Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - The Seattle Mariners' NEXT MOVE Might Be Right Around the Corner

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Ty and Colby react to a pair of articles written by Adam Jude of the Seattle Times, detailing the Seattle Mariners' hopes of adding a reliever before the end of the Winter Meetings and what fallback options they're considering if they don't bring back Jorge Polanco.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA and NFL seasons are here, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Mariners next move might be right around the corner. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors, and it's Thursday, December 4th, 2025. You're listening to the Lock-on Marins podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network.

My name is Tiding Gazzalus, and I'm joined as always by my co-coast, Colby Patnode. We're two lifelong Marys fans who've been covering the team for over half a decade. And on today's show, we've got some new insights into what the Marys might be working on behind the scenes right now. Thanks to Adam Jude of the Seattle Times. He's posted a couple articles over the last 24 hours that have detailed the mayor's interests and a few position players and their hopes to land a new reliever in the coming days. We'll talk about all that, including the player names he's dropped in those articles. But before we do, I want to shout out our time.

title sponsor today, Fanduel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanduil.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. So we've heard a great amount of detail about which position players, the mayors are interested in. Obviously, there is tons of chatter about wanting to bring back Josh Naylor. The mayor is outright said that they wanted to bring back Josh Naylor. They got that done.

They've said outright that they want to bring back, you know, Jorge Polanco and Eugenio Suarez. There's been, you know, a lot of reports about that. as well to corroborate all that. But we haven't really heard anything about the Mariners and relievers, even though that's, according to the Marriers themselves, supposed to be a pretty big part of their off season this winter. They would like to add two relievers. They would like to add someone to the high leverage mix.

They would like to add a lefty. We know that, but we haven't heard any specific names until today. So we're going to start with the second of the two articles Jude has posted over on the Times. detailing the mayor's interests in a few relievers and how they are quote unquote hopeful to land at least one of the two relievers they would like to add this winter before the end of the winter meetings next week so jude first reported that the mayor has actually had quite a bit of interest in phil maton who's a guy that we've liked and we've talked about quite a bit here on the show over the last few months even before the trade deadline uh they had interest in him because he's a guy that we've liked and we've talked about quite a bit here on the show over the last few months uh even before the trade deadline uh they had interest in him before he signed a two-year, $14.5 million deal with the Chicago Cubs a few days ago. So that gives us potentially a better idea of which shelf the mares are shopping from, at least in terms of the free agent reliever market.

Now, three of the five guys that Jude later went on to say that the mares are considering right now would have to be traded for. four of these five guys are lefties but the three guys that you would have to trade for all lefties matt strom of the fillies jojo romero of the cardinals and hosei ferrer of the washington nationals he also mentioned free agent lefty hobie milner who we talked a bit about and uh righty submariner tyler rogers the righty of the rogers twins and we've talked about four of those five guys Colby, but we haven't really talked about Rodgers. So let's start there.

Tyler Rodgers, that would be definitely a different look in the mayor's bullpen. I mean, yeah, he is a true submariner. If you guys are into arm angles and whatnot, he throws his pitches from a negative 61 degree arm angle.

So negative 90 is straight underhand. So he's pretty close to straight underhand. Yeah, and it's a sinker slider. He doesn't throw hard. He only throws 82 to 84 miles an hour. But obviously, because of the uniqueness of his arm angle, it works fantastic. You know, he's 100th percentile and base on ball percentage. He's 100th percentile in barrel.

He's 95th percentile in hard hit. He's 98th percentile in ground ball. 99th in average exeelel. And he gets some whiffs or he gets some chases too. 63rd percentile. in a chase percentage he's not going to miss bats like that that's not what he's trying to do he's out there trying to induce contact and soft contact and he's very very good at that it'd be a very different look uh from anything we've seen from the mariners recently and uh would definitely be a

a you know i mean it's it's it's so different from what the mariners have right now out there which is i mean it's the same it's the same pitch mix sink or slider but again everybody on the Mariners is throwing from, you know, low three-quarters arm slot, roughly, and this guy is practically throwing underhand. And so, yeah, he's very good reliever. He's not going to miss bats. Again, that's not part of his game. He's not trying to.

