Episode 124: Ty Dane Gonzalez (Locked On Mariners Podcast), Jarred Kelenic Returns To Seattle, And Matt Brash Gets Bad Injury News

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 124 of the Marine Layer Podcast.

[00:00:04] We welcome on the co-host of the Locked On Mariners Podcast,

[00:00:07] Higdane Gonzalez.

[00:00:09] We chat about the Mariners season so far where they can still improve

[00:00:12] and about the Mariners content creator community.

[00:00:16] We have our two Mariners storylines discussing Jared Kelnick's return to Seattle

[00:00:19] and Matt Brash being shut down indefinitely.

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[00:01:07] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer podcast,

[00:01:10] part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network recording post game Monday, April 29th.

[00:01:17] You were there tonight while, oh my goodness, Mitch Garver finally,

[00:01:20] he gets a cookie over the middle and such an epic swing sailing into the night.

[00:01:27] Don't lie.

[00:01:28] You thought they were getting no hit?

[00:01:29] I did.

[00:01:30] Yeah.

[00:01:31] Some of those swings on those breaking balls.

[00:01:33] So I, you know, they fooled me.

[00:01:36] I thought that pitch to Mitch Garver was a breaking ball as a cutter instead.

[00:01:39] It was close.

[00:01:39] It was moving a little bit, but man, dude,

[00:01:43] I was getting really sick and tired of watching sliders get swung on and missed.

[00:01:47] That was tough.

[00:01:48] That eighth inning was tough.

[00:01:49] But man, all it takes is one swing.

[00:01:51] That's what like when Bryce Miller pitches how he did tonight,

[00:01:54] it literally just takes one of those Mitch Garver swings.

[00:01:56] That's it.

[00:01:57] That's all they needed.

[00:01:59] And the Mariners rotation as a whole, you can say that about.

[00:02:02] Bryce Miller for sure, but a bunch of these guys.

[00:02:04] And the fact that Mitch Garver and Jorge Polanco, what do we keep talking about when

[00:02:09] those two guys and obviously Julio start hitting the way everybody knows they're

[00:02:12] capable of hitting and the way people are expecting them to hit.

[00:02:15] We're going to have a much different conversation about the offense.

[00:02:18] I know right now there's a lot of discourse.

[00:02:20] There's a lot of strikeouts, not enough production.

[00:02:22] When you see those three guys start to hit the way they're supposed to,

[00:02:26] and they will.

[00:02:26] I know everybody likes to freak out over a month of games.

[00:02:29] They are going to things are going to look a lot different.

[00:02:34] Mike, I'm going to give a shout out to Jordan Schuessman before we jump into our

[00:02:37] first storyline.

[00:02:39] So Jordan tweeted out the Mariners over the last week, they have like a team OPS of about 500

[00:02:44] striking out 35% of the time and the Mariners are five and two in those games.

[00:02:50] See what happens if you just score some runs, you might never lose a game with this pitching

[00:02:53] staff.

[00:02:55] And why we keep talking about please just get into the playoffs.

[00:02:58] Please with this rotation, just get in because they can do so many things.

[00:03:03] Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:03:04] That's the thing.

[00:03:05] Like aside from all these offensive struggles at certain points of the first month,

[00:03:09] they're still in first or in first place.

[00:03:12] It's crazy.

[00:03:12] Yeah.

[00:03:12] Yes, they are in first place and hopefully continue in first place a lot longer.

[00:03:18] Let's get into our Mariners storylines with Atlanta coming to Seattle.

[00:03:22] It was the return of one Jared Kalnick.

[00:03:26] So it's funny how this all ties in the beginning ties in because the walkoff

[00:03:30] home run went screaming right over Jared's head into the left field bleachers.

[00:03:34] But Jared came home, he was in the lineup tonight.

[00:03:37] He was sitting at the bottom of the Braves order and you know, vibes from the ballpark.

[00:03:41] I was, I think I was expecting a little bit more of a harsher reaction if you didn't

[00:03:47] miss it.

[00:03:47] It was a good decent I would say applause for Jared as he stepped to the plate.

[00:03:52] It wasn't quite Gino level what we saw this past weekend, but it was not as harsh

[00:03:57] as I thought from what Jared's reception was coming back home to Seattle.

[00:04:03] And I'm proud of that, to be honest.

[00:04:04] I'm proud that most fans were able to sort of let go of whatever negative feelings they

[00:04:11] held towards him now that he's no longer a Mariner.

[00:04:15] You see what happens when you have to spend ridiculous amounts of time on social media

[00:04:19] like the two of us do for the sake of this podcast.

[00:04:22] This is what happens.

[00:04:23] Like we get encapsulated into the idea that all the commenters on social media represents

[00:04:29] the entire fan base.

[00:04:30] Cause what keeps happening?

[00:04:31] We talk about Jared Kellnick, whether it's on our live streams, whether it's on some

[00:04:35] of our social posts, whether it's tweets, we see all these reactions saying I'm booing

[00:04:40] him.

[00:04:40] He doesn't deserve an applause like this and that.

[00:04:43] Like he failed the organization, all this stuff.

[00:04:46] And then you remind yourself, oh, most of the fan base aren't all the shit posters

[00:04:53] online.

[00:04:53] Most of those fan base has a pretty level head and that was really nice to see the fact that

[00:04:58] he came into the ballpark, he had his first at bat and he did get an applause.

[00:05:02] I'm not saying he was as productive as Gino was in the two years that Gino was here

[00:05:06] versus the three that Kellnick was here, but people still understand that he's a good

[00:05:11] dude that he grinded his tail off that he gave it everything he had like he said

[00:05:15] in his presser here on Monday and people still gave him an applause, which was nice.

[00:05:20] Like, like that is a nice reality check when you see, oh, the whole fan base isn't

[00:05:25] represented in social media comments.

[00:05:27] And sometimes I think we need a reality check of that almost reminds me of when

[00:05:30] we went to the playoff game and thinking to myself, you know, Mariners Twitter

[00:05:34] in the community can be so toxic sometimes.

[00:05:37] And then when we were at that playoff game, it was all just happy go lucky

[00:05:41] and positive vibes and upbeat energy from everybody.

[00:05:45] There was no like payroll Twitter this and Mariners are gonna, you know,

[00:05:49] Mariners are doomed that it was just a lot of positivity.

[00:05:51] So tying it all back to Jared, I think we saw a lot of that on Monday night.

[00:05:55] And just thinking through it more really, it really just didn't make sense of why

[00:05:59] people would boom.

[00:05:59] First of all, like I thought he was getting booed mostly because of our comments.

[00:06:02] We got some really pretty nasty stuff to be honest.

[00:06:05] We pushed out a lot of Jared content here on Monday.

[00:06:07] Like you were there at the ballpark trying to sort of encapsulate his return.

[00:06:11] He spoke to the media.

[00:06:13] Yeah, he had a few things to say all very positive about, you know,

[00:06:16] his time in Seattle, what he learned talking to the media, etc., etc.

[00:06:19] All this kind of stuff.

[00:06:21] But you know, we made sure to highlight that and to be honest, like reading some of the

[00:06:26] replies to the stuff we put out there and some of our DMs, I was expecting,

[00:06:31] you know, I was kind of expecting some more.

[00:06:32] I thought that thought process would translate to more people who don't

[00:06:37] spend all day online and just think that period and or not don't absorb that.

[00:06:43] But again, so glad that's not a reality.

[00:06:46] Because if you think about it, like if Taiwan Walker came back to Seattle,

[00:06:50] is he getting booed?

[00:06:51] He was a top 10 prospect.

[00:06:54] Didn't pan out in Seattle.

[00:06:56] So you getting booed?

[00:06:57] No, he's not.

[00:06:58] No, he's not.

[00:06:59] Is Dustin Ackley getting booed?

[00:07:01] Number two overall pick when he comes back to Seattle?

[00:07:03] I don't think so.

[00:07:04] Danny Holzen?

[00:07:06] No, no, like all these guys are really high, really important draft picks

[00:07:11] that were all supposed to fill the role of Jared Kelnick, like do what Jared

[00:07:15] Kelnick was supposed to do when he came up to Seattle.

[00:07:18] And like they were never none of those guys are ever going to get food.

[00:07:21] So why could Jared and then we start and then I thought you did a good job on

[00:07:25] the live stream breaking it down.

[00:07:26] Okay, it's not about the player.

[00:07:28] He is it wouldn't be about the player.

[00:07:30] He is it's about who he is as a person for the most part.

[00:07:34] Yeah, I said it on the live stream.

[00:07:37] I honestly wonder how much people's opinions of Jared Kelnick would be different.

[00:07:44] If he was just more like, like if he looked like one of us, so to speak, the thing is

[00:07:48] the analogy I used on the live stream is he looks like the head of rush at Arizona State

[00:07:53] Sigma Chi.

[00:07:53] Like I'm not saying that's who he is as a person, but just if you look at him from

[00:07:56] afar, it's kind of what he looks like.

[00:07:58] Some people like to joke he looks like Johnny Lawrence or an 80s movie villain.

[00:08:01] He looks like Holmier from The Boys.

[00:08:04] Homelander?

[00:08:06] Okay.

[00:08:07] Yeah, yeah.

[00:08:07] You know, homelanders.

[00:08:08] So yeah, there's another like I almost think it's the persona like he is in very good

[00:08:12] shape.

[00:08:12] He's got the spiky blonde hair.

[00:08:14] Like I think that whether people admit it or not, I think that plays some factor

[00:08:19] into it paired with everybody knows he's very intense.

[00:08:22] Everybody knows he has his outbursts.

[00:08:24] Not not at his teammates, not at fans.

[00:08:27] It was never that but I still think the out like all of that combined played

[00:08:31] a factor and I also think the factor of

[00:08:36] who he was hyped up to be in the trade played a factor as well because look, you

[00:08:41] can be a high draft pick and you can get excited, but like there was so much put

[00:08:45] on him when that trade happened and when he started to ascend through the

[00:08:49] minors that people started to again have the idea in their heads that and me

[00:08:53] included.

[00:08:53] I'm certainly very guilty of this that oh, the Mariners got rid of Robinson

[00:08:58] Cano and Edwin Diaz, but they're going to make it out like bandits

[00:09:01] because of how good Jared Kalman is going to be and that didn't happen.

[00:09:04] So I think people like not us, but I think there are people that had similar

[00:09:08] expectations, but because he didn't live up to it, they

[00:09:12] unleashed anger on him because of the expectations that they set in their heads.

[00:09:17] Now, I think there was another observation around the story of Jared

[00:09:21] Kalman that you picked up on our friend Justin Toscano who we've had on this

[00:09:24] podcast who writes for the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote a really nice

[00:09:28] piece about Jared that printed today.

[00:09:31] You can find it online.

[00:09:32] He tweeted out it's all over there.

[00:09:34] It'd be pretty easy to find.

[00:09:35] But by today, Monday.

[00:09:37] Yeah, today meeting Monday.

[00:09:39] Yeah, you're right.

[00:09:40] But there is an interesting line in there that you picked up on and I think

[00:09:44] sort of reflected on in some of the comments that were made today.

[00:09:47] So you want to want to I'll tee you up for it.

