Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Some Lower-End Options For the Mariners' Final Bat of the Winter

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

With the Mariners apparently still scouring the market for at least one more bat this offseason, Ty and Colby look at some under-the-radar options that could fit.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Jase MedicalEmpower yourself when you purchase a Jase Case, providing you with a personal supply of 5 antibiotics that treat 50+ infections. Get yours today at jasemedical.com and use code LOCKEDON to get $20 off your order. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So the Mariners apparently want to add at least one more bat this off season, but how significant that bat will be remains a mystery. And if it's not necessarily a big bat in the traditional sense of the term, at least, Colby has a few names we're going to talk about coming up here on the Lockdown Mirrors 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. Oh, Hoy, sailors. It is Wednesday, January 10th, 2024. This is Tedding Azolson, Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown, Marriss podcast, brought to you by Jace Medical. Empower yourself when you purchase a Jace case, providing you with a personal supply of five antibiotics that treat 50 plus infections. Get yours today over at Jacemedical.com and use the promo code locked on. It's L-O-C-E-D-O-N to get $20 off your order. That's J-A-S-E-M Medical.com.

Thank you so much for making us your first. Listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider sending up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as their social accounts is in the description of this episode. On the show today, we're going to go over some hitters.

The mayors could target as they look to finalize their offense this one. winner. These are not necessarily going to be the most recognizable names, but they could help, and we're going to tell you all about them today. So Colby, you've got a list of about five names, but before we get into those names, you know, if the Mariners only add like one more bat this off season, is there something specific you're looking for, or is it just get the best bat possible? For the most part, it's just get the best hitter you can and just, you know, kind of figure it out from there. But there are some limitations to that, you know, that strategy. For example, the Mariners have, you know, two guys who have difficulty getting through

two-thirds of a season, let alone a full season, and Mitch Garber and Mitch Hanager. And, you know, one of those guys is going to have to DH. And in, you know, a perfect world, both of those guys would DH. But obviously, that can't be the case. So, you know, you don't want to use those guys in the field too much because you'd rather have them healthy when you need them than, you know, playing at 70% you know, for half the year. So that's where I think, you know, the best bad out there is probably Solair, but does that make a lot of sense? No, not really. I mean, Bellinger's out there, but come on. So, yeah, I think for the most part, it's get the best bat you can, figure it out later, but it still has to make some sense on the out, on just like the,

base level. I think ideally what you're looking for is somebody who plays second or third and is an above average hitter. And, you know, unfortunately, they also have to fit within your payroll, your payroll restrictions. So does that player even exist? I don't know. I know there's not a lot of them. So at some point, you just have to get the bat and then you kind of figure it out. But there are some, you know, tricky areas the Mariners have to maneuver, including having at least two guys who should be the primary DH, uh, slotted in to be,

you know, in their top 10 bats. And then you also have, you know, Ureas who's coming off of a down year due to injury. You have Rojas who, uh, flashed for you,

but overall had a, a down year also coming off of an injury. Um, so, you know, and obviously Ty France had a down here. Like there are a lot of players here that, uh,

you know, you're, you're kind of, I don't want to say hoping on, but like, you're kind of expecting a bounce back to normal, what is normal for them. And so you have to kind of be a little careful here,

but I think all things being equal, you just get the best bat that you can, and then you figure out what to do with it after. You know, we've talked about that Rosenthal report back on, what, Monday, where he, you know, Rosenthal said that the mariners are looking to add an infielder, so they're not so reliant upon Luis Urius and Josh Rojas to produce.

So that's immediately where I think both of our minds go to, right, when we're thinking about the next bat or the final bat that the Mariners can add. But like you mentioned, if you're looking for an everyday guy, there aren't that many players that fit what the Mariners need and can do with their money right now. Also, Justin Hollander last night on the hot stove said that like 90% of the league is also not interested in making trades for lower level prospects right now. So that also hampers your ability to go out and get that guy as well. So we've talked about the Jorge Polanco's of the world.

We've talked about the Willie Adama says those guys aren't going to show up on your list today. We're more so looking at that tier below those kind of guys, at least in terms of the infielders, for the most part. because that's pretty much where you have to go after that. We're talking about, you know, the guys that are going to make five to six million dollars in free agency or, you know, a guy that does like one or two things pretty well and you see, you know, you just bring them in and you see. So that's kind of the idea of what we're going to be talking about today, right?

