Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What If... the Mariners Don't Acquire a Star?

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

Locked On Mariners hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode ponder the question: what if the Mariners don't sign or trade for a star player this offseason? How do they respond? What would the fan reaction be? All that and more on What If Wednesday.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariner's News and Analysis, brought to you by Spotify Green Room. Download the Spotify Green Room app and find one of our locked-on rooms. Thank you so much for making Locked-on Mariners your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms, and today is Wednesday. October 27th, 2021. I am your host, Taddy Gonzalez, joined as always by my co-host,

Colby Patnode. Follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-U-N-Rerner. You can follow me at Dane-G-N-Z-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon, where we talk about the Mariners even more, and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. New episode dropping for all of our patrons later today.

We'll be hammering out the biggest details of our annual Mariners off-season plan on there. So if you want to hear that, visit patreon.com. forward slash control the zone for more information. It is what if Wednesday here on lockdown mariners. Today, we'll ponder the question. What if the mariners don't sign or trade for a star player this off season? And what if they don't spend big this off season?

Can they still build a roster competitive enough to compete for the postseason and more? How would they go about that? What would the fan reaction be like? All that and more in just a moment. If you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe, wherever you're listening to this, we'd greatly appreciate it. So Colby, let me just ask you this real quick. Do the Mariners have to sign or trade for a star player this off season?

Have to know. Should they strongly consider it? Yeah. Like, if I got to choose, you know, would you want the Mariners to sign or trade for a star player? My answer is yes. But do they have to? They don't need to sign a star player. Right.

Right. It's not crucial. Like they can have a good offseason without getting the star player. And obviously your definition of star might be different than mine. But sure. I feel like, no, they don't need to do that. But it sure would help in a lot of ways. But do they absolutely have to come away with a star this winter?

No, they don't. And by definition, what I mean by Star is, well, there's a lot of discussion right now about Max Scherzer, about Marcus Simeon, Trevor Story, Carlos Correa, Corey Seeger, trading for Jose Ramirez or a Byron Bucson, etc. These expectations that Mariners fans have said that the Mariners are going to be in on these guys. And by the way, Jerry DePoto himself has said that they're going to be in on some of the biggest infield free agents in this. year's class. So there's this expectation here that the Mariners are going to come away with one of these guys, if not two of these guys. And, you know, there's the high likelihood that they come away with none. So I think this does need to be addressed here. And I think that, you know, the Mariners, of course, also have to have a backup plan in case that they don't come away with any of these guys

because life moves on. You got to adapt. So for you, you know, where does this roster go if, say, they do lose out on Simian and they don't want to give Corey Seeger 10 years and they don't want to give Carlos Correa eight years and they you know they they're not able to convince Cleveland to part with Jose Ramirez and they can't really figure out a deal for Byron Buxton and they're not able to go get a ace or whatever you know where does this roster go how can you build this roster out to compete for you know postseason birth and more and capital on the way that you ended your 2021 campaign and trying to get back to 90 wins or even more than that. Yeah, you know, if you're not going to have the superstar edition, which again, they don't necessarily have to have. But what it does force them to do is it forces them to be very aware of any potential landmines they have on their roster. So, you know, if you sign, for example, Marcus Simeon, then you may be able to roll with Abraham Toro at third base and just kind of see how that goes. But if you don't land a star or, you know, then it's, well, do we want to give Abraham Toro that shot? Because we still want to win.

And did Toro do enough for us to just say, yeah, he's the third baseman with an inferior second baseman. Right, exactly. So probably not. So now you have to go, okay, well, look, we have Simeon. Simeon basically produces like a third baseman offensively. So now we can go ahead and we can give Toro a shot. And if he's not the guy, we'll go get somebody. Well, you can't really do that without the star.

