Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - When Will the Mariners Call Up Cole Young?

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

It's Mailbag Monday! Ty and Colby answer your Mariners questions, including what's keeping Cole Young from getting called up to the majors.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Wonderful PistachiosGet snackin' and get crackin' with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more! Supply HouseJoin the TradeMaster program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code S-H-5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com! Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. 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- Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When will Cole Young get the call? We'll answer that and more coming up here on Mailbag Monday. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors. It is Monday, May 26, 2025.

This is Tanya Gazzalus and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Marys Podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. As always, if you want to hear from me and Colby, even more and help support the show, you can check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out is click the link in the description of this episode. Let's open up the mailbag like we do here every Monday and answer some of your Marys questions, starting with 509 a hawk fan who wants to know that next week, and I assume they mean this week,

win for Cole Young. This is something that we've talked a lot about on our Patreon show. A lot of factors that come into play here with potentially calling up Cole Young, right? Yeah, I think kind of the popular theory right now is that the Mariners are trying to avoid Super 2 status with Cole Young. And if they don't call them up for another, I don't know what it is right now. I think it's another 10-ish days, two weeks, give or take. Then there's basically no shot that he will come up to Super 2 status and the Mariners can save a little bit of money down the line. So I think that's the popular theory right now.

Now, we'll be real quick before we move forward. what is Super 2 status for those that might not know? Yeah, Super 2 status is for players who are between two and three years of service time. There is a threshold of days where service time works in days, not years, and there's about 181 days in a major league season. And every day you're on the big league roster, you get a day of service time, blah, blah, blah. And typically, you know, a player who gets called up midseason, they end up with, you know, 132 days, give or take.

And that's usually about the cutoff line for a Super 2. But a Super 2 status is basically they take the top right now. It's 22% of the players who are between two and three years of service time. And they get an extra year of arbitration. They get to start the arbitration process early. They've essentially played three years is really what it is. And so it's a nice little thing that the players union negotiated a long time ago to get more guys paid. early.

And so the Super 2 status is paying a guy. It makes teams pay four years of arbitration instead of three years, which obviously means you don't get the extra league minimum year. And also it means your third and fourth shot at arbitration are going to cost more than they normally would. So if you can avoid that, then the player stays cheaper for longer and you get them for essentially six and a half years and blah, blah, blah. It's a little bit like service time manipulation. But I think the interesting note here is that the Mariners have never cared about Super 2 before. They didn't with Logan Gilbert.

They didn't with Kirby, Wu, Miller, Cow. Obviously, they didn't with Julio. They didn't try service time, Julio at all. So this is not something the Marlins have done in the past. It doesn't mean they're not doing it now. And it doesn't mean that they won't do it in the future. It's just based on the evidence we have, the Mariners have never cared about Super 2 status. So do they now?

maybe. I mean, I can't say they're not, but I also, we'd also don't have any evidence to suggest that they suddenly do. So that's the popular theory is that it's a super two thing. I don't know if that's the case or not. Again, it would be unusual for the Mariners to factor that in, but not impossible. So the other, I guess, baseball related reason is that the Mariners have talked about this year wanting to get, guys, their debuts on the road in a more favorable hitting environment. You remember Ben Williamson was called up on a Sunday at the last game of a homestand, and he didn't make his debut until the next day in Cincinnati. And that was intentional.

They wanted to do that. Whereas Mariners pitchers, like Logan Evans, they move things around to get him his debut at Team Mobile Park. So there is, that is in play, I think possibly. Could they not do that with Cole? because he's just a different kind of hitter or because, you know, it's, it's late May now and the weather's good and, you know, the ballpark play a little more neutral. Sure, but the Marriers have already stated publicly that like, yeah, you know, we want to get guys, we want to build some confidence as they come into the big leagues and obviously hitting in Team Mobile Park is difficult. So that could be

something in play. Yeah, I think Shannon Dreyer has talked about that. And if the Mariners stay true to that, the well, then it means, you know, it's at least another 10, 11 days before they consider Cole Young. So those are a couple of things that could be at play here. Also, you know, it could be Cole Young is 21 years old at AAA. And he's been really good for about three weeks. And the previous three weeks, he was not very good. Like he, I mean, now to be fair on that, like the process was really good. Just the numbers weren't following suit. Now the numbers are following suit with the process. Right. We dove into all the, the underlying numbers, how hard he was hitting the ball all that.