So who's the first guy on your list, Colby, that you want to talk about? I don't want to talk about anybody. I want to talk about Pete. But yeah, so we'll talk about a guy that you're in love with who's, you know, fine. But Donovan Solano is a guy who comes up. It's the guy who typically like doesn't sign until around this time every single winter. And he's always getting three, four million bucks.

And yet you look at the production and he can hit. It's really not debatable. He is a legitimately good hitter. Defensively, he can stand. You can be stationed at second and third, which, you know, is an ideal. You prefer somebody who can actually handle those spots and push Rojas and you, you know, to the bench. But Salano can certainly hit.

He's, you know, a line drive, gap to gap guy, not a ton of power. But he is on the older side, which may, you know, actually be, you know, to his advantage if you're on, if you're Seattle because it's not going to take a long-term deal. You're talking about a one-year deal for. for Solano who is a guy who he can hit. Like he can legitimately hit. He's going to hit 270, 280.

He's going to get on base a good amount. And then you see what he slugs. Hopefully it's somewhere around 400. He can, you know, handle three positions for you. You know, if you need it. And it's just a good,

solid bat to have. You probably want to be hitting at the bottom of your order. But that's what most of these guys are today. They're not going to be a bunch of three, four hitters. They're just not available. So Solano is a guy who definitely still makes them sense,

particularly if you go heavy on the relief pitcher with your remaining budget. Yeah. Because I can't imagine Solano's going to make much more than $3 to $5 million somewhere in that range. Yeah, I put out an interesting poll last night on Twitter, and I got kind of mixed reactions. And I think that's kind of the nature of it, too. It's a really interesting debate. You know, would you rather with what the Mariners have left to spend in theory,

would you rather get a combination of Max Kepler or Jorge Polanco and you know Jacob Junis for example? I mean one of those kinds of relievers or would you rather just get someone like Solano who's probably going to make like three to six million dollars and then go big on the reliever and get someone like Robert Stevenson or Jordan Hicks or what have you. So I think that's very interesting. But yeah, you dive into Solano's numbers. Dude just hits, right?

Yeah, he's 36 years old. and he keeps on signing these one-year deals with teams, but the last five seasons, he's posted a WRC Plus north of 100. So he's been a league average or better hitter for the last five years, and no one really talks about him. And he's been even at times significantly above average, 116 WRC Plus in 2019,

125 in, of course, the shortened COVID season in 2020, but still, you know, 125 WRC plus, 54 games. 105 WRC plus in 2021, flat 100 WRC plus in 2022. And then 116 WRC plus in 2023 with the twins. You know, he posts high averages. He hasn't posted a batting average below 280 in the last five years. So dude hits.

99th percentile this year in sweet spot percentage. He makes a lot of quality contact. and it's repeatable. And I don't really see that necessarily slowing down anytime soon, even though that, yeah, he is 36 years old. But that's really the only tool he brings to the table, right? Like you mentioned, he doesn't hit for power. He's not a good defender.

You can station him at second or third or first, and you can live with it on, you know, an occasional basis. But if you're looking to add some legitimate, you know, offensive production on the back end of your lineup, right, for not a lot of money, this is a pretty good option. And I feel like it's pretty safe. And of like the group of, you know, a Med Rosario and Whitmerfield and all those guys that are probably going to make

somewhere within the same range of money on a one-year deal as one another, I like Solano the most. So if that's the route that the Marriss take, I would prefer Solano. So we're going to talk about some more names on Colby's list in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Marr's podcast is brought to you by Fandul. All right, sailors, the NFL regular season may be over, but there's still time to get in on the action with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook.

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with the local experts of Lockdown plus our national shows covering every league. Go to Lockdown Sports Today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And we are breaking down some, I guess we'll call them under the radar targets for the Mariners. They're not all free agents, but some bats, you know, some final bat candidates for this roster and guys that you probably aren't necessarily thinking of. We're not talking about the Jorge Salarra, the Jorge Polanco's or the Max Kepler's on this show. we just talked about Donovan Solano and that's someone that I really like Colby you really like

who's next on your list well a now former teammate of Donovan Solano how about Willie Castro of the Minnesota Twins this is a fun one he is a super utility and I mean that in every sense of the world every sense of the word he can literally play

anywhere on the field which pretty helpful if you're the Mariners right if you have all these holes that might crop up, then you kind of want somebody who can fill all those spots. And so inter Willie Castro, who's also a really good center field or a really good base runner, can play shortstop if you need them too. He also hits right-handed pitching very well, which is nice. You know, there are some guys who may need a, you know, a platoon partner on this roster.

