Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Robbie Ray Finds Success With His Sinker in Mariners' 2-0 Loss to Red Sox

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode recap the Mariners' big series win against the Rangers, preview what's to come against the Astros and who Seattle could target with its first pick in the 2022 MLB Draft next month.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 | @CPat11 | @InsideMarinersFor more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Athletic GreensTo make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/MLBNETWORKBetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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 streak of four consecutive series victories has been snapped with a two nothing shed out loss of the Red Sox yesterday. But Robbie Ray looked pretty good yesterday. We'll be talking about that and more on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners. 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's Monday, June 13th, 2022.

And this is Locked on Mariner's podcast brought to you by Bet Online. Bet Online has you covered all season long when more props, odds, and lines than ever before. Bet Online is where the game starts. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. I'm Tidane Gonzalez. He's Colby Patnode. We cover The Mariners over at Inside the Mariners.com.

Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. Follow Inside the Mariners at Inside Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. This D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat 11. be sure also check out our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash control the zone. We typically post two additional shows on there every week and get into some bigger ideas and bigger topics, whereas Lockdown Mariners covers more of the day-to-day. With the M's, we also get into some non-baseball discussions on Control the Zone as well.

It's a fun time. So be sure to check it out. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash control of zone. If this is your first time joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly appreciate it.

Thank you so much for getting us to 1,000 subscribers. We really, really, really appreciate the support. Now, let's go get 2K. Why not? So we're going to be talking about Robbie Ray's start yesterday. We're also going to be talking about a couple of players that were recently DFAed that Colby likes for the Mariners. And the twins are coming to Seattle.

The Mariners obviously face the twins and split a four game set with them to open up this season. now they'll see him again. In Seattle, starting tonight, we'll get into that series, tell you all you need to know about that later on in the show. But first, the Mariners, of course, were held to just one hit in yesterday's loss. That sucked. It was awful.

It was completely brutal to watch. Despite having five of the game's hardest hit balls, the Mariners only had one hit in that game. Four of those resulted in outs. Just really, really frustrating stuff. Raphael Devers, of course, had one of the most absurd home runs you'll ever see. The guy hit a ball that was almost in the other batters box to straightaway left field. Just ridiculous stuff.

That's why he's an MVP candidate this year. But Robbie Ray looked really good in this game. Arguably his best start in a Mariners uniform. He goes seven scoreless, four strikeouts, just one walk. Only seven swings of misses, but the Red Sox were a little aggressive. in this game as well against Ray, and that's kind of become a trend here against Ray as well. There's been some pretty aggressive lineups going against him. But overall, it was a really, really strong outing for Ray.

There were some bumps in the road, of course, and some shaky defense from the Mariners as well that put Ray in a couple of predicaments. But he was able to work through it. And a big reason for that was that two-seam fastball that he reintroduced down in Houston in his last start. He used it 45 times in this game the most of any pitch, generated 27 strikes,

including 12 called strikes or whiffs, and generated five ground ball outs, including a key double play against Bobby Dalback with runners on the corners. So that was really working for him. And Colby, do you think this is a weapon now that he's found? Or is it still too early to tell?

Yeah, I'd like to see it a few more starts, but it is certainly, it's certainly a direction he's chosen to go. Teams are going to be aggressive with his fastball early. They're going to try and lay off the slider. Well, the one way that Robbie Ray can counter that is to throw a pitch that will generate weaker contact. The forcing fastball is pretty straight. It's not something that is going to generate enough whiffs.

It's 23.7%, which is okay for a fastball, but it's not a huge number. The slider is really the swing and miss pitch. So what the sinker allows him to do is it allows Ray to get weak contact because it's thrown with the same velocity as a four seamer. The readouts on it last, yes, last night were nearly identical. I think the difference in the max and the minimum between the two pitches was less than two-tenths of a mile per hour. So think about you have a 94 mile an hour fastball, which is pretty straight.

