Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What Area Do the Seattle Mariners NEED to Improve in the Most This Winter? | Mailbag Monday

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Mailback Monday. Let's see what you want to know. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors. It is Monday, October 27th, 2025. This is Tadang Gazales and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Marys Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode is brought to you by GameTime.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code Lockerner's Locked-on MLB, that's L-O-C-K-E-O-N-M-LB for $20 off your first purchase. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, we have a Patreon. It's called Control the Zone. And on there, we talk Mariners, Seahawks, all that good stuff. For more information, go to patreon.com forward slash control the zone. Link in the description of this episode.

Starting point is 00:00:57 Let's open up the mailbag like we do here every Monday and answer some of your Mariners' questions. Pam's sobarity 69 is going to kick us off here. how much do you think the Mariners miss Max Weiner? There's also a second question here asking, do you believe that instead of the pile of arms approach, the mayors will invest into the bullpen instead? So to answer the first part of your question about Max Weiner, who was the mayor's pitching coordinator up until July of 2023,

Starting point is 00:01:26 wound up going to the University of Texas to be their assistant coach. I feel like the timing, of Wiener's departure and the sudden regression that we've seen from the mirrors and being able to develop relief talent at the Major League level pretty much out of thin air

Starting point is 00:01:47 is too on the nose to be a coincidence. You know, you just, you think about it, right? Like obviously this year, you know, Edward Bizarro turned into what he did and you got some value out of Carlos Vargas, things like that. But like, you didn't get the next, like,

Starting point is 00:02:02 legit reliever to come out of basic nowhere like we had seen in the past with like the Paul C. Walls and the Gabe Spires of the world. You didn't get that this year. And you haven't gotten that in a little while, frankly. You've seen, again, some guys like take next steps. But like this year, for example, it felt like, you know, in years past, like that guy would have been like Casey Legamina. And it wasn't. And on the flip side of that, too, you've also seen the Mariners give up on some guys that have wound up having, you know, a pretty nice success elsewhere, right? Like Luke Weaver, like true pomerans.

Starting point is 00:02:41 So I think, yeah, all of that in combination, I think is at least, can at least be partly attributed to Max Wiener no longer being part of this thing. He was obviously a big part of identifying talent like this and developing it and kind of identifying the things that they would want to tweak and work on. and to get the most out of these guys. And again, we just, we haven't seen them really do that for the most part over the last couple of years since he's lost. So yeah, to answer the second part of your question, I don't think they're just going to go

Starting point is 00:03:17 out of free agency and spend money on a reliever. Now, they might go trade for a guy that's making a little bit of money. But, yeah, I think that the way that they're going to go about this is trading resources for relievers. like they have done in the past, like they try to do at the deadline with Yon, Duran like they did with Gregory Santos a couple of years ago. I think we'll see,

Starting point is 00:03:41 I don't know if they'll try and make a big, big splash like they did with Duran, but I can definitely see them doing something like Gregory Santos again. Maybe something a little bit better than that. Yeah, I mean, well, like Gregory Santos, they should try to make a trade like that every winter because it's just a good process, you know, and, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:01 Santos was coming off of a great year. It just hasn't happened for him here. He's been hurt. He's been banged up. And, you know, they still have him for three more years. That's the beauty of trading for a guy, you know, with five years of club control left. So they should try to make a trade like that every time. And you just kind of hope that it works out, you know, now where it hasn't quite worked out with Santos yet.

Starting point is 00:04:21 But, yeah, I mean, Wiener was huge in that regard. Like, finding the, finding the players who, you know, were being either underutilized or misused or like like the most famous example is Paul Seawald, right? Where like the Mets were like you got to keep your fastball down. You got to throw more sliders. Like you're throwing 93. You can't be at the top of the zone.

Starting point is 00:04:50 Blah, blah, blah. And the Marys were just like, no, throw your fastball at the top of the zone. Like just do what you were doing. And it worked. And Seawald and Steckenrider and Spire and, you know, Bizarro, even though it took a little bit to get him going. You know, like they were finding these guys. It seemed like one or two a year would pop out of nowhere.

Starting point is 00:05:12 And that would be great. And you needed that when you weren't going to spend a lot of money on your ball club. You need to find a way to, you know, cut corners payroll-wise. And the bullpen is a really good place to do that. And so they were good at it. They were well above average at it. And now I think they're probably just closer to average. I mean, like they've had some hits since he left.

