Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Time to Face Facts: The Mariners Won the Trade Deadline

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Join Locked On Mariners hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode as they take advantage of the team's off day to reflect on the trade deadline and tell you why Jerry Dipoto had the best deadline performance of any GM in the American League. Then, they double down on the trade talk and explain why the trade market will still be a crucial element to the upcoming offseason. And finally, Ty and Colby discuss Matt Brash's potential call-up and what you can expect from the 2021 breakout prospect out of the bullpen.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: http://patreon.com/controlthezone/Molecule MattressVisit OnMolecule.com and save twenty percent with promo code LOCKEDON. BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. This is Locked-on Mariners. Before we hop into our show, let's talk Locked-on MLB. Join Walking Baseball Encyclopedia Paul Francis Sullivan, and please call him Sully every day on Lockdown MLB for a unique look at the Majors both president pass,

featuring exciting guest interviews and routine check-ins from the Lockdown MLB network's team of local experts. Subscribe to Lockdown MLB today on the audio. C app or wherever you get your podcast. It is Thursday, September 9th, 2021. This is the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Your home for Daily Seattle Mariners News and Analysis. I am your host, Tadian Gonzalez.

You can find me at Dan Gonzalez on Twitter and on Seahawk Maven at sI.com. And I am joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. You can find him at CPAT 11 on Twitter and also on Seahawk Maven at sI.com. So if you're Seahawks fan looking to get more content before the Seahawks square off and the Colts this week and check us out at Seahawkmaven.com. Be sure to check out our Patreon as well. That's where we talk about Mariners even more

and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. We dropped a new episode yesterday which includes 20 plus potential off-season targets for the mariners that no one is talking about. So visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone for more information. But on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners, we're going to take advantage

of the teams off and cover a few really interesting topics. The first of which being why Jerry Depoto and the Mariners had the best trade deadline of any American League team this year. And then we'll tell you why trades are still going to be an important part of Depoto's plan to build out his roster this winter, despite having a ton of payroll flexibility, at least in theory. And finally, earlier today, DePoto telling 710 ESPN Seattle that the team is considering calling up breakout pitching prospect Matt Brass. to pitch out of the bullpen in September. We're going to tell you what to expect from Brash if he is indeed promoted before seasons. And if this is your first time joining us the lockdown Mariners, welcome to the show.

Please give us a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this. We'd greatly appreciate it. Colby, the Mariners strategy at the trade deadline was pretty heavily criticized, especially with the Kendall Graemean deal. But in a little over a month since Depoto and company set the fan base and baseball Twitter into a frenzy. Tyler Anderson, Abraham Toro, Joe Smith, and Diego Castillo have combined for a 1.9 F-war. You take Castillo out of the mix, however, and that number actually goes up to 2.1, but since Castillo has come back from his shoulder injury, he's been dominant. He was excellent

in this recent series against Houston. But now, you know, you look around the rest of the American League and what the other contenders around the Mariners have done. The Blue Jays, you know, took the biggest swing of all by trading Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson to Minnesota for Jose Barrios. They did some stuff with their bullpen. But while they've been red hot lately, none of those additions have really necessarily moved the needle.

You look at the Yankees who reeled in Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo, but Gallo's been awful and Rizzo's been just kind of fine. Starling Marte has been excellent since coming over to Oakland, but they've been skidding lately and they've traded you know and they traded a really good young pitching prospect and uh hazos hasus hazzo lazardo for two months

of a guy that they're probably not going to re-sign this winter and now they're the third team out of the wall card behind the mariners and the blue jays and red sox and the yankees that's a pretty tall hill to climb there for the for the a's kreck kemprel's been disappointed in chicago the astros didn't do a ton i think the one argument you can make here is for the red sox because kall schwerver's been really good and Hansel Robles has been decent but even then those two have combined for just one F or compared to the Mariners 2.1 from Toro

Anderson and Smith so yeah reflecting back on Depoda's deadline I think the guy just absolutely crushed it yeah to me it's undoubtedly the best deadline in the American League arguably the best deadline in Major League Baseball with the

probable exception of what the Dodgers did acquiring two superstars so you know considering what depoto was trying to accomplish and how he was trying to accomplish it he absolutely knocked it out of the park and i think it's time for even those few holdover jerry depoto haters deny whatever it is you want to call them um to admit that you were wrong because you were the mariners are a significantly better team today because of the moves jerry depoto made and that's the point of the trade deadline the only american league team that i think

think maybe as close is Oakland. And that didn't really work at all. Oakland's cratering right now. And while Starling Marte has certainly been a very good player and a very good acquisition, it hasn't really helped. The warts are still there. The bullpen is still in shambles. You know, the lineup is three guys right now.

