Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners to Host 2024 NHL Winter Classic! w/ Erica L. Ayala of Locked On Kraken

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

Locked On Mariners host Ty Dane Gonzalez and Locked On Kraken host Erica L. Ayala link up for a special crossover to discuss the 2024 NHL Winter Classic coming to T-Mobile Park, what Seattle sports fans should be excited about with the Mariners, what the Kraken could do at the trade deadline and more!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.

So up, everyone. Colby and I are about to record our typical Friday show that we're not actually doing fanfiction Friday today. We're just going to be going over some of the things that Jerry Depoto talked about on his radio appearance yesterday. But in the meantime, while you're waiting for us to post that, check out this conversation that I did with Erica Aiala, who was kind enough to invite me on the Locked-on Crackin podcast to talk Winter Classic, some Cracken, some Mariners. I thought it was a lot of fun. I think you'll really enjoy it. It'll be on the other side of this intro. Let's get into it. You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. All right, Seattle sports fans, we are here with a very special crossover episode, or as I like to say, on Locked-on Cracken, a squadcast.

I am joined by Ty Dane Gonzalez, host of Locked-on Mariners. That is your daily podcast for the Seattle Mariner. Excuse me. I'm so excited to talk with you, Ty. I know we've crossed paths in our little virtual studios a time or two, but this is the first time that we're hopping on the microphone and doing an episode together. How are you? I'm doing great, Erica. Thank you so much for the invite to do this. I'm looking forward to talking hockey. I've been following the cracking all year long, watching basically every game. So I know the frustrations. I know the ups. I know the downs. I know. all of it. And I've, I got to thank you because, you know, I'm a newer hockey fan and I

Lockdown Cracken is one of my biggest resources for learning the game. So, oh, that's very good. Yeah, I especially, you know, love the episodes with, with Allison Lucan. She's great. She's excellent. And just, yeah, just watching this team over the last couple months here has been a lot of fun. So looking forward to talking about that. Looking forward to talking some Mims and some winter classic potential. Oh, yeah. And that's, You know we're going to start with the goods first. The Winter Classic now, I'm sure you've heard the rumors. You had heard the rumors before the official announcement

at the time of this recording earlier this week. But we've been hearing it's going to be cracking, Vegas Golden Knights. There have been a few different locations thrown out, but we know that it's officially official. We will be taking the ice at T-Mobile Park. So that, of course, is very familiar terrain and territory to you and your listeners.

What were your initial reactions when you heard that the Winter Classic was not only coming to Seattle, but that it was coming to T-Mobile? I was super pumped because, again, like, I'm a newer hockey fan, but I'm very aware of the Winter Classic. I've been aware of it for a long time, and I love the whole aesthetic of it. I love the old school vibe. I love, like, the brown pads and all that stuff. It's awesome. I love the jerseys.

So I'm like through the roof excited about it. Plus I love the cracking sweaters. I love the reverse retro and like I'm really excited to see what they do with with the New Jersey and all that stuff. So really pumped about that. And there's no more beautiful place to host this event than T-Mobile Park, one of the best ballparks in all of baseball, if not the best. And so I'm just, yeah, I'm beyond thrilled that they were able to work this out

and make this thing happen. Yeah, I've been to T-Mobile. Park a time or two well before I even started the Locked on Cracken podcast. It is absolutely beautiful. Love it there. I also think, and maybe I'm biased because I am a New York Metropolitan's fan through and through, but there's just some baseball parks where they're not even conducive, in my opinion, Yankees, to baseball, let alone anything else.

Like they're not comfortable. They're not open, but Team Mobile Park has a great flow. That's what you want, especially for a winter classic where everyone's, you know, chugging hot chocolate and coffee to stay warm, you know, and the sight lines are beautiful. But before we get into where we're actually going to play, I do want to ask you about two other locations that I heard we're in the mix, your thoughts on that and why you think Team Mobile won out. So one is a Husky Stadium.

