Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What's Going On With Julio Rodriguez? + More Mariners Questions

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Julio Rodríguez is off to yet another slow start, posting a meager 44 wRC+ through the first 13 games of the season. So what's going on and how can he fix it? Ty and Colby discuss that, as well as Luke Raley's lack of playing time, the wave of high-profile pitcher injuries around MLB, and how the 20-80 scouting scale works.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!RobinhoodRobinhood has the only IRA that gives you a 3% boost on every dollar you contribute when you subscribe to Robinhood Gold. Now through April 30th, Robinhood is even boosting every single dollar you transfer in from other retirement accounts with a 3% match. Available to U.S. customers in good standing. Robinhood Financial LLC (member SIPC), is a registered broker dealer. Amazon Fire TVFire TV recently created Fire TV Channels to deliver a constant supply of the latest videos from your favorite sports brands, all for free. That includes all of us at Locked On and most of the big pro leagues and college conferences as well. To Learn More, visit www.amazon.com/LockedOnFireTV PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedonmlb and use code lockedonmlb for a first deposit match up to $100! 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. FanDuelNew customers, join today and you’ll get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON 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.

What's going on with Julio? Why is Luke Rayleigh not playing? And what can be done to stop all these pitcher injuries? We'll discuss all that and more coming up here on the Locked On Marries 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, April 11th, 2024. This is Tiding Gonzalez and Colby Badnaud for the Locked Oner's podcast. brought to you by eBay Motors. From brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride or die live. With all the parts you need at the prices you want,

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But I want to start here, Colby. Where is Luke Rayleigh? Why is he not playing? As far as I can tell, he ran over Tucker. Because that's really the only thing that seems to make any sense as to why Luke Rayleigh

has 20 plate appearances in 13 games. And he only has that many because Ty France went off paternity leave and he got to start two games. I have no idea what they're doing with Luke Grayley. I don't know what their plan is. I don't know what, you know, are they working on something? Are they trying to tweak something?

Is he dealing with something minor that they're trying to, you know, get him to work through injury-wise? What is he doing? Like, what is his role in this team? And as far as I can tell, the Mariners have not a clue. They don't have a single clue as to how they want to use him, how they think that he can help them. Again, 20 plate appearances. I think the only guy with fewer played appearances is Sebby Zavala, the backup catcher because you have an all-star,

like top three, top four catcher playing every day. Yeah. What? And there are ways that you can get Rayleigh into this. Easy. Very easily. Yeah. I mean, Mitch Garver right now is really struggling.

So why not have Mitch Hanager DH for a day and put Rayleigh out there? Like, you don't have to make this an easy. or situation with Dominic Canzone. You don't have to, but they're making it that way. Right. Well, it's just, you can give Luke Rayleigh three or four starts a week by only taking away one start a week from a handful of different players. That's kind of the beauty of Luke Grayley right now is that I can take one start away

from Mitch Hanigur a week. I could take one start away from Mitch Garber a week. I could take one start away from Dominic Canzone a week. And that right there is three starts in a week. and all those other guys still get five or six depending on how many games you play. So you have to play right field, left field, first base, DH. And those are all guys that you can even fake it in center field if you need them to. Those are all guys that you're going to have to give days off at some point.

And those are guys who, you know, you can pick and choose the matchups that make the most sense for them. So, you know, do you want to bench, you know, Garber even struggling against a leftie? No, probably not. But okay, fine. then how about, you know, Dom Canzone doesn't play that day, and you go with Luke Rayleigh or Mitch Hanager has played in, what, 12 of the 13 games already? That's a lot. You're going to have to start to ease him back a little bit,

and there's Luke Rayleigh right there. So maybe giving, you know, Hanigar a day off against a tough righty isn't a bad idea to try and keep him fresh. Like, you have to give Luke Rayleigh a shot to show whether or not he can help you. because 20 plate appearances in two weeks is not anything. That is nothing. You're actively hurting him and you're hurting yourself by not seeing what this guy can give you. It just doesn't make sense because, again, you don't have to, you know, it's him or Canzone and one of them is going to play five days a week and Canzone's hitting a little bit right now. So it should be him playing five or six times a week.

It's like, yeah, Dominic Canzone can still play five or six times a week. Julio Rodriguez can still play six times a week. Mitch Garber can still play five, six times a week. Anter can still play five, six times a week. You shouldn't, but that's how they're using them right now. And again, Rayleigh and Canzon can coexist in the same outfield together. Yeah. Particularly with a tough writing on the mound.

