Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - We Hate the Idea of Matt Chapman and the Mariners

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Ryan Divish sent Mariners Twitter into a frenzy during his Thursday radio appearance on 710 Seattle Sports, saying that the Mariners have had internal discussions about pursuing Matt Chapman. Ty and Colby don't like the idea at all and tell you why, then discuss more rumors linking Seattle to Blake Snell and some unfortunate news for pitching prospect Cole Phillips.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelNew customers, join today and you’ll get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Matt Chapman's been a big talking point in the Mariners fan base for the last 24 hours or so. We're going to discuss that as well as Blake Snell and some unfortunate news for one of the Mariners and newest prospects coming up here on the Locked on Marriss podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Oh, hoys, sailors. It is Friday, February 16, 2024. This is tiny Gonzalez and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Marys podcast brought to you by Fandul. Make every moment more. New customers join today and you'll get $150 in bonus bets if your first bet of $5 or more wins.

Visit fanduel.com slash locked on. That's L-O-C-D-O-N to get started. Thank you so much for making us to your first. Listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts. If you're watching on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. And on the show today, we're going to talk about Blake Snell because those rumors about him and

the mirrors just won't seem to die. We'll also discuss some unfortunate news for one of Seattle's best pitching prospects, but we're actually going to start here with Matt Chapman, who, of course, is one of the several Scott Boris clients yet to sign with a team, even though we're already at pitchers and catchers reporting. Marrers beat reporter Ryan Divis yesterday was on with Brock and Salk on 710 Seattle Sports. And when Divish was asked about Chapman, Divish said that the Mariners have discussed Chapman internally, actually, and that if Chapman and Boris wind up lower their demands, he could actually see the Mariners being interested to a certain degree. So this is, of course, sparked a massive debate on Mariners' Twitter because, well, one, of course it did.

And two, Chapman is a pretty polarizing free agent in general. I don't like this idea at all. I really don't. And Colby, I know you agree as well. You think it's stupid. So why is that? there's no scenario where Matt Chapman's, like, realistic contract demands are going to dip down low enough to where it makes sense for the Mariners to sign a player like Chapman.

Chapman is on the wrong side of 30. He is no longer an elite defensive third baseman. He's still very good, but he is certainly not elite by really any metric at this stage of his career. The last two years, he's really struggled to hit the fastball, particularly, fastball is 94 or higher. He had a negative run value against that pitch the last two years. The strikeouts have crept up over the last three years. You know, he has got some hip issues.

He's got some back issues. He's 30 years old. He's an older player now. He's on the wrong side of 30. Again, there's a question about his bat speed. If you're struggling to catch up to fast balls, first question you have to ask is, is there a bat speed issue? And it feels like, yeah, there most certainly is for Matt Chapman.

and that's not uncommon when you get past the age of 30, over the age of 30, you tend to lose some bat speed. So when you look at Chapman's numbers last year, you look at the 110 WRC plus. Cool. That's a mirage because after the month of April, it was an 84 WRC plus. And that includes a July where he was really good. You get a really good July. And it was still not enough to, you know, kind of rise up the rest of those numbers. Yeah, like that illustrates just how bad he was in May, June, August, and September.

Right. When you look at that 84 WRC Plus, 83, somewhere in that. It was 84, yeah. What it represents, just put it into context, last year, A. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. Hino-Sweres, who was your own over 30-year-old third baseman, who didn't hit for any power, who struggled with strikeouts, has bat speed issues, who happened to have a three-win season, mostly due to his spectacular defense. You sound familiar. Right. That guy posted a 102-103 WRC plus. What does that mean? It means that what you guys from Chapman or what you got from Gino last year was 20% better than what the Blue Jays got from Chapman for five, sixth of the year. That should terrify everybody, especially because Gino was only making $11, $12 million. There is a 0% chance you are getting Chapman at that Aavie, zero. Because even if you think, well, if we do a one year deal, he might take $10, $12 million. Nope. I feel like people took what DeVis said.

yesterday and blew it way out of proportion that oh hey it'll get to a point where Chapman's going to take $10 million for one year that's not going to happen if you are getting him on a one year deal it's probably for $2025 million because he's sacrificing any sort of long-term commitment any sort of long-term safety right I think what's happened here is that Chapman has offers on the table or has had offers given to a home that are for high Aavs but not for six, seven years like we've heard reported. And we know that Boris loves to hammer out those very long-term contracts for his clients, especially his bigger-name clients, like Matt Chapman.