And so it's just, and by the way, the A's had to give up Luzardo to get their best piece. The Mariners gave up a guy who wasn't going to be here. two months or at the very least was going to be a free agent in two months. And they got four years of Abraham Toro. They've got three and a half years now of Diego Castillo out of this. And it's not, it's a non-zero chance that they get more than the,

you know, 12 starts or so from Tyler Anderson because apparently there's mutual interest in some kind of return next year. So it's just seems almost silly to sit here and still. and still have any questions about what the moves that Topoto did make. And aside from even that, how about the moves that he didn't make when he didn't sell Mitch Hanigar, when he didn't get what he could for Kyle Seeger,

when he didn't go out there and trade Seawald and Steckenrider, et cetera? These are guys that we know had interest around the league. And Jerry held on to them because he was going for it. He was making his moves. And as confusing as the Graven trade was five minutes after the fact, it shouldn't have taken you this long to understand what the idea behind that was. And now it's just you're not even debatable. At this point, if you're still thinking that the Mariners screwed up and trading Kendall Graveman,

you're living in denial. You need help because you're either stupid or you're just refusing to admit that Jerry Depoto did a good job because you don't want him to do a good job. It's very simple. There really is no other explanation for this. if you still think that the Mariners shouldn't have traded Kendall Graveman, you're a moron. How about that? It's as simple

as that. They crushed it. Tell me I'm wrong. They crushed it. Joe Smith has been Kendall Graveman. They absolutely crushed it. Pretty much, yeah. Jerry took these teams out for a ride again. And now

not only are they set up to make a playoff push this year, which they're still very much in, but they're also set up where they have, now next a starting third baseman that they know they have that locked in. They have a high leverage reliever. It could be a closer.

It could be the eighth inning guy, whatever, to add to an already stacked bullpen. They found Tyler Anderson, and now they've gotten this two-month audition, and things are going very well there, so much so that they're working, or at least interested in some kind of extension talk. And Joe Smith has helped stabilize the bullpen,

and pretty much at the very least, he's JT. Chagua. At the very least, he's that. Knocked it out of the park. And if you don't agree, you're living in denial. So I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, it made you better now. It made you better for the future. It's really just a win-win overall.

And going back to what you were saying about the deals that they didn't make, and that's not just from a selling perspective, that's also from a buying perspective. They were in on Jose Berrios, but you saw what he went for. And Burrios has been equally as valuable as Tyler Anderson so far since the deadline. both players coming in with a 0.7 F4 so far. You look at the Whitmerfield talks,

and the leaks that came out about that, how they were asking for a top five prospect from the Mariners, you know, one of their, one of Jared Kellogg or Julio Rodriguez or Noel L.V. Martay or George Kirby or Emerson Hancock for that guy. They didn't do that. You know, they didn't give in. They didn't sell out just for a chance at a one-game playoff.

They didn't sell out for this opportunity to end a 20-year playoff drought, which to some fans probably rubs them in a wrong way, but in the end is very, very smart, especially in a year where you're not, where you weren't anticipating contending this year. And now, you know, the pieces that you have at it,

the pieces that Jerry DePoto did end up bringing in, have greatly contributed to them still being very much involved in this wildcar race. They're only two and a half games out with a little over 20 games to go. I just don't know how you can look at this deadline and think otherwise, you know, that they're, that they just absolutely killed it because they did. This, you look at the value that other team sacrificed.

You look at, you look at how some teams just kind of sat on their hands. They stood pat. And either those teams are cratering or they're not really reaching their full potential. And the Mariners right now are making the best out of a, you know, not a. a super favorable situation for them. They've been able to piece this thing together. And yeah, there's some certain complaints that you could still have with their deadline. There's some certain things that you can nitpick.

Obviously, you know, I would have preferred that they added another bat on top of, on top of everything that they added, maybe another, you know, starter or something. Who knows how realistic that was. But overall, yeah, you look at what they were able to do at the end of July. like there's just there's really you know nothing to me that says that that was anything but a roaring success for them. The Mariners had the trade deadline that the Toronto Blue Jays should have had. And that sounds silly right now because the Blue Jays are surging, but that bullpen still an issue. Third base for them still an issue.

They should have done what Seattle did. If Toronto had the trade deadline that Seattle did, with or without the Brillo straight on top of it. They're the best team in the American League right now. You mark that down. Yeah. Well, especially you think about Abraham Toro. Abraham Toro would have been a great help for the Blue Jays this year.

