Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - We're Officially on Mark Canha Watch

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss Yusei Kikuchi's departure more, if Mark Canha dining in Seattle actually means something and Jerry Dipoto making a pretty big statement on 710 ESPN Seattle earlier this morning.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/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 Mariner's News and Analysis. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And today is Wednesday, November 4th, 2021. I am your host, Tadayin Gonzalez. Join, as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode.

Follow us on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. you can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-P-A-L-Z and Colby at C-P-A-E-T-1-1. Be sure 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 the zone for more information on that if you're interested. But today on Lockdown Mariners, we're talking more about you-say Kikuchi's decision to decline his player option and become a free agent and how that impacts the Mariners. And we'll get into the Instagram photo that sent Mariners Twitter into a frenzy last night. And we're also going to talk about Jerry Depoto's comments today on Mike Salk's show on 710 ESPN. No trivia today. I was planning on doing it, but there's just too much good potential

news to go over. And it's going to be a really fun show today anyway. So if you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this. Greatly appreciate it. So Colby, Let's start with you say Kukuchi here. Yesterday, while we were recording one of our shows, actually our Patreon show at patreon.com forward slash control the zone, shameless plug right there for that. The news came down that Kukuchi has decided to become a free agent after the Mariners decline their four-year team option on him. And he responded by declining his $13 million player option.

He's now a free agent. And now all of a sudden, the Mariners have $13 million to play with. So what do the Mariners do with that money and how surprised are you by Cacucci hitting free agency instead of sticking with Mariners, taking that $13 million likely to be in a bullpen roll? Where do you see that taking him in his career? Yeah, so it seems pretty clear from you say standpoint that he understood that he was not guaranteed a rotation spot. and in fact that he was highly unlikely, the Mariners were highly unlikely to be in a scenario where they could even offer him one. And it sounds like he really wants to start.

So can he go out and get a one year $10 million deal with a team who will give him a shot to start? He might be able to. That's certainly a possibility. So it's kind of one of those, it's a long-term move here because if he accepts that one-year offer, right, and he gets $13 million this year and he's just in the bullpen. and he's good, but I mean, you know, it's still a bullpen arm. Is he going to be able to go out the next winter and, you know, shop himself around as a starter and get paid? Or is he have a better shot of going out, taking a little bit less this year, try to show people that he is a starter, and then go out again in 2022 and maybe get a long-term contract?

So it's a little bit of a gamble here. He's going to make less money this year, I would think. than the $13 million. But if he pitches well and he finds the right team, then he's probably going to make more in 2022 and beyond than if he just accepted the player option and pitched out of the Mariners bullpen. So that's from USA's perspective.

You can see why it would make some sense. Because, I mean, he's gambling with, I would guess, $3 to $5 million. Because somebody's going to give him a shot. I could see Minnesota really liking him. I could see a team like Baltimore, maybe. Even a team, well, I mean, I don't know if they'll spend money, but Oakland, somebody somewhere on the West Coast.

Maybe even the Yankees. Yeah, I think the Yankees are aiming higher, but maybe, you know. I mean, have you seen some of the pictures that they've signed and acquired in the past? Yeah, they were all really good. So, well, I mean, there will be no Jamison, Tiam. own slander on this podcast. But yeah, I mean, he's going to get an opportunity somewhere to start. There's just simply there's not 150 starters better than him in Major League Baseball.

So he'll get that opportunity. From the Mariners perspective, it's like you said, it's $13 million. It's roughly the equivalent of us putting on a pair of pants. We haven't worn in a while and finding 20 bucks in the pocket. So, you know, it's like extra money that you didn't expect to have. And what are they going to do with it? Well, I could take the, you know, the hacky joke and say that ownership will pocket it. But it's, it's a way for you to maybe increase offers to other free agents.

You have 13, you kind of have this pool. And it's like, okay, well, I'll just take a million out of that pool and put it over here. I'll take a million out of this pool, put it over there. Or it's, well, hey, let's let's go get a, you know, $13 million starter now instead of relying on, you know, whoever, the instead of it could be the difference in between you getting a catcher and maybe a reliever on top of that it could be a bunch of different things you can combine it together it's just it gives you

all the more freedom to go out that probably gets you cumulative two maybe three players that get added to your 26 man roster on the back end that are going to help you right or possibly one you know one guy who's going to get 500 plate appearances. Or one or two relievers who are, you know, good but not great.

It's, it's, there's a lot of things you can do with $13 million. Or like you say, or it's, hey, you know what? We have this $13 million. Are, you know, we're, we're in the, we're in the finals or whatever for, for Simeon. And it's like, look, do we want to use this $13 million to go get, you know, our catcher and a fourth outfielder, sure. But we could just tack this $13 million on to our contract offer for Simeon and see if that's enough.

