Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Trevor Story Just Didn't Like the Mariners Back

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss Trevor Story declining an offer from the Mariners that landed close to what he signed with the Red Sox for, all the reasons you need to be at T-Mobile Park for the team's home opener on April 15 and why Seattle's lineup in Thursday's Spring Training bout against Cleveland is the most ideal for Opening Day.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/BetOnlineBetOnline.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.

You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. It is Thursday, March 24th, 2020, and this is Locked-on Mariners. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. I am your host, Taday-A-G-N-Z-L-L-S. Join, as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-U-N-Riners.

You can follow me at D-N-G-N-Z-L-Z. and Colby at C. Pat 11, that's C-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com forward slash control zone for more information on that. If you were interested and want more of us on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners, as it just so happens, the Mariners did, in fact, offer Trevor's story a lucrative contract this off season.

We'll be discussing that as well as the reasons. You should head to the Mariners' home opener on April 5th. And the Mariners today are deploying a lineup that is more in line with our personal preferences. We'll tell you what we like about it. If this is your first time joining us. Welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follower, subscribe. Wherever you listen to this, we greatly appreciate it.

So today, Jeff Passon on ESPN detailed Trevor Story's Free Agency and how he ended up in Boston on that six-year, $140 million contract. And in the piece, he talked about how the Mariners had on. offered him a similar contract. And this is something that we had heard. Some people have been talking about this over the last week or so that Story did receive an offer from the Mariners that was north of $100 million. I believe John Hammond was the first one to talk about this. We had also been told this privately as well that the Mariners were in that ballpark with him,

but they ideally wanted him to play third base. At the time he declined the Mariners offer. has been now confirmed by passing. The lockout happened, of course, and the Mariners were making a late push before the lockout occurred. That's when he declined it. The lockout happened.

Time had passed. Out of the lockout, story revisited his market, of course. And the Mariners, as Passon put it, retreated. It mostly came down to teams like the Giants and the Red Sox. And the Red Sox ultimately coming away with story here. But it doesn't seem like the Mariners were in, story out of the lockout and that kind of aligns with some things that I was told you've been told as well Colby what do you think about all of this yeah it's not all that surprising um

we also heard that the offer of the mariners made story pre lockout was possibly for a little bit more than he ended up getting um so yeah it's one of those things where it's like this is why You can't sit here and say, you know, as a ban or an analyst or anything like that. You can't say, well, the Mariners should have done that deal because apparently they tried to. And story just wasn't interested. Right. And, you know, that's that's what happens sometimes. You're not going to be able to, you know, make everybody fall in love with your city, with your team.

there are some places there are some players who just will never want to play in Seattle whether it's you know politics or weather or travel or whatever right yeah like we've said this before that it might not even have anything to do with the organization itself right just think about it

these players have to relocate their families to this area as well this is not a decision that just falls on their shoulders it's not a decision that just falls on the organizational fit how do I fit within the team structure. It's not just as simple as that. And I feel like a lot of people overlook that. Right. And I mean, it's it's about players interest outside of baseball. And, you know, Robbie Ray, when he signed, he talked about all the awesome fishing opportunities up here in

the Northwest. And then that's something that was important to him. So it was a, it was a plus, you know, when Seattle made him his offer. So there's a bunch of little things like that that go into players making these decisions. And sometimes it is the organization. They just don't respect the Mariners or they don't like, you know, player X or or coach Y or whatever. That does come into play on occasion. But, you know, that's really, that doesn't mean just because, you know, Trevor's story doesn't want to play for the Mariners.

It means the Mariners are an undesirable team to play for. It means Trevor's story didn't want to play for the Mariners. So, yeah, there was also apparently something about, he was hesitant to get vaccinated. And it appears. that the Mariners, you know, regardless of your opinion on this, it appears that the Mariners are hesitant to give big money to any of the guys who were unvaccinated. It just, it seems like that's something they're doing. Now, we don't know if Robbie Ray is or isn't. I don't know for sure,

but it does seem that way because when you look at that comment and then you look at, you know, the lack of interest in Michael Conforto, despite making just tons of sense for Seattle. It does appear that that is a stand that they're taking here and that probably played a role in this as well. So, you know, it's just one of those things that, you know, story didn't want to be a mariner. The Mariners may have offered him the best contract he was going to get. You also have to factor in no state income tax in Washington, but, you know, either way. And he just didn't want it. That's fine.

