Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Reacting to the Mariners' End-of-Season Press Conference

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Yesterday, the Seattle Mariners had their end-of-the-season press conference and people really seemed to care. Colby and Ty discuss some of the bigger topics of discussion including Jesse Winker, the willingness to chase the free agent shortstops, and what the plans are for the starting pitching and bullpen. Plus Cal Raleigh has been named a finalist for the 2022 Rawlings Gold Glove! All of this and more on today's episode of Locked on Mariners!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/RhoneThe Commuter Shirt can get you through any work day and straight into whatever comes next. Head to rhone.com/LOCKEDON and use promo code LOCKEDON to save 20% off your entire 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.

The Mariners are officially in on the four big shortstop set to hit free agency in the coming weeks. We'll be breaking down some of Scott's service, Justin Hollander and Jerry DePoto's comments from yesterday's end-of-season press conference here on the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. It is Thursday, October 20th, 2022. This is Titing Gazzalus and Colby Patna out for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen.

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. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description below. On the show today, we'll be going over some of the biggest notes from yesterday's end-of-season press conference for the Mariners, including the Mariners' official declaration that they're in on the free agent shortstop market, why Jesse Winker was away from the team during the postseason, and more. But first, we've got to start with some fairly breaking news that came out about an hour or so ago. Most of you have probably already seen it.

But Rawlings today announced the finalists for all the Gold Glove Awards, and the Mariners have one finalist at Catcher. Cal Raleigh, yes, Big Dumpur, has been nominated as one of the three finalists for the Gold Glove Award in the American League for Catchers, along with Sean Murphy of the A's and Jose Trevino, of the Yankees. So Colby, what do you think about old big dumpers' chances of taking home some hardware here? Pretty good, but probably not going to happen. I would assume, well, I mean, I would assume that the Yankees is going to win it

because the Yankees just win everything when it comes to these big awards. Derek Jeter has a gold glove. So, yeah. Multiple, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. The worst defensive shortstop. in the Hall of Fame has gold gloves. So it's not even that qualifier.

One of the worst defensive short stops of all time has multiple gold gloves because he's a Yankee. So yeah, I'd probably say Trevino is probably the favorite and Murphy's already won at once. So it's not going to be an easy, you know, an easy hill mountain to climb for Cal Raleigh. But he was great. You know, he ranks very highly in the in the framing metrics. He was, I think, first or second in the American League and caught stealing throughout 27. and 28 guys. You know, it's just he was great at blocking the ball and all that.

And it doesn't hurt that he had an amazing offensive season because as much as we want to pretend that the gold glove is all about defense, we know it's not. And I can tell you that just by pointing to Louisa Rice, who was nominated for first base, gold glove. And I think he only played 65 games there. So, yeah, offense matters when the gold glove conversation. and I think Raleigh might have had the best year out of any of them. I don't have the numbers in front of me. I know Trevino was an all-star, and Murphy's obviously very good, but I still think Cal was probably the best bat amongst them.

But if I had to guess, I would probably say it goes to, I would probably say Cal finishes third. And it really has nothing to do with the merit of his argument. It's just because I think one's a Yankee and the other one's already won a gold glove. So that's pretty much all that she wrote. Well, and also, if you want to go by Fang, Graff's defensive war, which it's hit or miss

for the most part. Jose Trevino was number one in all of Major League baseball with plus 29. Cal was second, but at plus 18. So that's a pretty steep cliff there. He was tied with J.T. Real Muto of the Phillies. Sean Murphy was all the way down at 6 with 15.

Jonah Heim, who wasn't nominated, actually finished ahead of Murphy by 0.1. But so if they're going by fan grafts defensive award which they're not but if they're going by that Raleigh would be second yeah a few years ago

they uh they let the SIS whatever thing just basically hand out the awards for them I don't think they're doing that again this year I think it's it's back to like a boat of some kind so I think they only did that for the COVID season so yeah you know

it is what it is I don't care that much about gold gloves it'd be cool if Cal 1-1 you'd be the first mariner catcher to win one which you know mirrors don't have a super long history of like elite defensive catchers but Dan Wilson never won one when he retired I don't know if it's still true

Dan Wilson had the highest fielding percentage of any catcher in Major League Baseball history I don't know that's still true yes now granted catchers don't you know a pass ball I don't think is an error or anything like that so you know it's they don't throw to bases that often so but yeah he was there and then Zanino.