So it's like, you know, if you're offering three or four years at one 20. Yeah, like if you're at a $27 million AAV on Marcus Simeon, for example, and other teams are around in that range, you have the flexibility now to say, all right, let's do 30 if we have to. right so there's a lot of things you can do with that money uh jerry depoto is nothing if not creative

so uh it'll be interesting to see um you know what he thinks he can do but uh yeah it's it's certainly uh not a bad thing uh you still have to kind of replace kukuchi's role though so you kind of have to go get that that number six starter for lack of a better term even though you only plan on using five guys so uh you do have to go find that but you should be able to do that for less than $13 million. Ultimately, they just couldn't trust him. He had a bad second half.

And for most of his tenure in Seattle, he was generally bad. You just need more stability. You need to be able to rely on someone to give you a solid start and get you through five, six innings every fifth day. And Kikuchi just didn't offer that at all, even when he was on. It's just you just never knew what kind of you say Kikki. Cucci you were going to get. And so it's obvious why they moved on.

And, you know, but wish nothing but the best for, for you say, ultimately, as he moves on, hope he finds a great fit. And hopefully he gets things turned around and is able to finally have a consistently strong, full season. But we'll see how that goes. We're going to talk about another player. The Mariners might covet this offseason and might even be visiting them right now. Now, who knows?

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for making us your first listen of the day. Every day we are free and available on all platforms. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell all those out there who are Mariners fans that you know to come check us out it's going to be a really fun offseason and Mariners twitter is already having a ton of fun with this off season as mark canna the aes outfielder slash first baseman who's hitting free agency now posted a photo on instagram which automatically posted to his twitter account which was geotagged at a restaurant in seattle called marmite now as far as we're aware of Mark Kana doesn't have any ties to anyone in Seattle. So it would seem that potentially the former A is visiting the Seattle Mariners. Obviously, he cannot sign with them until, what, three, four days from now when free agency starts.

But there's nothing in the rules that hold him back from visiting teams. So it's certainly possible. And Mariners Twitter kind of went into a frenzy last night, especially after Colby, he replied to you. I believe Markana is a Star Wars fan, so he may have liked my Obi-Wan Kenobi gift. But yes, I am the only one that Mark Hanna replied to, and obviously that confirms that he is indeed being wine and dined by the Seattle Mariners at a Seattle restaurant I've never heard of. The funny thing is, was the reaction of people on Twitter who either, like, freaked out,

like in the positive manner or hated it. I don't understand those people who ate it. You know, you saw comments all the time. Oh, typical, of course they would sign Canada and not Simeon. It's like, you can do both. They can sign both. Yeah. You can sign more than one free agent.

You guys, you understand that, right? You of course do. I saw a lot of tweets last night that were like, I wanted a better center field option. He's not going to be your center fielder. I mean, it's like, A, I mean, if he is, okay, like you wanted a better one.

Okay, that doesn't mean he's not an upgrade. But B, yeah, it's like, how do you know he's here to be the center fielder for all you know? That's the fourth outfielder. You know, that's the left fielder. And he can play all three outfield spots. He's fringe average in center,

pretty good in the corners. And like you said, he's also played some first base. I think he's even played some second base, but I mean, don't worry, guys. He's not going to play second base for the Mariners. So, yeah, It was funny to see the reaction. He's played third base, by the way.

Okay. Okay. So, but it was mostly positive, right? Like, yeah. I didn't see too many. For the most part, it was, it was exciting because, uh, you know, that's a legit MLB player. Like, that's a legit established MLB talent who was a two and a half one player this

year by Fangraph standards. He slash 231, 358, 387. And in his last full season before that, which is 2019, we're not, you know, not counting 2020, even though he had a really good year in 2020 as well. But in 2019, he's slashed 273, 396, 517 with a 146 WRC plus and was worth four wins by Fangraph's metrics. So, yeah, he walks a lot, doesn't strike out a ton. He is a dude.

And the fact that the Mariners are possibly in on a guy like that is a very positive sign for this offseason. he's the only guy in the American League who got hit more than Thai France. That's true too. So yeah, and he's also a very good hitter at Team Mobile Park. 47 times he was hit by pitch this year. He was indeed. So yes, he's also had quite a bit of success at Team Mobile Park.

Very familiar with the division. He is a West Coast guy. Went to high school in the San Francisco area. went to college at the University of California. Berkeley is from the San Jose area. He's friends with Marcus Simeon, by the way. Yes. College teammates for like a year or two.

So, yeah, I mean, obviously this is all about getting Simeon here. So for those of you who said, I would prefer that they signed Simeon. Well, guess what? This helps. I mean, it would help if he was actually here to, to talk to the Mariners, and he actually signs, which we don't know,

but at Safeco field slash T-Mobile, I'm assuming. Yep. It just says Safeco and baseball reference, but I'm assuming that also includes T-Mobile, same ballpark. He is hit 250,

368, 472. Yeah, not a ton of over-the-fence power. He did hit 17 home runs, which is fine. Fun note. 26 and 19 as well. Right.