Like the Mariners shouldn't pay 20% overmarket just to get a, player who doesn't want to be here to come here. That's what bad teams do. So you just move on and you adjust. So Trevor's story wasn't a guy that you just had to have at all cost. And the Mariners agreed with that. And they got to their number. Story didn't want it. So they moved on. And the other thing here that I've been seeing on Twitter is, well, you know, it seems like the strategy of committing to J.P. Crawford has really paid off for the Mariners. I don't think that that really impacted things here at all because Trevor's story still went to a place where he's not going to play shortstop.

And a lot of teams are legitimately concerned about his elbow. And Passon alluded to that as well. Teams are also hesitant about giving him, you know, such a commitment because of the Corps field effect. And so this was limiting to his market. This wasn't just an issue that was exclusive to the Mariners. The Mariners, quite frankly, were one of the teams that said, you know what, we don't really care about the Corps effect.

We're going to make a commitment. this guy. They apparently offered him six years and around $140 million. So, again, I don't think that it has anything to do with J.P. Crawford and Shortstop being unavailable to Trevor Story.

Shortstop wasn't available to him in a lot of places, including the place that he ended up going to. Now, there's obviously the chance that he could end up playing at shortstop in 2023 for the Red Sox, assuming that Zander Bogartz declines his player option. But even then, it's just there's no

guarantee of that. There's no guarantee that his elbows going to hold up over the next year. There's there's a lot that goes into the situation that I think a lot of people are just kind of glossing over right now. And, you know, it's a, it's a complicated thing. Free agency discussions in general are complicated things. These negotiations are incredibly complicated. And when you throw in all these factors and then when you look around the rest of the league and notice that, hey, Trevor Story also didn't sign with 29 other teams because of these similar issues because not a lot of teams wanted to commit to him at shortstop. A lot of teams viewed him as a second baseman or even a third basement.

The Mariners viewed him as a third basement, which is, you know, a little weird considering the question mark surrounding his elbow. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's, it just doesn't seem like this was an issue of the Mariners being cheap. You know, it wasn't. You know, they offered him a significant conscience. contract and they offered him an opportunity to play a significant position for them, play a significant role for them. They just didn't want it. And we'll never know what exactly those issues were that led to him declining that contract.

Obviously, there's the shortstop issue before the lockout, but after the lockout, you know, it was pretty clear that his, his options were dwindling to, to play shortstop. You know, we don't know if Minnesota was one of those teams that were interested in him. they ended up going with Correa, of course. But the Mariners were one of the few teams where, you know, hey, we can't give you shortstop, but right now. But, I mean, you could at least see a path there where they could ask J.P. Crawford to move over.

There were options there available to them and into story as well. And if he was willing to kind of play a wait and see game, which is what he's going to do in Boston. So, you know, we'll see how it turns off for him. But ultimately, you know, the Mariners didn't get him. And, but it doesn't, it doesn't seem like it's the, uh, the fault of not spent, or wanting to spend money. So I think that should put some of the, uh, the, the conversation around the Mariners right now, to bed.

You know, he said this a lot. It takes two to tango and, and, you know, it's not always about the Mariners not spending money. And, and, you know, it's, I, I think Mariners should be pretty. excited that they were in on the top of the market guys. You know, we know for a fact they made an offer on story. We know that they made an offer on Simeon. We know they made an offer on Bryant.

We know they made an offer on Gossman. And obviously, they made an offer on Robbie Ray. And he took it. So, I mean, those are five of the top, what, 10 guys? Yeah. And the Mariners were in on them. And the interesting thing about Ray specifically is he and his agent came to the Mariners.

right so there is a possibility here for free agents to actually be attracted to seattle just depends on the situation depends on the guy depends on his situation and these guys are going to be going to be more interested in seattle these types of players when they win and i don't mean win 90 games to get close to the playoffs i mean make the playoffs get to an alcs maybe get to a world series because then they can't ignore you and the mariners are definitely trending in that direction but they're not there yet. If they had made the playoffs last year, maybe, but even then, if they had made the one game playoff and lost to Boston, they get to an ALCS this year or something like that, or that, you know, they get to game five with the ALDS and they only finish a game back at Houston or whatever. Yeah, these guys are going to start to be more and more interested because they can see themselves winning in Seattle. And if you can win, a lot of that other stuff is more easy, is, is, it's easier to look past for a guy like story. Like just objectively,

the Red Sox are a better, uh, you know, have a better chance to win a World Series this year than the Maritors. And also it's the Red Sox. Yeah. There's history. It's a,

it's a park that's also pretty favorable for, for story to play in as well. There's history there. You know, they've won in the recent past. Like, yeah, it's,

I, like personally I would pick Seattle, uh, but that's, That's because I'm a Northwest guy, and that's where I don't want to stay. But Story's not. He's a Texas guy. He doesn't care about that.

