Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What Grade Did Julio Rodriguez, Other Mariners Earn in 2024?

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Ty and Colby hand out grades to the 2024 Mariners position players. Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11For your next listen, check out the Locked On MLB podcast. Prepare for the Fall Classic with Sully, who has it all covered every single day. Click HERE to listen now. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Arena ClubWhether you’re buying, selling, trading, or displaying—Arena Club is the card-collecting platform you have to check out. Right now, you can get 10% off your first Slab Pack or card purchase by going to ArenaClub.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb. RobinhoodRobinhood Gold provides the privileges of a high net worth for any net worth. These generous benefits are now available for only $5/month. The new gold standard is here with Robinhood Gold.Sign up at robinhood.com/gold   Terms apply, for product specific disclosures visit robinhood.com/gold. Investing involves risk. Rate may change. Gold membership is offered by Robinhood Gold, LLC.   PrizePicksGo to prizpicks.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb to win $50 instantly when you play $5. You don't even need to win to receive your $50 bonus, it's guaranteed! Prizepicks. Run Your Game. IbottaIbotta is a free app that lets you earn cash back every time you shop. Right now, Ibotta is offering our listeners $5 just for trying Ibotta by using the code LOCKEDONMLB when you register. Just go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE app to start earning cash back when you use code LOCKEDONMLB. eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. FanDuelNow through September 22nd, ALL FanDuel customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get a THREE WEEK free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're getting close to closing the book on the 2024 Mariner's for Good. And today we are going to begin our positional grades with a look at catcher, infield and outfield 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 Wednesday, October night, 2024. This is Tadda Gazzalus and Colby Patna out for the Lockdown Marrars. podcast part of the locked on podcast network your team every day it is time to grave the 2024 mares we'll be looking at the catchers the infielders and the outfielders on today's

show but before we do that shout out to our title sponsor today booking.com booking dot yeah the right stay can make you a fan of any city even your baseball rivals book today on booking dot com the official accommodation partner of major league

baseball get the booking.com app today. You know what else you should do today? Check out our Patreon. We are talking about our offseason plan, folks. If you want to hear kind of our early ideas with that, sign up for our Patreon. And you can sign up for a free seven-day trial. You don't even need to pay money to hear a couple of our latest shows. So you should get on it. You should though. You should. I do recommend that. So let's start grading some of these 2024 mariners. We are going to be individually grading guys, but we're not going to individually grade everyone, right? We're not going to grade the Samad Taylors of the world and the Luis Arias's of the world and the Leo Rivas's of the world.

It's strictly going to be the main cast of characters who made up the 2024 mirrors. And when talking about the catchers, there really was only one main character in that group. And that was Cal Rale, of course. I mean, Mitch Garver kind of joined that group a little later on. he was initially supposed to be the DH ended up being the backup catcher. We'll get into the reasons why and how that factors into his grade here in just a second. But let's start with Cal who we anointed Colby as our team MVP on yesterday's episode. So what does that get him in terms of a grade?

Oh, boy. Tough one. A sounds about right. Sounds all right. Sounds all right. Sounds pretty much on the mark. Yeah. What else could you ask for from Cal Raleigh this year? 34 bombs, 100 ribs.

I know the batting average and the on base was low and the WRC plus was only like 117. But I don't really care how you get to 34 bombs and 100 ribs as long as you get there. That's a pretty remarkable season, offensively speaking, for a catcher. Right. And then everything that we talked about yesterday with the leadership, the defense right catching 135 games which he shouldn't be asked to do again but that's a whole another conversation um you know working with one of the best if not the best rotations in baseball

calling great games on a night to night basis the the defensive metrics love cal rollie working with just a diverse group of arms in general between that rotation and in the bullpen you know playing through pain right uh hitting a home run in texas when he has a broken tooth in his mouth, all that stuff, right? So yeah, A plus for Cal Raleigh, because again, like, what else can he ask for here? You are nitpicking if you were asking for more from Cal Raleigh after the season that he just had. So, yeah, are there, is there room to grow in a couple of departments? Sure, but overall, this was an excellent, excellent season, especially for a catcher.

