But it's just a good, quick way to give you an idea of like how good was this, how valuable is this player to this team right now? And, you know, I think this is part that blows people of minds.

If every single player on your team, all 26 players, just put up two war, and they were nothing else. In theory, the math would suggest that you would win 95 ball games. So two-win players are important players. Yeah. We say they're just average everyday players. Yeah, there's not a lot of those guys relative to the sport.

So, yeah. So the four relievers had two plus F-4 this past year. Brash, David Bednar, Felix Bautista, and Tanner Scott was worth almost three. wins. Wow. Yeah, 2.8.4 for Tanner's guy. I didn't know that. That's crazy. He threw almost 80 innings this past year though. So there you go. Still that's a lot for only 80 innings. Yeah. But that's kind of a prime example of what you're explaining, at least, you know, in terms of the extreme, right? So, yeah, so war isn't a perfect stat, but it does kind of give you a general idea of how valuable a player is relative to others. But WRC plus,

If you ask me what my favorite stat in baseball is, it's probably WRC plus because again, it's just an all-encompassing offensive stat that does account for a lot of different factors in the game. So it definitely does help. And it definitely, I find a lot of the time it does reflect the results on the field, especially when kind of just box score scouting other teams that, you know, I don't really have a chance to watch beforehand. going into a series. Right. Very simply put WRC Plus and war are both about getting the value of a player to one number. War is just about the overall value of the player. So if you're not a great bat but you're a great glove, that's going to count for that.

WRC Plus is just getting about how great of a hitter you are down to one number. Right. I think on an episode next week, we should talk a little bit about OPS and why you and I don't really like OPS. It's a newer stat that it's a, newer stat that a lot of casual fans have taken to you know but it's become more popularized

recently and a lot of casual fans have taken to it I mean at the the Rogers Center and the Blue Jays games up on the big board they don't even have batting average it's OPS on there which I think is incredibly silly so we'll get into why

Bading average is more valuable than even opians yeah we'll get into probably on a later episode next to week into why we don't really like OPS and just kind of explain that whole thing. But we got to get out of here now. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Merritt's podcast. Once again, a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Lockdown Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local

experts of Locked on. Plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked on Sports Today, now available on the free Fire TV channels app. For Colby Pat Note, I'm Ty DeGonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat-11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen.

Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and a beautiful baseball weekend, and we'll see you next time. Peace.