Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - We Wholeheartedly Disagree With Baseball America's Prospect Ranks

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss Baseball America's top-100 prospect re-rank and the head-scratching omissions of Emerson Hancock and Harry Ford. Plus, a look at Dylan Moore, Tom Murphy and Jake Fraley ahead of the 2022 campaign.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/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.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. 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. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariners News and Analysis. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. Today is Wednesday, January 19th, 2022. I am your host, Tanya Gonzalez, joined as always by. my co-host Colby Patnode.

Follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-S-R-N-E. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-P-E-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.

That's always fun. Visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone for more information on that if you are interested. And on today's episode of vlog on Mariners. We're going to be talking about baseball America's top 100 re-rank of the best prospects in the game, which came out earlier today. Five Mariners prospects made the cut, but they were two notable and frankly confusing omissions that we'll be talking about. We're also going to look at the back end of the Mariners roster and highlight three players who we haven't been very high on this offseason, but we're going to examine how they could ultimately contribute in 2022.

So if this is your first time joining us, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this. We greatly appreciate it. So Colby, Baseball America put out its top 100 prospects lists earlier this morning. Five Mariners made the cut, like I said, number two, Julio Rodriguez, number 12, George Kirby, number 18, Noel V Marte, number 45 Matt Brash and number 83, Brandon Williamson. but Colby, where is Emerson, Hancock, and Harry Ford? Well, they're not where they should be, which is ahead of both Brash and Williamson. Yeah, I guess, you know, you pitch 43 pretty good innings,

and it's enough to completely make you irrelevant on the prospect scene because Emerson Hancock threw 44 pretty good innings, and somehow he lost top 100 status. top 50 to outside the top 100 over 44 good innings. It doesn't make sense. Yeah, you know, it's, this is the problem with rankings. People want to be right. So they take the, they take the baseline like, oh, well, I'd rather be like if everybody's

going to lower him, then I'd rather do that too, then, you know, whether than just evaluating the player, because there's nothing that has changed in Hancock's profile from the day he was drafted to today. Nothing. He still has a number one upside. He still has good control. His stuff is still good. He's very high ceiling as a number three starter.

He's really no shot. He goes to the bullpen unless injuries force him there. And to say that, well, he's been injured. So, I mean, that's why he dropped him. He probably missed a total of 40 innings pitched this year. He missed about half the year. if that and you know he so he threw 43 and two-thirds innings pitch between high a and double a last year average under a strikeout per nine innings walk way or walk rate wasn't ideal but not terrible as joe doyle

mentioned earlier today when there was some conversation about hancock you know missing of the the cut here he noted that Hancock didn't finish within the top 75 in the organization and whiff rate. But again, you go back to the shoulder fatigue. That's kind of the big thing here. And yeah, that's a concern, obviously, especially considering that he had some injury concerns that dropped him down to the Mariners pick at number six in the 2020 draft. But overall, I just, I don't feel like that should discourage. from the point of basically dropping him 75, 65-ish spots out of the top 100?

Like, that's a bit egregious to me. Like, we've talked about this a little bit. I believe we talked about this exact situation and kind of what the perspective is on Hancock on an earlier show, probably last week or the week before I can't remember. but this is just a bit much, right? Like even taking the fatigue into account, even taking in some of the, you know, numbers where he didn't really perform

how you would expect him to. It just, it doesn't feel like this is enough of a sample size, especially when you take everything that happened into consideration to determine that he's no longer among the games, elite prospects. I mean, this is kind of the problem with the top 100s as well, is that like people, you know, they look at the top 100 and they say, oh, those are like elite prospects.

It's like there's, they're not. There's like eight or nine elite prospects. And then the difference between 15 and 70 and 70 and 100 is not that big, right? It's oftentimes you're talking about just personal taste. And so these things are 100% subjective. You know, Joe mentioning that the Hancock didn't finish in the top 75 in the organization. Who cares? It's one year.

It's his first year in pro ball. There's nothing wrong with the numbers he put up. Does it need to be better? Sure. But does that mean you drop him from top 50 to outside the top 100? No. It doesn't. There are not 100 prospects better than Emerson Hancock.

