Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - The Mariners and Their Fans Must Avoid These 5 TRAPS This Winter!

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Colby breaks down five traps the Mariners their need to avoid this offseason, Ty lists his biggest takeaways from Ryan Divish's appearance on the Sea Level Podcast, and the guys hand out their grades for the Mariners' catchers in this episode of Locked On Mariners.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Jase MedicalSave more than $360 by getting these lifesaving antibiotics with Jase Medical plus an additional $20 off by using code LOCKEDON at checkout on jasemedical.com.  eBay MotorsKeep your ride-or-die alive at ebay.com/motors. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More.Make Every Moment More. Right now, NEW customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED in BONUS BETS - GUARANTEED. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.SleeperDownload the Sleeper app and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details. Currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today!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.

The Mariners and their fans need to avoid these traps this off season. Let's get into it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors, it is Tuesday, October 10th, 2023. This is Tanya Gonzalez and Colby Patnaud for the Locked-on Mariners podcast, brought to you by Jace Medical. Empower yourself when you purchase a Jace case, providing you with a personal supply of five-any

bionics that treat 50 plus infections. Get yours today at Jacemedical.com. That's JASE Medical.com. Thank you so much for making us your first. Listen, subscribe, like, and turn 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, I'm rock with us every single day. Let us know in the comments below.

And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. You now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. the link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode so on the show today colby wants to go over some traps the mariners and their fans need to avoid this offseason we're also discussed some of the more interesting tidbits to come from ryan dibbish and his latest appearance on the sea level podcast we'll begin our 2023 report card series with a look at the mariners catchers but we're going to start here with uh what you wanted to talk about today colby you wrote an article over at your substack,

SotoSports.substack.com. Check it out. You wrote about five traps. The Mariners and their fans need to avoid this off season. So I know you wanted to go over that a little bit on today's show. So floor is yours, my friend. Yeah. So what are traps?

Traps are things that stupid people fall into. But, you know, to use them, more kind of eloquent thought is that these are eloquence. Yeah, I know, right? Hey, watch your mouth. I am affable and. True.

Elegant. I'm affable and eloquent. That's the new shirt. Sure. There you go. But no, basically these are roster construction fallacies or thoughts that people have that sound okay. And in certain cases would be okay, but they're really not for the upcoming mirror.

And I've given each of them a name, but this is more to just kind of highlight a player who falls into this, this trap. So it's it's, it's I'm not I'm not poking fun at the players. It just, you know, happens to be the guy who I think of when I think of this trap. So first up, we have what I call the Ryan Bliss trap or the Bliss trap. This one's pretty simple. It's, it's the basic idea that you can't sign player X because you need to leave at bats available for this unproven player in this case Ryan Bliss so the idea like oh well you shouldn't sign Whitmerfield this is just an example because you need to get Ryan Bliss at bats now you don't you absolutely

don't guys like Bliss should earn every at bat they get at the big leagues uh this upcoming year um you know and and so you're not in that mode anymore in 2019 fine we could have that conversation 2020 2021 we could have that conversation even But now you're in a period where, no, you don't save at bats for prospects, even when they kind of did it last year for Kelnick. That was really a gray area. So, yeah, the Ryan Blistrap. Don't avoid signing proven players because you feel like you have to give an unproven player an opportunity.

Nope, he has to earn it. So that's a blist trap. Next up, I have the Josh Rojas trap, or the, the Rojas trap for short. Basically, this is the idea that you avoid saying things like that's good enough, right? So we don't have to go and trade for Glaber Torres or I don't want to go trade, you know, whoever it is for Glaber Torres because Josh Rojas is good enough. No.

Or we can't, we don't want to trade for that guy because we have Rojas, who can play that spot. no you just push rojas down to a different role like that's what we're talking about here so the rojas trap is just this idea of like oh this guy is good enough there so we shouldn't waste resources trying to upgrade that spot you should always be looking to upgrade uh and guys like josh rojas shouldn't stop you doesn't mean that they're not valuable players it just means that you don't allow kind of average two-win guys to dictate serious roster upgrades uh So that's the Rojas trap. Up next is the Thai France trap or the Auhennial Suarez trap.

