Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - The Mariners Need Change, But That Doesn't Mean Firings Are in Order

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

The Mariners have hit rock bottom after a 3-8 homestand, but does anyone need to be fired for their struggles? Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode don't think so. They tell you why, plus look at Seattle's four roster moves on Monday and discuss a familiar face who's been the topic of recent trade rumors.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 | @CPat11 | @InsideMarinersFor more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Athletic GreensTo make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/MLBNETWORKBetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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 have hit rock bottom and something needs to be done about it. But does anyone need to lose their job over these failures? We don't think so. And we're going to tell you why on today's episode of Locked on Mariners. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day.

What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Locked on Mariners podcast brought to you by Bet Online. Bet Online has you covered all season long with more props, odds, and lines than ever before. online is where the game starts. It is Monday, June 20th, 2020. And thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available in all platforms. I am your host, Taday Gonzalez, joined as always by my co-host Colby Patnode. We cover the Mariners over at inside the mariners.com for Fan Nation over on the Sports Illustrated network. Be sure to follow

the show on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. Follow Inside the Mariners at Inside Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, the C-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-A-E-1-1. Be sure also check out our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash control the zone. We post two additional podcasts on there every week. And if this is your first time joining us here on the Locked-on Mariners podcast, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly appreciate it.

So we're going to be talking about some roster moves that the Mariners made earlier today. we also have a trade rumor, a fairly big trade rumor that we're also going to be talking about a little bit later on in the show. But before we get into all that, we need to talk about the current state of the Mariners. And they're in a pretty rough state at the moment after a three and eight homestan, which was cast off with a one and four five game series against the Angels in which Mike Trout went off. And the Mariners offense fell apart. And naturally, you know, as any fan base would with a struggling team, especially a team that has severely underachieved relative to its stated goals heading into the season,

people are calling for the firings of the likes of Jerry Depoto, Scott Service, even hitting coaches Jared DeHart and Tony Arnrich. We're going to be talking about all these things, but Colby, I personally don't believe that anyone needs to get fired. for these struggles. I do believe that something needs to change here, that something needs to be done here. I don't think that you can sit idly by 10 games under 500

given what you were hoping to do this season. But I don't think that necessarily constitutes losing, you know, anyone losing their job over this. Do you agree? Yeah, firings don't do anything. Because ultimately at the end of the, the day, it's not the hitting coach's fault that they're not hitting.

It's not Scott Service's fault that they're not hitting. It's not Jerry Depoto's fault that they're not hitting. It's the players. You know, you got to look at the mirror and just accept it. That it's you. And firing, sometimes it can shake things up and sometimes, you know, it can be a wake-up call. But I don't think this team needs a wake-up call in that manner.

I also don't think it's going to change anything. You're going to fire Arnrich-A-Hand-a-heart, probably not. So one of them is going to remain as your hitting coach. And so who cares? You know what I mean? It's just not going to change anything. There's very little evidence, if any, to suggest that firing a manager has a direct correlation to the team starting to play well magically. It happened in Philly this year, but is that because Rich Thompson was named manager? Or is that because a very talented team started to play up to their level almost immediately after Gerardy was fired.

It's the latter. I mean, it's just one of those things where firing somebody makes fans feel good. It makes, you know, basically that's it. It's like, hey, look, we solved our problem because we fired this scapegoat is essentially what firing the hitting coach is. So I don't think that's the answer. And firing Scott or firing Jerry is honestly, it's one of the stupidest things I've heard from from Mariners' Twitter, and that's sometimes that's saying something. It just doesn't make any sense.

You're not, why would you take steps backwards? Because again, it's just one of those things where people think, oh, just fire the manager. And it's like, and replace them with who? Because the manager, the Mariners have a very collaborative effort when it comes to their decisions. It's not just Scott's service. I mean, Scott has final say, but most of those decisions that he makes, they're made hours in advance and they're made with, you know, the direction of the pitching coach, the hitting coach in Manny Act and Perry Hill. They all have a say in how things are run and the analysts who work

in the front office. So what are you going to fire him and what's going to change? Is the process going to change? No. So what's the point? And again, you fire service. Maybe that makes you feel better now. But then this winter, you're bringing in a whole new coaching staff. You want to say goodbye to Pete Woodworth? You want to say goodbye to Perry Hill? You want to say goodbye to Maniacta because that's what's going to happen. And that's, that would also happen if you fired the GM. So not only that, but then you're getting rid of all your baseball ops guys. You're getting rid of all the development guys.