It's pretty good against lefties and righties last year, so there's really not a splits issue here. And it would be arguably the most unique delivery in Mariners history. I mean, I can't remember the last time they had a true, you know, submariner. check probably the closest in recent memory and he was just sidearm so uh yeah he he would be a nice ad uh i would hope that he would be the second arm uh that they would add because again i think the mariners need more whiff in their bullpen yeah and he's not going to be that guy but in terms of a guy who hey we just need the the seventh inning we just need a clean seventh and

you know we're up by one or two and and we just need a couple ground balls here fine he's just not the guy you're going to go to with runners on second and third and one out when you need a strikeout he's not that guy uh but uh yeah i mean he's he's really good the numbers don't lie uh in this case it'll be interesting to see how much he cost and if the mayton thing if they were in on mayton maybe we're looking at the mariners not wanting to spend more than you know seven and a half eight million bucks max on on their relievers which you know kind of in line that's about where i figured they would be yeah yeah the idea that they were ever going to be on in on like the Devin Williams

or the Ryan Helsley types but not going to happen. It was not going to happen. And, you know, if you thought it was, you're kind of lying to yourself. So this is what the Mariners do. They shop at like, you know, not the elite price range,

but they shop at the tier below that or maybe even the tier below that depending on how you want to look at it, particularly in the bullpen. So yeah, Rogers, how much he wants is going to be a big part of this. But he would certainly be interesting And because he is, we've talked about, you know, wanting unique looks out of the bullpen.

And we've talked a lot about that in terms of like pitch mix. Like, hey, let's get some curveball guys. Let's get some change up guys out there in the bullpen. Well, Rogers throws the sinker slider, but he might as well. Very different. Yes. It's very, very different. And, you know.

And his sinker is basically a change up. It really is. I mean, and so, yeah, it's, it's very different. It's unique. And so I'm intrigued just because of the difference. but again, I would really like the Mariners best reliever that they had this winter to be a guy who can miss some more bats

than Rogers currently can. Yeah. Well, let's talk about Matt Strom then. That's a guy that misses a lot of bats. He is the guy of these five that were named by Adam Jude that stands far among the rest to me. Yep.

One year left on his deal, $7.5 million. But he is with the Phillies, who are a contender Dave Dombrowski hasn't been very realistic with his asks according to reports

over the last year or so apparently there was Logan Gilbert mentioned for Alec Baum and Mason Miller also mentioned for Alec Baum last year which is insane

but Strom he's one of the best relievers in baseball regardless of handedness and he's actually like he's been good against lefties he's been very good against righties though which is what makes him very intriguing to me yeah uh you know to put it in very quick terms strom's the daddy and the mariners bullpen needs that daddy so uh he gets out lefties he gets out righties he misses bats

uh he's you know probably a little bit better than gabe spire uh which i mean if you had a second Gabe Spire to this bullpen. Like that, now you're cooking. And so, yeah, he's going to cost something probably pretty significant, but it is only one year of a reliever. So maybe not quite, you know, as expensive as some other players might be, just because his value is limited in the fact that he's only going to throw 70 innings. So, yeah, the Phillies, they also have other pieces that make sense.

So maybe there's a kind of a package deal here. We talked about the Phillies a few weeks ago. We talked about them again fairly recently. There's Sosa and Boehm and, you know, some other bullpen arms that need or that the Mariners could use and the Phillies have a need in the corner outfield where the mariners have a little bit of a surplus. The particularly left-handed hitting corner outfielders, they desperately need catching help. Well, you know, I don't know if strong costs Harry Ford one year of a reliever for Harry Ford. But, you know, if you can add a couple pieces to that, maybe this is where Harry Ford comes into play. But, yeah, Strom is the best guy of the players that you'd mentioned because he misses bats.

