Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Open to Extending Teoscar Hernández This Offseason?

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

After hearing nothing interesting for the past few weeks, we got so many little tidbits of information about the Mariners in the past 48 hours, we had to try and get to them all! One reporter thinks a Teoscar Hernández extension could be in the works, while Jerry Dipoto himself says the team is open to a full-time DH. Dipoto also provided updates on Matt Brash's development plan, some info on new swing changes for Jarred Kelenic and Taylor Trammell, and the organization is all in on Bryce Miller.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 | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Join our Slack!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. 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, what could a Tayasca Hernandez extension look like? Plus, the highest man on Bryce Miller seems to be the Mariners themselves. 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. It is Friday, January 6th, 2023.

This is Taddy Gonzalez and Colby Patinev for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. And thank you so much for making us to your first. Listen, subscribe, 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 want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon on the link as well as our social accounts is in the description below. On today's show, we'll be talking about Tay Oscar Hernandez and what a contract extension

could look like for him. Jerry DePoto's thoughts on Bryce Miller and the vacant designated hitter spot on the Mariners roster. And Matt Brash is no longer ramping up as a starter this off season. thanks a large part to the world baseball classic. There's some other notes on the world baseball classic we might get into as well as some other mini stories here and there that we can talk about that came from Jerry to Potos appearance on Seventh and Seattle sports yesterday and just the baseball world in general. But Colby, let's start with Taylor. Hernandez baseball insider Moises Fabian was on TV yesterday or the day before talking about the Raphael Devers extension and then said,

that Teosker Hernandez next week would have an opportunity to negotiate an extension with Mariners as well. So we talked about this a little bit on our Patreon show. So if you want to hear a more detailed conversation about this, head on over to our Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash control the zone. That episode is available for all of our tiers. So all you have to do is be a Tier 1 patron and you get access to that episode. But let's talk a little bit about this. Let's, you know, let's push the report in general off to the side here.

and just talk about an extension in general. What would that look like? What's your level of interest in an extension with Tay Oscar, knowing that you haven't seen him in your clubhouse before? You haven't seen him play in a Mariners uniform before. What do you think about it? Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for letting me talk. Second of all.

It's two minutes in. Second of all, happy birthday, Mom. But, yes, when it comes to Teoscar Hernandez, as there's a lot of factors that go into this. As you mentioned, we haven't really seen him in the Mariners Clubhouse. We haven't seen him play for Seattle. So we don't know for sure how good of a fit that's going to be. It appears that it's going to be a really good fit.

Seattle has a really good clubhouse culture. And Teo has a reputation of being an incredible clubhouse guy. So I don't think that's going to be an issue. But if you're Teoska Hernandez, you're pretty close to free agency. And you look at what some of the bats out there have gotten this year, and you look at what free agents are going to hit the open market next year. It's not a very good class. So there's a good chance you're going to be one of the, you know,

two or three best hitters out there in free agency. So if you're to say Oscar, you may not want an extension because you're probably thinking that you can make more just waiting a year and getting into the open market. So, you know, it's one of those things where if you're not going to get, I don't want to say a bargain, but if you're not going to get a pretty good deal as the team, then it's probably not worth, you know, paying free agent prices before you've seen this guy on the field and, you know, in your organization. So it's a little bit of a difficult situation.

There's definitely a middle ground where both sides can feel happy. I just don't know if it's going to make sense for Tay Oscar to approach the Mariners about an extension. And if he does, I would imagine that the mariners are not going to meet Tayasca's demands. because he could realistically go out there and ask for $25, $26, $27 million if he has another good year per year. And is Seattle going to do that? Maybe. But you're also talking about a 30-year-old who's eventually going to be a DH. So how long is the contract?

And there's just a lot of factors here that make this not a no-brainer, but not something you should just dismiss offhand either. By the way, I was clocking it just now. and you talked longer than I did to start the show. So did I let you talk long enough there, Superstar? First of all, I am the star. So this has been well established. The comments will back me up on that.