That's a fact. I don't. Anybody who tells you otherwise, they're lying to you. There are not 100 prospects better than Emerson Hancock. They're not 100 prospects better than Harrison Ford. Yeah, see what I did there? There's just not.

Those two guys are top-notch prospects. They would be the number one prospect in at least half the organizations in baseball. There is zero reason for you to devalue Emerson Hancock right now. Now, ultimately, could they be right? and could Hancock just not really live up to the hype? Sure, it's definitely possible. It's possible with all prospects. But can you, in my mind, can you reasonably come to that conclusion after 44

innings in his first year in pro ball? No. No, you cannot. This is more about protecting yourself as an evaluator and saying, oh, well, I'm going to take what's most likely to happen on a guy because what's most likely to happen on Hancock is that he's a number three, number four starter. And that's usually not a top 100 guy instead of saying, what am I seen? What does my previous reports tell me?

And is there cause for legitimate concern? And right now, the answer is no. There's not. So Emerson Hancock is a better pitching prospect than Brandon Williamson than Matt Brash. He just is. William. And that's not to discredit either one of those guys. Both of those guys deserve to be in the top 100.

We have pounded the table for both of those guys to be in the top. 100s of you know like we we talked about Williamson and brash last week and how they should probably be in you know pipelines top 100 and baseball america's top 100 and all that stuff because that's that's who they are like they are at least to us definitively two of the the games top 100 prospects especially for the for the tools for the upside for some of the certainty that maybe someone like brayton williamson offers offers for the high ceiling that someone like Matt Brash offers for the you know the fact that he might have you know the best pitch in all of minor league baseball there's all those things right that

go into that but that said we also feel that Emerson Hancock has the highest ceiling of any of these guys even maybe more so than George Kirby right like there's a chance here for four legitimate pitches and an ace like ceiling. Yeah. I mean, and again, that's that's ceiling. That's like one percent. That's like the top one percent of what he could become. But you look at guys don't even have that, right? Right. That's the thing is that a lot of pitching prospects don't even have that. So the fact that you can go into that and feel like, hey, maybe there is an outside shot here. There's a legitimate non-zero chance that this guy could eventually develop into an ace.

Like that's something that just that doesn't go away with 44 innings. I'm sorry, it doesn't. No. And I mean, Brandon Williamson doesn't have that upside. Brandon Williamson has the same likely projection as Hancock minus the upside. And we like Williamson. We like, we like Brash. But, you know, to me, I just, it's funny to me that people are willing to discredit basically Emerson Hancock over 44 innings.

And they start throwing tags like, oh, it might be a reliever. And it's like you were saying the exact same thing about Matt Brash a year ago. And now he's the top 50 prospect. Come on, man. Have some consistency. Because what Matt Brash? Matt Brash didn't add a pitch. Matt Brash is still throwing the same stuff he threw last year, year before.

It's fastball slider. So what changed? He produced. That's it. Yeah. He produced. It's still fastball in a plus slider. And Matt Brash in a way, like, and like I don't.

mean this as an insult to Matt Brash or anything, but Matt Brash is kind of like the shiny jingling keys right now. Like, you know, prospect guys look at him and they go, ooh, shiny. Like that's, you know, that's the kind of hype that's kind of built around him right now. And that's great and all. And I think Matt Brash is going to have an excellent career. Like I wholeheartedly believe in him as a starter. But I, not for even a second, believe that he's a better prospect right now than Emerson Hancock. whether he might have more likelihood now to hit than Hancock. I could see that debate. Sure.

I understand that. I could understand someone questioning that. But definitively, Emerson Hancock has the highest upside and therefore, to me, is the better prospect. So there is no excuse for him not being in the top 100 of baseball America or any other publication. It's ridiculous. Colby, we're going to talk more about Hancock, and we're also going to talk about how Harry Ford also fits into all of this in just a second. But real quick, let's tell the folks about Bilt Bar. It's the New Year's.