Starting point is 00:05:31 You got a really good year out of Colin. Snyder just last year. And again, it's, they've identified some guy like Drew Pomerantz would have been one of those top guys. He would have been up there with, you know, Paul Seewald had they kept him around, but they didn't identify him well enough. Tyson Miller, another guy like that, who they had. They brought in. They saw something. They identified him correctly. But then once they had him, they didn't identify him as the guy that, you know, would pop. And they chose, you know, Casey Logan, you know, over Drew Pomerantz this year. whoops like it's just one of those things where you know they've they've had some success in

Starting point is 00:06:10 signing that guy but they haven't been able to keep him around and successfully utilize that player they've done it a couple times over the years without wiener but it's clearly some kind of impact because they're not as good at it as they used to be um so you know yeah i think they do miss them to some extent i don't know how much like i'm not going to pretend i know the the full extent of, you know, his role and how much he had a hand in that. But, yeah, pretty clearly the results would say he was important. And yeah, so do I think the marriage are going to go spend and like, are they going to give, I don't even know, or really Robert Suarez, are they going to go give him, you know, $20 million a year?

Starting point is 00:06:59 No. No, no. And it's also just in general, not a great free agents market for relievers. Like there's some guys, but there's always some guys. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and by the way, even like, was it Marosi yesterday, you know, broached the idea like the Mariners might want to go to Munoz and try to sign him to another extension, even though he's got three years left on his deal. No, they shouldn't. Like the Mariners are not a team that should be spending $15 million a year on a reliever.

Starting point is 00:07:30 one guy, uh, because they're not going to spend enough to back that up. Like if you're, if you're the Dodgers and you're going to spend more money than, you know, whoever, then you can afford to risk 20 million dollars a year on, on Tanner Scott, which by the way, did not work. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, you get afford to do the 20 million thing on Josh Hader, which whether or not that's worked, kind of up in the air. He's been good, but like, has it been worth it?

Starting point is 00:07:58 Yeah. I mean, like, even with that one. right in the contract the Metscape Edwin like Edwin has had some dominant years some dominant months but he's also been kind of inconsistent at times so like in the end

Starting point is 00:08:12 yeah he's a reliever like relievers are so even the best of them they're so finicky they're so volatile like you just you don't know what you're going to get on a year to year basis I just have never subscribed to the idea of like yeah you should pay

Starting point is 00:08:30 real real, real money because it just never seems like you're going to get that value back. It just to me, the best way to build a bullpen is to constantly filter guys out. Now you keep a couple of them if you can get

Starting point is 00:08:46 them on pretty team friendly deals like the Maras have here with like Munoz for example. But for the most part, you just try to filter guys out and trust your development here. And again, you know, just going to tie this all back together. like it just doesn't seem like the Marys have been great in that department lately since Max Wiener left.

Starting point is 00:09:05 All right. We'll answer more of your questions here in just a moment. But first a reminder, this episode of the lockdown Marries podcast is brought to you by Fandual. The NBA is back and there's no better place to get in on the action than Fandul, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game or want to ride the hot hand, Fanduel has live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout.

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Starting point is 00:10:37 and they've had you know pretty good defense that you know in right field with like victor robles for example and they they had they had really good first base defense you know after they traded for josh naler overall defense was a problem for them in a lot of different areas this year and it's been a problem area for them for multiple years now and it's like okay Okay, I get it. Pitching is the biggest part of run prevention. But if you were going to be a run prevention team, why are you letting this fall by the wayside so much in so many different positions?

Starting point is 00:11:12 Yeah. So I want to see them get better defensively. If that comes at a sacrifice of some offense, so be it. And look, I know that you're not going to be elite defensively everywhere. I know that that's not possible if you're trying to balance having a, you know, a viable offense with being a run prevention team. But, you know, like, for example, like Randy or Rosarana probably going to be back in 2026. He's obviously not a good left fielder defensively.

Starting point is 00:11:42 No. But you get live with it because he's a 130 WRC plus guy and, you know, he almost went 30.30 this year. Yeah. Sure. But like the Mariners are plus at catcher and centerfield. Yep. When Victor Robles is healthy, he is a. above average and right, but he wasn't healthy for pretty much the entire year.

