Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What Bryce Miller's SETBACK Likely Means For the Seattle Mariners' Opening Day Rotation

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Ty and Colby react to Bryce Miller (oblique inflammation) failing to complete his scheduled bullpen then visit with Ian Furness of Sports Radio 93.3 KJR. Vote for Round 3 of our Top 50 Mariners Moments tournament! Click to learn more about the Everydayer Club! Join the Ahoy, Sailors Discord server! Check out our Patreon! Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolby Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! PlayStation This episode of is brought to you by MLB The Show 26. Visit mlbtheshow.com/lockedon and use code “LOCKEDON” to unlock a pack for use in Diamond Dynasty. Pre-Order now, Available March 17th on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. RATED E FOR EVERYONE. Turbo Tax For a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Take taxes off your plate and get back to your life.  Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today.  Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONfor $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel FanDuel is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a College Basketball Parlay Profit Boost.Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game.   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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bryce Miller unfortunately suffered a setback during his bullpen yesterday and now seems to be running out of time to make the opening day roster. We'll discuss how the mayors might proceed coming up here on the Lockdown 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. Ahoy, Sailors, it is Thursday, March 12, 2026.

You're listening to the Lockdown Maris podcast part of the Lockdown Podcast. Podcast Network now the number one sports podcast network. My name is Tadangazales and I'm joined as always by my co's Colby Patnode. We're two lifelong Marys fans who've been covering the team for over half a decade. And today we'll be talking about Bryce Miller, who is still unfortunately filling the effects of his oblique injury and was unable to finish his bullpen yesterday. We'll go over how the Barons might proceed with growing likelihood that Miller will miss regular season time.

And then we'll be joined by KJR's Ian Freness to discuss why this year feels different for the Maris. But before we do all that, I want to shout out our title sponsor today, MLB the show 26. Visit MLBTHE.com slash Locked On and use the promo code Locked On, that's LOC, K-E-O-N, to unlock a pack for use in Diamond Dynasty. Pre-order now available March 17th on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, rated E for everyone. And be sure to stay tuned for our MLB Top 100 highlight presented by our friends at MLB the show, 26. So Bryce Miller's obviously been dealing with this oblique thing for a little while. He was supposed to throw a bullpen.

He actually did throw that bullpen, but only for three pitches, according to our friends over at Mariner Mojo. That obviously broke while we were recording yesterday's episode, Colby, and we talked a little bit about that, but we promised you guys that we would talk about this in greater detail on today's show. So we're doing that.

So Shannon Dreher, a little while after Bryce stopped his bullpen, reported that he was told before the bullpen that if he felt anything anything at all to stop and he hasn't been shut down from throwing so that's good news and marina mojo they also posted a video today showing bryce throwing the pliow ball so he's still getting some work in and it does feel like he's ultimately turning the corner on this injury he's just not all the way there but colby we're exactly two weeks away from opening day today which on one hand is very very very very exciting. But on the other for Bryce

kind of feels like he's running out of time or maybe he's already run out of time to be on the opening day roster to be healthy in time to make that first start against, I believe that would be against the Guardians. Maybe he would start against the Yankees. Either way, it doesn't matter.

It feels like Bryce not going to be able to break camp with the club in time because again, like he's going to have to throw another bullpen. He might have to throw another bullpen after that, then maybe get into a Sim game or a Cactus League game if there's still Cactus League games going on by the time that he's ready for that, you know, maybe extended spring training and what have you. Either way,

there's still a lot of ramp up that Bryce is going to have to do in order to get ready to pitch in the regular season. It just doesn't feel like that's going to happen in the next 14 days. So the mayor is going to have to do something about this. So how do you feel they're going to proceed? Cautiously, I suppose. I mean, this is not something that you can just, you know, put a firm timeline on. It's inflammation. You know, in the oblique area, there's, as we know, you know, obliques are not something you mess around with with baseball players. It's a pretty severe thing. And you just can't will it to be better. You just kind of have to let it heal and take your time with it. And there is always kind of this feeling out thing. It's not uncommon

for hitters to be like, okay, it feels pretty good. And then they go take a couple hacks and then it tightens up on them again and they have to sit it out for another week. Like, it's just one of those things you can't really know until you go and try and do the activity if you're 100% healed or not. And the Mariners have no reason to put Bryce Miller out there if he's not 100% or close to it at least. I mean, we saw what compromised Bryce Miller looked like last year and it wasn't good. And so the good news is, again, this is nothing related to the elbow. That was so problematic for him last year. The bad news is that I think he only made one Cactus League appearance.