But yeah, as far as like this month goes, statistically, he's been insane, right? 179 WRC plus 345, 436, 667. He's also hitting the ball over the wall. He has five home runs this month, which is not typical for Cole Young. No. He's, it looks like he's made a little bit of a change there too, to get more loft on the baseball. But yeah, I mean, obviously he's been great.

And I think he's only struck out like six times. in his last 20 games. He has only struck out seven times in the month of May. Yeah. Yeah. So like, and again, it's not like he was striking out a ton to begin with. But yeah, I just, I think maybe this might just be like, you know, let's keep him hot. Let's keep him rolling.

And we'll see how he looks in a couple weeks. And at that point, we might be willing to take a shot. So yeah, it could be they're trying to avoid Super 2 status. Seems unlikely, but I can't rule it out. It could be that they just don't want, you know, him to. to make his debut at home like they didn't with Williamson. I don't know. That's kind of a new thing this year.

I don't know if that's a hard set rule or if that's just because it was Ben Williamson or because it was April, not late May. I don't know. I don't know. Or it could just be like the Mariners. Let's just keep them rolling right now and see if this continues over the next couple weeks and if it does and then we take a shot. Like we're not losing a ton, I don't think.

And you're kind of surviving right now with what you have in the infield. let's not push it. But yeah, I don't know when it's going to happen. But there are quite a few factors that are going into this. And it could happen tomorrow. It could happen in two weeks. I really don't know when it's going to happen. So I don't have a great answer for that question.

Yeah, I'd like to see it happen soon. It does seem like we're getting really close. But yeah, maybe they wait until they head back out on the road after this homestand. It's going to be a little bit of a longer homestand. too, so you're probably going to have to wait about what, a week and a half, so they're back on the road? Yeah, it's two off days at home on this homestand. So it's, I think, nine games and 11 days before they head back out. So, yeah, it would be next Thursday, Friday, not this week.

But again, that's only if they stick to that rule. Right. So, yeah, we'll see if that's actually something that, that, factors in here with the decision on Cole Young, but he is hitting the ball incredibly well right now. And the Marys could honestly use a little bit of a jolt offensively. So bringing up one of your top prospects could certainly help with that. We'll see. So long as he's playing every day.

Yeah, absolutely. And at the very least with Cole Young, it's a much different situation than with Harry Ford. You can easily get him playing every day. All right. We are going to answer the rest of your questions. in just a moment, but first a reminder, this episode of the Locktime Airs podcast is brought to you by Fandul. The NBA playoffs are in full swing and every night delivers

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By the way, for instant reactions following. every mayor in his game. Be sure to tune in to the mayor's postcast with Anderson Hurst and Christopher Crawford available on both the lockdown Marries YouTube and podcast feeds. Rayleigh fan wants to know who should get sent down once Bryce Miller is activated from the ILD. Send down Hancock slash Evans or reliever to run a six-man rotation. So it seems like the six-man rotation is going to happen with the way that

Bryce Miller was talking after his up and down live BP that he threw. on Thursday, Friday, whenever it was. Friday. Friday. Yeah, so he said that he's on a six-day timeline. Same as George Kirby. Same as George Kirby. So that seems to indicate to me that we are heading for a six-man rotation when Bryce is activated off of the IL.

So the conversation about who stays, who goes between Hancock and Evans, I think that's going to be put on hold until Logan Gilbert is eventually able to go or the mayor's just deem that the six-man rotation isn't something that they want to do anymore, that they feel that, you know, Miller and Kirby can go once every five days. So, yeah, though, to just answer that quickly, I think we can anyway, once that decision comes, once they have to kick someone out of the rotation, it's going to be Logan Evans that gets sent down. I'm saying, Hancock's going to stay in the rotation. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't have a strong preference either way. I thought Hancock was, I don't want to say disappointing, but didn't quite build on the hype after that San Diego start. But yeah, I think they're going to run with a six-man, at least for a little while. Maybe not all year, but I think, you know, when pitching's as important to you as it was or as it is, and, you know, you've already had the injuries of Gilbert and Kirby and Miller and now, you know, woo's not exactly the beacon of health either. or so I think there's some value to it. I don't know if I want to do it all season, but

for a month or so, I think, I think there's some merit to it. And the way Hancock is throwing the ball, like, it's not, it's not likely to be a disaster, especially when you compare how Hancock's throwing the ball to like Bryce Miller right now. So, yeah, yeah, I think it'll be a six man. And the guy that'll kick out of the bullpen will probably be Blas Castano. Jeff wants to know, do you think they'll put out a flyer on Orlando Arcia since he was released? Not saying he's great, but Moore is getting overexposed.

