Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Yusei Kikuchi Declines His Player Option

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode react to the surprising news that Yusei Kikuchi has declined his player option and will become a free agent. Then, the two break down Mariners free agent target Seiya Suzuki and also discuss more about the Kyle Seager saga.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariner's News and Analysis, brought to you by Spotify Green Room. Download the Spotify Green Room app and find one of our locked-on rooms. Thank you so much for making Locked-on Mariners your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms, and today is Wednesday, November. 3rd, 2021. I am your host, Taday and Gonzalez, joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-U-N-R-N-Rer. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, that's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-A-T-L-E. And be sure to also check out our Patreon, where we talk about the Mariners even more.

Also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Big, big episode dropping for all of our patrons later. Today, we're going to be announcing our final Mariners' offseason plan, and our patrons get that first before it goes out to everyone else later next week. So if you don't want to wait and want to see what we think the Mariners should do this offseason, visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone for more information. But today on Locked-on Mariners, we're going to talk about Sayas Suzuki, the Japanese outfielder who's expected to come over to Major League Baseball this off season. we're also going to hopefully put a bow on the Kyle Seeger saga.

If you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. We greatly appreciate it. But before we get into our other topics, Colby, the off season has officially started. The World Series is over. Congratulations to the Atlanta Braves on becoming the world champions. And of course, destroying the hopes and dreams of Astro fans and the Astros themselves all over. it's glorious to be a mariner fan right now especially because jerry season has begun and the off season has already kicked off in a pretty decently sized way uh tucker barnhart gets traded from the reds to the tigers say noteworthy trade and the mariners also have news themselves

which uh kind of threw a rush into our off season plan and if you listen to our episode that we have today on on patreon you'll you'll see how but you say Kikuchi surprisingly has declined his $13 million option for the 2022 season and will become a free agent now we expected the Mariners to decline their four year option

team option that they had on Kikuchi but we thought for sure that he was going to take that $13 million option because he was not probably not going to get that out the open market, but he is betting on himself and he is looking to get into a different situation. We'll see how that turns out for him. But now the Mariners suddenly have $13 million that they thought they weren't going to have, or at least we didn't think they were going to have. So what's your reaction to this pretty surprising start to the offseason for the marriers?

annoyance at first because you know as you mentioned our offseason plan that we had just spent weeks trying to build just got crashed about 22 minutes into announcing what our offseason plan was so that's annoying but you know on the surface like for things that people actually care about it is a surprise it's a big surprise and the mariners have officially declined their side so you say kukuchi is going to be a free agent in five days I wouldn't anticipate Seattle putting the qualifying offer on him. I think he'd probably just take that. It sounds like you say knew the writing was on the wall and that he was more than likely going to spend the year in the Mariners bullpen. And he would rather take the chance that he can start.

And so he's going to go look for the best opportunity to start. And I'm sure the idea here is that if I can start and I can show that I can do this, then I'm going to hit the mark. again next year. I'm assuming he wants a one-year deal. And I might lose a little bit of money in 2022, but I'm going to make it up on the back end by proving that I can start and not be stuck in the Mariners bullpen. So it's a gamble on his part. It's always possible that he, you know, has been told by Scott Boris that he can get more than $13 million on a one-year deal or he can get a multi-year deal right now. And, you know, Boris is typically pretty good at that, but, you know, Boris is also out for himself a lot of times. And so, you know, is that a huge difference to him if Kukuchi gets, you know, $10 million or $13 million? No, I mean, he's only getting 3% of that. So that's really not that big of a difference to him. Is it a big difference if, you know, Boris gets 3% of $10 million or 3% of, $10 million or 3% of, of, you know, $35 million on a three-year deal.

Yeah, that is pretty big. So it's, Boris has done this in the past with his clients. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. So it is a risk for Yusik Kucci. For the Mariners, it's a bit of a gift. You know, they just tossed out about $33 million off of their payroll by declining, you know, Seeger and Yusig and declining his option.

And so starting payroll is even lower than we thought. And, you know, just another, another instance of no excuses for the Seattle Mariners. They don't have a single big contract on their books right now. This is very surprising. I'm almost kind of stunned or speechless because of it. It's certainly not something that I expected because, you know, it just seemed like the safe decision for Kikuchi. But, hey, you know, more power to them. and we'll see how that market plays out for him.