Castro is a switch hitter. He but he hits right. He's really well. He's a really good base runner. He's a good defender at multiple spots. he's at least average everywhere around the diamond. You can steal a bag if you need him to. He's a good player.

He is a legitimately good player. He is one of the few true super utility types. He's better than Dylan Moore. I would say that, although Moore certainly has more power. So not exactly the same type of player. But Castro is a guy that I like. Again, he hits right-handed pitching very well, which is useful. And the only concern with Castro.

You know, he's not going to be cheap in a trade. He is R-1 this year, so he's going to make about $3 million. But he would not be easy to acquire via trade. But we know that the Mariners and the twins have talked to some degree about other bats. And, you know, we do know that the twins, by their own admission, are looking to cut some payroll. Now, they would rather do it by trading Polanco and Kepler and all that. But Castro's going to start making real money for the Minnesota twins next year. they might want to try and, you know, sell high, so to speak, on him this year.

What would it take to get him quite a bit? Again, it's three years of a guy who's a two and a half, three win super utility type. That's going to cost you something pretty good. But I think it's worth exploring. I think he's a good fit for your roster. It's just a little hard for me to imagine that the Mariners and the twins line up on a deal for Castro, just based on where both these rosters are and based that both of them, you know, are trying to compete. They're trying to win their division next year.

So, yeah, I would say he's probably the most unlikely. Yeah, the most unlikely player on this list to be acquired, but he might be the best all-around player that I have on my list today. Yeah, 257, 339, 411 this past year, 109 WRC Plus worth two and a half wins. He stole 33 bases. You mentioned the defensive versatility. Very good player, Willie Castro is, a very underrated player. And because of that, like you mentioned, he's going to be pretty hard to take away from the Minnesota twins.

So probably not, but definitely someone to keep an eye on. Who's next? Yeah, Hesu Sanchez of the Miami Marlins, who has a pretty obvious connection to Brant Brown. So Sanchez is also a left-handed hitter who has plus bat speed and above average to plus raw power. he's a good runner and he's a good defender in the corner outfield spot. So kind of a well-rounded player, he's more of a platoon type, or at least that's how he's been utilized early in his career. But this is a guy who adds to some outfield defense,

which the Mariners could probably use. They're great in center field. They're okay in one of the corners and the other corner. Close your eyes and pray. But Sanchez is a legitimately good defender out there. really strong arm as well. He's kind of, he's a tooled up guy who,

who has like started to put it together, like started to become a good baseball player. Overall, there's some, you know, swing and miss here, but not a ton to be worried about it. You're paying for a left-handed,

like thunder out of the bat. It is a lightning, quick bat with plus raw power, uh, above average in game power. And there's a chance that you might get him right before he's ready to explode into an everyday player instead of more of a platoon type.

There's 25 home run power in this bat. There is, you know, again, there's good, he's good speed. He's a good base runner. And he can flat out, you know, play the outfield. So Sanchez is a guy I like a lot. He's probably more available than Castro, but again, wouldn't be cheap to acquire.

And so you may just want to roll with Domcan's own, but I tell you what, if Sanchez is sitting like six or seven for me, which is where he would hit in this lineup. And he's playing right field. I feel really good about the Mariners outfield. And I think that's a really good bat to target. And then obviously, you know, you have some information on him already with Brent Brown joining your staff.

And, you know, he understands the hitter. He understands how to work with him. And so I think he might be able to get even a little bit more out of Sanchez. So Sanchez is super intriguing to me. Yeah. And we have seen the Mariners show interest and even acquire someone that has a history. with Brand Brown. We know that they've had interests

in guys like Jorge Salar. They brought in Luke Rayleigh, who was with Brown in L.A. a few years back. So obviously, you know, someone like Sanchez could make sense just from that perspective alone. So definitely someone to keep an eye on there.

We got a couple more names to go over in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by Jace Medical. So I know we looked at sports to escape from some of the, you know,

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Locked On, that's L-O-C-K-E-O-N, to get $20 off your order. You're listening to the Locked-O-Marernerner's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first. Listen as we're talking about some under-the-radar bats as the Mariners look to finalize their offense for this winner.

Colby, we've talked about Hazou Sanchez. We've talked about Donovan Solano. We've talked about Willie Castro. Who's next on your list? Yeah, so let's go back to the infield here. How about Andy Bonyes of the Detroit Tigers, formerly of the Texas Rangers? It's a similar idea to Solano in that he is a guy who, you know, can, has proven to be a pretty decent hitter throughout his career.