Like, I just, I don't understand. And again, I'll just throw this out there. There's basically no evidence to suggest that Rayleigh and Canzone should never face left-handed pitching. It just doesn't really exist. Like, they've hit left-handed pitching pretty well in their entire minor league career. and, you know, Canzon had the same WRC plus against lefties last year as he did righties. If people assume he can hit righties, like there's no evidence to suggest that they have to be platooned even. So even with the lefty on the mound, you could probably go to one of these or both of these guys.

So I just, what's the plan? Like, how is this fair to Luke Rayleigh? You know, and this idea that like, well, he's not hitting who are you going to put him, who are you going to put on the bench for him? We just talked about it. You could have him play a different position pretty much every day. and still give the guys who are hitting right now next days a week. And this is especially annoying because you'll get the two Mitches. Those are guys that we know they need to give time off to.

They can't expect them to go out there and play every single day and get through a season. Healthy. That's just not realistic. So there's two starts right there. One a day, one a week for one a week for each of the Mitches. And then once a week for Ty, one for Dom. There's four starts. etc.

Yeah. Yeah, he, yeah, heading into yesterday, Rayleigh and Dillemore had the same amount of played appearances, and I believe

Arias also had the same amount of played appearances, but both of those guys, because they started yesterday, they moved past Rayleigh. So like you mentioned, he has the second fewest, unless you want to include

Samad Taylor. No. He has the second fewest played appearances on the team. Yeah. I just, dude was a 130 WRC, plus hitter last year.

And I know people like to qualify that and be like, well, he was really bad in the second half. He's a 93. It's not good, but that's not awful, right? That's not something that you're, that's not something that's so bad that you're like, well, the first half was clearly a fluke. No, it's not because overall the numbers still say he was a 130 WRC plus guy. He hit 19 home runs. He stole 14 bases.

He played pretty good defense. He had above league average on base. He had above league average batting average, above league average slugging. He was a good player last year. You got to give him, you got to give him an opportunity. You can't, he can't fix what's wrong if he's not getting reps. And you can't tell if what you're trying to do is working unless he plays. Yep.

So I don't understand. I think he has to start at least two games this weekend. Like you have to start putting this guy in the lineup. They're going up against Jordan Wicks and Shoda, though, which just, Going on because again, like you said, we don't have enough evidence to suggest that he just can't hit lefties. But it's pretty clear that the mayors don't think that he can hit lefties with the way that they've deployed him. So I don't know if no evidence suggests he can't hit lefties. Yeah.

So I just going off of that, I kind of doubt that he's going to see more than one start in this in the series. Which would make him, you know, which would give him one start for an entire week. Yeah. If he even gets a start this weekend. That's right. the Mariners are deploying a strategy right now that would have Luke Rayleigh, assuming he doesn't play against the lefties, right,

where he would get four at-bats in a week, if that. Yeah. That's not going to work for anybody. Yeah, you're just putting him at a disadvantage, especially after, you know,

a sluggish spring training where, you know, he needs to be able to get his timing, right? And he's just not going to get an opportunity to do that if he's playing once every five or six days. So they got to put him in the lineup just to see if there's something there. Right. And then if you're not willing to play them, I mean, just frankly, he shouldn't be on your roster.

Right. I mean, yeah, I get it. He doesn't have an option left and you put him on waivers. Very clearly he'll get picked up and so he'll give him an opportunity. 100%. This is why you should play him. Right, which is why you can't. you can't just be like well we don't want somebody else to get them so i guess we'll just sit them and

we'll just play with you know a three-man bench all year like you can't do you have to give this if you give this guy 150 plate appearances and it's just not happening we can have a conversation you can't give him 20 scattered over 12 13 games and be like well he just he's not going to help us and now we just have to kind of sit here and then hope that maybe on the off chance he actually gets a start he has a good game to prove to us and it's just just it's not fair. It's not fair. You sit and you don't do anything for two weeks and you tell me how good and effective you're going to be when the first time you get an opportunity arises. It doesn't make sense. They're not even using him in traditional obvious roles for a true bench bat either. Hey, we could really use a home run here. We got the tie and run on first base. We got the tie and run at the plate.