[00:09:50] Yeah.

[00:09:50] So like you said, it was a nice piece and it was about how Jared

[00:09:54] Kalman has changed as a person and after he kicked the cooler and

[00:09:56] broke his foot.

[00:09:58] He he talked about he realized who Jared Kalman is as much more than

[00:10:02] just what his slash line is the baseball player essentially.

[00:10:06] But when you get into the story, there is a part in there that Jared

[00:10:10] Kalman talks about.

[00:10:12] He essentially had no relationship with either Jerry Depoto or Scott service.

[00:10:18] Now the Depoto thing had been highlighted a little bit because he was on

[00:10:21] fall territory over the winter after the trade and he had talked about.

[00:10:25] He didn't love Jerry's comments about the 54% stuff.

[00:10:28] He had some things to say about it himself and he also got asked in

[00:10:31] that interview, did you and Jerry talk much?

[00:10:34] Jared said in that interview on fall territory, he said, like, no, not really.

[00:10:38] We didn't talk.

[00:10:39] There wasn't much of a relationship.

[00:10:41] Now that's not totally uncommon for player and GM or player and president

[00:10:45] of baseball ops.

[00:10:46] Sometimes those high up front office guys purposely choose not to get super

[00:10:50] close to the players because it's Billy like Billy Bean talks about

[00:10:53] moneyball.

[00:10:54] You have, you can't develop personal relationships with guys a lot of

[00:10:56] the time to the point where it clouds your judgment to not be able

[00:11:00] to make baseball sound.

[00:11:01] So I don't know if that's Jerry's philosophy or not.

[00:11:03] Maybe it is and maybe that's a part of the reason they didn't have

[00:11:06] a really close relationship, but I do want to focus more on the Scott

[00:11:10] service thing because that is the one that puzzles me a lot more because

[00:11:14] Scott service as we know is like in like as a master at developing

[00:11:20] player relationships.

[00:11:21] He's awesome with it.

[00:11:22] You hear all these players talk about how great Scott is.

[00:11:25] They everybody talked about Scott Scott, the dad vibes and people look

[00:11:29] at him in that way, but like they really respect them as a manager, but

[00:11:32] they always love being around them.

[00:11:34] It sounds like that wasn't really how it was with Jared Kelmick and

[00:11:38] Scott service.

[00:11:39] And then when you listen to Scott service talk, it reflected that too.

[00:11:43] So Justin wrote that and obviously we trust them.

[00:11:45] He's a great reporter and is awesome at what he does.

[00:11:49] But if you just want to double up on that, if you listen to what

[00:11:53] Scott service said about a Hennie Oswara is coming back to town,

[00:11:55] we tweeted out both clips.

[00:11:57] If you listen to Scott talk about Gino on Friday, he really goes into

[00:12:01] detail about, you know, like in spring training there was a game we

[00:12:04] weren't even playing the Diamondbacks and Gino just came into the dugout.

[00:12:07] He started hanging out and people started laughing about that.

[00:12:10] And then Scott says Gino is one of my favorite all time guys love being

[00:12:14] around them or like always miss them, all that stuff.

[00:12:18] Now managers have favorites.

[00:12:20] That's totally normal.

[00:12:21] But then when he got asked about Jared returning on Monday,

[00:12:25] it was much more of a cliche answer of, look, he's got a lot of baseball left in

[00:12:30] him.

[00:12:30] He's got time to figure things out.

[00:12:32] Trades do happen.

[00:12:33] Sometimes things don't work out in certain places and you get a chance

[00:12:36] somewhere else.

[00:12:36] The answers were very, very different when talking about Gino versus Calmik

[00:12:42] and Gino can be a favorite, but it does feel like again for, for this is

[00:12:48] not a, this is not a Scott service thing because we know Scott's

[00:12:50] great at developing player relationships, but it does seem like with this

[00:12:54] pairing, yeah, something, something was off.

[00:12:58] Bad personality mix perhaps?

[00:13:01] Like the level of intenseness from Jared was not, I don't know, didn't

[00:13:06] reflect well between the two.

[00:13:08] Like it's all speculation at this point, but you sit here and think,

[00:13:11] Jared spent about a little over a year's time on the big league roster,

[00:13:16] right, about give or take about a year.

[00:13:19] That's enough time to build a relationship with your manager.

[00:13:22] And if Jared was always going to be a part of the big league roster,

[00:13:25] which until let's say August of last year, he was always a part of the

[00:13:29] Mariners future and they always had that in him.

[00:13:32] Like Scott then, like you would imagine Scott would have more of that

[00:13:37] relationship with him even if he's in AAA because he knows that's his

[00:13:40] future potential future corner outfielder, but that wasn't a case.

[00:13:45] So I like my early speculation is just it wasn't a personality mix, right?

[00:13:51] There was something philosophically different between the two that didn't mesh

[00:13:55] that well, right?

[00:13:57] And I don't know who's like where the initiation was lacking from.

[00:14:01] I would guess Scott, but I don't know.

[00:14:03] Like I really don't know because each person is different.

[00:14:08] So it's kind of a puzzling thing to be honest.

[00:14:12] It may be on both sides.

[00:14:13] Like it may just be equal on both sides.

[00:14:14] And like you said, it may just be as simple as the personalities

[00:14:17] didn't mesh and that may be part of the reason

[00:14:21] the Mariners decided to move on this winner.

[00:14:22] And that doesn't mean Jared Kelley's a bad person.

[00:14:24] We all know that's not true.

[00:14:26] We all know while he's wired very differently, he has all the best intentions.

[00:14:31] It just may have not been eye to eye on philosophical views between him and the Mariners.

[00:14:38] Maybe the Braves are better for him.

[00:14:39] Maybe Brian Snicker is a better manager for Jared Kelley.

[00:14:42] Maybe those two will mesh better.

[00:14:44] We'll see.

[00:14:45] They're both Wisconsinites though.

[00:14:48] That's true, right?

[00:14:49] Well, do you like every single person in the state of Washington?

[00:14:53] No.

[00:14:56] There are like we know there's similar interests though.

[00:14:58] Like they're both Packers fans for example.

[00:15:01] That's true.

[00:15:02] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:15:03] You never know these things are so complicated.

[00:15:05] But it's something that, you know, unless Justin didn't write about that,

[00:15:09] we would have never noticed.

[00:15:10] Never came to light.

[00:15:11] So it's certainly another interesting wrinkle in the Jared Kelley Seattle story.

[00:15:16] Yeah.

[00:15:17] I mean, that was never told previously.

[00:15:20] And if it was, it certainly didn't ever make its rounds.

[00:15:23] But yeah, that was interesting.

[00:15:25] So obviously as we know, we'll see what Jared does the rest of the series Tuesday and Wednesday.

[00:15:30] He had a hit in the Monday game.

[00:15:32] But as everybody who knows this podcast, I will continuously root for Jared Kelley to do well.

[00:15:39] We're going to try and talk to him this week too.

[00:15:40] I like do a question with them.

[00:15:42] I hope we get a chance to flag him down because it'd be cool if we did.

[00:15:45] And it probably be about his like a positive light question about his time in Seattle and

[00:15:50] team up for something.

[00:15:51] But yeah, I hope that works out.

[00:15:53] And obviously just going forward with Kelnick.

[00:15:55] I'm always rooting for him.

[00:15:57] Yeah, same here.

[00:15:58] Yeah.

[00:15:59] Okay.

[00:15:59] Before we get to our second storyline, let's take a pause and talk to you guys

[00:16:03] about our friends at Pagotius Pub 85.

[00:16:05] You guys want a place to watch the games?

[00:16:07] Mariners are on a roll.

[00:16:08] You probably want to get out with your friends, get together, watch some winning baseball.

[00:16:13] Well, find a good restaurant to do it.

[00:16:14] You don't have to look any further than pub 85.

[00:16:16] If you head over there in Kirkland, you can have an awesome time with your friends,

[00:16:20] have some great food.

[00:16:21] You want to play some darts, some pool, all that stuff.

[00:16:23] And if you get there within happy hour, you'll get some great deals.

[00:16:26] It's Monday through Friday, happy hours from two to 6pm.

[00:16:29] There's $3 domestic beers or $4 manis and blue moons, $4 mac and jacks, $4 wells

[00:16:34] and $4 house wines.

[00:16:36] All of that over at Pagotius Pub 85 in Kirkland.

[00:16:40] Well, I hate to turn the podcast to such a negative tone here, but we are going to have

[00:16:45] to do it.

[00:16:45] Matt Brash has been shut down indefinitely.

[00:16:48] Justin Hollander announced that on Saturday.

[00:16:51] On Friday, Matt Brash was at the ballpark and he was throwing and he was out with

[00:16:56] his teammates doing his usual stuff.

[00:16:58] I mean, he was starting to ramp up.

[00:17:00] Justin said on that Friday, we'll see how he responds tomorrow.

[00:17:04] If he feels good, he could be heading out to Tacoma for a rehab.

[00:17:09] Assignment on Saturday.

[00:17:10] Everybody's thinking of themselves great.

[00:17:12] We are, we are on the doorstep of getting Matt Brash back arguably, arguably the best reliever

[00:17:18] in this bullpen is just days away from getting back to pitching and games on Saturday.

[00:17:24] Hollander holds another media session.

[00:17:26] People start to gather around.

[00:17:27] I'm thinking to myself, this isn't going to be good.

[00:17:29] Is it?

[00:17:30] Now I thought there was a chance, a chance.

[00:17:32] There was something that was going to be said about George Kirby because, you know,

[00:17:35] he got pushed back a day.

[00:17:36] Scott said he wasn't feeling great after his last start.

[00:17:38] That ended up being nothing because George absolutely dealt on Saturday against the diamondback.

[00:17:43] What happens is Justin Hollander says, I want to give you guys an update on Matt Brash.

[00:17:48] He's not responding well to when he ramps up.

[00:17:51] He's been shut down indefinitely.

[00:17:52] He's heading back to Dallas to meet with Dr. Meister.

[00:17:55] They're going to go over some more options and Hollander did say we are concerned.

[00:18:01] It doesn't sound great if I'm going to be totally honest.

[00:18:03] This feels like it's trending toward Tommy John.

[00:18:05] I hope I am wrong, but it doesn't feel like it's heading in a good direction.

[00:18:10] And the problem for Brash was not ramping up.

[00:18:12] He was getting all the way up to what he wanted to.

[00:18:14] The sliders were good.

[00:18:15] The fastballs were good, but the recovery and the soreness in his arm was not.

[00:18:20] And that's where, you know, expect, he said after the first time,

[00:18:23] it's usually you're supposed to be stored, but then the few times after that,

[00:18:26] it's supposed to get easier and easier and easier to bounce back.

[00:18:28] And it was not getting easier.

[00:18:29] And it got to the point on Friday where he threw in that session and said every throw felt awful.

[00:18:34] And that's not a good sign.

[00:18:35] Certainly, certainly not a good sign.

[00:18:37] So I'm sitting here and setting my expectation is I'm not expecting to see Matt Brash in the next 365 days.

[00:18:44] At least that line is the dagger that like, like we don't know anything yet.

