Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - The GM Meetings Begin

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode break down Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto's comments on trading prospects. Then, the two analyze the middle tier of the starting pitching market and talk about the GM Meetings beginning in California today.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. 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.

You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariners News and Analysis. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available in all platforms. And today is Tuesday, November 9th, 2021. I am your host, Tadayn Gonzalez. Join, as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode.

Follow us on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. This is D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-P-A-L-Z and C-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more. And also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com for it slash control zone if that sounds interesting to you. And on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners, we're going to talk about some comments.

Jerry DePoto made to Corey Brock of the athletic. We're also going to talk about Stephen Matts in the middle tier of the starting pitching market. and we're also going to talk about the general manager meetings which are going on today and how that could potentially get the ball rolling for Depoto and the Mariners. So if you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. We greatly appreciate it. Before we get in today's topics, though, I do want to take a moment here to recognize a pretty big member of the Mariners community, Tim Cantu, who unfortunately passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer.

he of course was a long time writer at lookout landing if you have read lookout landing as we have as i'm sure a lot of mariners fans have you are probably familiar with tim's work and i i didn't know tim personally but he seemed like a great guy that touched the lives of many who i consider friends and colleagues in this uh in this little community so it's is a sad day here and um just wanted to mention here that we're you know we're thinking of uh tim and his family his wife his children and all those in this community that got to know him. So there's no real natural way to segue into our segments, but we're going to have to find a way to do that.

So we're going to talk about Jerry DePoto. Obviously, the general manager meetings are starting today. He talked to Corey Brock of the athletic and shared some thoughts on the offseason and kind of what his plan is, especially in terms of trade discussions. And so there was some interesting quotes here that one of our followers at Harry Depoto or at H. Depoto on Twitter,

goes by Harry Depoto, brought to my attention. So I'm going to read here, starting with a quote from Corey Brock himself, which says, the one thing the Mariners won't do this week or the rest of the off season, according to Depoto, is break up their course.

of top prospects for trade bait, no matter how tempting it may be. That means guys like Julio Rodriguez, Matt Brash, George Kirby, and Noel V. Marte are likely off limits, though other players could get some hits like pitchers Levi Stout and Brandon Williamson, for example,

end quote. And then Depoto went on to say, I would say it goes further than the top 10. We'll get hits on the guys at the top of the system, but we'll also get hits on guys on the 15 to 25 range. There's no scenario where we will move, the top prospects in our system,

the guys who are prominent in our system. But if there is an opportunity to add a player to be with the Mariners for more than a year, it will create a conversation for us in Carlsbad and as the offseason progresses, end quote. So Colby, you know, what is your reaction to this statement here that, you know, Jerry's going to at least for the time being,

play things close to the vests here and not be willing to move some of his top pieces for high-end talent elsewhere. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. And it does, you know, it does kind of put a damper on some of the things, some of the fun things that we had discussed as possibly being, you know, on the table. You know, namely, if you were a Jose Ramirez fan, you were fan of that idea, or even lately the Sandy Alcantra or the even probably, Lopez idea probably puts a damper on that.

But you never know. You know, Jerry could just be saying these things. And it only takes one phone call to change somebody's mind. So, like, did Jerry ever envision that he was going to put Canoe and Diaz together? No, he didn't. In fact, he publicly said that. And yet, when the opportunity came, he took it. So you never really know that could be the plan going in,

but plants have a tendency to, to disappear pretty quickly. One thing I do wonder is if this means that Jerry might be more willing or maybe even wanting to move pieces off of his major league roster, somebody like Kyle Lewis, who we've heard speculation could be on the outs with Seattle. We've speculated about trading Chris Flexen as part of a package to, you know, get a better starting pitcher than him back. You know, again, I don't think JP and Kai France are going anywhere.

Luis Terenz, maybe, maybe not. We'll have to wait and see. It kind of depends on Abraham Tora. Yeah, Abraham Tora, who we know that they had interest, they got interest in after they acquired him. So, yeah, there are going to be some Jake Frey, I mean, any of the reliever. So I do wonder if maybe Jerry is going to be more aggressive in trading off of his 26-man roster than maybe we initially thought.

The thing that really stands out to me here is when he says, but if there's an opportunity to add a player to be with the Mariners for more than a year. I read that and I see, well, yeah, we're not going to trade any of our top guys for rentals. But if we can get a controllable piece that's going to be around here past 2022, then we'll entertain that idea. So ultimately, I don't think this is really much to get worked up about. Like really, I still think that Jose Ramirez, if it's possible, could still be in play.

I still think, you know, because these are guys that we're talking about that have club control, Pablo Lopez, Sandy Alcantra, etc. If that opportunity actually present itself to where that's semi-realistic, and I don't think that Jerry is just going to willy-nilly want to trade

Julio Rodriguez, Matt Brash, etc. For any of these guys. But I think if that actually is a real possibility for them, they're certainly going to consider it. I mean, you would be stupid, not to.