So he only got 35 pitches in. They want him to build up to probably 80 to 100 before they feel comfortable putting him back in the major league rotation. That's going to be at least two starts. And she's just not going to have time to get two starts in the Cactus League. So he'll probably have to stay down there. He might throw in the minor league camp. He might throw a some game in the minor league camp to get up to 50 at some point. Then maybe it's a rehab assignment to Tacoma.

He makes one start there. And he comes up. So I don't get the sense that this is something that's going to be a problem for, you know, the entire month of April, but that he probably returns sometime in April. But they need to be cautious here because you'd much rather have Bryce healthy and have a miss all of April than try and push him back to late April so that you don't have to make, you know, what, two or three more Cooper Criswell starts. And then he's something he struggles or it gets worse or he pops something, you know, we know how. quickly these oblique injuries can turn into month-long things. I'm just asked Luke Grayley. So, you know, there's only so much you can do.

You don't want to rush it. And you can't afford to play the long game right now because, again, it's March 12th. You know, so being super cautious on this, making sure Bryce feels comfortable, throwing his bullpins and doing all that is really important. There's just no reason to push this. So they're going to be extremely cautious. I would be, at this stage, I'd be shocked if he didn't start the year on the I. and he might only, you know, spend the minimum time there, but that would still put him out 15 days.

So he wouldn't make his debut until week three, which would be the second week of April, third week of April. So, but yeah, he just ran out of time to build up the workload he needs to enter camp. And so even if this is nothing, which, again, the Mariners seem to be implying, it's really not anything seriously. he just doesn't have the work put in this winter or not this winter this winter he put in the work this spring to kind of build up his his pitch count and all that so he can get through a lineup you know two or three times so yeah it's just bad timing it's he's going to miss time but it's not because the injury is so severe it's just that he just doesn't have time to build up to where he needs to be yeah well it doesn't seem to be super serious you got to feel for bryce so

you know, after everything that he dealt with last year and seemed like he turned the corner in the playoffs, came up huge in the postseason, especially ALCS game one. You know, and confident he figured something out with his elbow. Yeah. You know,

he was feeling really good. This, you know, going into camp and all that. And then this happens. And again, while it doesn't seem like he's going to miss too much time, it just, it has to be incredibly frustrating for him.

Yeah. I mean, lucky, I guess not really lucky, but like, fortunately he went through this last year. So he kind of has that, experience under his belt last year he really didn't uh per se but yeah this doesn't sound like anything

like when george kirby uh when he got hurt last year that seemed like a serious like that was an actual injury and it was going to keep him out for a while this feels more like just an inconvenience and it's one that the timing couldn't be better or worse depending on how you want to look at it you'd rather he do that this happens soon in march than you know june but yeah you know it happened right at the beginning of the camp, right when he can't quite make it back in time for opening day. And I just don't think they're going to carry him on the opening day roster, you know, and just go with a four-man rotation or put him in the bullpen and never use him. They're not going to go a pitcher down into the regular season.

So I feel like he's almost certainly going to start the year on the IL. I think it'll be a short trip there. We'll see. And you want it, you do this now. So it is a short trip on the IL, not a long-term thing. So, yeah, they're going to be cautious. And they should. Bryce is a big part of this.

And we know how good, you know, good Bryce Miller is, healthy Bryce Miller is. And he's important to this rotation. So they should play it cautiously. And, you know, fortunately for them, they've got, you know, Cooper Chriswell, who's throwing the ball really well in the Cactus League. And they trust Emerson Hancock. So, I mean, good for them. Put him in the bullpen already.

He's actually okay out of the bullpen, guys. But no, let's show him to that. Hancock. He is going to be one of my flag players if he's in the bullpen. So yeah, it's, you know, they have a little bit of depth there. And this doesn't feel like a long-term thing. So no, they're not going to rush Kate Anderson. No, they're not going to rush Ryan Sloat. Yeah. Chris Well is perfectly fine as the number five. He's thrown the ball well. The Mariners like him. And he's out of options anyway. So we thought he was going to be on the opening day team anyways. And now he could just slide in and be the rotation. And he'll give you a fighting chance against the Yankees.

and then I think his next start would come against the Astros, I think. I'm trying to remember for the schedule, but whatever. Yeah, there's just no reason to push Bryce right now. All right. Coming up, we will visit with Ian Frenness of KJR. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Longtime Airs podcast is brought to you by Fanduel and TurboTex. College basketball is nonstop.