So Raleigh is definitely deserving to be here. It's a bummer that the A. E. Hino-Swaris didn't get nominated. I feel like he's definitely deserving, especially when you look at Ramone Urius, really. We're doing that. But then again, hey, Luis Arise was nominated at first base, and he didn't even play that much first base

relative to the rest of the candidates. So, yeah, gold glove awards are probably the least valuable award. They give out just because they're hardly ever about defense. They're almost always about the bat. Let's see here. So I'm trying to see if you're right about Dan Wilson. I don't think I put in the right settings in here for that. So that'll be something that I'll look at later.

But yeah, going back to what you were saying about what they were using during the COVID season, that was the Sabre defensive index. And looking at the defensive index, the last time it was updated, they've rarely updated. It takes forever for them to update it. The last time they updated it was August 28th. and Trevino was number one in Sabre defensive index rating at plus 11.1. Adley Ruchman was number two at plus 7 and then Raleigh was number three at plus 6.7. So he's definitely deserving to be nominated and like I don't like when I say it will probably go to the Yankee.

I don't mean that's because he doesn't deserve it. It's just that's just kind of how these awards go. I mean, Yankees nominated. Yeah. They typically get it. Yeah, so, and then you were talking about Ramon Ureus. He only played 98 games at third base this year. I mean, let's be honest.

The award's going to Chapman anyways, but like, come on. Which is silly too, because he had like his worst defensive year. It was still a good year, but like relative to Matt Chapman, he was not like, he was not a surefire like gold glove, even platinum glove like contender. Like he typically has been in the past. Like he was just, he was fine this year. some good plays made some highlights all that stuff but just not like the numbers the defensive numbers that we come to expect from match haven i feel like we spend way too long on the gold glove stuff yeah well uh we do like we do have stuff to talk about from the press conferences but i think all

of it is like pretty quick uh but there's obviously some stuff about the uh the middle infield market uh jesse winker there's a little bit of an update the mayor is given their set of the story on that front. Most of it just kind of dancing around the question, but I think there is a couple of interesting nuggets on that. And some other stuff on the pitching, how they're going to approach pitching in the off season. So we'll get into all that real quick, though. I just want to remind you that this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Rhone. We all know that when you look good, you feel good, but sometimes looking good means putting on uncomfortable fitting clothes that don't breathe and limit your mobility. The dress shirt, in particular,

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It's time to find your corner office comfort. You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listens. Colby, let's get into these comments from Justin Hollander, Scott's Service, and Jerry DePoto, who held their end-of-season press conference yesterday at T-Mobile Park. And they talked about a lot of stuff. There's some injury news. there's some talk on the offseason approach, just some reflection on the year.

But let's start with Jesse Winker, actually, because this was something that we talked about a lot on yesterday's episode. Ryan Devish, of course, went across the, he did some radio hits, talked about Jesse Winker in a really negative light, basically painting him as being more or less lazy during this season. And that that wore thin on teammates. and of course on top of that there was some you know there was obviously the the note on him not being at uh for the or he wasn't present for the postseason for the mariners at all for any of the games he was apparently invited to game three of the ALDS wasn't there uh but the mariners have have clarified why that was Jesse was apparently in New York getting a knee procedure done and is set to have a neck procedure done as well.

And basically just said this is being blown out of proportion that Jesse had been dealing with especially the knee situation. And apparently that really was impacting him as the season went along. And it got worse as the season went along. And so that going hand in hand with just his overall struggles at the plate and his overall frustrations kind of led to every. that happened. And they seemed like they were pretty open to the idea of him coming back in 2023. But do you think that's just, you know, protecting the player, protecting the relationship,

not, you know, giving away too much information? Or do you think that's actually a valid point here and that maybe this is being overblown a little bit? Nothing that Scott's service, Jerry DePoto, or Justin Hollander said yesterday matters at all. It doesn't. Because you could tell me, oh, well, he was getting the knee. operation in New York. That's why he wasn't at the playoff thing. Couldn't have waited three days to get the knee operation. Of course he could have. He didn't want to be there. That's why he wasn't

there. It's that simple. Scott's expecting Scott's service to throw a player under the bus after, you know, that that player had basically gotten thrown under the bus by, you know, himself. I mean, let's be honest, but Divish's reports kind of bring that out to light. He's not going to sit there and go like, well, yeah, you know, Divish nailed it. Like Jesse's got a lot of things to work on and he was just bad this year and we don't like him anymore. He's not going to say that. So the only thing that was said yesterday that really carries any weight to me whatsoever is just the injury updates. I don't care about anything else. Jesse Winker was bad.

