Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Should We Be Talking About Mariners Star Julio Rodríguez as MVP Candidate?

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Forget the All-Star Game or the Rookie of the Year; is Julio Rodríguez an MVP candidate? He's certainly been playing like it since May 1. Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss Rodríguez's hot stretch, dive into Robbie Ray's last five starts and explain why Seattle needs to be open-minded when dipping into the trade market for starting pitching later this month.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] up to date with all things Mariners at Inside the Mariners - a FanNation website covering the Seattle Mariners on the Sports Illustrated network.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11 | @InsideMarinersFor more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Blue NileMake your moment sparkle with jewelry from Bluenile.com, and LOCKED ON SPORTS listeners get $50 off purchases of $500 or more using code LOCKEDON.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. 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.

Well, I think we can all agree Julio Rodriguez should be an all-star at this point, but why stop there? Let's talk about it here on the Lockdown 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. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Lockdown Mariners podcast brought to you by Blue Nile. Make your moment sparkle with jewelry from Blue Nile.com and Locked-on Mariners listeners get $50 off purchases of $500 or more. podcast. Exclusive includes engagement jewelry as well. Use promo code locked on at checkout. It is Tuesday, July 5th, 2022. And thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. I am your host, Tadayin Gonzalez.

joined as always by my co. Colby Patnode. We cover the Mariners over at inside the mariners.com for fan nation over on the sports illustrated network. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. Follow inside the mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez's D's D&E. Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-P-E-T-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash control the zone. We post two additional podcasts on there every single week. And 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 follower, subscribe, wherever you're listening to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up.

We greatly appreciate it. the Mariners exploded for 18 hard hit balls off a Padre's pitching yesterday to the tune of an 8 to 2 when Chris Flexen goes 6 and 2 thirds scoreless. But we're going to be talking about Julio, Julio, Julio on today's show. We're also going to be talking about Robbie Ray, who since the last time Colby and I spoke on this show had another magnificent start. And we're also going to talk a little bit about trades, particularly in the rotation. But Colby, let's start off by talking about this Julio guy. He's pretty decent of baseball, right? I mean, I think any time you beat Barry Bonds at something,

I think that qualifies as good at baseball. It's also the first player in Major League history to have 15 home runs, 15 doubles, and 20 stolen bases in his first 80 games. So, yeah, that's pretty good. And oh, by the way, he's playing a plus defensive center field as well, on top of all of it. Oh, and he's 21. Oh, and he lost like a year and a half of development time due to a very,

various injuries and the COVID shutdown. So yeah, I'd say it's pretty, pretty good. And I mean, it's gotten to the point over the last two weeks where it's so good that I'm beginning to question of maybe we're not, maybe we're not exactly talking about the right things when it comes to Julio Rodriguez. Yeah. So right now, you know, a lot of the talk is around his all-star status and whether or not he's going to the all-star team. I think it's pretty clear at this point that he is an all-star. He's the third most valuable outfielder in the American League by F-4, just right behind Aaron Judge and Mike Trout, a couple of pretty good names to be in the midst of there. But I believe that you're

potentially alluding to some MVP talk, if I'm not mistaken here. And there are some numbers here that support it, right? Because, you know, of course, April was incredibly disappointing for him. There's all the strikeouts and of course, you know, there is all the really bad, you know, called strike threes on him as well. Uh, that, that kind of inflated that number on top of everything. But, um, you know, since since May 1st, he's gone 69, nice for 232 with 15 home runs, 37 RBI, 12 doubles, two triples, 11 stolen bases, 61 strikeouts and 16 walks. So 162 game pace is, uh, 183 for 616. team with 40 home runs, 98 RBI, 32 doubles, 5 triples, 29 stolen bases, 162 strikeouts, 42 walks, and a F-4 of 7.4, right? That's an MVP candidate.