[00:18:50] We're going to have to wait till there's an official announcement.

[00:18:52] But hearing that Brash say every throw felt terrible.

[00:18:57] I do not like the sound of that at all.

[00:19:00] Like it's good that he can ramp up and get up to his max stuff.

[00:19:04] It's just, it's just like he's not responding.

[00:19:07] Like again, he's not starting to feel better yet, which look,

[00:19:11] if you want to try and play glass half full, let's do that for 60 seconds here.

[00:19:15] If you want to try and play glass half full, maybe there's a chance Matt Brash goes down

[00:19:19] to Dallas meets with the doctors.

[00:19:21] They say it's soreness.

[00:19:23] It's additional soreness.

[00:19:24] There's a little bit of further inflammation.

[00:19:26] There's nothing torn.

[00:19:27] It's not a UCL.

[00:19:29] You're going to have to just, you're going to have to

[00:19:32] wait it out for a couple of weeks now and get back into a throwing program.

[00:19:35] If you want to look at it like that, maybe there's a chance

[00:19:38] that Brash shuts it down for another couple of weeks.

[00:19:41] If he gets back to ramping it up, maybe he starts to feel better.

[00:19:44] Maybe he can get back in later June or July and still pitch the second half of the year.

[00:19:51] But that feels like, I don't know, I'll put it at a 5% chance.

[00:19:56] I hate saying that too.

[00:19:57] I love watching Matt Brash.

[00:20:00] Honestly, of every arm on this team, I think he's my favorite to watch.

[00:20:03] Starters and relievers included.

[00:20:04] Just like when he's on, there's nobody more disgusting than Matt Brash to watch.

[00:20:09] And I know how important he is to this bullpen.

[00:20:10] So to see him trending this way, man, it really does suck.

[00:20:14] I had to put on some Marvin's room last night and just scroll through pitching

[00:20:18] Ninjas Twitter watching Matt Brash sliders over and over and over

[00:20:21] going to make myself feel better because that's probably the only,

[00:20:26] I feel like it feels like that's most likely there's not going to be,

[00:20:30] we're not going to see those Matt Brash sliders this year.

[00:20:32] So then the question turns around on the Mariners bullpen, Laoh,

[00:20:35] how do they replace what Matt Brash did last year?

[00:20:38] And we spent a lot of the offseason sort of detailing the Matt Brash role

[00:20:42] of what they wanted to do with him last year.

[00:20:44] Yeah, he had a lot of appearances, but he had a very specific role.

[00:20:48] He came up in the first danger situation of every single game.

[00:20:52] And trying to think of which Mariners reliever occupies that role now

[00:20:56] and if they can sustain it throughout the season,

[00:20:58] because frankly no reliever in that bullpen as good as they are

[00:21:02] is quite like Matt Brash.

[00:21:04] It just, it is really hard to match.

[00:21:06] But you know what?

[00:21:09] First of all, Trent Thornton has sort of occupied that role

[00:21:13] like first higher leverage situation.

[00:21:16] It's not quite the same as Brash because he's not Brash,

[00:21:20] but he's been pretty good this year.

[00:21:21] And if you think about it, their pitching profiles are actually pretty similar,

[00:21:25] Laoh, focused on a fastball and a sweeper.

[00:21:28] That's it.

[00:21:29] Thornton has a slider too, like a bullet slider,

[00:21:31] but fastball-slider combination for the two of them.

[00:21:35] Thornton doesn't throw quite as hard as Matt Brash,

[00:21:38] but he's been pretty effective this year.

[00:21:40] And he's been one of the first guys out of the bullpen

[00:21:43] on game days they've been trying to win games

[00:21:46] and it had been successful so far.

[00:21:47] The question is, does that hold up throughout the course of the season?

[00:21:51] The numbers right now would suggest yes.

[00:21:55] That'd be great.

[00:21:56] Look, the Mariners are still the number one bullpen in baseball right now by ERA.

[00:21:59] It's not like they're struggling.

[00:22:01] It's just the idea of when Brash and Santos

[00:22:06] would have hypothetically gotten back.

[00:22:07] Well, Santos is still on the right track to get back.

[00:22:10] But with all those guys getting back,

[00:22:12] thinking about what this bullpen could be,

[00:22:14] that's what's breaking my heart.

[00:22:16] I legitimately believe what I said once the Mariners signed Ryan Stannock

[00:22:20] and what the two of us have talked about.

[00:22:22] Win healthy, this had the chance to be the best Mariners bullpen

[00:22:25] in the history of the franchise.

[00:22:26] I fully put my stamp of belief on that.

[00:22:30] Look what they're doing without Brash and Santos right now.

[00:22:32] They're number one in bullpen ERA and baseball

[00:22:35] without two of the best relievers in baseball.

[00:22:38] Now if those two got back,

[00:22:40] I mean like the Mariners could score what?

[00:22:43] 10 runs throughout the postseason

[00:22:44] and win the World Series or something like that.

[00:22:46] With this rotation and this bullpen.

[00:22:48] But to not have Brash, it changes things.

[00:22:51] They're still going to be a really good bullpen,

[00:22:53] but it's not the same bullpen.

[00:22:56] I think the key now is getting Santos back.

[00:22:58] If they can get Santos back, they'll probably be okay.

[00:23:01] Yeah.

[00:23:01] They probably, they won't have the,

[00:23:04] it won't be like the Maserati.

[00:23:06] Instead it'll be a step below that.

[00:23:07] What's a step below Maserati?

[00:23:09] Do you know?

[00:23:09] Are you that car fluent?

[00:23:11] A Porsche?

[00:23:12] Sure.

[00:23:12] Yeah.

[00:23:13] We got no, we got the Porsche.

[00:23:15] We got the Porsche, not the sedan, the,

[00:23:19] the whichever one that has the one that's the four doors.

[00:23:22] Anyways, that's what we're talking about.

[00:23:25] Slightly lower level sports car, but we'll make it work.

[00:23:28] I think they'll make it work.

[00:23:29] And look if the Mariners think they need one more arm

[00:23:32] at the deadline, they could go get another arm

[00:23:33] at the deadline.

[00:23:34] I'll give Ty credit for this idea.

[00:23:36] And we do talk about it a little bit in the interview

[00:23:38] if you want to hear more about it.

[00:23:39] But here's an idea people.

[00:23:42] If the Diamondbacks continue to not play well

[00:23:45] and they're around the 500 mark at the deadline

[00:23:48] and there's a certain reliever in that bullpen

[00:23:50] with half a year of club control,

[00:23:52] it's about to hit free agency

[00:23:54] and you're not going to the playoffs.

[00:23:55] Maybe there's a team that could use them.

[00:23:57] Maybe there's a team that can trade for them.

[00:23:59] He's, he's not going to cost a lot for two months.

[00:24:02] You know who I'm talking about too.

[00:24:04] Even how sick it would be if they got Paul C. Waldeback.

[00:24:07] That would be pretty sick.

[00:24:09] That would be pretty sick.

[00:24:11] So don't get my hopes up, Lyle.

[00:24:14] If you want to see that happen, root for the Diamondbacks

[00:24:18] to keep losing games because again, like right handed arm,

[00:24:21] you feel like you need one more high leverage guy.

[00:24:23] Don't totally rule it out.

[00:24:25] That's all I think we talk about.

[00:24:26] I think that's the only thing that would fill

[00:24:28] the map rash size hole in my heart.

[00:24:30] Same.

[00:24:31] Yeah.

[00:24:32] So yeah.

[00:24:33] Anyway, we'll get into that a little bit more

[00:24:35] in our, in our combo with Ty, but to wrap this up,

[00:24:38] we, we will sit here.

[00:24:39] We will cross our fingers.

[00:24:40] Hope somehow, some way, Brash can avoid another major bullet,

[00:24:45] but doesn't sound great.

[00:24:47] Speaking of Ty really enjoyed having him on the podcast here

[00:24:50] for the first time.

[00:24:51] So we went on the Lockdown Mariners podcast in February.

[00:24:56] Yeah.

[00:24:56] In February and Ty was doing a Mariners content creator series,

[00:25:01] highlight series highlighting all the wonderful people

[00:25:04] in this community who cover the Mariners from a fan perspective.

[00:25:08] And it's sort of, it's helped Lawni make some connections

[00:25:12] around the Mariners content community.

[00:25:14] And it was glad to be able to sort of bring it into this interview

[00:25:17] where we talked to Ty a little bit about this, you know,

[00:25:20] group of people that are now non-traditional media types

[00:25:23] that are still focused around creating content

[00:25:26] around the Mariners every single day.

[00:25:28] We also sort of like you, like you put it,

[00:25:33] sort of zoomed out month wide view of the Mariners so far

[00:25:36] and focused on some specific storylines.

[00:25:39] But Ty's a really smart dude.

[00:25:41] He's been, you know, he knows what he's talking about,

[00:25:43] watches a lot of baseball, works his butt off with Colby

[00:25:46] on the Lockdown Mariners podcast.

[00:25:48] And he's a, he's a fantastic guy to have on.

[00:25:51] Yeah.

[00:25:51] This was a blast of a conversation and, and you just said it.

[00:25:54] Like we spent probably the second half of the conversation

[00:25:56] talking about content and the Mariners content community.

[00:25:59] But the first half of it, TJ and I usually dive into a couple

[00:26:02] storylines on each episode, but this was a nice way through

[00:26:05] a month in.

[00:26:06] We kind of do a bird's eye view of what's the bigger picture

[00:26:09] looking like a month in and to have the three of us

[00:26:12] kind of sit there and recap some of it.

[00:26:13] Yeah.

[00:26:14] It was a fun conversation.

[00:26:16] All right.

[00:26:16] Let's get to our conversation now with Ty Dane Gonzalez.

[00:26:22] All right.

[00:26:22] We got our friend Ty Dane Gonzalez,

[00:26:24] the co-host of the Lockdown Mariners podcast

[00:26:27] on here with us.

[00:26:28] Ty, thanks so much for taking some time to join us.

[00:26:30] We're exactly a month into the season now.

[00:26:32] So we're going to kick this off with a bang.

[00:26:34] Give me your hottest Mariners take right now.

[00:26:39] Firstly, thank you boys for having me on.

[00:26:41] I really enjoyed our conversation that we had on,

[00:26:44] on my show and I'm glad that we're able to do this again.

[00:26:47] Hottest take, Josh Rojas is an all star.

[00:26:52] How awesome would that be if the Mariners all of a

[00:26:54] sudden just out of thin air had one all star caliber infielder?

[00:26:59] He's on the shelf right now, but JP will come back and then

[00:27:02] Rojas comes out.

[00:27:03] I mean, he continues to just do this.

[00:27:05] Like there's no, and then Jerry can go around and say,

[00:27:08] yeah, well obviously that's why I've been trying to trade

[00:27:10] for Josh for two years because this is the kind of stuff

[00:27:14] this guy has in him.

[00:27:16] Right.

[00:27:16] And I mean, we saw towards the end of last year,

[00:27:19] he made the swing change and he started to produce a lot

[00:27:22] more, more so in August than in September.

[00:27:24] But still like we started to kind of see this version of

[00:27:28] Josh Rojas develop and then yeah, he's been fantastic this year.