He really does crush lefties, though. But he's not awful against Ritey's. You can certainly use them against Rides if you need to. but he is a lefty crusher that is kind of his role. But he's also a pretty darn good defender at second base. He could play third base. He needed him too. He played multiple positions.

He played a little outfield as well. So, you know, he's a good defender, crushes lefties, usable against varieties. It's basically the same idea as, you know, Donovan Solano. If Bonias, if you can get him to be average against Rides, which he's pretty close to right now, then he could very well be an everyday player. And he would be a defensive upgrade to Josh Rojas.

So, you know, it's kind of like adding another platoon to Rojas, which, you know, you kind of already have Dylan Moore there. So maybe it doesn't make a ton of sense. But Andy Abanias is a guy who comes in. He fills a very specific role. And they're still upside there for him to be a legitimate everyday second baseman, kind of in the idea of Jonathan's scope, kind of in that mold. So Andyabonias is interesting.

And again, Detroit, fringe playoff team coming into this year. They don't have a lot of bats that they really like in their lineup. So they might look at Ibanias and say, we don't want to trade him for, you know, prospects when we need hitters in our lineup. And even though Obanias isn't a plus hitter by any stretch, he's pretty good. And there's a chance that he's a breakout candidate. So I really do think there's some Jonathan's scope in, in this profile still.

And so for that reason, I'm, I'm pretty interested in Ibani's. I think you'd be a fun ad, especially again, if you go out and you kind of go high end on your pitching edition, I think Abagnas is a good follow-up to that. Yeah, this year for Abagnas, 264, 312, 433, that's a 103 WRC Plus. It was worth 1.6 wins by Fangraph standards, 11-home runs, 41 ribs. Only struck out 18% of the time, walked 6.3% of the time, and 114 games. He was someone that I actually identified as a possibility for them at the trade deadline. I think he still makes some sense as well for this roster. All right.

So I believe you have one final name on your list, Colby. Who is that? Yeah, probably the most interesting name. Certainly is a lot to, to, you know, break down in terms of the idea. But you go back to the San Francisco Giants

and see if perhaps they're interested in trading new J.D. Davis, who has got one year of club control left. He's kind of, tie France only he plays third base and as of last year he plays it very well uh he was a plus plus defender at third base this year after being bad really uh throughout his entire career so you know we know one year sample sizes the defensive metrics they're not worth a ton they're kind of hard to read so that could go either way but this is where you have to trust your uh your eyes and in your scout's eyes and and you have to trust your team to say is this a fluke or

is there a change that was made to make J.D. Davis a legitimately good third baseman. You know, plus ex of Velos, which we know that Seattle likes a pretty good track record overall of just being a solid bat. And again, the defensive improvement is significant. His power is about average in terms of game power. So you might, it's not a super obvious upgrade. There's a good chance that Eureas is just better than J.D. Davis. But I think when you look at Davis, he could play first, he could play third. He's, you know, right-handed pull power.

He's a guy who traditionally has put up pretty solid numbers. Over the last couple of years, he's developed a tiny bit of a strikeout issue, which really ballooned in 2021 and 2022, 2023. It was still high, but, you know, it went down over where it was the previous year. So strikeouts are a bit of a concern still. But overall, this is a guy who's traditionally- be fair makeup for that with the walks. Like,

11.4% walk rate in 2021, 10.7% in 2022, 9 and a half this year. So still walks a bit. Also, I'm noticing here, like, yeah,

it is definitely pull power, but he has quite a few opposite field home runs on his spray truck. Right. So it is above average raw power. Getting to it in the games, like is he going to be a 30 home run guy? probably not.

But again, you get him for one year. I think he's making about $6.5 million this year. So he's kind of in between the really cheap options and the higher end, like, you know, the higher end guys that we could talk about like Max Kepler. So he's kind of right in the middle of that. But I like the bat. I think he's a pretty good hitter. I think he's even his down years, he's going to be a 103, 104 WRC plus type of guy.

I think that there's pretty good power here. And I think he gives you insurance at two positions. He gives you insurance at first base. He gives you insurance at third base. Obviously, you could DH some as well. So I like J.D. Davis. I like that idea. You know, there are concerns.

But I feel pretty comfortable with Davis that he's going to hit 250, 340. And then the slug is kind of the determining factor if he's an everyday player, if he's just a really solid role player. So this year, 248, 325, 413. That's 104 WRC Plus for Davis. 2.2 wins by fan graphs, 27.8% K rate, 9.5% walk rate, like I mentioned, 18 home runs, 69 RBI.