You can pick. This one is just the basic idea that we can't assume that a player coming off of a bad year is going to rebound. You can't build your team around it. You're offseason around it. It doesn't mean that these guys can't be a part of the solution to the problem that they created. But it does mean that you have to kind of protect yourself from the idea that maybe these guys just aren't good. anymore you have to allow for that to be possible as you attack the offseason so don't go into this winter and be like well we don't need to address first base in some capacity because tie france

will definitely bounce back nope you don't get to think like that when you're trying to win the world series which is what the mariners claim they're trying to do so that's the tie france trap kind of connected to the tie france trap is what i'm calling the dominant can zone trap This is the idea that like, well, we need a, we need a, you know, and it's connected to the France trap because we need a first baseman. Like if somebody who can play first base in case Thai France isn't good, that player can't be somebody who's also unproven. Okay. So you can't say, well, we don't need to go get somebody who can play first because Dominic Canzone can play first. No, that's not an acceptable solution.

You need proven veterans. You need a situation where Dominic Canzone is going to be your tie. France insurance. It's because he's earned it. And that's just another place where you can possibly get Canzone at bats. So yeah, it's, like I said, this one's pretty,

pretty standard. It's connected to the trap right before it. You can't, you can't protect yourself from poor performance with unproven players. You just, you can't. It doesn't work. Then the last one is,

more of a, you know, big picture, a item. I call it the AJ Preller trap. Pretty simple. Money doesn't equal wins in major league baseball. Can it help?

Yes. But this one's more for fans. You can't judge the quality of an offseason based on how much money is spent. And I can prove it to you with a crazy hypothetical, but here it is. What if the Mariners convinced Shohei Otani to sign here for $10 million a year? And they traded for Juan Soto. and got the Padres to agree to eat his entire salary. Is the Mariners offseason bad because they only spent $10 million?

No, of course it's not. So you can't just look at payroll at it and say good offseason, bad off season. That's stupid. The temptation's going to be there because obviously, you know, Jerry stuck his foot in his mouth and John Stanton's done nothing to prove that he cares about winning or adding significant payroll. So that's going to be the temptation, but money doesn't mean, spending money doesn't mean that you're getting a good player even. It doesn't mean that you've had a good offseason. Anthony Rendon is the second highest play, second highest paid position player in Major League Baseball.

Is he the second best player, Major League Baseball? No, he's one of the worst. And it's an albatross of a contract. So I'm not saying the team shouldn't spend. I'm not saying you shouldn't expect them to spend. And we're probably going to talk, you know, pretty much, pretty deep in depth on our Patreon show today about the payroll, because I've got some numbers there. But just remember, it's not just about they need to hit X number to have a good offseason.

They need to spend, you know, $100 million for it to be considered a good off season. Get good players. Worry about how they fit your team. Don't just throw bad money after good to just kind of try and build a super roster. If the pieces don't fit together, if they don't work together, you're going to end up like the San Diego Padres and Jerry to Poto is going to end up like AJ Preller. So those are the traps. You know, you have the Bliss trap, the

Rojas trap, the France trap, the Canzon trap, and the AJ Proler trap. So keep those in mind as you tinker with your offseason plans and whatnot. And if you guys want to read the full article, we'll have a link in the description of this episode and be sure to subscribe to Colby's substack over at sodosports.substack.com.

And speaking of substack, over at the sea level substack with Ben Reneery, who you guys know, Ben's popped on the show a couple of times. He had Ryan Divish on his show, and Divish had a couple of interesting things to say. So we're going to go over that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by Jace Medical. Modern medical care and treatment are important, but our global supply chains are fragile. Things like pandemics, natural disasters, and foreign travel may cut you off from the treatment you need. Jace Medical is your solution for that.

fill out our online forum and one of our board certified physicians will review it to determine whether medications are safe and appropriate. Then they will send your prescriptions to one of our partner pharmacies where your Jace order will be filled and mailed directly to your home. Everyone should feel empowered to care for themselves and their loved ones during the unexpected. That's why Jace Medical offers the Jace case. Save more than $360 by getting these life-saving antibiotics with Jace medical plus an additional $20 off by using the promo code locked on at checkout on jacemedical.com.

That's j-a-S-E-medical.com. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. So, friend of the show, Ben Reneery, over on his substack, is going to have Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times on his show once a month and released the first episode of that series this morning in which he talked to Ryan about the press conference that we've gone over and over and over and over again on the show.

We won't rehash that, and we're not going to talk about Devis' thoughts on that. You can listen to the show if you want to hear that. But he had some interesting things to say about E. E. E. Oh, Haneo Souras and Ryan Bliss, Dom Kanzone, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we're going to go over that a little bit. I don't want to give everything away because, you know, out of respect to Ben and his substack and his paywall. But I do recommend going over there. Ben does great work.