He's just going to go to a place that's going to pay him the most money that he has the best chance to win and the best chance to put up numbers. And Boston is ahead of Seattle in that regard. So, yeah, it makes sense. Well, even though they didn't get story, they still put together a pretty good roster with guys like Jesse Winker, Adam Frazier, Robbie Ray, who we talked about. And they look poised right now to end the, the 20-year playoff drought. They're going to be making

their debut at home on April 15th against the Astros. We're going to be telling you why you should be there in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder, this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Bet Online. It's that time of year again as college basketball's tournament is finally

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It's free and available wherever you get podcasts just like us. So we are two weeks away from opening day. The Mariners are going to be opening up the season in Minnesota against the twins. And then eventually they're going to make their way home to Seattle for their home opener on April 15th against the Houston Astros. and you should absolutely make your way to the ballpark if you can. Each row throwing out the first pitch they just announced today. Julio Rodriguez might be making his home debut for the Mariners as well. And right now, simply Seattle, a clothing brand based in Seattle,

which has a lot of really dope vintage Seahawks, Mariners, Sonics, all that kind of gear. they are doing a great deal right now for fans where if you spend $30 on Mariners gear, you get a free ticket to opening day. Spend $60 on Mariners gear. You get two tickets. So you can get a hat and go to the ballpark for opening day. That sounds like a pretty great deal to me.

Colby, you're going to the game after opening day. You're going to the Saturday game. How excited are you to get to the ballpark, which, by the way, they're improving the ballpark experience. They're making strides to doing that, especially with the concession prices. Tell the folks about that and why you're excited to head to the ballpark. Well, first of all, let's throw this disclaimer out there.

Hashtag not sponsored by Simply Seattle, although they do have very good stuff. You guys should check them out. Also not sponsored by the Seattle Mariners, but, you know, give us a call. We know the Mariners front office listens to these things sometimes. So, no, but. See, we're helping you out, folks. Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. No, but yeah, it's like Ty mentioned the deal at Simply Seattle.

That's a really good deal. You just go get a nice fresh hat and a free ticket to the ballgame. Tough to beat that. The end stadium upgrades are pretty nice. They announced a few of these yesterday. They're bringing in a value menu, which is great. Food has been way too overpriced, particularly ballpark food. I don't mind so much the, like the private vendors, like,

Azel's chicken, I think. Like, I don't care what they charge. It's, it's their right. But the concessions owned by the Mariners, like $12 for a soda, really. But what they're doing now is they have a value menu. Hot dogs, nachos, 12 ounce fountain drink, 16 ounce fountain drink, I think. Water, peanuts and licorice. I believe are all $3 at the high heat locations, or scattered around

the ballpark you guys can check it out at mariners.com. But yeah, so value menu for food, which again is going to save people a ton of money. Free refills on your soda. By the way, I'm sure most of you know this, but they are switching from Pepsi to Coke. So I don't know what your brand is, but at the ballpark, you're going to get Coke. So, but free refills, they're going to have outfacing self-serve refill areas. So you can just walk up and refill your own Coke. You don't have to stand in line.

and wait for somebody to refill it for you. They've upgraded the Wi-Fi at the ballpark. It now should be a really solid signal throughout the entire ballpark. There were a few areas where the Wi-Fi is touch and go. And where I like to sit, sometimes it kind of kicks it on and off. But, yeah, it's apparently it's going to be better there. So those are really good additions. They upgraded their beer list, their $5 and $6 beer list, can beer list.

that is also available on mariners.com. So, yeah, it's going to be a little bit cheaper to eat at the ballpark. It's going to be a little bit more convenient to you at the ballpark. It should be easier to surf the web, use, you know, your Instagram, Twitter, whatever, what have you at the ballpark. So, yeah, they're really focusing on fan interaction here. There's probably a bunch of other little things that we won't notice right away. But those are some of the big things they announced yesterday.

And overall, that should improve the ballpark experience. You know, I hope there was some retraining of some of the ushers. There's been more than a few incidents of unprofessionalism there over the last few years. But, you know, you listen to somebody like Katie Griggs and she's impressive. like her resume is out of this, you know, out of this world. President of business operations. Yes. Yes.