You're getting rid of all the scouts. You're getting rid of all the analysts. It's just a top down scrubbing of, you know, your entire baseball organization that you've been building for the last three and a half years. It's just gone. And what do you get at the end of it? No more of a guarantee that your team's going to be good than you had with when you were just running things with Jerry and Scott.

So it's like I said, I'm not trying to be mean. I understand the frustrations of it. But the fire Jerry or fire Scott crowd, they're delusional. I mean, there's just that's not going to help at all. It's just a very simple look at what is a much more complicated issue. It's a complete structural and philosophical tear down that that would require. This isn't as simple as just.

changing faces, changing names, and changing, you know, name plates on doors. You know, this goes well, well, well beyond that. And, you know, yesterday I took to Twitter and I put up a poll and it got 980 votes as of this recording with seven hours left. And 60, you know, and I asked, you know, how confident are you that John Stanton, the man who extended both Jerry DePoto and Scott Service for the second time eight months ago, can find probably. proper replacements. 67.4% of the voters voted not at all.

26.2% of the voters voted not really. Only 1.9% of the voters voted fully, which, okay. They're lying. Yeah. They either misclicked or they're lying. Yeah. And 4.4% of the voters voted kind of. So what this really tells me is that you should either

ride this thing out with depoto or you just admit that the Mariners are eternally doomed as long as John Stanton is running the show. I don't think there's any in between here. I really don't. Because this is going to, as you said, set you back in the end because you just, you have to start from scratch.

Yes, you are going to have the players in place. And hey, maybe you do luck out and you find a, you know, a GM, and a manager and a whole system that, you know, elevates these guys that you currently have on your roster. And, hey, maybe you do get a GM who's able to better attract free agents to Seattle. Maybe that is the case. But there is no guarantee that you find that guy. There is no guarantee whatsoever that you find those people and put those people in place to do just that.

And so right now, wouldn't you rather have the people that have brought you to this point? that have brought you to the point of, hey, we think that we are in a position to content to a point where you've had one of the best farm systems in baseball and still have one of the best farm systems in baseball that can help you replenish this major league roster. You know, you have payroll to replenish this major league roster as well. So any criticisms really on that front should be directed towards ownership at the end of the day because that's ultimately who is in charge here. Now, going back to the hitting coach topic with DeHart and Arnrich, bear in mind that both of these guys have been ingrained in this culture for quite some time.

And all they are doing is teaching the philosophy of the Seattle Mariners and what the Seattle Mariners want out of their hitters. So even if both of those guys are fired, you know, you mentioned even if just one is fired, it would just be, you know, the other would just take over. but even if both were fired, whoever replaces them is just going to be teaching the philosophy, Seattle Mariners and what they want their hitters do. Nothing is going to change on that front. There are going to be no new ideas presented. No one is going to suddenly fix Jesse Winker or Adam Frazier

other than Jesse Winker and Adam Frazier themselves. And plus, you know, blaming the coaching staff for those guys, you know, playing at their 10th percentile or whatever it's been, It's been bad, especially for, you know, Fraser over the last month, Winker for pretty much the whole year, especially, you know, the more that he's pressed. You know, that those two guys, they're All-Stars. They're guys that you don't mess with. The coaching staff did not mess with them.

They did not enter, you know, they did not introduce them to new ideas that they've suddenly implemented and everything has just gone off with their mechanics. That hasn't happened. When you acquire All-Stars, you let them be. And Scott Service has spoken for a long time about letting players be who they are. And that's not just from a personal standpoint. That's also from a, you know, from a player, a mechanical standpoint as well. You know, you just don't mess with guys like that. So this is very much on the players.