That's true. Your job is to set me up. Like, that's your whole job. So do it. Lacky. You're all, you're all amazing. You're all fired. Yes.

There you go. There you go. All right. So the way that, you know, the way that I would look at this really, especially in terms of the, you know, lack of firsthand knowledge and experience with Tay Oscar. This would be the same exact conversation that you would have if he was just a free agent and you gave him a five to six year deal.

So that part I don't really have concerns with, right? Teosker is one of those guys that I would be very interested in if he was on the free agent market to give out, you know, one of those, you know, five to six year, 25 million per, you know, type of, type of contract. So if that's what this ends up being, I'm cool with that, especially with the way that contracts They're going right now, inflation, all that stuff, even with him being, you know, or likely heading to be a full-time DH by the time that he's 33, 34. Because really, like, he's incredibly athletic. He's just not a good defender.

He shouldn't be in the field really full-time. And as that athleticism naturally begins to decline, you know, that's like a full-time DH role just makes a lot of sense for Tay Oscar sooner rather than later. So you have to take that into account here. but he is he's quietly been one of the best hitters in all baseball for the last few years and I mean post injury this past season he returned I believe on May 7th he posted like a 127 WRC plus or something like that over the course of the final you know the final you know four months of five months of the season he's a really good hitter and his numbers this past season overall don't really reflect how good he he just was for most of for most of 2020 so I'm all in on to Oscar now I'm biased

because I really love Tay Oscar and I have a little more experience watching Tay Oscar than I think most Mariners fans just being in Toronto and whatnot. But I really like him. I think he's a great clubhouse fit. He's just going to easily fit in with the rest of the guys here. And I think that bat is still going to play up quite a bit over the next few years at least where the lack of defense isn't going to matter. I think you are going to overpay for him, you know, relative to the rest of the market, just considering what he brings to the table. But I don't think it's going to be too egregious that it's just prohibitive for the Mariners to go 25, 26 million per year on him. Right. I think part of it is, you know, how much, hypothetically, let's just say it's a five-year extension, right? which means you get him for this year and then five years after.

If you think he's going to have to be primary DH in three seasons, after three seasons, you know, how many games can he give you in the outfield? Is he just 162 at DH or is he, you know, 110 at DH and 40 in right field or left field? Like, can he give you that at least? And that's hard to project. I mean, Taya Oscar compared to Jesse Winker is, you know, Byron Buxton. But that, you know, that's not saying much. I think Ty and I are a little better

than Jesse Winker defensively last year. So that's really not saying a ton. I for a fact, him. I guarantee that. So sorry, Jesse. You sucked last year. He's definitely watching right now. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. Somebody will tag him. Yeah. Sure. But yeah, there's a lot, there's, like I said,

there's a lot of, you know, pros and cons to doing the day Oscar deal. I think the pros outweigh the cons. It's just a matter of, you know, can you find the right AAV and can you find the right amount of years? I think that's pretty big. I think if T. Oskar's open to like a three or four year deal, then I think the mayors will be pretty interested in a higher AAB.

If he wants five or six, then the AAV is going to have to come down. But we'll see, you know, these things are really weird. You know, somebody has plugged in as Ryan Davish is saying, you know, hey, Louis Castillo isn't going to sign an extension here. and then like three weeks later he does. You know, anything can happen with Tay Oscar. And the Mariners, you know, they're not afraid to get extensions done midseason. They've done it before, including twice last year. So this isn't one of those things where it has to be done by, you know, pitchers and catchers or it's not getting done.

