Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Seattle Mariners Finally Offer Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller CLARITY + Mason Peters Joins the Show!
Episode Date: May 28, 2026Ty and Colby react to Mariners brass meeting with both Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller about the piggyback situation then visit with prospect Mason Peters. Click to learn more about the Everydayer Club...! Join the Ahoy, Sailors Discord server! Check out our Patreon! Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolby Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY Get candy-flavored chaos with Fruity Rainbow 5-hour ENERGY®️ Shots - available online at https://5hourENERGY.com or Amazon. RugietGet 15% off your treatment → https://rugiet.com/lockedonnhlRugiet. Performance medicine for men. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at https://Indeed.com/podcast KALSHI For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code LOCKEDON to get ten dollars when you trade ten. Kalshi. Trade on anything. Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel.Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get one-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins.Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
The piggyback will continue, though.
It seems like Luis Castillo, Bryce Miller, and the organization might be more on the same page this time around.
We'll talk about that and then we'll be joined by Mariners pitching prospect, Mason Peters.
Colby, hit it.
You are locked on Mariners.
Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast.
Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day.
Ahoy, Sailors.
It is Thursday, May 28, 2026.
My name is Tadine Gazzalas, and I'm joined as always by my co-exam.
host Colby Patnode on today's show.
I'll sit down for a quick visit with Mariners pitching prospect, Mason Peters,
and talk about the fantastic start that he's gotten off to in his pro career.
But before we do that, there were multiple articles posted yesterday,
which gave us a behind the scenes look at what's been going on between Luis Castillo,
Bryce Miller, and the Mariners organization regarding the piggyback situation,
the piggyback drama, if you will, and the frustration we've seen from both Castillo.
and Miller during this whole thing.
Now, as we both speculated on the show a couple days ago, Colby,
it seems at the core of both Castillo and Miller's frustrations
has been a lack of communication and clarity from both the front office and management.
So according to reports, not only did Dan Wilson and Pete Woodworth meet with both pitchers to better lay out the plan,
but Jerry DePoto also met with them.
And afterwards, DePoto said, quote,
while still not an ideal situation,
I am confident that we were able to more clearly communicate
the current situation and plan moving forward.
And according to both Daniel Kramer and Adam Jude,
I'm not sure if anyone else reported this,
but I know these two guys did.
Both players were reportedly positively receptive
to those conversations.
Now, that's according to an anonymous club source,
which could be Jerry DePoto.
It could be Justin Hollander.
It could be Dan Wilson.
Who knows?
right and at that point
I'm not sure if I'm
really willing to buy that
yeah I'm not sure if I'm willing
to buy in on the idea of Cassio
and Miller being super receptive but
they both could have hated it but like
the front office or the man whatever
they're not going to come out and be like
oh you know they did not warm up to that idea
so now we're kind of back
it didn't go great like no
they're going to be like oh they loved it
they're totally on board
of course they're going to say that so
now at the very least
we do have a lot more clarity than we have had in the past
leading up to some of these piggyback outings
going into what is going to be the next turn
of this whole thing on Sunday
against the Arizona Diamondbacks
Bryce Miller is going to start
and Luis Castillo is going to come out of the bullpen
for that one. So we know that
a few days in advance. Obviously Bryce and Luis
know that a few days in advance which is different
than what we've seen in the past.
with this whole situation where, you know, of course,
Bryce after the game on Monday said that,
you know, he had only found out that he was going to be the one coming out of the bullpen
just a couple of days beforehand.
So at the very least, this puts the,
both of those guys in a better position to ramp up for that outing.
And they actually know, you know,
what their routine is going to look like going into that game with a couple of days,
at least more to prepare.
So that's great.
And hopefully they are more on the same page now.
But still, I mean, you have to wonder why, you know, as the Maris have now owned up to,
like why the, you know, communication was poor to begin with, you know,
through the first couple turns of this piggyback situation and why it had to take Luis Castillo
getting caught being frustrated on camera and Bryce Miller saying what he did after the game on Monday.
for the Mariners and their you know they're brass to tackle this head on with those guys you know at the very
least i'm glad that that jerry specifically met with these guys because this obviously comes from the top right
this is a this is a jerry depoto directive right and i'm not sure if he had talked to these guys
beforehand about this.