Players are just not performing. That's just it. Cut and dry. Now, should there be a conversation about, you know, the lack of depth that this organization has, right now or that this major league roster has right now and is that a little bit of an indictment on jerry depoto the front office and ownership yes and we can have that conversation but the failure the ultimate failures of this team really comes down to injuries which are not in the mariners control jerry de poto didn't go out there and twist Mitch hanniger's ankle neither did scott service

and all-star caliber players performing to their 10th percentile. Yep. That's what it is at the end of the day. Nothing else. I mean, that makes it all the more frustrating because, you know, it would be great if it was just, oh, well, Scott's just a bad manager now. It would be great if it was just like, oh, well, we just, you know, we just make these firings that don't cost any money. And, oh, awesome. It's amazing because it's so easy to fix it, but that's not the case.

And so you want a basically what Mariners fans want is they want a simple solution to a very complicated problem where there is no such thing as a simple solution. There isn't. You can say spend more money. Who did not spend money on this year that they really, really need? Like big money. You know what I mean? Like Chris Bryant really helping this club right now? No, he's hurt.

Marcus Simeon's finally starting to hit disaster the first two months. You know what I mean? Like they never have a shot at Seeger. Hobby Byes has been terrible. Like, you know, they went out and they got Robbie Ray. And I know Robbie Ray hasn't been great, but he has been pretty good. His last two starts, really good. Yeah.

And honestly, Ray's been okay. Hasn't been what he was last year. We knew that wasn't going to be the case. But he's been pretty good. Like, I know, I know people are disappointed. Ray's been fine. You know, yeah. Ray has only been bad relative to what the expectations were on him.

And so, you know, you look at Ray, he's been a middle rotation starter this year for the most part. Had some home run issues, but overall he's giving you some really good starts here and there and giving you a chance to win on most nights. But yeah, it has been a bit of a disappointment. You know, Jesse Winkers has been a disappointment. Adam Frazier has been a disappointment. The fact that A. E. E. E. E. Hennio, Suarez has been your. your best offensive edition is a problem.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even you even look at guys like Sergio Romo, who was DFA today. That's been a problem. You know, and you were really expecting them to come in and stabilize the middle

innings just wasn't capable of it. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just when Suarez was kind of the afterthought of your offseason, more or less, and he's been the best guy by far. It's a problem. And so, like I said,

There are reasons to criticize Jerry to Poto. There are reasons to criticize Scott's service, but to just believe that you should fire them because of these minor flaws that have all kind of culminated with things that they cannot control to lead the Mariners where they are now. That's frankly, it's stupid. It really is. There is no advantage to firing Scott's service or Jerry to Poto. It's dumb. You're looking for an easy solution to make yourself feel better in the short. term, but all you're doing in the long term is you're uprooting all the, all the groundwork

you've played for the last three years. And, you know, despite the 10 game under 500 thing, there are reasons for optimism. And there are clues that this thing is very close to turning around. And there's also a long history of teams who break out of a rebuild in a big way, and then they have a stepback year, and then they go back up the next year. And that's when they make their initial run. Look at the 2016 Astros. Look at the Padres last year, right? The Padres, Oh, they're a mega team. They win 80 games. And now they're right back to it.

They're a World Series contender. And they had major injuries, by the way. They have major injuries on that team. So, you know, just like the Mariners have had as well. You know, and, you know, other guys like Jerry Kellnick, you know, not, not performing this year. And, you know, and of course, again, you know, going back to the talk about Depoto and how, you know, there should be a conversation had about the lack of safeguards that were put in place for guys like Kellnick failing. But, you know, that's a, that's a conversation for another day. And I don't think that's grounds to fire Jerry to Poto eight months after he signed an extension and got a promotion as well, by the way.

So the Mariners are enjoying a much needed off day today after playing 11 games in 10 days. But that didn't stop them from making a quartet of moves. We're going to be talking about that in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I started taking athletic greens because I just don't have the time to research every single amazing thing that's going to make my body feel great, and I'm sure neither do you. So what is athletic greens? Well, with one delicious scoop of athletic greens, you're absorbing 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right. This special blend of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, and aging, all the things.