Rivas is not getting much playing time and has lost his allure. And Mastro Belloni is also getting over exposed. My answer to this is very boring. If they have identified that there's a change that they can make there, then sure. If not, I don't really care. There's nothing that I see on the outside looking in here that I'm like, yeah, you should go after Orlando. r cia and bring them in but like if the mirrors see something there that they think they can fix like they did with leo tavares then sure yeah what a weird series for leoti tovarez by the way but anyways

um yeah um i don't know the rcia thing probably lessens the likelihood they would call up cole young, doesn't it? Like, they're not going to sign Arcia and then just bench him. Like, so, yeah, I don't know. Guy's 30 years old. Like, he's only had one above average season. And is, you know, at the plate in his career. So there's just not a lot of power there.

Some, but not a lot. Yeah, if you could get him in 2023, he had 264, 321, 420. like that that'll help you certainly and he's only going to make the league minimum pro rated I'm sure so yeah I think you could and obviously they're not even using Leo Rivas right now I know idea why and both he and Master Boney both have options left so you can absolutely make room for him so yeah I think if the Mariners think they can they can get him back to 250 320 400 then I think that's fine. I just wonder, you know, how much of an upgrade is he really over Leo Rivas and what you have right now? And how much is he going to play? Because he's also going to be looking for opportunity to play and you might not be able to offer it to him. So, yeah, I mean.

Yeah, if he's, if he gets to a point where he wants to, or he's open to sign in a minor league deal, then sure, just stash him in AAA. I mean, we've talked about how with all the injuries that the merits of sustain that they kind of have to, or that they kind of need to replenish their depth, their immediate depth down in AAA. So, yeah, if that's an opportunity that presents itself to you, sure. But in terms of adding him to the major league roster, I don't see anything here that I'm like,

yeah, you got to go out and get that guy. But hey, maybe the mayor is filled differently. Yeah, I mean, I am not as intrigued as I was with Leody when he was waived. But I was surprised the Mariners claimed him. So, yeah, I think if the Mariners take a shot, or they choose not to. I think this is just one of those places, one of those places where you just kind of have to trust their judgment on it

and be like, okay. I mean, if they didn't think they could help him. If they didn't think he was an upgrade, then I guess I'll just have to take their word for it because I don't see anything in particular. That makes me think that he is a massive upgrade over what will eventually be

Cole Young at second base. But if they sign them, then cool. We'll see what they do with him and all that. But yeah, a tie like if they do fine if they think they can help them fine if they don't i'm fine letting this one pass uh what about set brown erin wants to know about our thoughts on on set brown any chance of snagging him he's played a bit of first base in the past and cannot be possibly any worse than solano can he it's funny because we've talked a lot about brown on the show and on our patreon yeah he's

been our like offseason plan or at least been a part of the conversation for our offseason and play in the last three years? Yeah, but I think you look at him now. He hasn't been very good over the last couple of years, even at his calling card, which has been hitting Ritey's. He's not great against Ritey's anymore. He could play some outfield, which is nice, and I use the term play loosely.

He can stand out there, play some first base. Again, this is a guy that made a lot of sense. for the Mariners, but the Mariners kind of got a younger. Well, actually, I don't even know if he's younger, but they got a better version of that a few years ago and Luke Rayleigh. And you kind of look at what they're doing with DeVaris and what they're doing. Rowdy is 32 years old, by the way. So, yeah, Rayleigh is younger.

Yeah. You know, it's, they already have Rowdy on the roster who's pretty much filling the same role. They already have Rayleigh, they hope at some point here in the next month or six weeks, four to six weeks. They're hoping to have Rayleigh back who kind of fills the same role. So again, I think this is one of those things where it's like as much sense as he made two years ago, even a little bit last year at the deadline. Now you look at it and you're like, if the Mariners want to bring them in, again, I think they can help him.