He's very good against lefties and righties. There's no real platoon splits that you have to worry about. And he's just reliable. He's been very, very good for the last three years. And at $7.5 million, that's a bargain like that. That's perfect. That's right about the most you're willing to spend on a reliever. And for that much money, you're not doing much.

better than Matt Strom. Yeah. Now, he doesn't get a ton of whiffs, but he gets a ton of chases and he gets a ton of strikeouts. So he was 93rd percentile in chase percentage this year, only 37 percentile and whiff rate, but 10.11-1 case per nine this year, 11.35 case per nine last year. The funny thing is he doesn't keep the ball on the ground at all. It was a 21.2 percent ground ball rate this year, which was by far a career low. He's typically in the 30-ish range. That's really bad. But look, you need

more swing and miss in this bullpen and your defense was not good last year. So keeping the ball on the ground doesn't really help the Mariners a ton. And they already have guys who do that. They need to be able to miss more that. And at the very least

in their bullpen, it's a ton of ground balls. And at the very least you know when when hitters have been able to lift the ball against them they're not putting the ball over the wall that much only 5.4% home run to fly ball rate this year 5.7% last year so at the very least like he's counteracting the low ground ball rate the extremely low ground ball rate with not that much damage being done to him on balls being hit into the air right and keep in mind that's you know pitching half of his games at citizen banks Park where, you know, that's more of a bandbox than it is here at T-Mobile Park.

And, yeah, the Marine layer actually coming up with the win on a few extra fly balls. So you could see Strom's home run to fly ball rate actually go down a little bit. I'm not worried about the fact that he doesn't get grounders. Again, if you really need a ground ball, I have Matt Brash, I have Pizarro, I have Gabe Spire, I have Munoz, they all get a ton of ground balls. Carlos Vargas. Yes. So not really worried about that.

I need the guy who misses bats. I need the guy who gets strikeouts. I need the guy who's really good against lefties and righties. And a guy with a long track record of doing all those things is even better. Oh, and I get him for below market value. Yeah, sign me up. Yeah, Strom against lefties this year, 233, 289, 384. Or lefties against Strom, I should say.

But Wrighties against Strom, 196, 265, 320. And that is in 172 plate appearances. Yeah. Yeah. so and he did this last year as well so it's not last year righty has hit 133 against some 133 201 245 basically unheadable yeah so yeah strong's a guy for me uh but we'll talk about these other three guys that we haven't really talked about yet i mean we talked about them in our you know trade preview series but we'll talk a bit more about them in just a moment but first reminder this

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And also thank you for making locked on the number one sports podcast network. So again, Adam Judeo, the Seattle Times reporting that the mayors are hoping to land at least one reliever before the end of the winter meetings next week. He mentioned five guys that the mayors are at least doing some digging on right now in that regard. We talked about in the first segment, the two guys that,

you know, kind of most perked up our ears in Matt Strom and Tyler Rogers. But let's talk about these other three guys who we've talked to a, bit about over the last few weeks. That's Hobie Milner. That's Jojo Romero. That's Jose Ferre of the Nationals. All

all three pretty interesting guys. All three lefties, but all three also kind of come with some caveats as well. Ferrear to me would be the most expensive guy of the three. Well, obviously Milner is a free agent, so that would just be money. But between

Ferreira and Romero, I think he would, Ferre would cost the greatest return because he's he's the guy in the nationals bullpen and he's like their only guy so it kind of feels like they would like to try and capitalize on that and also they don't really like need to move him even know that you know the nationals are not good so like a good reliever to them is really worth nothing in terms of on field production so but still I think that's going to cost a little bit there if the mayor's were to trade for Jose Ferrer so what do you think about him I mean He's pretty good. He gets a ton of ground balls. In fact, I don't think anybody in baseball gets more ground balls than he does. You know, 64 percent, so maybe one or two guys. But there's not a lot of swing and miss here.

It's not bad. It's about league average in terms of the whiffs and the K percentage and the chase and all that. But he's a lefty who really is just sinker. Like he is almost exclusively a sinker. he doesn't really throw the slider all that much. He throws to right east he'll throw changeups as his primary. To left east he'll throw sliders as his primary. And what's interesting about that is the data says that actually the change up and the slider are both pretty good.

Like he gets whiffs on them. There's not a lot of damage done off of those pitches. When he does decide to throw them, he just doesn't throw them that often. I mean, the sinker he'll throw, you know, he threw the sinker, let's see, 70.6% of the time last year. And opponents hit 309. Now, they only had a 420 slug because, again, lots of ground balls and all that. So that's all well and good, but 309 is pretty hefty average.