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all in if a TurboTax expert didn't file for you last year. All you have to do is filed by February 28th. Take taxes off your plate and get back to your life. Visit turbotax.com slash local to book your appointment today. And you're listening to the Locktime Marries Podcast for the Locktime Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you so much for making us your first listen for all things, Mariners.

And also thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. If you've been thinking about joining the Everyday Air Club, now is the time. Again, you get ad-free shows and access to our group chat on Discord. And if you're signed up before the NCAA tournament tips off, you can get into our Everydayer Club bracket pool on Discord for a chance to win Locked on merch. Right now, you can use the promo code March to get your first month free at the lockdown marries.com or tap the link in the description to learn more. In the description, you can also find the link to vote for round three of our top 50 Mariners Moments tournament. We got a couple of banger matchups again in this round, Colby.

So how's that all going? How's that all playing out? Yeah, I mean, you know, we some obvious, you know, blowouts as we expected. One that you maybe did not expect, Ty, but the people have spoken, and the people are decidedly Team Colby on this one. Gino's Grand Slam is up 75, 25, over. 20, 25. I love 25% of you, though. I mean, yeah, they're just willing to be like, I don't know, ball,

and stamp that out there for the public. The Edgar matchups, the Grand Slam versus the Hall of Fame. Right now, that's 5644. Okay. for the induction into the Hall of Fame. So, you know, for most of these matchups, that's pretty close. But, Ty, I mean, we have one coming up here. But matchup six to seven seed, the Mariners clinching the division for the first time in 95.

That's at 55-45 against each year's hit record. So that one is still in play, about 210 votes by cast so far. But, Ty, the big matchup is seemingly becoming the trend here. One matchup in every round is going to come down to a handful of votes. relatively speaking and as of right now as of this recording it'll be different by the time you guys hear this matchup eight the comeback win in toronto in the wild card game game two versus cow raleigh's hitting 60th hitting his 60th homer 210 votes cast 105 votes for the comeback 105 votes we're doing this again it is tied we have been we have had three matches

up to be tied past the 200 vote mark, one in every round so far. And again, so there's a couple close ones, a couple blowouts. But the big one looks like right now is Cal hitting 60 versus the comeback win in Toronto. That's the big battle right now. And then there are a couple others that can still be swayed with a strong campaign. But again, you know, you guys got to tell Monday morning or Monday morning and we'll post it there. But yeah, it is interesting.

team Colby has spoken. They are the heavy favorite here, 75% of you. But, you know, we'll see you because that's 6-11 matchup. The Cow versus the comeback one is also kind of a split one between us. So we'll see how that knows. But yeah, so far, good response rate. I'd like to have more than 500, you know, round one. We had 900, but whatever.

People get lazy. And the fan survey, we got 1,200. Yeah, just whatever. Whatever. I guess you get on that. You guys just let the 95 crowd run away with this thing. But sure, whatever. Yeah, so a couple close matchups.

Make sure you vote. Link will be in the description down below. And again, we don't need your information. We're not asking for your email address. You don't have to sign up or anything. Just click the lights and hit submit. Click and check the boxes. Hit submit.

It's all you got to do. You're done. That's it. So, yeah. Appreciate. everyone that's participated. Appreciate it if you do participate. And you got a few more days to vote on this before it closes and we move on to

round four where things are going to get really, really tight. So looking forward to that. All right. Let's visit with Ian Furness. All right. Well, for the first time here on the Locktime Airs podcast, I'm pleased to welcome Seattle Cracken Studio hosts and the host of the Ian Furness show on Sports Radio 93.3 KJR. Ian Ferdess.

How's it going, Ian? Good, buddy. How are you? You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel getting the hot guy on here. Former football guy, hockey guy doing the Mariners. But you know what? Hey, thanks for the invite, man.

I love your work. You guys do a great job. Last year, really tuned in a lot during the playoff run to the two of you. And then obviously to my buddy's Chris and Anders on the postcast. You guys had it dialed in early and late every game. It was awesome. Yeah, man. I really appreciate it.