Because, I mean, you know, we're talking about legitimate, you know, superstar level talent, especially with someone like Jose Ramirez. So, yeah, I read this and it doesn't really make me feel one way or the other, to be quite honest with you. I think it's fine. I think it's what I would expect him to say. And I also, you know, from a competitive perspective as well, I'm sure there's reasons to say something like this in the media as well.

So yeah, I don't think it really indicates much other than we're just, we're not going to, you know, sacrifice the future for one year guys. Like, yes, we recognize that we need to take another step in 2022, but we're not going to go all in on this year either, which is smart, which is what any reasonable fan really should expect from this team. and hope for from this team that they don't just spin all their assets and waste that all away on one season or two seasons. So, yeah, I don't think it's a huge deal.

Again, it's kind of in line with what we've been thinking. We didn't think Julio was going to be available. We didn't think Kirby was going to be available. You know, we had talked about maybe trading Noeli because he was a few years. away and I still think they might do that, but also you're not just going to trade Noelvie for a guy, you know. So yeah, there's really no, nobody should be surprised by the names that he mentioned. And yeah, you know, honestly, I would, I would be very hesitant to trade Brandon Williamson. Matt Brash, Levi Stout, I would do it. But you have to be careful because the goal isn't to make the playoffs in 2020.

that's the 2020 goal, but the goal is to have a long and open competitive window, kind of like the Cardinals, where you're basically competing for a playoff spot every year. That's the goal. And so you don't get there by sabotaging your future to make, you know, one year count. And it's one year where you might not even be able to beat the Astros, because you're probably at least a year away, a full year away from really seriously contending for that. the division title. So, yeah, it's, it could be GM speak.

It could be nothing. It could be something, but we don't know. The one thing with Jerry Depoto is, well, two things. He's pretty honest, but he's also very creative and he's open to have his mind change. So I wouldn't read too much into it, but it is worth noting on the first day of the GM meetings, which very well could be and probably are going to basically be the de facto winter meetings this year. For sure. So we'll see how it all plays out.

And the Mariners are certainly going to be deeply involved in the starting pitching market this winter. So we're going to talk about a few names that they could add on the back end in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by betonline.ag. We're back and better than ever. A new web interface for the start of the basketball season and more props, odds, and lines than ever before. Bet Online remains your number one spot for all the basketball and football action this season. Head to our new updated desktop or mobile website to sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use our promo code locked on to receive your bonus.

From basketball, football, NHL, boxing, and UFC right to your favorite Vegas casino games. Don't wait to take advantage of all the amazing offers available for the 2021 season. Bet Online is the fastest and the easiest way to bet on all your favorite sports. Bet online, where the game starts. Thank you again for making us your first listen of. the day every day. This is locked on Mariners and we're going to talk about three pitchers, particularly one

that could be of interest to the Mariners this off season to add towards the back end of their rotation. Last night I put out a poll asking you which you would prefer the Mariners to sign of Stephen Mats, Tyler Anderson and Alex Cobb and right now

Stephen Mats has a small lead over Tyler Anderson 43.6%. of the poll votes have gone to him. 40.1% to Anderson, 16.4% to Alex Cobb. 27 or 287 of you have voted on that. There's four hours left on that poll at the time of this recording. But seems like everyone's on board with Stephen Matts who Colby continues to surprise you in terms of his market or what the indication of his market might be.

MLB trade rumors projecting him to be worth just 9 million AAV and their free agency predictions yesterday three year $27 million deal for Stephen Mats was what they projected there I forget which team that they mostly had him going to but I mean at that dollar figure and that kind of commitment for a guy that was worth almost 3 F4 last year as far as I'm aware I mean that's got to be a steal right It is for me.

Yeah, you know, he's worth 2.8 F4 last year, made 29 starts, 150 innings, 8.6K per 9, 2.57 based on ball per 9, 45% ground ball rate. Yeah, he was just, he was really, really good last year and, you know, pretty underrated. The 9 million AAV really surprises me, considering Andrew Heaney just got eight. You know, granted, they didn't have the, you know, they didn't have the foresight when MLB trade rumors put that projection together, they didn't have the hindsight ability because he signed shortly after that article was published. But if he's getting nine, right, or eight, Matt's is worth at least that. The guy was really good last year. He's worth more than that. So it continues to boggle my mind.

it's also weird to me I guess not weird but Tyler Anderson was you know everybody wants Tyler Anderson or you know most of or you know a large portion of the people in the poll

would choose Anderson over Mats Matt's was significantly better than Anderson last year he was worth he was worth 7 0.7 more wins by F-Worse formula you know you look

Anderson's whip or FIPP last year, 437, his ex-fip 460, opposed to Stephen Mats, whose FIP was 379 and his ex-FIP was 394. Matt's had the better ERA. He struck out more guys. You know, he got more ground balls. The home run to fly ball rate was identical. Mats was simply better. I mean, there's really no debate to be had.