He actually stole 12 bases this last year and was only caught twice. Not a burner, but he can snag a bag for you, which is something the Mariners could use. He's a good player, and he's a good fit. 33 years old, probably only going to get one or two years. Probably something like between 8 to 12 million would be my guess. But he's a good player. He's exactly the type of player you need. just because he's not the player you want,

doesn't mean that he's not the guy, he's not a guy who can help you. So, um, and speaking of the, the money that you got from Kikuchi, that, you know, in essence could possibly pay for Markana.

So I would rather have Markana than you say Kikuchi to be quite honest with you, if you just want to look at it from that perspective. Um, yeah, he's a, uh, he's a really good player.

And, uh, you know, 115 WRC plus this year. That helps. That would rank what third on the merit? this year. So, yeah.

He was 16% 16% better offensively than Kyle Seeger. How do you replace Kyle Seeger? Well, you do it with Mark Cannon and you just got better offensively. So, I mean, obviously he's not third basement,

so it's not the direct replacement, but you replace that in the lineup, it could be. So, yeah, I mean, if Cana, if Cana signed on, I think Sunday's, the first day he can sign. It might be Monday. If he signed, which I don't expect

him to on Sunday or Monday, but if he did, he would be, I mean, arguably the second best bat in your lineup. You can make a case that he's better than Mitch Hanager. Certainly a longer track record. I mean, same goes for Ty France. But he's probably safe. He is no worse than the third best hitter in your lineup.

Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would be a very, very good addition to kick off the off season and to kind of make a statement. Because obviously, you know, here's the thing as well is that usually the best edition of the off season isn't the first one. So it's kind of like Frank Ocean said.

The best song wasn't the single. And so with Mariners, don't expect them to just pop off right away here and sign Marcus Simeon right out of the gate or whatever. And even if they don't, right, it's not the end of the world. if they get a good player, that's a very good sign. And that is a very good sign for things to come. It's still November. Right. And it's like you said, though, it was a good call, a statement.

Mark Kana is not the type of player that you sign that the media goes, oh, wow, look at the Mariners. They're really going for it. But Mark Kana is the type of player that other players look at and say, huh, that's a good addition. Mark Kana is a good player. And if you back that up by going and signing, I don't know, the pitching version of Mark Kana, whoever that is,

that's another player that other free agents look at and go, well, that's a good player too. And I know they have Mitch Hanager and they have J.P. Crawford and they have Thai France. I've seen, I've heard about the prospects they have. They have Marco Gonzalez. They have Chris Flexen. Like that bullpen was nasty last year. So every quality major leaguer you add is just another point in your,

in your pitch to the bigger free agent. So don't be mad when the Mariners sign guys like Mark Kana, be happy because A, your team got better, and B, your sales pitch to Chris Bryant or Marcus Simeon or whoever, Max Scherzer, just got a lot better. So, yeah, keep that in mind when they go out and you see them attach to these guys who aren't exciting, but are still valuable.

Yeah. And again, like, this is a two and a half one player we're talking about. It's a good signing. make it. And of course, the jury is still out on if he was even there to visit. He could have been just there to hang out with a friend or something, you know, that it's true. It could be numerous things. I often leave California to go up to Seattle in November. All that great weather up in November, Seattle, like 75 degrees, never rains, never soggy. I don't know. Maybe I'm sure the cracking are in town, right? Maybe he's just watching a cracking game. maybe he's a Cracken fan. Are they in town, though? And not a Santa Jose Shark fan. Yeah, no, they play the

Sabres tonight at a Clement Pledge at the Pledge. So there we go. It's going to be awesome. I don't know. The CPA, the accountant, I don't know. But, yeah, the office. There you go. Call it the office. Yeah, I was not aware

of the Cracken have three wins. so that's that's fun yeah six losses they beat uh they beat montreal they beat minnesota and then they oh that's right that's right okay i forgot about yeah okay um so yeah maybe he's in town to watch you know he traveled from california to watch crackin versus sabers but it's going to be it's going to be hilarious when there somebody takes a picture of him in seattle watching the game with a crack in jersey or cracker sweater like on the glass with a crack and swatkins like, oh my God, now Twitter will erupt. And he's there like hanging out with like Marco Gonzalez or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, why not? Yep. So there's Jared a photo right next time. We're officially on Kana watch, I guess. Oh, but the bad thing here, before we hop on over to our next segment, there is one negative to signing Mark Kana. And that is we won't be able to escape the Kana.

puns if he will. Dave Sims with a can of corn calls are going to be. Oh boy. Yeah. We're going to have, we're going to hear can of corn for like 152 times this year. If that happens. Oh boy. So, uh, yeah. All right.

