Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Who Will Be the Mariners' Next Great Reliever Discovery?

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

The Mariners officially announced their Spring Training TV schedule on Tuesday. Ty and Colby react to it, then dive into the pile of relief arms Seattle has compiled this offseason to identify who could impact the club in 2025, and wrap things up by going over a few players they're interested to see this spring.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 PistachiosLooking for a snack that’s both delicious and nutritious? Get snackin’ and get crackin’ with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more. FanDuelRight now, new FanDuel customers can get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Bonus Bets if 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), 1-877-770-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.

The Mariners added a bunch of relievers during the off season, but which ones stand out the most to us and who has the best shot of making an impact on the club in 2025? We'll discuss that and more coming up here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network. Your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors.

It is Wednesday, February 12, 2025. This is Tadeng Azales and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Marries podcast. part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, every day. Pitchers and catchers have officially reported today for the Bears. We have the spring training TV schedule, so we'll go over that. We'll also dive a bit into the group of relief arms. The Bears compiled over the course of the off season. We'll also talk about some of the players we're interested in seeing this spring.

No title sponsor today. But as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. What you have to do to check that out is click the link in the description of this episode. So again, pitchers and catchers have reported this uncharacteristically

quiet off season, very disappointing off season. Slog of an off season to cover is pretty much over. Baseball activities have begun. How are you feeling, Colby? Yeah.

Yeah. You excited to talk about spring training TV schedules and relievers? today? Yeah, because I'm legally obligated to say yes. Yeah. So yesterday, the mayor has dropped their spring training TV schedule.

We've been waiting to see what this was going to look like. So the mayor is first and foremost here say on this page, Marriss fans can watch more spring training games than ever before, which is not true because there's. 15 games on here and they had 16 in 2015 as Mariner Muse discovered on Twitter. So

that's all right sure, whatever. So there's eight webcasts. These are the games that you can watch on Mariner's.com. One camera. Yeah, there'll be a

well at least that's what it was last year. We'll see if they've made some upgrades to it. I did talked to Kevin Martinez when they were doing the the ones last year and he said that they were going to try and make some upgrades to it so we'll see question yeah are they going to try to make upgrades to it like they tried to upgrade their roster? Ah, good one.

Because if so, I guess we're going to have to like, I don't know what, tie some cans to a piece of string and try to listen to the broadcast down in Arizona. What's the like Donovan Solano equivalent of like a production upgrade? like a GoPro down the third baseline. Probably. Yeah. So anyway, Mariner's webcasts.

There's eight of them. First one is for the first game on February 21st against the Padres. Then you'll get to see them again on there on February 23rd against the Diamondbacks. February 26 against the A's. February 27th against the Giants. February 28th against the Padres. March 1st against the White Sox, March 3rd against the Guardians. And then March 15th.

against the Padres. The Root Sports broadcast began on March 6. And you're going to get back-to-back games, March 6 and March 7th on Root Sports. Those games against the Diamondbacks and Dodgers, March 9th, which is a Sunday against the Rockies, March 13th against the Guardians. And another game right after on March 14th against the Guardians.

But this is the Spring Breakout game. It's the Mariners' All-Star Prospects against the Guardians, all-star prospects. And then finally the last root sports broadcast will will happen on March 23rd against the Brewers. And of course there will be, if you have MLB TV, there will be other Mariners games.

I'm sure that will be broadcast by other teams. So yeah, you're going to get 15 games though directly from the Mariners this spring. So what is that half? About. Thankfully, they decided to take that nice long break. break right in the week of spring training when the starters play like normal games.

So whew, don't have to watch Randy Rosarana get four at-bats in the game until opening day. I was a little worried might be seen too much Julio, but don't worry, they took care of that by having that week-long gap where, you know, the starters go five innings and all that, like in the hitters get three, four-at-bats in the game. But I was little worried we'd see too much Julio and not enough. you know, Luis Swee spell. So thankfully the Mariners have us covered there. Yeah, the gap that you're talking about is

March 15th, which is the last webcast. The next time you can watch the Mariners via the Mariners is March 23rd. It gets the Burrers. So eight days. Yeah. I mean, it's where you might get a little too much baseball there. I know it's tough because you got to have the Graham Bessinger interviewing

Charles Barkley thing play. As someone that doesn't live in Washington, what do they show on root sports now that they don't have the Blazers of the Cracken? That a lot of like Mariner Monday rewinds where they're just showing your old games. Yeah. I think the backpacking through Europe show is still a thing.