Matt's was the better pitcher last year. So it feels like people, might be sleeping on Stephen Matt's and I would not be surprised at all if Jerry and his crew really like mats like his arm, like his upside. There's still some upside there. He's going to be 31, but if it's only a three-year deal,

I mean, that's pretty good. Again, Phil's the strike zone. It's just a solid pitcher, and I get there's a relatively small track record of success there, but or at least this level of success. but the same could have been said for Robbie Ray. And, well, we all saw how that worked out.

So, yeah, Stephen Matt's to me is getting overlooked. Yeah. For me, you know, the thing here is Alex Cobb is kind of being overlooked in this poll as well. I mean, I know that there's injury concerns here, but the guy posted a career high in K's Per 9. He was worth two and a half F4 in just 93 innings pitch. in an in the angels rotation by the way like that's that's got an account for something um the guy is really good and if you're looking for a bounce back candidate that's not going to um cost you a ton of

money or a long-term commitment and could potentially slot in your number five spot in your rotation but pitch like a number three I mean that's the guy right there if you're looking for upside, if you're looking for a Robbie Ray, that might be the guy. He, at the very least, he should have way more votes

and he should rank ahead of Tyler Anderson. To me, Anderson is the clear number three option out of those three guys. Yeah. Yeah, for me too. I mean,

just you need guys who can miss more bats and Tyler Anderson just doesn't really miss bats. You know, he was able to get some, strikeouts while he was in Seattle, but still it's just like, obviously it ultimately matters, you know, if you can get out, right? That's the name of the game for pitchers.

Right. But you like some more swing and miss in your rotation. Just Anderson doesn't really give you that. Matt's almost averaged K per 9 last year, if I'm remembering correctly. I don't have his numbers pulled up in front of me, but you know, Cobb

also averaged over a K per 9 last year, which isn't really something that he's done. I mean, that's was that 9.45 number that he had was like three higher than it's been in the last six years for him. So obviously you got to worry about regression there as well. But I don't know. You know, we've talked about the Mariners need to get two starting pitchers this off season. And both of them aren't going to be absolute home runs.

Hopefully one of them is. But the second one is probably going to be have, is probably going to have to be someone that you're taking a change. on a little bit here. And I feel like Cobb is a pretty good one to take a chance on. Or Matt's offers you some safety there at that number and offers you more upside than Tyler Anderson, frankly. Yeah, I mean, pretty significantly. Anderson is fine.

Like, you know, Anderson was extremely helpful to the Mariners, the second half of the year, minus the two God-awful starts against the Angels. But, yeah, you know, overall he was very good. And, you know, if Seattle was in kind of another wait-and-see type of year, then Anderson would make a lot of sense. But you're not. You're trying to make the playoffs in 2022. You need some upside.

And Anderson is just like his upside is two wins. That's who he is. That's what he is. I mean, he's Marco Gonzalez at his very best. and that's only maybe 15% of the time. So there's just not a lot there with Anderson. And if Seattle goes into spring training next year with Anderson as their strong number five,

like he's got the job, I think that's a bit of a failure on the part of the Mariners because I just don't see them adding that true number one ace that would justify just getting a number five placeholder until you get hopefully Kirby or Williamson or somebody ready. You just can't do that. Anderson to me would be a pretty type of signing.

I just like, it's not terrible per se, but it's just one of those where it's like, you know, what are you doing? Especially if you can get mats for nine or wood for 10 or a cop for nine and Anderson's going to cost you a seven. Like,

just spend the extra money, get more upside out of it. but yeah you know again Anderson extremely useful and Seattle clearly likes them and so wouldn't be shocked or they brought them in I would just be kind of welled let's say all right we're going to talk about the general manager meetings in just a moment all right so the general manager meetings are starting today and they will go on through November 11th so Jerry depoto hasn't made any moves yet the Mariners haven't made any moves Colby, is this going to be the thing that gets the ball rolling?

Earlier on in the show, you said that this might be the pseudo-winter meetings, if you will, especially with the lackout potentially happening where that's probably going to cancel out the winter meetings this year. Yeah, it seems like it might. So, yeah, hopefully this does get the ball rolling. We've seen some reports that suggest that, you know, GMs are certainly viewing this as, kind of the winter meeting. So I don't think you're going to see any, you're not going to see any like big free agent sign in the next few days.