So I have a question for our listeners. I want to hear from you guys down in the comments below on YouTube on this. How would Tay Oscar Hernandez extension make you feel injester? general, but also make you feel about the Mariners spending, right? Because they are going to spend quite a bit of money on this if they do sign him, but also he wasn't a free agent. They had to acquire him via trade. So how do you feel about that? What are your thoughts on that? Let's hear about that down below. All right. So we're going to be talking about Bryce Miller. We're going to be talking about Matt Brash. Hold on. Did you want to add something real quick

before we move on? No. Everybody knows that the only way you can make impact moves is to sign free agents, Ty. Of course. It's the only way it's ever happened. Yep, naturally. like Julio Rodriguez Oh Louis Casca St Gilbert George Kirby Boy this is going

South in a hurry Chris Bryant Gross Trevor Story Anyways stinky stinky All right

Matt Brash Bryce Bryce Miller All that and more coming up here in just a moment But real quick A reminder This episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by built bar looking for a delicious treat but don't want all the fat and calories and you got to try a built bar we just got through the holidays and i know my goal is to eat a little healthier this year and if you're like me and you want to eat healthier but don't want to compromise taste the man i've got just the thing for you

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And if you're close to Sam's Club, run in and grab a 13 bar box with our hit flavors, brownie batter, and chiro. You can thank me later. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen. Colby. Let's talk about Bryce Miller here. We talked about him on Wednesday in our prospect show. And Jerry DePoto was asked about him on Seattle Sports yesterday during his little radio appearance that he did.

He took a couple weeks off, but he returns to the mics and had some things to save. So we're going to be talking about quite a few things that he talked about on there. But let's start with Bryce Miller here because we did talk about him on Wednesday. and you know we talked about you know where he kind of fits in our personal ranks we just talked about you know him versus emerson hancock who's the better pitching prospect on the mariner's farm system and i mean jerry depoto himself just outright said bryce miller is the better of the two but he's also just the best prospect we have in our system right now overall and then we see things like joe doyle tweeting that uh price miller has added a few more inches of sweep to his slider he's now hovering around

20 inches of sweep on that slider. We know about the fastball. And I mean, the hype is starting to build around Bryce Miller. Of course, he is one of those guys that is often mentioned in the Brian Reynolds trade rumors. But I think we also need to talk about him as a possibility of being a dark horse candidate for that number five starting spot in the rotation coming out of spring training. What do you think? No, you're out. You're out on that?

Why? I because I don't I can't imagine like what are you going to do with Marco and flexing who cares you're not you're not going to put him up a bull there but if you think that Bryce Miller can be what are the odds that Bryce Miller comes in and is so good that Seattle's like hmm you know what let's just put them in the rotation now we don't need to see anything else in double a we don't need to see anything else in AAA we'll just put $20 million worth of starting pitching in our bullpen and hope somebody doesn't get hurt on our team and somebody gets hurt for them. I just don't see it. So to be fair, I probably said similar things about Matt Frash last year around this time. Hey,

and we were also saying like, Julio's probably not going to make the opening day roster. He's definitely not going to be their center fielder. He's definitely not going to be their center fielder. I remember saying that for sure. I feel like at this point, we were pretty much on the other side of that, though, where we were.

In January? Yeah, I'm pretty sure by that, by this stage. We were like, he's got a real good shot to make it. So. revisionist history, Colby. I don't think so. You can roll back the tapes, but

which I know you won't. No, I'm too lazy to do that. But Bryce Miller to me probably plus you put Bryce Miller in AAA AAA, it's a lot easier to kind of control his innings workload,

which is something the mayor's going to have to do. Now, Bryce Miller did throw, I believe, 134 innings last year. So it's not like he's starting from from zero, right? He's through quite a few innings last year. He's probably good for 160-ish this year. But again, the longer you have him down in AAA, the more

you can control those innings, especially if you're planning on using them as a starter. If you're going to put him in the bullpen and bring him up that way, then whatever, it doesn't matter. But Jerry seemed pretty confident that Bryce Miller is going to start big games for the Mariners this year, assuming he doesn't

trade him, which, who knows. But yeah, Miller is, you know, I think a very trendy number one prospect in the mariner system. It's kind of the like people say that when they're trying to be like different, but like everybody's kind of agreed with them by now. So it's like it's not that surprising or anything like that. Still number two in my ranks, by the way.