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If you have a favorite NBA team, make sure you subscribe now to their locked on YouTube channel, so you get notified when they go live on NBA draft night. So the Mariners have made four roster moves today. They reinstated right-handed reliever Ken Giles from the 60-day injured list. He pitched nine outings in his rehab assignment

between AAA and High A. We'll get into that a little bit more in just a moment. They also promoted infielder Kevin Padlow, who was recently claimed off waivers from the Giants. Of course, he started the season with the Mariners and was traded to San Francisco before he was DFAed and reverted back to Seattle. And then to make room for both of those guys on the 26-man roster, the Mariners DFAed, not just Sergio Romo, but also Rowanis Elias. And that actually brings the Mariners 40-man roster to 30-9. They did not need to DFA two players, interestingly enough, but they did. So now they do have an open spot there.

We might talk about that a little bit later on. But Giles, of course, really bad in his rehab assignment. No matter where he pitched, it was awful. He gave up 16 runs, 11 of them earned. He struck out just eight, walked eight, and seven in a third innings pitched. Just not great stuff. Of course, he is coming off of a right middle finger tendon injury, and that's also coming off of Tommy John's surgery. He hasn't pitched in a major league game since September 15th, 2020.

And we've talked a little bit about what our expectations are and how we should probably really, you know, lower our expectations. Frankly, I don't have any expectations for Ken Giles right now. So anything that he gives the Mariners, it's kind of like Kyle Lewis is a. a bonus and whatever he doesn't give them, so be it. But to me, the thing that stands out the most about these moves is Elias B&DFA, because I get it with Romo, you know, you mentioned it earlier, it just wasn't working for him. He was supposed to be that guy that stabilized the middle innings for the Mariners, and he just couldn't do it, couldn't live up to that.

And it was especially rough for him as of late. But with Elias, Elias had pitch. fairly well since being called up and you know when you have Tommy Malone and Ryan Buraki still on the roster that just doesn't make a lot of sense for me I feel like Elias gave them a bit more upside than either of those guys but that's who they favored over Aaliyas and you're I know you were pretty upset about that on Twitter today how do you feel about these moves in general? Well, the Giles one was going to happen sooner than later. He has not been good on his rehab stint at all.

So that could be a disaster. I don't know. We'll see how it goes. But he was running out of time anyways on his rehab. And, you know, he at least healthy enough to pitch. And so the Mariners felt it was good enough to try and, you know, figure it out at the big leagues, which I'm sure will go well. but that one, yeah, whatever. And obviously the Mariners needed to add a bat today.

Today is the deadline that Major League Baseball randomly decided to pick June 20th or why not for when the pitch max would drop down to 13. So the Mariners only had 12, or they had 14 pitchers, so they needed to remove a pitcher from their roster and add a bat. Padlow was one of the only, who's on your 40 man, one of the only offensive players. Couldn't be Sam Haggurty because you sent him down a few days ago. So he's got to wait 10 days before he can come back.

So he's still got about a week to go on that. So it was either going to be Padlow or Drew Ellis. They picked Padlow. That's, you know, whatever. It's a waste of a roster spot. But, you know, they're rostering Justin Upton. So who's surprised? So that, you know, not that surprising.

I was surprised that it was Elias, though. Elias has been objectively better than Baraki. Barucke's had his moments. He's also had some really bad moments. So it just seems like that's dumb. Tommy Malone is, he did a nice job, you know, as the, the bulk guy. They didn't need to add him anyways. They could have just rolled with Sheffield as the bulk guy.

So if Malone has passed Sheffield in the Mariners eyes, and they could just go ahead and DFA Sheffield. So, yeah. I just feel like Elias is better than Baraki. I feel like he's more valuable to you than somebody like Tommy Malone, who's like he's not going to, Malone's not going to pitch in relief. He's not going to pitch in leverage situation.

So you're literally carrying an old fashioned long guy right now for what purpose. I don't, I don't get, unless, you know, maybe they're planning on, you know, oh, Kirby's only going to go three innings this next outing. You know what I mean? Which is something they could consider. But as far as we know, that's not what they're doing. And by the way, Elias is a guy who can give you two, three innings.

So yeah, I just I don't I don't get it. I would have DFAed Baraki or Malone. And I also would have considered sending down Andres Munoz. Munoz was pretty good this weekend. Struck out trout a couple times. Racked up the strikeouts. He had good control for, you know, a rare instance and back-to-back outings. And that may have saved his spot on the 26-man roster because sending him down,

there are some things for him to work on. But, yeah, you know, ultimately is losing elite. like a huge deal. No, probably not. But he's, you know, better than at least two guys who currently sit in the bullpen and probably more reliable than two others.