So be sure to check it out over at c-level BR.com. So let's just go over some of the notes here from DeVish. So one of the first interesting things that he said is that he heard that Aeuhanioswras showed up to camp a little heavy and that the World Baseball Classic threw off his preparation. Though, despite that, he thinks he'll be back in 2024, mostly because there aren't that many avenues to go and replace him. He doesn't know if Thai France will return and believes Thai is unsure of that as

well. He does think though ultimately he will come back or at least he won't be non-tendered. He thinks though instead of that $7.2 million projection that MLB trade rumors has on Thai France, that the Mariners in France will end up somewhere in the $6.5 million range. He's also talked to Perry Hill about Dom Canzone playing first base and he doesn't necessarily get the sense that they'll explore doing that. Says that there's a lot of work to be done. on that front and that they're probably not going to go down that road. He's also been told that Ryan Bliss needs a lot of fundamental work over at second base defensively.

He's heard that from quite a few people within the organization. He also reiterated that Blake Snell really wants to come to Seattle like we talked about on yesterday's episode. He also said that Jerry Depoto has an infatuation with Sunny Gray, who's also hitting the market and we know that Mariners have looked into acquiring Sunny Gray a couple of times over the past few years. And finally, this is the big thing because Ben texted me this morning. He said, you should listen to my show with DeVish.

He said a couple of interesting things here. And that's about Logan Gilbert. He says that he thinks the Mariners actually could trade Logan Gilbert this offseason if they think they won't be able to resign him. And he considers their ability to resign him down the road unlikely. He said to just contextualize that a little bit more that the Mariners apparently offered him somewhere in the ballpark of a five-year, $25 million contract,

his rookie year, basically trying to get a very similar deal that they did with Evan White. And Logan's agent found that pretty insulting. So maybe there's a little bit of a rift between Logan Gilbert's camp and the mayor's organization.

Who knows? Colby, anything stand out to you from what I just listed? Well, the Gilbert's things probably the one that most people will be interested in. For the record, I don't care of the agent was insulted. We're talking about, you know, handing $25 million to a guy who I don't know when the offer was made exactly, but doesn't even have a full year of baseball, a major league baseball under his belt. That's totally like a fine, you know, offer to throw out there. And it's totally fine for Logan to bet on himself like he did. And it's going to pay off for him. But five years, deal at 25 million. That's just buying out arbitration, basically. And it still gives him an R3 year where he probably would make $20-ish million. So in reality, that deal is more or less,

if Gilbert believes in himself, a six-year contract worth $45 million-ish dollars. That's totally fine for a guy like Logan Gilbert when he came up. So agent can be insulted all he wants. That's the legitimate offer, as it's described to me. So, you know, could the mariner, it always felt like Logan was kind of the guy that they were most likely to trade. We even heard this summer that teams were asking about the Mariners young pitching, and they were told Kirby is not happening. We are not trading George Kirby. And so Gilbert is kind of the, I don't want to say the odd man out because you still have him for four more years. I would say that a Gilbert trade is unlikely this winter significantly unlikely.

and that ultimately being insulted by an offer three years ago is not going to have much of a upbearing on whether or not Logan wants to resign here. If the Mariners win, if they treat Logan well, if they pay him, if they come to the table with a good quality offer for him, he's going to consider it. He's not going to dismiss anything out of hand just because his agent thought that, you know, a completely legitimate offer was insulting to his client. that doesn't matter. It really doesn't. Remember, guys, at the end of the day, the agent works for the player, not the other way around. So if Logan's happy here long term and the Mariners come to him with a good offer, I think he would sign it. Now, could the Mariners be looking ahead and be like, well, you know, we're going to have to let one of these guys go as a cow, is it George, is it Logan? Then, yeah, I think Logan's probably the right one to let go. I mean, maybe cow, just because he's a catcher. but I don't think they were going to see any kind of movement on Cow or on,

on Logan really anytime soon. Sounds like Divich doesn't either, but yeah, I would say it's highly unlikely that Logan is, is not in a Mariners uniform this time next year even. So I think I think he's pretty safe. And, you know, we talked about what a Logan Gilbert trade might get you this summer. We talked a lot about that and there were some fun ones. there were some interesting ones, but ultimately it was really hard to find a deal that makes sense. And plus we did know that the Mariners apparently, again, according to Divish, did float Logan Gilbert in a Juan Soto trade a couple summers ago.