But yeah, from the Mariners perspective, we'll see what they do with this money now. But like you said, there's no excuses at this point for this team to spend money. Of course, free agency doesn't start for another five days, and we don't know how that's all going to work out with the CBA negotiations lingering over everything and a potential lockout looming. But things can happen now. Jerry Depoto can make trades.

you can start cooking. Are you excited? Are you pumped? Yes. You sound super thrilled about that. Yeah. No, it's one of those things where it's like, somebody made a move already and it wasn't Jerry Depoto.

Like, what are we even doing here? Like, just pack it in. Clearly, John Stanton has pulled the rug out from Depoto again. Because, I mean, he couldn't, like, he couldn't make the first move. You know he's got things right. But no, it's exciting. And if you're a Mariners fan, and if you're listening to this, I hope you are.

But if you're a Mariners fan, I would not stray too far from whatever source you use to get information, Twitter or some TV or radio or a podcast or whatever. Because I think there's a high probability that Jerry makes, two trades in the next week. And I mean like substantive trades. Probably not like for a star, but like 26 man roster implication trades.

I think I'd be pretty surprised if we don't hop on the mics in a week to 10 days and Jerry hasn't made at least two of those type of moves. I think he's going to be aggressive. I think he's going to get after this early. And I think other teams are going to be willing to do that because like you said, we don't know what pre-agency is going to look like. And I'm going to guess most of the top guys are going to wait until there's a CBA to sign.

So if you want to start doing some heavy lifting, now's the time to do it. And if you're at the Mariners and you want to try and, well, more or less, woo these top prospects like Marcus Simeon or Chris Brian or whoever. It would be nice to have a couple of major leaguers already added before the shutdown so you can look at that so that they can look at you and say, well, you know, Seattle's interested in me. and you know I don't mind the city I'm open to it but I don't know if they're ready to win yet

well if you go to them and say look we've already acquired you know this starting outfielder and this you know quality number five start number four starter or whatever it is we're serious about this our moves have already shown that we've been the most

aggressive team so far I think that's another reason to to be very aggressive on this and then move quick and I'd be pretty surprised if Jerry doesn't have, you know, a couple of deals basically done or lined up and they're just waiting for official announcements here. So, and the fun thing about Topoto is that you never really know, you know, because the Mariners don't leak. Yeah. The Mariners don't leak.

So they're going to kind of come out of nowhere. You'll probably just be sitting around doing something else and you'll get a notification on your phone or something. And you'll, wow. and you get to react to it instead of the slow kind of build up where you're like, well, the Mariners are rumored to do this and oh, they might be getting close. And that whole that whole thing that we have to sit through. That's not what Jerry does. The Mariners just kind of announce things.

And that's how we all find out at the same time. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun. Yeah. If it's going to leak, it's going to come from the other side of things. Kind of how the situation with the Jared Kelnick trade happened. But yeah, you hit the nail right on the head there. and it's going to be interesting to see

if, you know, some of the conversations that they had at the trade deadline carryover into these first couple of trades. We know that they talk to the Marlins quite a bit. We know that they talk to the twins quite a bit, especially about Byron Buxton. You know, we know that they definitely got pretty aggressive on Whit Merrifield with the Royals. Of course, the Royals asked for an astronomical price.

Are they still going to feel that way? and if not do the Mariners circle back around to that if you had to guess of all the conversations that they had at the deadline there's also the pirates Brian Reynolds we know that they hit up the Orioles about John Means at one point this summer of all those guys

who do you think would be the most likely to come over to the Mariners in the next seven to ten days of the big names they were linked to pretty much or not or not even just the big names just the teams that they were talking to at the deadline Minnesota Miami Pittsburgh Baltimore etc I could see my or I could see a Minnesota moving pretty quickly the thing with Minnesota is I don't think we're looking at a full tear down but I don't think they're necessarily going to I don't think the twins see 2022 as their window

I think they see 2023 as their window. So anybody who is very expensive or isn't under contract through 2023 probably is available. And the twins probably want somebody who can help them in 2023. You know, if they can't help them in 2022, fine. But they're probably looking for guys who are really close to the big leagues. The Mariners have a couple of those guys. And the twins have a couple of guys who feel a lot of needs. for the Mariners.