But it's good to see that he's not just letting
Dan and Pete handle
this that he himself
face to fit, you know, met with these guys
face to face. I think that needed to happen
a lot sooner, but at least it's
happened now. So
hopefully
this leads to something better
this situation. But what do you make
of it? Yeah.
Kind of having to
read between the lines and just
based on, you know, obviously not having a ton of information.
My assumption here, based on kind of the timeline of all this, is that Jerry and Justin
in the front office, they kind of decided this was the best path.
They told Dan Wilson, this is what they were going to do.
And they left it to Dan to communicate it to the players that were involved.
And obviously, Dan didn't do a very good job.
Maybe he tried, but he obviously didn't do a very good job.
otherwise Luis doesn't do what he does.
Bryce doesn't say what he says.
Like, you know, it wasn't communicated well.
Whoever was in charge of the communication, they didn't do a good job.
Or they didn't do it at all because, as we know, Bryce said he only learned that he was coming out of the bullpen a day or two before, you know, the piggyback was scheduled to start.
That's a problem that these guys don't know.
Like, these are starters.
Their week is very regimented, right?
So if you're going to try this piggyback thing, it would make sense to have their build.
up to this piggyback be very regimented as well to keep them in the same kind of pattern and
routine so it really was a failure across the board like every everybody above the players
like everybody above them the manager of the coaching staff the front office just complete failure
across the board that this was not communicated properly until you know after the second time
through uh this is a it's a delicate situation as you know jerry said it's not what we want to do
It's not like ideal, but we think it's the best thing we can do in a weird kind of situation.
But it's not, well, it's not our plan.
Like it's not what we wanted to have happened, but it's just what happened.
So, you know, acknowledging that, you know, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here.
This is just kind of out of what we feel is necessity.
It's the best of a bad situation.
Cool.
But you got to get the players.
They don't have to necessarily be on board with it, but they have to understand.
it and that should come from, you know, the head honcho of the organization, which is Jerry
to Potto in this case, from the baseball side of things. So the fact that I'm assuming Jerry didn't
talk to them until he had this little separate meeting after Dan and Pete talked to them.
That was a mistake. Jerry needed to be in the conversations with Dan and with Pete when they first
decided to do this. And I don't know, maybe Jerry wasn't of it. I don't know, whatever, who cares,
right? But it was very. It was very.
Real quick, I want to read this bit from Daniel Kramer's article, if you don't mind.
He said, quote, this leads to the obvious follow-up.
Why wasn't the communication aspect of this piggyback strategy more deliberate earlier?
Some of it ties back to the situation being in beta, even if the front office had mapped out its likelihood as far back as six weeks ago.
After all, when Miller was activated from the IL and the Maris had six healthy starters for the first time, they deployed a six-man rotation that first time through.
It's possible that they go to a six-man rotation again.
What's the schedule, Titans?
and they have fewer off days because again they do not intend to move either miller or castio to the
bullpen full time nor do they intend to send anyone to the miners some of it bluntly ties back to
wanting to keep everyone involved content though those efforts may have had a backfiring effect
try to make everybody happy you make nobody happy yeah and so yeah it just it's a it is a weird
situation there's not exactly a blueprint for this but i think at the very least
Luis Castillo has earned an honest conversation from his manager, from his pitching coach, from his GM, everybody, because Luis has been an absolute warrior for you.
And his acquisition, I contend, single-handedly ended the rebuild.
Like that was the day the rebuild ended, was the day they acquired Luis Castillo.
And he's been huge for you.
And yeah, you know, it hasn't been a great start this year, although he's looked really good, his last three times out.
But and so like look, I'm not saying they shouldn't move him to the bullpen because they owe him anything.
No, but what I'm saying is what they do owe him is honesty and transparency about what their plan is.
And they didn't do that.
And by the way, we shouldn't overlook Bryce Miller on this.
He doesn't have the track record of Luis Castillo.
But he's a big part of what you want to build.
He's kind of the guy who's going to take the reins to the next, you know, the next wave of prospects.
He's going to be here for a while.
At least that's what we think.