And then you have a 94 mile an hour sinker, which dives low and away from righties. And you can see the movement when he throws it. And he obviously was very comfortable with it. He got a ton of weak contact outs with that sinker yesterday. And so it just kind of looked like he decided that's what he was going to roll with. Because we didn't see the slider really hardly at all. It was mostly just fastball sinker. And the sinker, again, it got really good results.

and that's how you're able to go seven innings, you know, and give up or and just throw 93 pitches. That's pretty good. That's pretty good effort there from Robbie Ray. So I think it's something he's going to stick with for a little while. Eventually, he's going to want to get back to the slider. It's his best pitch. But it is something to show other teams, and now he's used it in back-to-back outings. The results on it have been pretty good for the most part. And I think the good news here is that he is definitely able to throw it

strikes and he's also able to kind of push it outside of the zone when he needs to to get that, that, you know, weak ground ball contact that he sometimes needs. And, you know, Robbie Ray's big issue so far has been the one big inning. You can't seem to get that one out or get that clutch double play ball. Throwing a sinker, you know, you can kind of avoid that one big inning because you can get two outs on one pitch. And we kind of saw him do that early. It reminded me a little bit of the Minnesota start. That was mostly fastball slider, but still kind of similar results where he didn't strike out a ton,

didn't get a ton of whiffs, but he got a ton of soft contact, kept his pitch count in great shape as a result. And anytime it looked like maybe there was a threat, he would induce a double player or a pop-up. And he saw this strike out in his back pocket. He had a pretty big one of J.D. Martinez in one of the only spots where the Red Sox

really threatened. So, yeah, he's still got to figure out the slider to take that next step. But the sinker is a viable pitch at the very least. It's something that he can throw in any count and it's one more pitch that the opposing team has to worry about. Yeah, and as you mentioned, you know, it helps him keep the ball on the ground more, which has been kind of an issue for him as of late.

And Robbie Ray, as you pointed out, I think on this show last week, used to be a ground ball pitcher, at least a little more ground ball inclined. Nowadays, it's just, it's mostly fly balls. and we've seen a lot of home runs come off the bat against him as well. He's, I believe, second or third in Major League Baseball right now and home runs allowed.

So having a pitch that can get the ball on the ground here fairly consistently, again, we saw five ground ball outs. There were even more that were put on the ground when it went and play. And that's huge for him. That opens up a different dimension for Robbie Ray right now. And something that, frankly, he desperately needs because the two-pitch mix, just wasn't working for him this year, straight up. The fastball, obviously, the velocity wasn't there to start the year

and hasn't really come around until lately over the last few starts, where he's now pretty consistently in the mid-90s. But it means the start of the year, he was 91, 92. That's not who Robbie Ray is. And that fastball is kind of straight. It doesn't really, you know, he's just trying to overpower guys with that. and he just really hasn't been able to this year. And the slider has been kind of come and go throughout the year as well.

So having this pitch, despite not throwing it for however long it's been, I think it's been five years since the last time he threw this pitch. Not having that in his repertoire for so long, it looks good. It looks like he's been using it for quite some time. It looks pretty natural to him. And again, like you said, the most important thing here is he's throwing it for strikes. and that's the name of the game. And he's throwing it for quality strikes as well.

He's getting the ball on the ground. He's keeping the ball low in the zone. And it's creating some tough situations for opposing headers. Yeah, it's kind of funny. Robbie Ray completely redid himself. He was a pretty groundball heavy guy, ground ball strikeout, which made him really appealing to a lot of the analytically inclined folks because obviously strikeouts have a zero batting average

and ground balls have a significantly lower batting average than fly balls and line drives. You look at early in his career, he came up, he was 55.3%, the next year he was 46.8, then 41.8, then 40.9, then 40.8. So really in Arizona, he was not ground ball heavy, but it was significantly higher. And you look at the last three years, 25 and a half, 37.3. And this year right now, it's at 37.4. So if he can get that ground ball rate back up into the low 40s, figure out the slider command just a little bit. It's just a little bit off on the slider.

You look at the heat map, the slider, there's a good chunk that is elevated. You want it down below the strike zone. There's a pretty significant chunk that's kind of up a little bit above the strike zone, but in the middle of the plate, and that's the issue. So you can get back with that slider, continue to work on the sinker in the meantime. He can get back to, you know, what he was probably in 2017, which was pretty good.

And honestly, I know the ERA says it's not true and the strikeout percentage needs to be better, but he's not all that far off from where he was last year. His XERA last year was 360. His XERA this year is 394. Robby Ray has been okay overall. I know people think it's the worst contract the Mariners have ever signed. It's not even close. Ray's been okay.

He needs to be better. He needs to be more consistent. but he's actually been okay so far yeah for sure and um sorry we had a little bit of a mic issue there um with uh with uh restream which we record on but it happens it happens you know i'm sure if you're watching this you you know all the technical difficulties that we uh we deal with but uh so it goes so it goes when you're working with technology but yes it's uh it's been a good a good little turnaround here for for ray and hopefully he can keep it going and this dates back pretty much to those last couple of

innings in Houston as well when he was starting to throw the pitch. So last nine, ten innings or so for Ray have been good. So we'll see if he can keep it going. Next start will be against Anaheim on this homestand, so it's going to be a

difficult lineup for him to face but one that is obviously dealing with some injuries right now. So a good chance there for Ray to keep this little hot stretch that he's ongoing. So the Minnesota The Twins are coming to town. We are going to be talking about this upcoming series in just a moment.

But real quick, a reminder, this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I started taking Athletic Greens because I just don't have the time to research every single amazing thing that's going to make my body feel great. And I'm sure neither do you. So what is athletic greens? Well, with one delicious scoop of athletic greens, you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right. This special blood of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, and aging. All the things that it only costs you less than $3 per day.

You're investing in your health and it's cheaper than your cold brew habit. It's lifestyle friendly, whether you eat keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, or gluten-free. And for every purchase, I've let it greens, donates to organizations helping to get nutritious food to kids in need, including no-kid hungry here in the U.S. Right now, it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition. It's just one scoop and a cup of water every day. That's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health.

And to make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit Athletic Greens.com forward slash MLB Network. Again, that is Athletic Greens.com forward slash MLB Network to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. And just a reminder, the ultimate.

NBA mock draft starts June 16th here on the Lockdown Podcast Network with over 50 insiders, nothing equals the ultimate NBA mock draft. Again, first pick is June 16th. Search Ultimate NBA mock draft and follow now so you don't miss a pick. The Minnesota Twins are off to a really nice start here in the early going of the season. They are 13 games over 500. They are in first place of the AL Central. sorry they are eight games over 500 read that wrong but they are eight games over 500 they are three games ahead of the guardians for first place in the a l central and they are playing some really good ball right now

and uh chris archer going on the bump tonight for the twins against the mariners i'm sure we all know who chris archer is it's been a weird few years for him some injuries obviously got traded to pittsburgh and that uh or sorry to uh yeah to pittsburgh in that weird weird weird deal that's in awesome Meadows and Shane Pass to Tampa. That was not a great trade by Pittsburgh, but Archer is back. And he's been okay. He's thrown 44 in a third innings this year. 690Ks per 9.

426 walks per night, though. He is walking guys quite a bit. 365 ERA, but that is paired with a 492 FIPP and a 526 expected ERA as well. So there is certainly an opportunity here for the Mariners offense, but as I'm sure we all know, it doesn't really matter who's on the bump when it comes to the Mariners' offense. And particularly, whenever it's a pitcher that offers a pretty favorable matchup to the Mariners, that's when you have to be wary of what the Mariners' offense might end up doing, just like it yesterday against Cutter Crawford, who had a combined ERA of 747, I believe,

entering yesterday's game between AAA and Major League Baseball, shut them down, held them to one hit in that game. So who knows what the Mariners are going to do in this game offensively. But we got Chris Flexen on the bump. Flexen, of course, has been wildly inconsistent for the most part. There will be a game where he looks great. He gets the job done and then some, and then there's going to be a game where he just implodes,

gives up four or five runs and just isn't competitive whatsoever. So again, just like with the offense, don't really know what you're going to get tonight out of Chris Flexen. But this is a twins team that is going to be very dangerous. Byron Buxton has been incredible as of late because, of course, he is. He's one of the best players in baseball. He's already been worth a win through the first 12 days of June. Jorge Polanco is on a nice little hot stretch.

Carlos Correa is back from injury and he's hitting well. Luis Arise is still doing Luis Rice things. A couple of openings in their lineup right now. Max Kepler is struggling right now. So is Gary Sanchez, but still this is a lineup that is talented through and through. We of course saw them at the beginning of the season and they gave the Mariners quite a tough time. Ended up splitting that series. The Mariners jumped out to a two-0 start.

So Colby, I'll ask you this. What do the Mariners have to get done tonight? to defeat the twins they have to either score more runs than the twins or allow fewer either one works i'm not picky um but yeah you know it it's archer's had an interesting year he's only gone five innings twice not more than five innings five innings total twice he's never gotten a 16th out this year um and he's been pretty good in his last two outings one against detroit one One against the Yankees, five innings in each outing, give one earn run in each outing. So he's on a little bit of a role here.

Of course, the outing before that, he went four innings against Kansas City, gave up five runs. So, you know, we'll see. But, yeah, it's pretty much, you know, you're facing a number five starter in all reality here. And Chris Archer, he doesn't, he's not going to miss a ton of bats. He does walk guys a fair amount. That's a pretty elevated walk rate. The stuff isn't amazing. It's going to be pretty fastball slider heavy.

Mostly slider. It's not great command. It's not great control. Archer is a guy that the Mariners should put some runs up against. But, you know, he did hold the Yankees to one in his last outing. Yankees are probably the best team in baseball. So it's a little bit of a mystery. You never know what you're going to get with the Mariners.

and you really never know what you're going to get with Archer, but he's not going to strike out a ton of guys. The velocity's gone. The guy who struck out, you know, 10 guys per nine. He's not around anymore. Archer is basically Chris Flexen at this rate. He's a, you know, four, decent five who can dominate on occasion, but more than likely is just going to be four or five innings,

give up three, four runs and turn the ball over to your bullpen. So, yeah, you have to get on Archer early. let him settle in. He's only going to go five innings, right? So you have a chance to get after the Twins bullpen, which isn't great, but obviously they have some killer arms. I think we all know who I'm talking about. So yeah, you want to get to Archer early. Get out to a lead, get Chris Flex in a little bit of breathing room, and just let him attack this lineup. So you got to get on Archer. The dude is a number five at best. And the Mariners, lineup while it's not good, it's good enough that they should, they should handle most number

fives, particularly one whose stuff has been pretty mediocre so far this year. Yeah, you under Rand, the guy that you were alluding to. He is nasty. He's one of nastiest pitchers I've seen in quite some time, quite frankly, if we're being honest about it, that inning that he threw, his first ever career inning against the Mariners was just ridiculous. I wasn't even mad. I was just, I was impressed.

I was just very, very much impressed. I saw this team recently in person. And if I could base my scouting report off of that one game, I would tell you the twins are just absolute trash because they lost that game 12 to 3. Dylan Bundy got smoked by the Blue Jays. But of course, the Blue Jays are very good at baseball. And Carlos Correa was also not playing.

in that game so that also might have had an impact as well but it was yeah 123 Blue Jays defeating the twins in that game that was a not a very fun game to be at I mean fun if you're a Blue Jays fan but if you're just there to just watch some ball it was so so

but yeah hoping that we see that that twins team that version of this twins team in this series rather than what they've been pretty much outside of that game don't let Byron Buxden beat you. Yeah, that's pretty good advice, I would say. Yeah, also Louisa Rice. Best hitter in baseball, nobody talks about, well, one person was talking about them before this monster year.

But, you know, just saying, just saying. Yep. Me and Brandon Warren, the president and vice president of the Luis Arise fan club, y'all can still join, but there is a processing fee now. You should have gotten in on the ground floor. Yeah, well I mean, I like Louise arise. I do.

I never said that I didn't. Did you though? I didn't. I never said that I didn't. That should count for something at least. No. No. Look, man, just because you came up with an idea doesn't mean you own the rights to it. I'm not threatening to sue anybody, so you know.

Shout out to anyone that's been reading my Twitter today. You've, uh, you've probably, seeing the fun that's been going on today. Anyway, we're not going to be focused on that. Instead, we're going to be shifting our focus to a couple of names that were recently DFAed. Colby likes both of them for the Mariners. We're going to be talking about them in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown, Mariners is brought to you by BetOnline. Betonline.net is your number one source for all your betting stats and sports info. Find all the latest sports developments, news and odds, including this year's basketball championship matchup, the NHL Hockey Conference

Finals, Major League Baseball, and of course, all the latest fighting news from MMA and UFC to boxing. Bet online is your continued source for all your sporting way, sporting, wagering information, including live betting, e-sports, and more heads of the website today. Or use your mobile device to learn more about the trends in action. Bet online is where the game starts.

So a couple of Chicago teams, DFA, a couple of players that you like Colby. White Sox DFA'd your mean Mercedes, Mercedes over the weekend. And then the Cubs, Diffade, uh, Clint Ferrier. as well. So you've talked about these guys on inside the mariners.com. You wrote an article about them today. Go check that out if you're listening now or watching. And yeah, both of these guys, you have at least a modicum of interest in from the Mariners perspective. Let's start with Mercedes, who of course, you know, exploded onto the scene last year, was off to an amazing start. He was in the rookie

of the year conversation, all this stuff. And then Tony LaRusa publicly dragged him, being the crotchety old man that Larissa is, publicly dragged him for breaking the unwritten rules, celebrating a home run, pimping a home run, up late, you know, up big, late in a game, et cetera, whatever. We don't have to go over at all. I believe that was in Minnesota, actually. But he publicly shamed him. And then after that, Mercedes went on a dry spot.

and was demoted to AAA and contemplated retirement. I believe he even announced on Instagram that he was retiring and then changed his mind. But now he's been DFAed. He's technically a catcher, but not very good behind there. And not very good at first base either. He's pretty much just a DH type. What more can he tell me about Mercedes and why do you like him for the Mariners? Yeah, defensively, Mercedes is the guy that some Mariner fan

think Luis Terenz is behind the plate, like just doesn't belong back there. But yeah, it's interesting. It wasn't for pimping a home run. It was because he had the audacity to swing 3 and O to pitch thrown by Will and Austadillos in a blowout game and hit a home run.

What's interesting about that is that Mercedes, after he hit that home run, was slashing 363, 417, 571, in about 150 plate appearances. After Larusa made his comments and basically apologized to the twins for his player hitting a home run, he at 150, 222, 196 in about 118 appearances, played appearances. So look, is it easy to say Larusa just, you know, sap the joy out of this guy and that's why he struggled? Sure.

Is it also possible that, you know, the 28-year-old rookie at the time? you know, just had a really good success and the league started to figure him out. You know, that's also possible. So I don't know which is the truth. I would imagine it's more of the latter. But, you know, the fact that this guy was riding high for the first two months and then Larissa did what he did. And then all of a sudden he's, you know, retiring or contemplating retirement.

This is a guy who might just need a change of scenery. I think he can hit some last year he finished when you combine the two-half. is basically of his season. He had 271, 328, 401. It was a 120 WRC plus. That's pretty respectable. Mercedes, you know, as you mentioned, the issue here is the fielding. Don't want them catching.

Don't want them playing first base. You're pretty much going to ask him to DH. But the Mariners don't have a DH right now. They're carrying Sam Haggurdy on the roster and not using him except to pinch run, which is weird, but whatever. They're also carrying nine relievers. They do have an open roster spot. Justin Upton's not doing anything in AAA of note.

Kyle Lewis hasn't even started baseball activities yet, and he is going to require rehab stent from his concussion. And you kind of look at what Mercedes did at the very least against left-handed pitching last year. He had 339, 386, 523. D.H.M. against lefties, you know, put Dylan Moore, who's starting to hit lefties a little bit. out in right field and all of a sudden you have a decent platoon advantage whenever you face the left-handed starter. That's something worth carrying for a little bit, at least.

And if he doesn't hit, you haven't lost anything. And we should also mention he has a minor league option. So you don't have to put him on the 26-man roster right away. Right. It's just a free claim. You know, he's got to get through the AL first. I believe the Mariners are the sixth worst record in the AL. So they have a shot.

They have a shot to claim them if they want. I suspect the whole, I suspect the lack of defensive versatility will prevent Jerry from looking at him. But I would rather have him as my DH, particularly against lefties, than I would even Justin Upton. But it does seem like they are committed

to getting Justin Upton to the big leagues no matter what. And that might even happen today. We'll see what happens with that. still time for them to make some roster moves ahead of tonight's game. We expect that Ken Giles is going to be activated at some point here in the coming days as well. By the way, kind of off topic, but with Giles, did he make his last rehab? Not that I've seen, no. Appearance yet? Okay.

Because apparently he was supposed to make one more before he gets activated. So maybe that comes tonight, maybe that comes tomorrow. Who knows? And then he'll get activated. All right. so Frazier obviously former Yankee the subject of a very common meme

with Miguel Anduhar about you know just trade those guys for Mike Trow trade them for you know Byron Bucks and etc but Frazier has been a good player at times but recently he's dealt with some injuries including a concussion that has led to some

migraines that he's been dealing with some vision issues overall he's been dealing with for the last year or so. And that's pretty much correlated with his recent struggles as well. That pretty much lines up perfectly with him kind of just falling off the face of the earth. He's been bad for the most part here over the last year, year and a half. But 2019 and 2020, he was pretty good. So you have long been the leader of the Clint Fraser fan club.

least the Seattle division of the Frazier fan club. So now accounting for everything that's happened to Frazier over the last year or so, what are your thoughts on him? Why do you still like him? Why do you still believe in him? Well, we can start with

the fact that he's a 27-year-old former top five pick who is a plus athlete and has a major league track record of success. I don't know why I need to say more than that. He plays a position you desperately need bats in and yeah i mean i know the injury thing is is part of it and you have to take that into account but the you also have to take into account that he played for the yankees and the yankees did not give fraser the time of day that he deserved um and he felt he had earned he

wasn't happy with the yankees he felt like they were constantly you know choosing erin hicks and breck gardner over him despite the fact that he was pretty productive when they let him play um and he played 108 games combined between two thousand eight games combined between two 2019 and 2020. He hit 267, 347, 497, 497 with 20 home runs. In 2020, he was even 79th percentile in outs above average. He was 93rd percentile based on ball percentage. He had the best chase rate, as in the lowest chase rate in Major League Baseball in 2020, 100th percentile.

He found the barrel. He hit the ball hard. He took his walks. Yes, he's going to strike out. That's part of his game. But he's also a really good athlete who's got plus power, who's not going to chase outside of the zone, which allows him to draw plenty of walks. And, you know, he's even shown that he is a good defender in a corner spot. And there's still a lot of upside here.

He's only 27. You know, sometimes it just takes finding the right organization to kind of jumpstart things. And I would suspect with Frazier playing, you know, in the outfield, he's better than Justin Upton. And that's not even a debate right now. He's the guy who could stick around long after Kyle Lewis comes up. And the fact that he walks over his last three years, he's posting a 15% walk rate. And granted, that's a small sample size because of the injuries like you mentioned. But he's walking 15% of the time.

And he's going to strike out roughly 28% to 29% of the time. But you're going to get power. You're going to get, you know, in theory, you should get pretty good defense. At least the last time he was healthy, he gave you. pretty good defense. And I just, I think there's upside here. And I look at this and I go,

Clint Frazier playing right field and batting. Seventh is a lot better than Clint Frazier or it was a lot better than Dillan Moore batting sixth in playing right field. It's a legitimate. It could be a legitimate play. That's, that is late game hero Dillamore to you. I mean,

congratulations to Dillemore for hitting the 93 mile an hour fastball. That was. teed up down the middle of the plate he hit it hard good for him but yeah the guy went to go ballgame and you won't even geez i did i did all i said is the pitcher threw him a cookie and he hit it good for him we oh my god it was the most amazing piece of hitting i've ever seen it was raffaul debor's ask get out of here it was literally a 93 mile an hour fastball down the middle of the plate and he hit it hard good he did his job i'm happy for him but fraser's better climp fraser's a better player he's a better fit for this team. And he's young and he's talented and he just he has a major league track record