They think they can fix him. Sure. But with Polo having to DH and with Brown and Rowdy being roughly the same player and with Tavares, you know, at least giving you defense and actually starting to heat up a little bit himself, I just don't know if there's enough at bats for Brown. But again, if the Mariners want to take a shot here and they think they can quote unquote fix Seth Brown, then that's fine. I think that totally makes sense. And I think they can take a shot on that. But I just don't see a fit on the roster the way it's currently constructed. You're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast.

It is Mailbag Monday. Let's get into your final couple of questions here. Vert wants to know, is Harry Ford best leveraged as a trade for a mid-season acquisition? at this point. He's had a great season so far, but I think his talent being used as a backup catcher for us seems wasted, even without Garver in the mix next year. You pretty much hit the nail on the head there. If you're going to call up Harry Ford right now, which I know is something that a lot of people want the merits to do, you need to play him with regularity. Now, obviously, Mitch Garber has kind of played with regularity over the last few days because they've seen a few lefties. He's

been able to pinch head. He's been able to have some DH days where he started a catcher. He's looked fine. Yeah, he's, he's a, he's 17 on the road trip. Yeah, he's been, uh, Mitch Carver is a fine backup catcher. He's not great. He's not necessarily good. He's just a fine backup catcher. He's an overpaid, incredibly overpaid backup catcher for what he was,

if he was making $4 million, we'd be looking at him as like the one of the best backup catchers of baseball. Yeah. Because he's about a league average bat. slightly below average defender got some pop hits lefties blow blah blah blah blah but he's making 13 so he's up um seems to be the general idea he needs to hit for more power especially against lefties especially if they are going to use him as as a platoon uh with uh with hori polanco at dh right now um so yeah so look if you wanted to have harry ford instead platoon with uh with hori polanco fine but again, that's a weak side platoon. How many lefties are you actually going to see?

Now, you're going to see two lefties in the series against the nationals, and you saw two lefties in the series against the Astros, but that's not typical, right? Most of the time you're going to see right-handed pitchers, and therefore, what, are you just going to keep Harry Ford on the bench in those situations? Because right now, as things currently stand, Harry Ford hasn't been used at a different position down on the minors. You're not going to just ask him to learn a new position to be able to get him in the

lineup at the major league level you're not going to do that so right now if you called up harry ford he he can only catch or dh so how exactly are you going to deploy him are you going to take days away from horny polonku's obviously struggled and it's seemingly dealing with that side thing again that's keeping him from the right side and playing in the field are you going to give him days off even against righties to allow harry forward to dh are you going to do that or do you feel comfortable enough to put polo back in the field to allow harry to DH? Or, you know, are you going to, like, you're not going to catch him three or four times a week

because you have one of the best players on the planet right now playing at that position. So, like, just how do you give Harry Ford ample opportunity right now with what we know he's able to do? And the answer is you just, you can. I really don't think you can, you know. No, I mean, unless, unless Polo is going to the I. and Ford can be the primary DH, or he'll probably still catch some,

at which point Garber will play more DH, blah, blah, blah. But unless that's happening, which, you know, Dan's hard to read. Yeah, that's the nicest way I could put it. So who knows that that's on the table? I don't know, but it does seem like, hey, you know, we got like four in the next five games or lefties, and Polo's not going to play against them anyways. could just IL him and he'll basically only miss five games that he would have played in anyways

and see if that helps. I typically don't think a Phantom IL, like I don't think that fixes anything. Oh, just put him on the I'll give him rest for a week or two. I really don't think that fix as much. He's struggling, right? He's bad, objectively bad at the plate right now. But if they do decide to go that route, that's really the only way you can get Harry Ford, regular at-bats right now.

Because again, you're not going to ask him to learn how to play left field at the major league level. And, you know, you could start to do that at the minor league level. But A, that's going to take some time before you feel good about putting him out there. And also, B, do you want him, you know, trying to learn another position while he's hitting so well? Don't you kind of just want to keep him swinging it a little bit? So you're kind of in a tough spot with Harry like we talked about last year. I do think, unfortunately, the way that Harry helps you out the most right now is, as a trade chip.

And that's a bummer. You know, I've been a big Harry Ford guy since, you know, before the Mariners drafted him. And he's one of my favorite players to track. And he seems like just an awesome dude and all that. But, you know, it's a business. And so I love to see Harry play at least one game with the Mariners, but I just don't even know how you accomplish that right now without her either hurting him or hurting somebody else on the team who doesn't really need to be replaced or anything like that.