Best defensive catcher in the American League, best offensive catcher in the American league like yeah uh yeah sure would it be great if you could hit 250 sure awesome sure does he need to no nope yeah yeah and then Mitch garber is like kind of on the complete opposite end of the spectrum right it's got to be an F like there's just no way um you know like garber um seems like a good guy obviously the the struggles really got to him this year yeah um And, you know, there was that whole nasty, filthy, you know, off the field thing with the fans attacking him and his family and all that stuff. So, yeah, it was a rough year for Mitch. I sympathize with him.

And I hope that he can turn it around and he comes out next year and he silences the haters. But at the end of the day, the resume he put forth this year is an F. I mean, it's terrible. It was God awful. You signed this guy to be the everyday D.H. He ends up kind of being forced back into the role of a backup catcher who hardly ever played. And, you know, his batting average is on base, his slug, they all dropped 80 plus points. And he just wasn't good.

Like, it just at the end of the day, he wasn't good. So I hope he bounces back. And, you know, I think he can to some degree. But judging the, based on 2024 alone, it's an F. Yeah. I mean, they say availability is the best ability, right? And that was the biggest concern with Garver going into the season, was is he going to be able to stay healthy enough for you to extract enough value out of him

and out of that contract? Well, he stayed healthy. He was able to be on the field consistently. The problem was he wasn't giving you a reason to play him because he was just so bad. 172, 286, 341. It's an 88 WRC plus negative 0.4F4. 30.9% K rate That went up by pretty much 7%

from his previous year The walk rate stayed high He still hit 15 bombs But yeah he just he wasn't Bringing really much of anything to the table this year And at the end of it He became a way too expensive backup catcher Like he was producing at a rate that cost you about

$10 million less than this. So, yeah, you know, I'm hoping for the best for him. I assume that he's still going to be around in 2025 because at least he has a role. You know, when we talk about like Mitch Hanager, Hanager doesn't really have a role and he's making all that money. At least Garver, it's like, okay, well, we're paying him way too much for the role that he's going to fill. But at the very least, he doesn't really give him. us much of a roster headache, right?

He's not blocking anybody who should be playing over him. He's not, you know, so bad offensively and so bad defensively that you're just trying to force the backup catcher roll on him. Like, no, he can handle that. And again, he's not blocking anybody. And we're saying Harry Ford down in the comments, you didn't watch Harry Ford play this year. Stop.

She's not blocking Harry Ford, not for at least the first half of 2025. uh so yeah uh again i hope he turns it around seems like a good dude but uh yeah it's enough like i just i don't see really any other great that you can give yeah at best it's a it's a it's a d minus but it's it's more realistically enough because it was just an awful awful year um all right so let's get into the infield here uh a little bit uh Justin Turner uh because tie france obviously didn't finish the season with the team so no need to to grade him Turner did finish the season with the team as they're primarily their first baseman.

I mean, Luke Rayleigh also spent some time over there, but we'll get to Rayleigh a little later on in this episode. So Turner came over for two months, was pretty much the guy that you were hoping he would be. He was pretty much the guy that he was in Toronto. You know, hit for a high average, got on base, you know, didn't bring a ton of power. But also brought some leadership.

So I would say B plus here. for everything that he brought in the clubhouse and then he also produced on the field. Yeah. I would say Turner gets yeah, a B,

like it's probably more than that just based on the off the field stuff. But I just, I don't know how to factor that in. I don't know how to quantify that. Sure. In our conversation. So,

I mean, it's probably more. But yeah, when he came to Seattle, he was basically the same guy he was in Toronto. So, you know, and that's exactly what the Mariners wanted. That's what they needed. And there were times where he was better than that.

So, yeah, I think that Turner was, basically Justin Turner was good enough that he went from, this is a rental and then you never see him again to like, well, I don't know, maybe it makes sense to bring back Justin Turner for a year if he's open to it. So yeah, I would say it's a solid B. It's not an A. it might look like an A when you compare him to like what we watched from March until about July, about the All-Star break offensively. But I think it's a solid B. He can still hit a little bit.