You've been super supportive of our show of what, you know, Chris and Anders have been doing. And, you know, looking forward to their first floor. season doing the postcasts here on the channel. And obviously back when I was writing for Corbyn, you were very supportive of that as well. So I was, I was, you know, very appreciative of that. And, you know, just you were incredibly gracious to have me on your show last summer. And it's long overdue that I have you on mine.

So really stoked to, you know, talk some ball with you. So, you know, we're about two weeks away from opening day. You know, two weeks from tomorrow, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This will be airing on tomorrow's show or Thursday show. you know, so we'll be exactly two weeks away. Wow.

So what's got you excited about this Barrens ball club? I think everything. Like, like, I got to, you know, I'm wearing my kingdom sweatshirt. Shout out to my friends at Simply Seattle. I absolutely love those guys. Yeah, I mean, I was a Mariner fan since day one. You know, I'm an old man in 1977. You know, I remember that team a little bit.

And, you know, I remember listening to Dave Nehouse with the first pitch, to be honest. I remember, like, this is weird. Like, I can't remember what I have for breakfast yesterday, but I can tell you that the very first pitch he was throwing, Enrique Romo, or Diego Sigi, rather, we're coming over the pass, so call me pass. We had to take a trip to Alberta, but we're coming across the pass,

and my dad turned on the radio. And there was Dave Nehalsh's voice, and I believe Joe Rudy hit a grand slam in that game, I think. So it was, but that was, you know, that was, and I guess that was Mariner fandom right there. But it was, but I, you know, I've been a fan since then, those early teams, they were miserable to watch in terms of wins and losses.

But for a kid growing up in Seattle, they have a major league baseball team. It was awesome. And this is, Ty, this is the different year this year because we've had some expectations before. We've been excited before. I don't know about you guys. This feels different to me. This just feels different in a good way, in a good way. Yeah.

Yeah, it really does. And I've asked this of a couple of our guests over the last few weeks, you know, do you remember a time where the Seattle sports scene, as a whole was was better than this because i mean like right now you know we got your crack in competing for a playoff spot seahawks just won the super bowl you know merrars did what they did last year and they have really the highest expectations they've really ever had going into a season uh this year like maybe 95 96 when the merrars did what they did in 95 and the sonics went on to the to the finals and played the bowls and all that but i mean that didn't wind up in a championship the seahawks already got

one. The bearers look to be a favorite to get one as well. So like I just, I can't really remember a time that was better than this. But do you know? No. And I think, you know, it's interesting to bring up the 90s because yeah, the Sonics had that little bit of a run with George Carl and Gary and Sean and DeLiff and all those dudes in the in the mid-90, mid to late 90s. But the, you know, the Seahawks were going through basically going through Ken Bering hell at that point, right? So I mean, we're worried about losing a franchise. And for a couple days, actually, we did lose a franchise in Seattle to Long Beach or Southern California with Ken Baring. And so, yeah, two of the teams were doing well. The other team was maybe on the way out of town or trying to be saved. You know, playing in the kingdom. I love

the kingdom. I shout out to the kingdom. But, you know, I mean, we didn't have a T-Mobile park. We didn't have a Lumen Field. The only thing that comes close, and I'm not sure the two football teams, I'm a kook, so I also have to include them. But we were a year away, two years away from the Rose Bowl. Washington was competitive, but they're also coming out of the Don James era. So yeah, this is, this is as good as it's been. Three years ago is interesting in the course of one, two, three. The Mariners went to the playoffs. Seahawks went to the playoffs, but were won and done. Mariners had the one home game, as we all know, for 18 innings. They were done. Seahawks done after a loss in San Francisco. Cracken went to the playoffs for the first and only time. So that was fun,

but this was better because game seven of the ALCS, however it turned out, a Super Bowl win, And maybe the Cracken will find their way into the postseason as well. So we're in a pretty good spot right now. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. And I mean, you know, as heartbreaking as game seven was, the Seahawks only lost once from that point forward. And the one day that they lost, the mayor assigned Josh Naylor like 30 minutes later. So it's been pretty great the last like four or five months, however long it's been.

I don't know how to handle it, man. I'll be honest with you. I'm not sure how to handle it. I'm like Ricky Bobby. I don't know what to do with my hands. What do we do? What I do here? We're enjoying life as a sports fan.