Sure. So, you know, it's very hard for them to broadcast more Mariner games, even though they own the station and the equipment and, you know, literally they're down there anyways. It's just really difficult. Because, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to break away from the, the international eight ball, you know, nine ball, whatever pool that Billiards tournament they're showing on there. So.

So there you go. Yeah. So I'll, I'll take a look. I do this every year. I put together a spreadsheet of which games are on route, which games are on webcasts and which games are on, like, national TV or on MLB TV. So I'll go through the schedule. for every team that the Marys are playing this spring

and put together a spreadsheet with everything there and I'll probably post a link either tomorrow or on Friday's show in the description. For the record, just because there's more spring training games this year than last year, it doesn't mean the Mariners did you guys a favor or anything like that because there's literally

zero reason for them not to put every game onto, literally zero. And again, like this whole like Aaron's fans can watch more spring training games than ever before it's not it's not true i'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they just like ah they forgot we would miss one like okay sure fine so i'm not going to like call them out for lying person it's just it's just it's inaccurate information it's just silly like you're patting yourself on the back like more access than ever and it's like that's not true yeah especially since

eight of the 15 are just on webcast they're not even on rude sports it's just so come on yeah like can we can we not which by the way that's the point that I'm at with everything this team does at this point I'm just like really it's like what do we why why why are you doing yeah anyway all right so good news I guess is we're watching baseball in what 10 days yeah like at the very least we have access to the first game of the year cool sure cool can't wait to wait to watch on 480p 480p so I can't watch watch Spencer Packard, Jake Slaughter. I just don't understand. Why can't every game at least be webcasted? Because that's literally a camera. You know, so

yeah. We'll see. I mean, like I said, I'm certainly, I'll check out. How many Peoria games are not being webcasted or broadcasted by Roots Sports? That's it. I'll have to look into that later. Yeah. I said, I'll check it out. I'm certainly hoping, because I did watch them last year, the two they tried.

And it was better than nothing, certainly. I'll give them that. It was fine. It was fine. Yeah, no, it was fine. So, yeah, I mean, we'll see how it all shakes out there. But yeah, I mean, like more than last year, cool, I guess. But, like, still not anywhere near enough.

Come on. How many of these games are going to be simulcast, do you think? Where they're not even going to use their own broadcast equipment? I mean, probably the ones that are on the road. So the Guardians and the Diamondbacks ones. Probably. All right. Well, I mean, we'll see.

Anyways, baseball. Yeah. Baseball. Kind of. Kind of. Back on your screen of some kind. Sure. I mean, you can hook up your laptop to a TV and watch the webcasts on your TV.

You can do that now? Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Welcome to 2025, Colby. All right. I like some kind of HDMI cable.

Yeah. I don't have one of those. I'll buy you one. It's okay. I'll buy it. I'm good. All right. So,

hey, the Baron has put together another interesting group of relief arms via some minor trades, the waiver wire, and minor league signings. We'll go over some of those

and talk about our favorites and who, actually might have a shot at either breaking camp of the team or at least making an impact with the big league club at some point in 2025. And just a moment, but first, a reminder of the September of Locked-on Maris podcast is brought to you by wonderful pistachios. Looking for a snack that's both delicious and nutritious. Crack into a good source of protein with wonderful pistachios.