So that's a pretty fantastic view from there, not going to lie. And I hear that Washington football games can get pretty raucous and pretty loud. So there's that. And then essentially, like, you know, a stones throw away is Lumen Field, which was another option that we'd been hearing tossed about. What are your thoughts? And again, why do you think T-Mobile won out? So, you know, I'm not involved in those decision-making processes. So I don't really know, like, what's best aesthetically and what's the most convenient for a hockey viewing experience in general.

Actually, I've never been to a hockey game. I'm going to my first hockey game tomorrow. I live in Toronto, going to see a crack in Maple Leafs somewhere. So that's going to be cool. But so I don't really know what would be best for a hockey viewing experience. But I feel like, you know, Lumen Field is such a huge stadium that if you're going to be selling all those seats, that there's going to be, you know, no one's going to have interest in watching hockey from like, you know, a million miles in the sky, right? You know, Husky Stadium, that's a really, you know, beautiful place. But I think at the end of the day, the Mariners,

and also, you know, you got to think that these two teams are very intertwined with the root sports connection and all that. Obviously, the Mariners own root sports. So there's a deep connection there already. And so I think it just made the most sense at the end of the day to bring it to T-Mobile Park. And, you know, I know that they've put it at a few football stadiums in the past, the winner classic, but I feel like it works best in a baseball stadium just because of the classic feel of it all. and just, you know, everything that goes into it.

So I think it's just a perfect match for them to make it happen at Timo. Yeah, I love that. You know, this is a time where calling baseball America's pastime really fits into the vibe to your point. So I love that. Yeah, we've seen it at Gillette and places like that. But we also have seen that there is an uptick in baseball stadium. I think Coorsfield has been there.

We know that City Field hosted. We just saw that Fenway. that looked super cool. Fenway got to host this year. So yeah, I like the vibes. You mentioned the throwback though. So I am a New York metropolitan fan. Got to love the Mets. Get a home run, baby. Got to love the Mets. Got to love the Mets. But then of course there's the Seattle Metropolitan's, the first ever Seattle team to win the Stanley Cup. Now you talked about the reverse retroes and whatnot. A lot of people, they're thinking that we might go for the Seattle Metropolitan's look for the outdoor classic.

But we've also seen that teams, maybe if not on the ice, but for warm-ups, they go retro with an old school baseball uniform with the pants up, socks out. That's how we got to do it. So I want to know, first, if we were to do a tossback, an homage to the M's, Is there a particular uniform or era that you think would really fit into a winter classic vibe? So a lot of people, a lot of people hate this. But I love like the rookie Griffey jerseys. Like you know the Griffey rookie card where he's wearing the, yeah, with a hat with the yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like those uniforms are my favorites of the Mariners. I've wanted them to go back to the to the royal and gold for so long. And it's never going to happen. and everyone calls me an idiot on Twitter whenever I talk about it. I know exactly what you're talking about. I love those. But I would love Ken Griffey.

So there's that. Well, both of them, but Ken Griffey Jr. particularly. So I would I would love something that paid homage to that or maybe the Trident. Yes. I was thinking about that too, that I feel like it fits into our theme, our vibe. You know, that could work. Yeah. You know, the Mariners, though, I mean, like they came in, you know, in the late 70s.

So they don't have, they don't necessarily have that classic feel that like, you know, going back to Finway feels like, you know, that's just a little bit different. You know, that's like legacy team type stuff. But I think there, there could be a way to incorporate some of the old school mariners looking to it or maybe just, you know, pay homage to Seattle sports in general. Let's get some sort of sonic, you know, influence in there or something like that. Let's make it happen. I think, yeah, I think you're right. there's probably going to lean into more of the Seattle history. I still think we're going to save the Seattle Metropolitan's throwback for after we've

at least made a playoff run. I think that makes a lot of sense. I know a lot of people are chomping at the bit to see it. It's a really nice throwback. But I agree with you. There's not really that 100 year plus history between obviously not with us and not with the M's yet. But you know what?