So you have to make it, you have to make, you know, in this example, you have to go get a better second basement to replace Toro. And you have to go get a better third baseman to replace Toro. Whereas if you get the star, maybe you can give Toro a shot at one of those. two spots because the other guy is good enough to pick up any slack that might form from a struggling Abraham Torah. So that's really what it is. It's, you know, we didn't sign the star. This guy doesn't, you know, this guy doesn't raise the, the floor of everybody else. Like, he's not going to carry us if, if so and so gets hurt or doesn't produce. So going off

of your example, then you, you would probably have to go out and get, yourself, Eduardo Escobar and Jonathan VR, for example. Right. Josh Harrison and, you know, trade for J.D. Davis or something like that. Like, you have to, you have to basically, you know, instead of getting the one guy, you have to get two and both of them have to be better than Abraham Toro. That could save you money and that could work out. but it's probably easier and, you know, better to just go get the

simian. Easier is probably not the right word, but it's simpler to go get somebody like Simeon or Chris Bryant or, you know, Trevor Story or Carlos Correa. It's simpler to do that. So, yeah, it's just,

it's one of those things where it's like, look, do we want Simeon and Toro? Or do we want Escobar and I don't know, Chris Taylor or whatever it is. You know what I mean?

So it's, it's, it's, you're, you're kind of trying to walk that fine line. If you, if you can't get the superstar, then you need to be average or above average everywhere else.

And that's, that's a tough needle to thread. It really is. Yeah. A team full of average players, just average major leagues, you know, major league starters.

If everybody on your roster has two is worth two wins, which they're not going to be. But if they were, you're a 90, 2-93 win team. Just from being average. But do you know how hard it is to be average at every single position, all 26 spots?

Impossible. Yeah. So without the star, not every team is going to be the Giants, right? Right. That's an incredibly hard model to replicate. The Giants can't even replicate it. Right.

They run back the same exact roster they did this year. Next year, they're probably winning like 85 games max. so yeah it's it's it's it's just it's not something that you can just snap your fingers and oh we're just going to do that or we're going to be Oakland and even Oakland who does this sometimes they still have to rebuild every five years or so they have to take a step back for three straight years before they're back to you know competing and winning 90 games every year so yeah this is it's a very difficult model to just try and be average everywhere um and even Oakland has stars so or at least one.

So, yeah, it's very tough, but you can do it. You can do it. But you can't just accept that you have a hole in left field and just roll with it if you don't go get a star. And of course, you know, that certainly would open up more payroll for you to try and be, you know, average or better at other positions, you know, instead of investing $30 million a year into Marcus Simeon, you can invest $30 million into,

like three solid players, you know, three, 10, 10 players that are going to help you. Right. Well, I just think about it this way. Where are the Mariners average or better at right now? First base. First base, shortstop. Right field slash VH, I guess, with Hanager.

Yeah. You're below average in center. You're below average and left. You don't have a third base. I guess Toro is your third baseman. You're below average there or Toro's your second baseman. You're below average there. catcher you're below average, starting pitching

you're below average. I guess bullpen you're above average, but yeah. Bullpen are, I mean, if we're just going off of 2021 numbers, then bullpen you're a top of unit. Yeah,

but it's not even worth really counting the bullpen because you bring back the exact same crew and it's going to be trash next year, you know, so. Yeah. Like, we're just talked about like six spots

and that's not even counting bench spots where you're below, you have a below average bench. So you're talking about nine, nine spots where you need to get average get to average or better yeah can you do that in one off season

and I mean even good teams are not built like that even even the two teams that are in the world series right now have you know not great players on their bench I mean the Astros have Jose Siri and Marwin Gonzalez on their roster right now right and they can do that because they have

Bregman Correa yeah you know Altuve and then they have the role players. So yeah, it's just one of those things where it's really tough to win without a star, but you can do it. Yeah. It's a, it's a very tough needle to thread. We're going to talk about the fan reaction because I think that's going to be a huge part of it if this doesn't go so well because the expectations are so exponentially high after the way that the season.