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Visit wonderful pistachios.com to learn more. And you're listening to the Locked On Mariners podcast. So we talk about this every year. The Mariners have built a reputation for themselves for being able to pluck quality relievers out of seemingly thin air. They've done it pretty much every single season. Last year, it's guys like Colin Snyder. Previous years, it's been the Justin Topas of the world and the Paul Seawalds

of the world and what have you. So who could follow in those guys' footsteps this year? Now, when you look at the mayor's bullpen right now, I'd say it's pretty much set. We'll see what happens with Troy Taylor and his lat strain. So there might be one spot up for grabs. But other than that, I think, Andreas Munoz, Gregory Santos, Colin Snyder,

Trent Thornton, Edward Bizarro, Taylor Saucato, and Gabe Spire, those guys are pretty much locked in to making the bullpen, barring injury, of course. Right. So opportunities to break camp with the team are very limited, especially, again, if Taylor's able to make it back before opening day from his lat strain,

then those are your eight guys, most likely. But if not, it might be some interesting competition here in camp, one of the very few roster battles for the Mariners in camp right now. So let's go over some of these names. Blas Castano was the first name that I see here. He was surprisingly added to the 40 men roster to protect him from the Rule 5 draft this off season. They probably see him more as part of the emergency starting pitching depth, but maybe he factors in as a reliever. Maybe there's something that they see there.

I'm not aware of anything that they think that they could tap into there. but maybe. Hagen Danner, someone that they claimed off a waivers from Toronto. Interesting slider there. Will Klein. They acquired in a very small trade with A's. He was involved in the Lucas Urseg deal with the Royals,

pitched in the 2020-3 futures game in Seattle. Jackson Coar probably going to get put on the 60-day IL, right? I don't think we've heard anything about him being ready to go just yet. But it seems like they like him. They've had opportunities to DFA him, you know, but they, they haven't yet. Maybe he ends up getting DFA next week after they claim someone, who knows, but so far he's survived. Casey Legamina, they acquired him. That was a small trade with the race, right?

Or Reds, rather. Reds. Yeah. And then Carlos Vargas has already, he's already been here, but that's another guy to just mention on the 40-man roster, along with Cody Bolton. who was also here last year and also and did get some small run with the with the big league club after that though you look at the non-rosster invitees there's a couple of names that they're weird like one of them is like that guy still pitches that's that tally feliz like he's he's still active and he's a

mariner's camp uh shantara fujanami is another guy that a couple of teams have dreamed on, but they just haven't been able to get him to throw enough strikes. Maybe the Mariners are able to crack the code on him. And like we said, back when they signed Fujimami, like, if any team is going to crack the code on him, it's probably the Mariners. And if they're not able to, then, yeah, that's probably a wrap for him. Jesse Hahn, that's another guy that's like, he's still pitching. Yeah, he's, he's a Mariners camp as well, as well as Casey Lawrence,

who's been with this organization for what feels like forever. Drew Pomerantz is in Mariners camp. He hasn't pitched in the big league since 2021. But obviously, Pomeran's former All-Star, at one point was one of the best left-hand of relievers in the entire game. And then you get into some interesting names like Donis Medina and Doris Valdez. Who stands out to you the most? Obviously, the Files and Pomerant's duo is,

probably the most interesting because they were at one point, like, elite relievers. It's just, you know, toddlers are alive today who never saw these guys be pitching the big leagues. So, yeah, it's a little tough to trust either one of them. You know, Palmerant certainly, the lefty is probably going to have an advantage over Follies. But yeah, those two guys are pretty interesting. just because of kind of the novelty of it. Will Klein is a pretty interesting guy. You know, he was a pretty highly rated relief prospect,

which means he wasn't all that highly rated. But for a reliever, you know, if you're inside a team's top 20, that's pretty interesting. And he throws pretty hard, pretty good slider. So, you know, he's got a shot. Again, it's just about can he throw strikes? And it's the same thing with Fujianami. who probably has the best raw stuff of anybody in the pile,

but also least likely to throw strikes with any consistency whatsoever. And while the Mariners are willing to take some chances on guys in their pen who might not throw a lot of strikes, they're not going to do it for a guy who's averaging seven walks per nine innings pitched. I mean, four and a half is probably like the max that they're willing to take a shot on. So Fujinami is one of those guys. I think Will Klein is probably the guy of the 40 man, the guys who are actually on the 40 man.

He's probably the one I'm most interested to see. And I think he's the one that probably has the highest upside. But I, well, I think CoR is probably that guy. But CoR is probably going to start the year on the 60. We'll see if he pitches this year at all. They're less bullish on him than even Matt Brash, even though they both had the surgery right around the same time. So, you know, I think Klein is probably the most interesting one.

