Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Why 2026 Should Have BIG THINGS in Store For THESE Seattle Mariners Superstars

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Ty and Colby wrap up their 2026 season preview by looking ahead at the upcoming years for Mariners superstars Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez. Click to vote for Round 1 of our Top 50 Mariners Moments Tournament! Click to learn more about the Everydayer Club! Join the Ahoy, Sailors Discord server! Check out our Patreon! Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolby Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Turbo Tax For a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Take taxes off your plate and get back to your life.  Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today.  Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONfor $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Use your Profit Boost on an NBA future and get entered for your chance to win a trip to the NBA Finals. Play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto 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.

In 2025, Cal Raleigh finished second in American League MVP voting and very well could have won after hitting 60 home runs. Meanwhile, despite another disappointing first half, Julio Rodriguez finished just four spots behind Cal. So what lies ahead for the Marra's two superstars in the year to come? We'll discuss coming up here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariner's podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors. It is Friday, February 27th, 2026. You're listening to the Lockdown Marrars podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network.

My name is Tadning Gazzalas and I'm joined as always by my co-coast Colby Patnode. We're two lifelong Maris fans who've been covering the team for over half a decade. And today we're concluding our 2026 season preview talking about the two faces of the Maris franchise, Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez. So Colby, Cal goes from. winning the platinum glove in 2024 to joining Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth and Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, Roger Maris, and one of the most exclusive clubs in all of baseball by hitting 60 home runs. He goes on to hit 65 in total between the regular season and the postseason. He established himself as one of the best players in all of baseball.

he narrowly lost the AL MVP to Aaron Judge, who also just had an incredible offensive season. But we've talked about this, right? Like hitting 60 home runs, that's a once in a lifetime type of thing, unless, you know, you were playing in the steroid era where like Sammy Sosa did it like three times and Mark McGuire did it like twice, right?

But in today's day and age, that's a once in a lifetime type of thing. he is likely going to regress but how much so well i didn't know i was on the podcast with a cow suppressive person but uh i i think i get 70 i mean right yeah um yeah you know it's not i don't believe in cow raleigh uh i just hate him i guess kerry hill junior also hates cow raleigh because he said that it's unfair to expect him to hit 60 again the other way we might have to ask him about that um

I mean like Barry Bonds, I only hit 60 once and he's like the greatest offensive player who ever lives. So yeah, I think, you know, Cal hitting 60 would be, I mean, it was impossible the first time he did it. And somehow now that he's done it, it feels even more impossible. Like it almost feels like if he had hit 59 last year, we would have been more like, could he get to 60 this year? But because he got to 60, we're like, nah, no chance he gets to 60. there again. You know, I think what's fair to expect from Cal is what he normally does, which is, you know, kind of a middle of the road batting average, middle of the road on base, but he's going to slug a ton, 480,500, he's going to hit 30 home runs. He's going to play

really good defense behind the plate. It's more than fair, but, you know, the one thing that's interesting in maybe the difference between him being who he's been outside of last year versus is maybe, you know, taking that step and sustaining some kind of level of elite baseball player. And that's the improvements he made against left-handed pitching last year. How sustainable is that? Because, you know, Cal went from a guy who was, you know, maybe we should give him the day off against the tough lefty. That's a good time to get him off his feet to, like, top five hitter in baseball against left-handed pitching. And it seemingly happened just, you know, overnight.

And so, yeah, I mean, how he handles lefties is probably going to determine the ceiling. And if he can, again, obviously the home runs are going to go down just naturally. But if he can have success against lefties at roughly, you know, 30% or 70% of what he did last year, rather, he's probably going to hit 40 plus home runs again. Like it really does come down to that because I think we know against right-handed pitching. He's going to get the ball in the air. He's going to get a pole side. He's going to just absolutely crush some home runs, you know, and use the porch in Team Mobile Park perfectly and all that.

And I think we know that even he progressed defensively last year. He just wasn't as good. And I'm not here to argue with anybody. That's just an objective fact. He wasn't as good last year as he was the year before. But we still know. And the writers determined that as well. You know, he wasn't a finalist for the gold glove this time around.

Like, he was still good. He just wasn't great. No, he wasn't a gold glover. He was above average. And that's fine, especially when you're hitting. and 60 home runs. This is a shot at Cal, but there's no question about it. He was worse defensively, more than made up for it offensively. So it all came out fine. But if he does hit fewer home runs this year, he needs to be a, I mean, doesn't need to be. He'll still be the

best catcher in baseball. But, you know, he should be a little bit better defensively. And we'll see how that works out. Maybe it's just the start of a decline. And it's a slow decline again. But yeah, it's tough to say what's fair for Cal because, you know, last year we were like, what if he gets 40? And we're like, yeah, you know, maybe. What have he hits 40? 50. No chance. No chance he gets 50. And then you get fit. Well, what if he, what if he breaks Griffey's record? I don't know. He'll get there. He's going to break Mantle's record.

Probably not. And just kept going. So I don't know. It's tough to say like, what is it good over under on home runs for him? Is it like 42 and a half? Like, yeah. Well, yeah, it's like, all right. So he's going to regress, but like how much though, especially in terms of the home run department? Like, yeah. Could he still hit 50? I mean, sure. I think realistically, I think a good place to put him is like somewhere in the 35 to 45 range, 40 to 45 range, which I mean, that's a pretty big range. Sure.

Yeah. Again, how does he do against lefties? If he goes back to 23, 24 Cal against lefties, you probably on the much lower end of that, almost certainly. If he, again, he's going to regress some, but if he's still pretty good against lefties next year, you're probably. probably closer to the 40 to 45, you know, end of that range. And so that's kind of the big thing for him, but also staying healthy. Again, the caveat we will throw out the top of every episode, which, you know, Cal really hasn't stayed healthy. He's played every day, but that doesn't mean he's necessarily been healthy the entire time.

No, but he's always been playing through something, which I mean, like a lot of guys are probably playing through something. But obviously even him more so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how many times have we seen, you know, Cal like. leaned over after getting hit by a pitch somewhere in his thigh or wherever you know like like he's the the amount of bumps and bruises that guy you know accumulates over the course of a year is insane catchers you know a lot of wrist finger you know uh injuries type of thing bruises broken thumbs

that somehow you play through yeah and catch like 250 pitches on um yeah so you know cow's a warrior, but obviously, even if he's still playing, injuries could impact his overall performance. So that's always the caveat to throw on top of there, too. But it's just tough to say, like, what is the, because you know what's possible is that Cal actually is better this year, like a more productive player this year than he was last year, despite hitting 20 fewer home runs. I mean, we kind of see this like, for example, Barry Bonds, his 2001 season, he had 73 home runs. Believe it or not, not his best offensive year ever. Right. not not really close either

didn't we talk about this like off air a few days ago like it was like 2004 yeah yeah he had like a 260 WRC plus or something crazy like that yeah his on base percentage was over 600 like and he still hit yeah yeah he's yeah in 2004 Barry bond slashed 362 609 812 I'll take the under on that for Cal by the way by the way that wasn't his best season by WRC Plus 2002 was

oh Lord so again Barry Bonds is a freak he's also a turn but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame 2004 he put up a 37.6% walk rate with a 6.6% strikeout rate anyway

this isn't a Barry Bonds episode but that's just insane put him in the Hall of Fame already anyways yeah but the point is is that like you can hit fewer home runs and be a better overall offensive player because you know in cow's case he's probably not going to see as many pitches as he did last year the walk rate's probably going to go up naturally and so so long as he doesn't start chasing to try and compensate for that he's probably going to have a higher on base than he did last year and his

on base last year was really good so um you know it's not something that's necessarily a bad thing so is he going to have and get enough pitches to hit to hit you know 45 50 home runs but ultimately I think Cal is probably going to set a new career high and on-base percentage. I think he's probably going to lose, you know, I would say 15 to 20 home runs off of last year's total. But I think it's possible that he's actually a better offense of player because of the additional walks and because of the additional non-outs just because teams are going to be afraid to pitch to them. On-base percentage is still the most important stat in baseball. it's the rate at which you don't make an out and make it not making it out is the whole point of hitting so uh yeah i mean could he go 60 again sure one in a minute if he does like he's in the hall of him

he's in the hall of fame he's in the hall of fame it's over the debate is he's a hall of famer it's over if he hit 60 again of course he is no no show he could hit 60 again and retire and he would still belong in the hall of fame but yeah could he hit 40 again sure i mean Outside shot, does he break Salvador Perez's record again for home runs by a catcher in a single season without breaking his own record? Sure. I mean, what was Salvia at? 45 as a catcher? I know he had like 48 overall, but I think it was.

Oh, as a catcher? I think it was like. Or is it 42? I thought it was like 41 or 42. Yeah, I forget now. So he might do that again, but he's also going to de age a fair amount. So, yeah, I think Cal is going to have a really nice year this year. I think he's going to be an all-star.

I think he'll be in the MVP discussion. Do I think he's going to be, you know, number two at the end of the year, finish runner up or win it? No, because I think the only shot he had of beating Judge was to get to 60, and even that wasn't enough, despite being, you know, a everyday catcher who caught a ton, more innings to anybody and hit 60 home runs. You still couldn't beat Aaron Judge. So if he's not hitting 60, I don't think he has a shot to win that award,

but I think there's a shot unless Judge gets hurt. Sure, you never know. but you know there's I think there's a shot that he actually replicates closer to the total value that he did last year despite hitting a lot fewer home runs

because I think the defense could get a little bit better I think the on base percentage could go up so you still think like a 7 to 8 win season is on the table for Cal because it was nine last year sure I think seven is you know I think that's doable eight maybe two but you have floor of five

I think is probably inevitable with his defense and the amount he's going to get on base. But yeah, could you get to seven or eight wins? Yeah, I think he could. I think it's possible. I don't want to put him past him. He's never finished lower than 4.2 in a season. And that was his first full year in baseball. Right.

And now with the walks that we know are going to come just as a result of this, again, the defense could get a little better from where it was last year to this year. Yeah. I don't think that will be able to properly factor this in, but we know Cal is going to do very well with the ABS system as well, and that'll add to his value. Again, I don't think they'll calculate that in his war, but just in general, could he be a 7-8-1 player?

Yeah, I think he could. The war might say he's a 6-1 player, but blah, blah, blah, you know, we'll see where it ends up. But I'm expecting Cal to have another very good year and probably be top 10 All-Star or a top-10 MVP guy. I just don't think he's going to finish number two or win it. I don't think we're going to see a repeat of that in 2026. All right, so we'll finish up on Cal and then talk about

Julio in just a moment, but first a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown, Marrness podcast is brought to you by GameTime. MLB opening day is almost here, and you can feel it. I'm talking fresh starts, big expectations, that first crack of the bat. Oh, we are so, so back.

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your team every day. Thank you so much for making us your first listen for all things, Mariners, and also thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. Baseball is back and you can lock in by joining the Everydayer Club, which gets you ad-free episode. episodes and access to our group chat on Discord. This week only you can use the promo code spring.

That's SPR-I-N-G for a free month. Go to Lockdown Mariners.com or tap the link in the description to learn more. And in the description, you can also find the link to vote for round one of our top 50 Mariners moments tournament. And wow, I'm just in awe of the battle going on between Felix's last start and Victor Robles' this is Superman catch against the Astros. Yeah, things are getting spicy. At last check at the beginning of this episode, I think I got to wait a couple more minutes.

We'll just roll with what we have. At last check, we read exactly 700 votes. Yeah. And Felix Hernandez's final start has received 350 of those, meaning Victor Robles catch has received 350 of those. Insane. It is a tie after 700. votes. Keep in mind, voting will remain open through the weekend. We will close it Monday morning.

There's not an exact time. It's like whenever I wake up on Monday morning and remember to do it. So like voting early on Monday might tip the scales in the favor of your favorite moment. But yeah, that one is absolutely insane. I will say there are a couple other matchups that are tightening a little bit. Some other matchups are getting closer. There is the loop and else ejections versus, oh, shoot, I forgot who the other. That one's tightening. put the tournament together, man. I know. I had to see 50 moments, okay?

I'm forgetting where they're seated at. Also, a Nietzscheo Spider-Man catch versus Griffey breaking his wrist. That one is shrinking a little bit. That's now under 60-40 matchup. So there are a couple other matchups that are very much, you know, still to be determined. And with a strong weekend, there are a couple other potential upsets that could happen here. But no, right now it's all eyes on Victor versus Felix. And, you know, I guess I'm just surprised how many people.

hate Felix Hernandez. That's what I'm gaining from this this point. Call him your king for you know, 15 years. I personally am surprised how many people. I'm personally surprised by how many people are just like yeah, 2025, that sucks. But you know, 2019, that was peak

Mariners. We are going to have like four moments from 2025 in the round of two, in the second round I mean, so. The handmakers that are being thrown by these two moments though, is insane. So, so last night you text me and you're like, Felix is up by 14 votes.

Yes. And I'm like, okay, there. I was like, okay, there it is. It's falling away. Snowball. Yeah. Nope. Yeah.

This morning and I wake up, Robles is up by six. And then like, I check. So you hit up 20 votes. Yeah. And then I check again like, I don't know, 20 minutes later. And now the votes down to four. And then I check, you know, like 30 minutes after that, we're down to one vote difference.

And then before we start the show, I show tie the. screenshot he saw it yeah yeah 50 750 700 perfectly balanced 50 50 right down the middle yeah big sandoes shed a tear there's a chance and tie and i haven't voted yet but it doesn't really matter because i'm going to vote opposite sides yeah he's going to vote for robles so we'll see who wins at the end we do have a tiebreaker which i didn't think we would need but we do have one set up i don't think we'll ultimately need it i think one of these two moments will pull away this weekend I'm rooting for the tie at this point. I am too.

I'm rooting for the tie as well. But I don't think it's going to happen. I imagine getting a tie on, you know, polling 100 people is is statistically improbable. 700 votes and we are deadlocked is insane. And again, we'll see where it is this weekend. Maybe voting really slows down this weekend. Maybe it explodes. But yeah, the fact that this is a 50-5.

50 matchup with 700. That exactly 700 votes. Frazy. It is insane and lucky and all of that. And so, you know, regardless of where this ends up, maybe one of these two moments ends up winning by four or five percent. I don't know. Easily, easily, easily, the most fun thing that we've tracked in our polling sample.

We do these polls every once in a while. I usually fan polls and stuff like that. But this one's a little different. By the way, if you guys like this, you know, pole style fan interaction thing you might want to get used to it because when that lockout comes we're going to have to get creative about content so oh boy moving on uh let's put a bow on on cow real quick so yeah like you said uh you know what he does against lefties is really the key here because he went from a 183 average against lefties in 2024 that was a 97 wRC plus

to a 281 average and a 186 wrc plus and by the way that's not with like you know because of like the torpedo bat or whatever no he was using his regular bat that he always is used i don't know if he maybe like changed it up a little bit but like it's it's a normal bat that he was using from the right side you only use the torpedo from the left left side so you can't say that's the reason i don't yeah i mean whatever whatever you know the rhymeer reason was for it like keep doing that yeah so that's kind of what makes it like is cal actually like this elite hitter not just a really good baseball player.

I don't know, but because the improvements from the right side were legitimate and they were a big sample and all of that, like, yeah, that's kind of, because against, you know, right-handed pitch and he was always kind of near elite, or at least very, very good. It's just

the right side pulled him back so much. And the 97 WRC plus isn't terrible. You can live with that. Yeah. But 180. And he was like, what, a 160 from the left side? Like, yeah, that's super. stardom right there. And so we'll see how he handles it, you know, how this year goes for him. But I'm pretty confident that Cal is, well, he's not going to be, you know, a nine win player and

hit 60 home runs. I'm still pretty confident he's going to be a legitimate, you know, top 10 MVP candidate this year, which would give the Mariners two of those guys. So Julio Rodriguez, once again, it was another year where it was a tale of two Julio's. first half relatively disappointing. He was still good. 252, 313, 417 entering the All-Star break. That's a 110 WRC plus. But you want to see Julio higher than that in terms of the WRC plus.

110 is solid, but that's not like he's he's one of the faces of your franchise. He needs to be better than that. So he goes into the All-Star break. He got invited to the All-Star game, wound up bowing out. Randy takes his place on the All-Star team. And during that time, Julio, as he said recently in camp, kind of learn more about himself

and what kind of hitter he wants to be. And coming out of the all-star break, it was a little bit of a slow burn. I mean, like he actually going into the all-star break, that Detroit series, he was fantastic. And then coming out of the all-star break, it was a little bit of a slow burn, but then he really, really took off.

And, you know, that Atlanta series was, like, really like the turning point because, like, the marries were at, their worst moment all year on that road trip and Julio essentially single-handedly pulled them out of the depths in that second game of that Brave series. Yeah. And with the two home runs, he makes that incredible catch. Like, you know, Julio took over.

And that's what we've all been kind of waiting for really since August, 2023, for him to truly, like, take over and go, I got you guys, right? And that continues on into the postseason. He has really a fantastic postseason. You know, some big time moments. Unfortunately, that postseason run ends with him creating the final out of the Mariners entire season with Cal on deck. Mariners only down by one.

It was a bad strikeout. I have to wonder how much that moment has replayed in Julio's head over the course of the winter. Maybe it hasn't out all. Who knows? But he's a highly competitive dude. who we all know has been he's very very hard on himself he wants to be the best in the world even if you asked him how much that's weighed on him and i'm sure people have i mean reporters

are down there now i haven't seen any of the quotes but uh i even if you've asked him i assume his answer would just be no but we won't we wouldn't know that for sure right because you know Julio is is going to say no and he's going to he's going to try and turn the page but will that actually linger in the back of his head i think it might have been 21 year old Julio 22-year-old rookie Julio and the 20-23 season and all that. Does it now? I don't know. It might.

I'm not saying it definitely doesn't, but I don't know. There's just something about Julio, you know, entering year five now. I just kind of feel like he's, you know, seen pretty much everything there is to see in baseball by now. And he's very young, but he's also a veteran. And so I think he's probably learned how to flush these things pretty quick.

But, you know, who knows? It's certainly possible. We can't say for sure one way or the other. Well, and it's just, it's a different animal, right? You know, Julio's put a lot on his shoulders. He has said how much it means to him to bring a World Series to Seattle and, you know, be the first to do that, of course. And you get so close. And, you know, we know how much it hurt us.

Right. But those guys were literally on the field and had to experience it. And Julio, again, face of the franchise along with Cal, like he was the final out he had to walk off the field while the blue jays are celebrating all that like that that has to weigh and i mean we heard the the scream you know when when brian wood was getting an interview post game like that like you could hear the pain in julio's voice sure and so you know i've said this over the course of the off season whether he admits it or not it feels like julio you know has a has a real chip on his shoulder now and it feels like and

while he's always been incredibly motivated as a player, feel like now there's like an extra bit of motivation, you know, getting that close to the World Series and all that. And so I'm excited. Who knows? But I'm excited to see what that could potentially mean for Julio moving forward. I mean,

I know he's talked about like not being sure what type of hitter he wants to be in the past and how that's kind of carried throughout seasons where he's kind of tried to I want to be this guy today and tomorrow I'm going to be this guy and it's like no you just have to pick somebody and you have to you have to play that role you have to be that person and going back to what you were and going back to where you're saying about like I don't you know not knowing if that's going to be a good thing or a bad thing I mean it's it's up to the players you know ultimately what you do in any sport what you do with motivation do you turn that into positive or negative energy ultimately right Julio seems like a guy who probably is going to turn

it into something positive yeah um And that's why I'm excited about it. Sure. But again, you never know. I think the bigger thing will be like, does he truly, has he truly committed to who he wants to be at the play? And he says he has. Because in the past, we've seen him kind of be the guy who just chase his hits and then, you know, she tries to flip singles past the second basement. And then we've seen him, you know, the next day, try to pull everything, including the slider low and away.

And it's just, it's a big whiff pitch or he just rolls over. Like, we know who Julio is. Like, we know who he can't be. and he just has to put it together for an entire season. And Julio sounds really confident, and so do other people. You know, I've heard Shannon Dreher talk about it quite a bit. I've heard Ryan Divish talk about it, that it just, Julio seems like there's no second guessing.

There's no, you know, panic. There's no, like, major changes. He's dropped people from his circle and he's kept it pretty tight. He's not, see, remember, Julio used to have, like, three different hitting coaches. that, like, he had three different hitting coaches in, like, three years. And, I mean, like, personal hitting coaches, not first hitting coaches. But he seems to, you know, have something figured out with Edgar and Magianus and Citeser. And, you know, I think he feels pretty comfortable.

I think we're going to see Julio be consistently more pole side this year. And I think he's, I think he's kind of the hitter he's determined to be is that he's going to drive the ball to left field, left center field. Doesn't mean he can't go to the opposite field. we know he can. We know he can do damage to the opposite field. But I think he's, I think he's kind of figured out this is the hitter I'm going to be. This is who I want to be. And even when I struggle, I'm going to continue to be this guy. Doesn't mean he won't make little adjustments. Doesn't mean he won't, you know, make a few tweaks here and there. Every hitter does, even the best, best in the world have to make some tweaks every now and then every hitter is

going to struggle at some point, even the best. Shohei Otani has bad weeks. Aaron Judge has bad months. Like these guys, it happens to everybody. So again, it's not, like he's going to be perfect and he's just going to be the best player on the planet for six months straight. But it's can you limit the bad to, you know, 10 days instead of, you know, four weeks? Can you find a way to not have six home runs entering, you know, late June? So you don't have to hit 10 and in 12 days to kind of be a normal, middle of the order guy. And I do think that, you know, having some help around him is going to help. Julio has been a guy who really wants to be the guy. He wants to be the dude who gets the big hits and he wants to be the guy that everybody wants up.

And, you know, he's actually been better in those spots than a lot of people think. You look at his numbers in high leverage situations, they probably blow a lot of people away. But you look at, you know, now obviously Cal is kind of ascended into superstardom. He's got a legitimate hitter who makes a ton of contact behind him and Josh Naler. Randy and Rosarine is here again. Now you've added Brennan Donovan. So there's, you know, more lead off guy, more of a lead off guy in front of you. I do feel like, you know, having having guys that's like, hey, J.P.

If I, or Julio's, hey, I didn't get it done, but I know Josh is going to get it done. I'm not going to let that way on me. You can just go out there and you can hit, you know, you don't have to worry about being the guy to get it done because you trust the guy behind you to get it done. Not that you don't want to be the guy, but it's just like if it just doesn't happen, that's okay. Because I know I have my teammates behind me. And this is, you know, at least one through five or as we talked about nine through five when you have JP on the bottom to flip. over the lineup. It's probably the deepest lineup we've seen in the Mariners in the Julio era. So, I mean, maybe last year is a little bit better too. But, you know, and what happened last year when

the Mariners got Nailor and they got Gino? What coincided with that? Julio got a lot better after those guys showed up. Right. Right. So I think there's less pressure on him from himself. I think there's going to be less pressure on him from the fan base. And the fan base really needs to cut this guy some slack. I know most of us love Julio, but there is a very loud minority that seems to angry that Julio Rodriguez, who's finished top six in MVP voting three times, I believe. There seems to be some kind of anger that he is not Aaron Judge, which is

frankly, it's ridiculous. So I think Julio's going to have a really good year this year. I think he's going to set career highs in a lot of categories. Is this the year that he goes, you know, legitimate MVP candidate? I don't know. We say that pretty much every year. I'm tired of having it. It's a boring conversation at this point. It is. Because every time we preview

every time we preview Julio it's just like all right is this the year is this year he's an 8 to 9 to 10 win player you know and look and it goes without saying

it's like yesterday and the day before when we talked about pitcher injuries it's like it goes without saying obviously it could happen right sure same thing with who like it's obviously possible like he could just explode

at any given point and especially like if he just has a more consistent season from point A to point B yeah we talked about this almost every year year that we've talked about Julio now. If he has a more consistent season and he's had in his past, he's probably going to

going to get there. He's probably going to be a 7, 8, 9 win player because that's kind of the pace that he tends to go on when he finally turns the corner. Julio essentially is, you know, a four, Julio essentially gains about three and a half four wins on his overall total in the last two months of the season. Yeah. So it's just like if he could just be a little bit better.

in the first three months of the season. Naturally, he's going to be, you know, instead of being at the all-star break at two wins, he's going to be at the all-star break at three and a half. And then he just continues that, and he's going to be at seven or eight at the end of the year. So, and again, there's going to be peaks. There's going to be valleys. He is not, he's a human, right? He's not a machine.

He's going to make outs. He's going to have bad games. But at the end of the day, I think you're going to look up, Julio's going to, you know, at a minimum. He's going to play gold glove caliber defense in center field. He's going to hit about 30 home runs. He's going to steal about 30 bags. could he go 40-40? Sure. He's certainly capable of it. Could he hit 300 this year as opposed to 265, 270? Sure. He's certainly capable of it. It's just will he? I don't know. I don't want to predict it because you know what? The guy who hits 265 and goes 30-30 and plays gold glove defense, that's a damn good player. And it's a player that 29 other teams really won. So if that's who he is, that's who he is. And that's fine. That is perfectly fine. You don't need him to be more than that. Can he be?

Yes. And if he gets there, does that change the trajectory of the entire team? Yes. If Julio Rodriguez truly breaks out and he is the guy, the Mariners might be the best team in baseball. And yes, I'm counting the Dodgers. Again, it depends what Julio's teammates do around him. But if Julio can ascend to that eight or nine win pace, the Mariners might be the best roster in baseball. One through 26, one through 40, maybe not, but one through 26, injuries, blah, blah, blah, all that. Like that's how important Julio is we talked about this I talked about this last year I said it over and over again Cal was the best player on the team last year Julio is the most important as Julio goes he is the you know he's the rising tide that lifts all the ships Julio is that guy and if he's just just 30 30 and he's just a six one player oh no the mariner's still world series contenders if he's an eight win player he's a nine win player the mariners might be the favorites to win the world series so we'll see how

ghost but I think Julio's going to have his best year. I just don't know if it's going to be, you know, nine wins season, Julio. And by the way, a lot of great players never even sniff nine wins. So it's not like this is just some we should just expect him to ever be able to do that. That's a big number. All right. We'll finish up on Julio in just a moment. But first a reminder, this episode of the Locktime Marriest podcast is brought to you by Indeed. Hiring isn't just about finding someone willing to take the job. It's about finding the right person with the right background who can actually help your business move forward. And if you want candidates who match what you're looking for,

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colby you talked to the last segment about how you know what the merits have built around Julio how that takes some pressure off of him I think there's also you know the ability here for for Julio to take some of the pressure off of the guys around him specifically the guy ahead of him who we talked about earlier on the show that's Cal Raleigh you talked about how Cal is probably not going to get many pitches to hit over the course of the season at least not as many as he did in 2025 because the league has been put on notice as far as Cal Raleigh goes. So now it's kind of up to Julio to maybe make pitchers have to pitch to Cal a bit more than they want to because at that point it's like pick your poison. Because we did see at times in 2025 teams choose to pitch to Julio rather than Cal.

but if Julio is that dude that we know he can be, then maybe they won't do that as much. I mean, big part of that also is Donovan hitting leadoff. If he's a 360 on base guy, they might not have a choice but to pitch to Cal. And JP potentially in the nine hole as well. Yeah, on the wrap around there.

So, I mean, it's very good possibility that Cal Raleigh is getting a lot of at-bats with two guys on base. And then it's like, okay, do we walk Cal to load the bases for Julio? Or do we take our chances here? And if Cal hits a home run, well, at least it's a three run home or not a grand slam, which might happen if we pitched to Julio. So, yeah, I mean, you know, this is what we talk about, the lineup depth and all that, why it's important.

Protecting a player is not really a thing, you know, as much as people think. But it is just about like, hey, look, you have somebody ahead of, you have somebody ahead of Cal who puts a lot of pressure on the defense. defense the pitcher. You have somebody behind Cal who puts a lot of pressure on on the pitcher. And you have somebody behind Julio who puts pressure on the pitcher as well. It's building those layers of tough outs and all that. So, you know, if Cal Eric Julio does explode, this is the year, then pitchers are in a real tight spot because you're not going to walk both of them. Right. It just, it forces you to have to choose. Right. So again, well, well, like protecting guys,

yeah like like you said that gets a bit overblown at times but in this particular instance again you are posing a choice to the opposing team to the opposing pitcher and again a choice that might not be made that they might not get to make like because donovan's so good at getting on base because jp so good at getting on base we'll see you sitting eighth but i mean col young certainly has some some you know on base skills as well Julio uh can ads some protection for Cal, but it works both ways. Cal is going to give Julio more opportunities to hit with guys on base, probably guys in scoring position,

you know, unless he had 60 home runs and Julio just happens to always face pitchers with the base is empty, which I, possible. But I've already seen it a couple times. Brennan Donovan single, score on a Cowellie extra base hit. I think we'll see that a lot. And then Julio does his thing and he drives in Cal. And so, yeah, the two players can definitely help each other. and if both of them are playing at their ceiling at the same time,

I mean, that's how you win 17 out of 18. So, yeah, it's a very scary proposition for opposing pitchers. And Julio has come out red hot in spring so far. He is leaving today. He's gone.

We will not see Julio for three weeks. Yeah. He had a nine at bats. He had five hits, including three doubles. Yeah. No home runs, though. I mean, if he was an elite player,

he would have hit one home run at least. Right, of course. I'm so sick and tired of this. He would have hit 10 home. He would have hit 10 home runs in those nine-at-bats. At what point do we send Julio down? You think this is hyperbole? We're making this up.

We are now seen the comments. Yeah. Some of you watching probably made those comments. Yeah. You know who you are. Send Julio down. He actually sucks. Yeah.

I love future Hall of Amher sucks at baseball By the way Like we were getting those comments while he was putting up a 110 WRC plus in the first half Which again Disappointing relative to expectations And relative to who Julio ultimately needs to be Still a good player though

Do you know how many teams would Would kill to have a 110 WRC plus Gold Glove caliber center fielder Because like the number of teams who have that guy is like Four Yeah. Like, we're not going to get into it. We'll probably get into this in our live stream, but it's,

it's the whole J.P. Crawford thing, except like, Julio is Julio and J.P. Crawford's J.P. Crawford. Like, that's the difference there. But, like, why you guys so bored with great players. Exactly. That's what I was saying. It's just like, don't get bored with consistency. Yeah. Like, Julio's,

Julio is incredible. Julio is an incredible baseball player You're watching the Hall of Famer Play baseball right in front of your eyes He's put up essentially Three six wins seasons already in his career He's 25 years old He hasn't even hit his prime yet

What we consider to be an athlete's prime It's still like two years away Yeah 37 28 2930 is typically what we view as a prime Of a player It would be cool to see him get some more walks, though. That hasn't really been like a huge part of his game. It would be cool to see Julio gets more walks and get that on base percentage up a bit more.

Because obviously we know what he can do once he gets on base. Yeah. You know, he can easily turn a walk into a double the flip of the switch. I mean, we saw it last year. He won a game against the twins by infield single. Stole second base, overthrow, moved to third, and he scored on a single. we saw against the the guardians. He had an infield single that scored two runs.

Yeah. What was really a routine ground ball to the second basement. And then you just beat it out, allegedly, technically, legally. He did beat it out. The call stood. And, you know, the Mariners won that game. And then so, yeah, we know Julio putting the ball in play. Just doing that over and over again is going to collect Julio quite a few hits.

Just because at 6'4, 235, 240 pounds, he's still the fastest guy. on the field unless Byron Buckson is there and they're playing the twins. It really is insane how fast that guy is. All right. Well, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown, Marrars podcast, part of the Locktime Podcast Network, your team every day. Once again, if you never miss an episode, it's time to make it official.

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