I will tell you this, it's, you know, for me as a father with my kids are both, you know, young adults now, you know, being able to share that run last year with the Mariners was just sensational. You know, and watching my son and my daughter's always been a huge baseball fan. She's a school teacher. She's, she teaches fifth grade. She's been a, she was a good little fast pitch player back, you know, in school and stuff. but she's always been a big baseball fan. Each hero was her first hero. She's tall and thin and hits left-handed and slaps the ball around.

And she kind of, and she always wore 51. So she's always been a big Mariners fan. My son was always kind of a fan. But last year, watching him just get immersed and going crazy. And he went to a couple of the playoff games with a buddy whose dad had, and they just went nuts. And for me to see that love of baseball, more than anything, Mariner baseball and the passion that they had.

And then it followed up with the Seahawks run and watching those guys. It's been really cool because if we're being honest, that's what the Mariners need. That's what sports needs. They need the young people to become invested because they're the ones that buy tickets and go in the future. And right now, they're all about, you know, this is, we're six minutes into a podcast. They would have been done by now. They want a five second clip, right? So you need those young people to get immersed.

And the only way to do that is winning. So I'm glad we're in this part of our lives in Seattle where things are going so well. We did a fan survey. We got like over a thousand people that responded to it. And one of the questions was, will the mayors make the playoffs? And, you know, the options were no. Yes, they'll win the wild card. Yes, they'll win the division.

I think last year, yes, to win the division got like 13% of the vote, maybe. Right. If that. Okay. This year, 88 and a half percent. So, like, on one hand, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, like that makes me incredibly nervous on the other hand though i'm like you know what good about time about time that we we look at the mariners is like this team is awesome they are going to do great

things because for you know so much of our time being mariner's fans it's always been same old mariners how are they going to screw this up they're they're just kind of the afterthought hopefully they get us to seahawks season or what have you oh yeah right and now it's that's that's in a nutshell. Can you get us to August? Can you get us a training gap, right? Right. And get the finish line there.

And they've done that. And I think, you know, like if you go back when maybe 2002 season, you know, after the great 01 season, maybe a couple of those types of years, 99, whatever, you might have had people say, yeah, that we expect them to win the division. But now we do. And rightfully so. Like they've done it, you know, like for all the grief and criticism that Jerry and mostly Jerry, not so much Justin Hollander, but mostly Jerry to post.

have taken. And, you know, honestly, rightfully so at times, he's still at the mercy of ownership. And he still has to have work within whatever budget he's given. And he gets himself in trouble with some of the, I personally kind of like the guy. We've had some, a few interactions. And I somewhat like the guy. I've had great interactions with you. Yeah. I've only had a couple, but he's been awesome. I like the guy. And he wants to win. Like I know he wants to win. You know, the 54% thing will haunt him forever, maybe until they win a World Series. But he wants to win. And, and You know, I think, you know, we're really, you know, two of the GMs in this town. I think him and John, obviously, with two championships have proven themselves to be, you know, at the top of their game.

You know, we'll see what happens with the Cracken. But, you know, those two guys have proven, they've proven what they can do. And I mean, I think, honestly, like, if we were having this conversation right now and they had not resigned Nailer, I think we'd have a different tone and a different thought, right? But because they did that, that felt very non-Mariner-like. And also because he wanted to come back. Like that was the thing. He wanted to be here. And that's hard for us to get used to.

All right. More for my conversation with Ian Frenness in just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Marrace podcast is brought to you by MLB the show 26 and the space needle. This week's MLB top 100 highlight is brought to you by MLB the show 26, the latest from the beloved video game franchise. each week we're highlighting the stars of MLB's top 100 players list. The elite names you'll be controlling, building around, and going head to head with an MLB the show.

Today we're spotlighting Josh Naylor, who ranks 81st in our top 100. One of the newest Mariners has already made a big impression in Seattle coming up with clutch hits and a whole lot of stolen bases. And you can do all that in MLB the show 26. Right now, of course, Naylor is lending his talents to Team Canada and the World Baseball Classic. and you can take him and his team on, as well as other WBC teams from all over the world with your Diamond Dynasty team. Or if you're like me and you like playing offline, you can join Josh on your road to the show and help the Mariners win it all. So that does it for this week's MLB Top 100 highlight presented by MLB the show 26, where you can play, manage, and build with your favorite players and teams. If you love talking baseball, you'll love playing it even more.