ended and some of the things that Jerry Depoto and John Stan has said in the media over the last few weeks. So we're going to talk about that in just a moment, but real quick, I want to remind you this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Spotify Green Room. Green Room is the first social audio platform made for sports fans. The app is free to download. And once you're in, you can talk with us, other fans, athletes, and insiders and real time about your favorite team or sport. Colby and I will be hosting a room once per week. So you, can finally join in on the conversation you listen to here every day on Locked-on Mariners. Green Room is the perfect place to start or join conversations about Major League Baseball as a whole

and so much more as well. You'll find fans just like you on Green Room for watch parties, debates, post-game breakdowns, and of course reacting to big news or rumors. So go download the free Green Room app now. Currently available on all iOS devices. Be sure to create a profile, link your Twitter, and join the MLB group for the latest. League updates. Follow me at Dane Gonzalez. That's D-A-N-E G-N-Z and Colby at Colby Pat-Node to be notified when our

room goes live. I know you won't want to miss it. We can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts on the Mariners, so we'll see you there. Green Room changing the way we talk sports. You're listening to Lockdown Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. Every day we are free and available

on all platforms. Tell everyone you know who's a Mariner fan or even if they're not a Mariner fan. to listen to the show. It's going to be a great time this off season. We're looking forward to all the speculation, all the potential trades and signings that we'll get to talk about. It should be just a really, really, really fun time.

But there's also the possibility that it could not be, more or less. You know, this past off season in 2020, Jerry Depoto, of course, said that they were going to be able to spend. And then they didn't really spend. and it basically came out that he had the rug pulled out from under him by John Stanton that Stanton said, you know, let's wait here, you know, citing the pandemic as a reason not to spend like a lot of owners had and, you know, said, well, let's wait and see how the 2021 season goes. And then at that point, we'll decide if we're ready to invest in 2022.

Well, the Mariners clearly made their statement that, you know, they win 90 games. they're ready to take that next step. But there's always the possibility because MLB owners are greedy and terrible at pretty much everything. It's not out of the realm of possibility that John Stanton could go back on his word again. It's not likely,

especially with the things that both he and Jerry DePoto have said in the media as of late. But if this were to occur, the fan reaction would be something else, just to put it lightly. Fans were pretty upset and pretty much every time the Mariners lost

during the season, there was some sort of retrospect of the offseason that we, you know, Mariner's Twitter would enter in talking about how they could have signed Colton Wong and they could have done this and they could have done that had the team spent. And if that happens again this year, that's going to get cranked up to a billion

and it's just going to be a massacre out there really when it comes to talking about this ownership group, when it comes to talking about this front office, when it comes to talking about this organization in general, and not being able to capitalize on this moment. So, Colby, you know, what does it take for the Mariners to, you know, if they aren't able to get a star player like we talked about in the last segment, you know, what do the Mariners have to do here to appease their fan base? Is there anything they can do to appease their fan base if they don't get a star player? I mean, maybe.

I mean, you know, Mariner fans are suckers for returning players. So, I mean, like, if they go sign Nelson Cruz, I guess, maybe. But I think ultimately what it's going to come down to is that I think there's still going to be enough momentum that if they go out and they do, some things that are exciting, at least. Maybe it's, you know, they go get the bet that's coming over from Japan, whose name I can't remember, Suzuki, I think is. Say it's Suzuki. Yeah.

Maybe they go get him, and that's an exciting player because, you know, he's, he's mysterious because most people don't, don't follow that league, and they don't know much about him. So maybe they go do that, or maybe they go sign, you know, Marcus Stroman, or they go sign, like, or they go trade for a big name who's well past his prime, but, you know, is still an exciting name like Andrew McCutcheon or, I mean, they might be able to do stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, they might be able to do stuff like that and keep excitement levels. Because I think that with the momentum they had at the end of last year, they can ride that with even just an average-ish off-season.

But if you want to crank up the volume on your announcement, right, you need to start. and you need to push this this narrative that you're cheap and you won't spend you need to push it out the window and this is a really great offseason to do that so can they keep the fan interest without signing a star i think so if they have a good off season and they bring in some notable names who aren't stars but you know most fans know of i think so because i think the momentum was so strong at the end that it can carry them for a little while but they do that and then they if they don't sign the star and then they struggle in april and they get, you know, midway through May and they're five games under 500, I think that momentum could die out really fast, whereas if they go get the star, I think people would stay a little bit longer. Now, ultimately, as long as they win, people will show up to the ballpark. Like, people will be excited about the team because last year was so exciting, and now it looks like they've taken a step forward and the playoffs are the expectation now