And then you look at what they did against the slider and the changeup. The change up, they hit 221 with a 324 slug. And that pitch had a 47% whiff rate. the slider had a 52 and a half percent whiff rate last year and opponents only hit 105 with a 158 slug so could there be a path where this guy gets more whiffs and more strikeouts if he's willing to throw the sinker less maybe

and maybe that's what the mariners want to do with him but well I mean that's what the marries do right they look at something that maybe you're not doing enough of they identify like a really great tool that maybe you're under utilizing and they're like no just throw that more that's all you need to do we don't need to mess with your arm angle we don't you don't we don't really need to mess with your mechanics just throw that pitch more Like I said, the change up he threw about 22% of the time, the slider he only threw about seven. So obviously there's some kind of like, you can tell a guy to throw a pitch more, but obviously that doesn't mean that the pitch will be better just because you throw it more. Like there's confidence and all that. So how much is Ferrer really going to trust the change up and the slider when he's basically been a sinker guy for his entire career?

But the change up and the slider have really good metrics on them. like they look like they could be legit swing and miss pitches and so i don't know do you maybe also introduce a four seam fastball like he's still going to be sinker heavy he's still going to try to get ground balls but like can you jump up the the wiffs and the k's and the chase a little bit uh you know with by just asking him to throw these off speed pitches a little bit more 5% more 10% more maybe uh so that's kind of my thing with with ferre it does feel like he's more of a, you know, maybe Bizarro type than he is a Brash type.

And I think the Mariners could really use a Matt Brash type of guy. I mean, heck, if they get another Bizarro, nobody's complaining. But I also think that this is a guy who's got four years of club control left. And I worry that you're going to end up paying more for the club control than you are the actual impact of the reliever that you're getting. And I think that's a really dangerous thing to do when you're talking about relief arms in general. So. Agreed. But Ferrer is interesting because he actually has more swing and miss in his in his arsenal than the numbers would suggest when you dive a little deeper.

It's just can the Mariners get to that? And I think this guy, because he has four years of club control left, I think you're talking about a Harry Ford type of guy. And I just, for rare, if he, you know, was missing, if he was striking out, you know, more than a batter per inning, I might be more interested in that. He's close. Like, again, it's not like he doesn't get any swing and miss. doesn't get any strikeouts he's just not getting top tier strikeouts yeah and that's kind of where i would want the mariners to uh to attack this well and out well and outside of strom that's kind of the theme here with all these guys that judas mentioned and it's like hey mariners you guys

realize you don't have like bobby whit junior and michael garsia be on your pitchers right like yeah you can't you kind of need to miss more bats like it's it's all great if you want to you know induce a ton of ground balls but if you have a low average infield defense that's yeah what you do what were they negative like the the the marons I think they were like negative 30 and yeah

it was the worst field field in red value yeah yeah and I mean it's not even like they're elite out in the outfield with Randy Roserina getting most of the reps out there and left so yeah I think that was their overall defense by the way negative 30 and field most of that came from the infield

yeah although they ran out some real old duds out in right field while they were trying to get victor back so no and look don't don't need the low lights of dom can zone again woof um but yeah you know swing and miss would be better more preferable uh and so that's why strom is easily the guy for me uh out of this group forer again interesting because there might be more swing and miss there might be yeah and if there's not you're still getting a pretty good reliever it's just i don't think you're getting a guy that's worth trading the cost that would probably be associated with acquiring the player just because he's got four years of club control left.

I don't want to overpay for club control, especially on a reliever because if he's bad enough, there's a chance you're not even tendering him a contract in two years or three years. Anyway, so you're not even getting the full four years of club control if he's bad enough. Homi Milner is the guy of these five that I want the merits to avoid because he's a true left-on-left guy. it's a very good one but he's a lugy and those guys

obviously have pretty clear limitations placed upon them now with the three batter minimum yeah um millner this year 208 uh or uh lefties hit 208 226 300 against them

right he's hit 295 375 445 against him and that's been a constant in his career as well yeah do I trust Dan Wilson to be able to the right buttons with Milner and find the right lefty pockets with Milner? Absolutely not. So, yeah, I'm not, I'm not giving him that option. Miller to me is just like, like, okay, you add Milner

as your second. Big Dan Wilson defender, Colby Patnaud coming through. If you add Hobie Milner as like your second lefty, okay, but the first guy you add needs to be a daddy. Like that's how, you can't just go get, like, if you want to go get two dogs like you know the bizardo type of dogs and like fine that could work but milner is just a dude and i believe in memory serves he really struggled overall in the second half of last year especially so like to me milner is the guy i really have very little interest in again it could work if you get him and then you go get like i don't know pete barbanks then it's like

okay yeah yeah milder 708 era 58 4 php after the trade deadline. Yeah. So I don't know. To me that's like a two, three million dollar guy. And it's like, hey, you want to take a shot? See if you can get back on track. Fine.