So I could see the twins being a team that Seattle is working with. Also, Cleveland. We didn't hear them really attached to Cleveland much at the deadline, but there's some natural fits there with Cleveland as well. So I would look to those two AL Central teams. And as always, just because you kind of have to, you have to throw Tampa Bay in there. Tampa Bay has 19 R-eligible guys,

and they're pushing their normal salary. you know payroll comfort so uh Tampa Bay is probably in Tampa Bay always tries to trade those guys before they just non-tender them so I would look at Tampa Bay I'd look at Minnesota I would look at Cleveland um but again the beauty of Jerry Depoto is he's going to pull off some deal with the Phillies that we've never seen that will never see coming and that'll be the first move we are going to talk about a free agent that the the Mariners could possibly target whenever things get rolling on that front not someone that you may have have heard about. Maybe you have. We're going to tell you more about them in just a moment, but real

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Green Room, changing the way we talk sports. You're listening to Lockdown Mariners, thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. Every day we are free and available on all platforms, of course. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell everyone you know who's a mariner fan to come check us out. Now that the offseason has officially started, we're going to have a lot of fun here on Lockdown Mariners. And we're going to talk about a free agent that has kind of flown under the radar in terms of a fit with the Seattle Mariners. But we know from a report coming out of Japan that the mariners are indeed interested.

them in him. They are one of six teams apparently interested in him. And that is Sayas Suzuki, 27 year old outfielder from Japan. This year in the Japan League, he slashed 319, 436, 644 with, let's see here, 38 home runs. 38 home runs. The guy was absolutely marvelous in Japan this year. also on a on the defensive side of things a gold glove caliber player at least in japan uh but good glove still pretty young at 27 years old he's going to be 27 until august of next year and it seems like the baseline for his contract is going to be three years 21 million dollars which may you know give or take we'll see on that but uh he's affordable there's clearly quite a bit a ceiling here.

What do you think about the fit with Sayas Suzuki, Colby? I think it's a pretty good fit. I would be hesitant to sign him and just hand him one of the corner outfield spots and not have some assurances as part of a platoon or as

even acquiring a strong fourth outfielder and just having him just in case. And if Suzuki hits, then fine, you have an outfielder to trade. And if Suzuki doesn't hit and, you know, it's, it's Akiyama or Tsutsugu again, then you just, you have a good defender, good base runner, and a guy who's only 27. So there's still plenty of time. And you can send him down to the miners, unless he negotiates that in his contract. So yeah, I think it's a good fit. I wouldn't build my

entire offseason around it or make him one of my big two, or three, you know, offensive additions to the lineup. But as a, you know, at $7 million, so that's really all he's going to get. That's the price you can pay for a pretty good fourth outfielder. And it makes sense. So I'm definitely interested in that. And then there's always the possibility that he comes over and he's really, really good. And if that's the case, yeah, great. You just got a great value at seven, seven, eight, seven, nine million dollars a year. So it's definitely something that I'm interested in and I'm going to trust Seattle's judgment on this one. If they're interested in them, I think we should be too. And you look at the numbers, they're very good.

You kind of read the scouting reports. There's a lot of positive things being said about Suzuki. One of my favorite comps that I've seen on him is A.J. Pollock, which is a pretty fun player to have around. So, yeah, I'm definitely interested in that. so of course last name Suzuki and in Japan he wore the number 51 so probably not a coincidence there on that front so it leads you to believe that there might be some admiration for the Seattle Mariners organization and for each row Suzuki himself who is of course a member of the Mariners organization still and how how much do you think that helps in negotiations or or at least in attracting Sayah Suzuki to the Pacific Northwest.

And I'll ask you this as well. How much do you think the lingering CBA negotiations impact how he and his agent approach his free agency? Yeah, it's interesting. I'm not exactly sure if he's like subject to the MLBPA rules because he's not a member of that until he signs, right? So could he sign in like December while the lockouts happening because he's technically not a member of the CB not a member of the MLBPA? I don't know. I don't think he could, but I don't know for sure. Which leads me to believe that he's probably going to want to get signed before that, you know, before the shutdown.

But as for what each year-o and that whole thing kind of does for Suzuki, it doesn't hurt. Right. It certainly doesn't hurt. And we, we've heard, you know, when the Mariners brought in Yusay Kikuchi that he talked glowingly about Ichero and that was his guy growing up and the love he had for each year. So it certainly doesn't hurt. But it's also, I think a lot of times people just like, oh, well, you know, throw Seattle in there because they're always interested in the, you know, the Japanese born players and all that stuff. And it's like, well, I mean, they've been interested in a lot of them.