So yeah, I think there's probably some validity to the idea that the Mariners would be open to trading Logan Gilbert. I think the cost is going to be, uh, the cost to acquire him is going to be like astronomically high, which I think makes it less likely that they would be able to find a partner this winter. or so yeah the Gilbert thing I guess store it away for a couple years from now but I don't think he's going anywhere in the next two years yeah I don't see it either because one it would be a very unpopular move in the clubhouse and I get that's not what jerry depoto and justin hollander's main concern is clearly yeah um but also it just it takes away a great strength from your greatest strength on your roster um

And yeah, you know, if you go out and you add Blake Snell or Sunny Gray or someone like that, that does help fill that wound a bit. But it doesn't like there's still complications and issues that come with signing those guys as well. Like aside from the fact that Logan Gilbert is as good as them and cheaper. And Logan might end up being better. Yeah. Maybe as soon as next year. Like I just. And again, yeah.

he'll be he'll be cheaper he makes more sense for your roster build as a whole like i i just don't think that's going to happen and again like we explored this summer and like we're probably going to explore again this winter there just isn't a deal out there that makes complete 100% sense on on logan gilbert i think the closest we ever came was like what a rosarina and brandon Lao and something like it's and here Logan's not going to lose significant trade value if you keep them for another year or two either so it's not like you have to trade them now or you're never going to get anything good for him so yeah yeah the gilbert stuff will probably generate the most buzz but to me that's really a nothing burger right now right yeah i mean you know

divish didn't say anything definitive right it was just you know just kind of speculating like here's what i've heard etc etc etc etc etc not a huge deal. And he also touched upon the whole idea that we've talked about, right? You know, go out, sign a pitcher, then trade one of Bryce Miller or Brian Wu to go get the bat or bats you need because the hitting market is so for this offseason and free agency, whereas the pitching market is pretty good. And again, just to reiterate what I said yesterday, I don't think they're, if they do that, they're going to go so far on the high end to go after a Blake Snell or a Sunny Gray. But again, you know, this is now, I mean, DeVis just said it outright, but I've also been told this a couple of times over the last couple of months. Like Blake Snell wants to come to Seattle, really, really bad.

And DeVish, I think, said that he's building a facility that's essentially like a drive line type of thing in Washington. Like, he wants to be there. He wants to be in the Pacific Northwest. Really, really bad. So he's a northwest guy. I went to shoreline, still roots for the University of Washington. Probably still roots for the Mariners. Yeah, I mean, he roots for the Seahawks.

I wouldn't be shocked if he raised 12th man flag at some point this winter. Wouldn't be shocked if he's at the Oregon UW game this weekend. He loves it. It's his home. And he wants to be here, which we talked about. That's awesome. But, you know, it's not enough. It takes two to tango, right?

It takes the Mariners to actually be interested as a boy and where they'll aggressively pursue that. And I've been told that he would be open to taking some form of a home town discount to sign with the Mariners, as long as they're relatively close to what everyone else is offering. You got to be in the ballpark. Yeah, but I don't know if the Mariners are even going to be willing to go that far down the road. I just,

I doubt it. I think that they're going to commit significant dollars like that. It's probably going to be a hitter, but also who is that hitter? I don't know. Right. And I think they were going to invest in like a better than number four, like, starter in this free agent market. I do think it would be Sunny Gray,

because Jerry tried to acquire Sunny Gray from the Oakland A's, and then he tried again from the Yankees. You might remember he was, you know, that's how the Mariners got shed long. He was right there at the finish line. They ultimately took the Yankees deal or the Reds. The Yankees took the Reds deal, and the Mariners found a way to sneak in there

and claim shed long out of that. So, yeah, hearing that the Mariners, you know, are really infatuated with Sunny Gray, yeah, makes total sense. He misses bats. He doesn't walk too many guys. He's ground ball. like there's still some upside.

Yeah, like Sunny Gray totally is a mariner. He feels more marinary than Blake Snell does because Snell walks a lot of guys. He doesn't get deep into games, et cetera. So, yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that. And I already knew the thing about Snell. Gino coming in a little bit out of shape is disappointing because he's, you know, supposed to be a leader on your ball club. But, you know, stuff like that happens.