So. Yeah, it sure is. Do you think his April ends up holding him back here in the end? Possibly. He's about a full win behind, you know, the leaders. by F-4 anyways behind damage. But the thing about Julio is that he is not accelerating at a linear pace. He's getting better exponentially. And so I think he's gained a full win in the last week to 10 days on F-Worse, F-Wres metrics. So like I said,

he's not gradually building up here. He's accelerating and growing at a rate that is going to be difficult to match. There's no guarantee that, you know by the all-star break he's not top five in nf war in the american league and right now he's he's number nine or not you've seen the home run power really just now he's hit half of his home runs in the last no 10 days or so so there really isn't any a limit to what hulio can do he's got 2020 by the break uh which seemed a bit you know hyperbolic to say is possible just a week ago,

but he's five home runs short right now. So he's definitely got that chance. He's playing a plus center field. He's going to have the narrative. He's going to be the only guy in baseball this year to go 30, 30, assuming he stays healthy and he gets there. He's going to be 21. And if the Mariners make the playoffs,

he's going to have that narrative pushing him too. The Mariners' playoff drought has been well documented. It has been talked about by national writers for years now. Julio has the buildup. He has the backing and he's about to have the numbers to really put him in that conversation. So are the odds likely that he's going to win it? I would say unless the Mariners make the playoffs, I don't think he has much of a shot. But he absolutely should be we should be talking about him getting MVP votes.

And I think I think he will, especially if he continues at this pace. 30-30, I mean, that's putting a limit on Julio. I don't want to do that. 40-40 is a very real possibility. And like I said, this is on top of plus defense, and it's on top of the fact that he's 21 years old. And you can really start to build a narrative here that if Julio continues to get exponentially better as he has over the last two weeks, sky's the limit here. And we're talking about a guy who not only hits but plays a plus center field. That's a very valuable player.

And I mean, just look at the home run that he hit yesterday over the warehouse at Petco Park. in left field i've never seen a mariner ever do that like that we're in uncharted territory here folks like Julio rodriguez is a special dude and the fact that he's 21 years old and the fact that his numbers look like this despite the month of april that he had ridiculous like this guy is absolutely just playing out of his mind right now he has been the eighth most valuable player in all of baseball by f war since may first that's when he hit his first home run down in Miami and he's ahead of guys like Mike Trout right like he's tied with Trey Turner like the only guys that he is behind since the start of May and F-4 Paul Goldschmidt Dansby Swanson

Raphael Devers you're Dan Alvarez Aaron Judge and Alejandro Kirk like we're talking about an elite baseball player who's just 21 years old and is doing stuff that no one has ever done before in baseball history like the literal history of the game 100 plus years of baseball has been played and no one is doing what Julio Rodriguez has done

he's got an impressive highlight package too which does help with voters you know he's hitting the big home runs he's sitting 435 foot bombs he's making these diving catches in center field he's stealing big bases he's taking the extra base he's he's leg

out infield singles. He's got this really impressive highlight package that kind of shows how well-rounded of a player he is. I think the only thing missing right now is an outfield assist, and we know that's coming eventually. So it's going to be hard. If Julio keeps playing like this, for voters to leave Julio off of their MVP ballots, and if Seattle makes this big charge of the wildcards standings and sneaks in, there's going to be a lot of people calling him the dark horse and I think it's going to collect him quite a few boats. And now the Mariners are just four games

out of a wild card spot and they won four of their last five despite being without J.P. Crawford and Jesse Winker during that time and Julio has more or less helped carry the Mariners, carry the load here for the mariners. Another guy that helps carry the load a little bit here at least back on

Sunday was Robbie Ray. We're going to be talking about him in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Locked on Mariners is brought to you by Blue Nile. Whether you're ready to pop the question or you're celebrating a milestone moment, find jewelry as unique as them with the modern convenience of online shopping at Blue Nile.com. Blue Nile has simple online tools that let you choose the diamond shape, size and clarity, as well as setting style.

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That's L-O-C-K-E-O-N plus every order is insured, ships free, and arrives in discrete packaging that won't give away what's inside. Shop stress-free and find your favorite piece. Go to blue nile.com today. You're listening to Lockdown Mariner's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. So since the last time you and I talked Colby, Robbie Ray had another start and he had arguably his best start of the year, maybe, 12 strikeouts. That's a season high, 27 swings and misses also a season high for him.