You know, instead they've been starting Bravick Valera at second base and third base. Who's been, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, yeah, you know, it's just, it was an incredible accomplishment by, by Depoto and company at the deadlock. line and they absolutely killed it. So, you know, even though the Mariners will have plenty of money to play with this winner, you know, Trader Jerry is still going to be on the phones with other teams. We're going to tell you why the trade market is still a very important avenue.

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I've seen many make the argument that, you know, why trade prospects, why trade valuable assets when you could just spend money? Well, that's fine in theory, but the matter of fact is that's just not going to happen. Colby, I'll let you start here by telling them why that's the case. Every single elite team right now has been built through trade and development. Every single one of them. Nobody has spent their way in the free agent market to relevance. I know you're immediately thinking about the Dodgers. What big free agents have the Dodgers signed?

A.J. Pollock? Whoope. They paid mokey bets, but only after they traded for him. right they Cody bellinger corey seger will smith clayton kershaw walker beuler whatever chris taylor they're all traded or they were all traded for or they were developed or both like the dodgers are elite because their farm system and their player development is elite and because they make these great trades max shurs are trade trade turner trade you know you look at a team like toronto a lot of that is development Toronto spent a little but you look at what they did in

free agency they spent on high junru but nothing spectacular there. Not ungodly money. They spent on Simeon one year prove it deal. Not much risk there. The rest of it's been development. They've developed their stars. And so this idea that you know,

developed that you can just spend your way to relevance, it's just not true because free agents have risk to and the risk that free agents carry are typically higher because you're paying for guys who are not in their prime anymore. Right. Kind of the rule of thumb here is once you hit free agency, you're out of your prime because your team was willing to let you go. There are exceptions to that rule,

MookieBats, for example, although he didn't ever hit free agency, but he would have been one of those guys. But look at the guys who are even free agents this year. Are there any of those big free agent short stops? Are any of them free of risk? No, they're not. And you're going to give them $250 million. Plus, Corey Seeger gets hurt all the time.

Trevor Story's having a bad year. Carlos Correa, fine, but he's not a superstar. He's not worth $300 million. You know, you just run down the list here. Who are the starting pitchers that are available that are free of risk that are going to sign with the Mariners or willing to? You think Scherzer is going to sign with the Seattle Mariners? Get out of here. Kirshaw's not doing that.

Neither is Verlander, neither is Granky. Get out of here. And you need impact guys like that. So if you can't sign them in the free agent market because they're either, A, not available or B, not attainable. then how do you get those guys? You trade for them. And trading almost always has a better positive return on your investment than free agent signings.

Just a fact. You can look through all the trades of recent years, the big trades, and then look at all the free agent contracts that have been signed. Do you want another Robinson Canoe? Because that's what it's going to be like. Do you want a situation where Seattle is paying $110 million? dollars to five players. And John Stanton looks at Jerry DePoto and goes, oh, for the other 22 spots, you get $65, $70 million to fill the other 22 spots on this team.

Of course you don't. Because what you're describing right now is you want a jacksorinsic model where it's spend money on Seeger, spend money on Hernandez, spend money on Cruz, spend money on Canoe, overpay for Canoe if you have to, just get them here. and now you have nothing. You have no safety net because all your money's gone. Free agency is important and Seattle's going to spend money in free agency. But sometimes the players you need, sometimes the players you want, they're not free agents. So how do you get them? You trade for them.

Jose Ramirez, if traded, would be the best player acquired this offseason. He's not a free agent. You don't want Seattle to go get Jose Ramirez because he's not a free agent. You don't want Seattle to go get Jose Ramirez because he's not a free agent? Why? Because you don't want to give up Emerson Hancock and Noel V. Marte? Who cares? Either you want the Mariners to be good at the major league level

or you want them to have the number one farm system. Because the only team that can do that consistently has been the raise who don't spend money. So what is it? Which do you want? Do you want to be a good, major league team with good major league players in a chance to win a world series or do you want to hoard prospects overpay free agents who are past their prime and then complain in five years when Stan says sorry we're already at 170 million dollars i don't know what you want me to do we're

89 win team but hey at least you'll have all those prospects that you can keep dreaming on just like we dreamed on dust and actly and justin smoke and hey susan montero and taiwan walker i how'd that work out it didn't and nobody is advocating nobody is advocating for the mariners to dump their entire farm system this offseason nobody the only people who seem to think that's a possibility are the people who want the mariners to just spend money don't trade anybody spend money you have to do both you have to yeah and uh you know you pretty much made the point i was going to make that um you know the market your option you're options expand exponentially by going to the trade market.