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That's LOC, KED, 15% off. for 15% off your order at built.com. You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every day. We greatly appreciate the support. Let's continue talking about this baseball America top 100 thing. Let's go over to Harry Ford now.

Colby, why should Harry Ford be in the top 100? Because he's one of the 100 best prospects in baseball. The guy is a plus runner with plus bass. bat speed. Right now, average game power as a 18 year old he can catch. There's no, there's no debate about whether or not he can stick me on the plate defensively. There's also no debate that if you need to move him, he can play a good second base. He can play center field. He can play up the middle defensively plus athleticism. Like I said, the tools are off the charts. And the fact that they think that there's like, for example, right, I would not trade Harry Ford.

for Anthony Volpe. And Volpe came in at number 10. I think that's a little bit high for Volpe, but I get it. He had a huge year, blah, blah, blah. But I wouldn't make that trade. I'd rather bet on Harry Ford. And I'm not saying Harry Ford is the 10th best prospect of baseball.

It's not what I'm saying. But the fact that you can legitimately have that argument, it tells me that Ford needed to be in the top 10 or in the top 100. Had to be. And there's no reason. He went down. If you want to say, well, he hasn't really done, anything yet. Well, I mean, a lot of these guys haven't done anything yet. And Ford went down and he did

perform pretty well in the Arizona League, which again, not worth much. But I just, I, I don't see how you can possibly look at the profile that Harry Ford is putting out there and say, yeah, you know, there's a hundred guys better than him. There's a hundred guys I'd rather have than him. To me, this is about proximity and baseball America not wanting to put a guy who's, a few years away ahead of guys that we might see this year or next year because they want to be able to talk about the guys they're going to see like a majority of fans are going to see you know, Alec Thomas this year, right? And they say, okay, well, I want to be able to say that. I put him high. So if he hits, it's great. And if he does it, I can be like, well, you know,

it's a rookie year. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Harry Ford's not even going to be in people's, like, conscience until two years down the road. So I don't need to rank him right now. And there's a lot of that that happens when you do these rankings because it's really hard to you know because you're going to be scrutinized you're going to be scrutinized for for whenever you put your name out there on on these types of ranks and so they they tried to do something a lot of people and i'm not saying baseball america does this or pipeline but a lot of people who do these prospect ranks they care more about being right than they do about their honest evaluation of the player we talked about this a few weeks ago with Kyle Glasser

who just completely swapped his original views on Emerson Hancock after 44 innings. He wants to be right because that's how you get clout in the prospect community. You're right. Instead of honestly evaluating the players. There are not 100 prospects better than Harry Ford.

It's not up for debate. Yeah, it really isn't because you think about just all the different avenues that they can take with him, right? It could be a catcher. You know, and that might delay his, you know, that would probably delay his, his development by a year if they do stick with that.

But there's also the potential that he just might hit his way out of that and force the Mariners hand. And there are definitely other places that he can go and play and be at least average, if not better at because of his elite athleticism. I mean, it's fantastic what he's able to bring athletically. You know, he could end up in center field. he could end up at second base he could end up at third base you know all these different spots that

you know he he's going to find a place to play and uh and excel at and um it just it feels like you know with a guy coming out of high school obviously there you know you can't really like say like there's you know this guy is going to be this this guy is going to be that but the tools are just so incredible that you have to feel some level of confidence that he's least the the athleticism alone is going to carry him into a major league career and uh with those kind of tools i mean it's unique that's something that you don't find with a lot of prospects that are ahead of him on this list he deserves absolutely for everything that he's got going on for him for the ceiling and yeah he was picked what 12th overall in this past draft whatever it doesn't matter

That status does not matter. That should have no impact on it at all. His timeline, you know, his timeline, you know, being kind of far away, being three, four years off, all that, you know, even then that could be wrong as well. But even then, that shouldn't have any impact on this. At the very least, he should be 90 to 100. He should be in that range, right? At the very least, I think he's a lot better than that. But at the very least, he should be mentioned.

among these 100 names. It's ridiculous that he's not. For everything that he has to offer, for that ball of clay, basically that he is, it's unique. You don't find that on a lot of these prospects. It's very rare what he offers.