But you Darvish didn't sign in Seattle. Darvice sign in Texas. Masero Tanaka signed in New York. So, I mean, this idea that... Showyotani. Right. Yeah, obviously the big one. And so at the end of the day, there appears to be some kind of...

I mean, it's not going to come down to just Eichiro. There's going to be other factors, but does it hurt? No, it certainly doesn't. And we don't know that Suzuki is a huge Eichiro fan. I mean, I think we can draw some lines based on some evidence like he wears number 51, but I mean, who knows? That just might be a number he likes. So yeah, but again, it doesn't hurt. You still have Iwo Kuma in the organization.

You still have each year own the organization. Obviously, we talked about all the other reasons why Seattle is typically appealing to the Japanese free agents because of the proximity as, you know, well, as close as any MLB team can be. the community and, you know, just kind of the overall comfort level of the Mariners integrating Japanese-born players into their roster and into their clubhouse. It's something they've done quite successfully, and they're pretty good at it. So it is definitely, all that definitely does help. And I don't know if I'd call them favorites, but they certainly have some things that the other contenders can offer, like Kansas City. Yeah. So yeah, if it's close and it comes down to the money, then yeah.

But I think you also have to remember, you also have to be careful here is that like maybe Suzuki really admires each row, but maybe he doesn't want to follow in each year's footsteps. You know what I mean? Like maybe he wants to forge his own path, which is something I think Shohei Otani talked about, about how he was kind of wanting to, you know, be his like not have to live up to these. expectations of other greats in the organization. So maybe Suzuki falls that way. Maybe he doesn't. But I think it's, I think it obviously doesn't hurt.

I'll say that. So playing for Hiroshima last year, he actually walked one more time than he struck out. 87 walks to 86 strikeouts. This guy was control the zone to a T. So it makes sense why the Mariners would be interested in him. And of course, the offensive numbers are just incredible. The one thing that I am concerned about is how it all fits together, particularly with Kyle Lewis. What does it mean for him?

And this is kind of a situation that we've run into with our own offseason plan and considering Suzuki. So if they sign Suzuki, and obviously they would still have to add more in the outfield, but what would that potentially mean for Kyle Lewis, if anything? Maybe nothing, to be quite honest. We've heard some rumblings that the Mariners are not too pleased with Kyle Lewis, that there may be a riff there in regards to his rehab and all that stuff. So there's a possibility that the Mariners are going to trade Kyle Lewis. I wouldn't say it's strong, but I think it's definitely out there and it's definitely not zero.

So maybe Lewis gets traded or maybe Lewis is kind of the fourth outfielder or Suzuki's kind of the fourth outfielder. And they're maybe not a strict platoon since they're both right handed, but maybe they are kind of the the insurance for the other one, if that makes sense. And you still have to go out and get a center fielder. You know, we've heard Jerry talk about, you know, publicly that they're looking at, you know, Kyle, Lewis, anything Kyle Lewis gives him as a bonus. So they're not counting on him at all. And so I don't think signing Suzuki really changes that. Maybe it makes him more likely to trade Lewis.

But I think you can keep both on the roster if you want to and coexist just fine. Yeah. Because here's the deal. The Mariners have one outfielder that you should pencil into the starting lineup guaranteed on opening day. And that's Mitch Hanigar. And Mitch Haniguer is barely an outfielder. So you need three outfielders.

That's, you know, unless you want to count Kalanickas one, fine. You still need two and honestly probably three still. So, yeah, there's plenty of room in the outfield. So I don't think it makes that big of a difference. All right. So coming up, we are going to be talking about Kyle Seeger. He's obviously been a pretty big topic of discussion in the Mariners fandom over the last few days. and we talked about it on Monday,

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still this has created a quite quite a bit of a dialogue here in the mariners fandom if you will about the front office about kyle seger and it's really come down to this point where mariner's fans at least some of them believe that you should be taking a side in this situation taking either the side of seeker or taking the side of front office and there's really no gray area. There's no in between. And I personally have said some things about Kyle Seeger, about how I've lost some respect for him

because of some of the things that I've been told about how he apparently is unvaccinated. And of course, I was also told that he actively tried to convince his teammates not to get the vaccine, which has, of course, a lot of moral issues tied to it also has a lot of issues tied to availability being the best ability and how that could disrupt the mariner's season and could put him at a competitive disadvantage. But I also want to make it clear here that I still respect Kyle Seeger and what he's been able to do in his 10-year career in Seattle.