I'm curious, Ty, what that means. as far as this particular winter classic because we're also competing against the Vegas Golden Knights. So, you know, they're, if not for us, they're the brand new kid. So I think it's going to be interesting to see how they interpret kind of the classic part of the winter classic thing. So but coming up next, I want to talk a little bit more about the event that will happen, the big event that's going to happen at Team Mobile Park prior to the winter. classic. You might know a thing or two about, you know, an all-star game that's happening, including a swingman classics. So I want to talk about that. We'll get into it with Ty Dan Gonzalez of Locked

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That's right. Head to your nearest Walmart today. Walk to the pharmacy section and grab yourself a box of built bars. You can pick up a four bar box of cookies and cream, double chocolate or coconut puffs. And if you're close to Sam's Club, run in, grab a 13 bar box with our hit flavors, brownie batter, and churro. You can thank me later. All right, Ty. We got your initial reactions to the Winter Classic coming to T-Mobile Park.

but before we get to transform, likely the outfield into a hockey rink, T-Mobile Park is going to bring the best of the best of Major League Baseball to Seattle this summer in the 2023 All-Star weekend. So it's just like back to back here for Seattle. I'm sure you've talked about it on your podcast, but for the locked on crack in fans, what's the buzz as we are now within the year? We are months away from the All-Star festivities coming to T-Mobile. The All-Star game is such a beautiful event.

And they hosted it when it was called Safeco Field back in 2001. And obviously, I'm biased. But that's my favorite All-Star game of all time. I was like five years old when they had that. And I videotaped that thing on VHS. I probably watched that thing like eight or nine times. Cal Ripkin's homer and all that stuff. It's great.

There's a lot of legacy involved in that. And it's going to be great to bring the All-Star game back to T-Mobile Park to have the Home Run Derby, of course. That's going to be a lot of fun. And I think one, Julio Rodriguez, barring any sort of injury,

is likely going to participate in that. So that should be a lot of fun. And they recently added the MLB draft to the All-Star Week as well, as of a couple of years ago. So the MLB draft will undergo their well. And the Mariners have three top three, selections in that draft.

So they're going to be pretty active on the first night. So, yeah. I love that. Cracking Mariners locking up the draft picks. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot of young stars right now in Seattle with Julio, with Maddie B,

soon to be Shane Wright. Like, it's going to be a lot. It's a really fun time to be a, to be a Seattle sports fan in general. Seahawks got a lot of young guys. are coming up to. It's just there's a lot of fun stuff happening right now. But yeah, you know, with All-Star Week, it's going to be, it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a buzz in that city. This is something that I think the city really, really needs and deserves, especially with the way that the Mariners are starting to give themselves back on the

map right now. I think there's just no better time for the All-Star game to be in Seattle with guys like Julio and Cal Rale. It's just going to be a lot of fun. And I'm going to try my best to get out there. I'm really going to try my best to get out. out there. So there might be some, locked on Mariners stuff happening in Seattle around the all-star game. We'll see. We'll see. Not promising anything, but I'm a try. I'm a try. I hear that.

I hear that. All right. Cracking crew, this is what we have to do. We're going to manifest that for lockdown mariners. We want good vibes. They're going to manifest that for them. We believe in manifestation over here. Appreciate you all. Appreciate you all. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think, again, I mentioned that

you know, Ken Griffey Jr., such an iconic just baseball legend in general, but has made his way back to the Mariners. And he announced that there's going to be the first ever swingman classics. So you're really going to have an opportunity. If you do make it out there or anyone else that's able to go, there's really going to be kind of two all-star games. It's obviously MLB All-Star game and home run derby. But then also HBCU, of course, for those who don't know, stands for historically black college and university. And so Ken Griffey Jr., this is his way of working with MLB and the MLBPA to get more black athletes and athletes of color into the sport and profiling them, showcasing them right alongside the MLB All-Star Weekend. So I've been keeping tabs on that story, even outside of obviously Locked on Cracken.