and not just, you know, well, maybe we'll see. Now people are going to be watching earlier and, and understanding how close they came. So I think what buying the start does is it buys them some struggle early. Like if they get off to a slow start and they have the star, I think people will still be like, okay, it's just a slow start will be okay. If they get off to a slow start and they don't go get the star, then the Mariners echo chamber will be unleashed and then people will be calling for depoto's job and they'll be calling

stand cheap and they'll refuse to go to the ballpark to support a cheap organization and all that stuff. So yeah, it's ultimately if they win, it doesn't really matter. But if they don't, and they don't get the star, it's going to be rough, particularly probably for Jerry. So we know that they have to spend around $30 million to just get back to where their payroll was at the end of the 2021 season. Jerry DePoto has said that they're going to add on top of that. But if that ends up being only like $10 to $15 million more, what do you think the reaction is then?

What do you think that means for this ownership group and how they're going to handle the future of the Seattle Marriers? What does that say to you? It says to me that, well, Stanton will say that he's a baseball guy and he cares about winning. and he probably does. I'm not going to say he doesn't. But what it says to me is that it's not the most important thing for him.

It's still winning his second and making money is still the primary reason that he owns a baseball team. Right. He said, like, I want to win a World Series. I want to bring a World Series to Seattle. I've been a longtime fan of this team, et cetera. I've been through the dark years and all this stuff. But what we saw in 2020, and if that continues into 2021, after, you know, we, after Ryan Divish said that ownership had basically told Jerry to Potto that depending on, you know, what happens in 2021, we're going to invest in this team.

And look, they went on and went and won 90 games. You cannot ignore that. You have to add to that team, especially because that team is not going to be able to replicate that. That team is going to regress. if you put together that same roster into the season, that team is going to regress. They're not going to win 90 games. So how do you go from there? That's the important thing.

And the way that they need to go from there is by investing money, but also investing prospects. You know, they still, they can't just ignore the trade market because that's how most teams get better, like truly, truly get better. And they have a great farm system to trade from. And they'll still have a great farm system after they trade from it. but they have to spend money here and they have to spend more than just $10 to $15 million more than what they spent in 2021. They just have to. You know,

and we've talked about, you know, don't worry about what the money ends up looking like. And that's true. But there's only so much you can do within that, you know, short of a, or that small of,

you know, working room. And, uh, you need more. You need to add, you know, you,

we've kind of, for our own personal offseason plan, I've kind of set a cap at $130 million. I would hope that the Mariners are pushing that by the end of this off season. Like so, ultimately, if they go trade for Jose Ramirez and they trade for, you know, Tyler Malley, who's not making any money and they, they...

That's true, too. If they just go get a bunch of pre-arb guys or guys who are on great contracts, like they signed bat Ozzie Albies, like they're just ridiculously low contracts, then fine, then you don't care. But when, like, it's not, it's not about the number. It's about how aggressive they are with whatever number they have.

And so, yeah, if they spend $130 million, but it's all, you know, one and a half when guys, which I mean, that's, I don't even think you can do that. But if they did, you know, it's all Will Myers, like type of guys, then that's not better than spending $100 million and going out and getting Jose Ramirez and Tyler Malley and. in, you know, Brian Reynolds. Not that that's going to happen either, but you get the idea. Yeah, but you have to spend some money here and you cannot be scared to spend money.

Yep. At this given point in time in your organization's history, it's just you cannot be scared to pull that trigger. And, you know, again, like you said, dollar figure ultimately doesn't matter, but you need to see more than 10 to 15 million dollars being added on top of. where you finish last year. You just, because you're just, you're not going to get enough done within that range.

So that's just not very realistic. Even if you trade for Tyler Malley and Jose Ramirez and all that. And plus, you're not, that's not possible because they're not going to trade their, they're not going to deplete their whole farm system to build the 2020 team.

They're not. Right. They've said time and time again that they're going to be more aggressive and free agency. They're, they're going to look to spend money. It's just actually capitalizing on that. and being aggressive, you know, if it comes down to, hey, we got to pay Marcus Simeon $3 million, $4 million more per year to get him to sign away from Toronto.