You know, we could really use a home run here. Let's look on our bench. Oh, we got a power writing on the mouth. who's on the bench. Oh, it's Luke Rayleigh, a guy who can really hit a fastball. Let's put him out there. Let's see if he can, you know, clock one into the bleachers

and let's see if we can tie this game up. Nope, nope. Instead, let's use him as a pinch runner. What are we doing? Yeah. Yeah, I've been very confused

with their usage of Rayleigh. They need to use them. They need to use them. Just simple as that. Because, again, if you're not going to use him, he shouldn't be on your roster, but you also shouldn't just waste Luke Rayleigh like that.

So you need to play him. this team needs to play him. So hopefully he is able to get into the lineup at least once in this upcoming series against the Cubs. But let him hit against the lofty. Why not? Give him a start against Wix. Yeah. He's not an overpowering lefty.

No, like if you don't want to use them against Imanaga, fine, whatever. Sure. That I can understand. Yeah, give him Wicks. Just like, you know, when they started to use Kelnick last year, who was the first lefty he got to start against? He was Austin Gomer. like yeah that's that's a good test yeah you know we'll see what happens but you just you can't you can't have a guy who doesn't get in that bat an entire series unless you're talking about

like a glove only backup catcher yeah like if we if we go a series about seeing sebby's of all a fine whatever if we go a series about seeing luke raley you're messing something up yeah because there are opportunities don't let anybody tell you don't think that there aren't opportunities for the mirrors to get Luke Rayley his plate appearances right now. There absolutely are, and you can do it without taking away a drastic amount of played appearance. And you don't even have to play them the whole game either.

If you don't think you can hit lefties and, oh, no, here comes the lefty out of the bullpen. Guess who's on my bench, Dylan Moore and Mitch Hanager or Mitch Garver or whoever, I have the answer on my bench. If I really don't think you can hit lefties. It just doesn't make any sense. It's dumb. He needs reps. He needs reps.

You need to give them reps. So hopefully that changes here. in the coming days. All right. So let's talk a little bit about Julio, who's been struggling off to another poor start in the month of April, like his previous two seasons. We're going to go over a little bit of what's going on there with Julio.

And then we're going to dive into a couple of questions that we have left over from the mailbag this past Monday in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Airs podcast is brought to you by PolicyGenius and eBay Motors. Choosing the right life insurance policy is a very important and overwhelming decision and you want to be able to feel fully confident making that decision. Now you can with Policy Genius, which is the country's leading online insurance marketplace. The Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that started just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. Some options even offer same-day approval and avoid unnecessary medical exams.

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The Locked On Sports Today 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 Lockdown Sports Today now available on the free Fire TV channels app. So Colby, what's going on with Julio right now? Because I know that he has hit the ball hard over the last couple of games. Well, not yesterday, but certainly on Monday he had quite a few hard hit balls and had some really bad luck. I mean, yesterday we talked about the 116 mile per hour off the bat that went right to Kevin Kiermeyer. But this is the third April in a row that Julio has gotten off to a slow start. And this one might be the worst of the three.

44 WRC plus so far through the first 13 games of the year. He's running a 32.7% K-rate slashing 196, 255, 216. He doesn't have a home run. He's just been hitting a lot of singles when he has been getting hits. So what's going on with Julio right now? Yeah, you know, I think maybe something nobody wants to admit, but it could be the case is maybe Julio's just a slow starter. It wouldn't be the first guy who just traditionally strutely.

struggles in April who all of a sudden figures a way to turn it on. Kyle Sager did a lot. Yeah. So yeah, it's possible that's it. But I think it's interesting, you know, you'll get a lot of people saying, oh, he's sitting way too many ground balls. And it's like, well, his ground ball rate is up this year. Again, very small sample sizes this early in the year. But it's only up 1% over what it was last year.

So that's interesting. His line drive rate is actually up 11% or 10% over what it was last year. So where is that difference coming in? Fly balls. His fly ball rate is half of what it was last year so far. So he's not hitting a lot of fly balls. He's hitting a lot of ground balls. Well, not even hitting a lot of ground balls.

He's sending a lot of line drives. Now, that's not a bad thing per se. But you want fly balls with the exa velo because that's where the damage comes from. And that's really what people are concerned about with Julio. It's not that, oh, you know, he's only hitting a buck 90 or whatever. It's like, okay, if he was, but he had. three home runs, four home runs, we just say he's working through something. So I think, you know, people want to make it a launch angle thing.