So you're kind of in a weird spot with Harry Ford. So yeah, I do think ultimately your best bet is your best bet for him to help the 2025 team is via trade. After this year, Garber's off the books. You can start giving Ford, you know, reps in the outfield and all that in the offseason. And he can still catch a little bit and do that, then fine. If he gets through this year, Ford fits on the roster. But right now there's no reason to get rid of Garver. You know, there's no DH at-bats to give him.

as things stand right now and you're not going to ask him to change positions mid-season while he's raking in AAA. So yeah, I think the best way he or the only way he'll impact the 2025 team is either an injury, or as a trade chip. Yeah. And if you view him as more of a trade chip, you should probably just allow him to keep on hitting. Ada wants to now rank each level of the M's minor league system by future value plus predict same ranking.

after the trade deadline if you have time. I think this is pretty simple. Like Everett, number one, Tacoma to Modesto 3, maybe Modesto 2, because Felon and Sloan are there now. Yeah, no. Yeah, Modesto 3 and then Arkansas is pretty clearly four. Yeah, Arkansas is a really good double A team, though. They're one of the best teams in the Texas League despite not having.

Now, it's funny, post-deadline, post-draft, Arkansas is probably going to be number one. Uh, because I imagine at this stage, uh, Arroyo, Laz, Emerson, probably Sanger, too, they're probably all going to be a double A at some point this year. Farmello, maybe. Yeah, I could see them, even if he's like still crushing it. I could see him be like, yeah, let's, it's not even a full year off of that injury or it's barely a full year off of that injury. Let's just keep them here.

Um, but yeah. So, yeah, I think Everett's definitely number one. Like, it's not even close, frankly. Everett's number one. That's, like, Everett's probably the best minor league team in general at any level. Sure. I mean, I don't know what the other minor league teams are, but there's so much talent on that roster.

So, yeah, that's probably a safe bet. So, yeah, it would be Everett. Everett, Tacoma. Yeah, I guess Modesto because they do have Felman and Walter Ford, Christian Little. And then, yeah, after the, what is it, after the trade deadline? Yeah, I think Modesto, because I don't think they're going to trade all those guys in high A, obviously. So, or sorry, not Modeste, Arkansas.

So post-draft or post-dedline would also be post-draft. And I imagine a good chunk of those players would either be in Everett or Modesto. So at that point. And then I think in AAA, Bored and Young are either traded or they're up. So, yeah, I think AA will be the answer post-deadline. And then I think it will probably be, I'll say Modesto, followed by Everett. And then maybe Tacoma. it just depends on like if they if they draft like Jamie Arnold right at three he's probably

probably on Arkansas or he's probably not going to pitch yeah that's what I was saying is like he's probably not on a team like they might just have him rest for the for the rest of the rest of the year they've done that with a lot of their pitchers that they've drafted whether they're out of college or or out of prep ball so yeah there's a decent chance that if they you know or like south Hernandez or whatever right they take a picture there's a decent chance that they might not pitch for the organization this year or they might only pitch like once you know they might throw a couple of innings and that's it I mean at most they're like 15 innings so it also depends on that right but yeah like yeah it's going to be Arkansas because just everyone's going to

get bumped up from Everett and Everett is so good so yeah yeah just kind of like the transition of power goes from Everett to Arkansas there and then at that point we just have to see like who actually plays in the organization from the draft class and who doesn't so maybe modesto too i think tacoma because young's going to be up with the club presumably yeah and for probably gets traded as long as the bears are in striking distance of making the playoffs i mean even if he's not though like if young's up with the big league team we're talking about future value there's like one legit like fringe top 100 prospect on that roster

without Koliang. Yeah. And that's Harry Ford. It's not Locklear, obviously. I mean, that doesn't mean Tacoma's going to have a bad roster or just future big leaguers. Any all-stars on that? No. I mean, Lockler's not that guy. Smah Taylor like, no, no. So yeah, I think Tacoma's probably going to end up being dead last in August. But they still might be good, but you don't care

if Tacoma's good. You care if there's you know, exciting prospects there. And I kind of doubt it. That's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locked-on Marries podcast for Colby Pat Node. I'm Tad-A-Nazolus. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-Norsor-N-Reris.

You can follow me at Tad-E-Pat-E-L-Eyes. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB-C-Colby in the show at Locked-on Marrars. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lock-Earres. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.