And so you have this guy who's a huge part of your future.
and you have this guy who was a huge part of your past and you're kind of not screwing them but
you know what you kind of are and you didn't have a full like a plan i would more so put it as like
yanking them around yeah you didn't have a plan to communicate this more clearly before it happened
even though you knew this was a very good possibility that this was the type of thing was going to happen
apparently according to kramer like to me they focused so much on the baseball aspect of it and
how to make it work from a baseball perspective.
They forgot about the human element of it.
And that is a, you know, that's a damning mistake.
Because, yes, you know, I want my front office to be analytically driven.
I want my managers to make analytical decisions.
I want them to trust the numbers.
I want them to, you know, use common sense.
But you have to remember that the players are players.
They're humans.
Yeah.
Right.
You don't play this on paper.
You play it out on the field.
Feelings are involved.
you know and sometimes you try and do these things in in the mind of like well it's what's best for the team
and again it's worked I mean statistically it's worked very well and you're also doing it with
specifically two guys that have performed at an incredibly high level right louis cassio is
pitched in a ton of big games Bryce Miller you know just pitched in a couple of really big games for you
in the ALCS yeah really good yeah so there's also that right there's obviously
the competitiveness that comes with any professional player in any sport.
But again, you're coming off a year in which both of these guys were a big part of your deep postseason run.
Yeah.
So, again, like it, part of you wants to give the Mariners just a little bit of leeway here because, again, this is not something that a lot of teams do.
This is not something that, you know, they set out to do at the beginning of the year, right?
This wasn't the plan or anything like that.
So they kind of had to figure it out on the fly, but also at the same time,
it's just a breakdown of the human element of baseball where you need these guys,
again,
they don't have to love it,
but you should have enough respect for both of them to lay it out there very clearly,
very plain as day.
This is what we're doing.
I know it may not seem fair to you guys.
I apologize for that,
but like this is what we think is the best thing that we can do to, you know,
win games and to keep everybody in the rotation healthy and to save the bullpen a little bit.
You know, and we we respect you guys and we think that you will perform in these roles because you care about your teammates and all that.
Like you just, you have to have the human element involved when you make, you know, managerial or strategic decisions.
You still have to factor in the humanity of it because you're not doing this on a computer screen.
You're doing it with real people.
So it is, you know, I think just very poorly communicated obviously.
and I guess, you know, good on them to take steps to try and fix it.
But also, like, this is not an unforeseeable problem that cropped up in terms of neither of these highly competitive athletes liking being benched, essentially, without knowing which one of them was going to get the start every time through.
So, yeah, it was an abject failure.
Again, kudos, I guess, for trying to take steps.
But did they really have a choice after Bryce said what he said, after Louis showed them?
motion that he showed like I don't think they had much of a choice but to try and get this right and
you know we'll see. Luis is a pro. I know he's not happy, but he's a pro and, you know, obviously
so is Bryce and, you know, kind of the funny element is that Bryce and Luis are like really good friends,
very, very good friends, which is, you know, they're kind of the odd couple of the rotation,
but they're very good friends. And so I'm sure this is, you know, a little bit hard too because
Bryce or Louise feels a little guilty that, you know, they're taking a blah, blah, blah.
So there's a lot of, a lot of human element to this that I just think the Mariners either
ignored or they just expected Louise and Bryce to, they'll figure it out.
They'll tough it out.
And, you know, there's always the people like, oh, you're making your money shut up and go pitch.
And it's like, yeah, no, no, that's not how it works.
Because you work a job and you get disrespected, the money really doesn't matter all that much.
Like, you're still going to be upset.
Yeah.
You're still going to be annoyed.
And you're still going to be angry at your boss.
for not communicating things.
So, yeah, you can't remove the human element,
even with the large salaries, even with the, you know, whatever.
You can't expect these guys to be egos and to, you know, just roll,
especially when they feel like they're getting screwed and they don't know why.
So just a really poor job by the Mariners all around.
All right.
Well, moving on.