[00:27:32] Now on the all star front, I think right now,

[00:27:35] like he has been one of the best third baseman in all baseball.

[00:27:39] I wonder how much of him being part of a platoon though

[00:27:43] is going to impact his chances of being recognized on that

[00:27:46] kind of level.

[00:27:47] But he's had a great year and I mean,

[00:27:49] he's been a massive boon for this team when,

[00:27:52] you know, Mitch Garber isn't really producing right now.

[00:27:54] Jorge Polanco is not really producing like they've needed

[00:27:57] Josh Rojas and Luis Arias as well to a certain degree

[00:28:00] in order to kind of say a float offensively.

[00:28:03] What's funny is him and JP at their peaks aren't too

[00:28:06] dissimilar as hitters.

[00:28:08] They feel similar.

[00:28:12] Yeah, like they have very good understandings of the strike zone.

[00:28:16] They have about 15 to 20 Homer pop.

[00:28:19] Right.

[00:28:19] Like yeah, they're fairly similar hitters when you really

[00:28:24] think about I think JP is going to walk more than Josh.

[00:28:28] But overall, yeah, I think it is a pretty similar overall profile.

[00:28:33] You know, it's funny just seeing the reaction at the ballpark

[00:28:36] this weekend and people obviously were thrilled to see

[00:28:38] Gino back in town.

[00:28:39] He was such a fan favorite.

[00:28:40] We all know that and just seeing it for myself,

[00:28:44] just from the human standpoint, I certainly said,

[00:28:47] yeah, it's easy to forget just how love Gino was in this city

[00:28:51] and by his teammates by the fan base.

[00:28:53] But also with that seeing what Rojas has done,

[00:28:56] seeing what Arias has done.

[00:28:58] I hope people can come to the conclusion of you can miss Gino,

[00:29:02] but also understand from the baseball standpoint

[00:29:04] that there is good reason that they moved on from him

[00:29:06] and we're seeing it with the platoon right now.

[00:29:08] Oh yeah, emotionally speaking, I still miss Gino.

[00:29:11] Right.

[00:29:12] Love Gino wish he was, you know,

[00:29:14] wish there was a way that he could be a part of this thing still,

[00:29:17] but you know, while the trade was undeniably partly made

[00:29:22] for salary purposes, I think there was truly another side

[00:29:27] of that trade that was made because they thought

[00:29:28] Gino had hit the cliff where he was approaching the cliff,

[00:29:31] at least.

[00:29:32] And so far, you know, through the first 28 games

[00:29:36] or however many Gino's played,

[00:29:39] it seems like they're right on that front now.

[00:29:40] A lot of things can change in a short amount of time

[00:29:42] because we're still so early on in the season.

[00:29:45] But Gino hasn't been that good.

[00:29:47] I think he's running somewhere around an 80 WRC plus right now.

[00:29:50] I know the defensive metrics haven't been a big fan of him,

[00:29:53] unlike last year.

[00:29:55] And you know, Rojas on the flip side of that has been excellent

[00:29:59] like we talked about.

[00:30:00] And when he's not playing and Arias has come in,

[00:30:03] Arias hasn't had a ton of hits,

[00:30:05] but he's made a pretty large impact.

[00:30:07] He's had a couple of big home runs.

[00:30:09] He's, well, he struck out quite a bit.

[00:30:12] I feel like his quality of plate appearances

[00:30:14] has been overall pretty good.

[00:30:16] Like he seems to have a generally pretty good understanding

[00:30:19] of the strike zone.

[00:30:20] I've been fairly impressed with Arias as well,

[00:30:22] but it seems like right now,

[00:30:25] the Mariners kind of, they made a bet this off season

[00:30:28] that Gino was kind of reaching the end

[00:30:32] and that Rojas and Arias, some combination of those two

[00:30:36] guys gave him a better shot.

[00:30:37] And so far it seems like they've been,

[00:30:40] they've made good on that bet so far.

[00:30:41] So see how it continues, but like I said right now,

[00:30:44] like that third base spot, like that's kind of in a way

[00:30:47] been a saving grace for this team.

[00:30:49] Let's stay on the offensive side of the ball.

[00:30:51] Where are you at with this team offensively right now?

[00:30:57] I think some of it is just still waiting for like

[00:30:59] the guys that are supposed to be the driving force

[00:31:01] of this thing being the driving force of this thing.

[00:31:04] They even know Julio has had like all the multi-hit games

[00:31:07] and all that.

[00:31:07] He's not doing a ton of damage still.

[00:31:09] It's been a lot of singles.

[00:31:10] Now we got his first home run down in Texas,

[00:31:13] but you would like to see him do more damage

[00:31:16] than he's doing right now.

[00:31:18] And then, you know, we kind of saw it today in the third,

[00:31:21] I don't know when you guys are posting on this,

[00:31:22] but we're recording this on Sunday night after the

[00:31:24] Diamondbacks loss.

[00:31:25] Like we saw this during the third inning today

[00:31:28] when they had the bases loaded and no one out

[00:31:29] and they got into the middle part of the order

[00:31:31] and there just isn't really someone that you can

[00:31:34] consistently depend on to provide the kill shot

[00:31:37] in that situation.

[00:31:39] So that's another issue, right?

[00:31:41] Some guys have popped here and there.

[00:31:43] Like Mitch Hanniger has obviously been pretty good

[00:31:45] to start the year and there's been some encouraging

[00:31:48] signs from Ty France and Poire Palanco is walking

[00:31:51] a lot right now.

[00:31:52] He's not doing a ton of damage with that,

[00:31:54] but he's at least been walking a good amount.

[00:31:57] But there hasn't been like that guy in that

[00:32:00] four to seven-ish range in this lineup

[00:32:03] that has consistently come through in those situations.

[00:32:05] So it's kind of just right now I just feel

[00:32:09] like this offense is still trying to figure out

[00:32:10] what it is and what it has to work with

[00:32:12] and what they're going to ultimately have to address

[00:32:16] at some point this season.

[00:32:18] And it's still just waiting on guys like Julio

[00:32:21] to produce more consistently because like

[00:32:23] right now with Julio even,

[00:32:25] you know, outside of that little streak

[00:32:27] that he went on with the multiple hits,

[00:32:29] like it's been one like pretty solid game

[00:32:32] and then one just awful looking game

[00:32:34] where he strikes out three times

[00:32:35] and he grounds out the other at bat.

[00:32:38] So waiting for, look, if I'm waiting for

[00:32:42] like a stretch from Julio where it's like,

[00:32:44] all right, two for three with a double

[00:32:45] and a two run homerun.

[00:32:47] And then the next night it's like one for four

[00:32:49] with a single and a stolen base.

[00:32:51] Like not like one extreme end of the spectrum

[00:32:54] and then the other the next night.

[00:32:56] So just looking for a bit more consistency

[00:32:59] out of Julio and then obviously Cal's been great,

[00:33:02] but they need really like a consistent third guy

[00:33:06] in the middle of the order, right?

[00:33:08] Because like I feel pretty good about Royal Asset,

[00:33:10] I feel pretty good about Julio,

[00:33:11] I feel pretty good about Cal, but

[00:33:13] you don't really know right now

[00:33:14] what you're going to get out of Mitch,

[00:33:16] both of the Mitch's on a night-to-night basis.

[00:33:18] You don't really know what you're going to get out of Ty.

[00:33:20] Like you just need more consistency out of someone.

[00:33:23] And it really just only needs to be one guy right now

[00:33:28] in the heart of that order.

[00:33:30] Yeah, it's like the two twins or well,

[00:33:32] Garver was a ranger obviously won the World Series.

[00:33:34] But when I think of Garver and Polanco,

[00:33:37] those two guys hit the way that everybody expects them to hit.

[00:33:40] Things change immensely with the offense.

[00:33:43] I think it's fair to say.

[00:33:44] Like so TJ and I talked about this before the season started.

[00:33:47] We said who is the most impactful hitter on the team

[00:33:50] this year other than Julio?

[00:33:51] Like what's your prediction?

[00:33:52] I said Garver, we asked Jason Churchill, he said Garver.

[00:33:55] TJ said Polanco.

[00:33:56] And I think that kind of encompasses like the point here,

[00:34:00] which is if those two guys hit the way they're supposed to,

[00:34:02] you're going to see this offense change big time.

[00:34:04] It's just about when is it going to click for those guys?

[00:34:07] Right, this team has really struggled to find the Robin to Julio's Batman.

[00:34:13] And they tried it last year with Teosker.

[00:34:15] And this year, there's a couple of guys that can potentially fit that mold,

[00:34:18] whether that's you know Polanco or Garver.

[00:34:23] They just haven't really gotten that yet.

[00:34:25] Right.

[00:34:25] And I don't really view like as for as good as Cal is or has been and is right now.

[00:34:33] I don't really see him as like a candidate for that.

[00:34:35] I kind of view him in a different light because with catchers,

[00:34:40] like great hitting catchers still aren't like relative to the rest of hitters and baseballs

[00:34:45] still not great.

[00:34:47] Right.

[00:34:47] There's still a lot of like swing and miss and Cal's game.

[00:34:50] And you know, there's going to be low averages and all that stuff.

[00:34:53] Right.

[00:34:53] Like that's so I kind of view him differently.

[00:34:56] But with Polanco and Garver, like you need one of those guys to essentially

[00:35:02] be the Robin to Julio's Batman.

[00:35:04] Right.

[00:35:04] So kind of pick up like when, because like Julio is going to have those bad

[00:35:08] nights where he strikes out three times and he goes over for right.

[00:35:12] You need someone that can pick up the slack on those nights.

[00:35:15] Like don't worry man.

[00:35:16] I got you tonight.

[00:35:17] It's cool.

[00:35:17] And like can give you two for four with, you know, a couple of doubles,

[00:35:21] right?

[00:35:22] Or double in a single and a couple of reps.

[00:35:24] Right.

[00:35:24] So Garver is supposed to be that guy.

[00:35:27] That's what Teo was supposed to be last year.

[00:35:29] You know, Polanco could also be that guy.

[00:35:32] It's just right now they're not really performing, but I also, I'm still not at a

[00:35:37] point yet where I'm overly concerned about it.

[00:35:42] I'm a little bit more concerned with Garver than Polanco because Garver

[00:35:47] right now it's pretty apparent he's struggling to pick up spin.

[00:35:50] And he is kind of dealing with something similar that Ty France is dealing with

[00:35:55] and it's a bit of a launch angle issue.

[00:35:57] Like when he is hitting the ball hard, he's hitting it on the ground.

[00:36:00] Like he needs to elevate more because he's actually hit the ball with some consistency.

[00:36:07] He's hitting the, he's hit the ball hard with some consistency.

[00:36:10] Just he needs to lift the ball a bit more.

[00:36:12] Polanco at least is contributing in some way.

[00:36:15] Like I mentioned with the walks, like he's walking almost 20% of the time right now.

[00:36:20] It's also striking out a ton, but he's been able to counteract that.

[00:36:23] But right now he's just kind of a two true outcome player at the moment.

[00:36:28] So need more output with that from Polanco and I think that's eventually going to come.