And the only blemish on his on his record for the day was a solo home run to Elvis Andrews, which annoyingly ended his day before he could finish out the seven. funny um but it was a great start for ray and uh he just continues to dominate and yes you know opponent quality blah blah blah whatever etc etc but let me just read off these numbers to you since june 12th that's the first start that he had uh that was against the red sox the shutout start against the uh the red sox uh that was his first start since uh he he found that uh or he he reincorated the sinker and uh so since then he's fifth amongst all mlb starters in fwar 1.1. He's first in innings pitched. He's first in strikeouts. He's first and win probability added. He's tied second and runs allowed with just three. And he's tied 10th and

whiff rates. So again, you know, opponent quality, you know, he's faced the A's twice. He's faced the Orioles once. He faced a an Angels team without Joey Otani or Jared Walsh, all in this stretch. But what is it that you're seeing from him right now that suggests this is either sustainable or not sustainable. Yeah, well, first, I want to take an opportunity to take a shot at the Angels because why not? We should probably stop saying that we should probably stop qualifying Ray start by saying Otani and Walsh aren't in it because even with those guys in the lineup, the Angels are a bad

team. So let's get that out of the way right here. But, yeah, you know, it's interesting with Ray. I was at the game. He really struggled in the first inning, at least from my vantage point. which was directly behind home plate. He'd get to two strikes, and he would, he didn't exactly put guys away in the first inning.

But then, you know, I'm online. I'm looking at it. And it appears he got squeezed pretty hard in the first inning. And it probably cost him, I was told, between 10 to 15 pitches. And yet, despite throwing 25, I think it was, pitches in the first inning, he basically went seven and he was one strike away from going seven. He only threw 107 pitches.

That's not out of the, you know, realm of possibility. The slider was great. You know, the sinker, the, he got,

he got nine whiffs on the sinker on 16 swings. The sinker is not traditionally a swing and miss pitch. And then, of course, he followed it up for good measure with seven. I mean, he was dominant. And I do think it is about that sinker.

Because, you know, Everything Robbie Ray throws kind of breaks in to Ritey's, the fastball, the slider, the curveball. They all kind of break into Ritey's. The sinker breaks away from Ritey's. And I think Elvis Andrus alluded to this himself. You know, he said, Ray's a lot tougher now because the two seamer, he can run it off the outside corner and get you to chase it. Andrus, of course, you know, one of the few guys who's been able to square up Robbie Ray recently.

and the home running he hit was a 94 mile an hour fastball that was elevated and in the middle of the plate. Just a bad pitch. Unfortunately, it was Ray's last one of the day. But I do think it's that sinker. Not only is he starting to get whiffs with it, which is huge. It continues to be a high ground ball pitch. And again, it's just something different. It's something that hitters around the league have to account for now.

They know he's going to throw it. and it plays off the slider very, very well. So, I mean, you get 27 whiffs against any lineup. I don't care who it is. That's really impressive. And it's just kind of been a continuation. And we've seen Ray kind of had these bigger strikeout games. He had 10 strikeouts and six innings, I believe.

Now he's had 12 and 6 and 2 thirds. But we've also seen him pitch against the Red Sox and only get like three strikeouts, but just get a ton of weak ground balls and keep his pitch count in check. So Ray's kind of evolving. He's kind of a guy who can beat him. in multiple ways right now. That makes him very dangerous. When you consider he still has the wicked slider in his back pocket.

Yeah, the fact that he's generating so much weak contact now with the sinker, I believe the A's only had a couple of hard hit balls off of him in this game as well, including the one from Andrews. And so the fact that he's able to do that and also has swing and miss stuff, I mean, that's kind of the perfect combination for a starting pitcher, right? especially in today's game generating weak contact and missing bats like that's everything you could possibly want so it's no surprise that he's leading the league in all these categories over the last month or so or the last at least three weeks that he's been pitching and so you know and this is a new version of robbie ray this is kind of how we need to evaluate robbie ray now is from you know mid june to to now instead of you know full season because he just didn't have that pitch he literally did not use the sinker and until June 6. That was the first time he threw it all season.

