Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Split Series in New York and Make a Questionable Trade

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

The Mariners won the first two, lost the last two, and split their series with the Yankees in New York. Ty and Colby recap Thursday's 5-0 shutout loss and then discuss the Mariners' trade for RHP Mike Baumann.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashGet all your Mother’s Day gifts, all in one place and get 50% off your next order, up to $15 when you spend $15+ on your next flower, convenience, grocery, or retail order now with code LOCKEDONMLB. That's LOCKEDONMLB. Order using DoorDash today. Terms apply. Monopoly GO!Get in the game and join your friends. Click HERE to Download MONOPOLY GO! now free on The App Store or Google Play. 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. FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning GUARANTEED That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – win or lose! 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.

Mariner's take the first two, lose the last two, and split a series in New York. We'll recap the series finale and talk about the trade for Mike Bauman coming up here on the Locked-on Marriss post-game show. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors. It is Thursday, May 23rd, 2024.

This is Tiding Gonzalez and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Marrars Post-Game show, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Marrers get shut out by the Yankees today. Five, nothing. We'll talk about that and look at the trade the mayor has made last night. But before we do that, shout out to our title sponsor today, Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account and use the promo code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.

And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. The link is in the description and you can sign up for a free seven-day trial. So pretty nondescript game today. really worth waking up early for spending your early hours of your day watching. Wasn't a fun game for the Mariners' offense. But how much of this was Marers' offense was just bad and Louis Heel was really good?

I think it's mostly the latter. I think we see the Mariners bad offense show up against the bullpen where they actually had a couple opportunities to get right back in this game and they just couldn't really even get close. You know, it's, it was a really bad day for the offense. But again, you know, you got to give the other, this is one of those cases where you have to give your opponent a lot of credit. He was filthy.

Like he's throwing 98 with run on pitch like 98 or pitch like 95 was like a 98 mile an hour fastball with run. And he's thrown 92 mile an hour change ups. He's on a heck of a run right now as well. So yeah, I think this is mostly just you ran into a bit of a buzz saw today. And that stuff happens. but when you're when you've been as bad as the Mariners offense has been this year and as inconsistent as it has been this year, then anytime you get shut out,

anytime you only get three hits in the game, like it's fair to be like, well, the offense sucked today. And again, like I said, at some points it did. Like they had some really bad at bats when they had a chance to get back into this game.

But now today, I think you just give most of the credit to the Yankees pitching, particularly the starter. he was just it was filthy like it was really good stuff so tough to blame him but you know still 12 strikeouts in this game like only four hard hit balls total it just wasn't a very good day for the offense and you know it's a bad offensive day that happens to coincide with you going up against a pitcher with incredible stuff on the day who's in the middle of a really good run himself yeah yeah it just all kind of added up to a performance

that looked awfully lackluster and, you know, without urgency from the Mariners at the plate today. Yeah, Heel's been awesome this year and he's been part of a rotation. I mean, that's probably the biggest reason the Yankees are as good as they have been here, especially with Garrett Cole out. So, you know, you ran into a really tough rotation with arguably their four best guys available to them in this series. And, you know, you held your hone for the first couple games and then the last couple, not so much. I mean, they did our right against Cortez last night.

Like they were able to run his pitch count up, but they weren't able to push any runs across the plate against him. Didn't get the big hit. Yeah, couldn't get the big hit. Like, they were able to get guys on base. And I mean, Mitch Garver missed a home run by like a foot and a half. He missed like three home runs by like a combined like five feet in the series. Yeah.

Yeah. Carver was good in the series. If you were looking for positive. Yeah. For example, the one home run, he missed the other night, that would have been a home run at T-Mobile park. So kind of funny whenever you see like, oh, yeah, that's a home run of T-Mobile, but not a Yankee Stadium.

That feels like that should never be the case. But, you know, it is. It happens. So, but yeah, Garber was really good in the series. He had a couple of good at bats again today at the base head and in the deep flyout to dead center field. So, you know, it happens, but, yeah, they're still positive. You want to look for them offensively today.