[00:36:34] He's also notorious for starting out slow.

[00:36:38] So I think that's just kind of who he is and we'll see him start to get it going here as

[00:36:44] the calendar turns, but Garver meanwhile there's some issues.

[00:36:48] Like we're seeing him expand the zone, which he hasn't really done historically.

[00:36:53] He's really struggling to pick up spend.

[00:36:57] Yeah, you know, I know like they're trying to work on things and

[00:37:02] make some adjustments with him and they're trying to take that slowly, but

[00:37:07] they need him.

[00:37:08] They need him with the way that the roster is built right now and the way that the lineup

[00:37:11] is built.

[00:37:11] Like they need Mitch Garver to be at least something.

[00:37:15] And another disappointing fact about Garver is the, even though he might feel pressure on

[00:37:20] himself, the pressure of the lineup is not on him.

[00:37:23] He's about as low pressure of a spot as possible.

[00:37:26] I think you understand a little bit more Polanco because he's right there in the three spot.

[00:37:30] He's got two good on base guys in front of him.

[00:37:32] He wants to drive those guys in and unfortunately again hasn't happened yet.

[00:37:36] Garver's all the way down there in the seven hole and they've done what they could to

[00:37:40] take the pressure off of him and just let him go out there and DH only DH.

[00:37:44] They haven't had forced him behind the plate yet, which another S9 thing.

[00:37:48] Believe people are actually suggesting they do, but given his injury history, but

[00:37:53] we've seen that, but it's been just DHing just focused on hitting and the, you know,

[00:37:57] and he's not even, he's not even really hitting fastballs either, which is his calling

[00:38:01] card.

[00:38:01] It's like, Hey, I want to have a fastball in the zone.

[00:38:03] I'm going to pull it in the air has not done that very much at all.

[00:38:08] So yeah, he's got some time, which is a good thing.

[00:38:11] But, you know, he's like, he's been such a good hitter in his career.

[00:38:15] I think people, you know, I think people are just like a little puzzled like why,

[00:38:18] why could that be that like that all these things are happening?

[00:38:22] Why now?

[00:38:23] What's the difference between this year and last year?

[00:38:26] Right.

[00:38:26] I do wonder and unfortunately this data isn't really public only some people have access

[00:38:32] to this data through true media and that's bat speed data.

[00:38:36] I do wonder if it's a bat speed issue with Garver and we've seen a couple of ticks

[00:38:41] down in the miles per hour there.

[00:38:43] Have you I have that graph that was floated out there on Twitter the other day of the

[00:38:47] the bat speed graph like when you're when you hit it's like when you hit 30 it starts going

[00:38:52] like sharply down.

[00:38:53] It's like a slow decline until you get 30 and then it goes like a very sharp decline.

[00:38:58] He's right in the middle of that.

[00:38:59] Some guys can some guys can get around that the best ones of all time can

[00:39:05] but yeah, you got to wonder you get a wonder.

[00:39:07] Yeah, well because it's going back to any Osora is right like that's kind of the biggest

[00:39:12] issue that they were concerned with because his bat speed did go significantly down in 2023.

[00:39:16] So as Garver kind of hit a similar cliff you kind of have to wonder about that but

[00:39:24] like we have 26 games of data on him right now.

[00:39:29] I don't want to jump the gun here and especially because he has been such a good

[00:39:34] hitter when he has been healthy that you got to think that he's going to turn around

[00:39:38] until he really gives you a reason and by reason I mean months of data to believe that

[00:39:45] that's just not going to happen.

[00:39:48] So it's just you kind of just have to play the waiting game with him.

[00:39:51] I know that's really frustrating for fans especially you know continuing to watch the

[00:39:55] quality of plate appearances that he's put up which has been horrible while he's trying

[00:39:59] to figure it out but that's really all you can do and that's all the mayors can really

[00:40:03] afford to do right now like they again they need him they need to they need him to figure this

[00:40:08] thing out before you know they start looking elsewhere which again they can't really do anything

[00:40:15] about Garver's spot on the roster because of all the money that he's making but like in terms of like

[00:40:20] making another addition right and getting more aggressive in that department so

[00:40:28] yeah we'll just again we just kind of have to play the waiting game with it right now and

[00:40:34] hopefully he gets it together because like again good Mitch Garver would be a massive

[00:40:40] boon to this lineup and would drastically change things as well as a good Ori Polanco.

[00:40:46] I'm gonna pick up the vibe of this conversation a little bit because we just had to talk about

[00:40:49] Garver and we talked about Polanco they're not up to great start.

[00:40:53] Team perspective as a whole the drastic change in April has been pretty remarkable to see.

[00:40:59] I mean we went from you know all the reasonable people of Mariners Twitter two

[00:41:02] weeks into the season saying season's over to right now they're in first place like the first

[00:41:07] two weeks of the season compared to the last couple weeks of the season the turnaround has been

[00:41:13] not just noticeable but pretty awesome and and like a lot of it has to do with the

[00:41:18] starting pitching of course yeah but like how much do you get sucked into that when those

[00:41:23] small sample of games has happened and you have nothing else to go off.

[00:41:27] Well it's in a way it's vindication right for like you know months of this off season

[00:41:36] being spent talking about how great this rotation is it's the best in baseball which I truly

[00:41:42] believe and then you know the first couple weeks of the year like pitching staff for the most part

[00:41:49] wasn't doing well right. Castillo was a disaster Kirby was a disaster for a couple of those

[00:41:55] starts and it's like what's going on but also it's like okay look everything's like

[00:42:03] melting down around us right now but let's let's let's take a step back for a second here. Do we

[00:42:08] really think this rotation is this bad really like suddenly all these George Kirby just suddenly

[00:42:16] forgot how to pitch right I know like September was also bad for Luis but still like we think

[00:42:22] that just Luis Castillo went from dominant for the first like through the first five months of last

[00:42:29] year and just suddenly fell off a cliff come on let's be real with ourselves right. So I think

[00:42:37] really what we've seen over the last couple weeks is just who this team truly is right it's a

[00:42:41] team that's built to be a run prevention club and that isn't just defense reliant right because

[00:42:49] I know you know some people hear that and they go well this team isn't really the most defensively

[00:42:53] inclined run prevention is also like it begins and ends really with your pitching staff with your

[00:43:02] rotation this is the best rotation in baseball like and we're seeing that and we're what's

[00:43:07] crazy about this too right is like we haven't even seen Brian Wuppetsch we haven't even seen

[00:43:12] Brian Wuppetsch yet and now like I know Bryce had kind of a hiccup in his in his last start

[00:43:18] against Texas but the growth we've seen from him and that splitter and the step forward he's taken

[00:43:27] with his slider as well this year I think they legitimately have a big four now and so

[00:43:35] and again that's without we don't even know what Brian Wu is going to be able to provide in his

[00:43:42] second season in the majors right so it's so exciting and it's like we talked about with Gary

[00:43:47] Hill on our show last week this team this lineup doesn't have to score a ton of runs every

[00:43:55] night because of the way they've built this rotation with how good this rotation is

[00:44:00] right it's not an ideal way to win baseball games right you would love to just put up nine runs every

[00:44:08] single night and shut every team out as well right like there's no rule against having both an elite

[00:44:14] pitching staff and an elite offense like don't get me wrong but with the way that the team is

[00:44:19] built right now like you don't need to put up most sites you probably don't need to put

[00:44:25] up more than two or three runs with how well this pitching staff is going right now so really like

[00:44:33] what i'm looking for is once the the offense kind of balances itself out and like the the the the

[00:44:38] pitching staff is going to regress a little bit here because what they've given up 24 runs in

[00:44:44] their last 16 games or something like that it's insane like they're going to regress some

[00:44:49] to the mean I think so I mean I would love it if they didn't but like they're going to regress

[00:44:54] some but like if the offense can just balance out and you know Polanco can kind of get it together

[00:44:58] and Garber can get it together and JP returns and all this stuff if they can just more consistently

[00:45:05] put up three four five runs every single night like we don't need a big 17 run game if they can

[00:45:13] just give us three four five runs every single night or most nights like they're going to

[00:45:16] win a lot of ball games because it's going to be very rare that we see pitching performances

[00:45:21] like the ones that we saw in the first couple weeks of the season that's an outlier which

[00:45:29] through the through the whole turn of the rotation which one's the most appointment viewing for you

[00:45:37] that's that's I mean like what do you think about like what George did last night against the

[00:45:42] Diamondbacks like that is I don't even know if I can say what I want to say right now on this

[00:45:49] like what George Curry did last night was mind blowing we'll go with that we'll go with mind

[00:45:55] blowing um yeah that was so fun to watch I think right now though for me I'm having a great time

[00:46:02] watching Bryce Miller pitch because again like seeing the the step forward that the slider is

[00:46:06] taken that splitter is disgusting when it's on and the fastballs just continue to get better

[00:46:12] and better I really love watching Bryce pitch but I mean you can't go wrong with

[00:46:16] really any of the four guys and you know I don't want to like discredit Emerson Hancock here but

[00:46:22] like overall his stuff isn't great but like he's he's battling and he's a pretty smart pitcher who

[00:46:29] has taken a leap forward with his command and control as well over the last few starts so

[00:46:33] he's been fun to watch in that regard but in terms of just pure stuff um yeah Bryce right now

[00:46:38] for me is really fun but watching Logan has been insane like low when I watched Logan Gilbert

[00:46:44] pitch this year and even even today you know he didn't have his best stuff whatever um you know

[00:46:51] kind of had a hard time finishing out anyings today but when I've watched him this year I'm like

[00:46:56] that looks like a saw young winner like that looks like a guy that's ready for that that next

[00:47:02] step right um so yeah he's been so much fun to watch it and I mean Louise obviously you

[00:47:09] can't go wrong with Louise see there but uh but my my answer right now is is Bryce Miller for sure

[00:47:14] what about you guys I yeah I like the Bryce answer mostly because so his stuff's great his demeanor

[00:47:21] has been great and but I think it's more so the fact that's like new found success in a different

[00:47:27] way so like we're used to seeing Logan go out there especially from what we saw last year with

[00:47:32] a retooled slider and a splitter go out there and if he has a great fastball he can go out

[00:47:36] there and dominate and you know he did that at times last year so far this year he's done that

[00:47:40] more consistently uh more consistently but we know that George Kirby is more upside than just about

[00:47:46] anyone in baseball when it comes to throwing the baseball and pitching and being like a pure

[00:47:51] picture of the combination of command and stuff and then Louise Castillo you know it's like

[00:47:56] enters the season as the number one in the rotation so it's like yeah okay so all that

[00:48:00] seems to be given but Bryce comes into the season like okay well we're expecting to see

[00:48:04] something new and we have so when the new stuff comes along it's like it is that much more grabbing

[00:48:09] it's like this is appointment television because especially when he breaks out the

[00:48:13] Kwayto shimmy it's like he's just out there fucking around yeah he's just having a shit ton of fun

[00:48:19] oh it's awesome it's awesome yeah like the yeah the Kwayto shimmy was was hilarious because I'm

[00:48:24] like okay he's in his bag now like he's got like he's kind of gotten over like the

[00:48:30] the rookie jitters right that you deal with for your first I don't know 20 30 starts