But yeah, it didn't give you much defensively. Didn't give you much on the base as he wasn't going to. Didn't hit for a ton of power. Again, not really what you brought him in to do. So I think, you know, based on what you needed him to do and what he ended up giving you, solid solid B plus somewhere in that range yeah i mean to be able to produce at that age too offensively at a at an above average clip i mean it's not every day that you see you know a 39 year old 40 year old like producing the way that Justin Turner did this year so um yeah props to

Justin Turner and you know we'll see if he uh if he might have a future in Seattle as well all right so we are going to get into kind of a mixed bag here with Jorge Palan Joe Josh Rojas and J.P. Crawford in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown on Airs podcast is brought to you by Fandul and Game Time. NFL fans can start the season with a big return on Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats of you live play-by-play and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets.

Yeah, you heard that right. $200. in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet that's fandul.com so i used to live in new mexico and down in new mexico there are zero pro sports teams and a lot of bands and artists i listen to skip going there more often than not so when i moved to toronto where there's a baseball team a basketball team a hockey team even a soccer team and there's great music being played every night in the city i was right in my element when i want to catch a ball game or my wife and i want to see a band i always get my tickets through game time

And that was the case well before Game Time sponsored our network and before I even join the network because it is truly the best ticketing service out there hands down. I truly, truly believe that. And now it's getting even better thanks to Game Time Picks. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. I can just go on the app. It'll show me the best deal right away. It'll show me the exact view I'll have. and most importantly, it'll tell me exactly what I'm going to pay with GameTimes all in pricing,

so there are no annoying little fees that pop up at the last second. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code Locked-on MLB, that's L-O-C-E-O-N-M-L-B for $20 for $20.LB for $20.L-B for $20. Download GameTime today. What time is it? it game time. And you're listening to the Lockdown Merrists podcast.

We are grading the 2024 Mariner's position players today. We just graded Cal Raleigh, Mitch Garver, and Justin Turner. And we're going to keep things in the infield with Jorge Polanco, who was the most notable addition in the off season for the Mariners.

But like Mitch Garver, maybe not to the extremes of Mitch Garver, uh, Polanco disappointed quite a bit this year. Um, I'm not going to give them an F because again, it wasn't to the extreme level of disappointment that that Garver was. Though at times they were equally as, uh, they were equally struggling. Um, but, uh, I'm probably a C minus at best for, for Polo and probably somewhere in the D range. Yeah. I think I would give, yeah, I think C minus because, you know, he was pretty good in July and August, but he was dreadful in April, May.

And then just, you know, he was okay in September. But, yeah, obviously defense also factors in here. He was terrible defender, you know, to the point where he would make a slightly above, you know, average difficulty play. And you'd be like, oh, wow, like that's noteworthy. But yeah, Falunco, so bad this year that the $12 million option that, you know, I don't know, six months ago we thought was for sure getting picked up is now almost certainly not getting picked up. Like that just speaks to how far and how fast he fell. And also he had, you know, some trouble staying on the field at times this year too. So, yeah.

But he wasn't he wasn't completely useless for the entire season either. So, you know, I think polo, I, yeah, it's a, it's a D plus C minus somewhere in that range. I'll give him a C minus just because, you know, he, there was significant stretches of the season where he was an actual like plus player for you. But just overall, the consistency is not there to be any higher than a C minus. No, it was by far the worst season of his career, 213, 296, 355, that's 92 WRC plus. just worth 0.3. F4 obviously was terrible defensively. The K rate jumped up by about 4%

from the year prior. The walk rate actually went down by about 1% from the year prior. Did hit 16 home runs, drove in 45 runs, and 118 games played. But overall, yeah, I view Polanco's season as a negative, especially because he was nowhere close

to the player that you're hoping to get. You were hoping to get the guy that was like a 115 to 120 WRC plus guy that he had been in, you know, the last three years and for the last five years. And you just, you didn't get that. You didn't get anywhere close to that. And second base continues to be a problem for the mayor is that they just haven't been able to solve really since trading Robinson Canoe. I mean, they had that one good COVID year from Dylan Moore, but that was obviously the COVID year. That's the shortened season.