Let's visit with potentially a future member of this Mariners rotation,
Mason Peters, Mariners' fourth round pick,
in 2025. That's coming up in just a moment. But first a reminder, this episode of the
Locktime Airs podcast is brought to you by Ruggiet. The NHL playoffs are here where every shift
matters, every moment is intense and the pressure is at its highest. And just like performance
matters on the ice, it matters off the ice too. That's where Rougiet comes in.
Rousieette offers treatments designed to help you get ready and stay ready when it matters.
Their top option, Rousieette Ready combines clinically proven ingredients in a simple,
that dissolves under your tongue.
It works fast, often in about 15 minutes,
and can last up to 36 hours.
And they also offer go long designed to help with both performance and control.
It's all about confidence and feeling like yourself again.
Head to ruggiat.com slash locked on NHL and get 15% off your ED treatment.
That's RUGIET.com slash locked on NHL for 15% off.
Ruggiette, performance medicine for men.
And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network,
your team every day.
Thank you so much for making us your first listen for all things, Mariners.
And also thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network.
Don't forget to check out the everyday or club for ad-free episodes and access to a group chat
with me and other listeners of this show.
Tap the link in the description or go to Lockdown Mariners.
com to learn more.
All right, let's visit with Mariners prospect, Mason Peters.
All right, really excited about who's joining us right now.
He's currently dominating down in low A inland Empire, fourth round pick by the Mariners out of Dallas Baptist last year.
Mr. Mason, Peters, Mason, thanks for hopping on.
How's it going, man?
Of course.
Good.
Good.
Happy to be here.
I'm really stoked to have you on today.
You know, my co-host and I have talked a lot about you on this show.
you know, we're big fans of your pitching profile and, you know, what you're doing so far down in the minors.
So our listeners at the very least know your name, but I think they'd love to know more about you.
So let's start there.
You were born in Texas.
You stayed in Texas for school.
What was life like for a young Mason Peters before, you know, professional ball became a possibility?
Yeah, born in Texas, had the opportunity to grow up on some land.
And so it's really the big part of who I am, hunting, fishing, everything.
fell in love with it.
Got to go to, well, actually out of high school, didn't have any, any offers.
So I went to junior college, and then from there, worked my way to Dallas Baptist,
and then climbed the ladder again, was able to get drafted by the Mariners.
What would you say sparked your love for the game?
I'd say my dad.
I think just being able to catch with him in the backyard, that's a pretty common answer, I think.
but yeah, I fell in love with pitching specifically,
I knew that's what I wanted to chase through high school.
Now, there are a couple of Mariners rivals in the state that you grew up in.
Did you just so happen to grow up a fan of one of those teams?
I was a Rangers fan.
Okay. All right, all right.
But no longer, no longer.
Did you get to go out to the ballpark in Arlington a lot?
Not a lot.
It's two or three hours from me, about two and a half.
But I've definitely been in a few games.
I fell in love with just professional baseball in general.
Got the chance to play there this past year with Dallas Baptist,
and it's obviously always a surreal experience getting a step on a big league field.
Did you have a favorite ranger growing up?
I don't know.
It was really, honestly, my dad was.
That's a diehard Cardinals fan.
Oh, how about that? Okay.
Yeah, a little bit of a switch up.
So I would say Belcher for the Rangers and probably like Wainwright for the Cardinals or Molina that time period.
Nice.
Well, you know, Mariners Broadcaster, Aaron Goldsmith grew up in St. Louis.
So you'll have something to talk about with him once you get to the bigs there.
But, you know, is there anything maybe you nerd out on that maybe, you know, people,
would be surprised to hear?
Like outside of baseball?
Yeah, just outside of baseball.
Just anything else?
Kind of a big gearhead.
I like cars.
My grandpa's big into cars.
And so that's definitely a passion of mine.
Nice.
You got yourself a ride?
Yeah, I do.
I have a forerunner.
And so hopefully fit right in up in Washington.
There you go.
There you go.
So what if the last like 10 or so months have been like for you?
Obviously, you get drafted in July.
You come into this marriage organization, which has earned itself a fantastic reputation for being able to develop pitching.
How much did you know about the mayor's organization and what have you learned about them now that you've been in the organization?
And again, just like what of the last 10 months been like for you?
Yeah, I knew that they were knew that they were kind of like the top when it comes to developing pitching.
And so I was really excited to get to work.