The free agent market has so few limited options and you're competing with 29 other teams for those players. It makes more sense to identify guys with other teams that fit your culture, that fit your organization, that fit what you want to do, and to trade prospects, especially because, you know, look, John Stanton isn't going to give you $100 plus million to play with, no matter how much they want to spend.

They're not going to get back to that $160, $170 million mark that they were at with Knoe and Cruz, et cetera. They're not going to do that this off season. So you got to think about your limitations here financially and what you can do with that. And if you can go out and trade for your superstar instead of paying that guy, instead of paying that guy, like $30 million, because that's going to take up most of your payroll for 2021 or for 2020. too rather. So, you know, do you, do you rather, you know, waste most of your money on one player or instead trade a couple of prospects who might be something who might not be. You don't know. None of us knows how those guys are going to turn out and get your superstar that way. Because I would prefer that because now I have a bunch of money that I can spend in free agency to add complementary pieces. Now I can go out

and get myself a solid catcher. Now I can go out and get myself an outfielder, maybe even two outfielders at a $10 to $15 million clip. I can go add more to the bullpen, which I think is an important piece to this. I can go out and, you know, get my second baseman. I can go out and get another starting pitcher. You can do so many different things with it and you don't have to be boxed in by one massive contract, which they're not going to give out anyway. Let's be real here. This isn't us making the argument for them to emphasize this trade market. They are going to do that. They absolutely are going to do that. So, you know, it's just my advice to Mariners fans who think that they need to hold on to every single prospect and just spend money.

While that sounds fine in theory, that's not realistic. And that isn't keeping your team's best interests in mind, really. That's not keeping competition in mind. That's not keeping your ceiling in mind because your ceiling is exponentially higher by going in the trade market and going in free agency and doing both. and probably taking your biggest shots in the trade market. Because, again, you are trading unproven talent for established proven talent. And yeah, while the quantity that you're giving back is going to outweigh what you're getting in return,

the quality of what you're getting in return should not be overlooked here. People, you know, act like it's like this, you know, like you're just giving these prospects away for nothing. Like they forget what you're getting back in return. And it's like, all right, if we're talking about a Jose Ramirez deal, right, you're getting a perennial MVP candidate. You know, this isn't just some like two win, three win player that you're getting here. This is a five to seven win player that you're adding for two, three, four, how many, whatever it is, unproven talents. That's a no-brainer. That should be an absolutely no-brainer.

No one should be thinking twice about that in this fan base. again, it's like what you said, do you want the Mariners to be good or do you want the mariners to be good in theory? Right. And how long do you want to wait for them to, you know, pick a lane there? Like, oh, I want to keep all the prospects. Okay. So you're willing to sacrifice 2022 then. No.

Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't either. You have to be willing to trade prospects. And by the way, nobody in this organization. And I mean, nobody should be. untouchable. Not one. Not Kellnick, not Julio, not Marco, not Logan Gilbert, not, you know, Thai France, not Abraham Thorough. Nobody should be untouchable. Now there are some guys who they probably aren't going to trade. And I probably just named a bunch of them. But nobody's untouchable. The Seattle

Mariners are going to make a trade this, this winter where you are going to sit there and go, wow, that's a lot. And you know what? They're going to be a bad. team because of it. So I focus on what you get back, not what you give up, particularly when what you give up isn't likely to help you in the majors this year. Like could Hancock, for example, Hancock, could he make his debut this year? Sure. Absolutely.

Is he guaranteed to help you? No, he's not because he's a rookie. He's a first year player. Sometimes it takes guys three, four years. Are you willing to wait three, four years just on the upside of Emerson Hancock when you could trade him for somebody who's good right now, like, say, I don't, Sandy Alcantara, Alcantra. So can still know how to pronounce that? No, of course not.

Alcantra. Thank you. You still, you want that guy, right? You want that guy. It's different than trading for, you know, Hancock and, and Marte for Jose Perrios, right, for a year and two months of Jose Perrios. That's dumb. Trading those two guys for, in the offseason. for say Sandy Al Contra, who's got four years of club control left and is still surging towards

being a number one pitcher. Although right now he's probably still a two or a three, but he's surging that way. That makes sense. The Mariners are going to make a deal like that. They're going to give away multiple top six, seven prospects in a deal. Or they're going to make two separate deals where they give away four of the top ten. That's going to happen. You guys need to be prepared for that.

you need to accept that that's an inevitability. And by the way, they're still going to spend money in free agency to compliment those moves too. You cannot ignore trades. Doing so is it's a waste of your time. And saying, oh, I just want the ownership to spend all the money in the world. That's also a waste of your time. Come back to reality. We know owners are cheap.