Starting point is 00:12:04 So you were below average in right field, for the most part. You were below average in left. You were below average at second for a good chunk of the year, especially when Polo started to play there more. You're below average at shortstop. You're below average at third. Yeah. Well, and like with Ben Williamson, right, you got great defensive value there,

Starting point is 00:12:27 but, you know, you were getting nothing off the far. Yeah. Like, you need something between Gino and Ben Williamson. That's what you want at third base. Yeah. Can I get a league average bat and at the very least a slightly above league average glove? Abraham Toro. So minus the league average bat part.

Starting point is 00:12:48 My answer to this question would be talent. Just get more talent. Sure. I mean, I know that's the easy answer. Yeah. You know, I think it's not guaranteed, but I think, you know, if you do get better defensively, in theory, your, you know, your defense would get better because just the archetype of a player, typically good defenders, they don't have as much power.

Starting point is 00:13:15 You know, just, it's just kind of how it goes most of the time. Like if, for example, second base, like Nico Horner, right? If you think, oh, I need better second base defense. I'm going to go trade for Nico Horner. It's like, okay, well, Horner also helps your contact and your speed, you know, so having this kind of like idea that, like, oh, I want to approach DeVorener. defense probably not definitely but probably going to improve your athleticism and your contact rates as well now at third base it's different because that's just such a power hitting

Starting point is 00:13:42 position blah blah blah but yeah yeah defense I think is an important one I think defense is more important than contact rates and and all that for me like if we're doing like a real like area not just you know I think some more swing and miss out of the bullpen would be really nice Huge. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's what I'm looking at. More swing and miss out of the bullpen defense run provision. So a big part of this.

Starting point is 00:14:10 And again, if you want to be a run prevention team, fine. The Mariners this year, kind of middle of the pack and run prevention. And, you know, good deal of that is they're starting pitching injuries, but the bullpen didn't miss a ton of bats. And if you're going to allow contact to a below average defense, you're going to give more runs, period. So I think some swing and miss out of the bullpen would be really nice. Again, what was a big issue in game six?

Starting point is 00:14:32 And, you know, in an opportunity where you could go to the World Series. You committed three errors. Yeah. Like, again, it's just you're saying that you want to be one thing. But ultimately, the product that you're fielding in a way is the antithesis of that. Right. Again, like, I know that you're not going to be incredible defensively at every single spot, but you need to get, you need to make a real effort to get better.

Starting point is 00:15:02 in those areas and at least get as close to average at every position as possible the other thing that I would say here I think you need a real leadoff hitter yeah like a real traditional leadoff hitter I like JP more as like the nine hole hitter eight hole nine hole hitter I think he's a good page turner

Starting point is 00:15:23 uh and just too streaky to be a your full time lead off guy yeah and while I really like Randy I like Randy more somewhere in the middle whole of my lineup. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I would like a legit, traditional leadoff hitter. Hey, Nico Horner. Kind of a great fit for that. Checks a lot of boxes, doesn't he? Checks off a lot of the other boxes that we just talked about as well. So pretty much everything we've talked about except more swing and miss out of the bullpen, which maybe he's got a knuckleball.

Starting point is 00:15:54 I don't know. Rayleigh fan wants to know with Garver most likely gone does I meet Harry Ford is in line to be the backup catcher in your opinion. Yeah, for now. I mean, he might get traded, though. There's always that possibility. And at that point, if Harry does get traded, I think they should actually entertain the possibility of bringing Mitch Garber back as just the strict backup catcher.

Starting point is 00:16:22 If it's going to cost like $3 million, sure. Why not? He's a fine backup catcher. The problem with Mitch Carver is that he was like, he was your primary right-handed bat to come off the bench against the lefty. Yeah. That's that's an issue. But as a backup catcher, he's totally fine.

Starting point is 00:16:40 Yeah. He's he's totally fine. And he knows this pitching staff very well. So we already have that rapport in place. Yep. So yeah, if Harry is no longer part of the club, I think they should actually legitimately look at bringing Garber back into the fold. And again, if it's just as a as a backup catcher, that is totally fine. The issue with Garver and his tenure in Seattle was that you brought him in for the bat and the bat significantly regressed and pretty much all the power that he had in Minnesota and Texas was sapped.

Starting point is 00:17:16 It was gone. It just disappeared. Yeah. Garver, three and a half four million bucks is totally fun. It's a good value there. Just from being a backup catcher in general. So yeah, I think Harry Ford's the guy, but if they trade him, they're not going to go. and, you know, they're not going to go with Blake Hunt as the backup catcher.