Yeah, you know, I guess you just had to make room for Nick York in the top 40. Nothing against Nick York. He's a fine prospect. He is not a better prospect than Harry. than Harry Ford. He's not. I mean, it's not even debatable. I mean, you're hoping that York has fringe average power and he cannot play second base. Like he has, Nick York has to hit. And I mean

hit to be worth anything. He has to be DJ LaMayhew at the plate. And he's just, he's not. And so we'll see. He showed a little bit of power. That's the one that really, that really bugs me. like I like I like I like him I think he's a pretty good prospect but unless the dude has another two gears to go in the power department he has to be I mean DJ LaMayhew because he's not going to make a

defensive value like somebody like say Nick Matricle can so yeah and then on the flip side of that right Harry Ford has fail safes basically it's like okay catching doesn't work out all right we'll try you at center field all right that doesn't work out we'll try you at second base all right that doesn't work out we'll try you at third base whatever

right positionally like that works it and he's going to be good at those spots and then with how advanced his plate approach is how advanced his power is already for how young he is like it i feel very confident that harry ford is going to hit at the major league level i i would agree with that and i think that uh even if he doesn't let's say that the bat doesn't develop into what we think it could be and i think it could be a special bat let's just say it's even just fringe average he can still catch and be a good defensive catcher and still run the base as well. And that is more than anything that somebody like Nick York can do. If York doesn't hit, he's not a big leaguer. It's that simple. If Harry Ford is, if Harry Ford is a 90 WRC plus guy, he's a big leaguer because of all, everything else he can do. If Nick York is that, he's a fringe 26th man. back and forth from AAA guy.

And so I just, again, I don't understand the thought process behind baseball America. It just, it seems like it's... Like, it is hard, right? It is hard to determine these lists because you have to balance clearest path to the big leagues and highest upside. Right. But, you know, using the example that you're using right now with York and Ford, it's just, if you have a guy that has so many different avenues that he can take to get to the big leagues and succeed at the big league level, like, shouldn't that take priority? You would think.

It's just, I don't know. It's a frustrating situation. Ultimately, in the end, though, it doesn't matter, right? These are arbitrary rankings made up by people that have to cover hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prospects, right? They're not going to have the most concrete evidence to support their, you know, their rankings, you know. It's good content. Yeah. It's good content.

It creates these discussions. Right. It creates a discussion like today's, right? And that's ultimately the point. And that, and that that has value too. Like, I'm not, rankings aren't worthless because they, they are content and they do provide value and they do provide insights. And they provide, you know, different opinions. on players and all that.

But what we have to do and what we, I mean, we have to remember that rankings, any kind of rank is really at the end of the day. What it is, it's entertainment. There's not that there's no value to it whatsoever, but ultimately where a guy ranks in the top 100 doesn't mean anything relative to how he's going to be in the big leagues. Jesus Montero was the number one overall prospect for a year.

Like, come on. So don't, don't, you know, don't get mad. I know it sounds like Ty and I were mad. It was just, we're not mad. We are, we are enthusiastically telling people why they're dumb. And I stand by that. But yeah, to not have, honestly, the Harry Ford one to me is worse than the Emerson Hancock one, because at least with the Hancock thing, it's like, I guess you could say the injury is, is concerning.

even though I'm like, eh, not really, not yet, but. I mean, shoulder things are always like, that's going to turn heads.

Yeah, I mean, young, he brought to, especially at the start of his professional career, especially when he had some injury, you know, woes that,

that drove his draft stock down as well. No surgery yet. Like, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. But if you want to know how overall worthless these, these rankings are,

and I think this is a really good way to wrap this up. In 2012, the preseason 2012, MLB Pipeline list, the number one prospect in baseball, according to Pipeline, was left-handed pitcher Matt Moore. The second best prospect, Bryce Harper. The third best prospect, Mike Trout. I think you could say they missed that one. Matt Moore, as in like Tampa Bay, raised San Francisco Giants, Matt Moore, as in like Tampa Bay,

San Francisco Giants met more. Yes, that Matt more. Number four, Julio Turan, number five, Shelby Miller. Number six, Mani Machado. Shelby Miller. Yes, also coming in, Jerks and Pro Far, Jameson, Tion, Trevor Bauer, Dylan Bundy. Coming in at number 11, Garrett Cole.