So even if they come down on the years, Divis was speculating yesterday that it could be like a three-year deal. That's still going to be for a hefty, hefty price. And with the concerns about the bat, with the concerns about his back and his hip, I don't want to tie myself to $16 to $20 million a year for three years knowing what the financial restrictions that this ownership group has placed on the front office are. I don't want that. Not for Matt Chapman who, I'm just going to say it right now. I'm going to get a lot of crap for this on Twitter. I don't care.

I'm going to get a lot of crap for this down in the comments below. I'm not convinced Matt Chapman is going to be better than some combination of Louis St. Urias and Josh Rojas this season. I'm not. I can understand why people think that he's an upgrade. Totally get that on the surface at least. But how much is that potential worth to you? I get it.

It's not our money. But reality is front office is working with a budget. And the only way that you're getting Chapman with everything we know about the mayor's payroll situation, unless things have changed or the wrong information it has been reported about their payroll, they're going to have, Jerry and Justin are going to have to go to John Stanton,

Chris Larson, and the rest of that ownership group and ask them to make an exception. And at that point, if they're having to make an exception, that's probably the rest of your money for this year. So do I want to sacrifice my ability to go get better

with someone else this offseason before opening day or at the trade deadline? So I can maybe get an upgrade at third base and Matt Chapman, despite all the massive red flags that are present. Let, like, let's just go over the scenarios here.

So scenario that's probably best case scenario is that the Mariners have a lot more money to spend than we think they do. Sure. Which is kind of reliant on John Stanton growing a brain and a heart and spending what he should have spent anyways, which let's not hold our breath. But let's just say, best case scenario, John Stan has seen the light. And he tells Jerry, I think they have about $10 million left right now, eight to 10, somewhere in that range to get over where they were last year. Let's say he gives them another $10 million.

So now you have $20 million. Why would you spend that on Matt Chapman when you could just go get that to Blake Snow? Blake Snow is better than Matt Chapman. It's not a position of need, but Snell's better than Chapman. And if you have $20 million, you could do that this year. You could backload a little bit and you can get a good deal on Chapman or on Snell or maybe then you or maybe you just go get Montgomery instead. Like why not just go get the pitcher?

Well, and even though that Bellinger comes with his own red flags, I'd rather have Bellinger than Chapman. It's 27, 28 years old. This is obviously assuming that, you know, Cody Bellinger even wants to come to Seattle. Right, probably doesn't. But we know that Blake's now wants to come to Seattle. I'd rather get Blake's sell that money.

Right. And again, that's best case scenario is that you have this extra money. And if you get Blake Snow, okay. Now I can actually think about maybe trading Brian Wu or Bryce Miller for a third baseman. Right. You don't have to, though. You don't have to. You could just put that guy in AAA and maybe this summer makes sense to trade him. Maybe you trade Logan Gilbert.

But the point is I can still maybe address third base that way. Yeah. So again, that's best case scenario is that you just have extra money that we didn't know about. What's more likely is that the Mariners are going to go to, you know, stand and be like, and this is assuming they have any interest in Chapman at all and be like, hey, we need, we want chat. But we're not going to give him five years at 16 to 20 million a year. Like we, that's dumb. Like we can't do that.