So, yeah, in an actual full real MLB season, they haven't had. a good year from a from a second basement since cano and we'll see if they're able to finally figure that out this year but that carousel continues to go uh all right so josh rojas weird year for josh ross because he was really good defensively one of the better defensive third baseman in the league and he got off to a hot start uh he was one of the few guys that actually put together consistently good looking at bats in the early portion of the season for the mariner's. It was actually very rare to see competent offense from the Mariners at that time when

Rojas was cooking. But then he fell off a cliff. It was still able to hit Brady's pretty well, but overall just fell off a cliff offensively. And the defense wasn't as good as the year went along. It was fairly inconsistent. but he still overall had a really good year defensively. I'll give him a C. I think that's a good place for Josh Rojas.

Yeah, I think that's about right. You know, C, maybe a C plus. Like, the totality of his defense was well above average. And, you know, there were first six weeks he was great. And then he was pretty bad. And then there was like a two and a half, three week stretch where he was pretty good again. But the bat is, again, wildly inconsistent. The defense consistent enough.

Stole enough bags, like, gave you enough defensively and enough on the bases to be, you know, a decent player. But don't let the Mariners finishing fifth overall and third base F4 fool you. This is a major hole in the Mariners, you know, infield and in their lineup. And Rojas is the main contributor of that because he was the main third baseman. So I think, yeah, I think a C. C plus somewhere in that range is appropriate here. So I just, you know, pretty disappointed.

I thought Ross was in for a better year this year because he looked so good when he came over from Seattle and it looked like the Marys had found something in a swing and tweaked it and he was going to hit, you know, 15 and 20 homers and all that. And just, nope, nope, they got the defense. They got, I don't know, 11 steals or something like that. And they got about six to eight weeks total where he was a, he where he ranged from an above average major league hitter to a great hitter and then the rest the other you know unfortunately the other 20 weeks of the year he was

objectively terrible at the plate so I think when you consider the whole package cc plus somewhere in that range you know initially it was supposed to be a platoon of rojas and louisa rius at third base ended up becoming kind of a platoon between rojas and dylan more so let's talk about dylan moore's year what was he like fourth on the team in f4 this year which which is a problem I mean props says more about the Mariners than it does more yeah props to dillamore but also that's kind of a problem if dillamore

is like your fourth most valuable position player on your team because demo this year he was demo right he was the guy that we've seen for the last how many years that he's been with this team 201 320 367 2.4 f4 10 homers 30 bags. He stole 32 bags, which is a career high. Yeah, he's a utility player who will give you, you know,

average to slightly above average defense, depending on the spot that he plays. And he's going to, you know, hit for some pop and, you know, make things. Yeah, he's going to draw walks. He's going to, he's going to make things happen on the base pass when he gets on there. I'll give Demo a B.

Yeah. I think this is like a C. plus B minus like it meets expectations. Sure. You know, this is, this is who Dylan Moore is. And people always act surprised when Dylan Moore does Dylan more things.

He's going to hit for a low average. He's going to strike out, but he's also going to steal bags. He's going to draw walks. He's going to hit a surprising amount of home runs. He's going to hit the ball hard or he's going to, he's going to swing a miss. Like that's his game.

That's who Demo is. So I think overall you look at those guys and it's like, or you look at that guy and it's like, look, he was who we thought he was, who we knew he was. There's nothing surprising here. So, yeah, it looks like B minus. Give Dmo B minus. Sure.

And then lastly, as we wrap up things on the infield, J.P. Crawford. This is D. Yeah. Yeah, I think it has to be a D because, you know, you go from him having his breakout season. And look, we had talked about this. Like, he's probably not going to be a 130 WRC plus guy this year. But can he at least be, you know, 110 to 115? with the changes that he made,

you know, going to drive line before the 2023 season. It seemed like he had kind of reinvented himself as a hitter. So it's like, okay, maybe he's no longer the, you know, below 100 WRC plus or the guy that kind of hovers around 100 WRC plus

that he was before 2020. But can he be, you know, somewhere in the, you know, 110, 115 range? I felt like that was reasonable. Instead, we got a massively regressive,

of 89 WRC plus season, right? And look, at the very least, he had a better year defensively by the metrics. He had his best, he had his best year by outs above average in the last three or four years, I believe. Since he won the gold glove in 2020. So, you know, so he made strides there,

but then he gets hurt a couple times, which is obviously out of his control. But when he was on the field, I mean, before the injury, after the injury, it doesn't matter. He was not good offensively. 202, 304, 321. That's an 89 WRC plus.