Number 12, Asos Montaro, number 13, this is the name. Manny Banuelos. Oh, wow. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, just remember. preseason prospect ranks, not that valuable.

Just not the valuable, valuable for honesty, valuation of your team's prospects. Valuable for entertainment, for discussion, for comparisons, certainly. But honestly, not a huge deal. All right. So, moving off of prospects

and looking towards the 2022 Mariners, what can Tom Murphy, Jake Fraley, and Dillamore offer the M's this season? We'll talk about that in just a moment, but real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by betonline.ag. Bet online would like to wish you a happy new betting year as we continue our March to the playoffs and beyond. Bet online remains the number one spot for all the best sports wagering action for 2022. New year and a new updated desktop of mobile website. So sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use our promo code locked on.

That's LOC, KED, ON to get started. From football, basketball, hockey, boxing, and UFC right to your favorite Vegas casino games. Don't wait to take advantage of all the amazing offers available for 2022. Bet Online is the fastest and easiest way to wager on all your favorite sports. Bet online, where the game starts. So this was a discussion that we had on yesterday's episode of our Patreon show. And if you want to listen to an expanded discussion on this topic, check that episode out. It's available for our tier two and tier three patrons at patreon.com forward slash control the zone.

We're going to be talking about three Mariners players here over the next eight to ten minutes or so, who we have been pretty low on heading into this. season, but we're going to try to basically do the say something nice about this player challenge and look at how Dylan Moore, Tom Murphy, and Jake Frailey can contribute to the Mariners in 2022. So Colby, let's start with Dylan Moore here, a guy that defensively offers you some versatility and is pretty good at a few positions or at least average to slightly above average at multiple positions.

has some power, but wasn't able to really hit much in 2021, coming off of a pretty solid year at the plate in 2020. How can Dylan Moore get things turned around and carve out a role for himself on the 2022 Marriers? He needs to start swinging the bat. And I don't mean that in a, well, he has to hit. I mean, he literally needs to take the bat off of his shoulder and swing it more. In 2021, Dylan Moore showed really good.

played discipline in that he had he was in the 90th percentile and chase rate he did not swing a pitches outside of the strike zone he was nearly elite at it um the issue is is that he also didn't swing at strikes um he just didn't swing it was we're talking about a you know a end zone swing percentage at about 60 percent um for context the average major league hitter swung at those pitches in the strike zone 66 of the time don't more needs to get the bat off of his shoulder. He draws walks. He doesn't chase.

But he's taking basically all the borderline pitches and hoping they get called balls. And it's not working. He's even, you know, things that aren't borderline, things that are clearly strikes. He's taking and hoping he'll, you know, he'll get a call to flip to him and you can change the count in his favor. It's not working. Dillmore needs to be more aggressive at the plate. He's always going to swing and miss. he's always going to swing and miss more than the average player.

That's just kind of what his swing is right now. It's not a great swing. But if he swung more, if he took more chances, right, then the swing would naturally he would hit more balls. At least that's the theory. And if he can't, could he really be any worse than he was at the plate in 2020? I mean, could he really be any worse than that? If he took more chances and missed?

Colby. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Wayne Grudski. Michael Scott. Michael Scott, yeah. I don't know who that Wayne Grusky guy is, but Michael Scott. Pretty smart dude. Yeah.