That's not a good use of our resources. So you want to give him three years, which means the Aavs going to go up. Every year less you give him, his AAB goes up. So what if he says three and 60, right, 20 million a year? Well, the mayors go to Stan and be like, well, you know, we can get Chapman. If you give us an extra $10 million for this year, Stan's going to say, know and how did the mayor's clear $10 million of payroll? They probably trade Thai France and Josh Rojas. Cool. Who's the starting first baseman now? You've traded essentially France and Rojas

for Chapman and you've taken on more payroll obligation than you had before. You're better off just keeping France and Rojas. Like there's not a lot of big contracts left to trade for the Mariners. And that's best case. And or that's, you know, what? And if you trade France, all right, Rayleigh becomes your first basement. Okay, now I have a hole in the outfield. Right. Now do I have it. And I don't have any money to go get Tommy Fam. I don't have any money to go get Adam Duvall. Like, I'm out. I'm tapped out. The other scenario is that you backload a deal so significantly that it hurts you and it eats up all that money you saved with the Robbie Ray trade. And again, if you're backload any deal, that's significant. And it's a short term deal. It's a high A.A.V. So if you do three and 60 or whatever

and you backload that and you only pay him $8 million this year, okay, now you owe him $52 million over the next two years. Yeah. Like you're going to lose a player if you sign Chapman to that type of deal. You're going to lose somebody you shouldn't. Is Matt Chapman worth that? No, there's no scenario. There's no, you know, there's no point in Chapman because even if any of those scenarios are yes, you're willing to do that.

If you're willing to do that for Chapman, you're better off doing it for Snell. Right. Okay. If Chapman's the only guy that will take my money, I'm cool with it. only if I get the guarantee that I can still do more after adding Matt Chapman. If I can, I don't care then. Add Matt Chapman. I really don't care.

Right. This is just not going to happen. Yeah. Like we have zero evidence to suggest that Mariners ownership is going to allow that. So the best case scenario to get Chapman is that he takes like three years at like, let's say three and 50 is like he's willing to take that from you. That is best case. and you even backload it a lot. Now you have no money for the deadline.

You have to make really tough decisions next year because of this backloaded contract. You're going to have to pay Matt Chapman more than you were. And you have a player who may or may not produce. You can't feel good about Chapman. Chapman is just such a flawed player. Again, if you're going to make special exceptions in your payroll, if you're going to try and backload things and deal with the headache later,

you do it with a guy like Blake Snell, not a guy like Matt Chapman. Yeah. It just, there's no. if Matt Chapman makes any bit of sense, the mayors can swing Matt Chapman in any way, they should just shift their focus to Snow. Right.

And just put those efforts into acquiring Snow. And even that has its own problems, but it's better than Chapman. We're going to keep this conversation going and talk about Blake's Snell a little bit more in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Marriss podcast is brought to you by Backblaze. Backblaze offers unlimited cloud backup for Max, PCs, and businesses

for just $99 a year. You can easily protect business data through a centrally managed admin and protect all the data on your machines automatically. It is easy to deploy across multiple workstations with various deployment options. You can also add on Enterprise Control, which includes granular access permissions, advanced single sign-on, group management controls, and compliance support. Backblaze also offers multiple restore options, including rapid recovery in the event of data loss or ransomware, and you can access your backed up data from anywhere in the world, using the app on iOS or Android.

Visit backblaze.com slash locked on MLB so they know where you came from and continue to support the show. Backblaze is recommended by the New York Times, Inc Magazine, Macworld, PC World, and many more. You can receive a fully featured, no risk, free trial at backblaze.com slash locked on MLB.

Go there, try it out, and start protecting yourself from potential bad times. Start today. And you're listening to the Lockdown Errors podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listening. As a reminder,

Locked on has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. Locked-on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Locked-on, plus our national shows covering every league. Go to Locked-on Sports Today on YouTube and subscribe to the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day. And by the way, be sure to tune in on Monday as we're going to be announcing our next big giveaway. So keep an eye out for that.