And the Mariners aren't going to sit here and say he's bad because they're not going to do that. Why? Because the Mariners never throw their players under the bus, right? They don't do that. It's bad business to throw players under the bus unless they do something that is, you know, outside of the scope of baseball that is so terrible that you have no choice. but to do that. So, yeah, the whole like, oh, well, Jesse really wasn't with us because he was having the knee surgery. He could have done that at any time this offseason. If he had waited three days, it wouldn't have mattered. Jesse Winker wasn't in uniform as part of the taxi squad or whatever. He wasn't on the line for introductions.

He wasn't there because he didn't want to be. That's a fact. Like period. There's no reason he had to get the knee done when he did. So let's just use common sense here. He wasn't there because he didn't want to be. Do I believe Scott when he says, oh, yeah, no, we think Jesse could be a problem. part of our plans in the future, sure, because we talked about that. That makes sense that there's a scenario where Jesse Winker does make sense coming back to the Mariners. So, no, I think that's just protecting a player. I don't see any value to the idea that, you know, oh, no, he really stuck his neck out for

Jesse Winker. No, he didn't. He just did what he would do with any player. So, no, I don't think, I don't think Divish made that up, which is more or less kind of what Scott was saying, Scott. Jerry and Justin is well we're not calling Divish a liar but like he he doesn't

have the whole story and they're not wrong Divish doesn't have the whole story but I still trust Ryan Divish on that front without question there's an issue in the clubhouse with Jesse Winker and that's not something that the Mariners can ignore they can pretend to ignore it but they're not going to yeah I mean it does

make you wonder if because I would assume that whoever told Divish about this stuff and maybe it's also just him using his eyes eyes and his ears, right? But I would assume whoever maybe gave him a little bit of a window into what's going on there and how the clubhouse feels about Jesse was a player. But how much of that is just the player's own personal feelings and how much of that is

actually reflective of how the entire clubhouse feels towards Jesse. So who knows, you know, at the end of the day, we're not there. We don't know. And we're never going to know. We're never going to know what the full story is. with these, you know, situations. But I think, yeah, you know, at the end of the day, I think what Scott Service and company were saying yesterday

about Jesse in particular, which is kind of protecting the player because, like you said, they're not going to throw guys under the bus. That's what good teams do. That's what respectful organizations do. They don't air out dirty laundry to the public, especially in those kinds of settings. Right. Not to mention, if you go out and say, yeah, this guy's a clubhouse problem,

what are the odds anybody's going to trade for? that's true too right right and like that's the other thing you know jerry saying like you know we think that jesse's great hitter and that he's going to be able to get back on track next year part of that is also you know probably trying to sell it to other teams that are going to be or at least or at least not giving the other teams the ammunition to be like well even you think he's a bad hitter now like yeah it's just about protecting the player and protecting your your asset too because as much as we don't want to think about players as assets They are.

Right. So, you know, at the, you know, because we, we talked about it yesterday that, you know, you right now as things stand, if you're going to trade Jesse Winker, you're probably not going to get anything that's really that valuable in return for him. And you're probably going to have to eat some of that $8.25 million that he's out this year. So, um, you got to try to protect that as much as possible if you know that you are more than likely going to be trading him this off season. So I don't think really what, what they said at. in the end matters too much. But yeah. So the one thing to take away from that, though,

is that there was a knee injury that was impacting them throughout the course of the year. And then the next neck thing started to crop up towards the end of the year. And so that certainly allows us to kind of understand at least a little bit of what's going on or what was going on with him this year and why he wasn't performing to the peak of his potential. So some other injury notes. Andres Munoz is having a foot procedure done. This was apparently a thing that was impacting him for a good portion of this season. And because of this, they are likely going to not, they're likely not going to ramp him up in spring training until a little bit later on into spring training, Jerry said. So he might get a late start once we're in the spring training.