Just not a ton. There were more yesterday. and certainly, you know, the second game of the series is kind of like what you hold on to as a, as a mariner fan for how this offense could look. There was, you know, the first, like the first eight innings of the series, trash. The next like 10 innings of the series, they look like the best team in baseball. The next, you know, 15 innings are like really like 15 of the next 18, very mediocre. Like it was just kind of a consistent, like very Marinersque offense. offensive performance in New York.

Yeah. But at the end of it, they still have a chance to go 500 or better on this road trip, which I think is all you could really ask for heading into this gauntlet. Like we talked about about a week ago before they went out on this trip. But today, you know, it's yet another day game getaway day where the Mariners' offense just looked really sluggish. Should we put some stock into that at this point? because I mean like the getaway day against the royals last week was was good like they had a solid day offensively that day but outside of that I can't think of a day game where they looked competent for lack of a better word yeah I made this observation on Twitter and somebody did some research on that for us like it feels like a trend to me but yeah it does so yeah so the mariners are seven and nine in day games this year, which I'm surprised they won seven, to be honest. Yeah.

That's not that bad of a record. And they're 20 and 14 in night. And they're all the all the stats, I don't have the exact stats, but apparently all of their stats are significantly worse in day games than they are. All their offensive stats are significantly worse than the day games than they are at night, which is weird. I don't know if there's enough I don't know if there's anything there

that could actually help the Mariners and kind of fix this problem but yeah it's you just kind of think of all their like really bad performances like I think of the loss in Colorado that was a day game I think of the loss against the Cubs on Sunday that was a day game

I think about the Guardian shut out right I think was Hancock getting blown blown up was that a I think that was a day game, yeah. I think that was a day game. Yeah. So like,

you know, obviously today, so, uh, Sunday against Baltimore. Like, it just feels like all their, like the games that you,

like, if you had to rank every game this year, like their five worst games played, all happened, you know, during the day, day games. Yeah.

Uh, so, you know, to be seven and nine or, I guess now seven and 10 in the day, and day games was honestly surprising to me because I, I, I really could only remember one or two.

day games where they actually won. Yeah. So who's that that, uh, give you that info? Yes. Uh, that was,

uh, at Neo question mark. Okay. So yeah, 7 and 9, uh, I have to do some digging on the offensive stats, the actual offensive stats themselves,

but apparently they have not hit well, uh, as well in day games as they have a night, as they have during night games. Yeah. that lines up with my head cannon there. I buy it. Yeah, for sure.

So let's talk about Luis Castillo's day here in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Airs Postgame show is brought to you by GameTime and Fandul. Game Time is now an authorized ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball, which makes getting tickets even faster and easier. Prices on the GameTime app actually go down the closer it gets to first pitch and I get to see the view of every seat in the house so I know exactly what I'm buying. Game Time's last minute deals give you up to 60% in savings buying last minute for sports, music, comedy, and more. And to avoid any surprises at checkout, you can turn on their all-in pricing to see the full cost fees included. Take the guest work out of buying tickets with Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code Locked-on MLB for $20 off your first purchase.

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Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. And you're listening to the Locked on Mariners podcast. The Mariners now travel to D.C. to face the nationals. You can catch that weekend series on the Mariners' hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that this weekend is search the word Mariners. So let's talk about Luis Castillo's day here. Colby. He ends up going. five innings pitch, seven hits allowed, three walks, three strikeouts, two earn runs on a couple of solo home runs.

So what did you think about his day? Yeah, pretty similar to his day in Baltimore, where he just didn't really have his best command and control. He didn't really have his best stuff. And he was just pitching, like pitching like his life depended on and trying everything he could to, you know, keep his team in the ballgame. And he did, you know, he gave up a ton of hard hits, 10 base runners in five innings. That's a lot. Only three strikeouts. Like, and then of course, you know, the big moment, the base is loaded with one out in the, in the bottom of the fifth.