Starting point is 00:17:37 Like, it's too important of a position to go with Jacob Nottingham for an entire year. Like, they're going to want to bring in a veteran to be the backup catcher. And there's really not a lot of, you know, back, like true backup catchers that make more sense for this club than Mitch Garber. So if Harry Ford's here, he'll be the backup. The mayor will have saved, you know, about $3 million on the bench by having Harry Ford available. And he'll provide different things like athleticism and base running and all that off the bench. If they do trade Harry Ford, then yeah, I think Garber's kind of the ideal backup catcher to go and resign, if you can. All right.

Starting point is 00:18:13 We got a few more of your questions to answer here in just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the Locktime Errors podcast is once again brought to you by game time. NFL season is back and there's nothing better than being in the stadium surrounded by fans cheering on your team. But let's be honest, getting tickets can be a hassle. between cues, login screens, and prices jumping at checkout. It's frustrating. That's why I use GameTime, the app that gives the advantage back to fans. Game time is fast, easy, and backed by the game time guarantee.

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Starting point is 00:19:25 Swipe, tap, ticket, go, download game time today. And you're listening to the lockdown Mariner's podcast. This mailback Monday, let's get back into your questions. Marin's fan 2412 wants to know for a potential Terrick scuba trade. What could a package possibly look like? The place that we've landed on and Mark Feinson of MLB.com did an article where he talked to some people around the league about this. They kind of landed in a similar area. The Corbyn Burns trade, but something a bit better than that, like somewhere,

Starting point is 00:20:00 between the Corbyn-Burnes trade and the Garrett Crochet trade. The Burns trade was one top 100 prospect, one former top 100 prospect who had some major league seasoning but wasn't all that good. And a comp round A pick, right? And for crochet, I believe it was three top 100 prospects in that deal. So I think two is probably the number you land on if you're the Mariners. and I think, you know, if you're at the Tigers, you're going to be like, okay, give us Cole Emerson.

Starting point is 00:20:32 You're going to say, no. You're going to say no to Kate Anderson, too, I would think. After that, I think you're open to anything if you do, in fact, have interest in scuba. But I do think it's going to be probably two top 100 prospects and then like a third, like, good prospect, but maybe not elite prospect. And this is where the Mariners kind of get into a little bit of a gray area is that the Mariners, top nine or ten are so good that naturally there's a huge drop off in like the 11 to 20 range from the 1 to 10 range. So you might not have that like middle ground prospect.

Starting point is 00:21:11 You know, like I guess maybe Luke Stevenson is probably your closest thing. But, you know, it's it's a very difficult thing to navigate. But I think it's going to be two top 100 prospects. You are probably going to have a comp around B pick this year. so maybe it's something like and I would imagine the Tigers would prefer guys who are pretty close to the big leagues so maybe it's something like Laz and sanger or Las and maybe like more of a Sloan and then like a comp round your comp round B pick probably get you in the conversation I don't know if it gets it done though Kent wants to know unless Kate Anderson and Col Emerson make very big impacts in 2026 I don't see how the M's feel a better team next year we signed Josh Nealer which we should do and there will be enough money left to sign maybe Willie Castro. You can make some lateral trades to help, but better than 20, 25, question mark.

Starting point is 00:22:03 Well, Kent, it sounds like you're describing the same dilemma Ty and I have as we begin to craft our offseason plan, which you all can listen to by subscribing to our Patreon down below. We will start that process today. And this is a very real problem that I ran into crafting my individual plan. And today, Ty and I will share our plans with each other. and then we will ball them all up and throw them away and try and come together into some kind of agreement. It's a lot of fun, probably for you guys. But yeah, I mean, it is. You look at it and you say, okay, let's say hypothetically the Mariners do go to, you know, 165, 170. Cool. Right now to bring

Starting point is 00:22:44 back everybody, except for the two obvious non-tender guys, you're at about 125 and then with, and that everybody who's not a free agent, like all the ARP guys, you're at 125. And then you always have to leave like five to seven million open, uh, just for like in season callups and stuff like that emergencies that come up in the middle of the year and you have to call guys up from the 40 man. So in reality, they're at about 130. So even if you have 35 million dollars to spend, Josh Naylor's going to take 18 to 20-ish of that and boom, yeah, you have 15 million dollars to spend.

Starting point is 00:23:18 You saw have second base, third base, right field, D. H shortstop in theory, bullpen. And you only have $15 million. So you have to pick and choose what you're going to go out and try to get. It's a problem that I definitely ran into doing my offseason plan. So yeah, it's kind of do you want to spend the last $15 million on one guy and then kind of go with the rookies? Or do you want to try and get three like part time players and kind of make it work that way?