Ty France. And again, real quick on the WBC thing, this is just another thing that irritates me about playing him for all 162 games this season. Also, if you are aware that he didn't come in into camp in the best shape as well, like, what are we doing here?

Why are you pushing the envelope on that front? That makes no, that is never going to make any sense to me playing him for all those games. Nope. Especially once you acquire Josh Rojas and he had a legitimate third baseman to play that spot instead. And then, yeah, we'll see about Ty for Ants.

Ty and I talked about him possibly being on Tindered. Um, you know, and would you do it? And we thought the number was going to be closer to eight million and then, you know, MLBTR comes out with seven point two, which is a lot more palatable. And the number is down to six and a half. I don't see any reason not to bring, uh, tie back because you're probably not going to get a ton for him on the trade market right now. And at six and a half, if he's a 120 WRC plus guy, that, that's a bargain. So, and even if he's only a 105 WRC plus guy, like at six and a half million,

that's not preventing you from doing anything else. So we'll see what happens there. But yeah, you know, Ty kind of put himself in this spot. He hasn't been good for over a calendar year now. He struggled the second half of last year too. So, um, yep, none of that is very surprising to me. And the can zone bliss thing, I, frankly, I don't care.

It makes me feel better though. It makes me feel like maybe they're, they're not going to, uh, push it on either of those fronts. Like they're not going to, uh, to force canz i mean they might force canzone into one of the corner outfield spots uh one day but it feels like they're not going they're going to fall into the ryan bliss trap with dominant canzone right but not the dominant can zone trap with dominant can zone so there you go right uh but yeah and then the the the bliss stuff i mean like if he needs work

defensively then and you know they obviously don't have to add him to the 40 man so that that makes me feel like they're probably not going to force him as their uh starting second base. Of course, I'm on to the 26th man in general. No, and he's a, he's a really good athlete, too. So like, I'm not a concern about that long term either. No, no. Yeah. Yeah, of course. All right. So we are going to start our report card series. We're going to hand out some report cards for most of the 20203 Mariners over the next few episodes. And we're going to start with the catchers, uh, primarily Cal Raleigh and Tom Murphy in just a moment. But first, reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Merris podcast is brought to you.

by FanDuel. October baseball is back, folks, and you can make your postseason debut with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. Join Fandul today, and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets, guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. Just visit Fanduel.com slash locked on. That's L-C-K-D-O-N to create your new account, and you can get on on the action from the first pitch until the final out.

Bet on everything from strikeouts to home runs to who will win the game. And if you don't want to wait the whole game to get a win, predict what will happen in the next at bat with quick bets. So head on over to fanduel.com slash locked on right now. Step up to the plate this postseason with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Make every moment more with Fandul official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen.

So as I just went over, we are going to be starting our report card series now. We're going to be handing out report cards to most of the. the 2023 Mariners, not all of them. There are just some guys that's just not worth going down that road, but most of them. We're going to start with the catchers. We're going to start with Cal Raleigh and Tom Murphy. So I don't know if you want to do these individually. I don't know if you want to do them as a group.

But Colby, overall, what did you think of the Mariners catching situation in 2023? Overall, one of the best in baseball. So hard to be super critical of that. There are some, you know, things that each individual player needs to work on. But, yeah, you know, the Mariners catching spot, not a consistent problem for this ball club, which, you know, is honestly more than you can say for most of this team. So, yeah, it was totally rock solid. It was one of the strengths of this team. So overall, Mariners catching was not a problem for the, for the 2023 squad.

Yeah, and you know, you look at Cal specifically, he took a step forward this year, especially offensively. You know, he raised his batting average quite significantly, got on base more, lowered his K rate by a couple percent, hit 30 bombs. I mean, not many catchers are doing that, especially, you know, guys that can hit from both sides of the plate. And defensively, especially towards the end of the season, Cal was kind of popping off defensively, especially in the caught stealing department. Now, you know, controlling the run game as a whole was a pretty big issue for the marries catchers this season. Again, it's been an issue for them for the last couple of years. Tom Murphy allowed 27 stolen bases. He only caught one.