And so he's a different pitcher than he was when this season began and when he was struggling. And so, yeah, it's really exciting. You know, would like to see it against, you know, better quality, you know, lineups, of course, and that's naturally going to happen. He's going to be facing his old team here coming up. So that should be pretty interesting. Robbie Ray Revenge game. Looking forward to talking about that later on this week.

But, yeah. So, you know, we'll see how it, how it applies to, you know, more dangerous lineups. But this is, this is great. This is, I mean, this is everything that you could possibly ask for from, from your five-year, you know, $150 million pitcher. Yep. I mean, right now he's sporting a lower XERA than he had last year in his Scyon year. So the numbers are basically more or less where you want them to be. Strikeouts are down a little bit from his career norm.

We know that. A lot of that has to do with April. and also may. But you look at things like X batting average is right in line, average exit velocity has actually been down a little bit this year. You know, it's more or less, walks are elevated slightly.

More or less, you look at the expected numbers. Robbie Ray has been about as good as he was last year. And would you say that maybe the picture that he is now because it's obviously a different product than what he produced last year, would you say that this is more conducive to success than what he was last year? I would say it's more sustainable because it's multifaceted. Look, he's always going to be a guy who's going to give up home runs.

He's just part of him. So I would say it's more sustainable, though, over a five-year stretch than, say, you know, striking out 13 guys and only walking two per nine and all of that. stuff. So it's definitely sustainable and it is what you paid for. He's the number two right now. And the way he's pitching, he gives you a shot to beat anybody in the American League. Yeah, and that's awesome.

And that's absolutely what you're going to need, especially when you go into series like the one coming up against the Blue Jays. You're going to need Robbie Ray to be at the top of his game. So really looking forward to that. We're going to be talking about him more later on this week. But let's stick with the rotation here and kind of talk, you know, look down the road a little bit here because the trade deadline. is coming up soon. We're less than a month away now from the trade deadline. And the Mariners

are going to have to do something with their rotation, whether it's number two, number three starter, or at least someone that can go in on the back end of their rotation. We'll be talking about why in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Rock Auto. With the ever-increasing numbers of makes and models, it's now impossible for your local chain auto parts store to stock all the parts you need. Winder, often pointless or seemingly intimidating questioning like is your Odyssey and LX or an EX? while the person behind the counter orders the parts on their computer, choosing the only brand their warehouse happens to carry.

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Locked on in there. How did you hear about us box so they know we sent you? Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need, rock auto.com. Colby, you wrote an article yesterday talking about three under the radar trade targets on Inside the Mariners. com. And one of them was Blake Snow, who is a member of the team the Mariners are currently playing the Padres. but he's having another down year by his standards. And of course, he's Washington native.

He might come relatively cheap because he is making money and, you know, the Padres are getting close to that tax threshold. So they might want to free up some payroll there so they can start making a bit more, you know, bigger moves this season, you know, over the next few weeks because they are, you know, in a pretty good spot right now. They're 47 and 35, I believe. second place in the NOS going for a wild card etc etc etc and so uh i you know i saw a response there are a couple of responses to your article just like well why would you want like snow we got

george kirby we got chris flex and we got marco gonzalez and you in the article said you know snow might give you more upside than than flex and or gonzalez so i'll ask you about that but i i also want to mention here real quick though for for those that are listening that you know another thing that we have to keep in mind here is george kirby is eventually going to hit an innings cap. It's just going to happen. You know, he's a rookie guy. They want to manage his innings. It happens. This is the case with any pitcher. I mean, shoot, think about Steven Strasberg. The nationals were in a position to be in the playoffs and they shut him down right before the postseason or in the postseason. I forget what it actually was. It's a long time ago.

But like these things happen and it doesn't matter what the scenario is or what situation you find yourself in. You're going to try and take care of your guys no matter what. So at a certain point, the Mariners are going to have to add someone to this rotation. So first again, let's let's start with the first point here. Why do you think Snell would give the Mariners more upside than someone like Chris Flexen or Marco Gonzalez? Because it's obvious. Blake Snell has been a Sauty Young Award winner.

He is missing bats still at a very impressive rate. He would actually be your new strikeout leader. Have you acquired him in case for nine at least? And yeah, there are issues. He is a guy who typically only goes five, maybe six innings at most. He's not a guy who gets deep into games. And right now he's really struggling with walks. And somewhat oddly, it's been only in his time in San Diego.