I really doubt anybody of anybody who's going to get, you know, 20 million or more. AAV is going to sign before the lockout starts. But we'll see how that goes. But I do think that you're going to see some trades made during these meetings. And then in the days after, I think you're probably going to see a Floria moves made. it sounds like there are a lot of teams who want to get stuff done before the

lockout, which should help get things facilitated, but also we're, what, a week into the offseason now, and we've had one major trade, if you even want to call them a major trade, and we've had one significant free agent signing,

and those are Tucker. Yeah, we'll call it noteworthy. Yeah, there you're noteworthy. Yeah, Tucker Barnhart and Andrew Heaney. That's it, like a weekend. Yeah.

That's not what I expected. And so I hope it, it's rolling soon. I think it has to. Particularly if you're a team like the Mariners who was trying to make a statement to free agents, particularly to Simian, Bryant, like those type of story, those type of guys. I think you can't go

into the break here with very little you know, very little of impact on you can't just go sign. You know, you just can't go just trade for a middle reliever and be like, okay, well, we'll see what happens after we get back from the break. You have to get some stuff done.

So, yeah. You have to leave a lasting impression before the lockout happens because you have no idea when you're coming back. Right. And so, you know, this could get to the point where you're in March and you got to, you know, maybe spring training's been delayed by a couple weeks or whatever, but they're not going to delay it by much. So say you're in March and now you have two weeks, three weeks to scramble and put together the rest of your roster. So you need to leave a lasting impression here on the market that, you know, just so you don't get left in the dust when,

you kind of get to, I don't know, what we'll, I guess we'll consider the lightning round of free agency because that's always possible. And so you want to have, you want to make that statement. You want to let free agents out there know, especially because some of the bigger names are probably not going to sign until after the negotiations are finalized. And so, you know, if you, if you're looking to sign a Brian or a Simeon or what have you, you need to start making some moves here in case that the lockout happens and these guys are going to have months potentially to mull over all of these decisions that these teams have made. You want to be able to stand out amongst the crowd because frankly, you don't right now.

Even with the 90-win season and all that stuff, there's a lot more appealing places out there for free agents to go than Seattle. So you've got to convince them. You've got to convince them that Seattle is worth investing in because we want to invest in you. Right. And, you know, there's also value to being, you know, the team that makes a couple of the bigger moves before the shutdown. Because, you know, MLB Network is only going to talk about negotiations and lockouts, you know, they're not going to, that's not going to turn into a 24-hour news story for them. So what are they going to talk about?

They're going to talk about teams that's a prize in 2020, 2021, and teams that could take a big step in 2022. And if you're the Mariners and you've made a couple of these moves and, you know, know, Brian Kinney's and God forbid, Mad Dog Russo, or, well, in Russo's case, screaming about the Mariners because they made the most relevant moves. The players who watch that, that is part of the recruiting process. It's like, well, you know, Seattle did get some stuff done here before we got locked out. So, you know, it's just in the back of your head. Well, Seattle's already been aggressive. Seattle's already been aggressive.

And it's like, what are the Yankees going to do? Well, I don't know. They didn't make a move before the deadline. So I'm not sure, you know, what, what direction they're going. I'm not sure what, you know, who's available. I don't know if this spot's going to be open to me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you want that, you want people talking about you during the lockout, but not for lockout related reasons.

And the best way to do that, because you've already had this amazing, like, come out of nowhere season, the best way to do that is to make some moves now and be the most talked about team because of what you did in the one month off season that we're going to get before the lockout. Before we hop out of here, Colby, I'm going to put you on the spot here and ask you, over under one and a half Mariners moves by Thursday night, by the general manager meeting sent by Thursday. What are we talking? Like 26 man moves, like real, real moves?

Any moves, any moves of any kind? Oh, over. They're going to, they're going to, well, any, any, anything that results in an acquisit. for the Mariners. Okay. Under. Thursday night. Tuesday, Wednesday, so just two days.

Yeah, I think they do one thing. So I'll take under. Under? All right, I'll probably take the under as well. I think they will do one thing, though. I think they will do one thing. So we'll see. Apparently we'll have something to talk about tomorrow.

Apparently they're going to sign Anthony Rizzo. yeah if any anyone that's listening to this saw those uh i i forget what the twitter account was but uh someone had the mariners signing anthony rizzo which is uh sorry if you like anthony rizzo uh you know he's just he doesn't make any sense for the mariners with tie france here um yeah tie france is the first baseman and if you're thinking about any first base types i suggest uh looking elsewhere. Because the Mariners are not going to acquire a big time first basement this year. Highly doubt it.

Sorry to those of you that are also holding out for Matt Olson. But that's going to do it for our show today. Thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners. If Colby Pat note, I'm Taday and Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-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 every day. We'll be back tomorrow and like I said, we're hoping that Jerry does something because we want something to talk about. That would be nice to actually have something substantial, something new to talk about. But in the meantime, make your second listen of the day, Lockdown MLB Prospects,

where host Aram Lighten is a prospect encyclopedia, and he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. And just like us, his show is free and available on all. all platforms. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day. Go listen to ARMS show and we'll see you tomorrow.