Steel a 10. Raleigh, you know, again, like the second half and more specifically like the last six weeks of the season, doing the heavy lifting here, but he allowed 78 stolen bases. He caught 27. they on the whole that unit needs to be better in future years um but again you know hopefully what we saw over the last six weeks of the season from raleigh is a sign a step in the right direction uh defensively um because again that's such a that's such a crucial area that they've really struggled with over the last few years so you know murphy is hitting free agency this this off season

and he was great offensively for the most part, but another injury that forced him to miss the rest of the year. He continues to get hurt. It's really unfortunate because obviously he's a big part of this clubhouse. And he has been a big part of this thing overall when he has been healthy at times. I mean, he finished the year with a 140 WRC plus. He was one of the best hitting catchers in all baseball. but given the durability issues,

given his issues and controlling the run game, do you think Tom Murphy's going to be back 2024? I do. Mostly because I think his value on the free agent market is taking a pretty serious hit because he once again got hurt. Murphy doesn't have a strong arm either. it's not a particularly quick release.

So in an era where, you know, trying to control the run game is now, you know, more important than ever before. Murphy's not really that guy. He's, he's never been great at, you know, throwing out base runners. And even when he was healthy this year, he, you know, there were some weird passball stuff. Like, he wasn't quite as good defensively as he was in the past. So he is an offense first backup catcher who can't stay healthy. And so I think that kind of scares. away a couple teams who might consider, you know, starting him every day and having to be the

everyday guy, if you can't handle the wear and tear of catching 50 games a year, why would I trust him to catch 80 games a year? So I think his market kind of got shot, you know, when he got hurt again. So I think that pretty much eliminates all the teams that might consider him an everyday guy. And that puts him in the top end of the backup market. He knows Seattle. Seattle knows him. obviously he knows the pitching staff very well. Seattle's going to feel comfortable with him working with their young arms. And he is a pretty good compliment to Cal Raleigh because he handles left-handed pitching very well. And Cal is certainly a lot better against right-handed pitching.

So it's kind of a perfect platoon there. I do think that if Tom Murphy is the backup catcher, that's fine. But you better do a little better than Brian O'Keefe as your third catcher. and it's hard to find a good quality third catcher. So, you know, maybe it's Ossinola who's probably going to get non-tindered. Maybe you trade for Joey Bart or something like that. But yeah, I think Murphy's probably going to be back unless there's a team out there who is willing to give him a shot to be the starter.

But based on his injury history of the last four years, it's, I find that extremely hard to believe. So the Mariners have the third most efficient offensive. of catching situation in all baseball by WRC plus, 115 WRC plus. They also had the fourth most valuable catching situation in baseball by F war. That's fan graphs, wins above replacement, 5.3 F war behind only the Orioles,

the Rangers, and the Brewers. I'm going to go, and we're going to go letter grade here instead of the 2080 scale. I'm going to go A-minus for the Mariners Catchers in 2023. I'm going to go A minus for Cal. I'm going to go B for Tom. Sure.

Just because, you know, again, you have to stay healthy enough to play more than 45 games. And he took a step back defensively. But he was very good offensively in the couple months that he was actually healthy. So, yeah, overall, it's probably like an A minus. Nobody gets an A this year because you miss the playoffs, except for one person. But we'll get to him at some point. But nobody else gets an A. So Cal Raleigh gets an A-minus.

He definitely took steps forward, both offensively and defensively. But for the love of God, can we not ask him to catch 130 games next year? Please, for the love of whatever deity you want to talk to. All of that is holy. Yeah. Yeah. Just either Tom needs to stay healthy or you need to make a significant upgrade there with somebody who can stay healthy.

Because Cal Ralee catching maybe 90 games and then D-H in like 20-25 games. that's the sweet spot. That's where you want it. Because you're just, you're wearing down a guy who, you know, you want to be a big part of your future. So, yeah,

overall, it's probably like a B plus, a minus. Cal gets an A minus. You know, still some, some ebb and flow in his offensive game, but overall,

like, come on. Yeah. And also props to Cal. I mean, he's obviously one of the leaders in this clubhouse. He got beat to hell behind the plate, especially over the last couple of weeks.

and he just kept it going, kept it pushing, just like he did last year when he was playing with half of his thumb broken off, like, dude is an absolute dog. And I hope he's a mariner for quite some time here, because God, I love Cal Raleigh. All right, that's going to do it for our show. We'll do more report cards over the next few episodes.

We'll go individually. We'll go positionally in some instances. Let us know down below what you would give the Mariners' Catching situation or what you would give, what grade you would give Cal Rolol. or Tom Murphy. But yeah, thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast for Colby Pat Note.

I'm Tadian Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dame Gonzalez. This is D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-PAT 11. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.