Episode 128: Brad Adam (ROOT Sports), Bryan Woo's 2024 Expectations, And Navigating The Future Of The Mariners Bullpen

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 128 of the Marine Layer Podcast. We welcome on Root Sports host,

[00:00:05] Brad Adam. We had to check in on his golf game and see how he was doing this season.

[00:00:10] We also brainstormed a couple of new ways to market Major League Baseball and still managed

[00:00:15] to talk some Mariners as well. It's always fun catching up with Brad. We have our two Mariners

[00:00:19] storylines. We lay out our expectations for Brian Wu in 2024. And what does this Mariners

[00:00:25] bullpen do moving forward? Don't miss any of our content guys. If you want to make sure you're

[00:00:30] staying on top of it with these podcasts, if you're listening on the audio side, download the episodes,

[00:00:35] leave a five star review, write a written review, the whole nine yards. If you're watching on

[00:00:38] YouTube, hit that subscribe button, leave a like on the video and make sure to drop us

[00:00:43] a comment as well on social media. We're always active. You can check us out on Instagram,

[00:00:48] on TikTok, Twitter and YouTube shorts at Marine Layer Pod. Let's get it rolling.

[00:01:05] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball

[00:01:10] Podcast Network, recording here Tuesday evening, May 14th. And man, Lyle, it was good to get back

[00:01:18] out to the ballpark this past weekend. We'll get into our storylines and look at the future

[00:01:23] a little bit here in a second. But let's start in the past. Good series. Abe did hit a home run,

[00:01:31] unfortunately, with me in attendance sitting there watching. I was, as you expected,

[00:01:37] at a loss for words. I think all I said was, fuck. I think that was it. I think that was

[00:01:43] all I said. Excuse my language. That's it. That's all I said. So I think so we checked

[00:01:50] we I think I checked everything off the list this past weekend at the ballpark. So we did

[00:01:54] some good player content. We did some good fan content and then Abe Toro essentially

[00:01:59] flipped me off on his way around the bases. Oh, he knew you were there. I'm surprised.

[00:02:04] Absolutely. I'm surprised you didn't disrupt your whole section when he hit that home run.

[00:02:08] I'm surprised you weren't screaming and just going full rage mode. Thankfully,

[00:02:12] I was sitting right next to my brother at the moment who I know shares many of the same

[00:02:16] opinions about Abe Toro as I do. So it's the twin unison thing where we sort of sit there in

[00:02:23] a dead silence, just cannot believe in what is happening. What has happened on the field in

[00:02:29] front of us? Oh man, I would have done anything to be sitting next to you guys and you

[00:02:34] specifically during that moment. That was Mother's Day when we were doing some other stuff. You

[00:02:39] guys were at the game as a family. But man, if we had been there at the same time and I

[00:02:43] watched him leave the yard with you in attendance, I think I might have fell on the floor laughing.

[00:02:48] It wasn't funny while. Oh, it would have been funny. Oh, it would have been funny,

[00:02:54] especially because especially because the Mariners were already up and that home run was

[00:02:58] essentially meaningless. All the more reason I would have fallen on the floor laughing.

[00:03:04] Yeah, you're in a great mood just thinking about it. Oh, and I forgot to mention that

[00:03:07] Mason Miller didn't even pitch over the weekend. So that was also, you know, maybe

[00:03:11] baseball wise not as good, but Mariners wise was very excellent. So I feel like we checked

[00:03:17] everything off. Oh, and it was 80 degrees all weekend. Like really, really can't complain.

[00:03:22] I'm going to be honest. I wanted to see Mason Miller pitch. I'm glad the Mariners won the

[00:03:26] series, but at some point I would have liked to see him pitch in person. Yeah, that would

[00:03:30] have been good. But the Mariners won the series so he didn't get to pitch. So it's good.

[00:03:37] Let's get into our Mariners storylines and we can talk about what we get. Let's go back

[00:03:40] to the start of the weekend because this is where the subject of our storylines start.

[00:03:45] Brian Wu made his 2024 debut on Friday, pitched four and a third innings against the A's.

[00:03:51] He left in the fifth inning with tightness in his arm. He wasn't staying loose during

[00:03:56] the bottom of the fourth inning, the half inning before that. So he came out after throwing

[00:04:02] 95-96 throughout the first four innings. He comes out and he throws a couple of 86 mile an

[00:04:07] hour fastballs to Cal Raleigh who noticed it right away. Many got pulled, but Scott

[00:04:13] Service says he's okay. He'll pitch today when this episode comes out on Wednesday.

[00:04:18] So the question that this storyline poses, and I think you're a good person to answer this Lyle,

[00:04:24] what are Brian Wu's expectations in 2024? In the simplest of terms, they're high.

[00:04:31] There's a lot of people that believe Brian Wu's ceiling is higher than Bryce Miller's.

[00:04:36] Bryce Miller currently sits with a 2-6-6 earned run average. When you're doing that

[00:04:43] and you're talking about a guy that supposedly has a higher ceiling than Bryce Miller,

[00:04:47] yes they're going to be high in terms of expectation. Now Brian Wu is not going to

[00:04:51] throw the amount of innings that Bryce Miller does. He's going to be on much more of a

[00:04:53] limit. We're going to have to look and see what Brian Wu's improved on over the offseason,

[00:04:59] very similar to how we were all waiting to see what Bryce Miller would improve on.

[00:05:02] The adjustments have been noticeable from his end, right? With the addition of the really good

[00:05:06] splitter. Some of his breaking stuff is far, far better than it was a season ago. He's throwing

[00:05:11] more than two pitches. We're going to need to see some of that with Wu here too as we're

[00:05:14] going to dive into more of it. But in the simplest terms, yeah Brian Wu's expectations are

[00:05:19] high. I would think he would tell you that his expectations are high. He's a confident guy.

[00:05:23] He knows he has a good arm. I think the expectations are going to be he's going to

[00:05:27] take a big jump this year. And we know now in Bryce's camp, we know Bryce has executed his

[00:05:33] pitch as well because he's faced a variety of lineups, a variety of strengths, right versus

[00:05:38] left and he's been successful against all of them since the Texas Rangers. You know that's

[00:05:43] going to be I think the ultimate final boss for both of these pitchers based on what we

[00:05:49] saw last season and based on what we saw in Bryce's one start against the Rangers this

[00:05:52] year. Shockingly this would probably be a good week right now for the Mariners to play

[00:05:56] the Rangers but they're going to have to wait a little bit to play the Rangers again who are

[00:05:59] struggling right now especially offensively. But Bryce and Brian have not pitched very well

[00:06:05] last year or this year against the Texas Rangers and it would be a good test to see how much

[00:06:10] their stuff has evolved. But in Bryce's case, Bryce has shown he could execute his stuff.

[00:06:15] He has executed his splitter to left-handed hitters. They struggle to hit it and he's

[00:06:19] overall outside of just that pitch executed to lefties who have struggled to hit him this

[00:06:24] season. That's why I wish we had a little bit more of a sample on Brian Wu because it's tough

[00:06:29] to evaluate if anything really has changed yet. If you want to look at the percentages of what

[00:06:34] he did in his first start. So Brian Wu in his first start threw 70% change-ups on or change-ups

[00:06:43] no he didn't throw that many change-ups. 70% fastballs combined between his foreseam

[00:06:47] and his sinker. Last year he threw those two pitches about 72% of the time combined.

[00:06:51] So that works out. It's about the same give or take. The only real difference,

[00:06:55] which is noticeable even though he only threw nine of them, he threw way more change-ups than

[00:06:59] he did on a rate basis last year. The change-up has a similar idea of his splitter. Not his

[00:07:07] splitter, of Bryce's splitter, of Logan's splitter, of George's splitter against lefties.

[00:07:12] A pitch that'll go down, a pitch that'll go away from lefties and a pitch that's a better

[00:07:16] strikeout pitch against those. And he threw after throwing it 4% of the time last year

[00:07:21] 15% of the time in his first start against the A's overall and then 20% of the time

[00:07:27] against lefties. So at least we have one data point that shows strategy-wise it feels like

[00:07:35] he's a little more comfortable throwing that pitch this year. Once we get like five, six,

[00:07:40] seven, eight starts in we'll get a more definitive view but one start in that change-up

[00:07:45] did feel good. It did feel good. He didn't get much swing and miss on it though which

[00:07:50] is probably something he's aiming for. Well I'll say about your point with the sample

[00:07:54] size we're not supposed to have a big sample size on Brian Wulie yet because the point of

[00:07:57] the segment is what do we think he'll do in 2024 after he makes seven, eight starts we could

[00:08:02] do another segment saying what is our evaluation of Brian Wulie in 2024? This is the expectation

[00:08:07] segment and this is kind of going to be balanced into two parts. I know you've

[00:08:10] intertwined it a little bit but there's the addition of a pitch and what he does against

[00:08:17] lefties and we can break those two down separately. I know right now you're kind of going down the

[00:08:21] avenue of more pitches and use of pitches so let's stay there. You're right it seems like at least

[00:08:27] through one start the change-up is the pitch that he is leaning on a little bit heavier

[00:08:32] and he's gonna have to lean on something a little heavier. Brian Wu's two fast balls are

[00:08:36] why people think his upside is a front line starter. Those two fast balls are nuts they're

[00:08:42] nasty they combined for a run value of let's make sure we have this right 11 last year

[00:08:48] seven on the four seamer and a four run value on the two seamer those fast balls play and guys

[00:08:53] have a ridiculous time picking it up between the wacky low arm angle he releases from

[00:08:59] and the crazy fastball ride that comes with it. Those are tough to hit and the numbers spoke

[00:09:03] for that last year but when you look at his other offerings the change-up the slider

[00:09:08] and the sweeper those got hit harder last year so something of those three weapons has to take

[00:09:15] a step forward this year through one start it looks like he may lean more on the change-up

[00:09:19] and if he's gonna lean more on the change-up great whatever it's gonna take to keep hitters

[00:09:23] a little bit more off balance. It's gonna have to be though I would imagine his change-up

[00:09:28] and one of his sliders like Bryce had also like Brian has a good fastball it's a different

[00:09:33] fastball that comes from a different angle and does different things but overall the goal for

[00:09:37] both of them is to utilize their good fastball but not to the point where it exposes them

[00:09:43] because when the two of them have to throw it too much then even good pitches can get hit because

[00:09:49] if you see a good pitch enough times it will get hit because these are big league hitters

[00:09:53] so if he can work that change up in 20 percent of the time against lefties just

[00:09:59] just for comparison if you're curious so Bryce throws his splitter 22 percent of

[00:10:03] the time against lefties Logan throws his splitter 11 percent of the times against lefties though

[00:10:08] Logan has a bit of a deeper arsenal he substitutes more of that with throwing his cutter in on the

[00:10:13] fists of lefties and helping them helping get them out and then George throws his splitter

[00:10:19] about 14 percent of the time so these all these guys have pitches they lean on a little bit more

[00:10:24] against lefties than they would otherwise in just a standard at bat and that's I think where

[00:10:29] Brian's gonna have to you know he's gonna have to figure it out and he said his off-speed stuff

[00:10:33] got knocked around yeah and it might be figuring out this year which one of his sliders he

[00:10:38] prefers whether it be the bullet slider or the sweeper that's going to be you know a telling

[00:10:43] time even if the fastball is the out pitch you're still going to need one of those

[00:10:47] pitches that moves away from the hitter to try and be effective so my follow-up to that

[00:10:53] would be if he's going to figure out which of his two sliders he's going to prefer off the numbers

[00:11:00] the bullet slider fared a little bit better than the sweeper the sweeper got hit pretty hard last

[00:11:04] year it guy slugs 457 against the sweeper the run value was negative five it could have taken

[00:11:10] a big jump in the off season and then spring training we'll wait and see we haven't seen enough

[00:11:14] of the sample to see which he prefers and which works better yet but just off the numbers

[00:11:18] in 2023 the bullet slider seemed like it worked a little bit better they're both going

[00:11:23] to have to take jumps forward but yeah he will probably need one breaking ball right so it's

[00:11:30] i don't i don't know if brian was ever going to really add a pitch i don't feel like he needs

[00:11:34] to i think the arsenal sitting what it is is good enough unless he was going to you know if

[00:11:41] he was going to swap you know you never say never right it's hard to believe now thinking

[00:11:45] of a guy like logan gilbert's not a primarily fastball pitcher like do you think of logan as

[00:11:50] a primary fastball pitcher now even though when he came up that was his best pitch not really

[00:11:55] because he throws so much else the same can be said for brian but if the arm talent really is

[00:12:00] that even if he's so gifted from where he releases the baseball you can't rule it out of

[00:12:05] the question to think that something else might be more effective when it comes along it might

[00:12:09] not be this year because brian's still young and he's still going to have a lot of innings

[00:12:13] under his belt and he still needs he's sorry he still needs to get a lot of innings under

[00:12:17] his belt and he's got a long way to go to get ramped up to the point where george kirby and

[00:12:22] logan gilbert are right now when it comes to innings and distance and overall just command

[00:12:27] of a repertoire like let's just like we gotta just contextualize a little bit i mean brian

[00:12:32] will only through 80 something innings in the big leagues last year and just 134 130 131 innings

[00:12:39] total last year right so he's going to build on that a little bit this year but even if he

[00:12:45] goes 20 innings past that he's still sitting like 50 innings plus shy of where we expect

[00:12:53] castillo well let's throw castillo out because he's a vet logan and george right now this year

[00:12:59] when we're talking about the young guys and the guys who are still learning and growing

[00:13:02] in this rotation so you're gonna you're just gonna have you're not gonna have those 50

[00:13:06] innings really of development for brian woo wherever that those innings get subbed out

[00:13:13] season so it might take a little longer maybe you won't have to sell them out that much though

[00:13:19] because if he's on a 150 inning limit and he also missed five or six starts here at the

[00:13:24] beginning of the year maybe that essentially does it maybe they jumble around the rotation

[00:13:29] at the all-star break a little bit to have them skip a start or something like that but

[00:13:32] he may not have to actually go on the phantom il or anything like that this year

[00:13:36] just to skip starts yeah he might have to he might not have to we'll see we'll see how

[00:13:41] he holds up i think that the that you know that that question might be more to brice for them both

[00:13:48] pitching like can they both last for in brian's case five full months in brice's case six full

[00:13:54] months can they do it can they keep up the stuff and can they you know when september rolls

[00:13:59] around can they execute can they do they still feel that way right that is the that is the

[00:14:04] question for both of them but certainly even though he gets he essentially got the first

[00:14:10] month off that's the question for brian woo miller's more built up than woo i think woo is the

[00:14:15] bigger question mark there so we'll see i do want to highlight the left versus right here because

[00:14:21] this is going to be the overarching theme for brian woo all year and it's it's the case with

[00:14:26] brice miller too there's going to be a cloud hanging over who's head all season which is

[00:14:30] can he consistently get lefties out that's the key let me read you these numbers in 2023

[00:14:36] here's what brian woo did against right-handed bats he put up a 264 fifth

[00:14:41] 285 xfip he was striking a half he was striking out 10 and a half per nine walking one and a

[00:14:47] half per nine and hitters put up a 495 ops against brian woo that's pretty damn good right

[00:14:57] here's what he did against lefties 665 fifth 614 xfip 8.3 strikeouts per nine

[00:15:05] five and a half walks per nine hitters put up a 928 ops against brian woo in simpler terms

[00:15:12] all in a nutshell against righties he was a cy young winner against lefties he wasn't a big

[00:15:16] leaguer yeah it's going to be that's going to be the question and that's where when we look

[00:15:22] at his first start against the a's that's where we try like we try and find something

[00:15:26] from what we've seen so far because something has to be different and at least in one start

[00:15:31] it was like one for eight right one for eight against lefties the a's stacked lefties in their

[00:15:36] lineup all weekend against the mariners right-handed starters and the mariners did

[00:15:40] perfectly fine against those lefty bats and against you know brian woo and you know bryce

[00:15:46] miller also who's been who's been very good against lefties this season as already

[00:15:50] mentioned but the first test against lefties he did not get crushed which is great yeah that

[00:15:58] is a huge step again woo doesn't have to put up the numbers that he puts up against righties

[00:16:03] against lefties it just has to be manageable if brian woo is going to be much better against

[00:16:07] righties in his career because it's fastballs or his best pitches great that's his strength

[00:16:12] you just can't get absolutely lit up against left-handed bats on a consistent basis he's just

[00:16:17] got to find a way to neutralize it a little bit if that 928 ops that uh that opposing

[00:16:22] hitters put up against him last year can come down to somewhere in the 700s let's call it 750

[00:16:30] then exactly what we're talking about about brian woo's upside being a frontline starter

[00:16:34] he becomes a frontline starter if he does that so july 1st lial let's circle back let's see how

[00:16:41] let's let's see where then we can do a proper evaluation it'll be two full months of

[00:16:46] starts for brian woo and we can make we can make a more comfortable assertion whether or

[00:16:50] not something has changed or not definitely and i'll wrap up with this because as i talked about

[00:16:55] on this podcast i love to watch brian woo pitch he might be my favorite guy in the rotation to

[00:17:00] watch pitch because the idea of what he can be is really exciting and everything we just

[00:17:04] talked about let's end it with this his savant page last year was a ton of red his xera

[00:17:10] was 348 this guy as we've talked about has two fantastic fastballs it's hard to pick up

[00:17:15] for hitters there is so much about what he does and the pitch arsenal arsenal that he possesses

[00:17:21] that says he can be awesome so let's see what he does here in 2024 because truthfully again

[00:17:27] i think his ceiling is very high and do not be shocked if he ends the year with an era

[00:17:32] in the low threes and i'll leave it at that i i genuinely believe that so before we get to

[00:17:38] our next storyline let's take a quick pause we're going to talk to you about our friends

[00:17:41] over at pagotches pub 85 season's in full swing maris are in first place guys what a great time

[00:17:47] to get out and plan an event with friends to go watch some games so head over there too

[00:17:51] and you can participate in a multitude of activities you want to go play pool or play

[00:17:55] darts you want to just sit and hang out casually watch the game you want to intently

[00:17:59] watch the game all that you can head over there to do that if you go during happy hour

[00:18:03] there's great drink specials it's two to six p.m on monday through friday so a long lasting

[00:18:08] happy hour with three dollar domestic beers four dollar manny's and blue moons four dollar

[00:18:12] mackinjacks four dollar wells and four dollar house wines all of that is over at pagotches

[00:18:17] pub 85 in kirkland so the bullpen as we hit our second storyline it's been a strength the

[00:18:23] last three years it's been talked about a lot it's been for the most part a strength so far

[00:18:28] this year but all of a sudden with the news that has come out over the last few days

[00:18:33] is there is some fair reason for concern matt brash we talked about him as basically a whole

[00:18:41] storyline on our last show it's now confirmed unfortunately he had tommy john surgery i don't

[00:18:46] think anybody's shocked to hear it i think we were all expecting i i think we were all

[00:18:50] expecting it i think we were all hoping he could find some way to avoid it he didn't

[00:18:53] he's going to be out about 12 months gregory santos this is the one that was a little bit

[00:18:58] more news and it's unfortunate he had a setback in his recovery from this latch drain

[00:19:02] that he has now his timetable has been pushed back from june 1st to they say sometime in july

[00:19:08] so this three-headed monster that we talked about a ton since santos was acquired one of

[00:19:13] them's done for the year one of them's missing half the season so all of that

[00:19:19] paired with taylor saucedo currently on the il how do you maneuver and operate this bullpen

[00:19:25] going forward you have to add period like it's not even an if at this point at full

[00:19:32] strength full health this bullpen probably doesn't need an addition but this one does

[00:19:37] like this one does have you seen uh did you see the stat brought up today online on twitter i

[00:19:43] can't remember exactly who brought it up but i thought it pointed out a good point are you

[00:19:47] aware of like the meltdowns versus shutdowns for relievers right you come in and you have

[00:19:52] an outing and it's based on how much wind probability you add versus subtract if you

[00:19:57] subtract too much it's a meltdown if you add enough in each direction it's a meltdown or

[00:20:04] a shutdown shutdowns good meltdowns bad do you know mariners only have two relievers right now

[00:20:08] who have more shutdowns than meltdowns like adding more wins adding more wind probability

[00:20:14] than they're than they're losing would that be munoz and i'm sure he's one and then i think

[00:20:20] it's munoz and gabe i was gonna say it's either gabe or thorton yeah it's munoz and gabe

[00:20:25] that's it right and if you just sit here and like think like within AAA in the big leagues

[00:20:33] like who do you trust right now to get three outs in that bullpen reliably it's munoz it's

[00:20:39] gabe trent like trent thordon mostly like i would trust at this point okay yeah so like

[00:20:46] trent's been good but outside of that like that's only three ryan stanick is who we

[00:20:52] expected to come in and be a significant piece of this bullpen has struggled since april 25th he

[00:20:59] has an era of nine 10 hits and five innings not missing bats he's only got six strikeouts in

[00:21:04] that span it's you know it's not really looking good for him he's just been

[00:21:10] he's been like a league average arm since he's joined this bullpen this year

[00:21:14] it's disappointing because the stuff is still explosive he's still throwing

[00:21:18] really hard the fastball is going you know 98 to 100 miles an hour and the off-speed stuff looks

[00:21:25] good but it's just not being executed very well and the results overall for for him have

[00:21:30] not been good if he was a starter and he held up that stuff then maybe over a long period

[00:21:35] of time that stuff would stabilize and he'd end up having a good season but relievers don't

[00:21:39] get that luxury you're either good or you have a few bad outings and it screws the rest

[00:21:44] of your season and it sure looks at least how ryan stanick is trending that that might end up

[00:21:49] happening to him and it leaves the mariners in a pretty precarious situation where if they think

[00:21:55] about it right now they're going to be leaning a lot in leveraged situations on munoz gabe

[00:22:03] and trent thorton and just again hoping taylor sasado gets back and healthy and at

[00:22:08] this point if you get something from gregory santos this season that's a plus because

[00:22:13] we're at setback number two right now and we don't know if santos will have another setback

[00:22:18] once you reach june and he's trying to progress and it's just not cooperating with them

[00:22:23] so they're a spot right now justin hollander did say about santos that since he had that

[00:22:30] setback the setback wasn't it made it sound like that was a couple weeks ago the setback

[00:22:34] he had and since then they like everything he's been doing and he's still throwing from

[00:22:39] about 60 feet i'm trying to remember if he said 90 or not the point being he is throwing

[00:22:43] and he's back in seattle now for whatever it's worth we tweeted out a video on monday

[00:22:47] just in case you're curious he's with the team he's out of arizona he's doing all his work now

[00:22:51] in seattle they said he might make some road trips with the team too so he's with the ball

[00:22:56] club i mean that's always a nice plus that he can be around the team and he seemed like he

[00:23:00] was in pretty good spirits just watching him on monday but yeah so the nice thing is this isn't

[00:23:07] an arm issue and it sounds like from what hollander said that he's looked great ever

[00:23:12] since the setback but yes like you can't rely on it at this point you like the hopeful the

[00:23:20] hopeful thinking is it's a july return and i think there's still a chance it's a july return

[00:23:24] from what we from the information we have now if you can get them for the second half awesome

[00:23:30] that would be a huge huge essentially addition to the team but you do with that even if santos

[00:23:37] comes back you're at the point where you have to find another arm to add to the pen too

[00:23:41] at least one if not more than that and if not more than one because if santos comes back

[00:23:46] then you still you have your you know your three leverage guys who are by the way as much

[00:23:53] again as good as trent thorton has been it just doesn't offer quite the same upside

[00:23:58] as what we originally projected for this bullpen again we think santos will be a

[00:24:02] a leverage arm but again we don't know what we're expecting from him this season