[00:48:35] and like he's he's finding like a comfort level like he's starting to feel like oh I belong here

[00:48:41] I think for me right now this second I'd say Logan Gilbert but when everybody's healthy I

[00:48:47] love to watch Brian Woo pitch and for the same thought process that the two of you have about

[00:48:52] what Bryce Miller's done and his new found stuff that's kind of how I feel with Woo

[00:48:57] as fun as it is to watch Louise George and Logan we know what those guys are and obviously

[00:49:01] those guys can continue to get better but they've already cemented themselves for the most part is

[00:49:06] you know three of them combined top 15 20 pitchers in the game all three of them with Woo and and

[00:49:11] Miller too it's it's fun to watch the idea of what they can be and every start them learning a

[00:49:18] little bit more and a little bit more and finding themselves that much more because Brian Woo

[00:49:22] look I know he's missed the first month of the year this guy's stuff like the pure stuff

[00:49:26] people have talked about screams ridiculous front line upside and that's your number five guy

[00:49:32] like that's what I hang on to the most when your number five guy has a chance one day to be a

[00:49:35] frontline starter I love watching the development of Brian Woo because if he continues to develop

[00:49:41] the way we're now seeing Bryce take a step in year two this rotation goes from the best in

[00:49:45] the league to I mean it could be a completely new conversation like a step higher than that

[00:49:50] if all five of these guys are pitching like that yeah Woo is just so much fun to watch with

[00:49:54] that effortless delivery and that two-sever that two-sever is gross it's gross so yeah and like

[00:50:01] if he's you know because we don't really know we don't know if like he's got anything new that

[00:50:05] he's he's been working on that he's ready to pull out like we've you know obviously like if

[00:50:09] you're watching on MILB TV you've seen a few innings from him you know as rehab starts

[00:50:15] but like and we've saw him what once during spring I think yeah like yeah you know we we

[00:50:24] haven't seen a lot of him like just like as fans like from our standpoint so like we don't really

[00:50:28] know like what this year's version of Brian Woo looks like and that's very exciting to me as

[00:50:34] well have you come around on Emerson at all like because we're talking about these five and

[00:50:39] Emerson has stepped in he's done a remarkable job I know you and Cole we have talked a lot

[00:50:43] on your podcast on the lockdown may or not be more so than I but yes about just like not really

[00:50:48] like not fully buying into Emerson and you know he's not the other five he's not stuff wise it's

[00:50:53] pretty apparent the numbers reflect that the stuff reflects it but you know he's just pulled into

[00:50:59] his bag and when he's needed to this year he's not only come out and competed but he's

[00:51:02] dialed it up to 96 at multiple points throughout a start switch I'm not sure entering the season

[00:51:07] I thought he would be breaking out consistently but in most starts I think he has brought out

[00:51:11] velocity again I thought once the injuries are piling up in the minors that velocity was kind of

[00:51:16] gone and he was going to sit in the lower 90s but no he's got he's dialed it back up there again

[00:51:20] so like has there been any sort of come around on your part um I still think the offerings

[00:51:27] are like 45 offerings at best because like even the fastball like he's throwing it hard but

[00:51:35] it's still a pretty straight fastball um but the thing that's impressed me is like his command

[00:51:41] and control like I said earlier has taken a significant step over the last couple starts

[00:51:45] and I was listening to Logan Gilbert talk to talk to Ryan Roll and Smith about him

[00:51:50] he was talking and he was talking about how Emerson is wired a lot similar to to Logan

[00:51:56] and in that he's just kind of a student of the game really smart pitcher and I think that's

[00:52:01] just kind of his best weapon right now maybe eventually I don't think this will happen

[00:52:09] because like it's a lot to ask of a guy that's dealt with like multiple shoulder injuries and just

[00:52:14] dealt with kind of the stop and start that he's had to deal with since being drafted

[00:52:18] and even going back to his last year at Georgia but maybe his stuff takes another step forward

[00:52:25] but I think right now his best weapon is his brain he's a really really intelligent pitcher

[00:52:31] who I think is capable and this isn't going to work every time that he's out there he's

[00:52:37] he's until some drastically changes with his stuff he's going to be prone to the to getting

[00:52:44] eight runs dropped on him any given night but I think he's smart enough to work around some of

[00:52:50] his deficiencies and be able to attack hitters and you know and obviously he has a great

[00:52:56] catcher that he's going to be working with on most nights with Cal Raleigh and I think those

[00:53:01] guys you know combined will be able to devise some really good game plans to attack uh

[00:53:07] to attack hitters but you know I think the biggest thing with Emerson right now

[00:53:11] is just that he's been able to prove like okay you can there's an actual shot of getting a quality

[00:53:19] starter two out of this guy which I wasn't sure of I wasn't sure if he was even a major league

[00:53:25] caliber starter especially after what we saw in Milwaukee but with how devoid of depth

[00:53:34] this rotation look to have heading into the season it's huge for him to kind of show us

[00:53:41] what he's shown us because now you actually have like a number six that you feel pretty good about

[00:53:47] that you're probably going to need again like there should be no question about

[00:53:52] you know should they keep him on the roster over Brian Woo or you know should they employ

[00:53:56] six main rotation any of that that's all nonsense but the fact that you're probably going to have

[00:54:04] to call on him again at some point the fact that he's kind of giving you at least a sense of

[00:54:09] confidence in him I think it's huge I think that's massive for him and then we'll see if he can

[00:54:13] continue to develop I don't know if he can but um you know Colby has used this comp a couple

[00:54:20] times Kyle Gibson if he's Kyle Gibson I think that's and it's probably more like Baltimore

[00:54:27] Kyle Gibson than Minnesota Kyle Gibson but still like that's fine if that's your number six you'll

[00:54:31] take that any day of the week and it'll still end up being pretty rich so works out that's right

[00:54:37] that's right did you put much stock into this team winning the rangers series I know it's only

[00:54:43] the first series of the year but when you factor in losing eight in a row in that ballpark to

[00:54:46] taking two of three yeah like do you take that pretty seriously I think it was a big statement

[00:54:53] for them especially with how kind of up and down April has been for them in general and again this

[00:54:58] is a team that you know you heard the way these guys talked about how you know that affected

[00:55:05] them seeing those guys go to the playoffs last year see them clench in their own ballpark

[00:55:11] being as close as they were to you know overcoming them in the standings and then having to watch

[00:55:17] them go on to win the world series like for them to go down there and do that I think was pretty

[00:55:23] pretty big for them specifically for the guys that were on that ball club last year right because

[00:55:28] for the like some of the new guys it probably doesn't mean as much to them right because

[00:55:32] they weren't there but especially like Mitch Carver like he he clearly doesn't care about that

[00:55:37] like he went on got to win a world series but you know but I think for some of those guys

[00:55:44] it definitely meant a lot for them and like you mentioned like they didn't win a single game

[00:55:48] down there last year so to go down there win two in the fashion that they did the way that

[00:55:54] they handled them especially the top of that lineup I think was really impressive and I think

[00:56:01] it gives us a glimpse into you know how good this team can be especially in high leverage games

[00:56:09] right and watching those two teams play one another is a lot of fun right because you have

[00:56:14] great pitching staff against great offense how's this gonna go right something has to give

[00:56:22] and just the dominant pitching the the sense of danger that's just kind of always in the air

[00:56:30] with that rangers offense I think is a lot of fun just from like up here like just someone that enjoys

[00:56:36] watching ball right just loves baseball like that was a really really fun series to watch

[00:56:43] because of how those two teams kind of conflict one another so Ty I think the last thing we want

[00:56:48] to see about this the series of the Rangers so they go down to Texas and they win but like the

[00:56:53] two the questions I still have regarding that specific matchup because as the west is sort of

[00:56:59] shaken out here in the first month it it's it doesn't seem like the Astros quite have it yet

[00:57:04] they might turn it around but it's looking less and less likely by the week don't put much stock

[00:57:08] into the angels don't put much stock into the ace so that leaves the Mariners and the Rangers can

[00:57:14] the Mariners go in there with a Bryce Miller and Brian Wu and win a series say it's like

[00:57:20] Bryce Brian Luis in the rotation could they go to Texas and win a series with those three

[00:57:27] that's like that I think that's like the the next question to answer if there is any true

[00:57:31] step forward this year I have PTSD of what happened last year not only did they lose those eight games

[00:57:37] they got crushed in those eight games was not particularly close and when Bryce and Brian

[00:57:43] especially went out there and pitched they got the it got killed so yeah that's the next thing

[00:57:51] Bryce's first start was right in the bout in the middle wasn't great showed some better

[00:57:55] it wasn't a disaster but yeah he he it was a good thing they got him out of there after four plus

[00:58:01] I think we could say that even though he only gave up the two run runs I think it was yeah

[00:58:05] I think it's more than fair to say that he probably shouldn't have continued in that game

[00:58:09] yeah didn't go out there and really and win the game for him so then we really get to

[00:58:15] the Brian Wu factor we've seen Bryce this year he's gotten lefties out that was his

[00:58:20] killie seal that's both third killie sale but Bryce has gotten lefties out on other teams

[00:58:23] we don't know if Brian has gotten those lefties out yet because triple A lefties are certainly not

[00:58:29] big league right so you know I think that's where I'm at when it comes to how much stock we can put

[00:58:33] into this Texas series but overall yeah two of three against that team even with their injuries

[00:58:38] without the ground without Scherzer is is 100% a positive side because that's two games they

[00:58:45] could use at the end of the season which they did not have last year what if they go down

[00:58:47] and win the first series against the Rangers last year in like in whenever they played for

[00:58:53] the first time in Texas they'd probably be in the playoffs yeah well and also like they still went

[00:59:00] up against pretty good pitching for the Rangers like Dane Dunning's pretty good Andrew Heaney you know

[00:59:05] we know that the the Mariners have really struggled against him historically John Gray has

[00:59:09] really good stuff and like even that night um he's kind of that that type of guy that like

[00:59:18] his stuff is so good that he can still be effectively wild even when he's not really on

[00:59:21] his game with the command and the control and we kind of saw that play out so um seeing them kind

[00:59:28] of manage that rotation and then manage that that top of the order was really impressive

[00:59:33] but yeah the the woo element here or the woo factor basically kind of goes back to what

[00:59:39] we were talking about earlier it's like we don't know what Brian Woo looks like yet

[00:59:42] we don't know what he's worked on really this offseason like has he developed a pitch here

[00:59:49] or has he taken a step forward with one of his already pre-existing pitches that could now

[00:59:55] serve as a way to get lefties out with some sort of consistency is it that two-seamer

[01:00:01] is it something that more so runs in on the hands of guys like like does he have

[01:00:07] I just really for me we got to see that until and then until we can say like

[01:00:19] if they can really like if they can go down there and and do what you're saying right like

[01:00:24] go down there with it's not going to be Kirby it's not going to be Gilbert how are you

[01:00:28] going to win this series with Miller and Woo and it's just Woo is kind of the the key to

[01:00:33] that is can he get those lefties out especially if he's pitching in that game too and that scenario