And it is a little bit. But last year, Julio's average launch angle against forcing fastballs or just any fastball, sinkers, whatever, six degrees was the average launch angle. This year, it's three. Not that significant. You look at the launch angle on breaking balls. This year, it's 20. Last year, it was 14.

the big difference is the launch angle on off-speed pitches, this is change-ups and splitters, essentially. This year, it's negative 73 is the average launch angle. He's pounding those pitches straight into the ground. Last year, that was at 5. So, you know, right now you look at the whiff rate as well, 42% whiff rate on breaking balls, 44% on those off-speed pitches.

That's the problem. like he's not the fastball isn't really eating him up much it's you know it's less than it was last year but it's not a concern uh as of yet his expected batting average on the fastball right now is only six points below where it was last year and again these are all very small sample sizes so the thing with julio is that he is any kind of change up right now any kind of splitter he's just pounding it straight into the ground launch angle is a little bit different from where it was last year so there might be a slight, you know, course correction needs to make there, but he's actually not hitting significantly more ground balls than he did last year.

So far, he's hitting significantly fewer fly balls than he was last year. And when you have the ability to put up the exit be lows that Julio does consistently, you know, he needs to be hitting the ball in the air, line driver higher for him. And then, you know, but the ground ball rate, like he's always had a pretty high ground ball rate. MLB average for ground ball rate is 44.6%. Julio in his three years in the big leagues, 46.3, 47.6.48.5. Julio's always hit the ball on the ground

a little bit more than the average player. So that's not really a thing. What is also interesting is right now, his poll rate is actually 6% lower than it was last year. His opposite field rate is two, percent lower than it was last year. So where is it hitting the ball more often? Right up the middle, straight up the middle, center field to the gaps. He's at a 45% pull or straight away rate this year. That is well above league average. So he's using the middle of the field right now. He's hitting,

you know, ground balls and line drives to the middle of the field. Guess where it's really hard to do damage, especially early in the season. Going up the middle. Why, it's colder, the ball doesn't travel as far. And part of that is also some timing issues, I think. I don't think that's all a concerted effort to just stay up the middle of the field more. I think that's a little bit about timing. He's a little bit caught in between, you know, the fastball and the off-speed stuff. So he's kind of trying to stay back and let the ball travel as much as he can before he

attack. So it could be a pitch recognition thing. Maybe he just hasn't seen enough pitches yet to kind of dial in. It could be him adjusting to his new batting stance. I'm kind of trying to find the sweet medium there that will produce a best results. And it could just be plain bad luck in the fact that we're 13 games into a season of 162. And he's just in a little bit of a slump right now. Like all those things seem feasible. But the idea that he's hitting way too many ground balls and that's the problem, not actually

accurate. He needs to pull the ball more and he needs to get the ball in the air more. That's really what it is. All right. We are going to answer a couple of questions that we have left over from the mailbag in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. It's playoff time in the NBA and NHL, baseball's in full swing, and Fandul is your place to bet on every game. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed. That's $150, win or lose. Bet on everything from slap shots to home runs to slam dunks, all on an app that is safe, secure, and super easy to use. So what are you waiting for visit fan duel.com

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wants to know with the players union, blaming the increase in pitchers going down with T.J. On the pitch clock, should teams make real changes now to counteract it? So we've seen quite a few prominent Major League pitchers around the league go on the IL or straight up. They've already had Tommy John surgery like Shane Bieber. But it's not just Bieber. It's Spencer Strider, Framber Valdez most recently. Nick Pavetta, Josiah Ray.

Yeah. So what's going on right now? And, you know, as Cap and JP asked, how does Major League Baseball counteract this and how do teams counteract this? Yeah, this is a tricky subject because we're not doctors, right? In fact, most of the people who have an opinion on this are not doctors. And this is what, these are the people whose opinion should really matter because they are the ones who are going to do the studies that determine this is a problem. this is a problem, this is a problem. Do I think the pitch clock has something to do with it?

Sure. Yeah, probably. You're putting unnecessary strain. You're limiting recovery time for a very unnatural motion. We're not built to throw anything overhand, really. So, you know, it's a lot of strain on your elbow. That's not supposed to be there. And you're limiting that time where you have to recover.

And it may not seem like much, but when it's repetitive over and over and over again, those seconds add up. So I do think the pitch clock has something to do with it. I think the hyper fixation from the game on spin rates and just max effort at all times, I think that also plays something into this because this isn't something that players were doing, you know, 15 years ago even there. There wasn't spin rate was just kind of this new thing and it's like, oh, you happen to be good at spinning this instead of trying to teach everybody to have this high spin rate, you know, let's let's just, you know, maybe we'll target it. or whatever. So I do think spin rate

and then obviously the max effort you have to throw max effort to get to the big leagues. Like you can't you can't just throw 91 and be like I got 95 in my back pocket if I need it like you're not going to get to the big leagues like that.