Yes. The Seattle mayor is yes. One of the most impressive resumes you're going to see. She came in. She's already making these changes. And off to a good start so far, I would say. And like you said, each year is going to throw out the first pitch on April 15th. And I think, I can't confirm this, but I'm going to say that is there is a 85% chance.

That's, that's my. my number. They're going to see Julio Rodriguez in center field on opening night. So get down to the ballpark. It should be a lot of fun. I know I'm really excited to go on Saturday. Tickets are going fast for opening night, as they usually do. I think they're even opened up the right field third deck.

Those seats way up there. They're usually not open to the public. They usually don't sell tickets up there. They already are and they might be getting close to selling out. So check it out. like Ty said, simply Seattle, go get yourself a hat,

get a free ticket. Or, you know, just had Mariners.com, ticket master, venue kings, stuff, whatever,

your ticket, you know, your ticket buying website of choice and have fun. Yeah, for sure. So I'm trying to figure out

who would be the pitcher for that game. So we got, I would assume Robbie Ray is going to be the opening day starter. Right.

in Minnesota, then Marco? He's lined up for that, yes. Yeah, then Gilbert, flex, and brash? Does that seem right? I think so, yeah. I believe it's going to be Logan Gilbert then. Nice. If he's the number three, it'll either be,

it'll probably either be Gilbert or flexen. I mean, maybe they put Marco number three and have Gilbert a flux in that number two just to go lefty, righty, lefty, righty. but yeah I would say pretty good chance that you're going to be seeing

Logan Gilbert in the home opener also it's going to be Jackie Robinson so just another great reason to go to the home opener it's it's going to be a lot of fun I am incredibly jealous of anyone who gets to go yeah me being up in Toronto

watching from afar it's going to be like that that meme of Squitwer watching out the window of Patrick and Spongeball running around. That's going to be me. But yeah, absolutely get out to the ballpark and support this team. They deserve it. And it's going to be a really, really fun season. So by the time you're listening to this,

the Mariners have probably already completed their spring training game against the Cleveland Guardians today down at Goodyear Ballpark. but the Mariners today deployed a really interesting lineup one that Colby you and I like quite a bit this falls more in line with what we're

hoping to see what we're are hoping to see come opening day from the Mariners Adam Fraser leading off playing second base Ty France hit in second at first base Jesse Winker hitting third at left field Mitch Hanager hitting fourth right field

AU Hineos Juarez hitting 5th at third base. J.P. Crawford, interestingly, hitting six at shortstop. Abraham Toro, D.Hing, in the seven hole. Derek Kelnick and center field hitting eighth, and then

Tom Murphy doing the catching in the number nine hole. What do you think about this lineup, Colley? I think it's pretty close to what you're going to see on opening day. I think, again, I'm guessing here. There's been no official announcement or anything like that.

But I'm going to guess that Calnick will actually be in left field. Julio will be in center. And Winker will DH. That would be my guess. Which would mean just moving Toro to the bench. But other than that, I think this is pretty much how it's going to look or how it should look. J.P. Crawford, as much as he loved the guy, he's not the best leadoff candidate on this team. It's frankly, I don't know if he's in the top five.

He's closer to five than he is one, at the very least. Frazier is one of the best candidates. France is one of the best candidates. Winker is one of the best candidates. And you have them hitting 1, 2, 3, as they should be. And so Hanager and Suarez with the power. And then you kind of reset the lineup with Crawford, hitting 6th ahead of what will probably be Julio,

Kalnick, and then Murphy would be my guess for opening day. It's a good lineup. There's some pretty good balance there. Left right, left, right, right. right for the first four hitters. And then you double up on the righties with Handegar and Suarez before you go. Crawford is a lefty. And then Julio in my lineup is a righty.

Kelnick is a lefty and then Murphy is a righty. So there's a lot of balance, which we know we know service likes to do. A lot of his lineups last year featured left right, left right. It's something he likes to do. I don't care that much about that type of balance, but it is something service-like. So this lineup accomplishes that. You know,

it gets your second-best lead-off guy at the top of the lineup. It gets, you know, your two best overall hitters hitting second and third where they should be. And you get power in the middle with Hanager and Suarez, hitting four or five. So, yeah, it's a good lineup. I think this is, like I said, I think this is probably the best they can do right now,

minus the whole Julio basically taking Toro's spot in the lineup and then we'll see if Terence can hit or can play catcher that would be better than Murphy but we don't know that for sure

but I would say Torrance looks better beyond the plate so far so maybe my general rule here is to have your best hitter in the lead off spot that might be Jesse Winker. I would say it's Jesse Winker followed up by Hanager in France because that guarantees

that your best hitter gets the most at bats. Yeah, he's not going to do a ton of damage first time through the lineup. But you're going to get more of bats for him naturally. You're going to guarantee that. So this isn't really that. Adam Frazier isn't the best hitter on the Mariners, but this is a great improvement.