It's not a directive with Locked on Cracken, but I think that's going to be amazing. There's just some really great stuff that Seattle is doing. I have been going to Seattle for years, even before the Cracken came through. And what I enjoy about what the city is trying to do is really embrace all of the cultural elements, you know, those that are older or, you know, a part of the city's iconic history and also as the city changes. And I think the sports landscape has really embraced that. I know the Liewiki brothers, at least on our end have. So I always look for those stories, obviously being a,

black woman and a Latina in sports media. So I love to see that and I'm really excited for that. But, you know, I also want to get into a little bit about what we saw from the M's. You know, I've talked on Locked on Cracken before. I was following what was happening. We talked about, of course, the run this past season, even the season before that when I was actually out in Seattle, we were getting ready for our first training camp. But you mentioned it that this is something in the All-Star weekend. And of course, now the Winter Classic that this city really needs and deserves when it comes to the M's and how they've been performing and what the trajectory is for next season, Ty, you know, what can you tell Cracken fans about

what to expect about their Mariners? Yeah, the Mariners are in a great spot right now, probably the best spot that they've been in since the early 2000s with young guys like Julio Rodriguez and Cal Raleigh and George Kirby. And the list goes on and on and on. There are so many names and faces that made this past year just incredible to watch. It was an honor, honestly, to kind of just help tell their story over the course of this year. This team that made history that, you know, broke the drought in the way that it did and played in, you know, wound up playing in one of the greatest playoff games of all time, honestly, two of the greatest playoff games of all time.

if you want to count the 18-a-ning slog against the Astros. We don't want to remember that, though. But yeah, I mean, it was just an incredible story. And even with, you know, guys like Mitch Hanager, Adam Frazier, et cetera, exiting this off-season, they brought in players like Colton Long and Tay Oscar Hernandez, who were going to energize this ball club and bring a lot to this ball club. And I think fans are going to be very, very, very, excited to get to know those guys and see what they can do.

I've been a long, I've been a fan of Tay Oscar Hernandez for a long time. Of course, I live in Toronto. He's played for the Blue Jays the last few years. He's a lot of fun to watch and he's going to bring a lot to this team, I believe. And they're still not done, right? Like, they have, you know, left, uh, they basically haven't done anything with free agency, right?

They, they, and there's a whole discussion that can be had about that. We won't get too far into the weeds about that on this show. Um, but, uh, they are still far better. than they were last opening day. And I think that's the most important thing here. And there's still a lot of time for them to go out on the trade market and see if there's anything else they can add. Right now,

the big target is Brian Reynolds of the Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder. He's going to cost a lot. And I don't know if they actually have what it takes to land him. But if they did, they'd be in a pretty nice spot to start really, really coming after the Astros and giving them some problems. So fun times in Seattle. and I think that we're getting pretty close to this team contending for a world series.

Oh, yeah. Well, we can't wait to see it. Of course, this is that time of year for you and your podcast while we're kind of just ramping up and really getting into the meat of the season. But we will have the trade deadline coming just in a few months. And I know, Ty, you've got some questions regarding that.

So we're going to get into that next. But I would be remiss since we're talking about the Mariners and their roster. I have to, of course, mention Elon University legend. and George Kirby. That's right, baby. That's right. That's right. You know, I got my Elon.

I went to Elon University. It's in North Carolina. So, you know, we share that bonds as well as Seattle Sports. But, you know, and I pick up the magazine. And there's a story on Kirby in there. So it was awesome that we do this quadcast right then. But all right, Ty, you're going to put me in the hot seat here. We're going to talk a little bit about, well,

the Seattle Cracken roster, you know, your most pressing questions as a new hockey fan. You've got a team to root for now. So we'll have you fire away coming up next on this crossover or squadcast episode of Locked on Cracken and Locked on Maritors. All right. We are down in the home stretch, as they like to say in baseball. So let's do it, Ty. You've got some questions.