Yeah, it's just. So kind of a weird decision, but. Yeah, it's just another weird in-season roster move by the Mariners where they're favoring a couple guys that doesn't really make sense over a guy that might actually be able to help them, Brucky has not been good since he's come over in that trade with the Blue Jays and look I get it

You you had to you know trade for him and give up a prospect for him but it was Tyler Keenan who who cares like that that shouldn't keep you from You know feeling the need to to to release him That like I don't know it just it makes no sense to me quite frankly Keeping Baraki over Aaliyos and especially doesn't make any sense to me to keep Tommy Malone over Elias unless they are just strictly keeping him as starting depth but and you know or for you know to piggyback with Kirby because that is something that you know is going to have to be addressed at some point here is is Kirby's inning count because we we all presume here that he is going to have an inning's limit and that that might

approach here you know sooner rather than later so you know maybe they're trying to kind of stagger that out, but I don't know. I just, like you said, though, like Aalias can also go multiple innings. You could have piggybacked him with Kirby.

And you could have kept Malone in AAA as emergency depth. And by the way, Malone had been pretty good down in Tacoma. So maybe that was, you know, pretty decent depth to call upon, you know, all things considered.

So I don't know. It just seems weird to pull the trigger on Malone in general. And, uh, And especially, you know, when you had Justice Sheffield there on your 40-man roster. And like you said, if you're at a point now where you're favoring Tommy Malone over Justice Sheffield, it's probably time to move on from Justice Sheffield, quite frankly. But, all right. Well, this has been too doom and gloom this whole episode.

Just like, you know, Mariners Twitter in general. So, look, you got 25 and a half minutes or so here of dooming. But we're going to try to uplift the mood here. We're going to talk about a familiar face that I think any Mariners fan loves, who has been the subject of rumors with the Mariners in particular. And we're going to be talking about that in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder. This episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by BetOnline.

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So, Colby, you messaged me last night saying that a... A friend of the show had been hearing that one Nelson Cruz might be on the Mariners radar, despite them being under 10 games 500. You want to talk about that a little bit here? Because you, again, you also wrote about Nelson Cruz on Inside the Mariners about a week ago, two weeks ago. So this is something that you've been in on for a while here. Why would Cruz fit even now?

And what do you think it would cost? And yeah, who's been saying all this stuff? Yeah. So, friend of the show, Jason Churchill, Prospect Insider on his fantastic Mariners podcast, baseball things. He dropped a little nugget towards the end of his latest episode where he had heard that the Mariners were talking about acquiring Nelson Cruz from the nationals and that the talks had been, well, he didn't get if they were or how. likely they were even he did say that they had been he had been hearing whispers about it for at least two weeks so this is something that the mariners have at least asked the nationals about his resume he really struggled the second half of last year after he got traded still put up pretty solid numbers

and he struggled in the month of april but since then he's been incredible It really is, you know, old school Nelson in June. And there's D.H. situation right now. I believe the Mariners are 30th in WRC Plus from their DHS this year. And when you look at, you know, Justin Upton and Abraham Toro getting a majority of those at-bats, yeah, even bad Nelson Cruz is probably an upgrade. But I think one of the things that Cruz brings that. the Mariners desperately need right now is honestly veteran leadership.

The Mariners have some good leaders on the roster still. JP is great, but they lost Mitch Hanager. They lost Tom Murphy. Those are two guys who really have the clubhouse's respect. They are the two guys who make things okay when things go poorly, at least they were last year. So Murphy and Hanager, despite all their shortcomings, you know, off the field, you know, and in terms of some performance issues, they are guys help rally the group of players in that clubhouse.

And they've been missing now for the entire season. So Cruz is a guy who comes in instantly demands respect. He's well established in his clubhouse, but across all baseball. He provides hand of power, which the team sorely needs. He is a massive upgrade to their DH spot. Soarily needs. And again, he's just overall great guy, great for the club. He met the plate.