They're not going to spend what they could. They're not. And there's no way stands writing checks for, you know, $150 million extra dollars of payroll in one off season. Not happening. So speaking of prospects, could the Mariners promote one of their best pitching prospects to help them in the wild card race? We'll discuss that in a moment, but let's talk about Bet Online real quick. It's that time of year again, and all eyes are now turning to football as teams are back on the gridiron to start the season. And as always, Bet Online is your number one spot for all the pro and college football action.

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all the parts your car will ever need, rock auto.com. So Jerry DePoto made an appearance on 710 ESPN Seattle today. He talked about the offseason and where the team is at right now and covered a lot of interesting things, but one little nugget of information he let out was that the organization right now

is considering calling up right-handed pitcher Matt Brash, who was acquired from the Padres for Taylor Williams last year. Brash this year has exploded onto the scene. Once thought to be a pure reliever. Brash started the season atop Everett's rotation and dominated high A ball since being promoted to AA Arkansas. He's just continued his tear. 14.11 Ks per 9 to a 327 walks per 9 and 44 innings pitch in Arkansas,

just a 164 ERA, 232FIP, nasty slider and fastball along with changeup. The plan for him if he's called up would be to put him in the bullpen. Colby, what do you think about Brash potentially coming up? And how much do you think he could help? It would be fun, right? It would be exciting. The stuff is majorly quality, particularly the fastball slider combo. He's not going to have an issue missing bats once he gets here.

He's also not going to have an issue. throwing strikes, particularly in a relief role. You know, it's kind of like, you know, imagine Paul Seawald, but with a slightly better slider in a fastball that's, you know, sits in the mid to upper 90s instead of low 90s. That's pretty much what you'd be adding in a bullpen roll for Matt Brash. And obviously he stretched out. So if you needed him to go multiple innings, he could do that. You just needed him to be a bridge guy.

He could do that. And honestly, the stuff is high leverage quality out of the pen. So if you needed to use him in a high leverage situation and you think he's, you know, mentally prepared for that, you could do it. He could survive that. He's got very good stuff. So it would be fun. It would be exciting. I don't know if it provides much of a boost in terms of like morale or anything like that because, I mean, if you're not already pumped, if you're a Seattle Mariner and you're not pumped right now, what are you doing?

you know so i don't think there's any kind of you know thing like that but hey could he help you more than say mad andrease yeah yep he could help you more than sean doolittle he could help you more than really probably eric swanson who's been very good joan ramirez who's been very good so i mean it's just it's adding you know how do how do you how do you like limit the damage that you say kukuchi can do if he's bad down the stretch by only having by by asking him to only go through the lineup once or one and a half times, right? Okay. Hey, no problem.

You only went two and a third and you've given up two runs already. No problem. I've got Brash, I can throw to get out of this inning and get me through the third. Then I've got Andres to get me through the fourth and the fifth. And now all of a sudden I'm back to my, you know, the back half of my bullpen.

The bullpen is what Seattle has over everybody right now. It's their trump card, right? It's the one thing they have that nobody else in this wildcard hunt has. An excellent bullpen. and it might get even better. And I am all for that idea. What do you think about piggypacking him with Logan Gilbert or you say Kikuchi, you are kind of struggling right now?

I like the idea. You know, it's tough with a young pitcher because you want him to have structure, right? You want to be like, hey, look, you've been starting all year. You've known the days you're going to take the ball. And now it's like, hey, you want to run to the bullpen and, you know, just, wait for a phone call. So I think having that that structure is a good idea for Brash. I also think it's a good idea for Gilbert in particular.

He's got to be running out of ammo here. And though he's looked better in his last couple starts, it's still not quite as sharp as he was earlier in the year. So it definitely looks like he's running out of innings right now. And, you know, I mean, DiPoto didn't trash Kakucci after. his last start, but he did use the word non-competitive in his post-game interview, I think three times. That's not promising, right?

That's not typical of Scott. So, yeah, I think it's possible that piggybacking makes sense. A lot of this depends on what Matt Brash is comfortable with, how his arm feels. You know, it's, you don't want to add a player who's not ready for the big leagues. I think Brash is, but, you know, You don't want to risk that for very little reward. You know what I mean? All right.

So I think that's going to do it for today's show. Kind of running late on time. So we're going to cap it off here. But thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners. For Colby Pat node, I'm Taday and Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, Z, and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-P-A-T-1.

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