The guy was one of the few success stories in this organization to actually come up through the organization and be good. That's a rarity for the Seattle Mariners as of late. And he was able to do it. Made all-star team, gold gloves, all that good stuff. But the thing that irritates me here is a fan base that has constantly pounded the table for winning, has completely. about the lack of winning in Seattle and a poor use of resources, yet continues to go to bat for a declining player and continues to curse the front office for not wanting to give him $20 million

for a declining player. And look, I know that by the metrics, Kyle Seeger was quite literally worth $20 million in 2021. But there's a couple problems with that. One, that algorithm is flawed, right? There are plenty of players out there making way less money than Kyle Seeger who are better than. No one with a sub 300 on base percentage should be making $20 million. That's just what it is.

And frankly, the Mariners can do better. secondly you're banking on him being the player that he was in 2021 and 22 and that's just not super realistic and also there are some pretty big red flags in Kyle Seeger's 2021 it was pretty clear the guy sold out for power he hit the most home runs he's ever hit in a season hit the most rbi is that he's hit in a season and that's great at face value but again he was chasing more often he got on base at a sub 300 clip that is bad no matter how much he was slugging which was only 438 that wasn't even tops on the team despite having the team lead and home runs and again you've seen this time and time again with other

veteran players in seattle felix hernandez you were handcuffed to that contract when he was pitching no better than a number five. So I want to finish it off here by saying that, because I've seen Mariner's Twitter kind of misconstrued where we're coming from, and I'm talking about where Colby and I specifically are coming from on this. We are not trashing Kyle Seeger. Again, I have plenty of respect for what Seeger has done, despite all the things that I've been told and heard and how, you know,

he wasn't that great this year despite all the home runs and everything. I still have respect for him. He's a Mariners legend. He deserves to be in the Mariners Hall of Fame one day. And I hope that this little silly, meaningless, stupid spat between him and the front office can eventually be moved past that they can repair this relationship. So, you know, when it comes to the time for him to be inducted in the Mariners Hall of Fame, that can be great.

that can be easy and smooth going and happen in a timely manner and all that good stuff. But just because we point out the flaws both on and off the field of Seeger doesn't mean that we're worshipping the ground that Jerry DePoto stands on. And that brings me to my final point here, which is Jerry DePoto is neither good nor bad. And you're not worshipping the ground that he stands on just for wanting to be willing to see where he goes with his plan to see his plan through. Because really, this is the first time he's ever gotten to see his own vision of the Seattle Mariners through.

And it's crazy to me that a lot of Mariners fans hold the beginning of his tenure against him when he had to inherit a complete mess left behind by Jack Serrenzic. $100 million wrapped up in five players on a team that was never going to spend anywhere close to $200 million. They were going to stay at 160 to 170 at most. And he had a terrible farm system to work with as well. The worst baseball, as many considered it. So he had very little resources and assets to build a team around that core that they had.

And for some reason, that's held against him over things that are really not in his control. And I don't think that's worshipping him or this front office by giving him the benefit of the doubt on that, by acknowledging and looking at the other side of things and understanding that he wasn't given the best opportunity to succeed with that. So now, again, and this is, even despite how I feel about Jerry and some of the things that he's done, some of the trades he's made, I really like. what he's done so far and I understand the path that he's trying to take.

The jury is still out on him for me. I need to see how he finishes the job. And if he fails, fire him. I don't care. I just want to win baseball games. Don't you, Colby? No, I prefer losing to winning. Of course.

Of course. Yeah. Losing gives us something to complain about. And I like complaining. The weird thing to me here is that Kyle Seeger has very, I mean, pointedly pretty much told you exactly how he feels about the Mariners front office. And in particular, Jerry DiPoto, he hasn't really tried to hide it. And yet there is a certain percentage of the fan base that won't acknowledge that he was wrong about a lot of things. he was mad that they rebuilt.