But like he has to be the second best bullpen arm at best. Yeah. Ideally the third best, which we don't think the marriage are bringing in three guys. No, they're bringing. It seems like they want to bring in two. So, yeah, Milder, that's just, I'm out. I just, I don't think that's disappointing. I don't, I don't think that's a lover that the,

the mayor should give Dan Wilson to bowl frankly so I can just see that going sideways very quickly and then there's Jojo Romero of the Cardinals you'd have to trade for him he's got one year left of club control I don't know what his art

projection is off the top of my head I think it's five yeah but he's been pretty good against both righties and lefties this year righties hit just 220 327 315 against him and 151 plate appearances left he said 2 11 287

2-44 against him. So pretty close to being the same guy against both handednesses. Obviously a bit better against lefties. But yeah. Romero, to me, probably my second preference behind Strong of the five guys that were presented by Jude. It's either him or waters. Yeah, I think Ferreira is...

It's because of what I assume the cost will be to acquire him. Yeah, what I assume the cost to be. If Romero, and him were going to cost roughly the same, I would prefer Ferrer, obviously. Yeah, but I think he's going to cost significantly more just because of the club control. And honestly, Romero

and Ferre are pretty similar pitchers. Like, they have some swing and miss, but it's not the biggest part of their game. They get a ton of ground balls. They're pretty good at avoiding hard contact. Romero is more, is his sinker, is his part, or slider is his primary pitch, but it's still a sinker slider pretty heavy.

And then the change up, he'll throw 23% of the time. So it is a pitch that you do have to respect. effect from Romero, the changeup. But yeah, you know, it's fine. He's not as good as, he's not as good as Gabe Spire, which, I mean, to me, I would think the point would be to try and bring in a lefty who is at least on the same level as Gabe Spire. And that would be Strom, who's probably a level above Spire.

And Romero's probably just a level below. But, yeah, I mean, again, there's probably some more swing and miss here, although not as much as Ferrer has shown when you look at the data. But Romero is because he's going to be cheaper than, you know, the other trade options, we assume. I think that he is probably like the safest acquisition, just because I don't think he's going to cost all that much, both in terms of prospects given up and, you know, salary and all that. And I just think he's probably got the, not the highest floor, strong-ass-high's floor and ceiling, but like, I'm not worried about Romero blowing up. next year really at all whereas with milner i'm very concerned about that and even with forer i'm a little bit concerned about that uh but yeah romero's just kind of like in the middle here but

strom is easily the number one uh without question so let's wrap up on this um if they do acquire a reliever uh by the end of next week and it is one of these five guys who do you think it is I mean, statistically, or like, you're just playing, like, the odds, Milner is the one who's most likely to be because he's the worst one and he's the cheapest one. Yeah. If you want to, like, actually get, like, outside of the analytical part of it, it feels like Romero would probably be the guy, just because, you know, that we know the Cardinals are going to sell. We know the Mariners have already had conversations with the Cardinals repeatedly over the years. And it just feels like that's the guy. Ferreira, maybe he's next up, but the nationals don't have to move him this winter.

So they could afford to wait and kind of see if they get anything, whereas Romero is going to get traded this winter. Strong. Again, it's just like, I would love it for it to be strong, but you have to deal with the crazy that is Dombrowski. And so it's kind of like a, is he going to be ready to move this guy at a good, reasonable price by next week? I kind of doubt it, but it would be awesome if he was. So my guess would be Romero is probably the, you know, had to pick one of the five. Like, again,

if you're just laying odds, Milner gets the highest odds of being that dude. But I'm going to bet on Romero if they do get something done by the end of the intermedians. Fingers crossed for Mastrom, though. That'd be great. I mean,

you can get Romero and Strom. You can have three lefties. Yeah. Like nothing wrong with that. Well, especially when Strom is better against Rides as well, when he is lefties. I mean,

look, three lefties are Hobie Milner's. That's bad. Your three lefties are Gabe Spire or better. Like, that's pretty freaking good. So yeah, yeah, yeah, don't worry about handedness all that much. If all the guys are good. But yeah, I just, Hobie Milner to me would just be like, all right, let's switch gears here. Let's talk about the position player leaning article that Adam Jude put out yesterday on the Seattle Times. Go over that in just a moment. But first a reminder, this episode of The Longtime Marries podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. NFL Sundays move fast.