[01:00:39] because that's going to be a huge huge game and that's an area so

[01:00:44] and Miller as well it's just more like can he hit his spots against that lineup

[01:00:51] right because that's what we didn't see that in the first start he wasn't hitting his spots

[01:00:56] his command wasn't good it was probably 35 40 command that night

[01:01:02] can he hit his spots more consistently because now we know like he can get lefties out fairly well

[01:01:07] and we shouldn't be as concerned about him going up against the Corey Seeger's of the world

[01:01:11] I mean you should always be concerned about going up against Corey Seeger's of the world no matter

[01:01:14] who's pitching but like we're not as concerned about that that doesn't seem like as much of a

[01:01:20] free win for Seeger in that scenario but he's got to get the command together against that

[01:01:28] against that ball club specifically and I think that'll eventually happen but yeah the big key

[01:01:32] like you said it's Woo it's Woo can he develop something that that can get lefties out more

[01:01:36] consistently and then can he do that against specifically that that Rangers lineup last

[01:01:41] thing about the baseball on the field tie for me at least yeah how do you what's your

[01:01:47] reaction now that it seems like the Mariners won't have Matt Brash for at least it it feels

[01:01:52] like at this point like a year-long injury at least that's that's what it sort of feels

[01:01:56] like at this point that Matt Brash is not going to pitch for at least the rest of this year if

[01:02:00] not the beginning of next year as well and could potentially be longer depending on what happens

[01:02:05] how confident are you that the the bullpen can sustain what it does without him

[01:02:13] well this regime in general like even the biggest Jerry DePoto Justin Hollander detractors have to admit

[01:02:20] they've been pretty good at developing relievers and plucking these guys seemingly out of thin air

[01:02:25] I mean Gabe Spire now has essentially established himself as one of the best lefty relievers in

[01:02:29] the entire damn game right he's I think it's pretty clear like we can consider Gabe Spire a

[01:02:35] high leverage reliever especially with that ending that he had down in Texas speaking of that

[01:02:39] series if they can get Gregory Santos back and they can stay healthy not just with him but just

[01:02:47] across the board I'm not overly concerned about it and that's kind of you know that's that's what

[01:02:54] emphasizes the stuff for that that Spire has taken and also the signing of Ryan Stanick even more

[01:03:00] I think that those two things are huge now do I think that eventually down the road

[01:03:09] they might need to make some sort of trade for maybe a more established reliever who's pitching

[01:03:15] well at the time maybe you know especially if like they kind of take a similar approach to this

[01:03:22] offseason where it doesn't matter how or like it shouldn't matter how many good pitchers

[01:03:29] you have let's just keep on stacking them right like maybe they they trade for Paul Seawalt

[01:03:34] right if the Diamondbacks are still kind of middling maybe they do that

[01:03:39] that would be a fun day right it would be amazing but like and that's something that I

[01:03:44] could see potentially happening if the the Diamondbacks are just kind of hovering around

[01:03:48] 500 because Seawalt's going to be a free agent at the end of the year that would make sense

[01:03:51] for them to possibly trade him um but maybe they do something like that but also like

[01:03:58] awesome Vos has been pretty good Trent Thornton's been I know he you know the loss goes to him

[01:04:05] today but like he's been really good otherwise this year like and I know they really like uh

[01:04:10] they like they really like Tyson Miller who's been fine so far and I know they really like

[01:04:17] he's got about his name Holloway is it Jordan Holloway he's down in in triple A right now I

[01:04:21] know they really like him um so they might think that they're fine as is uh but I certainly would

[01:04:30] not be uh as concerned about things as long as they can stay healthy and they can get Santos back

[01:04:36] and keep him healthy I think they're with the stuff for the Spires taken they still have three

[01:04:41] high leverage guys at least and possibly four if you want to throw up Sannick into the mix

[01:04:47] yeah so I think that's I think that's more than fine um but yeah maybe you know hey trade for

[01:04:52] policy while though it would be great what a season that would be in in in the course of what seven

[01:04:56] or eight months you've traded back for Mitch Hannigan you've traded back for policy weld

[01:05:00] yeah like you want to talk about winning over a fan base um vibes we love vibes don't we

[01:05:05] folks for sure if we were going to shift gears a little bit into you doing your podcast and

[01:05:11] you're getting into all of this like you I mean we've talked about that and you've talked about that

[01:05:16] you didn't go to school for this I'm guessing like it wasn't like across your life you weren't

[01:05:20] thinking forever that you were going to be a podcaster and all that but now here we are and

[01:05:25] you guys have really built up your podcast in the couple years you guys have been doing it so

[01:05:29] I guess for a lack of a better term like how did you guys start to see it build up over time

[01:05:36] well it was kind of slow and then it just kind of boomed at like one point like it wasn't like this

[01:05:45] constant progression towards like where we are now it was like all right

[01:05:52] you know we were doing we were riding over at Soto mojo for a little while stopped doing that

[01:05:56] had built kind of a following just like on a personal level where like some people like

[01:06:02] followed us from Soto to do in our patreon but we had I think like after a month or two of doing

[01:06:11] the patreon we had like 30 patrons something like that which is good like don't get me wrong but like

[01:06:17] you know I'm not thinking like hey I can quit my day job now right or like well this was during

[01:06:22] the pandemic so I'm like still thinking like yeah once all this is over like I'm gonna need to go

[01:06:26] find a job or like maybe go back to school or like you know get something jumping off with my life

[01:06:31] that isn't this right um but you know I started writing for sports illustrated covering the seahawks

[01:06:41] and that gave me a lot of really valuable experience just kind of doing the day to day

[01:06:45] grind of creating content and then starting to do video content on there as well and

[01:06:52] having to come up with video ideas etc that really helped and then eventually locked on came along

[01:06:57] and we were only doing audio on there for a while and things were going okay but we were

[01:07:04] we were only making like a couple hundred bucks each it wasn't really like oh you know a huge thing

[01:07:08] right um and uh eventually I you know things happened over at um at the site that I was working

[01:07:17] at I ended up not working there anymore I was like okay well I that was fun I guess I need to

[01:07:23] you know go find something else to do with my life and it just so happened around that time

[01:07:28] the mariners got really hot in 2022 and then you know about a month later they traded for

[01:07:34] louis castillo and our subscriber totals just boomed it was nuts um I think we added like a

[01:07:42] couple thousand subscribers and like a 10 day span or something like that it was crazy

[01:07:47] and um yeah it's just kind of progressed from from that point forward and you know locked on as a

[01:07:53] network has started to do a lot better and you know more notable sponsors have come through

[01:08:00] which means more money for us and colby and I have gotten to a point now where we can make this

[01:08:05] our full-time jobs and it's been uh it's been a lot of fun and I'm you know I don't

[01:08:10] take that for granted whatsoever um I'm still kind of like perplexed by it all you know and like

[01:08:19] but yeah but like you said you know this wasn't really the plan but um I didn't really have a plan

[01:08:25] so this kind of worked out in a way for me that's a long that's a long way of saying

[01:08:31] for everybody listening isn't it great what winning can do for everybody not just

[01:08:35] for everybody not just for everybody's like mental state as a sports fan but like you know

[01:08:41] and we know from doing podcasting or just sports talk in general when the team you're talking about

[01:08:46] is doing well more people want to listen it's it's that simple I remember I uh I took my wife

[01:08:52] and her mom out for like a really nice dinner one night and they were like oh thank you tie

[01:08:57] you know paid for whatever and they were like thank you time I was like don't thank me thanks

[01:09:01] the Seattle Mariners they coolio Rodriguez thank Cal Raleigh thank Jerry DePoto thank all of them

[01:09:09] creating content for us hi like oh the thing I like about the the mariners content community

[01:09:15] which we can dive into a little bit more when we were on with you I think we spent a lot of time

[01:09:18] talking about you know mariners content and how everyone is sort of falling into their own

[01:09:23] niche and creating their own brand of mariners content whether it be visual audio whatever

[01:09:29] it is which niche do you guys you think you guys occupy what is your what do you think your

[01:09:34] specialty is that you occupy um the thing that we really like the thing that we enjoy doing the most

[01:09:41] is like roster building talk we love that stuff we love roster building we love researching and

[01:09:47] figuring out ways to kind of put the puzzle together um you know and Colby and I the reason

[01:09:54] that we hit it off initially and like wanted to start talking ball with one another you know in a

[01:10:00] more professional setting was we liked what Jerry and company were doing during the rebuild uh we

[01:10:07] kind of we got the vision right we understood it we really liked it and we wanted to see how

[01:10:14] that developed and we enjoyed kind of like I mean our first two years of like talking ball

[01:10:21] was during 2019 and 2020 so really bad seasons for the team on on the field I mean 2020 wasn't that

[01:10:29] bad they were pretty close to actually making the playoffs that year but like um you know they

[01:10:34] weren't supposed to contend the rosters were pretty ugly but there was a plan in place and it

[01:10:39] was really fun to kind of figure out like how um how this was all going to take shape eventually

[01:10:47] in years like 2024 right um so I think that's kind of like what our general appeal was for a lot of

[01:10:56] people was like talking about roster building and a more um theoretical form and a theoretical

[01:11:06] way right um and really like diving into the nitty gritty of things and really exploring every single

[01:11:14] possibility um and you know from that point forward it's just kind of developed into like

[01:11:20] you know people like us for us you know there's a lot of people that have been

[01:11:25] um you know enjoying our content from the soto days so they're very familiar with us they've

[01:11:31] been familiar with us for six years now right there's people like that and then there's people

[01:11:35] that have only been listening since you know they're sort of locked on which is now like a couple

[01:11:39] years so there's a lot of history there as well um but I think uh you know and and people like

[01:11:48] people understand you know people that have been around for a while like they understand

[01:11:51] like our dynamic colby and i's dynamic which is you know it's for like the the person listening

[01:11:57] for the first time might not get it right but it's it's very much like a sibling rivalry type

[01:12:04] of thing right and I know a lot of people like that so I think that's probably kind of part of

[01:12:09] the niche as well but I think it really comes down to the roster building stuff I know a lot

[01:12:13] of people really like that so with us you made it a big point of emphasis this off season clearly

[01:12:19] to bring a lot of these content people in the Mariners community closer together and like

[01:12:25] long story short I think it succeeded because while I used to watch all these different people

[01:12:29] from afar and I think TJ could say the same we didn't really know them all that well but

[01:12:33] fast forward to now between you doing your content creator spotlight and just provide it like

[01:12:39] bringing out some more opportunities for people to connect that do similar things

[01:12:42] and now there's people in this community you included some other people included that

[01:12:46] will message all the time we'll just talk Mariners with all the time and it's it's much more

[01:12:51] commonplace now so like what was your motivation for doing that when you started that this winter

[01:12:57] I mean if you're on Marist twitter you know that it's pretty tribalistic right there's

[01:13:01] all these like different like clicks and groups of people and all these clicks kind of have like

[01:13:08] beef with one another and all this it's weird like it's very high school it's like I just want to

[01:13:13] watch baseball I love the Mariners there you know they've obviously been awful to watch for most

[01:13:19] of our lives but I love the team I'm never going to quit the team I like what they're

[01:13:23] doing right now I like where they're heading I think they're a lot of fun