You should probably do that, especially with where your payroll's at. Agreed. You know, so you got to be aggressive with your money here. You can't just be, you know, you can't just say, hey, I'm willing to match this team's offer for this guy. No, you got to be willing to out, outpay them, especially because you don't have. have really any, any major financial commitments on your books right now. Now that Kyle Seeger's gone, you really, you don't have any sort of massive long-term financial commitments. So you need to be aggressive here. You need to be aggressive and you need to take some risk and you need to take some

risk with the money that you spend because you can afford it right now. And John Stanton can certainly afford that. So it's the ball's in his court to make that move. Hopefully they do so because that would go a long way to helping this team get to where it wants to go. So we're going to talk more about this in just a moment, but real quick, want to remind you this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Bill Barr. Don't you just hate it when you're out and about hunger strikes, but the only convenient options are unhealthy and going to make you feel worse in the end? That doesn't have to be the case anymore if you choose Billt Bar.

Built Bar is providing folks with a healthy, nutritious, and delicious alternative for snacking. Built bar has a plethora of delicious flavors ranging from coconut to cookies and cream, mint brownie, and so much more. Overwhelmed by the amount of good options, then try one of their mixed boxes, which gives you two bars per nine flavors. Each bar includes 17 to 18 grams of protein with calories ranging from the low, low numbers of 130 to 180. They only have 4 to 5 grams of sugar, 4 to 5 grams of net carbs, and all the flavors are amazing, tasty, and most importantly, healthy. So go to built.com and use promo code locked 15 and you'll get 15% off your order. It's LOC, KED, 15% off your order at built.com. We're back in Better Than Ever, a new web interface for the start of the basketball season

and more props, odds, and lines than ever before. Bet Online remains your number one spot for all the basketball and football action this season. Head to our new updated desktop or mobile website to sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use our promo code locked on to receive your bonus. From basketball, football, baseball, postseason, NHL, boxing,

and UFC right to your favorite Vegas casino games. Don't wait to take advantage of all the amazing offers available for the 2021 season. Bet Online is the fastest and easiest way to bet on all your favorite sports. Bet online where the game starts.

So assuming that the Mariners spend money but they don't get that semi- type of player. They don't get a Correa. They don't get a Seeger. They don't get a Scherzer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Can this team still legitimately make the playoffs and challenge the Astros for a division, Colby? They could. It's just so much harder. How?

They do it by having tremendous depth by guessing right on a few breakout candidates. including internal options like Jared Kelnick and Logan Gilbert. Maybe they find this year's Kevin Gossman or this year's Robbie Ray in free agency that way. And that's how they do it. And if that sounds like it's really hard to do, it's because it is. It's extremely difficult to do all that. So yeah, that's how you do it. I mean, you kind of get lucky like the Giants did and you catch lightning in a bottle.

You take shots on guys with tremendous upside who have never really realized it like the Ray or like the Blue Jays did with Robbie Ray. And you take those chances and then sometimes they work out and that's great. But most of the time they don't. And that's how you end up, you know, that's how you end up not living up to expectation. So yeah, you can do it without the star. And it's definitely possible. But you have to be right. on a lot of players that you can't feel super confident in that you're going to be right,

if that makes sense. Yeah, there's just, it would be nice to have that security of a star player, to have the security that a Marcus Simeon can bring because, I mean, or Jose Ramirez, et cetera, because you're adding, you feel pretty good that you're adding four and a half to seven F4 at that point with just one player. and that can go a long, long, long, long way for you. You know, but at that point, if you're, if you're not, you know, it's like you said, you're kind of hoping for some of your young guys to pop.

You're hoping for Jericho Keltnik to pop. You're hoping that Logan Gilbert continues what he was able to do and hopefully finds, you know, some better secondary offerings and not just, you know, rely on his fastball, et cetera. You know, you're at that point, maybe banking a little bit on Julio Rodriguez to pop, which is not super ideal, as we learned with Jerry Kellnick this past year. You know, and then you're, you know, like you said, you're hopefully, you know, you're probably looking at who's your Carlos Rodon, who's your Robbie Ray this year. And, you know, who's your Kevin Gossman.