Visit MLB-THE dot show slash locked on and use. the promo code locked on, that's LOC, KD-O-N, to unlock a pack for use in Diamond Dynasty. Internet connection required. Pre-order now available March 17th on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S&X, and Nintendo Switch. Rated E for everyone. Pined to Pie at the Space Needle is the perfect pre-game or pre-funct spot before hitting Climate Pledge Arena. After 4 p.m., the Space Needles Pied and a pie gives you the whole package. Entry, a sweet or savory tip-top pie, and a pint of beer, wine, or non-alcoholic drink.

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come take your place on the horizon for only $35 per person. Limited time offer, 21 plus only ID required. Get tickets at space needle.com minimum 2 required. And you're listening to the lockdown Marrars podcast, part of the lockdown podcast network, your team every day. 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, Marrish, Seahawks, all that good stuff. For more information, go to Patreon.com, forward slash control the zone. link in the description of this episode. Now back to my conversation with the Infernes. So a couple more questions here before I let you go. So what would you consider to be just bare minimum a successful season for this Marriott Club? Obviously, there's like things that can happen over the course of the year that can change your perspective on that. But just like with the information that we have right now going into this year. Well, I think bare minimum winning the division, right? I think I'm winning the division.

That's at the bottom. I think, you know, the next step is at least getting to the ALCS. I don't think there's a reason not to get back there. Again, it's sports, stuff happens. Guys get hurt, whatever. They don't figure out that JP can't move anymore and they keep them at that shortstop all year or something. Who knows? There's a lot of things that come into play.

But I think winning the division is bare minimum. Next up is ALCS. I think those are two things that we should expect. I'm not going to say World Series or bust because seven-game series in the ALCS, we see what can happen. But just get us back there. Get us back there. And let's take our chances.

Yeah, I think on a more broad scale, it's just don't let what happened in 2020 and 2024, right? Where you ended the drought in 2022, you have this momentum. Yeah. You know, continue to at least like, all right, if you get to the playoffs, you lose in the ALDS, whatever, at least continue to normal. the Seattle Marrars are a perennial playoff team. They are

a legitimate like division contender year and year out. They can do this. Like as long as that can't, as long as I don't have to question if how like small or wide open the window is at the end of the year, I feel pretty good about how this season went.

Yeah, I feel like the window's there, right? I mean, Julio Naylor, Cal, you know, kind of the core of your lineup, Randy, what, you know, I mean, you've got guys, that are there. You hope that young develops and a little bit better in terms of at the plate. You know, can he be a guy

that you can plug in every day? He had a really nice game today as we're talking. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, Emerson is there. I mean, so you've got, and then you've got a staff. I think that's the key is you've got a staff. And that just, you know, one through five. You mentioned Bryce Miller. Like, again, health aside,

for him to go do what he did last year in the postseason. That's your number five guy, right? after being terrible all year and dealing with injury. And then, yeah, you know, you have them start against Detroit in Detroit. Yeah. Performs pretty well in that game. Game one starter in the ALCS in Rogers Center against the number one seed. Shubs in that game.

Like, yeah, it was incredibly impressive. We're having debates. I'm sure you guys were doing the same thing. And I know Chris and Anders did the same. Like, we're on debates. Like, who's your, who do you start in game one? Who do you start in game seven? Like, how do you put your rotation?

Who's not going to be a starter for you to play? like what a crazy problem to have. How many teams go into the postseason saying, all right, we got problem here. Like we got, we've got five dudes. Like we got five. And you got more on the way. Right. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, exactly. The kid. I want to see the kid. I mean, you know, we'll see how many things up this year. But yeah, I think, I think bare minimum ALS title slash ALCS appearance. And then if you do that, you can't complain. If it doesn't happen, it's the playoffs. Stuff happens in the playoffs.

But you've got to get back. I think 2320, I think what you mentioned there is key. Don't take that step back you did before. I don't think they will because they went back and instead of losing a guy like to Oscar Hernandez, they keep a guy in Josh Naylor, right? Like they made that investment. They brought him back. They go get Adonovan to lead off like a true leadoff hitter for the first time in a while.