And hopefully I'll do all right holding it down for the Cracken fan base. But what are your most burning questions for me regarding the Seattle Cracken? All right. So all of these are probably going to be more so personal than for like the entire fan base. But you know, we're just, I'm going to make use of my time here, right? All right. First question, though. First question doesn't have to do with the Cracken.

I'm going to my first hockey game tomorrow. Like I said, any tips? Any like, what should I do? Like, what do I do with my hands? What do I do at a hockey game? What am I supposed to do? I've never been to a hockey game before. I have no idea to act.

Also, I'm going to be an enemy territory, right? It's the Reef, the Scotian Bank Arena. I'm not, yeah, I'm, I'm the enemy there. So what do I do? Okay, well, first things first. If you own any Seattle gear, I highly recommend you wear it because Root Sports is probably going to pick you up. I love the segment that they do and they like pan the audience and they look for the Seattle

fans. So that's number one. I can't guarantee it's the safest thing. but I know Toronto fans are pretty intense, but I think you're in the other conference. Like, come on. Like we only see each other twice a year. It doesn't matter. I'm with you. I'm with you.

And let's be real. We're never going to see each other in the cup. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm totally with you. I feel like if you, if you have sporting gear, you either bought it or it was given to you. You have every right to wear it anytime you want. Now, what I will say is I made the very big mistake of wearing.

It was like a crossover. baseball hockey thing. And so I'm thinking, all right, I'll wear a, it was from the Brooklyn Cyclones. So this is a team that plays, you know, in the middle of summer. And I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to go. I'm wearing a hockey jersey. It's going to be fine. I'll, I'll be warm. It'll be great. I still have my coat. No, I was absolutely freezing. Just in case it's not evidently clear. The thickness and the way you make a hockey jersey for a baseball team is completely different than a hockey jersey for a hockey team. So I don't know about you, but I don't like being cold.

So I would just dress appropriately, make sure that, you know, you have a few layers. That's for sure. As far as what to do with your hands, honestly, it's not dissimilar to going to a baseball game. You know, every arena has their thing, you know, and it's, I think it's going to be a good time. So I think things move a lot quicker. We're used to, you know, being able to stretch and just kind of watch things. just percolate nice and slow more of a simmer. Things move faster in hockey.

So you definitely got to know that. Yeah, I'm going to be in and out of there. It's going to be crazy. I'm going to go at seven and I'm going to be out at like 930. It's going to be great. It's fine. And there's two seventh inning stretches. You should probably know that they call them intermissions.

So, you know, it'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be great. It'll be great. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to wear my cracking away jersey, you know, hoodie, all that good stuff. It's going to be great.

Yes. It's going to be great. All right. Do it. All right, let's let's talk about our boys. So the one thing that I'll say about the cracking in general is like, so I cover the Seahawks, I cover the Mariners. I'm just keeping it casual with the Cracken and I'm staying there and I like that.

You know, I've been enjoying just watching the Cracken as a fan and reacting just as a fan. I won't have to think critically about it. It's been great. However, I love roster construction. I love roster building. I love transactions. I love all that stuff. We talk about it all the time on Locked on Mariner's.

and my co-as Colby, we just love that stuff. I want to know, because the cracking are contending right now, they're in a playoff spot. Seasoning today, they're in a playoff spot. I know the deadline's coming up in a couple of months. What can we realistically look for? Considering where this team is right now in its development, a lot of young guys still kind of just trying to figure it out, you know, how this roster is ultimately going to come

together. But what do you do in a year like this? That's a great question. And it's something that I definitely have. have my inklings and my opinion on, but I honestly am not sure what Seattle's going to do. I have been saying anyone who listens to Locked on Cracken for like five seconds knows that I am not pleased with how we've constructed our defense. I do think we need some more dynamic defenders that can not only hold the blue line steady, but also are going to be more of what we see as