Starting point is 00:23:47 Or do you have to salary dump players or try to get really creative and trade salaries to build a better team. So it is a difficult maneuver there. It is worth noting that also Cal Raleigh is almost certainly going to decline. You know, he's going to come back to the mean a little bit. But you're also not factoring in, you know, a full season of Josh Naylor, who was almost a two-win player in one-third of a season here. That's better than the other two-thirds of all the mayor's first baseman did combine.

Starting point is 00:24:19 And so that's a huge jump. You're not factoring in the possibility of regression to the mean in a positive sense with the starting pitching staff who all kind of have down years this year, except for Brian. That's certainly a possibility. You're not factoring in improvements of Cole Young. You're not factoring in, you know, Julio possibly taking another step. So like, it is hard to, you know, build a better team on paper with the budget. But you also have to factor in that like players do get better from year. a year. We're assuming like, oh, Cole Young is going to be what he was last year. That's, you know, a safe place to assume. But what if Cole Young hits 260 with a 340 on base? It's like a three win second base. That is not outside the realm of possibility whatsoever. So yeah, I think you're right. But also I think you need to factor in some positive regression along with negative regression as well. All right. Nick wants to know. What are the odds Stephen Kwan is back on the market this winter? Could he play right field? I would say pretty good.

Starting point is 00:25:19 chance because it seemed like they were pretty close to trading him at the deadline at one point i believe it was rosenthal said the guardians are expected to trade stephen kwan before the deadline and then for whatever reason it fell apart it didn't materialize in time but yeah he's got two years left he's starting to make real money cleveland is legitimately one of the uh you know uh most frugal teams. They don't like to spend money on it. They let Francisco Lindor walk, who's like one of the best players they've ever had. So, yeah, I mean, they're not afraid to wait a year and trade a guy with one year left, even though they know they'll get less in return for that player. They did it with Naylor. They did it with, they did it with Lendor. So they're not afraid to hold on to guys until their final, until their walk year and trade them in the off season. But this is about the time they would start to consider trading Stephen Kwan. And because we heard the rumors that like, oh, there's teams who think he's going to be traded,

Starting point is 00:26:20 you know, this deadline. I think it's safe to say that he is available. It's just you're going to have to pay a little bit for him. Obviously more than you would a year from now. But yes, I do think he is going to be made available, whether or not he gets moved. I don't know. But I don't think you're wasting your time to pick up the phone and call them.

Starting point is 00:26:37 Yeah. Could he play right field? I think so. Yes. Yeah, he is one of the best arms in baseball. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. I don't know of this stuff, but I know for quite a while,

Starting point is 00:26:47 he led the American League in like outfield assist. Like he's got a strong, accurate arm. He was 100 percentile on arm value this year. Yeah. Yeah. So and again, it's not like, it's not like Addison Barger's arm where it's just like, oh my God, it's a howitzer. Like, no, it's a very strong arm, but it's accurate too.

Starting point is 00:27:08 And he has a quick release and all that. Like arm strength is what you worry about in right field. They have to make the longest throws on the field. Kwan has plenty of arm strength to handle that position. 68th percentile in arm strength, but 100 percentile an arm value. Right. So he's got plenty of arm strength to handle that position. But the reason you want your stronger arm in right field is just because they make longer throws.

Starting point is 00:27:28 Yeah. Right. The throw from left field to second base in right field to second base, I mean, obviously depending on where the ball is hit. But for the most part, the same. The throw from left field to third base and right field to third base, much longer from right. So that's why you want your best arm in right field. And Kwan has a better arm. I mean, in this scenario, you would assume that, you know, Randy Rosarena is the other corner outfielder.

Starting point is 00:27:51 Well, Randy doesn't have a good arm. So he needs to play left. So that means Kwan kind of has to play right. Could he do it? Yeah, he'd be fine there. No question about it. Probably plus. All right.

Starting point is 00:28:00 That is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown Marriss podcast for Colby Pat Nod. I'm Tadigazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marrers. You can follow me at Tadigazales and Colby at Cpad 11. That's CpAT 1. We're also on Blue Sky. you can follow me at TDG Colby at MLB Colby

Starting point is 00:28:16 in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What Area Do the Seattle Mariners NEED to Improve in the Most This Winter? | Mailbag Monday

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