And you're probably banking on Michael Conforto becoming a three-win player again or two and a half one player again or whatever. You're looking at that, right? which you can be a good team with those players. And this is a very likely outcome, by the way. This is pretty much the reason why we're talking about this is because, yeah, it's more likely than not. The Mariners are not going to get one of these star players. They're going to be in their market,

but they have a lot of competition. And, you know, they're still in a place here where, you know, we talked about the security that they have at the positions right now at first base, shortstop, etc. It's only four to five spots, really. And players are going to look at that. Agents are going to look at that. And they're going to be excited about what the Mariners are building,

but there's going to be some convincing that it's going to take to get them to sign in Seattle. And some guys are just flat out not going to want to sign in Seattle. And it really has nothing to do with the organization. It just might be that they don't want to live in the Pacific Northwest. You know, some guys are just not going to prefer that. And that's the reality that a lot of fans have to face here. But yeah, I think it's certainly possible that that, that, that, you know, they can adapt here.

And of course, you know, you can go out and get your star player via trade and they have no say in it. So that's probably what you're doing if you're losing out on a simeon, if you're losing out on Correa, if you're losing out on Seeger, etc. Probably turn into the trade market and trying to get your Jose Ramirez or your Byron Buxden or one of those guys. at that point, you know, they have to come to Seattle. Right. But you're going to have to trade prospects. You're going to have to trade very good players and very good assets for that. And that's going to sting quite a lot as well.

And there's also the, you know, the balance here where you could go out and get a star via trade and you can get a star via, you know, free agency as well. And you can make that work with assets that you have, both financial and prospect-wise. but yeah it's just to answer the the question you can certainly make it work you can certainly build a team here without getting that star player that can go and compete for a wildcard spot and maybe even a division depending on what happens with the Astros coming out of this offseason

but you would look a lot nicer your chances would look a lot nicer heading into opening day with a Marcus Simeon in tow or a Jose Ramirez or someone like that plus more because you can't just another thing here is you can't just get the star player and then call it up yep so you know there's a

there's still a balance here where you still got to do all these other things around the edges along with the star player so there's that's not that should not be viewed as just the endgame here. Right. And that's why we've largely pooh-pooed the idea of just, you know, oh, just give Max Scherz or whatever he wants.

Like give him $50 million. What do I care? It's not my money. It's not, but, you know, we have to live in a world. That's all good in theory. But even if the Mariners do spend, there's going to be a certain limit that they have to work with them. And it's not going to be $200 million.

They're not going to get back to $170 million, $160 million in payroll. and total payroll in one year and one off season and this is not going to happen. Would it be fun? Absolutely. But it's just not going to happen.

That's just not the reality of it. And so, and the mayor is going to have a great off season that is, you know, not worthy of criticism or anything without spending all that money as well. But they have to spend some of it

and they can still make it work even if they don't get that star player. That's not indicative of a failure of an offseason for them if they don't get that star player. But it's how they adapt. It depends on how they adapt. It depends on what the rest of the offseason looks like and how they respond to that. Right. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting.

And I'm sure that they have plans A through Z to go through, you know, because you have to. You have to have that foresight as a GM as a as a as a major league baseball front office. And there's there's many avenues that they can take. And the good news is, you know, they're well off on both fronts. They're well off in the prospect department and they're well off in the financial department. So if one avenue doesn't work out, they can go to the other one to try and figure things out. And they're going to be better than most teams on that front. again, it's going to take some convincing in terms of free agency discussions and all that,

but they have a clear path to making this team quite good. And hopefully they take advantage of that. So it's going to be an interesting off season. But if you're a fan that's banking on them, signing one of these big names, and you think that if they don't, it's just that's the end of the world, it's not, but they're going to have quite a bit of work to do. and that's really the moral of this whole thing. So that's going to do it for our show today,

unless you have anything to add, Colby. Nope. I think that's pretty good. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners for Colby Pat Node. I'm Tadine Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners.

You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making Lockdown Mariners your first listen of the day every day. Be sure to join us for tomorrow's show. I'm going to be putting Colby's knowledge to the test once again. And we're also going to talk Shetlong's departure. In the meantime, make your second listen of the day. Lockdown MLB prospects. Hosts Aram Lighten is a prospect encyclopedia and he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. And just like us,

his show is free and available on all platforms. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow.