Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Will the Mariners Circle Back on Luis Robert Jr. at His Lowest Point?

Starting point is 00:00:00 How many top 10 prospects will the Marrars move this winter? Could some of them go to Chicago and a Luis Robert deal? We'll discuss 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. Oh, Hoy, Sailors.

Starting point is 00:00:25 It is Monday, October 28, 2024. This is Tedding, is Alas, and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Marys Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And on today's show, we'll be opening up the mailbag like we do here every Monday and answer some of your mariner's questions. We'll also be spending the wheel for our topics for tomorrow's Top 5 Tuesday episode later on in this show. So be sure to stick around for that. But before we get into all that, shout out to our title sponsor today. FanDuel.

Starting point is 00:00:52 New customers can place a $5 bet and get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. Visit fanduel.com to get started. And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. Sign up now to hear us create our 2025 Mariners Off Season Plan. And we are going to kick off Mailbag Monday here with a question from Dan who wants to know what level of competition is the Arizona Fall League similar to. I assume since there's players ranging from A ball all the way to MLB on the rosters, are these stats as useless as spring training stats? More or less, you know, as we often say, the number. the statistics of spring training,

Starting point is 00:01:36 they don't really matter. What matters is how you look in the games and how you, you know, how comfortable you look, right? Like if you go 0 for four, but you hit four line drives at over 100 miles an hour, you know, that's a really good day at the ballpark. And so, you know, stats really don't matter.

Starting point is 00:01:54 Situations matter. And so, like, for example, Colt Emerson is tearing it up. If Colt, you know, finishes the Fall League as strong as he started it, which we have no reason to believe he's not. It's not like he's going to force his way into the Mariners' plans for 2025 or anything like that. It's probably not even going to bump him up a level more than what the Mariners were considering. He's probably going to start next year in high A, regardless, value performs. But for a guy like Colt Emerson, this is more about reps, right?

Starting point is 00:02:24 You just want to see him just because he missed a lot of time. You just want to see him get the at-batch, track pitches, run the bases, field ground, just play baseball, you know, as much as you can. So that's what it's about for him. But in terms of the stats, like the overall numbers don't matter so much. What could matter is, you know, the fact that he is 19, 20 years old going up against, you know, double a pitching and surviving and thriving. And, you know, it's about, hey, this is a left-on-left matchup here. This lefty's got a really good slider. He hides the ball well. This is a tough at bat for a left-handed hitter. Let's see how he, let's see how he, how he, how he prepares, like how he, how he, how he handles the,

Starting point is 00:03:01 this difficulty, right? This adversity here. That's what it's really about. So when you see like an 18, 19 year old perform really well in this league, it obviously speaks to his talent level because he's typically facing much more experienced arms, but not always. There are some 19 year old arms here. There are some low A arms in the fall league.

Starting point is 00:03:23 But you do want to pay attention to certain matchups. You do want to look at how a player performs in certain situations. That can be pretty telling. But again, it's not just statistics. basically based. Like in that scenario, Emerson is facing that lefty, and he hits a slicing line drive into left center field off the slider at,

Starting point is 00:03:40 you know, 103 miles an hour. But the left fielder, you know, was just positioned over there and he makes the play. Like, that's a really big, you know,

Starting point is 00:03:48 positive, uh, takeaway despite the fact that he made an out. So you're really looking at it more like that. In terms of, uh, you know, talent or like,

Starting point is 00:03:57 what's the talent level? I think it's somewhere between high and double. would be my guess, which is why- It's probably like the fifth inning onward of a spring training game. Right, which is like, you know, Jared Sunstrom goes down there and he's performing pretty well.