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And you're listening to the Lockdown Merrists podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. As always, if you want to hear from me and Colby of Amoran, help support the show, we have a Patreon. It's called Control the Zone. And on there, we talk, Marys, Seahawks, all that good stuff. For more information, go to patreon.com forward slash control the zone link in the description. So the reliever article is not the only article, not the only interesting article at a

Jude has dropped over the last 24-ish hours over on the Seattle Times. Yesterday morning, he put out an article about Jorge Polanco and some other position players regarding the Mariners with some interesting little nuggets. So he said that Polanco, there might be some more clarity on his market by the winter meetings, we'll see, but that he's kind of the mayor's priority and he's kind of prioritizing Seattle, but they're not really close on a deal. so who knows time out real quick future tie here just wanted to quickly interject and clear something up here because i was editing and listening back to this part of the show and i realized i kind of mischaracterized

what adam jude said about the polanco situation because i was more so trying to remember what he said off the top of my head when recording this rather than actually reading the article back during the show. So what he said more so was that, you know, the Marrists have made their interests in Polanco and bringing him back well known, which we already know about.

And that Seattle is believed to be Palanco's preference. So that's a little bit different than the Mariners are prioritizing Polanco and he's prioritizing them. So just wanted to make that clarification real quick. All right, back to the show. Bye. Still kind of feels like

that's where things are going to end up, though. they're going to bring back Corey Polanco, that they're going to come to some sort of agreement. But he does have interest from other clubs as well. But you can only wait so long. You can only wait so long. We talked about this. Yeah, we talked about this. You got to be able to act.

And, you know, look, like I talked about on top five Tuesday last week, like there aren't that many fallback options either, if you whiff on, on Polo. So, yeah, you kind of have to get after it. So Jude mentioned some of those fallback options. Brandon Lowe is one guy. These are, according to you, these are all guys

that the Marrars are actually doing some level of work on right now. So Brandon Lau, he's got one of your love, Tampa. We've talked a lot about him. Brendan Donovan, we've talked a lot about him.

And then Catel Marte. So there is a report from one of the most reputable beat writers covering the Marys saying that the mayors are at least doing some sort of work on Catel Marte, which is better than I expected, frankly, given the whole contract situation,

even though it's not egregious, it's not an egregious contract or anything like that, is very, very reasonable, especially for the player that Cotel Marte is. But, you know, I've aired my concerns about that just based on how the Maris have operated. So that is nice to hear. And I will once again say that Ctele Marte shouldn't be the fallback if you lose out on Hori Palanco. So Cory Polanco should be the fallback if you lose out on Catel Marte. Yep. So Marte, again, to me, that's the guy this off season.

He is the perfect fit for what the Mariners need right now. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this a ton. Like, he is the dude. Like, he is the one that changes the conversation. If the Mariners were to acquire Catel Marte, pretty much regardless of what it cost, they would probably be the favorite in the American League.

Now, Toronto is certainly going to have something to say about that. And obviously, the Yankees are, you know, whatever. The Red Sox are loading up. Like, it wouldn't be a cakewalk. But, like, on paper, if the Mariners acquired Catel Marte, they would be the favorites to go to the World Series. So, like, that's the kind of, you know, shift changer that Catel Marte is. Like, he is that dude.

And so, yeah, he should be the positive, or he should be the priority. And, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, look, if we get Catelle Marte and then like in January or whatever, Polanco's like, hey, I want to sign still, like, you figure it out. Like, you can make that work. Right. But if, but if they're only going to add one more bat the rest of the off season, which has kind of been the indication that they're only going to add one more, at least significant bat, then to me, Marte has to be very much at the top of the list with a bullet. and there has to be a pretty big gap between him and number two. Yeah. And he's the best hitter who's probably going to move this winter.