that Dylan Moore can't even sniff. Neither can Sam Haggurty by the way. He's been driven Justin Upton when he's been healthy the last few years. So it's like what are we doing here? We're not going to go after Clint Fraser because we're worried about Kyle Lewis maybe getting back someday. Get out of here. Well, that's the thing too, right? And I just wrote about this on Inside the Mariners. I ranked you know, some of the Mariners positional names, I put Corner Outfield as number two. Because, you know, and also I'm taking into account, cost of acquisition, you know,

some other circumstances that go into it as well. You know, catcher would be a lot higher if, you know, the market wasn't a total barren. Yeah, if it wasn't a barren wasteland, catcher would probably be number two. But, you know, corner outfield is a very big spot for the, for the Mariners.

Because like you said, Kyle Lewis is going to get healthy, but it's likely that he's not going to get, that he's not going to play in the outfield at all this year when he does get healthy. And then you're also relying on Mitch Hanager to get back on time and to produce at a relatively high level immediately. Because you kind of need him to.

Yeah, because you pretty much need him to at that point in the season because that's the latter half of the season at that point. Time's running out. You're going to need it's really now or never at that point for Mitch Hanager. So those things

and also Justin Upton is not your savior. We've talked about this. The guy has significantly regressed over the last three seasons. So you need to take shots in the corner outfield. Taylor Tremel has regressed over the last six or seven games. So that platoon with Dillamore not really working out for you. There have been some contributions

here and there over the last couple weeks, but that is too inconsistent of production to get from your corner outfield spot, particularly in right field. And on top of this, Jesse Winker is still kind of jogging in place right now. So, you know, both

of your corner spots are just not producing at a level that you need them to. Like you said, those are two places that you absolutely need offensive protection from, that you need bats in. And they have really supplemented that loss of production elsewhere along the roster either. So it's pretty much you're going with the typical holes that you, that any team or most

teams usually have on the roster, you know, catcher is not going to be a big offensive spot for like 28 teams. And then, you know, the, you know, second base has been kind of come and go for the Mariners here with Adam Frazier and Toro and those guys have kind of got, you know, Fraser's had some hot stretches here, but he's also been really cold as of late. So, you know, you pair the corner outfilled spots with a couple of those spots as well. And it's just you, you're, you're subjecting yourself to having multiple black holes in your lineup on any given night.

You need to just take some shots here until the trade deadline gets closer. And teams started getting more willing to actually want to trade with you. So while Clint Fraser might not be the, um, the fix for the whole season. He might be a good enough bridge to get you closer to the deadline when maybe the Orioles are willing to listen on Anthony Santander, or whatever. Right. Right. Also worth pointing out, Frazier does have a minor league option left somehow.

That's crazy. Really? Wow. He's been in the big league's five years. He's spent time going up and down from the minors all five years. And he still somehow has an option left. that's so I thought you only get three what what I I don't and I think if I'm not mistaken he has three years of clip control left so

wow I don't know I'm saying it right now Clint Fraser is this year's Jake Bowers heck yeah yeah um if wishing made it so but I feel like I just have to admit that Jerry de Poto just doesn't like Clint Frazier yeah which I mean does make me look down on Jerry a little bit because it's pretty stupid but you know it is what it is sometimes guys like other guys i just i feel like fraser was pretty much done dirty by the yankees and i feel like the mariners are a supportive team with the right people in place who can kind of help him assuming health which who knows uh but they can really help him kind of reaches his ceiling and again he's only 27 he doesn't turn 28 until you know mid september he could be michi aner i'm just saying yeah

All right. Well, on that note, 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 Tad de Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow Inside the Mariners at Inside Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, C-A-N-ZL-Z and Colby at C-Pat 11, that C-PAT-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every day.

Now make your second listen to the day, Lockdown MLB. That's where Paul Francis Sullivan and please call him Sully brings you his unique perspective on the major leagues president passes free wherever you get your podcast just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day. We'll see you tomorrow. Peace.