Frazier, really good on base skis. can hit for average, all that stuff. He doesn't strike out. Yeah, he's, if we're stacking up him against J.P. Crawford, it's Fraser all day for me. That's not a slight on JP and the improvements that he's been able to make over the last year. But I think, you know, putting him closer down to the bottom of the lineup, it just lengthens your lineup all, you know, even more so than it already was. And yeah, I just think that that makes your lineup even more dangerous. And so I like this more than running Crawford at the top.

And Frasier hitting six or seventh or eighth or ninth. I think this is just better utilization of those two guys. Toro is kind of interesting too because I would throw Toro into the mix of hitting leadoff. I think he can do it. I think he can do it well. I think he's going to hit for a high average this year. I think he's going to be able to get on base quite a bit. But the thing with him is, is he actually going to be a regular in the lineup?

Or is he going to be someone that you only see maybe three, four times a week? If Toro plays three, four times a week, that's not an everyday player, but that's not a bench guy either. That's, you know, 400 of the bats. So he's going to play a lot. But, yeah, I mean, like, I think you're just looking for, like, the max, the, like, your most maximized lineup, your optimized lineup, Toro's probably on the bench to make room for either Torrens or Suarez

or you know Julio. Yeah. So, but yeah, I mean, I think he's a very good, I think he has very good lead-off potential.

I'd say that. I don't want to say he's a good lead-off candidate yet, but he certainly has a potential. He doesn't strike out. He doesn't swing and miss. And he's a better runner than people think. 76% down sprint speed last year for Toro. So not a base sealer, but he can definitely cut the bases.

He's a good athlete. He makes a lot of contact. Doesn't strike out. That's a pretty good lead off hiter. And I think he's probably, Toro is probably going to hit. I'd be pretty surprised if Toro didn't hit at least $250 this year. I think there's a non-zero chance. He's Adam Prasier at the plate.

That's a pretty good player. So let me ask you this before we hop off. If you're going to have Julio Rodriguez in say this lineup, You're going to have to use the D8 spot for either Jesse Winker or Mitch Hanager. Who do you prefer? Rather, who hurts you less in the outfield? Oh, man. That is a tough question.

I think Hanigar probably hurts you less. But I don't know. As long as they're both not out there, you'll survive. So, you know, plus Hanager's been here. He's done that, blah, blah, blah. So if he wants to play right field a little bit more than Winker wants to play left, then just let them. And both of those guys are going to rotate through.

I'd be pretty surprised if Hanager didn't get, I don't know, 150 plate appearances out of the DH spot out of his 600 or so, assuming health. And the Kepret might get 150, 200 plate appearances of that out of the D8. So he's going to, he's going to have that role probably, I would say 30% of the time. Winker's probably going to have it 35, 40% of the time. Then you have Trens. And then obviously there are guys you want to give half day offs to. And what are you doing when Kyle Lewis comes back?

Like the DH spot is going to be a fascinating one to watch throughout the year because it's pretty good chances. It's a different guy every day. And that's fine. That's what you want. That's why you didn't go out and you didn't sign. you know, that's why he didn't go out and sign. Nelson Cruz. Yes, thank you.

Nelson Cruz. So, yeah, I would say that's, uh, remember the Albert Poole saga? He's still out there, by the way. No, he's still out there. Oh, boy. Oh, no. So watch out for that.

But yeah, I think this lineup is a pretty good one. And I think it's better than anything they've run out there so far. I like JP hitting sixth. I think that's kind of a a second lead-off type of guy because, you know, in theory, Kanager and Swara should clear the bases, right, with their power.

We'll see how opening day lineup looks, but I wouldn't be shocked at all of it looks almost exactly like this. All right. Well, that is going to do it for our show today. Thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners for Colby Pat note. I'm Tidey Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow

on Twitter at L-O-U-U-N-S-Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, it's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every day. Now make your second listen to the day, locked on MLB, where Paul Francis Sullivan,

and please call him Sully, brings you his unique perspective on the major league's president pass. It's free. wherever you get your podcast just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we will see tomorrow. Peace.