And that shouldn't alarm anyone. It seems like he's still on track to be ready for the regular season. but he just might get into the swing thing, swinging things a little bit later. But not really anything of concern, it seems. Cal Raleigh, they confirmed he has a torn UCL in his thumb, has a piece of the bone shipped off. He's going to see a hand specialist.

I think Cal right now is on vacation and doing stuff right now, though, and then he'll get all that taken care of it, but I don't think there's anything that's impacting him. And then J.P. Crawford was also dealing with a knee issue, but the he wasn't one of the big injuries that that Jerry talked about. He said anything else that he didn't mention was minor. And then later on he mentioned the issue for Crawford. So I assume that was minor.

So speaking of JP, that was kind of the big thing. Or JP was kind of involved in the big thing to, or the big takeaway from the press conference that the Mariners more or less officially declared that they are going to be in. on the big free agents at shortstop. But Jerry said ideally the plan is for them to add a shortstop, at a shortstop who is willing to move to second base because J.P. Crawford is their shortstop. Now, that's likely just him saying that to say that, right?

Just like, you know, JP's our guy because J.P. is the one that's there and they haven't made any decisions and they haven't actually, you know, gotten into negotiations as far as we know with any of these short stops. But should we read more into that, Colby? Is he doing the same thing as last year? And that J.P. is just guaranteed the shortstop role because I don't think that should be the case at all. I don't think J.P. should be guaranteed that role whatsoever.

Or is this just, you know, saying it for the sake of saying it? I hate this part of the offseason. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if he said, well, we hope one. of these short stops will play second. Who cares if he says that or if he doesn't say that? Okay. But like last year, like it was a real thing.

Like they were not willing to move J.P. Crawford off a shortstop for any of the guys. If it's a real thing this year, they should all be fired. Like it's that simple. You do not leave talent on the table for J.P. freaking Crawford. So yeah, one of them is willing to move to second base. Great. Now we can keep J.P. happy.

And by the way, if it means that much to J.P., you should trade him. It's a position. all right it's shortstop versus second base and by the way you're going to have to pay one of these guys to be your shortstop as if he is your shortstop so if you're paying for a second baseman like he's a shortstop you're losing money on that end of the deal you just are so i i just i don't care he's ideally yeah well great jerry what if carlos craye comes to you and says yeah i'll sign but i'm only going to play shortstop you really think jerry depot is going to be like well sorry you have to play second base of course he's not of course he's not and the fact that he didn't come out yesterday and just say jp

our shortstop end of story. He didn't, right? He left it open. He said, well, ideally you play second base, but you know, we'll see. Like, that is a wishy-washy. That is a way of saying like, oh, well, we trust JP to be our shortstop while acknowledging that he has to get better there. He knows that. He knows he has to get better up the middle. And again, I don't know what people are expecting. Like, yes, JP will be our second base and we're absolutely going to go get a better shortstop than JP Crawford. You don't know that. He doesn't know that. He doesn't have any idea if he's going to be able to land a shortstop better than J.P. Crawford. They're out there and the fact that he's acknowledged that, yeah, there's some guys out there

that were really interested in. And he wouldn't say specifically, like, oh, and, you know, they're going to play second base. Said ideally they'd play second. Remember last year? Last year was Trevor Story. If he's signing here, it's to play second base, period. End of story. We knew that.

He didn't say that this time. So I just, I don't care it. The whole idea that, like, oh, because he didn't 100% say J.P. Crawford has to play second base next year. It means that they're not going to go after one of the short stops. He literally said the opposite. They're interested. They're in.

If one of those guys wants to play second or is willing to play second, they probably get the priority. Aren't any of those guys going to be willing to play second? I mean, maybe Trey Turner since he's already done it, but I think that's it. I really don't see Xander Bogarts or Dansby Swanson or Carlos Craig. I'm like, yeah, I'm sure. I'll move to second base for J.P. Crawford. Come on.