So they're not messing around that game anymore. Is Julio leading off? Is Randy leading off? Who's leading on? You're not messing around that stuff anymore. You know who your lead off hitter is. So away you go. Yeah, and the proof of concept so far has been there in spring, you know.

And I kind of look at this lineup as more like a nine through five. Colby and I have been talking about this on the show lately because of like having JP hit nine. We'll see if that actually happens. Maybe it's Cole Young hitting nine. But I would, if I'm constructing the lineup of my, Dan Wilson, I have JP hitting nine. I have Brendan Donovan hit in one. Those guys consistently sit in the table with how much they get on base for Julio for Cal. That's probably the thing that I'm most excited about with this club.

But, like, if you asked me, like, a very specific thing that I'm very excited about with this team. It's just how much those guys are going to get on base for your biggest bats in this lineup. How concerned are you guys about Cal? And I only say this. They had this year last year where they did, it's like, and I'd bring the same thing up with the Seahawks in a sense. Like, JSN had a near record-breaking year for a wide receiver just falling short of Calvin Johnson, right? Yeah. Like, hard to replicate.

Hard to replicate 61. like yeah yeah and and they and it feels like i just remember looking at one point at the record it feels like they needed about 55 of those right yeah yeah i mean like it's just it's not gonna happen right he's maybe hits 45 this year i think the hope is that you know last year was kind of a regressive year for him defensively you know he he just he was still really good he just wasn't gold glove platinum glove you know contender that he was in 2024 so maybe that that That takes a tick up. And so you get more value that way.

Maybe he gets on base more because pitchers are more I'm willing to pitch to him. You know, maybe he gets more walks. Maybe the average ticks up a little bit. And maybe in the end, he still has an incredibly valuable year for you, despite not hitting as many home runs. Right. The year, you know, in, in 2025. So, like, that's going to happen, right?

That's just the reality of the situation. The other thing, too, is can he, at least in a way, pass the baton off to Julio? It's year five for Julio. I'm not trying to do the thing that we've done every single preseason, you know, where it's like, this is going to be the year. This is the 10-win season, MVP year for Julio. I'm not trying to do that again. But I think year five, we all heard that scream during Brian Wu's interview after game seven.

I feel like we're going to get an extra motivated, Julio, has said that he learned a lot about himself and the hitter that he wants to be, you know, during that all-star break where he bowed out of the all-star game and kind of worked on things. And we saw how much he took off from, you know, from the second half onward. I think the biggest thing for Julio, the thing that makes me most confident about Julio going into this year, he did it in the postseason. He put the team on his back in the postseason at times. Game seven, game seven of the ALC.

Yes, he put it, but the team on his back. That's the thing that makes me very excited about Julio. it makes me feel like Julio can make up for some of that lost value that's just going to happen with Cal because it's just so unfair to put those expectations. Right. On Cal, especially with how much is already on Cal's plate and all the responsibilities that he has. And now you throw in him, you know, having to go to the WBC and all this extra stuff that he's having to do on top of that going into the season.

Like there is going to be regression. If there's not, cool, great. So glad that I'm wrong about that. But most likely he's going to regress. Can Julio make up for some of that? Absolutely. Can you have a better first half that ultimately leads to maybe a seven win, eight win season? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Julio can do that. And that's probably how you make up for some of the value. I think in general as well, I think just the lineup is just better on day one than it was day one last year. And so that's going to help you win more ball games early on in the season that maybe you didn't win last year. Well, I think you just, if get better play out of your corner outfields, you know, and maybe just more consistent. I guess is what I'm thinking, you know, offensively. And, you know, Robles doesn't, you know, shred his shoulder or whatever and things like that.

I mean, there's a lot of, you know, because you're going to, because you're certainly going to platoon some guys, right? Yeah. You're definitely patuning guys. So you've got, but I think you have more options. I think you have better options with whatever ends up being your five outfielders. You've got better, you've got better options. Like, we don't have to go through the Dillon Moore Show again. You know, like, thank God.

Like, that's over. Like, you don't have that to worry about ever again. You know, Nailer here all year. you know, hopefully you get, you're not going to get all what you saw from Nailer at the end of the year in the postseason, right? That was, that was career year Josh Naderl. That was, that sample size, albeit small and spectacular, is probably not 162, right? Like that's not, yeah, yeah. But you're going to get consistency there at that position, which you've been lacking, you know, like you're not putting Routty Tillis.