You're definitely not going to want to miss that. You're definitely going to want to enter that one. All right. So we're talking about Matt Chabman. We're going to talk a little bit about Blake Snell here in a moment. But going back to the whole like comparison to Gino Suarez, I mean, functionally, this would just be stupid from that perspective as well because you had Gino on a pretty reasonable deal from money standpoint for just one more year and then you're done with it.

why would I trade that deal, which was undeniably, at least to a certain degree, motivated by getting rid of that contract, just to give more money and possibly more years to Matt Chapman, who has very similar red flags? And why would John Stanton and company approve of that when there are the reasons that you traded Gino Souras, at least partly? right like I just I don't get how the logic here lines up it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't

so look I get why people want matchup totally get a recognizable name has been consistently a three yeah has been consistently a three four one player but also like you mentioned a lot of that has been because of the defense and the defense well Chapman is still a really good defender

he's not elite anymore at least by the metrics, right? And you guys know how we feel about defensive metrics. They are not great, right? But he went from plus 17 Altebev average in 2021, which is insane

to I believe like one or four or something like that in 2020 and then like five this year. Yeah. It's still really good. But it's not elite. No. Nope. He's just

he's not as good as people think he is and he never really was as good as people thought he was because the strikeouts were always there the swing and miss was always there the issues with the bat were always there it just was masked a lot by this glove so um you know like it's i mean i don't like if chapman's in a mariner's uniform and it it doesn't prevent them from doing something else like at the deadline then like fine but again the only way i see that being plausible whatsoever is if john staneland and magically decided to reinstate the budget that Jerry thought he had entering this year,

which would still be awful. I mean, it would almost be worse because it's like, oh, cool, how many free agents did we miss out on? Because you decided to wait until February to tell Jerry, oh, no, actually, you know what, that budget I gave you there? We could do that. We could swing that. Yeah, Chapman, this in 2022 plus one out's above average.

And then in 2023 plus four. Yeah. So it's good. Like, it's fine. but I'm pretty sure Gino was better last year. It's just, you know, in hindsight, and obviously hindsight is 2020, all that, whatever, I get it. But like, I would just rather have Gino.

I would have just rather they'd just keep Gino than turn around to just give basically Gino more money. Yeah, I don't think Chapman for the money is a better option than Gino for his money would have been. So, and honestly, though, to be fair, I don't know that. paying Chapman twice what you're about to pay

Urias and Rojas for that position I don't think that's a smart use of money either right the last thing I'll add on this because I've seen this on Twitter a little bit

is you know why are you putting so much stock into Chapman's WRC Plus since May but you're kind of ignoring you know

Rayleigh's second half and Eureas's year and all that okay there's a very very obvious difference, monetary difference between Matt Chapman and Luke Reilly and Luis Urius. That should be very obvious why I'm more willing to bank on those guys turning it around than Matt Chapman. Also age, trajectory, et cetera.

Yeah, because of the guy you're paying the league minimum too and it only costs you Jose Cabrero, if that dude is just, you know, second half, Luke Rayley, that's a lot easier to absorb and solve. that's a lot easier problem to solve. Then if your $20 million, your third baseman continues to decline rapidly on a multi-year deal that you're going to struggle quite mightily to move. Yeah.

Like you're kind of stuck with Chapman. So again, they sign Matt Chapman. Okay, I'm not pissed off, right? It goes back to the whole conversation of like getting a little too much, whatever. Okay, cool. Fine. Sure.

But to me, Chapman is more like just another option rather than he is definitively better. I'm not just, I'm not willing to say that he's definitively better than what they have right now because of all these red flags. I get what the war is. I get all of that. But I just,

I'm not there. I'm not there with some people on that. No. I would just wrap it up by saying this. Chapman is a good player who is declining, which is not really up for debate. He's a good player who's declining. you don't have the ownership group to take big chances with money.

You take big chances with prospects. You can't big chances on the trade market. You can't do it with money. And it sucks. It sucks. But it's reality. And expecting Jerry or trying to pressure Jerry and Justin to operate as if they're not in reality is unfair to them. You know, and no matter how much it sucks,

you can't solve. If you disagree with me in the comments, here's what I would ask you. Convince me that signing Chapman isn't simply the front office or ownership spending money to show that they're willing to spend money. How is it a smart baseball? Don't give me, don't give me, you know,

well, he's a name. He'll sell tickets. No, he won't. You're no closer to winning the World Series with Matt Chapman on your roster than it is right now. You're not. So how is signing Chapman? How would that be about anything other than trying to show people like,

oh, yeah, no, we're totally willing to spend money. Yeah, it just, it definitely does feel like a move that people want to spend money for the sake of spending money. Yep. Rather than it actually make it. Like, I feel like people are willfully ignoring all these red flags just because, hey, you know, it's been floated out there that the mayors might actually want to spend money on someone. Yeah. So, yeah.