Like, Crawford's not even that good. Let's just call it what it is. J.P. Crawford is an above-average shortstop. He's at-best league average bat, and that's when everything's going well for him, which it wasn't for the last three months for the regular season, and maybe that's the knee issue. He had a peck issue

that he was also dealing with, but J.P. Crawford's not a good hitter. He's average, right? He's pretty much an average player across the board. He's a good player. He's a useful player. He's a valuable player. He's not a player that Jerry DiPoto and Justin Hollander are going to look, you know, Carlos Correa dead in the eyes and say, well, you have to play second base,

so we're not going to give you this money, even though you're willing to sign a, you know, a market value deal with us. And all we have to do is move JP over. And again, if JP has a problem with that, he's a bad teammate. He's not the captain you think he is if he has a problem with that. So I just, to me,

I don't care about anything that those guys said yesterday. I don't. Do you think they're going to come out and say, oh, well, we plan on being very aggressive on Carlos Correa or Dansby-Swanson. Of course they're not. Of course they're not. No, but I think, I think saying that, hey, we are really interested in their market, I think that does mean something because you don't just publicly say that if that's not actually true.

If you don't actually think that you can feasibly land one of those guys. I think that is important to say that because, you know, we know, like even though that they're not supposed to be talking to agents and all that, let's be real about it. They are. They have talked about it. They have set those expectations because that's what good business is. And so in those preliminary discussions, I think that they have been. you know, told that, that, you know, these guys have interest in coming to Seattle, at least a

couple of them. So they think that they have at least a decent chance to land one of them because why else say that to the public? Why set expectations if you don't know? So, and Jerry, I know Jerry sometimes gets into a whole thing of, you know, saying too much. And, you know, the Mariners fan base kind of dislikes that, that side of Jerry because he does, he is very open. He's a lot more open than than a lot of other general managers or, you know, baseball execs. But at the end of the day, like, I think him saying that means that they actually have some information there that they are, that they are in the running, that there is a legitimate chance that they can land one of those guys.

I don't think Jerry, I think the part that people are kind of freaking out about is the, like, what he said, best, best case scenario, ideal scenario, whatever, whatever terminology used, is we get one of those shortstop who wants to play second. And I think people are looking at that and saying like, oh, so that is a public commitment

to J.P. Crawford at shortstop. A, it's not. And B, who cares? Like, you realize Jerry can say, oh, yeah, we think JPs are a shortstop.

And then sign, you know, Zander Bogarts. And it'd be like, well, you know, JP's a great teammate. We think you'll be great at second base.

And Zander just helps us more at shortstop, blah, blah, like, of course you can change, like change direction it's not that hard so i just i don't like it when people take everything that's said at this type of press conference is gospel and honestly nothing was really said that surprises me so

yeah i don't these type of press conferences they they bug me because nothing gets said and yet everything gets uh blown out of proportion everything gets you know its own segment right is we got to go reaching every one of the comments with a fine tooth comb and figure out what's real and what's not, just assume none of it's real. Like what happened yesterday that changed anybody's thought about how the Mariners might approach the offseason? Anything? All right.

Let's just talk about the pitching here. So the, he was asked, he was asked about the pitching. Jesus. They was asked about the pitching and, and, you know,

because obviously, and this is going to be something that you and I talk about a lot over the course of the off season. The fact that they had just remarkable health in the, in the rotation. They only used like six or seven pitchers. throughout the entire season as the phone is going off. That's lovely.

This show is going off. The rails right now. So, yeah. So, you know, he acknowledged the, Jerry specifically acknowledged the, you know, the remarkable health and all that and how that's likely not going to continue in 2023 that they're going to have to safeguard themselves. So firstly, he mentioned Emerson Hancock, Taylor, Dahlard, Bryce Miller, and Brian Wu as part of.

of the 2023 depth for the starting rotation. So that's interesting that Brian Wu was mentioned along with those guys because he's someone that just started pitching this past season. And then he also mentioned guys like Adam Mako, but more so in terms of like in the future down the road type of thing, not really next year. But he said that pitching is not their first focus this off season. It's going to be about the lineup, which we knew.

We knew, right? Like that makes the most sense. Pitching is their strength right now. they need to get better offensively. So that's going to fall on the back burner. I don't think that that necessarily rules out adding another, you know, number five starter type to compete with Marco Gonzalez or Chris Flexen if he sticks around. There is some thought that I believe it was an athletic article.