He didn't really struggle to this degree with his controller command in Tampa Bay at all. So I don't know what that's about, but I think you look at even just, I think a lot of people get hung up on ERA. And they say, well, that's the one stat I'm going to use. And Snell's ERA, for example, is at, uh, It is at five. It's over five. It's five point one two. Whereas Chris Flexens, I believe after yesterday's really good start is at four flat. So people look at that and they say, well, flexin's better. But you start looking at the other numbers.

You know, Snell has a 372 XERA, a 371 FIP and a 404 XFIP. Meanwhile, you look at Chris Flexen. Chris Flexens, XERA is 539. His FIP is 433. His FIP is 490. not as good. Like, I mean, objectively not as good. You also look at this and you say, well, you know, why does that matter?

Well, you look, let's look at war for a second. Chris Flexen has been worth 0.8F war. And that includes yesterday's really, let's call what it was dominant start. Snell has pitched half the innings that Flexen has. He has a 0.7 F war. So Snell's objectively better. He's got better stuff and he's more likely to go toe to toe with a legitimate ace than somebody like Chris Flexing. It doesn't mean flexing can't do it on occasion.

It just means that it's not something that he's regularly going to do. Snell is better. He has better stuff. He also has a year of club control beyond this year. So it's not just a one year rental type of thing. You mentioned the Padres. They're up against the luxury tax. They show no willingness to go over it.

And they do have other terms. to make. You look at that lineup last night. Does that lineup terrify you? No. They got no more Mazarra playing like every day for them. Regularly. Yes. And I know it'll get better when Tatis gets there. I understand that.

But if Tatis gets there. If. If. Yeah. You know, we were talking to Javier Reyes yesterday of the Lockdown Padres podcast and he wasn't committed to Tatis coming back. So that's certainly a possibility that he doesn't come back. But yeah, you know, the Padres are going to have to do something here to free up some payroll, whether that's Will Myers,

whether that's Eric Hosmer, whether that's Blake Snell, you Darvish, etc. They're going to have to move some money off of the books here in order to make some other moves because like you said, they haven't been willing thus far to go over that luxury tax threshold and that's, you know, big chunk of change that teams are going to have to pay if they go over that. So, and as we all know, MLB owners, doesn't matter how much money they make, they're not going going to be willing to do that. So yeah, you know, I've always liked the, the Snell idea, you know, plus it would be a

homecoming for him and everything. That's cool. And I just, I think that the Mariners could get more out of him than any other organization, frankly, because the Mariners pitching development is top notch, you know, it's one of the best in a league. Right. But by the way, with Snell, right, it's, you don't necessarily have to replace Flexin or Marco. You did mention Kirby is going to hit his Indians.

But maybe you go with a six-man rotation for a while to kind of try and stretch Kirby into September and October. And we also need to be aware that the Mariners have only used seven starters this year, which is among the lowest in baseball. One of them was, you know, an opener on a double-header day. So in reality, the Mariners have used six starters this year. And they only made a change. It wasn't due to injury. The Mariners' rotation has been remarkably healthy this year. Yeah.

And that's kind of scary. That sounds like a ticking time bomb to me. Yeah, that's scary because everyone goes through injuries and the rotation. It doesn't matter whatever the team is. And now that Matt Brash has been converted to the bullpen, at least for this year, that limits your starting pitching depth. You know, right now the first guy in line, if there's an injury, might be Tommy Malone. You know, and then after that, Justice Sheffield, and then after that, we're talking guys that have never pitched to the major league level before, like Taylor, Ler, Levi Stout, etc. So I think the Mariners

You know, they're gonna want to go in they're gonna go into the trade deadline Wanting to get a number two or number three and that's going to get even harder now that it looks like Frankie Montes is gonna miss some time of shoulder injury That limits the market even more now that means like guys like Tyler Malley and Louise Castillo are gonna be even more Expensive and even more hard to get than than ever before So you know I know that they're gonna want to get get it, you know, one of those guys heading into the deadline, that might not be realistic, though. And so it might behoove them to more so go after, you know, the, the Tyler Anderson's of the world or, you know, like how they did last year, at least one of those, get one guy that is kind of in that mold and then maybe go after someone with a bit more upside like a Blake Snell.