But yeah, Miller, you know, huge fastball, wicked slider. Let's see how the changeup looks in Arizona. That's kind of a tough pitch to get a feel for. He also apparently has a cutter according to prospects. Live, which is pretty new. I haven't seen reports of a cutter anywhere, but... Really? Mariners developing a cutter for their pitcher.

Yeah. I know. I know. Crazy. It's insane. But yeah, Prospects Live gave that pitch of 55. So, like, I don't know where they're getting that info from, but we'll see. But yeah, I think what Miller has done is he has a shot to be the first guy called up.

I don't think he's going to make the team. Now, if they trade, you know, Marco and it's Flexon versus Miller and then, be. But if Marco's on this team, I think Marco's the number five. All I'm saying, though, is that if they think that he's ready to go, if he's ready to go, and they think, like, they can get legitimate

value out of him, I'm not letting Marco Gonzalez or Chris Flex and impede that. I don't care. Figure what to do with them after. Who cares? You really think John Stanton's going to eat $18 million by DFA and Marco Gonzalez. That's a whole other conversation. But it's

an important one. It's an important one. You're telling me that there's no way that they could, like if they just had to trade Marco, but they couldn't trade him for literally anything. No. No, I don't think so.

Because I think the other teams would be like, oh, you have to trade Marco. Okay, we'll wait for you to DFAM. True. And nobody's going to claim him either because nobody's going to want the $18 million.

They'll just wait for him to be a free agent. So, yeah, sorry. Bryce, you're not, injuries could happen, certainly.

And that's obviously something that, And that works both ways. Injuries could happen for other teams and all of a sudden Marco and Flexen are really valuable. It's also, I guess, a small possibility that maybe the Mariners go six-man rotation early in the year. But it just seems unlike.

Like, why would you take the ball away from Kirby and Louise? Barf, you know. Barf, don't want it. No thank you. Yeah, so we'll see what they do with Miller. Jerry was pretty adamant that you're going to see a lot of Bryce Miller this spring relative to, you know, pitchers. and that he thinks he's going to

wow Mariner fan so I'm expecting to see Bryce Miller get two or three starts maybe four starts in spring training and you know if there's injuries or if he just blows the cover off of everybody maybe he makes the opening day roster I just think it's a little hard to

it's a little far fetched to expect that but it's possible I still kind of feel like he ends up going on the map brash path this year makes a couple starts ends up getting relegated to the bullpen for the last, you know, month or two of the season because, I mean,

the stuff is just disgusting. And it should play pretty well, even right now out of the bullpen. I feel pretty good about that, at least. Miller's stuff is better than Brash. Brash has the better breaking balls, but Miller's fastball is probably the best in the entire organization,

maybe aside from Andres Munoz. Yeah. Or Luis Castillo. And very similar issues, right? Their lack of a, you know, reliable third pitch and then command control. Miller's a little bit ahead of Brash in both of those areas, but yeah, it's a pretty similar idea.

Yeah. All right. So speaking of Brash, he's officially committed to pitching for Team Canada. And Jerry DePoto said that that has kind of messed with their plans for what they wanted to do with Brash this offseason. Of course, in his end of season press conference with Justin Hollander and Scott Service, he said that they were going to ramp Brash up as a season. starter this off season and then just move him to the

bullpen if they saw fit. But he, they're no longer going with that, going with that plan. He's just going to be a reliever because he's going to pitch for Team Canada as a reliever and they don't want to basically start and stop, start and stop, start and stop with him. So what do you think about that?

It's a little bit of a bummer because I think you want Brash to be stretched out for the reasons we just talk about what if there's an injury, what if there's, you know, basically what if there's an injury, but also if you start a guy as a starter in spring training and you stretch him out, it's really easy to just say, yeah, you're a bullpen guy. And then you shrink down his role in the last week of spring training and you throw him out there and you're fine. It's really hard to go reliever to starter in a couple of weeks.