All right. So we're actually, I promise we are going to talk about Blake Snow. We're going to do that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. With football officially in the books and some time before baseball gets underway, why don't you try your hand at betting on some hoops? Get buckets with your first bet on Fandual, America's number one sports book. Because right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet.

That's $150 if your bet wins. bet on all your favorite NBA players and teams with quick bets, live same game parlays, exclusive props, and more. Just visit fanduel.com slash locked on and shoot your shot. That's fendual.com slash LOC, KD-O-N, Fanduel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. And you're listening to the Lockdown-Mera's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen.

So, all right, let's finally talk about Blake Snell. I keep hearing that there are rumors out there about Snell and the Marries, but I'm not necessarily firm on what those are. So can you clear that up for us, Colby? Sure. Doing the best I can to respect the paywall. Jason Churchill of baseball things and Future Star Series has recently shared that multiple people have, have told him repeatedly that the Snell and Seattle Mariners connection is legitimate. And I'll leave it at that.

Because again, I want to respect the payroll a little bit, but that. And again, keep in mind, Churchill is not on the Snell bandwagon. He doesn't think that these rumors are true. but the people who are telling him, he respects them and believes them so much that he's not going to dismiss them. So, you know, again, go subscribe to his podcast. It's worth the money.

And, you know, you can listen to the whole conversation there, but I think that's the most I can say without, you know, obliterating that paywall. So Snell to the Mariners, real enough. that even a skeptic is willing to acknowledge that. Right. It might actually happen.

It could actually happen. So I'll add this. I have third, fourth hand information here. So take it with the absolute tiniest grain of salt here. But I was told that someone that's close to Blake Snell believes that there really hasn't been any connection there. Yep.

that it's consistently, every time they've asked about it, it's consistently been the angels, the giants, the Yankees, teams like that, but not the mirrors. Yep.

That's what I had heard pretty much up until I heard what Churchill said. Right. So I don't know what the case is here. I mean, Snell has been pretty adamant. He's been pretty open that he wants to come to Seattle.

I mean, for God's sakes. He's not shy about it. Sunday night football, Mike Tarrico is like, Blake's cell wants to be a mariner. Yep. Okay. Like, gee, I wonder who told him that. Some quick breaking news, not mariners related, but kind of. The Phillies are the team that assigned Whitmerfield.

Oh. And he got $8 million. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy the direction they went. That's fine.

Yeah. Yeah, same. Me too. But that's not terrible. They could have swung that, yeah. It would have been fine. It's like right at the high end of what I would have been comfortable with. Yeah. So anyways.

We know that Snell very much wants to be a mirror. I don't know if that's still the case because maybe he's moved on by now. Like he's gotten his answer and he's moved on. I don't know. But if that's not the case, maybe he is very much willing to work with them as much as he possibly can to make this thing work. I don't see it because this is his last chance to get paid like paid paid he's coming off of a Cy Young winning season I get money is not everything for every player and playing for the mirrors might be very very very important to Blake Snow I just don't see it 50 million dollars important yeah I just I don't see that I don't see that like walk through the scenario here like so what if Blake'snell takes a one year deal like Okay, that's still $25 million, at least on a one-year deal, probably $30 million. Where do the Mariners get the money?