I think that's probably how they're going to have to go after it because, I mean, you know, like aside from the Reds guys, right? like Zach Gallen going to cost a ton you know it's a trade for Pablo Lopez gonna be ridiculous ask you know like this is gonna this is like huge huge returns that we're talking about for for these guys

that are actually realistically available that significantly raise your ceiling in the rotation so I don't know if the Mariners are going to be comfortable doing that which means you kind of have to go out and you have to go find you know a guy that nobody thinks is you know a number three or whatever

and turn him into that number three. J.T. Brubbaker. Right, right. Guys like that. But Snell is a guy who could do that. Because right now, Snow is number five, and he's a pretty good one. And, I mean, you just want to see a disaster scenario, get past the trade deadline and watch, you know,

George Kirby get shut down, and then, and then, oh, Markov. In the middle of the first needs starting pitching. And by the way, there's nothing stopping the Mariners from going out for Blake Snell and, you know, Luis Castillo. I mean, they can go get more than two, they can go get more than one guy and really protect themselves. And you say, well, how do you get all those guys' innings?

I don't know, how do the Dodgers do it? You know, how do the Padres do it? The Padres have like seven starters that they get innings to. And again, injuries are going to happen. They're going to be a part of this. And if you're telling me right now, I could have, you know, Frankie Mont, a healthy Frankie Montes replaced Marco and healthy Blake's now replace Fleck. I'm all over that because then you have a rotation that is not only, you know, one of the best this year.

You go into next year with Blake Snell competing to be the number five starter. Like there may not be a better rotation in baseball than one that has Blake Snell as the number five, like the true number five. So yeah, I'm kind of all in and Seattle is in a unique position right now where they can take on salary. They have the prospect capital. they have the rotation spots to give. There aren't many teams that are going to be able to help San Diego the way Seattle can. So maybe it's a three-team deal.

Maybe it's San Diego acquires Luis Castillo, you know, and pays most of the prospect rate to Cincinnati. But Seattle pitches in like a Levi Stout or something and gets, I don't know, maybe Blake Snell and Brandon Drury or something like that. Right. and they kind of do it that way. So I think Seattle and San Diego line up really well because basically,

I think if Seattle wanted to get Blake Snell for free, they could. I think if they take Will Myers, they're giving up Brian Wu and Nathaniel Garibitos for Will Myers and Blake Snell. They can do that and they can absorb that money. And both of those players probably help Seattle. So I think they can get creative with it. But yeah, if it's not Blake Snell, then it's fine.

J.G. Brewbaker's a great. you know, option there. But Seattle needs an upgrade over Flexon and if nothing else, even if you love Chris Flexen, they need depth and they need legitimate Major League depth because they do not have it right now. Yeah, they need to protect themselves from the event that Tommy Malone ends up, you know, starting games in August

and September. So, because that's a very real possibility here. You know, it's, I don't want to like doom or curse the, the Mariners here, but like starting, starting rotation injuries happen. It just, that's a part of the game. That's a part of every season. The ebbs and flows of the season. It's just for every team. And most teams, you know, that are actually, you know, able to compete for for the postseason and beyond, they have the depth to survive that. And right now, just the Mariners, like, they have some

intriguing arms, like with guys like dollered and stout, you know, kind of waiting in the wings. But I don't know if you really want to leave your season, you know, hanging in the balance of those guys right now. So, yeah. So, you know, even if it's just a another Tyler Anderson type or two, you know, that that helps, frankly. So I think the, the Mariners and Jerry Depoto need to be open to really many things here when it comes to the starting rotation and not just solely focus in on those number two, number three types. So that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast for Kobe Patnode. I'm Tiding Gonzalez.

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow inside the Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, this D-A-N-Z-L-L-L-A. L Z and Colby at C-Pat 11 that C-P-A-T-1-1. 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,

Locked-on MLB Prospects host Lindsay Crosby is a prospect encyclopedia, and he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. It's free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. With that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day. We'll see you tomorrow. Peace.