Last year you had Donovan Solano and Raleigh to Lus playing first base for you. Oh, my God, we were going through. We, Chris and I had made on our Molloywop thing, we were going through the, the names of the past of like you start bringing up the Donovan Solano's of the world and the others like that that were brought in you don't have that you don't have that issue right so no I I think we're line up wise it's the expectations aren't just because of what they did last year it's because what you just said look at the lineup card it's better that's better than it's been a long time yeah yeah it's better Julio's more mature yeah uh you know Cal's coming off of the year that he's coming

off of you got another all-star and Brendan Donovan into the mix Josh Naylor for a full year Like there's just you go through, you check off all the boxes, right? And really, you know, we talk about like the danger areas, the uncertain areas of the roster. You know, in years past, that's been the Tommy Lestellas and the Donovan Solanos and the Cooper Hummels and so on and so forth. Once again, I'm getting killed, but yes. Yeah.

This time around and obviously I have questions about Luke Rayleigh and if he'll be able to bounce back. I think he will, but there's obviously questions about that. There's questions about if Domcan zone, what we saw last year is real, right? or even 75% of that is real, right? There's questions about how valuable actually is Victor Robles. But overall, like, I feel like that will figure itself out. I feel like you have enough options there to kind of filter through. And one of those things will eventually click.

And then the other area of the roster is like, all right, it's Cole Young, it's Cole Emerson, but at least those guys are legit prospects. Right. They're going to be good ballplayers at some point in their career. Why not now? Yeah. Well, and Emerson is, I mean, I'm just, that guy, everyone's just going crazy over what this guy's potential is, right? And you have to kind of take a step back and look at the age, look at the birth certificate and say, oh, let's hold on for a second.

The good news is they don't need him right now. Like they don't, they're not, it's not like Julio where like you're, we need you right now. Well, and that's what made getting Donovan so important. Right, right, right. Right. Because now, like, you shore up one of those spots. And look, if young and Emerson, both aren't. it. Okay, now I only have to address one of those spots on my roster instead of two.

Yeah. Yeah, with the deadline. You know, they're just so much better situated now. Like, and I know that they love to, you know, or, you know, that the trade deadline is their prime acquisition period. That's the way that they really want to add major league talent. And that's fine. But in years past, last year especially, they've had to get really lucky that the sellers lined up with what they specifically needed. and, you know, they would have to be able to pull off these huge trades just in order to be in a position to make the playoffs, right? And so they needed Josh Taylor.

They needed a E. Uiouniosquoise. This year, it feels like the roster is built in a way where they aren't going to need. Now, injuries can obviously happen, blah, blah, blah, blah. Guys can perform well lower, you know, relative to expectations, all that. But in general, they feel like they're just in a much healthier spot where they're not going to have to do that. where at the trade deadline, they just supplement complementary pieces, which is what good teams do.

Hey, we need a sixth reliever. We need a fourth outfielder. Let's go get that, right? That's what the Dodgers did last year. The Dodgers are obviously different, you know, whole. They're in a different area. But that's it. Right.

Yeah, that's what the Blue Jays did, right? Well, they got Louis Varland, right? It was great. It was great for them in their pulpit. But that was it. That's really what they did. Their lineup was the same as it was on opening day. Yeah.

That's what it was. Like, Nayler was needed. baseball-wise. Gino was needed optics-wise, is how I kind of look at it. Now, I mean, Gino obviously gave you, he gave you some stuff, especially at some heroics in a playoffs game.

But really, what it was was Naler, the baseball guys needed Nailer. I think from a fan perception standpoint, you needed to add Gino and really say, hey, here we are. This is different. That's not who we normally are. We're proving what we've been trying to tell you,

we're serious about winning. If you're serious about winning, you make moves like that and they did last year. And here we are ready for a much anticipated season. Absolutely. I'm stressed again. Well, Ian, it was so great having you. Really appreciate you doing this.

We could talk for hours about this stuff. Well, now you got my email now. So anytime. Just let me know. You guys, like I said, you guys do great work, man, both on this podcast and the postcast with my two buddies. You guys, great mariner coverage and, you know, keep up the good work, man.

I'm listening all the time. Thanks so much. You bet. All right, well, that is going to do it for our show. Thank you again to Ian for joining us. And thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown Marrars podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And once again, if you'd never miss an episode, it's time to make it official.

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