Getting here in this past fall, just getting to be.
the guys and kind of go to like we went we were here for draft camp for a little bit and then came
back for a for lifting camp and kind of get to walk side by side with some of the some of the
prospects and some of the guys that are are some of my best friends and there's a lot of talent in the
clubhouse and so getting to see the coaching staff all the guys that they have pouring into us
there and I'm a big nerd on the analytics like I love that side of the game and so to get to
kind of to listen and learn about all that the Mariners do.
It's amazing.
Like the systems that they have in place and how they teach.
And so it's been really eye-opening, really freeing for me to pitch kind of with just taking the results out of it.
Like I'm not pitching for results.
I'm pitching for what I know how to do and my process.
When you got to camp this spring, were there any big leaguers who maybe took you under
their wing or at least you know some guys that you saw in camp that you were like whoa that's
yeah that guy like whoa i really i really wasn't around too many of the big leaguers um seeing seeing
i think uh it's definitely a transition you get there and seeing those guys in the same weight room
um that there's a realization it's like oh but those guys they're they're here it's real like it's
time to go yeah so how are you feeling about the season you've put together up to this point
because I mean, you know, I'm just looking at your raw numbers right now.
Just, you know, 1-740 RA, 314 FIP.
You know, you're striking out 13 guys per 9 right now.
You're not really walking anyone through your first 31 innings of pro ball.
I mean, you look at the Mariners leaderboards just across the minor leagues.
It's some combination of you, Kate Anderson, and Ryan Sloan,
and the top three of basically every statistical category.
I've seen, you know, I've noticed that a lot of national prospect people have also started
to pay attention to what you're doing. It's, it's really cool seeing how quickly you've,
you, you've made a name for yourself in these circuits here. So just, you know, what do you,
what do you think about what you've been doing? And, you know, what do you, what would you say
has led to the success so far for you? Yeah. I think kind of what I hit on earlier, just like,
um, coming into this season was going to focus on the process, was going to win the O's,
win the one-ones and I won to punch tickets. And that's my goal. Whenever I step on the
I'm going to control what I can control.
As soon as that ball leaves my hand, like I don't have control.
And so that was really freeing mentally.
And to kind of get to maximize what I do well, so the Mariners poured into me about spin,
like spin is my strength.
And so I'm always going to pitch around the curveball.
Like I'm going to set things up with the curveball.
I'm going to finish with a curveball.
And then it's going to make it harder for hitters to stay on the other pitches.
And so adding it, adding a kick change has.
definitely help my profile. I think for
whenever hitters are sitting in a scouting
meeting or whatever it is, to have something that goes the other way
has helped me a ton. Just to keep
a little bit more off balance, mix and match.
So you mentioned the kick change. That's something that we've seen
the Mariners start to develop with some of their guys at the big league
level. Andreas Monios is a guy that recently added
a kick change, Matt Brash.
For those that are not exactly sure, like
what a kick change is and how kind of
of that differs from like a regular changeup.
Could you just like quickly just kind of go into that process?
Yeah.
I'm a heavy supinator.
And so I would assume those guys are,
I know for sure Brash is a heavy supinator.
It gets really hard for me to flip my wrist over and pronate for a changeup.
And the feel is just,
it's kind of elusive.
So with kick change,
it would be spiking,
spiking your finger on it.
And so you actually cut the change up.
and the spiked finger is the last finger to touch the ball,
and it'll kick the axis the other way.
So my whole thought process is that I'm throwing essentially a slider,
a cut, my wrist is in the cut position,
and that finger will kick the axis,
and it'll actually run back the other way like a change-up.
I think it's a free, it's kind of like if your hand position allows you to throw it,
then you can kind of pick it up and throw it.
I think it's probably a pretty hard one to just teach.
And then you mentioned your curveball, which...
Yeah.
It's great. I'll just tell you. It's great. I've seen it. It's, it's, yeah. I'm a big fan. And my, and my co's, Colby is, he's a big fan of, of lefty curve balls. Barry Zito was his guy, you know, growing up. So yeah. For those watching, well, I asked you if you had a ball before we, we started, but you don't. But could you get into like your grip on the curve ball a little bit still and just kind of talk us through.
or take us through your process with that pitch
and maybe how it's developed over time?