Starting point is 00:04:12 Is that as important as Colt Emerson performing well? No, Sunstrom's 23, 24 years old and he's going up against, you know, basically the same quality of arms he did in college for the most part. So no, it's not as big of a deal. It's not nothing,

Starting point is 00:04:29 but it's not as big of a deal. It's just, it's different for every player. But yeah, I think what you're mostly looking for here is you want to see the good approach. You want to see the good at bat. It's like last spring training, remember Cole Young? He hit like a double off of a major league quality lefty at the end of the spring training game. And that was like a huge thing because he's 20 years old and he's facing this, you know, MLB left. Was it Jake McGee or like basically a Jake McGee?

Starting point is 00:04:55 I think it might have been one of the Padres guys. I can't remember the Reds guy, Alex Young maybe. like yeah i can't remember it was somebody like that but that was a good sign and that's what you want to see from colt emerson in these games when he faces you know guys who have more experience more they're higher up on the ladder than he is and he performs against them that's a good thing right and and it it's it certainly is uh you know a fun thing that colt emerson's doing right now but for him it's really more about the reps he's getting than the statistics he's putting up yeah so from a consumer standpoint like the stats the way the league is promoted to us that stuff is all fine

Starting point is 00:05:30 fluff but these are meaningful reps right the stuff that you don't see on the box scores is very important here especially for guys like cole emerson like you mentioned because he lost so much time so he's making up for that lost time now because of the you know the injuries over the course of the year so for other guys it's just additional reps which are also very very important but a lot of the the the meaning behind the fall league is just stuff that we're not going to be able to see or recognize max wants to know how surprised would you be if colt emerson and colt young are not in the infield together by the middle of 2026 not very because there's a lot of factors that go into that like is cole young even going to be here in 2026 is colt emerson even going to be here

Starting point is 00:06:12 in 2026 i don't know maybe maybe not i mean i think even bigger factors is is colt emerson even going to be ready to go by the middle of 2026 i think he could be very easily could be so but it's not a slam dunk like so yeah i mean like both of them on the big league roster at the same time by the middle of twenty six it's certainly possible i don't know if i'd say it's probable just because stuff happens uh and the mariners are you know we know that the mariners preferred method of acquiring talent is to trade you know prospects and whatnot and so it seems like by the middle of twenty six there's a high probability one of these guys is traded um so yeah i don't want to say it'd be shocking if they weren't together, but assuming that they're both still here

Starting point is 00:07:01 in the middle of 2026, I would expect them to be teammates with the Seattle Mariners by some time in July of 2026. I wouldn't even roll out by some time in April of 2026. So, yeah, assuming if they're both here, they both survived the trade block for a cup for, you know, the next 18 months, 20 months or whatever, yeah, then I would be pretty surprised if they weren't sharing the infield at that point. all right so we have a few more of your questions to answer here in just a moment but first a reminder of this episode of the locked on mirrors podcast is brought to you by prize picks prize picks is the most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports unlike other apps on prize picks it's just you against the numbers all you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in you can now win up to a hundred times your money on price picks with as little as four correct picks you can turn ten dollars into a thousand dollars cook a hot takes with your friends and win real money this football season when you and your crew run your game on price picks. Download the price picks app today and use the promo code locked on MLB to get $50 instantly when you play $5. That's promo code LOC, KED, O N, MLB on prize picks to get $50 instantly

Starting point is 00:08:15 when you play $5. You don't even need to win to receive the $50 bonus. It's guaranteed. Price picks, run your game. And you're listening to the Locked-on Mariner's podcast. It is Mailbag Monday where you're answering your Mariners questions. We got one here from Ross who wants to know how many top 10 prospects do you predict Jerry moves by

Starting point is 00:08:39 opening day and who do you see as the most likely? Yeah. So there's a thing happening in Major League Baseball right now where prospect hoarding is kind of a thing. Like teams are very reluctant

Starting point is 00:08:55 to trade their they're like top level prospects. We just had a deadline where zero top 100 prospects got traded. And it wasn't like a huge deadline where these massive names were moving. But there were some pretty sizable names that got moved. It's that. But it's also a lot of these teams think that they can compete or that they're kind of straddling the fence where like it doesn't make sense for them to just outright sell. So a lot of these guys that would warrant top 100 prospects and returns aren't getting dealt.