That's really hard. It's a little bit of a bummer, but the plan is clearly to, you know, have rash out of the bullpen all year. So if that's the case, then it probably the, the decision was probably made a little bit easier by the apparent love of Bryce Miller in that kind of spot. And, you know, it's worth mentioning Jerry did mention, you know, Tommy Malone and Nick Mark Gavichess and Easton McGee as kind of like emergency starting options on top of obviously Miller, Hancock, and Dollard. So I think the mayors feel pretty good about their rotation depth as it stands now. if they didn't then I don't think then I don't think they would it's not like they would stop rash from pitching

in the World Baseball Classic but I think they would have really leaned into the idea that no you have to start or you're not you're not pitching for Team Canada I think they would have really push that idea on him but we'll see what happens Julio Rodriguez also officially committed to playing for the Dominican Republic so I think it's Julio Matt Festa Sam Haggurty

Brash, Munoz. Brash and Munoz, Munoz, right. Munoz is going to be pitching for Team Mexico. Right. It doesn't sound like Luis Castillo is going to pitch in it. That's still not 100% decided. And we're also waiting to hear about Tia Oscar, who probably would play with Julio on the Dominican team. That'd be a lot fun. Yeah, I mean, kind of bummed. You know, I'm going to my first spring training and Matt Brash isn't going to be there.

and Andreas Munoz isn't going to be there and Julio's not going to be there. Yay, Cade Marlowe. And by the way, we stand Cade Marlowe on the show. Maybe you know. One half of this one half of this show stands Cade Marlowe. There you go. All right.

And by the way, we still don't know if Harry Ford is going to play in the World Baseball Classic. That's another guy to watch. All Harrison Ford for Great Britain. Yep. Great Britain legend Harrison Ford. He carried him to the World Baseball Classic. baby. The good news is it does sound like most of the Mariners, uh,

participant, well, not most, but like some important ones are going to play, uh, in Arizona in that bracket. Um, unfortunately, you know, obviously, uh, Haggerty, uh, Festa and Julio will not be in, in the Arizona bracket. So they're going to be out a couple weeks. Um, I can't, we'll see how Italy does. Maybe they get, you know, two and cute or whatever, but yeah, it might be a while before we, we see some of our favorite mariners back in spring training. So just kind of the reality of the world baseball classics the thing now. So every three years you're going to have to deal with this.

But fingers crossed, we don't hear the dreaded soggy arm comment from Scott's service from anybody this year. A lot of bad memories are starting to flood back to me all of a sudden. Thank you for that. They ruined Drew Smiley. Circling back to Matt Brash here, though. This is kind of, you know, what we talked about on Monday. I think we got to ask a question about if he would stay in the rotation or not. And while the upside of him in the rotation is really exciting,

it also takes away another potential, you know, mid to high leverage arm out of your bullpen, along with Eric Swanson, who was, of course, traded to Toronto for Tay Oscar Hernandez. And so that creates another thing that you have to essentially fix, right? That creates another hole that you, you know, have to fill. So I really like the one-two punch of Brash and Munoz. So while I'm disappointed that they're not going to at least try,

try and see if he can start. I'm not too bummed out about it overall because that's going to be a pretty nasty one two punch there in the bullpen. So the sense that I got from Jerry DePoto in this interview was that he's a lot more open

to adding a full-time DH or someone that's more or less a DH. How do you feel? What were your takeaways from that? I don't feel like he, like I still feel like his great preference is, is the outfielder.

And I think he wants to add one anyways. But I still feel like his great preference is the DH is somebody that, you know, essentially DH is like three times a week and then Count Raleigh gets a day and Julio gets a day and Teosker gets a couple days. I still get that sense that that's what he wants. But it did sound like the wording was kind of weird. If we happened upon a impact bat who we felt could help us every day from the DH, then that's a path will go down.