If it's not coming from John Stanton, they don't have the players to trade to clear $20 million in payroll to make that work. So one-year deal, probably not going to happen. A shorter-term multi-year deal, three years maybe, something like that. Okay, that's because it's short-term deal, that's probably still $100 million. dollars. You can't pay the guy like $10 million in year one and then pay him $45 million the next two years to make up the difference. Like you just,

you can't swing that. So a multi year, but still short, relatively short term deal, that doesn't really work either. So what you're back to is will he sign five and 125 with you instead of one and five, 150 with another team? Probably not,

but let's say he did. Okay. Right. And you can pay him $10 million. this year, and that wipes you out for the deadline. Now you have to trade salary to add salary, but whatever. It might be worth it. Okay.

Now you owe Blake Snell $115 million over four years. A little bit less than $30 million, $28.5 million a year. Sure. That's still a lot. And this is a guy who has only gone over 180 innings twice in his career. He has durability concerns. He has stamina concerns. He's 30 years old.

He has walk concerns. $28 million over the next four. years, 28 and a half million over the next four years. And that's if you just do a flat payment, maybe it's 10 million this year, 16 next year. But then that means that last year of the deal is $38 million. Right. Yeah. Like, I can't, I can't put together a contract scenario that seems remotely feasible to even, like, offer Blake Snell without a coming across as incredibly insulting.

Unless Snell is willing to take, like, the biggest hometown discount we have ever heard of. And it's just not going to happen because like he said, this is his last best shot. Yeah. To get paid. Like his value in theory is never going to be higher. Now is he going to get the 200 million he wanted? Doesn't seem like it.

Seems like that ship has sailed. Yeah. But like he's not going to sign with the Mariners for one year and $12 million. Right. Like it's just not going to happen. He might sign for like one year and 35. Right. Maybe because it's the Mariners.

It's like one in 28. Sure. But like that's still 20. percent discount. Like hometown discounts are not 20 per like hometown discounts typically are like 5 percent if that. Right. Like I just don't see it. But again, if the Mariners are actually, you know, two scenarios here. If they're able to get Stanton and company and make an exception for Snell, for Bellinger, for Chapman, et cetera, okay, fine. As long as they get in guarantee that they can do more after that. Or, you know, Stanton's heart has grown

three sizes as big or whatever, you know, like the Grinch, right? And now he's like, here you go, Jerry, here, here's money. Okay, fine. Cool. I just don't see it. I don't.

I don't see either of those scenarios being likely. I don't see it. But then, by the way, if the idea is like, well, you could trade Luis Castillo. Why? Castillo is better than Snell. Right, right. Yeah.

It's just anyway. Like, you'd rather, you'd rather have Castillo for, I think he's got like five and one, 12 left on his deal. You'd rather have that than Blake Snell at 5 and 130. Yeah.

Like it And then well you go okay well yeah but now you can trade you know Brian Wu or so like who's trading for Brian Wu on February 16th. Like you're not moving Wu or Miller until July like at the deadline at the earliest. You know if I can pick up conversations with the raise and talk about ESOC Paredes fine even though that I have concerns about

ESOC Paredes and how his bat is going to translate to T-Mobile Park. That said, though. A lot of fly balls. If I can get Blake Snell and then turn around and trade Wu or Miller for a third base option, okay, great, fine. Or like Luis Robert, like a star, basically. Whatever. You know, I'm on board, right? Like, I'm fine with that.

I just, you don't need Matt Chapman. You don't need Blake Snell. You can get those guys, and I'm totally fine with it. As long as you're guaranteed, you can still do more. you still have flexibility. That's my only thing here. Can you get those guys without hurting the rest of your team? Right.

All right. So lastly, before we get out of here, I was told today by a source that Mariners' right-handed pitching prospect, Cole Phillips, who was, of course, acquired in the Jerry Kellnick trade with the Braves back in December,

has undergone a second Tommy John surgery as of a couple of weeks ago. and he's expected to miss all of 24 as well as at least a portion of 2025. I know there's a couple of other reports out there that say that it's more of like a cleanup on his first Tommy John rather than a second

actual Tommy John surgery. I don't know, but what I was told was it was a second Tommy John surgery, so I'm just reporting what I was told. Obviously, this is a massive bummer for the Mariners and makes an already bad trade optically look even worse. But really my first thought here and what's most important here is this is a massive bummer for Cole Phillips who hasn't pitched a full season since 2019 and likely won't do so until 2026.