the trend in hockey, which is a little bit more of a spry offensive defender, but that can also defend in all three zones. And Seattle, when we find ourselves in a bad way, it's usually when we're flat-footed and when we're not covering up on the weak side, you know, or in hockey, you'd say, the far post. So those are things that I personally would like to see. The Seattle Cracken, you know, per cap-friendly. You know, we have roughly a million dollars of cap space. So we have that. We definitely have picks, as we alluded to earlier on the show that we can use. I don't know, though, that this team is at this point going to really focus on refining their defense, which is a little bit wild to me in the offseason last year, even at the trade

deadline. We really did focus on getting different forwards and dynamic pieces there so we could really be up on the attack. I don't know why personally, but I don't think defense is really top. priority. Another thing that makes it maybe a little bit difficult if we're looking not just for defenders, but on the back end, so including goaltenders, is that we have some goaltenders who haven't really been performing the way we expected, and they have pretty decent size contracts. So we're not going to be able to move Philip Grubauer anytime soon, even if we wanted to.

Chris Drieger might be difficult to move because he's not even available fully right now. He's coming off of an ACL injury. And honestly, Martin Jones, for the style that we play right now, it's my opinion that he's our best goaltender. So if we're a team that I don't think is ready to make moves defensively and we're not able to make moves goaltending-wise, I think it might be a like for like that maybe we're collecting either players or assets that we think we can then flip in free agency, which is exactly what we did last year. So no specifics. I do think if you wanted to look out for certain players, you have certain players that are on one-year contracts like my boy, Ryan Donato.

Donny. I love Donny Boy. In this house, we stand Ryan Donato. Absolutely. As we should. As everyone should. Absolutely. We stand Ryan Donato in this house.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, he's been fantastic for Seattle and they got him on, you know, a budget, in my opinion. Morgan Geeky. had a solid start, but we've seen that he has made way for Ellie Tolvinen, who he picked up on waivers. So I think it's going to be interesting to see what Seattle does. Again, my opinion, they need to find someone on defense, a really solid defender and someone who, you know, can really stabilize us. I do think that if we want to make the playoffs this year,

we have roughly a 90% chance. I think it was puck money. that put that out today, we have a 90% chance to just make the playoffs. So that's good as of right now. But, you know, that percentage of us winning a Stanley Cup is super small, less than 10% right now. And I do think that's because we can't, we can score a lot more than we could last year, but we're not able to necessarily keep other teams off the board. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know all about that. Yeah, no, I see like there's people, there's like deniers that the,

defense is bad and I see you dealing with it and like no I have look I don't like I've only been watching hockey for about a year and a half like actually like watching hockey and actually paying attention to it but I have two I have two eyeballs and I know like you know you should probably like if there's if there's a guy down in the slot you should probably like you know cover him probably yeah not let you should do that if he's like maybe maybe just don't let a guy just camp back door you know maybe just don't do that yes we we leave the back door just wide open. You know, my mom would be screaming if I did that.

You know, so you can't do that. I can't do it. But in this case, the puck's in. Like, come on. Can't have it. That seven to two game against the orleans is disgusting. Gross. That first period was awful.

It was terrible. You know, I'm glad that we got our revenge last night. Yes. Again, to pull back the curtain here. We're recording on Wednesday. But yeah. That was, that was nice.

That was nice. The for a goal period. That was great. It was good. And, you know, a phrase kind of came out of that, like, that we're a lunch pale team. And I saw that some people had no idea what that meant. But I was like, that's like, we're blue collar. We're hard workers.

And that's what it's going to take. And when you're a lunch pale team, everyone's got to be all in. And that includes defensively. And so we find success when we play team defense. But this is, if you're looking, if we're talking playoffs, and again, I had an episode, you know, are we pretenders or contenders? If we want to be contenders, we have to get serious on defense because other teams are going to be serious about scoring the puck. And we right now don't have a top 10 elite level score.

We don't have someone who before the halfway point in the NFL. But Daniel Sprong is not a top 10 elite level score. From, yeah, I know. Because from what I've watched, because what I've watched, he's the goat. Oh my gosh. Daniel Sprong is another one that I absolutely adore his story. you know, someone who we got at the trade deadline last year. He came in to camp on a PTO.