And then of the non-40-man guys that they brought in this winter, I would say probably Pomerantz or Fujunami is the most interesting out of that group. Yeah. But yeah, as we always say, you know, just choose your racer. And then we'll see which one comes out at the end of the year and actually has an impact on this team because, it's probably one of these guys who's going to pop and

really help out this bullpen. Yeah, Fujimami, if they can figure him out, has the potential to be really exciting. It's loud, loud stuff. And if you can hone that, get him to throw more strikes. I mean, that's a legitimate, like, the potential there is like high leverage reliever.

But the path is so murky for him to actually get there. Pomeranz is just, like, that's just a fun name to hear. I don't know what he looks Like at this point, I'd be fairly surprised if he factored in to the equation. Even though that the mayors don't have a ton of left-handed competition really in their bullpen right now. It's Saucato, it's Spire. Eventually, Brandon Garcia, I don't think it's going to be Garcia right away. I think he's going to start the year in the miners.

Probably starting the year as a starter as well. Yeah. Yeah, Adam Jew did single him out in his article this morning. Okay. In terms of just names to watch in the bullpen. In terms of kind of a deeper, you know, a deeper, a deep sleeper on the list here. Hunter Cranton is still my favorite. Yeah.

You know, up to 100 101 with a pretty good slider, throws enough strikes right now. I would be barring, you know, health, of course. I would be pretty shocked if we didn't. see Cranton pitch for the Mariners at some point this year. There's really, you know, there's, there's no illusion that he is a starter. He's probably going to start the year in Arkansas would be my guess. But I think he has a small shot to just, you know, if Taylor's out and, you know, maybe another arm goes down, which isn't unusual in spring, they might just ride the upside of a guy

like Cranton. Because, again, it's very good, very classic reliever stuff. and he throws enough strikes right now. And obviously, if he refines that even more, that would obviously help his cause. But I think Hunter Cranton is like kind of a deep sleeper to watch in this bullpen mix. And while I don't think there's much of a shot, he breaks camp with the big club. I wouldn't be totally shocked if he did manage to do that. And I would expect to him, he's going to be the first guy up from this last year's draft class.

and it wouldn't shock me at all. It was very early in 2025. You're a little surprised that Brock Moore didn't get a non-raster invite? Kind of. I wonder if they still think maybe there's a shot he can start. Because the delivery is a little bit easier to dream on with more. It's a little bit better of an athlete. So I wonder maybe they just want to start him, you know, in Modesto as a starter and kind of see how that goes.

but yeah, he's a guy who they could transition to the bullpen in June, and he could legitimately be up, you know, three weeks later, pitching out of the Mariners' bullpen. The stuff is insane for more. So, yeah, a little surprise, but I have to imagine that they want to give him a shot to start, which I kind of feels like a waste of time to me, but also it doesn't take long to transition from the rotation to the bullpen.

It really doesn't. So why not take a shot? You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. So yesterday, we, yeah, we went over, thank you. We went over the biggest storylines for the Mariners in spring training. And some of what we talked about yesterday, pretty much. Yeah, some of what we talked about yesterday pretty much goes hand in hand with what we're about to talk about. But let's go over some guys that we're going to be specifically watching.

uh this spring i'll give you a name that that we didn't talk about yesterday brian woo has he actually done anything made any tweaks with his secondaries has he added a pitch we haven't really heard anything about woo this off season so i'm curious to see if like it's pretty much the same you know it's going to be the same approach from him he's going to attack guys with both of the fastballs and you know we'll see uh what you know when his secondaries pop up there were a couple of starts over the course of 2024 where he did go more heavy on the secondaries. But yeah,

interested to see if he's like made any any progression in that regard. J. B. Crawford, someone that I mentioned yesterday to see if like maybe he's made any tweaks with his swing with his setup after the down year last year. Maybe he's gone back to drive line, worked on some things. We'll see. And then obviously,

Wari Polanco, right, for obvious reasons. Obviously the second base situation is kind of the biggest question mark right now. So while we talk about Cole Young, and we'll probably talk about him a lot, I do think Ryan Bliss is in an important spring right now if he wants to push for any kind of regular playing time. And by the way, he's not even guaranteed to make the opening day roster. Like he could go from, you know, being the primary second basement to being in AAA because can he play shortstop? Like probably enough, but the Mariners of Dillmore is the primary second base.