And he's able to strand those runners with a couple big strikeouts. So, you know, Castillo, this is, this is why to me, Luis Castillo is still the ace of this team. You know, there has been a lot of talk about it. Is it Kirby now? Is it Gilbert now? To me, it's still Castillo because Castillo is still. still does this pretty well. Now, the first three starts, they look kind of like this,

but he couldn't really make that big pitch right to end the inning. So I'm not saying that Castillo does this every time, but when Castillo doesn't have his best control and command and his stuff is a little bit, you know, off on the day, he can still go into a hostile environment against a really good lineup. And he can still give you a chance to win that game, a good chance to win that game. And, you know,

it sucks at at 2-0. It already felt like this game was over. But, you know, he was fine. Like this is not the best Louise Castillo. He needs to be better, blah, blah, blah. But considering today that, you know, he only had 11 whiffs on 44 swings, it's not terrible, not bad. He did get, you know, 40% whiff rate on the slider, which is pretty good, really good. And he also got four called strikes on the slider.

So 38% call strike plus whiff. That was a pretty good pitch for him today. Yeah. Overall. And 29% width rate on the four seamer, that's not bad. So it's not like you didn't have anything working today. but it was just kind of grinding through these at-bats. And he was being very careful.

And, you know, Soto and Judge in particular, he was really on the corners. And he was going to be okay walking Aaron, Judge. And then it just kind of sucks the one, the one mistake he made all afternoon to judge, home run. And, you know, it's just kind of like, that's how good that guy is. So it was more of a kind of a kitchen sink method today for Castillo. It was 37% four-seamer, 26% two-semer, 23% slider, 13% chance. change. That's a little bit of a different mix than we used to seeing Castillo pretty much fastball. You know, he picks one of his fastballs and then it's a slider and that's kind of what he

rotates. Today was very intentional. He was very clearly trying to kind of, you know, pitch around Judge and Soto a little bit. If he was going to miss, he was going to miss off the plate to those guys. Again, except for the one pitch. He did leave in the middle of the play. Got hit pretty hard. So it happens. Castillo was fine today. But like I said, he clearly did not have his best stuff. He clearly did not have his best control and command. And he just kind of bulldogged his way through this lineup a couple times. And, you know, he gave his team a good chance to, well, he gave his team what should have been a good chance to give up two runs over five innings.

That's a good chance to win the game. Right. And so, you know, it's like, do you want better from Castillo? Sure. You know, if he had gone six innings and given up two runs, like if they had put him back out there and he had had a quick one, two, three inning, then we would be talking about, oh, what a great day Castillo had. So overall, you know, Luis was pretty good today,

but just like in Baltimore, not his best. We've seen him be a lot better, but the fact that he managed to keep his team in this game and give them a legitimate chance to come back and win it, you know, just because they didn't, doesn't mean that Luis didn't do his job. So overall, I thought Castillo was fine. This is more, you know,

there are times where Castillo just throws and he'll dominate you. There are times where he'll, he'll pitch and he'll just kind of grind through an inning, grind through a lineup. And that's kind of what he's done the last few times out. Not his best stuff, but he's found a way to keep two of the best, probably the two best offenses in baseball, or at least in the American League. He's found a way to keep them from exploding. He's found a way to limit damage when they do get runners on base.

He's come up with some big pitches and some big spots. And that's why he's still your ace. That's why he's still a little bit ahead of Kirby and Gilbert because we've seen Gilbert we've seen those two guys not have their stuff, not have their, and sometimes they survive, but a lot of the times they just get whacked. And Castillo, for the most part, doesn't really happen that often.

He finds a way to at least give you five, six, seven innings, and maybe he gives up four runs, but he gives you a legit shot to win the game. It's the ability to contain, right? You know, teams like the Yankees and the Orioles, they're going to get theirs at some point. It's just limiting that damage. and Cassio has done a good job of at least doing that,

even when he's not at his best, like you said. Another shaky day for the bullpen today. Trent Thornton, one-earned run in his inning pitch. Gabe Spire continues to struggle, a couple of earn runs for him, and they let this game kind of get away from them. We saw Mike Bauman the new reliever. We'll talk about him a little later on here, and then Edward Bizarro with a clean inning.