But yeah, it's, he needs to swing more. Get the bat off your shoulders because you're still a valuable base runner. You're still a good defender. And you do have good. You have at least average power in game power and probably above average raw power. So either you need to change your swing. and you know hope that works or you need to change your approach your game plan and hope that works because all dillan more has to do to be a viable big leaguer is hit like 220 300 400 it's really not

asking that much and if he could do anything close to what he did in 2020 which obviously looks like an outlier right now um then that's you know like a borderline all-star with his defensive base running. So yeah, to me, it's it's more of an approach thing, a game plan thing, that it is a swing thing, although both could use work. All right. So moving on to Tom Murphy now. Obviously didn't have the best of seasons, especially offensively, but started to get a little bit hot late later on and obviously missed the entire 2020 season with an injury. So, you know, spending over a year away from the game comes back, struggled a little bit. They kind of also

eased him in into game action as well. They didn't play him a ton to start the season. Luis Terenz was pretty much primarily getting the starts at catcher to start the year. Historically, pretty good defensive catcher, though last year didn't grade out well from a framing perspective. He also really struggled to reel in relay throws, which was kind of a

problem for every Mariners catcher for some reason. But looking at Murphy in 2022, because it doesn't seem like the Mariners are planning on doing anything at the catcher spot, at least for now. Tom Murphy might be your starting catcher in 2022. So what can he offer the Mariners this season? And are you optimistic that he can not necessarily replicate what he did in 2019, but at least put together a season that is closer to that than what he did last year?

I don't think he can, quite frankly. He was pretty good against lefties last year. So that's a plus, atrocious against Ritey's. I believe it was a 45 WRC plus. He has to find a way to be at least 70, 80 against Rite. And remember, 100 is average. So in every point below that is a percentage point. So if you're a 45 WRC plus against Rides, you are 55% worse than average.

average and, you know, 65% of your outbats are going to come against right-handed pitching. That's not viable. If you're terrible against lefties, you can hide that. You only have to cover 35% of the outbats. Tom Murphy is great against lefties. He's very bad against righty, so he can't, he can't do that. You know, it's unfortunate, but, you know, defensively last year, he kind of took a step back, too, at least by the framing metrics.

We know he doesn't have a strong arm. He's not great at catching base Steelers. Um, pitching staff certainly didn't help him out last year, but he's still not good at it. It's not a skill set he has. Um, so he has to hit and that I mean, it's the catcher position. So he really only has to hit, you know, 2.30 with any kind of on base and, and either on base or power. If he only has a 280 on base, but he has a 450 slugging, then fine that you can live with that. But if he only has a, you know, a 370 slugging, but he's got a 340 on base, you can live with that.

So it's really what catcher is all about. It's just offensive from the catcher position. You're just looking for some offensive skill. And last year, Murphy didn't really show any of that skill against Ritey's. So he has to find a way to hit right-handed pitching at least a little bit. Because if he's running up another 45 WRC Plus against Rite's, you're relying way too much on Cal Raleigh. And probably pretty early in the year because you just keep.

can't afford to sit around and wait for your primary catcher to hit right-handed pitching, like at all. So he's got to figure something out with the right-handed pitchers because he can't be that bad and expect to have his job along. Yeah, I would like for the Mariners to explore other options outside of the organization at catcher because Cal Raleigh is not the solution right now. He needs time in Tacoma or, you know, something. he needs time to develop.

You know, the problem with that, though, is the catching market from a free agency's perspective is awful. It is a barren wasteland. And now, especially now that Young Combs has signed with the Cubs and he kind of signed for a little bit more than we expected. And then, you know, the trade market because of that is going to be probably overpriced, right? because the teams that hold these few catching, you know, these few catchers hold all the leverage, right? So, you know, guys like Wilson Contreras and it might be more expensive. And then there's guys like Sean Murphy and Carson Kelly, who are just going to be ridiculously expensive, I would assume. So, yeah, that's, the Mariners are not in a great spot right now at the catcher position.

especially because, you know, Louis Sarenz, Scott Service said he's going to catch, but what we saw last year was, was not good behind the plate from, from Louis Sarence. And it's very possible that he might be a DH for space, maybe even play a little third here and there. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was an adventurer. Just like Jake Fraley in the outfield, segue.

way. Let's talk about Jake Freyley, who you hate. I don't hate. I think he's a bad major leaguer. Is there any positive spin that you can take on on Frealey for 2022? He took

a lot of walks in 2021. Although they went way down in the second half, so not really. He's okay in left field. He's below average in center field. He's got some pop, but not enough to really warrant full time at bats.

he still strikes out a lot for a guy who walks as much as he does and if he's not going to give you above average power, the strikeouts really hurt. He's good, you know, good speed, not great speed. Like, he's a fourth outfielder on an average team. Yeah, he's probably a fifth outfielder on a good team. But the meritors need to be better than average, right? They do.