Essentially, that's how you worded it. You know, that does speak to, you know, the free agent market, which is sliding fast. He also talked about how the trade market still really hasn't kicked up like they had been hoping. So I think that's just, you know, we talked about this throughout the winter. We've talked about eventually you just need offense. And it doesn't matter if it's the perfect fit or not. You just have to find offense. and DH is one of the easiest spots to add the offense.

So, yeah, it doesn't really surprise me that he kind of alluded to maybe they're open to it a little bit more. But that still kind of leaves the problem of there's not a lot of guys out there who are impactful enough that you're willing to roll with a full-time DH type of player. Yeah, I mean, like we talked a little bit about Nelson Cruz on our Patreon show yesterday, but Nelson Cruz is coming off of an 85 WRC plus season and he's 42 years old. as much as I love Nelson Cruz and as much as Mariners fans love Nelson Cruz I mean that does give you some hesitancy yeah he apparently had eye surgery this this year he was um his left eye he had blurred vision in his left eye last year uh which Nelson has said is you know obviously impact his ability to pick up spin uh but Cruz also did say today uh that he's

had offers for major league teams to play in 2023 and it sounds like he's also participating in the world baseball classic not only as the GM but as an actual player GM player Nelson Cruz let's go yeah so I mean Nelson Cruz Julio Rodriguez to Oscar like that's pretty fun I yeah I might I might root for the DR in the classic so yeah we'll see I don't want to say that definitely not interested in Nelson Cruz. We did hear last year that they were kind of interested in maybe acquiring him from the

nationals before they acquired Carlos Santana. So I don't want to say no, it's not going to happen. And I don't want to say that Cruz is obviously toast because obviously there was an eye issue. That's pretty hard to hit a baseball. But it's he's 43 and he is like zero defensive value anywhere. You have to play him at DH if you're going to play him. Sticking with the DH thing, this is what Jerry Depoto also had to say. He said, quote, one of the advantages of acquiring Cooper Hummel and the Kyle Lewis trade is a potential for having three catchers on our roster, which would then allow us to run one of our catchers into a DH day in an advantageous way. That's the way we're looking at DAH.

So possible Tom Murphy and Cal Raleigh, both in the lineup days coming. So we'll see. We've talked about that a little bit. And so the addition of Hummel having that third catcher who can also play. a little bit in the outfield could facilitate that for sure but we'll see there's you know that's mostly just GM you know

having to talk about the guys that are currently on the roster and you know just given them their due basically so I wouldn't put too much into that on the Cooper Hummel stuff but it could make sense you know even if they add you know another player here it could still make sense for them to have three catchers on the roster

by the way Ty I think I can blow your mind right now you're ready for this do it Do it, do it. Cooper Hummel is a switch hitter. Did you know that? I did actually. Oh, that completely like that completely like slip my mind until the other day. I thought there was,

I thought there was more to that. No, no, no, no. I just, for some reason in my head, he's a left-handed hitter. And that's all I thought of him. Yeah. I was like, wait a minute, he's a switch hitter. Yeah, you're not only have one switch hitting catcher on your team. You have two.

So that's kind of interesting That's a weird that's a funny little quirk of the Mariners roster Cooper Hummel's kind of a catcher in the same way that Louise Turenz is a catcher like I can't wait for Trevor got I can't wait for Trevor got in Cooper Hamilton to combine for like six out four this season It's gonna be great It's gonna be awesome So lastly Mike Musakis got released from the Reds

We've talked about him the past more so last year than this year basically when the Mariners were still looking for a third base option we kind of kicked Mustakis's name around a little bit. Any interest in him? I think I think a little

just because he's going to be so cheap. He's essentially you're going to get him on the league minimum because the Reds are picking up most of his salary. So he's cheap. He's a leftie. He's a lefty. who's got some power. He's played a little bit of third base. He's played a little bit of second,

but he's played some first. But he is a left-handed bat with some power. He's had a rough couple years, understandably. But again, you're talking about a guy that you can pick up for the league minimum. He's got some lefty power, and he is kind of a compliment bat to, hey, you know what, we want to give A Eugenio a day off.