But, yeah. We also, we have three new 40 man editions to talk about today, or at least mention. So we'll get to that because the mayor has just made another claim for a believer. Okay. All right, cool. So we'll talk about that. I don't even know who that is. So I'll be.

Okay. I'll be hearing for the first time from you. Yeah. I'll be hearing for the first time from you coming up here in a few. But real quick, though, before we do that, I want to talk about Julio. I want to go back to the offense real quick and talk about Julio because Julio was moved down the lineup today.

He hit six today in the lineup, had another rough day, two strikeouts went 0 for four. What do you think about the move to send Julio down in the lineup? Yeah, that's probably the right move. You know, we're just, we're long past the time where, you know, I'll blame the front office for not putting bats around Julio to protect them, blame the hitting coach, blame whatever. We're 50 games into this now,

and Julio has, like, one of the lowest slugging percentages of any qualified hitters in all of baseball. It's unacceptable. And so moving him down is, like, kind of the only thing the Mariners can really do until he figures it out. Because, like, at the end of the day,

like, this isn't on, you know, Jared DeHart. This isn't on Scott's service. This is on Julio. Julio has to be the one to fix this. And let's not pretend that Julio, doesn't have things he needs to fix. Like this isn't just bad luck.

It's been consistent. He's hitting the ball hard, but he's sitting on the ground. There's no slug whatsoever. You just can't have that guy getting, you know, second, third, most at batts on this team. So you have to move him down.

You have to give him a shot. Maybe this takes some of the pressure off. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe this is just something that the mayors are legitimately going to have to try and, you know, work on all year to get Julio back to a spot where he's lifting the ball with regularity and with authority. So, you know,

I think this is really the only reasonable thing. they can't do. You just can't, you know, nobody is, is above the team in regards to, like, nobody is guaranteed to hit second all year because they're Julio Rodriguez. Nobody's guaranteed to be the leadoff guy all year because you're JP Crawford, right? Like, you have to earn those opportunities. And they gave Julio plenty of leash to run with to start this year. They let him try to work through this. And it just could be games in. We're about a third of the way through the season, not happening right now. So until it does, moving him down is really, the only, you know, the only sensible thing to do.

So we'll see how long this lasts. We'll see if it's even going to happen tomorrow. McKinsey Gore lefty on the mound. They might move Julio right back up. It's certainly possible. So, but you know, we've seen this before. They moved Julio down to sixth, I think last year. Yeah, the one really good game in Detroit, I believe it was.

And then they put them right back up to the two spots. So we'll see how it goes overall. But yeah, I don't think that like, I think even like the people who don't want to blame Julio for anything. have to acknowledge that he has been a disappointment this year. He needs to get things going and that it's not fair to the Mariners to have this player constantly hitting number two for an entire season when he's not earning those reps. But he's not hitting like a number two hitter.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, he's not hitting like a top seven hitter right now. So yeah, it's time. It was time to make this move. It probably should have made it a week ago, but whatever. They gave him plenty of time. They gave him way more than they needed to at bats for him to kind of prove that like I fix this. I'm good.

Let's roll. Nope. Keep on trying to fix it. And when you do, you'll get moved up, obviously. Yeah. Like we're not keeping Julio in the six hole all year. But we just can't do this. You have to fix it.

Right. His average launch angle right now is down 7.4. His career average in that department is nine degrees. Then his barrel rate is significantly down right now as well. 7.2%. It was 11.9% last year. His career average in that department is 11.7%. So Julio's going through right now.

He's not doing enough damage. And when he is finding grass, he's only hitting for singles. And quite a few of those, especially on this road trip, have been infield singles. So he's just, he's not lifting the ball. He's not putting the ball in the outfield consistently. He is hitting the ball hard, but more often than not, that has been in the ground. he obviously had the one in the gap yesterday or last night that judge was able to run down it was like 108 off the bat

or 107 off the bat like that was a good sign because that was I think that was like a fastball up on the top rail so that was nice to see him be able to actually drive that ball out but then he comes back today and goes 0 for 4 with a couple strikeouts and just looked pretty bad at the plate so again it's even when he's had, you know, the isolated good game or two, he reverts back to this. You know, it goes back to, you know, oh, for his next nine with five Ks. So, Julio needs to be consistent and he needs to do more damage.

And that's just the fact of the matter, right? That's not trying to drag Julio. That's not trying to talk bad about Julio. That's just what the reality of the situation is. It's just not who he needs to be right now. He's not who the team needs him to be right now. So, yeah, I think this is a deserved demotion, frankly, in the lineup for Julio. All right.

Let's talk about the trade the Mariners made last night and some other 40-man roster moves they made. Coming up here in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Merritton Postgame show is brought to you by prize picks. Baseball season is in full swing. So don't miss your chance to add your favorite players from the diamond in your prize picks. entries. Whether it's strikeouts, RBI, or first setting runs, take your pick more or less and add them to your prize picks entry today. You can also get in on the basketball playoff action and went up to 100 times your money on prize picks as you and the world's best players take the game to a whole new level during the postseason. Download price picks today and use the promo code locked on MLB for first deposit match up to $100.

That's promo code locked on MLB for a first deposit match up to $100. Pick more, pick less. It's that easy. And you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners Post-game show. Once again, you can catch the Mariners and the Nationals all weekend long on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word mariners. Okay, so the Mariners have made a few moves here over the last 24-ish hours, including trading for Orioles, right-handed pitcher Mike Balman, before we talk about him they've apparently made a waiver claim

that I still don't know about so Colby tell me who that is and have you done some research on him have you figured out what he's about I've tried there's not a ton on him his name is Eduardo Salazar he was recently DFAed by the Dodgers

he to make room on the 40 man for this claim the Mariners have DFA Sammy Peralta who was terrible in Tacoma So, yeah, so he's 26 years old. He's got two options left. He just turned 26 two weeks ago.

He's only thrown two innings in the big leagues, and those both came this year. He's worked primarily as a starter in the Cincinnati Reds system, and now this year in the Dodgers system as well. As far as I can tell, not a big swing and miss guy. He has some concerns with his ability to throw strikes. fan graph says he has a 55 passball a 40 to 45 upside slider 45 upside changeup 55 55 command just kind of seems like bulk arm to throw in the rotation depth pile but there is the possibility of course that Seattle could move them to the bullpen and they think that they can sharpen something up there which would be my guess is what

they were doing here. But obviously, you know, the old rule, anytime the Mariners acquire an arm, you have to be pretty interested in that arm. I just haven't seen any video, so I can't comment on, on, you know, how well he hides the ball or anything like that. So I'm still trying to figure out a little bit more about him, but just seems like back into the 40 man, you know, kind of depth there. And he's got a couple of options as well. So, you know, we'll see, like they can sharpen up the slider maybe or maybe it already has been like I said I haven't been able to get eyes on him and I obviously it's happened while we were recording I've my ability to kind of look and try and see scouting reports and stuff like that is a little bit limited right now but based on just the statistics

and what I have been able to gather so far feels like kind of just back in 40 man depth starting depth in Tacoma and it might be an arm that Seattle thinks that they can get more of out of the bullpen but for now he's just back in 40-man depth. They also added Jonathan Diaz to the 40-man roster yesterday. His opt-out of his Meyer League contract was coming up. So they had an open 40-man spot. They put him on there to keep him, and he'll remain in Tacoma for the time being.

But he's like the seventh starter right now. He's had a good year down in Tacoma. Really good slider, hides the ball well. He's pitching the big leagues with varying levels of success. He could be the guy. that they call up here to Washington though and then Salazar could in theory replace

Diaz in the starting death because Kirby Steed's not it. And right now with the way Gabe Spires pitching, the Mariners probably feel like they need a lefty that they can rely on a little bit more. I think they're anxiously waiting for Taylor Sonsider to get back.

That could be on the homestand, right? That would be 15 days. Yeah. So, you know, fingers crossed. Hopefully they do get sauce because they do need you know, some quality lefty out in the pen because right now the mayor's current crop of right-handed arms, not exactly thrilled with them facing lefties in general and Spire is definitely not getting it done. So I think Diaz is the guy that they should call up today.

Any other 40-man moves that I miss besides the trade that we're about to talk about? Okay. All right. Got everything. So last night, They traded for Mike Balman, who was DFAed by the Orioles a few days ago. They end up sending Blake Hunt, the catcher that they acquired from the raise this winter, who was having a really good year down in Tacoma. They also get a 31-year-old catcher Michael Perez back in the trade to kind of supplement the absence of Hunt down in Tacoma. What do you think about Balman?

We obviously saw him today, not really a good debut for him, you know, walked a couple of guys. You didn't think so? No, but let's, let's not, you know, base everything off of one outing. A couple walks, a couple wild pitches. You didn't think that's interesting. Especially a, you know, just a few hours after being acquired by the team. Like, let's not base everything off of that. Let's make excuses.

Sure, why not? Right. That's fine. What did you, what did you think about him, though? Or what do you, what do you think about him? Today, I don't like him very much. In general, like, I can see the appeal to the Mariners. he does have, at least the number suggests he has a couple of good breaking balls.

He has a knuckle curve and a slider, both of which can get swings and misses, both of which are really tough to square up. He certainly throws hard. He averages 96.5 miles an hour can touch 99. So fastball velo, it's not an issue. It's just the fastball gets lit up pretty much every time he throws it. So my guess here is that the Mariners look at this and they say, okay, well, you're throwing your fastball, you know, 45.

percent of the time this year, let's have you throw your slider or your knuckle curve. Let's have you throw that 45 percent of the time. And then you can mix in the other two pitches. That would be my guess because, again, you look at the bat of ball data on the knuckle curve and the slider. They've significantly better than his fastball. So it's not like that we haven't seen the mayors do this before. I watched quite a bit of Balman last night when they made the trade just trying to get a feel for arm action and stuff like that.

And it's funny, if you lined up 2022, 2022, 2023 and 2024, it looks like a different arm slot every single time. Like the windup is different. The delivery's different. Like, so it seems maybe he's a guy who tweaks a lot. Like he's kind of a,

you know, kind of one of those guys who likes to try a couple different things. But yeah, one thing that's been pretty consistent, doesn't throw a ton of strikes, doesn't get as many strikeouts as the stuff would suggest that he should be able to get and can get. So I think this is all about command and control with him, mostly elevated walk rate.

It does a decent job of avoiding hard contact or at least, you know, has at times. But it doesn't get as many swings and misses as you like. He's not a high leverage type. And because of that, you know, giving up like legitimate controllable catcher depth, who is knocking on the door of the big leagues is, in my estimation, a gross overpay. Now, can the Mariners, you know, if the mares turn this guy into, you know, a seventh inning type, like a seventh inning type that you like trust pretty explicitly, then is it worth it? Sure. Of course it is. But to me, this is kind of a, it's kind of a gross overpay. And I would have rather just given by Butchery a shot or, you know, Diaz a shot or, you know, Crable like Vargas even a shot. Well, it's also like when you just traded Tyson Miller, it's like, do you like Balman more than Tyson Miller?

I guess the Mariners potentially do. But like I would probably rather have Tyson Miller and Blake Hunt right now than Mike Bauman and Michael Perez and Jake Slaughter. The disrespect to Michael Perez you're showing right now. Go look at a stackass page last year. That's all I'm saying. Right. And tell us, tell them how many games that's on?

Now who's Captain Semantics? Just go look at a stack catch page. I don't think that's how that way. won't be disappointed. Right. But yeah, I don't, I don't really get it.

There's a reason none of those numbers are qualified folks. Yeah, because he's a catcher and, you know, catchers don't play enough

to qualify most of the time. So, yeah, so, you know, whatever, you continue to sleep on the guy. But,

no, I still don't get this trade, you know, slept on it. It's not that I don't like Bobman. I would have been, uh,

not excited, but I would have been, you know, if they had claimed to want waivers, I'd be like, oh, this is a really interesting arm. Instead, they trade a top 20 prospect, top 25-ish prospect,

somebody who could conceivably help you this year. Yeah. And it kind of more or less forces Sevees of Avala on the roster for the entire season, which, again, I'm not a Sebi hater like some of you out there, but like, yeah, that's a spot that you could conceive. We can all, we can all agree that you can do better, much better there. I don't know. You can do much better.

Catching is really hard to find, but. much better. You can do much better. It is a spot that you probably should look to upgrade now when you get into July, whereas when you have Blake Hunt, you conceivably could have gone like, no, like, we know we need more production from the backup catcher, but we'll just use Blake Hunt instead. And we'll see if that works. Not to mention Hunt had six years of club control.

And he was going to be a cheap backup catcher for, you know, half a decade pretty much until you had to decide whether or not you wanted to actually pay him. So yeah, I'm not a big fan of this. Catcher Deptick takes a hit. You never really have enough catcher depth. You know, I know Papyrski has been pretty good at the plate. I don't know if he's maintained that, but he was really good. He's heading 188 now down in Tacoma.

So there you go. Yeah. So yeah, the Mariners basically have no catcher depth whatsoever and just to answer your question to get ahead of it. No, Harry Ford is not a viable answer right now. Well, I mean. To me, this would say that they think maybe the answer is yes on that. Because like, why else would you trade like, why else would you be so willing to trade Blake Hunt for a reliever like this? What gets even dice here is is that what if you have to trade Harry Ford the summer to go get.

Parades or like whatever, pick your bat. Doesn't matter. What do you have to trade him this summer? Then your catcher debt is Cal Raleigh and literally nothing. That is big league quality. I mean, maybe you get a catcher at the deadline. Oh, yeah, sure, but that's more assets. I got to go spend on something I already had.

Like, okay, I'll go get Elias Diaz from the, from the Rockies. But okay, there are going to be teams out there who want him to be their starting catcher. So now I have to go and I have to give, you know, Ryan Bliss to go get half a year of Diaz to be my backup catcher. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't like it. I think the ballman ad is fine. Like, I think that's a smart.

Yeah, it's not about the pitcher. It's the return. And the reason that I don't like it, the reason I'm not a fan of it is 150 billion percent the return. Yeah, like for this to become justified, like for this to be like, okay, they knew what they were doing. Bauman has to be at least Trent Thornton. And he probably has to be better than that. Because, you know, there are guys like this that you can usually get off of waivers in the middle of the year. And Trent Thornton last year you got for freaking Mason McCoy.

Right. And maybe I'm overhyping Blake Hunt, but it's more just about the mare's catching situation in general right now. It's like I'm not a Sebi Zavala guy. I thought that Blake Hunt could come up and help and maybe not be Tom Murphy, but be closer to Tom Murphy than to Sebi Zavala for you. That's certainly the role that they envision when they acquired him just this winter. So I don't know what changed to make them think that. Especially once he's now like started to actually hit. Yeah.

Like I don't know what made him what changed their mind to. basically treat Blake Hunt like he was expendable. I don't know. I don't get it because like the Mariners, you know, to their credit, pretty good at the catchers, pretty good at bullpen arms. Like those are two positions that they have really excelled at finding. They found Tom Murphy for free. You know, they found.

Awesome. Nola for free. They found, you know, they took Calvias. They found Narvaez. I mean, they didn't find him. But they acquired them and, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like they've had a good track record of finding catchers and all. of that. And obviously, you know, the backup catcher at most is going to play 20% of the games with

Cal Raleigh in town. But now, you know, if Seby's the only legitimate option, like, you kind of have to really try and keep Cal healthy, which is not something you can really do because he's a catcher. Like, that stuff crops up all the time. But now, like, does that mean, you play Sebi even more than you already are because you're trying to keep Cal Raleigh. healthy for the stretch or how do you navigate this? To me, this just seems like the writing is on the wall here. And it seems ridiculous because we're four years away from this coming to fruition.

But it just seems like the Mariners game plan is to run Cal Raleigh into the ground for the next two or three years and then trade them with a year left on his deal and see what they can get. Because it's like, what have you done to put up a safeguard for, you know, Cal Rale inevitably missing significant time because he's a freaking catcher and they get hurt? So I don't know. I really don't get this. I don't like this deal at all.

It doesn't make sense to me. We haven't heard from, you know, Jerry or anybody like that as far as I know about why they would make this deal or Justin, anybody. But this just feels almost like a little bit of a panic move because I don't believe that they traded for Blake Hunt and then decided that he was going to be there, Tom Murphy. We talked about this over the winter, right? Like find those guys who are making money and find their replace. who's making no money, and that's the way you can shave some money off of that. You know, they had that with Blake Hunt, and they did that with Samad Taylor, right? Like, find a guy who plays a role on this team, is making a little bit of money,

replace them with the young guys who aren't making any money. And that's how you can kind of save three, four million bucks a year here and there. And they just kind of ran away from that right when Blake Hunt looked like he was ready to, you know, come up to the big leagues and at least try and fill that Tom Murphy role. So I don't know what they're doing. It doesn't make any sense to me. Don't like it. You know, and we'll see if it works.

But I'm not a fan of this move. It feels like a, it feels like paying, you know, 250 cents on the dollar, like a drastic overpay to me. But we'll see. Either they think they're smarter and it's not even, and it's not even about Blake Hunt specifically. It's just about how it impacts the catching situation for you. but again, I know you don't think this,

but I think this means at least something about how they feel about Harry Ford. I think it has to, frankly. And maybe it does, maybe it actually doesn't. And maybe you are right. But I feel like it kind of has to. But the problem with that is that like, because like,

if Cal Raleigh gets hurt, you really going to run out Michael Papyrski and Sebysavala? I don't see how you roll. out Harry Ford because like the dude's been like great at the double a at higher than A ball basically for you know a month like it's kind of like the it's kind of like the class I thing right where you're just like oh you know just vibes like no and you're doing that with a player who has a significantly bigger part of your future than class A probably does I'm not a fan of it so to me it just it doesn't make any sense like I hate it and I hate that you know this

thing, this whole idea like, oh, rush Harry forward to the big leagues if you need to because he's ready and it's like, can we at least see him in AAA for a little bit before? Before we just decide. I do wonder, like I know they got Perez and Perez is likely going to go to Tacoma, but I do wonder if maybe this

also opens the door for Ford to get called up to Tacoma. Because he's smoking double A right now. Like we talked about what yesterday or the day before. I don't know if he's ready for it, but whatever. Like I said, the Mariners either you know, think they're supposed. smarter than everybody else and they've just made a major mistake.

Maybe not major mistake. They've just made a mistake or they are smarter than everybody else and they know something about Balman that the rest of us don't and he's going to end up being a key figure in this bullpen down the stretch. But if that's what he is, if Balman is like, I don't even want to say Paul Seawall, but you know what I mean? Like if he's like a key cog in this bullpen and it turns around and he's pitching big innings for you in August and September, then yeah, you know, it sucks to lose the long term

the long-term, you know, growth of Blake Hunt, but it's worth it at that point. Anything short of that, and it just feels like you just, you know, panicked almost. So I really don't like the deal at all. All right, that's going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here,

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Find Lockdown Sports today, now available on the free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby Pat Nod, I'm Tadangazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tadang Gonzalez and Colby at CPAT 11. That's CPAT 1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode.

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