They need somebody on the bench who can play a decent shortstop. And Bliss is very limited in that role because of his arm. So he could lose that spot to Leo Rebus, which, but possible it could happen. So, yeah, I think Ryan Bliss is a guy who needs to have a pretty good spring. So obviously the second baseman, all of them, more Bliss, young, you're watching. but Bliss kind of sort of the, I want to say he's the odd man out, but he's kind of the overlooked one right now, just because Moore is the perceived starter,

and Young is the up-and-comer who's trying to, you know, force his way into the roster and kind of sandwiched between those two guys is Ryan Bliss, who did some, you know, nice things for Seattle last year, but also not some nice things. And there were some struggles in Tacoma. So it'll be interesting to see him. Um, there, Dom Canzone is kind of an interesting one. Now, Canzone's a guy who probably going to dominate Arizona just in terms of like the numbers.

Like he's probably going to, because he's going to hit the ball hard, which means he's going to hit a lot of home runs. He's probably going to get tons of bat bats. And mostly in Arizona, people are just throwing fastballs, which we know Canzone can handle. So canzone's probably a guy who's going to do well statistically. but he's kind of fighting for his, you know, relevancy as a major league baseball player this spring. And maybe just maybe he can perform well enough that the Mariners look at Mitch Hanager and finally go like, we just don't have a choice. We can't even pretend to justify this.

So kind of somebody to take over that true fourth outfield spot, which because you have, because you have ropedess, that fourth outfieler doesn't. necessarily need to play center field or be able to play center field you're still covered there if something happens so yeah that fourth outfield spot could be another one in canzone uh if it's not handed or canzone would be the the uh favorite uh based on who's on the roster right now so by the way can zone and bliss might be vying for the same spot on the roster not the same role but the same spot on the roster 26 spot yeah yeah yeah so because because you know again you have Dillamore who can play some outfield.

You have Luke Rayleigh who can play some outfield. This bench isn't good, but it is pretty flexible. Minus Hanager, of course, right? But it's a lot less flexible in the days where Garber, Hanager and Solano are all sitting. But that's just to say that the Mariners can do really whatever they want with the 26th roster spot. Right.

The 13th position player spot. Right. Because anything like long term, they were to be like, oh, what if JP gets hurt? It's like, okay, then you just move Dylan Moore to short. And whoever's the infielder on the bench play second or third and you move Polanco to second. And then you just make your roster move the next day, right? We saw this, you know, like you can't have the catcher DH because what if the catcher gets hurt and you have to take it? We saw this last year, right?

You just had to give one at bat to Luis Castillo and everything else played out fine. So, yeah. It's one of those things where, like, it's a little bit overblown, but it is still, you don't want to be in a position, right, where it's like, cool, Jorge Polanco is playing shortstop now because our build was so terrible that he's actually the best option we have. It's pretty much the guys you'd expect, obviously. It's, you know, Polanco too, because you want to see how healthy is. But, yeah, I mean, what are you really going to learn about, like, Victor Robles in the month of March?

Not much, to be honest, so. No. Yeah, it's guys who are kind of fighting for their spots, not only in Seattle, but possibly on other 26 men around the league here in Canzone. And Bliss, I think, can probably help themselves the most. So those are the guys that I'm kind of watching. And then obviously the arms in the bullpen pile, which one of those is going to pop. Yeah. And then obviously, you know, Colt Emerson, Michael O'Royle, Las Montas, those guys, but that's not for any specific.

reason other than just cool to watch them. Yeah. Yeah. Harry Ford also in that mix. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So that's going to do it for a show.

Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marriss podcast. For Colby Patnaud, I'm Tadigazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marries. You can follow me at Tadagin-G-1-1. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB-C-Colby, and the show at Lockdown Merrors. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time.

Peace. Thank you.