Nice. And 144 games. So really interested in Davis and was very surprised. I didn't know about, the plus six outs above average that he posted this past year. I had no clue about that until last night until you told me about that. So maybe there's been a change there that he's made defensively that has helped him.

I don't know what that would be, but if that's something that he can sustain, then J.D. Davis is a hell of a ball player. But like you mentioned with defensive metrics, especially if it's a one-year sample size and the rest of the samples are telling you, no, he's really big. bad, then it's hard to buy into that. I'll just say that.

I mean, but not unheard of. Not unheard of Geno Suarez. So not unheard of. I mean, I don't know if you know, you know, was never. Yeah. I'm pretty sure JD Davis has like a negative eight else above average year. Sure.

But obviously, you know, last year, Gino went from like fringe average to like elite. Yeah. And so like that type of leap is. not unheard of. It's just highly unusual. I would say that you guys may have noticed that we did not put Jonathan India on our list. And that's not just because we've talked about him some. It's because Jonathan India isn't better than Josh Rojas. He's not better than Eureas. I don't think. Like if you're telling me, like, I have to pick one to be my starting third baseman.

I'm picking Eureas. Who do I feel better about putting up a 110 WRC plus? The answer ain't Jonathan Indy, I'll tell you that much. So, uh, yeah, you'll, you'll also notice that, uh, none of those players are like definitely better than Roja. I mean, maybe Castro, but like, none of those guys are like, oh my God, that is such an upgrade over what we have.

And there's a reason for that also, because there's just not a lot of options in general. Yeah. So again, this is about guys who are essentially you, you're just putting in the mix, right? It's an insurance policy, essentially.

If like one guy doesn't pan out, maybe this guy will you know if this guy doesn't hit maybe this guy will hit it's one of those things right it's not again it's not the horay polanco idea it's not willie adamus it's not any of those guys right so no and you pretty much just named the only two guys that are actually available we think maybe brandon low maybe brandon low maybe glaber torres yeah maybe glaber like maybe maybe he'll but can he play yeah can't even throw

I don't know maybe uh Luis Rangifo but there's the whole Angels thing there like there's a lot of maybe's uh so with the guys who we know are almost certainly

um better than then Rojas and and uh Eureas who are you know we feel really confident they're going to post better numbers in those guys. And we feel are confident, and we feel confident that they're going to get traded at some point. Right.

There's like one or two of those guys at most. Yeah. And then there's a bunch of guys who are like similar, is, but they're making more money. Which we know, unfortunately, is part of the equation we have to consider. Well, and there's also like who's going to require Brian Wu or Bryce Miller to trade. You know, like,

yeah, as I mean, shoot, even the the twins could just be like, yeah, we want Brian Wu for Jorge Polanco. And at that point, I'm going, no, thank you. Have a good day. You know. Yeah. I mean, at that point, you're probably just going and signing Whitmerfield, even though he's nowhere near as good because you'd rather have Brian Wu and Whitmerfield

than Jorge Polanco. So, yeah, I gave you a bunch of trade options. These are guys that I think actually could be had for prospects. Castro might be a little bit different. Like Castro might, they might ask for. Brian Wu for Castro. I wouldn't do it, but it's not a ridiculous ask. So yeah, you just, you know, if you guys were hoping for more exciting names, like,

cool, who are they? Yeah. Like you tell me, who are they? Yeah. Because I'm here to tell you there's not a lot of them left right now. There weren't that many to begin with. And in a market that is apparently not really interested in doing traditional prospect for major leagueer trades as, you know, Justin Hollander claims last night.

It's really hard to find these guys. So, you know, of course, you would, you should like, you should want to do better than Donovan Solano and J.D. Davis and, you know, not that's a shot at those guys, but you should want to do better than that. But again, who are they? Like, who's the better option? Yeah. Find them for me.

Find me the better option who we know for a fact. available who isn't going to cost Miller or Wu and fits in the Mariners budget without completely blowing it all on one player. Go find that guy. Let me know who it is because I couldn't find it. Yeah. Yeah. It's been really difficult to crack the code here on what the Mariners are eventually going

to do and who's going to fit that bill. So we'll see. We'll see what they do. But there are tons of different ways that they could attack this. And again, we don't really have any sort of. clarification in terms of what the significance of this final bat that they're apparently looking to add is or this infield bat specifically because again it could be polanco it could be adamas or it could be risario merrifield yeah etc anderson anderson or shella like yeah somebody who's not nobody's going to be super pumped about

that's probably who it's going to be yeah one other an altara is six name real fast Nick magical. Yeah. Like puts the ball in play. High average, pretty good defender. No power. None. Not going to steal bases.