And that's a thing that goes well beyond Major League Baseball. That's a thing that starts years and years before players aspiring players are even thinking about big leagues. We have all these pitching coaches and trainers and it's like yeah.

Because like you said you have to if you want to get to the league as a pitcher right now you have to throw gas and you have to spend the ball yeah so it's just you know that there's this whole kind of hotage industry right of like we're going to make you throw harder and we're going to help you spend the baseball better and it's like cool but obviously that comes with some extra strain on on your shoulder on your elbow uh so i don't know exactly what what the thing is here i i i i i i I don't think that like there's anything the league can do short of eliminating the pitch clock or possibly, you know, adding some time to it.

That's fine. But like ultimately teams have to kind of make the decision like it's more valuable for us that you be good for, you know, 10 years. Then we just max you out and you're out of the league in six years. You know what I mean? Like because for teams like they don't care what happens to you after their club control. They're just trying to extract the best baseball. can't from you wall, they have your rights. And then once you leave, whatever, your damaged goods,

that's not our problem. Right. So it's a little bit about the players have to kind of step up and say, like, no, we're not okay with this. It's about teams kind of having to step up and be like, you know, look, we need to find a way to kind of work around this and kind of, you know, curb this a little bit. But again, I'm not a doctor. So I can't tell you about the, you know, physiological stresses that that would really help, like the rule changes that could actually really help. I do wonder if maybe there is a opportunity for a team to go with a six-man rotation, a true six-man rotation, and give these arms the extra day, since they don't have the time between pitches that they used to have,

to kind of go there. Now, the problem with that is, do you want to take the ball away from your best guys more often? Right. So you can see why teams have been a little hesitant to do it. And there's also roster capacity questions there. Like do you expand the rosters to 27 or 28? Right. Add another pitch arm or two.

I don't know. I don't know what the answer is, but I do think that you're kind of looking at this, you know, this grouping that all kind of hit at the same time. This absolute reliance on max effort and max spin and this, you know, we're going to also, we're going to have a pitch clock. and we had we had pace of play rules before we just didn't enforce them so now we're going to add this clock and oh by the way when guys get on base you actually have less time you know or it's just the whole thing is just it feels like you've created this perfect storm and part of it again is on the league sure but it's also on the teams and it's on the players the individual players who are sacrificing their health to get to the big leagues and who could play them like it's just it's

tough. It's a tough situation. And I think, you know, there's very little that, you know, the league can do short of, you know, removing the pitch clock thing. And I don't think, I think if they got rid of the pitch clock tomorrow, I don't think that we would see a significant decrease in these arm injuries. I think it's more about the spin and the max effort. But again, maybe I'm wrong. I'd have to see some studies on it. The other thing, too, I heard Tyler Blastonel talking about this when they removed, you know, the substances, right? and how, because now you can just basically use rosin and sweat, and that's really it. Like, he's having to squeeze the hell out of the ball for his grip. And he, when he... His baseballs are slick. Because he, when he got injured, like his most recent injury came right after they banned the substances.

And he said that, it felt different. Like, it affected his entire arm the way that he was having to grip the ball. So I wonder if that's also a big, probably with us. If you have some kind of substance on the ball, you get more spin easier. Like you're not producing as much, you're not having to produce as much spin yourself. The substance is helping with that. So maybe there's a substance that we can come to some sort of understanding or agreement on that can be added to the baseball.

Because I don't know if you guys have ever held a major league baseball before. It's slick. Yeah. It is a slick ball. So, yeah, that that might be something that they look at. a way that they could retack the baseball. Yeah, because like, you know, they do that in the NFL.

Probably could. They probably looked into it. It might even be something that they're doing it like in the independent league where they sometimes run some of these tests. Yeah. But I don't know. I'm not 100% sure on that. But yeah, you got to start looking for something. Yeah.

Because, you know, as much as we love nasty curveballs and 99 up and in, I think we'd rather see Spencer Strider pitch every five days. Yeah. and see a few less 99s in Wicked Sliders as a result. Patrick wants to know. Any clue how prospect grades work is the overall score some kind of average or weighted average of the individual skill grades? How can two prospects have the same skill grades but different overall grades?