So he didn't even earn a contract. He had to come in as a PTO and then he earned a contract. So that's, again, that's lunch pail baby all day. That's how we play. But, you know, I think we can maintain what we're doing and not have that elite level score. In my opinion, we got to really get some defense. Because again, we don't have the capacity even if we wanted to move around goaltending.

So in my case, it has to come from the blue line. And so we'll see. We'll see what Seattle does. I would love to see it. Come on, Ronnie. Let's go. Ronnie. Ronnie, Ronnie, franchise.

Come on. Come through, boy. Ronnie franchise, the Ronfather. The Ron father, baby. The Ron father. I love it. Yeah. No, I do like what Ronnie Francis has done overall.

I do trust him. Overall, I trust him in the front office. They don't always make me feel comfortable, you know. But again, you know, we're just the, we're just the couch GMs. He's got, he's doing it for real. So, yeah, I think, I think we're going to be a really compelling team. It's going to be a grind if we do make the playoffs. I will be honest.

I did not have the team making the playoffs. I had us finishing probably six. and if we really pushed five in the Pacific Division, right now we're in that three spot, which means that we would make the playoffs. We really need to stay there and really try to avoid going into the wild card. Yeah, that would be preferable. But it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to after just coming off of one of the only playoff runs of my entire life,

as a Seattle sportsman, at least when it comes to the Marys, I'm very excited for the Cracken's first playoff run. Yes, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Give us more. We want Seattle deep runs. I got to cover the Seattle storm in their playoff run last year and this year as well. Of course, Sue Bird.

Now, that's one Seattle team that needs to tap into the youth movement. And we'll see if they can keep Stewie. She's a free agent this year time. Yeah, we got to keep Stewie. We absolutely got to keep Stewie. And, yeah, collect those draft picks. Yeah, exactly. We love draft picks here in Seattle.

love that this what we do in Seattle. Ciac's got four top 50 picks in the upcoming draft. Mary's got three top 30 picks. Cracking have like a billion picks. A million for like the next three years. What are we doing here? Come on. What's going on?

Fantastic. Well, Ty, this was a lot of fun. We're going to have to do it more often. We know that things are getting hot and heavy when it comes to, again, offseason moves in baseball. And soon enough, we'll have that trade deadline for the Seattle Cracken. But either way, We're looking forward to Seattle Sports in the spring and then certainly come January 1, 2024.

But Ty, Dane Gonzalez of Lockdown Mariners. Thanks so much for joining us. Let the folks know how they can follow you, especially those listening on audio, if they can't see your little information there on video. Yeah. Well, again, thank you so much for the invite, Erica. It was a lot of fun. I love talking hockey, you know, especially just being casual.

It's cool. It's nice. It's a nice change of pace for me, honestly. Yeah, everyone can follow me on Twitter at Dane Gonzalez, the C-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z. And you can check out my show, Locked-on Mariners,

with my co-host, Colby Patnode, on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast, just like you can get Locked-on, Cracken, Locked-on Seahawks, all the Locked-on Seattle Sports Affiliates. And you can also check out our Patreon. We talk even more about the Mariners, and I even talk a little bit about the Crackin on there sometimes and do my best.

Patreon.com forward slash control. the zone for that. Fantastic. And just for Mariners fans, of course, you can listen to Locked-on Cracken. We're part of the Locked-on Sports Network. And you can find me at E-L-L-Z-0-8. That's E-L-I-N-D-S-A-Y.

And so if you are a Seattle sports fan, including the O-L-Rain and the Seattle Storm, then make sure you're following me come the summer months, because I'll be keeping up with NWSL as well as WMBA. But that is all for our squad cast, first ever between Locked-on Mariners and Lockedon.

Cracken as we say over unlocked on Cracken we hope that you hold fast you stay true and of course we'll keep it general this time and say let's go Seattle go Seattle baby