[01:13:27] like everyone just chill and you know like I said earlier like I don't take this stuff for

[01:13:34] granted I don't take the position that I'm in for granted and I don't like I think I talked to you

[01:13:38] guys about this when I had you guys on like I don't view anyone that like is coming into the

[01:13:43] space or having success like you guys are you guys have had a lot of great success here

[01:13:49] especially as of late like I don't view that as like oh it's competition right like I just

[01:13:54] look at it like it's great that people want to talk about the Seattle Mariners and a positive

[01:14:01] light too like that's what attracted me to your guys' podcast to begin with was like okay they're

[01:14:07] being fair right like you guys will criticize the team just like we will like whenever there's

[01:14:11] something that you don't like but overall like you're not super reactionary you're not calling

[01:14:18] for people's heads after one bad game etc like and you're not doing the whole like well that's just

[01:14:25] the same old Mariners what was me I'm just a Mariners fan you know like which like fine great

[01:14:32] but like I just I find that that act kind of tiring after a while and I wanted to engage

[01:14:42] with creators that are excited about creating content about the team that truly love the

[01:14:47] team want to talk about the team and you know create communities to engage with right and if I

[01:14:57] can help in growing those communities in any sort of capacity I wanted to do that so and I know you

[01:15:03] know with with how big our platform has gotten that I could help with that because I saw what I

[01:15:09] was able to do for like Ben Reneary right like I had been on my show last summer and Ben later that

[01:15:19] night told me like he had by far his best day in terms of getting subscribers on his sub stack

[01:15:26] I was like well I should do this more so I had thought about it for a while I wasn't really

[01:15:31] sure how to do it and then we locked on required us to go back to five shows a week because like

[01:15:39] during during the offseason we go to three shows a week for a little while around excuse me around

[01:15:44] winter meetings but they they they got they asked us to go back to five shows a week like two

[01:15:51] weeks earlier than we expected I was like well how are we gonna feel fill all these days

[01:15:55] with shows so it's no more perfect time than now to start the content creator thing so

[01:16:01] I reached out to you guys and a couple other creators and I want to do more of it over the

[01:16:06] course of the season like there's still quite a few creators that I haven't been able to

[01:16:10] to do that with yet but I think it's really cool to just kind of bring the community together

[01:16:14] because there's so much toxicity and tribalism and all this weird stuff in the community

[01:16:19] more so on on Mara's Twitter than than really anywhere right which is only like a certain

[01:16:24] sect of the fan base and isn't representative at all of the entire fan base I know that

[01:16:29] but it is where you know a lot of us do reside unfortunately and you know I just want to try

[01:16:36] and like dispel that as much as I possibly can and try and bring all of us kind of closer together

[01:16:43] right like the coolest thing for me was seeing you guys know Jake from you love to see it

[01:16:53] yeah so like seeing like Jake like now kind of like interact with some of the other

[01:16:59] like creators like it's not just like I'm like at the center of it and everyone just like communicates

[01:17:04] with one another through me or because of me or whatever it's like they've all kind of branched

[01:17:08] off and started doing their own thing too and I think that's awesome right like just everyone's

[01:17:12] kind of coming together and like doing their own thing though that way like I think that's

[01:17:17] really cool do you think that's maybe a status or a or sort of expectation of say like the younger set

[01:17:24] the not the not the traditional media types but us the people who you know create content from

[01:17:29] our bedrooms and and screaming a microphone after our regular nine to five day jobs like

[01:17:36] do you think that's something different of us that there's not as much it doesn't need to be

[01:17:41] as much of a competition it can be more of instead a collaborative effort that you know

[01:17:46] again like everyone has their own niche but we're all like right you know we're all working in this

[01:17:50] together still to you know bring more fans to the game find different ways to engage people

[01:17:55] and overall I feel like it benefits all of us if there are more people interested

[01:17:58] absolutely absolutely uh and look you know like I saw uh I've seen quite a few comments on our

[01:18:08] shows that are like or like in the past like a couple years ago right before like you guys

[01:18:13] really started or like really anyone else was really doing this where it was like I don't really

[01:18:19] like this podcast but it's all we have so like look and I get it like if you're not a fan of

[01:18:26] of my show totally fine that's cool like but like um you know if if there are other options for you

[01:18:35] go explore those totally fine with that and so like I'm glad that there are more options for

[01:18:40] people because look I'm not going to appeal to everyone you guys aren't going to appeal to everyone

[01:18:44] Marin and Mojo isn't going to appeal to everyone but I think like if every like Marin's fan like

[01:18:49] finds a content creator or two that they can engage with I think it's great that people are

[01:18:54] engaging overall with the team more and they're finding ways to engage with the team more

[01:18:58] they're finding ways to engage with their passion more right um so I think that's that's

[01:19:03] awesome and um yeah like I said like I don't view it as a competition I view it as like we all

[01:19:09] kind of like need one another right and like you know for me it's a business you know to a

[01:19:16] certain degree like this is my full-time job whereas you know for other people that are just getting

[01:19:21] started it's not but maybe one day it eventually can be if I can help facilitate that in any sort

[01:19:27] of way or help springboard you in any sort of way um I want to try and do that because like

[01:19:34] Jason Churchill who's friend of our show friend of your your show like

[01:19:40] he did that for Colby and I when he didn't have to like we like when when uh we stopped working

[01:19:47] over at Soto and Colby and I didn't really know what we were gonna do Colby just kind of Cole called

[01:19:54] a church and asked him like hey like we don't really know what to do do you have any advice

[01:20:00] for us and church set sat down with us maybe a couple hours later for like two hours

[01:20:08] and just like went through everything with us and helped us kind of develop a vision for what we

[01:20:13] wanted to do next and then when locked on started looking for a new host of of locked on mariners

[01:20:20] church recommended us to them and like he's like the reason that we got locked on mirrors so

[01:20:26] like I want to try and like pay that for it right and you know and I hope to instill that and other

[01:20:33] people as well like you know once like you guys get established or you know Jake gets established

[01:20:39] or you know whoever right just for the sake of the example you know when they get established

[01:20:44] that they pass that down to whoever is starting out and gives them an opportunity to start building

[01:20:51] their community because I think there's a space for all of us I think there's a space for more people

[01:20:57] to join into this thing I constantly encourage people that you know who ask you know how to

[01:21:03] get started in this like just to do it because I think there are an infinite amount of ways to

[01:21:11] to create content around this team and and it's great the bigger the community gets because

[01:21:19] like Seattle is a sleeping giant especially when it comes to baseball like this fan base is a sleeping

[01:21:26] giant and I know that it can be a brand that is up there with the best of the best I truly believe

[01:21:38] that and I think like we can all kind of build a community that rivals that of like the Yankees

[01:21:45] community and the Dodgers even though this is a smaller state in a smaller market I still think

[01:21:50] we can we can do that because of I mean just look at the iconography of Seattle sports in general

[01:21:57] right look at the sonics look at like how much people still to this day talk about the sonics

[01:22:02] where sonics gear yesterday I was at the blue jays game and I saw two guys wearing sonics hats

[01:22:08] right with their like maple leaf jerseys on like um like look at how many how much people talk about

[01:22:17] king griffey junior where brawn james says king griffey juniors his favorite athlete growing up

[01:22:22] like you know julio like when julio went off at the derby you saw like stef curry talking

[01:22:27] about him a lot like the mariners and seattle sports in general have a very special um they

[01:22:35] have very special iconography that I think can really like if they can have um a fan base or like a

[01:22:42] community of content creators that can really get the word out and make them bigger than just

[01:22:49] you know that can go beyond just kind of like the local uh fan base and can help expand

[01:22:55] like the the allure of the team beyond just the state of washington then um yeah and I think

[01:23:02] this this community is totally capable of that last question I have for you ty and it's a little bit

[01:23:08] of a generalized question but I think it's an interesting talking point with the more and

[01:23:12] more creators that are coming into the space paired with how media is starting to trend these days

[01:23:17] you're not going to have a perfect answer for this but to just take your best crack at this

[01:23:21] 10 years from now what does mariners coverage look like um ideally we have something that's

[01:23:31] similar to john boy similar to bar stool minus the you know the issues over there

[01:23:42] that's similar to you know they again goes beyond the state goes beyond the local allure of the

[01:23:52] teams right and this goes beyond just the mariners right I think some of this is going to be like

[01:23:58] the return of the sonics will help because there's already like again like like I was saying earlier

[01:24:03] there's already a lot of national interest in that but the mariners being good the mariners

[01:24:09] are like some of this is just out of our hands right some of this is just like the teams have to

[01:24:14] play at a high level right so you know the mariners getting to what I think we all think

[01:24:19] their ceiling ultimately is like that's going to be a big part of it as well but I think

[01:24:24] this community again like I said earlier is more than capable of building something that goes beyond

[01:24:30] just the local allure of the teams um so hopefully that's where it is in 10 years hopefully there

[01:24:36] is something that that's like that where you know we're attracting fans to like we're making more

[01:24:46] we're making the mariners more of like an icon right more of an icon franchise we're making the

[01:24:52] the seahawks more of an icon franchise we're making the kraken more of an icon franchise

[01:24:55] we're making the sonics more of an icon franchise um I think that it's the the history of these teams

[01:25:04] and again we have Julio here right we have I mean you know we'll see what the seahawks can do

[01:25:11] now in this new era once the sonics come back like there's going to be a lot of things

[01:25:15] that I think are really going to interest people around the country and around the globe

[01:25:21] and um yeah I I hope you know again like some of it is just going to rely on the teams performing

[01:25:29] but I hope that's what what this ends up looking like in 10 years from now because I think I think

[01:25:33] it's it's definitely possible. Ty, this has been awesome I know I can speak for Lyle in this

[01:25:40] fact that we both really appreciate the relationship that has grown between our two podcasts and

[01:25:45] us and you and us being on yours and you now finally coming on ours it's been you know

[01:25:49] it's been a big help you guys are certainly an inspiration in this Mariners content creator

[01:25:54] community and you know you will continue to do so as well and we hope to pass that message forward

[01:25:59] as well so Ty thanks so much for taking time to join us here today. Appreciate it guys. Really appreciate

[01:26:07] all the time Ty gave us we enjoyed talking with him a bunch and being a part of this Mariners

[01:26:11] content community has been a lot of fun for all of us and to continue to meet more people

[01:26:16] within the group and within the community it's been it's been really cool to see the

[01:26:20] evolution of it and I think it's going to keep evolving as we talked about with Ty.

[01:26:24] So with that that'll just about wrap up this edition of the Marine Layer podcast you guys

[01:26:29] know the drill if you want to keep following all of our stuff and you want to listen to the

[01:26:34] podcasts every week make sure to download our episodes on the audio side that's on Apple

[01:26:39] and Spotify wherever you get your audio podcast make sure to leave a five star review leave

[01:26:43] a written review all that good stuff if you're watching on YouTube make sure to like

[01:26:46] comment and subscribe and check us out on social media too we're on Instagram,

[01:26:50] TikTok, Twitter and YouTube shorts at Marine Layer pod that's TJ I'm Lyle as always we thank

[01:26:56] you guys for tuning in talk to you soon.