And yeah, I mean, like I said, for the last, you know, 40 games or so, he's hitting 3078, 47. That would be huge. I did club control through next year. He does have a club option. So it's not necessarily a rental, but it could be if he wanted to be. And hey, you know what? Side note, even if Cruz doesn't help, you know, climb out of this hole,

he's eligible to be a Mariners Hall of Fame, which he should have been anyways. But now they won't have any reason not to put them in. And, you know, finally, it's Nelson Cruz. Like, who doesn't want Nelson Cruz on their baseball team? So he has a mutual option at the end of the season. as well so there's a possibility that you have him under club control for next season so you know add in that you know of course he's just a full-time D-H he's 41 years old but he has you know as you mentioned since May 1st he has been hitting 303 378 467 with a 136

up the rc plus just five home runs during that time but he's walking 10.4% of the time striking out 22 and a half percent of the time that he's looking more more like Nelson Cruz as of late over the last, you know, month and a half or so. So what do you think that would cost? Because, you know, I think the Mariners are in such deep of a hole right now that they can't really justify trading anything too, you know, worth anything for a rental, for at least a potential rental.

Yeah, it's a tough spot to be in. Just because the cost is kind of uncertain. Look, the nationals are a team that's not going to win anytime soon. So I don't think they're going to be interested in guys with quick ETAs, right? I don't think they're going to be asking for, you know, Taylor Tremels or anybody who's already in the big leagues. I don't think that they're necessarily going to be willing to trade Nelson Cruz for, you know, I don't think they're necessarily going to trade Nelson Cruz for a couple of guys who are, five, six years away, but there's that sweet spot in there where it's guys who are two,

three years away. I would say that for Nelson Cruz right now, based on his age and his limitations in terms of defense and all that stuff, I think anybody outside of the top 10 in the Mariners organization makes a lot of sense here. And it does just honestly depend on what the team thinks of the team thinks of that. their chances. So it's it's really tough to say. I would say that the nationals probably would want somebody like Adam Maco. That's probably a bit too much for the Mariners to, to give up right now. So I think it's somebody, I think it's somebody who is maybe like a Will Fleming and Jonathan Klossay,

something like that in that neighborhood could get it done. But yeah, it's a tough, it's a tough, you know, spot that you're in. But if you see, still want to make 2022 something. And the Mariners players certainly do want to try that. And the coaching staff certainly does want to try that. Then adding a guy like Nelson Cruz, you have to do it now because the next 25 games define your entire season. So you can't wait until the All-Star break to decide whether or not it makes sense

to trade for Nelson Cruz. You're going to do something like this. You have to do it now. And it doesn't matter what it does to Kyle Lewis's at-bats. It doesn't matter what it does to Cherokee Kelnix at-bats. that's the risk you run. And hey, if you trade for him tomorrow and in 25 games, you go 12 and 13 and you're officially out of it, you could probably still trade Cruz again at the deadline if you really wanted to.

But maybe you don't. So, yeah, it's a tough price to really nail down because there are some factors like age and contract and where the meritor sit in the standings that make it not as clean of a fit as we would like. it would certainly be fun and you know dh rotations are only as good as the hitters that you actually have to make that up and right now the mariners don't have any good hitters that make up their dh spot right now so uh if you want a full-time dh go for it great you know and if Kyle Lewis you know hopefully you know knock on wood here gets back uh you just figure that out you know and maybe that leads to Nelson Cruz playing some first base or something crazy like that I don't know you know you know But you figure that out later on down the road. Right now, you just need to, you need to send a spark into this clubhouse and you need to send a spark into this fan base. And I know quite a few people who would be pretty happy if Nelson Cruz made a return, especially some people that have been a little peeved about Kyle Seeger leaving as well. So I think that would, you know.

Yeah, the difference there is that Nelson Cruz could actually help your team. Yeah, yeah. Cruz is still, you know, pretty good. You know, I mean, we listed the numbers over the last month and a half worth of games for him. He's been really good. Yeah. Yeah. So on that note, that's going to do it for us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast.

Thank you so much for joining us. For Colby Pat note, I'm Taday Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow inside the Mariners at inside Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-E-P-E-E-E-T-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode, wherever you're listening or watching it. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every day.

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