Like, I mean, some people might be screaming Kyle Tucker, but like Kyle Tucker wasn't very good last year relative to expectations. So, you know, it's one of those things. He had a really weird second half. Mostly, I think, because of a wrist injury. If I remember it correctly. I mean, he was still a 136 WRC plus guy. Yeah, yeah.

Basically, I think he was worth the same amount of F where that, that Marte was. I think they were both four and a half. But Marte has been more but Marte isn't coming off of an injured year. So maybe you could argue Kyle Tucker is the better choice because it's easy to explain why he struggled in the second half. And I believe the struggles were almost exclusively power related in the second half. Because I know he went like a month and a half without hitting a home run. But look, Kyle Tucker is very good. He only had, he only had

22 bombs last year. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, but also Marte Marte missed more time than Tucker did last year. Right. But if you're missing time, if you're in the lineup and you're not producing, you're practically missing time. So I think here's the deal, right? Like, you're not going to get Kyle Tucker. It's not the Kyle Tucker isn't available to you. It's just we know the marriage aren't going to spend that. At the very least, Marte is by and large the best talent that you could realistically get. Right. It's not a waste of time to talk about Catelle Marte. It is kind of a waste of time to talk about Kyle Tucker, if we're being honest. I'd love to be wrong on that. That, boy, wouldn't that be fun to wake up to like, oh, the mariner spent $380 million on Kyle Tucker? Like, oh, snap, not going to happen. So Cetel Marte is the best bat you could feasibly walk away with at this deadline. And, you know, he does have one other thing that really works well is he does have some versatility to him, you know. And while he's not, you know, a defensive wizard, he has played a lot of second base.

He has played some shortstop. He's even played some outfield. And when you talk about, you know, hey, how do the Mariners fit these guys on the roster? Well, Jerry DePoto talked about it last week, or two weeks ago, last week, I think it was. It's like, hey, you know, you kind of have to give a premium to flexibility. You have to be open because we want to play these young guys. You have to be open to moving some other guys around to make it work. You can tell Marte could start the year at second.

He could play some third for you. Heck, I bet he could figure out left field pretty quick. So, you know, it's just one of those things where Marte just. checks all the boxes. He's the guy who moves the needle the most that the merits could realistically acquire this winter. And you can still make other players fit. Like you figure it out. If you have an opportunity to get Cotelle-Marté, you do it.

And then if you still want polo and you get to January or whatever, and the deal's really favorable. And you're like, man, we didn't think we were going to, we didn't plan to have both of these guys on the roster. But if we can, why wouldn't you? You're trying to win the freaking world series. Yeah. So, you know, Marte, like, the focus right now should be on Marte until Marte is traded.

It doesn't mean you can't work on other things. Obviously, you can have split focus, but like he should be the priority, not Polo. And so it's without any hesitation, without any question, Catel Marte is the guy the mayor should be focused on right now. 100%. And, you know, we'll see, you know, doing some level of work isn't exactly like they're exchanging names, but like, you know, it's probably But again, it's better than I thought. I just, I figured like, you know, contract.

We're not going to sign up for, you know, for five guaranteed years to a guy who's already 32 years old. Like, but again, for all we know, like, they're saying public or they're saying they're leaking here like, yeah, we're in on Marte or we're interested, but they're not really. Like they've kind of already made their mind up. We don't know. But, you know, we do know Jude's level of, of contacts. when he's throwing around names and that's not something that you should ignore when Adam June lists a name you should pay attention to that

yeah so when he listed Donovan Marte and Lao in the article he says here are other options the mares are exploring in the infield purse sources with knowledge of the club's plans so that's coming from someone someone higher up I would expect I think we know who it's coming from we're just not going to say it so yeah yeah exactly you guys can fill on the blanks there so yeah uh the other thing that jude said

in that article that was kind of interesting uh michael royale uh one of the bear's top prospects is going to play some left field and the uh columbian winter league now a royal that's kind of been the biggest knock on him is like where is he going to play he's kind of without a position right now dude can hit but where are you going to put him on the field because you're not just going to exclusively dh him at least not right away not right out of the gate uh so left field that's kind of interesting um to me i've been saying this for a while now uh i mean this was pretty expected uh from from my point of view um that if he sticks in the organization he's probably the randy a rosarena replacement in 2027 when randy probably walks in free agency

maybe they bring him back maybe they extend him but maybe i doubt it if i had to put money on it right now think randy's probably playing somewhere else in 2027 and at that point yeah maybe Arroyo's the guy. Sure. I mean, isn't Arroyo's comp kind of Randy Rosarano? Like 2020. Probably not going to be a great defender, but he's a pretty good athlete. You know, and you can hit.