We want to give Thai France a day off, or we want one of those guys to DH. Well, we can just put Moustakis out there, particularly against a good righty. So yeah, I'd have a little interest in Moustach's. I think ultimately he's probably going to go to a place. Like, I think the Yankees makes him sense. That short porch in left or in right field, he can kind of pepper that thing and, you know,

cheat his way essentially to 25 home runs and maybe get like another Matt Carpenter-like deal. I think that's kind of a fun idea there. But Seattle, not a great place to reestablish value as a left-handed hitter, but it is a pretty good place if you want to win. And so we'll see what. Musacus decides what that he wants to do. I could see Kansas City. Just, you know, no, we'll bring back moose.

It'll be awesome. Yeah. I'm a little surprised. That's such a good call. Yeah, that's going to happen. You know, Kansas City, they're weird like that. And also, you can have two switch hitting catchers on your roster, but you can't have two Mariner mooses on your roster.

So, yeah, that would be a, that would be a little, that'd be a little, that'd be a little, that'd be a little awkward. Just think of the content, like, would they ever do the Mariners commercials again? They could just have those too late. There you go. Do the same thing. I'm the Mariner Moose. Identity.

That is not a joke, Moose. There you go. There you go. Hire me at Mariners. Hire me. Yeah, I mean, they're hiring someone to do memes, right? Hire someone to bring back the commercials. We need to bring back the commercials.

What to hell? Like, I understood it during the pandemic and everything, but like you can make it happen now. You can make it happen. Sure. Let's do it. Yeah. Side note, Tommy Lestella also, DFA. Yep.

officially released. The Mariners had interest in him not too long ago. The same time they tried to get Colton Wong. They wanted him. He's definitely a part-time player. He's not a full-time guy, but there are a lot of bat-to-ball skills that Jerry really likes. He's played second. He's played

some third. You know, you can kind of move around the infield. He's a left-handed hitter. Again, similar idea. You know, you kind of want a lefty in the corners to balance out the potential moving, you know, Gino or France to the DH-1. or twice a week. And I think Lestell is probably more interesting to the Mariners. I think I would

probably be more interested in Mastakis because I would be trying to catch kind of lightning in a bottle. And hey, you know, Mustakis finds his 2019 form or whatever it was and he hits 30 home runs. Well, there's my DH, you know, my full-time DH guy. So I think both of those guys are interesting. one other thing of note, and it's barely of note. But Jerry did mention, and so it bears repeating that he's gotten glowing reviews from Taylor Trammell and Jared Kelnick. So, yes, the hype train continues for those two. I've heard a couple things about Tramel. Tramel's putting in some work this off season.

So he's going to be interesting to watch. Jerry said specifically, he said, I wouldn't call it like he's completely. completely changed his swing, but, and then, like, proceeded to be like, he's changed a lot of his swing and we're pretty excited about it. So we'll see, you know, it would be amazing if Kalnick or Trammell could be the everyday left fielder. And even if you have to get him a platoon partner, it would be amazing. I've said before, you know, if Jared Kelnick hit his ceiling, it would be more impactful than any move the Mariners can make this off season. This falls into one of those, believe it when you see it type of things. And there's basically nothing you can do in

spring training that is going to allow me to trust Jared Kelnick or Taylor Tremel. But we'll see. They're definitely going to get a shot. I think we know that by now. Kelnick, at the very least, Kelnick is going to get quite a few at bats early in the year to see where he's at. All right, well, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for

joining us here on Locked on Mariner's for Colby Pat. I'm Taday Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, the C-A-N-ZL-Z and Colby at C-Pat-E-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen. Now make your second listen locked on MLB prospects.

Host Lindsey Crosby is a prospect encyclopedia, and he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. It's free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. And with that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day and a beautiful baseball weekend. And we'll see you on Monday. Peace.