So, yeah. Yeah. Those are the type of guys you're looking at. Like one or two tool, one or two tool guys. That's pretty much what you're hoping to praying for. Or it's Sanchez who's got like five tools,

but hasn't quite put them all together in one season. Like those are your options. So real quick, before we get out of here, we're typically not supposed to do this. or, you know, we're supposed to stay on task here with the Mariners and talk about the Mariners. But today is a pretty notable day in Seattle sports in general. And so I just wanted to acknowledge, you know, I think it would be weird to do the show

and not even at least acknowledge the fact that Pete Carroll is no longer the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. And I just wanted to say, you know, even though like Pete's obviously not going to watch this or whatever, I still want to say it that Pete Carroll is an absolute legend. I am so grateful for the 14 years that he was the Seahawks head coach for bringing the first championship that I think a lot of us experienced in Seattle sports and our Seattle sports fandom. And it's a sad day, quite frankly. It's a really sad day.

Hopefully that leads to something good in the end for the Seahawks. but nonetheless, it's hard not to think about that and hard not to be sad about that. Anything you want to say about Pete real quick before we get out of here? Yeah, you know, just that it's a sad day for me personally. I started coaching baseball in 2010, like the summer 2010, which was a couple months after Pete Carroll was hired. And as a young coach searching for identity, hey, let's see what Pete Carroll has to say. And I read his books and his philosophy.

and it was eye-opening to see somebody who, you know, was willing to buck the trend of what a traditional football coach was where it's rugged and tough. And, you know, I'm a disciplinarian and you will respect me and blah, blah, blah. And Pete, you know, was a player coach who everybody thought was a joke. And, you know, 14 years later, he proved not only is he, not only wasn't he a joke that he was, in fact, one of the best head coaches in the history of the sport of football.

So, you know, for everything he did for me personally, even though he never met me, you know, just for how he shaped my opinion on coaching young athletes and all that and for obviously winning the Super Bowl and, you know, always taking the, taking the strays for things that didn't go well. He was always front and center, blame me, blame me. He took the, he took the blame for Richard Sherman and he took a lot of heat for Russell Wilson. And he took the heat for the, you know, the Super Bowl interception and the play call and all that stuff. He was always there. And he always, he always took the blame for his guys, even when it's his guys who needed to take the blame. He was a mentor, a father figure to some, just a really genuine dude, weird at times, sure. You know, did some questionable things, sure.

But just as genuine of a dude as you can find in his profession. And I'm going to miss him. It's going to be weird. Pete Carroll, here's your Mariners connection. He raised the bar for what is acceptable for our Seattle sports teams in the city. No longer is it just good enough to be quirky and like, oh, well, you know, that's just part of being a fandom. No, no, you can win in the city. You can win big in the city.

And, you know, Pete Carroll kind of reinforced that idea that Seattle as a professional sports city is a great freaking city and we deserve championships. And Pete Carroll brought us one. So, you know, for that, I'm always going to be grateful for Pete and I'm going to miss them. It's a, it's a rough day. You know, I know this day it was coming eventually. Yeah. Didn't think it was going to be today, though. Didn't think it was going to be today, and it still didn't make it any easier.

So, you know, for just a napsal. When you find out via Adam Schaefter tweet. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a tough day. So, again, you know, thanks, Pete for everything and thank you for instilling pride back in the city of Seattle at a time where not too, you know, the Seahawks were a joke. The Mariners were a joke. The Sonics had just been stolen. The Huskies were coming off on 0 and 12, blah, blah, blah.

And Pete, you know, Pete really resurrected the city of Seattle as a truly great sports town. And for that, I'll always be grateful. and I wish him nothing but happiness and the best of luck wherever whatever his new role is with the Seahawks. So a sad day. Yeah, like you said, Pete's the epitome of leadership. And he is the epitome of competition. So really appreciate everything that Pete Carroll did in his tenure as Seahawks head coach, what he's done for the sports scene in Seattle

and just the city of Seattle in general. So forever grateful to Pete Carroll. So that is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marries podcast. Colby Pat Node. I'm Tadangazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tideane Gonzalez

and Colby at C-Pad 11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen to have yourself a beautiful baseball day. And we'll see you next time. Peace. Always compete. Always compete.