We are going to talk more about the off season and, uh, Jerry Depoto went on the radio today and made, uh, one pretty interesting comment. So we're going to talk about that and what it could potentially mean for the Mariners approach to the off season in general, because again, remember, even if they signed Mark Canada to start things off here, it still might do bigger and better things later on.

So we'll see. But we'll get into that in just a moment. So Jerry DePoto joined Mike Salk on 710 ESPN earlier this morning and was asked about the free agent market. And in response to that, he said, quote, it's exciting. This is the first time we have really set our sights on finding those centerpiece players that can really drive a championship team.

and hopefully we are able to bring one to Seattle, if not more, end quote. And the key thing there is centerpiece and also if not more than one. So Colby, got to ask you, man. First of all, what does the word centerpiece mean to you when you think about a centerpiece player? And two, you know, what do you think this says about the Mariners' approach in general to this offseason and Jerry to Potos' aggressiveness? like it's cool that he said it and obviously it's what fans want to hear. But I don't want to speculate who Jerry considers a centerpiece and who he doesn't. I mean, like Chris Bryant and Marcus Simeon and Carlos Correa are centerpieces.

Does that mean that the Mariners are likely to sign any of them or that any of them actually make sense for the Mariners? No, not necessarily. So I don't know. Jerry consider Marcus Stroman a centerpiece because I wouldn't, but does Jerry? Maybe. Who knows? So for me, a centerpiece is somebody that you build around. It's a player that you acquire and people around the league immediately take notice. Like, like Mark can't. And Mark can't assigns with the Mariners. There's going to be a fan and, you know, a Mets fan who completely forgets that that happened in, in six weeks. Right. They're going to go to spring training and they're going to be like, oh, Marcana's with the Mariners now? Huh. When that happened? A centerpiece player is somebody you acquire and everybody knows. Like the shot has been fired. And so Chris Bryant, centerpiece. Marcus Simeon, centerpiece.

Markana role player. So I don't want to, you know, Marcus Simeon or sorry, Marcus Stroman. I did it again. Like, there you go. Good player. But. Not really front of mind. So, yeah, centerpiece to me is just somebody that, you know, is you make the move, you announce the move, and you're the talk of baseball for at least, you know, a couple hours. You know, so, yeah, that's the centerpiece for me. So that would be Simeon or Bryant's. I honestly, I don't consider even like Trevor's story to be a centerpiece.

Not anymore. So, sure. That's kind of where I'm at. There's only one or two centerpieces in this free agent class to me. Well, and we've known for a while now, and it's not really a secret. It's kind of the worst kept secret in the Mariners' fear, if you will, that their biggest target this offseason is Marcus Simeon. And so I would assume when he's talking about a centerpiece player, he's talking about Simeon directly.

So, and then, you know, you made a great point when we're off the air here and talking about this just kind of between ourselves, that when he says if not more, he might not be meaning all of those guys are going to be free agents. Maybe one of them is. But still Jerry DePoto, who loves to trade. And there are going to be opportunities out there

to trade for a legit centerpiece type of player. I mean, you could even say Byron Buxton is that guy, despite all of his health issues. When he's healthy, he is certainly a centerpiece guy. So, yeah, this ultimately just hearing himself, that though is great because it reaffirms like hey we are very serious about how we want to build

this team and we're going for it this off season before we hop off here colby anything else you want to add go do something jerry what like you're you're bored huh yeah it's been a couple days i mean like i gave him yesterday i was disappointed that he didn't make the first move of the off season um i mean i think that should be a rule nobody else can make a move until jerry does but Yeah, you know, we're like, what, the offseason is like 36 hours in at this point. What are you waiting for, Jerry? Like, I'm the baby bird. You have to feed me with the news.

So let's figure this out. I do feel confident that he's basically got deals in place, trades in place. And it's just a matter of, you know, finishing touches or physicals or anything like that. So I do think a deal of some kind is coming relatively soon, but now is better than later. So let's get on that, Jerry. Yes, I am calling for one Gerard Peter Depoto to make something happen here. So hopefully we'll see soon, but that's going to do it for our show. And thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners for Colby Patnode.

I'm Tyne & Gonzales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter. at L-O-U-U-U-N-R-N-R-N-R-E. You can follow me at D-A-N-E-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-P-A-L-E. That's C-P-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 every day. We'll be back tomorrow to wrap up the week with Fan Fiction Friday. And as always, be sure to tweet us or email us your Mariners trade proposals. You can email us at Lockdown Mariners at g-mail.com. And I know we got quite a few emails over the past few days with some trade ideas, so we'll be sure to get to those tomorrow. But in the meantime, make your second listen of 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 and available on all platforms, just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you tomorrow.