Makes no sense. Love the show and keep up the good work. So we're talking about the 2080 scouting scale here, Colby. So how does that work? How does the overall grade, you know, when we say that someone is a 55 prospect, how does that work, especially in accordance when we're talking about the five tools, right? And we're grading those individually as well. Sure.

So quick rundown here of the five tools and also the scouting scale in general. Five tools are hit tool, power, arm, speed, and field, right? All pretty self-explanatory. The scale is a sliding scale, 20 being the worst, 80 being the best. 20 grade is awful. It is not major league quality. To give you an example, 20 grade would be Daniel Vogelback's speed. That's 20 grade. 80 grade is Billy Hamilton. It's Bobby Wood Jr., right? It's those absolute burners. And then obviously everything in between. There are like half grades. You'll see 55s. You'll see 45s. You can get really specific with it, and teams do do this. They'll give you like a 50,

3.8 or whatever. What you need to know is that 50 is average. That is major league quality, just average, right? Not bad at all. It'll play in the big leagues is basically what 50 is. 60 is where you start to get to plus territory. 70 is double plus 80 is elite. 80 is, you know, Aaron Judge Power.

That's 80 grade. So when you kind of try to combine them and give an overall grade to a player, It's a little bit beauty in the eye of the beholder, and different positions have different values on them. So, like, for example, 80 grade defense at first base is less valuable than 60 grade defense at second base or at third base or in the outfield. Right. So it's a little bit of position base, too. If you have 60 grade power as a shortstop, that is more valuable than having 60 grade power as a first baseman or a right fielder because you're looking for things that are. unique things that give you an advantage over the average player at that position.

So if the average first baseman hits 25 home runs and you have 25 home run power, you know, overall, that's probably 55 grade power. But in your profile, that's about 50, 50 to 55 at most. And it's less valuable than if you have a catcher who can hit 25 home runs because that's more rare. So if you have, so if you have a catcher, in a first baseman, right? Let's just say. They both have 30 grade speed. They both have, you know, they both have 50 hit, 50 power. And they have, you know, arm doesn't really matter,

but let's say 55 arm. They're just the same across the board. The catcher is the better prospect because he plays a more valuable position. And the difference between him and like league replacement level is going to be vast because the number of catchers who are 50s across the board minus speed is like there's like five of them six of them at most right whereas first baseman who are just average hitters like can't run but they're okay defensively they're dime a dozen they are easier to find so a lot of the time you just look at the position if you play up the middle catcher shortstop second base center field then your hit tools carry a lot more weight and if you have a lower hit tool than a third baseman, for example,

then you could still be just as valuable as that guy because your center field defense is more valuable than his third base defense. So even though he hits a little bit better than you, you're making up for it with more impactful defense and base running. So it's not really an aggregate thing, at least this is my understanding of it. Maybe some teams actually do do this and they have like an aggregate system. But to me, the overall grade is just kind of trying to think.

tell you what type of player this guy's going to be. So it's, hey, this guy's a 50. He's an average major league. He is, you know, might be a starter. Could be a bench guy, but he is a guy who you, if you get 450 played appearances to, you're going to be fine. Like, he's fine. If you're 60, you're starting to talk about all stars, like five, six one players,

70s and 80s. Those are MVP candidates. So the overall grade to me is just about, this is about what we, expect the player to be. If you're a 40 to 50, you're a bench guy. If you're 50 to 60, you're either a really strong platoon guy or you're an everyday player. If you're 60 to 70, you're an all-star. You're 70 to 80. You're an MVP candidate. And sometimes like tools, like the individual tools don't seem like they would add up to a 70 grade here. Like, for example, right, Yordon Alvarez, he is a 40 great. He's a 40 glove, 40 run, but he's an 80 hit.

or a 70 hit and 70 power, and he's an MVP candidate. He's a 70 player. So typically speaking, teams are going to put more value on the bat than they will on anything else. The bat and the power are the two that carry the most away. But again, if you play up the middle, if you play a really good defensive position, then you can take less off the bat

or you can take more off the bat and still be a higher grade because the defense you're providing is so valuable based on the position you play. So if you guys want us to talk more about like terminology and break down some some terms here on the show, let us know. Like let us know in the comments if you want us to kind of just like go through stuff like WRC Plus and whatnot, stuff that we talk about a lot on this show. All right, that is going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, once again, 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-on Sports Today 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 Sports Today now available on the free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marriors podcast for Colby Pat Note. I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O- underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat-11. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen, have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.