Yeah.
I've kind of always just had it.
That was my out pitch in high school
through junior college through Dallas Baptist.
I do a pretty standard grip.
I do kind of position my fingers like I kick around the bottom waist.
So there's a lot of tension between the two.
Whenever I started doing that, my spin rates went up quite a bit.
started to get a little better action on it.
And so getting here, also developing a harder slider,
I don't want to throw at like 85, 87.
It's been, it's obviously, it's still my pitch.
Some of that I'm still fighting the battle on not allowing it to get too horizontal
because sometimes throwing multiple off speeds,
like they can blend a little bit.
So I would love for that to be in the negative 13 to negative 15 vertical,
kind of a straight downer.
A little bit of what it's going to be.
Yeah.
You're making your next start tomorrow.
What does a normal start day routine look like for you?
Yeah.
Get to kind of take the morning slow.
I'm married and so I'll make breakfast with my wife.
And then get to the field.
Usually have pregame meal, pregame meal there, go into the meeting,
just kind of go over the scout report,
who we're facing, kind of just being aware of what their approaches, what their weaknesses are.
So I'll sit in there with the catcher and Sam, the pitching coach, and kind of a game plan,
and then go roll out for 30 minutes, do some movement prep, and then it's game time.
Go out there in the field and get the bullpen and roll.
Not complicated.
I got you.
You got like a pre-game play.
or like a pre-game meal you really like?
Not really, honestly.
I'm kind of, I definitely have been superstitious in the past.
And so I decided to not allow myself to be superstitious.
So I kind of take things up.
Yeah, I feel you.
I feel you.
All right.
Lastly, do you have any personal goals you're trying to hit either this year or just as a whole?
Yeah.
I want to throw 70% O-O strikes.
and that's a pretty
high goal, but
something I want to chase, I know that
like establishing that first
pitch strike is
one of the keys to success. So
I'm going to pound that and that's going to be my goal
every time I step on the field.
How many times would you say you've heard the term
control the zone or dominate the zone
since joining the Mariners' organization?
Probably over a thousand.
But they get the point.
And that's it.
That's when I'm on the mound, that's all I want to think about.
So it's, yeah.
And it sounds like you're doing a great job of it so far, man.
It was great meeting you and great chatting with you.
You know, thanks so much for doing this.
Good luck the rest of the season.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
And you're listening to the Locktime Marins podcast, part of the Lockdown
podcast network, your team every day.
As always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show,
we have a Patreon.
It's called Control the Zone.
And on there, we talk Mariners, Seahawks,
all that good stuff. For more information, go to patreon.com forward slash control the zone link
in the description of this episode. So thank you again to Mason for hopping on with us and chatting
for a little bit there. Now before we get out of here, we actually have a little bit of breaking
news, not Mariner related, but something that I think we all care about as baseball fans.
This broke as we were recording. As you can see, it's not even on our show sheet there on
the side of the screen. And I did.
I didn't mention it at the beginning of the broadcast,
but I feel it's important that we talk about this.
So obviously, the Players Association and Major League Baseball have begun their negotiations on the new CBA.
The Players Association made their first proposal yesterday,
and the owners have now made their first counter proposal.
What's come out so far from that has been their proposal for a hard salary cap,
which would see a salary cap of, what was it, $245.3 million and a salary floor of $171.71 million.
So first off, just reaction to that.
Yeah, the floor came in much higher than I thought it was going to, but also that's obviously
a negotiation tactic because the ceiling came in a lot lower than anything that would ever be
remotely entertaining, entertained by the players.
So, you know, the players want 300 million.
Guess what that salary floor all of a sudden is going to go down to 110, right?
And so, yeah, it's in some ways encouraging that the cap is or that the floor is as high as it is,
but also we know that that floor will go down.
The more of the players push the salary cap talk up if the players are even willing to negotiate on that front at all,
which they've shown no interest whatsoever in doing.
So, yeah, it is, you know, some positives in the owner's first salvo there.
But obviously everything is a negotiation tactic at the moment.
So there's still a lot of fighting here.