We'll see about the over the wall power. Yeah. How that translates to the majors. I think he's probably going to tap out at around 20 would be my guess, but maybe there's more. He's still a young kid. But it's also possible. He might only hit like 12 to 15.

It is. But again, he's also what, 21, just turned 21? Like he's a young kid and he's probably going to start next year in double A, but maybe AAA. I assume he's going to play for. I feel like we're going to see him at some point. If he's still in the organization, which he might not be here in a couple months time.

But if he's still here in the organization, I think we probably see him at the major league level at some point in 2026. Yeah, at least for a cup of coffee. Yeah. I think, you know, if you were talking about like prospects most likely to be traded, he's probably second or third. so there's decent odds that he's not with the org.

But I believe Columbia qualified for the WBC. So you think he might be involved in that? He might be playing for Team Columbia this spring and not in camp, which would potentially complicate things, but also he's not going to factor. I mean, that also might give him more, you know, advance reps. Right, right. So it's kind of a, you know, good and bad type of situation

but he wasn't plan he's not a plan to start on the opening day roster be a part of it really for the first couple months so I assume the mayors are fine with that and yeah he's definitely he can hit I really like Arroyo he's a very good prospect left field was always going to be the move I feel like

because like he can stand at second he can stand at short he could stand at third but he's not really going to be good there he's never been good in those spots He's always been okay to, you know, mediocre at best at those spots. So left field was always the move. The bat profile's just fine in left field. And yeah, you know, I guess the next thing hopefully we hear is that Harry Ford's doing a little bit of it himself.

Yeah. Playing a little bit of left or right field, getting those reps in at some point this winter. That would be great to hear as well. And again, you know, assuming those two guys survive the winter in the organization, which, they're probably the two prospects most likely to be traded, you know, in the organization, at least the two impact prospects, most likely be traded in the org. They probably will factor in to some degree in 2026, along with Colt Emerson. Obviously, the mayors have not been shy about making that clear that they expect Colt Emerson at some point, seemingly early in 20206.

So it's going to be a lot of young players fighting for playing time. And, you know, like Justin Hollander said last week, you know, like, hey it's really tough to ask like three or four rookies to to be in your starting lineup so we're kind of trying to navigate that we want to give these guys opportunities but it's really really difficult to rely on three four you know rookies and to be everyday players for you at Justin said all the right things this winter I got to say like everything that you said I'm like yeah yes that's what you say even if you don't mean it that's what you say yeah So, yeah, I mean, we'll see how they all work out. But, yeah, O'Royal Plains left field, not a surprise at all. It's where he's supposed to play, I think, Gold Timmillian. You know, Harry Ford right now, he's the backup catcher.

But again, the more you can do. Right. And, you know, you just can't have Harry Ford sit on the bench 10 days in a row and have and justify having him up at the big league level. He needs to get at bats from somewhere. And in order to do that, it means he needs to play other positions as well. Yeah, well, and I mean, like, you know, if those elite on base skills actually translate to the major league level, like you want that guy in your lineup consistently. The only way you're probably going to be able to do that, justifiably so, is by having him learn another position or a couple of different positions.

Like, Cal Raleigh-DH 38 times last year, like, cool. If he does that again, you can't, you know, justify giving Harry Ford 38 starts over 162 games season. Right. Like, you're not doing him any favors by having him at the big league level. Well, and especially if you got polo back in the fold or, you know, you trade for Marte or whatever, like you might be given. HF that's going to be limited. Yeah. Yeah, D.H perhaps they're probably going to be going to other guys.

So, yeah. All right. That is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown Marrars podcast. Part of the lockdown podcast network, your team every day for Colby Pat node. I'm Tadangazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Merris. You can follow me at Tadangazales and Colby at C-Pat 11.

That's CPAT-1. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB. Colby in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.