That's just not cutting it. No, and again, the defense, well, it was better this year, and it was above average. It wasn't, you know, like prime Ozzy Smith where you're fine if a guy can't hit because he's so good defensively at a premium position that you just live with it. It's not JP.

Like, that's not who JP is. He has to give you something offensively. Unfortunately, this year looked like, just even watching him at the plate. This looked a lot more like 2022, 2021, JP with the swing and all that stuff. How much of the injuries come into that? You know, how much did, you know, just, yeah, like at wrist injury, right? One of them was a wrist injury.

So obviously that's not great. But, yeah, I don't think anybody expected JP to 20 home runs again. But just based on the year he came off of, the expectations, and then what he actually did this year. Like it was arguably the most disappointing season of any mariner. D for disappointment, I would say. Because, yeah, I was very let down by the year that JP had this year. Yeah.

Well, we know what F stands for friends. To do stuff together. Yeah, you was for you and me. Okay, so let's get into the outfield. Julio, Luke Raleigh, Randy, a Rosarina, Victor. Robles. Just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is once again brought to you by booking.com. Explore those U.S. cities you always secretly wanted to learn more about. With hotels,

bed and breakfast, vacation rentals, resorts, and so much more on booking.com, you might just find your perfect stay even in your baseball rival city during the postseason. Even an Orioles fan or a Guardians fan can have a good time in New York no matter what happens on the diamond this October. You can drown your playoff woes with a New York slice or celebrate advancing to the next round with a delicious chopped cheese all while taking in the autumn vibes in Manhattan and capping it all off with a great stay in the city. Booking.com delivers exactly the right U.S. stay for you and the right stay can make you a fan of any U.S. city, even your baseball rivals.

Booking.com, booking dot yeah. And you're listening to the Lockdown Marries podcast. We are wrapping up our grades for the 2024 Mariners position players. We just finished off the infield. Now let's go into the outfield. We got to go through five different players here over the next 10 or so minutes. So let's quickly hand out a grade to Mitch Hanager. C minus.

Yeah, because I mean, what were you really expecting for Mitch Hanigar this year? He stayed healthy. Yeah. Like he hit pretty well at Team Mobile Park. Yep. Hit some big home runs. Yeah. You know, had his, had his big moments, pretty much exactly what I thought.

It would have been nice if he could have hit for a little more average, if he could have hit lefties at all, which is why it's not a C plus or it's not a C plus. It's a C minus. He was kind of a useful bench piece who had, what, three walkoffs this year, set the record for most walkoffs in a Mariners career had. How many home runs? 12, 15 somewhere on that bridge. 12, yeah. Some big ones mixed in there too as well. So yeah, I mean, Mitch was pretty much who we thought he was going to be.

And he also happened to stay healthy. And, you know, I think the Mariners didn't do him any favors by using him as much as they did in the first two months of the year. But yeah, overall, it was just kind of a mediocre season. But based on expectations, I would say that he more or less met them. the inability to hit left-handed pitching really hurt them. But, yeah, it's C-C-minus for me. Yeah, I'll go with D-plus on this. Again, like, what were you really expecting?

But also he's slashed 208, 286, 334. It's an 85 WRC plus. He was bad defensively. He was worth negative 0.6 out four. I mean, by fan graph standards, he was worse than Mitch Carver. I don't know if I would go that far. but they were more or less the same player though or the same header this year though more Mitches more problems for the merits yeah unfortunately unfortunately that that pun did

not work out in our favor they never homered in the same game I thought they so much wasted potential nope did they not oh nope so Mitch not not a ton here but yeah yeah I think deep honestly. All right. Let's get into actually a really fun group of players. Pretty good group of players here. Let's start with the newest guy in that group. Randy or Rosarena. What did you think about his two months as a mariner? Specifically with the Mariners. Yeah.