Starting point is 00:09:26 Teams are willing to deal them. Right. So it's just, you know, all those combined seems to lead to this point where top prospects aren't getting traded that much. And since top prospects aren't being traded that much, a lot of the guys who would be traded, who would require top prospects, they don't get moved. And it's just kind of this vicious circle. So there's a path where the Mariners maybe only trade one of the top 10 guys and still, you know, like, for example, last year, right? the offseason they had last year, the Mariners moved one top 10 prospect all offseason. And they got Polanco, they got Garver, they got Rayleigh, like they remade their lineup.

Starting point is 00:10:09 Didn't work. No, it didn't. But it's not because of the prospect they did or didn't trade, blah, blah, blah. So I think the Mariners should buck this trend. I think they should be aggressive in moving their prospects for major league talent because I think they have an opportunity to take advantage of a market right now that, you know, for the few teams that are sellers this winter, you can kind of run that market if you're willing to pay.

Starting point is 00:10:33 I mean, look at what like Louisa Rice went for. He didn't cost a great prospect. You know, some good bulk, certainly. Dylan Sees cost one, you know, kind of in that top 100-ish prospect range. So, yeah, I think that the Mariners have an opportunity here to be very aggressive with their prospects and possibly get deals that most years they couldn't. But in terms of like who, like how many of their top 10, I'd say probably two, maybe three of the top 10. Most likely, I think obviously this depends on who is in your individual top 10.

Starting point is 00:11:10 And I don't know, you know, what list you're working off of. But I would say that Colt Emerson, Las Montes almost certainly aren't getting traded this winter. I think there's a very specific type of player that Cole Young could be traded for, but there's probably only like one or two guys who fill that role. I think Farmello and Arroyo probably aren't going to be traded. I think you might be selling low on those guys at this point. Feldman-Selston, there's just nothing there. So I'd say probably two.

Starting point is 00:11:47 I think Tai Peet is a strong possibility to be traded, although the mayor is like him a bunch. Tyler Locklear, I think, is a good possibility to be traded. And then I would say Harry Ford. I would say those three of my top 10 are the most likely guys to get dealt. But, yeah, again, it's very individualized. And Ford is a very delicate situation because how many teams actually view him as a catcher, yada, yada, yada. We've talked about that before. Right.

Starting point is 00:12:12 He might have the widest range of evaluations of any prospect of baseball. Yeah. And then, you know, for the fringe top 10 guys, I think one of the. the three pitchers, Evans, Morales, Garcia, one of those guys gets moved. Yeah, I think Williamson, Bliss, like, I think there are guys who are like in that 10 to 15 range, 10 to 20 range. I think probably, you know, three or four of those guys get moved this winter. But in terms of top 10 guys, I think it's probably going to be at most three, but I would

Starting point is 00:12:46 speculate probably one or two. I think it should be, you know, three plus, especially if the market is going to value value the prospects you have because you're the only team willing to ship, you know, really good prospects out or one of the only teams willing to do it. I think you should take advantage of that. But like Ty said, there's there there's a supply and demand issue here. And, yeah, it's just it's tough. It's tough right now to, to find these big deals that require these big players,

Starting point is 00:13:14 big prospects changing hands. So, yeah, I would say one or two probably. I would push three or four. But again, it's all dependent on the type of player you can get back. Next question here from John Stanton hates us. Would D.H. still a need and Jerry always circling back. Could he call the White Sox and get Luis Robert to fill that spot and give you Robles insurance? Did Robert quit in the middle of last year?

Starting point is 00:13:42 Because he fell off a cliff. And there were some situations where he was kind of, you know, loafing around. outfield and he's like shot putting balls back into the infield allowing runners to advance and he was having non-competitive at bats like robert might have quit last year and and while it's easy to sit here and be like well yeah he's on the worst team in baseball he doesn't want to be there you still have to you know exert some effort right it's still not a good thing that you quit on your team when things didn't go right halfway through the season uh so yeah and it's like you know what what do you do uh if you're the white socks, maybe you just want the salary off and then you're just like,

Starting point is 00:14:23 get him out of here. We can't have this guy. Yeah. But there's still red flags there. And that's not even counting the red flags we talked about all last winter, where this guy has been hurt for most of his career. And he was hurt again this year. So, uh, yeah, Robert is an interesting guy because his upside is probably the best player

Starting point is 00:14:42 that's available this winter. Like that's probably his ceiling. And he's cost controlled. And you get him for multiple years and he's only 26. but his downside is is that he just doesn't care and he doesn't want to be there and he gets heard and things don't go right and he folds up shop early and he wants to go home and like there's some real concerns here with Luis Robert and I do think that you know with the with kind of a re emphasis on like building some clubhouse culture especially with a new manager

Starting point is 00:15:11 in there for the you know for his first full season I don't know if you want to touch you know a guy who has those questions like Robert does so I think he's be interesting and a price, you know, at a certain price, they'll overlook it. But like, is that price going to dip low enough to where the White Sox would move him for it? Probably not. Because if you're the White Sox, you're selling him at the lowest point. He's been up so far. I mean, last winter, we were talking about like, man, I don't think you can get him without giving up Wu or Miller. Now, if the White Sox won't Wu or Miller, you laugh at them. And then you call them back of another season where just to laugh at them, all the things that you just

Starting point is 00:15:49 mentioned he was an 84 WRC plus his K rate went up slash 224 278 379 he wasn't good this year he was a bad player objectively so if the the white socks are selling him they're selling him incredibly low they just don't need to rush into that they really don't so I don't foresee them trading him unless it's like you said they're just like we have to get out on this guy right and even then it's like If you're the Mariners, like, do you want to give up? Yeah. And then at that point, it's like, do you even want him? The white socks of all teams are like, we need to get away from this dude?

Starting point is 00:16:28 It's like, are we going to give up Las Montez for this guy? No. Like, you want to go up Cole Young for this guy? No, not really. Not the year. And now with all the red flags he's shown. And so it's like, you know, how low do you go down the total pole? Like, do you want to give up Tai P for this guy or Harry Ford for this guy or Tyler

Starting point is 00:16:45 Walker for this guy? Like maybe you start to, you know, but it's. there's a lot of risk in trading for Robert. And there's a lot of reason to believe that the White Sox just aren't going to trade Robert at his current valuation. So I do think they'll talk. Like I do think Jerry's going to cast a wide net. He's going to talk to every team. So I wouldn't be shocked at all.

Starting point is 00:17:07 We heard connections between the Mariners and Robert and all that. I just think that, you know, the cost to acquire isn't going to dip low enough to where the Mariners are willing to take that shot. on a guy like Robert. Yeah. All right. So we have a couple more questions to go over in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the lockdown era's podcast is once again brought to you by Fandul. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook.

Starting point is 00:17:36 Because right now, new customers can bet $5 and get $150 back in bonus bets if you win. The Fandual Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play-by-play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. Just visit fenduel.com to join today. You'll get started with $150 in bonus bets

Starting point is 00:18:03 if you win your first $5 bet. That's fanduel.com. Never waste a hunch and make every moment more with Fanduel, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. We got a couple of more of your questions to answer here and then we are going to be spinning the wheel for our top five Tuesday topics once we are done answering questions. This question comes from Ross who wants to know.

Starting point is 00:18:30 Do we know who Canzone is at this point or is it still possible for him to win the offseason, quote unquote, again and make the opening day roster barring injury for the sake of discussion? I do think we know who Dom Canzone is. I think he's a fourth outfielder at best at the major league level. He's a 27-year-old fringe major leaguer, right? And he's never been a top prospect. So he hasn't earned the right to have like this long leash. He hasn't earned the right to have paths carved out for him for assumptions to be made about him, whether or not the organization likes him, which I do think they, they like him and they do see a vision there. But he's just a guy. He's just a 40-man guy who's AAA depth to me. He shouldn't factor into the conversation at all.

Starting point is 00:19:17 for the 26-man roster this winter. They shouldn't even, he shouldn't even cross their minds when they're thinking about building their 26-man roster this winter. Straight up. Yeah. It's interesting.

Starting point is 00:19:30 And the current iteration of our off-season plan, which you guys can hear by going to our Patreon. The way we've built it, Canzone does make a little bit of sense. And even that's like, like you don't want to do that.

Starting point is 00:19:45 But yeah, like Ty said, he's 27 years old. He didn't, finished particularly well down in Tacoma either. I think in the final month, he had like an 87 WRC plus in Tacoma, you know, in the PCL. That's not good. He doesn't hit lefties at all. We know that now. So yeah, he's he's a guy who I feel like we know who he is. And that is that he's, you know, a 4A player more or less. There's still a possibility that he can be more than that. And the good news is if you're the Mariners is that he still has two options left.

Starting point is 00:20:16 Like you're not, you don't have to DFA. So you don't have to force the issue. Right. And he doesn't have to make, you just send him down to AAA and you start the year there and calm up if you need to and if he shows something. But yeah,

Starting point is 00:20:26 this is kind of a make or break year for Canzone. So I feel like we know who he is. But there's also not really a reason for the Mariners to give up on him yet. There's, again, there's no 40 man crunch. They don't have to DFA him. You know, they don't have to,

Starting point is 00:20:40 he doesn't have to make the opening day roster or anything like that. so I don't think that you know I don't think it's possible for the Mariners to win the offseason and then have Canzone on the opening day roster I don't think those two things gel at all but I think it was about him winning the off season like he put the work in oh right right he's the guy blah blah oh you're like Thai France last year winning the off season means nothing okay so yeah can can zone kind of force the hand sure probably by having a really good few months in Tacoma at to start the year sure I really don't think there's anything like and like I said the Mariners shouldn't like be in this mode where they're

Starting point is 00:21:26 like oh well can zone's going to come back and be incredible so we don't have to worry about that like no like you should be surprised by how good can zone is by the time you get to spring training and then it should be like wow I mean we can't really even like justify not having canzone on this roster. He's a fourth outfielder. That's what he is. Yeah, at best at the major of the global, because he's a platoon bat. Like it's very clear he cannot hit lefties. Yep. So, yeah, there's only so much value there. And again, he's 27 years old. He's never been a top prospect. He doesn't have that kind of pedigree. So he hasn't earned any sort of leash here. He hasn't. No. Just the fact of the matter.

Starting point is 00:22:05 I mean, there's some, there's some good tools here too. Like, you know, there's definitely got power. makes a good amount of contact but he's got to earn it he's got to earn it you can't do this thing again where it's like well we really like the player and we really believe that he's going to hit okay if he does great but he's got to prove that to you yep yep there are no like we're we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt nope you're 27 years old man you have to prove it yeah last question of the day comes from dug i've heard some talk of spencer torkelson being available from detroit any interest fitz jerry's former top prospect slash pick profile.

Starting point is 00:22:41 Plus, they can protect him against tough righties with Rayleigh. Do you think a top one, top 10, 20, 20 pick swap, maybe Emerson Hancock gets it done? Probably not. I think Hancock is pretty worthless in a trade, although it's not like Torkelson's going to carry much value either. Although Torkelson did have a much, does have a much better track record in the big leagues than Emerson Hancock. So, yeah, it's a bit of an interesting thought.

Starting point is 00:23:08 I don't love the idea of platooning at first base, even though I know that it's probably going to happen to some degree. But, you know, we have to remember in 2023, Torkelson hit 31 home runs. Now, I mean, it was with a 233 batting average and a 313 on base. But he was a 108 WRC Plus. That was just a year ago. This year he really struggled. But, you know, the strikeout rates are a little bit high.

Starting point is 00:23:33 I think Torkelson's an interesting name, but he is a first base only. So you're carrying a guy on the bench. you can only play first base. You're carrying a guy coming off of a bad year. You're carrying a guy who has strikeout problems in his career. And my thing is like if you're acquiring Torkelson, right? You're acquiring it with the hope that this guy could turn into the guy that a lot of people thought he was going to be. How can you find that out if he's only facing left-handed pitching?

Starting point is 00:24:04 Right. So it's like, I don't know if Torkelson. makes a tremendous amount of sense for this roster and for this build. I don't think that the Tigers are going to move him for Amherst and Hancock. They might move him for like, I don't know, Logan Evans type. But yeah, Torkelson's interesting. You know, he is former top prospect. He is the former number one overall pick.

Starting point is 00:24:27 We know Jerry likes first round talents. He likes top prospects. You know, and hey, the last time the mayor's did this worked out pretty well. Hello, Victor Robles. So I like the idea overall. There are a few things that I don't love about it. That's probably going to prevent me from being all that interested in Torkelson. But to me, like if I'm acquiring Spencer Torkelson,

Starting point is 00:24:50 I'm going to give him the shot to be the everyday first baseman because I want to see that back in play. I want to see if I can fix him because a first base only weak side platoon player is not valuable to me. whatsoever not interested in that profile on my bench so you have to be able to hit righte's you have to be able to hit lefty if you're only going to play first base you have to hit period against everybody i don't know if torkelson can i also don't know if he can't so he's a very intriguing player i mean twenty three he was a 104 w rc plus against righties 121 against lefties but you can live with that yeah if torkelson was just the guy he wasn't 2023 overall.

Starting point is 00:25:37 And that's your first baseman. That's fine. You live with that. You can do a lot worse than that. That's basically, it's basically Jake Berger. Yeah. I mean, virtually the same guy.

Starting point is 00:25:50 So, yeah, and at first base, that's fine. But when it's, hey, yeah, he's going to play first base, but 65% of the time we have to sit him on the bench because we don't trust him hit Ritey's. That is not a valuable. That's not a major leader. straight up. No.

Starting point is 00:26:07 You have to hit Ritease. Yep. If you're in first base only, you have to hit right-handed pitching. You have to. Yeah. All right. It is time to spin the wheel for our top five Tuesday topics for tomorrow. I was the episode.

Starting point is 00:26:22 Last week I did the more serious topic, right? I did the top five reasons to be optimistic about the mirror. So this week, it's Colby's turn to tackle this particular wheel. So let's spend it for him and enjoy these love. sound effects that we have here not many options on here so it's going to be regression candidates top five regression candidates oh man difficult topic for me obviously as the optimist of the group looking at a player and seeing potential faults is not my favorite thing to do so right of course you were so close to top five

Starting point is 00:27:05 concerns, which would have been very, very on the nose. Yeah, very on the nose. There are, however, a lot more options on this wheel for me. So we'll see what we get here, what I get here, with the sillier wheel. We need better names for these wheels, but whatever. You get what we're talking about here. And I will be giving you my top. Well, I love this.

Starting point is 00:27:34 This is great. Yeah, this is perfect for me. top five baseball video games. Considering that I have been playing a little bit of backyard baseball recently now that it's on Steam, that might make an appearance. We'll see. But yeah. So top five regression candidates for the mayors 2025 and top five baseball video games

Starting point is 00:27:55 coming your way tomorrow on Lockdown Merars. And with that, that's going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube and now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Lockdown Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Locked-on, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Lockdown Sports today now available on the free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars for Colby Pat Noad.

Starting point is 00:28:24 I'm Taday Gonzalez. Be sure give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marrars. You can follow me at Tading Azales and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's CPAT-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Will the Mariners Circle Back on Luis Robert Jr. at His Lowest Point?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.