The spot where the mariners are. So, yeah. Especially where the current outfield is. because like there's a pretty good chance that as things sit right now, he would be the opening day left fielder. And he would play four or five times a week, start four or five times a week. That's, uh, that, that's a massive problem.

It's a problem. Let's just call it what it is. Can't hit lefties. Um, yeah, he basically rode that six week hot, hot stretch he had there into, people thinking that he has a shot to be an everyday big leaguer and he just doesn't right well because if you go look at his fan graphs page right you see a 109 wrc plus you see the high walk rate you're like okay hey jake frailey was pretty good in 2021 but you unravel those numbers and you look at the second half splits it's uh yeah it's a pretty ugly out there so um preferably

And again, this is why we continue to pound the table for the Mariners to explore the outfield market because they absolutely need it. Jake Fraley is not a starting outfielder for a team that's planning on contending for the playoffs. That's just a matter of fact. So whether it's Sayas Suzuki, whether it's Michael Conforto, both, whether there's a trade out there that they could explore, what have you. the Mariners have to get better in the outfield. So unfortunately, while we could say some nice things about Dylan Moore and Tom Murphy, I can't really find an optimistic route with Jake Fraley after the year that he just had. I just, I can't.

He doesn't really inspire a ton of confidence or hope that he's going to be a contributing member to a playoff continuing. team. I just, the fact that he's third in line, fourth in line to start in an outfield spot for the Mariners right now is, uh, it's very concerning. And so while, you know, right now the focus is on second base slash third base with the story Bryant thing and, uh, the starting pitching market with the Reds pitchers and the A's

pitchers. There has to be some level of attention that's placed on the outfield because, look, Julio Rodriguez is not what you want to bank on, right? Like, we all hope that Julio is fantastic when he comes up, but you cannot bank on that. So, yeah. And he's also not going to be up on opening day. So you got to figure that out as well.

You got to figure out, you got to get better for opening day as well, because every game matters. Every game matters, especially as we saw this past year with the postseason race, Mariners miss the playoffs by two games. So every game matters. So you cannot waste away time in April.

Just can't. So you can't do that with Jake Freely starting in left field four or five times a week to start the season. Can't do that. Sorry. You know, it's time we change our directive here. Screw Trevor's story. Go get Michael Conforto and Jonathan VR. Done.

Your team's better that way. You just wanted to mention Jonathan VR. No. You had to hit your daily quota. And, I mean, that actually would make your team better than just Trevor's story. Just putting that out there. Or they could just, you know, sign Trevor Story and Michael Conforto and say a Suzuki. I'm just saying, could do it.

They could, but what's more realistic? Is it likely? No. Yeah, is it realistic? No, but you could. I mean, you could. You could also go sign Carlos Correa. Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Just because you could do stuff. just because you could in theory do something doesn't mean you practically can. I mean, they could do that as well. In theory, I can run a marathon. Well, no, that's 100% accurate. I could absolutely run a marathon. In practice, be tough.

All right. So on that note, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining. us here on Lockdown Mariners for Colby Patnode. I'm Ty Dan Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L.O underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-P-A-E-T-1-1.

And you can also send all your support to him for his quest to run a marathon over there. And you can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every day. greatly appreciate your support. Now, make your second list of the day, Locked-on Betts, your daily one-stop shop for all your gambling needs. Locked-on bets hosted by your Boy Q with expert analysis and insight from Lee Sterling. And just like us, their show is free and available wherever you get your podcast. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you on Friday. Be sure to submit your trade ideas to us for Fan Fiction Friday at Lockdown Mariners at

gmail.com or on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. Look forward to seeing all of those proposals come through. Looking forward to it. We'll see you that. Peace.