And again, I just don't think the players are going to accept a salary cap whatsoever.
Certainly not a hard cap.
And the players themselves have in their first,
their first offer,
they wanted to push the competitive balance tax threshold to $300 million from 244.
Yeah.
So the players seem pretty fine with the competitive balance, you know,
situation.
Obviously,
they like it higher,
but they're fine with that because they can continue to get paid.
And it's the teams that have to pay the salary or the taxes on that.
But yeah,
I mean,
we'll probably have a more in-depth breakdown tomorrow.
We only have a couple minutes here.
and we're still waiting to hear from some of the owner's proposal.
Obviously, there has to be more than this.
But, yeah, I think in general, like, look, it's nice to have a starting point from which we can kind of draw from.
But, A, Ty and I aren't lawyers.
Shocking, I know.
We don't know much about labor laws and arbitration and all that.
So, sustain.
So, yeah, we're not going to know all the technical details, but we can go, you know, break
why this would work or why it might not work, blah, blah, blah,
when we have more details of this.
But overall, I do appreciate the high salary floor.
That would be, I think, half the teams in the league spend below that number.
So, and some, there's a handful of teams that are below 100 million.
So that would be significant money they'd have to spend.
But the floor or the ceiling is just, it's laughable.
It's laughably low.
It's basically the luxury tax threshold is the.
No, it essentially is.
It's like 800 grand.
I think it's like a $1.3 million difference at 1.2.
Yeah.
That's not a thing.
So that's a joke.
And the players know it's a joke.
So we'll see.
Ultimately,
again,
I don't think the players are going to accept a salary cap.
I think they might.
No.
And some owners might not even.
Right.
Because,
you know,
like Ryan Davis.
They'd have to disclose their finances.
Yeah.
Yeah,
like Ryan DeVish mentioned a few days ago on Twitter made a great point.
You know,
owners would have to,
like you said,
they would have to disclose how they're spending their money at a salary cap world.
Which major league owners don't want to show you anything ever.
The only team that does is the Braves, and that's because they're legally required to.
So, yeah, we'll see what the final situation is.
It's going to be a long, you know, eight, nine months, probably.
I would be shocked if there wasn't a lockout.
I'm not to the point yet where I assume they're going to miss games because of the lockout.
But we'll see.
The players obviously, you know, they want some other things.
They want, you know, higher minimum salaries and a couple other things we can get into, again, a little more tomorrow when we have a bit more time than we do now.
But all in all, you know, the players and the owners at the very least it does appear like each proposal, at least on paper, is an attention.
to fix the competitive and balance of baseball.
It's just the,
the players owner or the players offer is much more player driven,
obviously.
And the owners are trying to save,
you know,
a couple million dollars,
even though they're all worth a billion dollars.
So,
uh,
and just logistically speaking,
how are you going to enforce a hard cap of 244 when the daughters are at
400 million dollars?
Like so how,
yeah,
how does that,
how does that happen right away?
Like,
it doesn't.
is kind of a point.
And you probably have a grace period.
And by the time that grace period is up,
it's probably going to be time to renegotiate a CBA.
So yeah, there are a lot of things to figure out here.
But yeah, it's nice that we have a starting point from both sides.
And yeah, I.
And both sides seem like they're talking about relatively the same things.
You know, again, the PA wants to raise the threshold from 244 to 300 mil.
they also want to implement a competitive integrity tax for any team that doesn't spend $150 million.
Right. So it does kind of seem like there might be some parameters here of like a salary floor of somewhere between 150 and 170.
But again, the cap I think is a no-go for the players.
But if they do eventually, you know, move on the cap, it's going to be much, much higher.
or than 240, but that that's not even a serious offer by the owners.
All right, that is going to do up for our show.
Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marriss podcast.
Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.
And once again, if you never miss an episode, it's time to make it official.
Join the Lockdown Every Day or Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only
only Discord and more, all built for our most loyal fans.
For Colby Pat Nod, I'm Tadangazales.
Be sure to give us the follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners.
You can follow me at Tadangazales and Colby at C-Pat-11.
We're also on Blue Sky.
follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby, and the show at Lockdown Mariners.
You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Mariners.
Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time.
Peace.