I saw something on Twitter that said that Flexim might actually be willing to opt in if the Mariners are willing to trade him somewhere that he can actually compete for a starting job. Right. Right. I saw that there was, I didn't read the whole thing, but there was basically the idea was that several playoff contenders apparently approached the Mariners eager to trade for Chris Flexen this summer. And the Mariners, because they didn't really have the rotation depth, decided they needed a safeguard. And so they kept flexing. But I think there was an idea that maybe you could actually pair Flexin and in a good prospect and get a big upgrade in your lineup out of it is basically. basically the idea. Yeah.

So, you know, at the end of the day, like, they need to do something with the rotation because they cannot just rely on all their guys to stay healthy, especially at the top of the rotation. Like, they need guys that can make spot starts. And, you know, Jerry said, like, there aren't going to be a lot of guys that are interested in coming here and being relievers and just kind of waiting for the opportunity to start. And that's true. Yep.

Like, they're not going to be able to sign, you know, Tyler and the equivalent of Tyler Anderson or whatever and just stash him in the bullpen and to, like an injury crops up. Like guys aren't going to be jumping for joy to do that in free agency. But, you know, there's going to be obviously some minor league ads that are made. I'm just really interested to see how they kind of handle the whole Marco Gonzalez Chris Flexen situation. If Flexen does opt in, is that automatic that they do trade them? Or do they go to Flexen and say, hey, we're actually trying to trade Marco Gonzalez?

And if we trade him, then you're probably going to be our number five, at least to start the season. which I hope they do better. Yeah, I really hope that they do better the Marco or flex and, you know, the Marco situation is going to be really interesting because he's going to start to make a little bit of money now that he's in that part of his contract extension. Right. And so they might need to eat a little bit of that in order to trade him. They're probably not going to get something really valuable for him. But if they don't foresee him as someone that can improve and get out of this little funk that he's been,

in the last couple years and they don't think that he can give him any value out of the bullpen, then he needs to go, right? Because they're not going to just waste a roster spot on Marco Gonzalez. They're not going to do that with the position that they're in right now. And with the upside of guys like Emerson, Hancock, Taylor, Dollar, Bryce Miller, etc.

Like, they're going to, they're probably going to want to prefer or they're probably going to prefer to give those guys opportunities over someone like Marco because, I mean, look what George Kirby did for you this year. Like what Logan Gilbert's been able to do for you right out of the gate. I mean, expecting that for many of those other guys is a lot. But Hancock's just, I feel like there's like this idea that Hancock is just going to like explode onto the scene like Kirby and Gilbert kind of did. But I don't think he's that guy, at least not yet.

Things could change. You know, it's a long way to spring training. And we'll certainly see him in spring training. Did you find it interesting at all that he didn't mention or at least. I didn't hear him mention Matt Brash as possibly being a So he was asked about it. He was asked about it. So he said that ideally he just he, well, he doesn't really think that there's going to be a path for him to start right now as things currently stand.

But if they, he said that if we move away pitching pieces that that could be an option for him. But he thinks that Matt really likes coming out of the bullpen. And he talked about how he had a similar discussion with Edwin Diaz. and that yeah it just seems like it might be for the best for for for matt to pitch out of the bullpen I just kind of wonder if uh if that's not like a precursor to be like we might move him like you know what I mean because the bullpen's in really good shape and obviously brash is is a big part of that and he would be going forward as well but the fact that you're like not even considering like you're not even telling him like hey stretch yourself out you

never know you might be a starter. First again, I, to me that means that they might be going around shopping Matt Brash is like a high leverage reliever, a young controllable high leverage reliever and they might be going like, he likes pitching out of the bullpen. He's great there. You know, he's got all these like, I don't know. And that's going to be worth something, especially to contenders. High leverage arms are expensive. Did Brash do enough to be a high leverage arm to be considered a high leverage arm. I think he maybe did, right? I, I like he, he pitching a lot of big spots and he came through more times than not. So, I don't know, just interesting to see what they decide to do with Brash. I think he's kind of one of those like surprise, could get traded type of things. Maybe it's

for a rotation arm. Maybe it's for a corner outfielder or maybe Jerry Depoto and Scott Service and Justin Hollander. Maybe he's their next Edwin Diaz. There's nothing wrong with that. And they decide to deep brash and kind of build a bullpen around him and Munoz, great. Like, there's no wrong answer with what to do with Matt Brash. I just thought it was interesting that. Yeah. He more or less was like, no, Matt Brash isn't a starting pitcher.

So. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he didn't rule it out, but he kind of ruled it out. So. It's a lot of GM speak. Like, yeah. Yeah, a lot of GM speak. He still controlled that that press conference, by the way.

Like, Justin did speak. But, like, it was. it was Jerry show. It was Jerry show. It's going to be like that's just like when Jed Hoyer and Theo do a, did a press conference, right? Theo spoke. And Jed mostly sat there and nodded like, yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's Jerry is still very much in control of this organization. But Justin is going to play a massive role and he already has. So. Yeah. Justin is also nowhere near as open as Jerry is when it comes to speaking about stuff. Justin is very much like rehearsed. just normal GM speak. Yeah, he's just like he was asked about, you know, how do you want to build this offense and like, you know, what's something like you think that you need to add to the offense? And he's like, yeah, yeah.

He was just like, you know, the thing that I learned from Jerry is that there isn't one way to build an offense. So, you know, we're going to be open to everything. And I'm like, okay. All right, cool. So I can fast forward through this part. Yeah, I'm going to get in the room with our guys. We're going to grind it out, turn over every stone. And try and get creative as a way to, you know, build out the rest of the

softens. It's like, okay. And you know, we're in on everything. We're in on everything. Yeah. Yeah. 100 yards, 100 yards, 53 and a half by 53 and whatever, blah, blah, blah, all that nonsense. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. No time to sleep. Yeah. That's why I love these type of press conferences. I watch every single one. Even the Pete Carroll ones. Like, yeah. Oh, man. You learn so much from these. I mean, we're fired up. We're jacked up. Yeah. So, yeah. I think like synops. there were some injuries that are getting taken care of. We're open to adding one of the short stops.

We'd like them to be second baseman, but dot, dot, dot. Yeah, pitching probably going to look pretty similar to what we saw last year and to wrap it all up. But we're open to everything. We're open to anything. We're open to anything. Yeah, exactly. Typical press conference for the most part.

Also, the bulk comment. Of course, the bulk of the roster. is already the 2023 roster is already here. Like, of course, like, if, if they add six new players, right? If they keep, if they bring back 20 players, that's bulk. And you still added a significant amount of, like, there's still a significant amount of turnover there. Like if you just add six new players. Like 75% is a bulk, right?

But 25% turnover is still massive. It's still big. So, yeah, I don't know. like did people honestly think that the mayors are going to bring in like 18 new guys like well there were definitely people that were like oh god they're doing nothing they're going to do nothing they're already setting us up for that and that's why i hate these press conferences more than anything because those people find their way into our comment section on youtube and they find our way into twitter and we get to deal with them and we're going to have to deal with you guys

enough eventually anyways because yeah we'll get to that later we're not announcing that today but yeah no we're not announcing that no you are not I am holding off on that as long as I possibly can then you you better mute my mic because here it comes no no no but uh no that that's the main reason I don't like these press conferences because everybody just like every little word he says is instead of if like you know what I'm like oh my god it's it's a federal investigation it's like let's calm down let's see how the off season plays out we will react to every new every bit of news every rumor, every idea that you can possibly think of, we will react to it. I'm just not ready to freak out on October 20th because Jerry said, if the shortstop is willing

to move to second base, not he has to. Like, oh my God, we have to stop the presses for that. Please don't. J.P. Crawford is guaranteed to be the 2023 starting shortstop for the room. Yeah. All right. So we're done with that. I know I said yeah I know I know I know I know you made it very clear that you did not want to talk about this and I expected that it's on me it's on me at the end of the day

yesterday I know that we said that or I know that I said we were going to do more awards but the press conference happened after we recorded locked on I didn't know that was going down yesterday so that kind of changed things for us and so we'll get back to doing awards tomorrow but yeah for now that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast for Colby Pat node. I'm tidying Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-ZL-Z and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's CPAT-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 the Lockdown MLB podcast MLB expert Paul Francis Sullivan brings humor, passion, and unique perspective on every team and the biggest stories around the league. Follow the number one

daily league-wide podcast, locked on MLB on the Odyssey app YouTube and wherever you get your podcast just like us. And with that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day. We'll see you tomorrow. Peace.