Well, sorry, Kyle. It was the right thing to do, period. And we're seeing the results of that right now. He was mad that Jerry DePoto traded his best friend. Well, sorry, Kyle. That made the Mariners better. And I'm sorry that upset you. And then you were cowardly and went, you know, at first you went to,

you went to Ryan Davis and you kind of, oh, I'm an anonymous source. I'm an anonymous source. But we all knew. I mean, it was later confirmed that was you um and now you kind of do this oh i haven't spoken to jerry in years and jerry says well we talked at spring training and and and all of this and you know just this kyle seger has basically spent the last year trying to make the the narrative that he's the victim which tells me that he still cares what fans think of him in seattle so ultimately i don't think there's

going to be any kind of you know just i don't think the disgruntlement is going to go so far that you know, that's going to disrupt his, his place in Mariners Hall of Fame and all that. So, like, I don't think there's going to be some big after career like, you know, like Richard Sherman and the Seattle Seahawks. Is that, is that, you know, relationship permanently stained? I mean, probably not, but it got pretty close. And so I think that's what Seeger is. And so you kind of look at everything Seeger's done and he's kind of tried to make himself look like the good guy here.

And the kind of the thing is here is that there are no bad guys in this situation. I mean, you know, Jerry DePoto is not a bad guy for trading, you know, for trading Robinson Canoe and Gene Segar. And he's not a bad guy for not resigning Felix and not resigning Nelson Cruz and not, you know, trading Kyle Seeger when he wanted to be. He's not, Kyle Seeger's not a bad guy for being mad that, you know, his boss called him overrated and overpaid and, and, and, being upset that, you know, his friend was traded. Like, none of that makes him a bad guy. I mean, you could argue if his clubhouse stuff makes him a bad guy. Or just a tragically misinformed guy who thinks he's doing the right thing.

So there doesn't need to be a bad guy in this situation. Sometimes relationships just have to end. And you don't have to take a side. And you being able to acknowledge one side or the other is not taking a side either. Nope. But there's this misconception now that you have to, right? It's just like I said. Yeah, no, I mean.

That you have to, that if you're looking at it, you know, and trying to give Jerry DePoto in the front office the benefit of the doubt on certain things, then you're worshiping the ground that they stand on. Yeah. And the same thing is pretty much being said from that side of things about, those who support Seeger and it's just that's not the case on either front it really isn't you don't have to be on a side here you don't have to choose a side you can respect both sides of it and move on and the and the thing here is it's over it's over now yep they've made the mariners have

made the decision they tried to get a hold of him Ryan Divish corrected himself and Ryan Divish would know so the Mariners did make an attempt here this is not some PR game that they're playing. I know a lot of folks think that the front office is probably just playing some PR game, but that's not the case here. And you can be disappointed in how this all happened, right? How it all transpired. Sure. But I think you should be willing to look at how both sides contributed to this happening. And I don't know. It's just, it's a crappy situation overall, because again, this is a legend of the organization that you're talking about. This isn't just some guy.

And even though that it was time to move on from both a baseball and personal perspective, it's still, you know, it should have been handled better from both sides, probably. You know, but again, we're also not in there. We're not involved. And this might be a case of fans having a little too much access to information and opinions coming out from both sides. And really, again, it doesn't paint the whole story.

You're just getting little tidbits and a lot of he said she said here. And it's just exhausting, really, to read through it, to read through all the takes. And ultimately, at the end of the day, I just want Kyle Seeger to be able to move on and have a great rest of his career somewhere

and maybe even compete for, the playoffs in the World Series at some point. That'd be awesome. In a perfect world, that would be the case. And for the Mariners, you know, I hope that they follow suit here and aim higher than Kyle Seeker. And I'm under the impression that they will. And at that point, then both sides benefit, right?

If Seeker can land in a great situation for himself and the Mariners can move on and find a long-term option at third base or what have you this off-season. then great and let's just move on because this is a situation that just does not need the kind of you know divisive nature it's birth really it just needs to you know let's pay our respect to segar and his career in Seattle, move the hell on and focus on what is going to be hopefully a great franchise defining offseason for the Mariners. So we'll leave it on that. And that's going to do it for today's show.

Thank you so much for joining us here on lockdown Mariners. For Colby Pat Note, I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. That's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pan-11. P-A-T-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day every day. And we'll be back tomorrow.

Going to do some trivia. Talk more off-season. And of course, talk more about the U.S. Cacucci decision and how that impacts the Mariners. Should be a good time. But in the meantime, make your second listen of the day locked on MLB, where Paul Francis Sullivan, and please call him Sully, brings you his unique perspective on the major leagues President Pass. It's free and available on all platforms, just like we are. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you tomorrow.