B minus. Okay. Certainly had some moments. And obviously his presence helped the Mariners lineup go from one of the worst in baseball to one of the best, at least in a five-week sample size, but whatever,

statistically speaking, accurate. But there are also a lot of games where he just was the worst player on the field. And obviously there was the difficulty adapting to his new surroundings. And we heard some things about that. We heard some things about like, he might be so unhappy or such a problem

that the Mariners might trade him this winter after only two months. And so it wasn't a smooth ride. He did strike out quite a bit, but he was still pretty productive as a mariner on top of that. And he even made a couple nice defensive plays. That was a bit of a surprise for us. And so, you know, I think just based on his time with the Mariners, B minus,

he was fun. He was, I mean, if he does what he did over the final, two months the next two years in Seattle. Then his time will be remembered fondly overall. If it's, you know, and hopefully with the time he gets to acclimate himself and, and, you know, getting to spend the winter and coming into camp with the team and, you know, being used to playing a team with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hopefully he comes in next year and is, I don't want to say focus, because it's not like

he was, he wasn't focused or anything like that. But, you know, it's just comfortable. Yeah, he's just comfortable. and if he does that then I think he'll be really good and he'll be good fit and he'll fit right in but you know just based on these last two months or first two months I guess I should say

yeah B minus you actually hit at T-Mobile Park that's a great start yeah with the Mariners C-131 356 377 would like to see more in the slugging department there but it's a 122 WRC plus he was worth basically a win

0.9 F4 he was worth one win by a fan graph standards in his and a hundred games with raise to start the year. So he was basically the, it was basically as valuable in about half as many games, uh, in a marriage uniform. Right.

That's due to the terrible month of April he had, but yeah. Yeah. It was fun. Like he was exactly what you need in him to be. Yep. Hopefully he's the same. K rate went up,

uh, when he became a mayor. Yeah. By about four percent. So yeah, I'll go be on Randy. Okay. I think he was perfectly fine and helped in a lot of different ways.

Victor Robles, A plus. A plus. Yeah. You know what? A minus. Don't try and steal home. Oh, my God. Stupidest thing I've ever seen until you know 24 hours later.

I mean, part of the grading factor here is expectations, right, heading into the player's season. I mean, we had zero for Victor Robles when they, I would venture to say that half of the Mariners fandom didn't know who Victor Robles was, at least half.

And the other half. Thought he was boss. Bust, yeah, they're just like, what's even the point? Why even sign the guy, right?

We saw that a lot of that. Oh, if you look at my tweet where, you know, I said that this was happening, like a lot of the replies are like, why even bother? Right.

So, why? Yeah, Robles was basically an All-Star in his time with the Mariners this year. I think it was like 171 WRC Plus as a mariner. It was worth three and a half wins as a mariner. Like, dude was awesome. Stole a ton of bases. Played pretty good defense.

Hit a ton. Had some really impressive home runs. Didn't hit many. But when he did, they were very impressive. Victor Robles is a really fun player. so yeah a plus so Luke Rayley your favorite mariner B plus a minus somewhere in that range I go with an A minus yeah he was a you know a part-time player essentially he had 455 played appearances on the year um but again like we talked about yesterday he was a major question

mark considering how his 2023 went it's like one half he was amazing he was one of the best setters in baseball. And then the second half, he was a slightly below average hitter. So it was like, all right, well, what are you going to get there? Is there like some middle ground? Is he just going to fall off a cliff? Is that second half, essentially who he is? And he's just a below

average hitter who can only hit against Ritey's. Like, what is the story on Luke Raleigh? And look, he, he was pretty consistent for most of the year. I mean, he had a couple of lulls here and there, but I mean, who doesn't over the course of a 100th and season. Got up to a really slow start. which caused a lot of people to abandon ship early.

And then from basically. They didn't really play him to start the year. Right. I mean, because he was terrible in spring training. He was terrible in this first few weeks. And then they kind of benched him for like 10 days, essentially. And then, yeah, I mean, from August 1st to the year,

I think he had a 190 WRC plus. So look, like Rayleigh is still kind of a streaky hitter, which isn't that surprising because he still swings and misses a lot, still strikes out a lot. although those did go down pretty significantly in the second half. But yeah, he absolutely can be like a middle of the order threat for months at a time. And I think what we saw this year is after you got through that initial slow start in April, the downswings weren't quite as severe. And the upswings, they tended to last a little bit longer.