Yeah. Well, I did see the one person who was kind of contradicting you has clarified that the recovery time is still the same, whether it was a second Tommy John or a. So any way you want to slice it, he is out for this year and probably a good portion of, of next year. And it's a bummer. This is a guy who was, you know, coming out of high school, he was one of the best high school arms in the country. He was the first round pick. And he still got paid a little. He was a second round pick. I mean, like, it's not that, you know, he completely, his career was ruined, but, at least monetarily. But this is the guy who had a chance to get to the big leagues

quick. You look at the profile, like he could have been in the big leagues at the end of this year or next. Like, this is a mid-rotation starter with upside. And it's a really good prospect. really is, but your second elbow surgery before you've thrown a professional pitch, it's starting to feel a little Sam Carlson-y a little bit, which is, again, very similar profiles. So, you know, I hope, you know, Coles in good spirits. It's still a bummer. It really is because this guy was, you know, if he was able to pitch this year, he had a

shot to really, like, jettison up the ranks and really help this team in a couple of years. And now we'll see if you ever throws a pitch. I mean, I'm sure he's not thinking this way, but it's just a couple of elbow surgeries before you're 20 years old, 21 years old. And now you have, you're basically going to go three years without throwing a competitive pitch. Like, it's going to be a tough road back. But I'm rooting for him. You know, I hope that all Mariners fans are. It's not his fault that, you know, the Mariners had to trade Jared Kalnick with Evan White and Marco Gonzalez.

Like, it's not his problem. And, you know, I would hope that. most of us, we hear that news and our first thought would be like, that sucks for the kid. That's a bummer. And it's not like, well, well, that trade looks so much worse now. Like, there's going to be time. There's going to be time to have that conversation and we'll,

we'll have that conversation. Sure. I mean, to be fair. To be fair. If you watched Wednesday show, you know, I would have already ranked that as the worst movie I made. And I weren't ranked it as like the second. The second.

Worst. Yeah. So there's really can't get much worse. Right. Let's be honest. No, it was the, it was the lowest. point of the off season.

Sure. And I mean, I guess it's, I guess it's lower, but it's not really below anything else. Phillips could have won a Sy Young Award for the Mariners. And that still would have been like, I mean, it wouldn't have felt a lot better, but it still would have been like, yeah, that sucked. Sure. Yeah. So. Yeah, it is.

It is what it is. Knowing what the motivation behind that trade was and all that. Yeah. Obviously, very, very bad. Very bad. It is what it is. But, you know, I hope, uh, coals in good spirits. And I hope that he, uh, I hope that he, uh, I hope that he, uh, I hope that he.

He's the exception to the double Tommy John rule, which is typically not a good success rate. But I hope he's the exception. And it's a bummer. That was one of the guys that was going to be really fun to track this year. And now we'll just have to wait a little bit longer. Right. Especially for a farm system that is really devoid of pitching talent right now. He was arguably the best pitching prospects in the farm system.

Second, third, doesn't really matter. You know, Teddy McRaw is in there. Gina Martinez is in there, et cetera. Thank you, Lee Emerson Hancock still in there. Yeah, actually, you know what? I forgot about that. That's a good reminder. That's a good reminder considering that we're starting up

Prospect Week next week. We actually have a full schedule laid out already for next week's slate of show. So Monday, Mailback Monday, we'll announce the giveaway on that episode as well. Don't forget to use the Google Doc for that or Twitter. Link will be in the description. Tuesday we'll do prospects 30 through 21. Wednesday we'll do prospects 20 through 11

and then Thursday we'll do prospects 10 through 1 and then on Friday we'll continue our Mariners content creator spotlight series with Ben Reneree of the sea level substack. So look forward to that. All right, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown Mariners podcast for Colby Patnode.

I'm Tadang Azales. Be sure to give us follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tadain Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat-11. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and a beautiful baseball weekend. And we'll see you next time. Peace.