And also, by the way, he absolutely crushes at Team Mobile Park. So yeah. Yeah, Luke Grayley. you know, at some issues at first base when they moved him over there defensively. Hopefully he cleans those up because I'm pretty sure he's going to be

the opening day first baseman next year. But yeah, from the power to the speed to the personality, the effort level always at 100. And again, the best bunter on the team, bar none.

And because he's such a good bunter, that's why it's not an A. I'd prefer if he didn't bunt at all. Sure. All right. So lastly, we're going to wrap things up here with Julio. It was a disaster of a start to the year for Julio. He wasn't just bad for Julio standards.

He was just bad. Full stop. Right. And then started to get it going in July, but then gets hurt in that Astro series coming out of the All-Star break. And you're like, well, there you go. right as soon as he's starting to turn it around his season might be over and then he's able to come back a lot quicker than most expected didn't look like he should have been on the field i mean he was just grimacing a lot um they had to take him out of that game in detroit it's like uh seems like they're really pushing it but he continued to fight through it and eventually really started to find his groove and he had a great month of september so really good but uh version of Julio started around July, like early July. It's like pre all-star break.

He had a little bit of a breakout. And then he got hurt. But yeah, overall, we have to take into account the totality of the season. We have to take into account the player in which we're talking about. I think I would give Julio B minus, like somewhere in that range. Like for just about anybody else, this is like a B plus, a minus type of season. Yeah. For Julio.

this grade was going to be a lot worse had the first couple months of of Julio's season carried over for the rest of the year but you know at the end of it he ends up being a 2020 guy for the third consecutive year

slashes 270 WRC plus yeah he slashes 2703 325409 the slugging needs to be a lot better but still it's a fine slash line keep in mind sluggings down across the league this year but I mean that's that's far off from where he was the year prior. He didn't get and I don't think he got to and stayed above 100 until like middle of August like right before the injury I think is when he finally hit 100 and never

dip below it or whatever. And he ends up you know after all of this still being pretty much a four one player by Fangraph standards. The defense was great. Yeah. So it was still really good season just when you look at the the overall numbers. But taking into account what the journey look like. Yeah, I'm feeling a B minus on this. So that's going to do it for our show. But before we let you guys out of here, we are going to spend this lovely wheel

that's on your screen right now or your lesson. Just imagine. Just imagine a very high quality, high production, very colorful wheel of, Pat say Jack would be crowd. Yeah, exactly. So this is for a new series that we're going to be doing on Lockdown Mariners called Top 5 Tuesday or for this week it's going to be top 5 Thursday.

We already told you guys that depending on how the rest of the week goes, it might happen on Tuesday. It might happen on Thursday. So this week it's going to happen on Thursday. So for top 5 Thursday, we are going to spin this wheel and whatever it lands on, we are going to do a top 5 on tomorrow's show for now so we are going to spend the wheel once for a topic that colby is going to have to do a top five for and we're going to spend the wheel a second time for me to do a top five now uh in the future we're going to have this where one one of us is going to do a more serious top five and one of us is going to do a more silly top five but we only have a few

options for this week so just whatever we land on we're going to do so uh the first spin here It's going to be for Colby. High quality sound. That's right. And it's going to be top five ballpark foods for Colby. Okay. Hopefully this means tie gets a serious one because I don't think we can do two like silly ones on the same episode. True.

I mean, that probably would not go over well with our bosses. Watch us try though. Might have top five. Oh, nice. All right. So I'll be so I'll be doing top five trade. targets tomorrow and you'll be doing top five ballpark foods. So we're going to compile our top

five lists. And by the way, we're going to do this every day before we're going to do the top five. We're going to spend the wheel the day before. So be sure to stick to the end of our episodes the day before we're going to be doing this. And we'll let you guys know if we're going to be spending the wheel on a particular episode. All right. So that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locktime Marries podcast. Before we get out of here, a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube and now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Locked 10 is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local

experts of Locked-on, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked On Locked On Sports Today now available on the free Fire TV channels app. For Colby Pat No, I'm Tad-A-Gazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Merrers. You can follow me at Tadayang Azales and Colby at CPAT-11. You can also find all that stuff. in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day,

and we'll see you next time. Peace.