[00:24:08] he could after missing all this time not pitch well because he doesn't get his proper ramp up

[00:24:13] into the season might feel like he's getting rushed back into things and then again stanick's

[00:24:18] been just okay and then you sit here and you wonder okay well we still have more spots to

[00:24:23] fill so sasaito again we're expecting to come back and be healthy and be an a contributor

[00:24:29] it still leaves you at a point where you can add someone you can go trade for someone

[00:24:32] we've talked about paul seawold multiple times of the diamondbacks don't keep winning

[00:24:36] relievers are pretty easy to acquire at the deadline it's not exactly a strapped commodity

[00:24:42] like starting pitching the mariners certainly have the resources to pay i don't think they'd

[00:24:48] overpay for a reliever they know what they can do with arms but they have the resources to

[00:24:54] for the right price go acquire a bullpen arm but there was also another idea floated out

[00:24:59] there that i think you and i both like that i'll tee up here before you do that yeah let's save

[00:25:05] him okay because we got asked on our live stream on sunday who could they go trade for now on

[00:25:12] the fly because there's so many relievers out there it's hard to just on the spot think

[00:25:19] about names right it's one thing to think about a bat or two you could acquire relievers

[00:25:23] are so many so we floated out a couple ideas like seawold on the live stream which by the

[00:25:27] way another shameless plug here we do go live or our live streams every sunday night youtube

[00:25:33] instagram to act to answer your guys questions so if you guys have questions you guys want us to

[00:25:38] take your questions come hang out and send them to us on sunday nights seven o'clock pacific

[00:25:42] seven o'clock pacific instagram and youtube so now that we have a little bit more time

[00:25:47] and now that we had time to prep for this podcast where we knew this was going to be

[00:25:50] a topic i wanted to tee up some ideas both for you and for all of our listeners to think

[00:25:55] we talked about seawald here's a couple others i wrote down because i try to look at teams that

[00:25:59] are losing and teams that might be forced to sell come july or august is there an astro on there

[00:26:05] you know i did think about brian abray are we just going to do the reverse

[00:26:10] reverse aru of 2021 listen if the mirrors want to trade for brian abray well i'm not

[00:26:15] saying no here's the problem he's got what either two and a half or three and a half

[00:26:20] years of club control still i believe he's a free agent in 2027 so he's got a lot of time

[00:26:25] and he probably isn't presley an incumbent free agent he's been bad he's had a bad year so

[00:26:31] all you need is two good months it's true but he's 35 again a lot of the peripherals are

[00:26:38] going down who's to say this is not a failed experiment if they tried to trade for him

[00:26:42] that's fair i don't know that's fair so here's some guys i looked into i'm just going to

[00:26:47] throw out the list jordan romano is one if the blue jays are going to keep losing

[00:26:52] that could be a guy they look into he's been a high leverage arm plenty i looked at a couple

[00:26:56] guys from the nationals oh i will say on romano his peripherals aren't great so far this year

[00:27:02] let's see what he looks like here in july he's getting hit pretty hard right now but obviously

[00:27:05] his track record is good and his e.r.a is still good for now it's just some of the

[00:27:08] expected say let's keep watching from the nationals there's guys like hunter harvey who's

[00:27:15] had a really good year kyle finnegan's another you look at tanner scott from the marlins right

[00:27:20] they're certainly going to be selling he has gotten his e.r.a more under control

[00:27:25] it's certainly a guy you could check in with you could look at andrew kitridge from

[00:27:28] the cardinals seattle guy right that's somebody they could check in with i'll throw out one

[00:27:33] crazy one just for the fun of saying what could this bullpen be if you add this guy

[00:27:40] with a year and a half of club control what they call about ryan helsley from the cardinals

[00:27:47] it was been like that i like that i mean would it cost a decent would it cost a bit sure

[00:27:54] i don't think it would cost your whole farm system or anything for a year and a half

[00:27:57] of a reliever but if you want to just cook up the idea all of a sudden your 2024 bullpen

[00:28:02] becomes munio's helsley santos spire sauce and then your july of 2025 bullpen if you want to

[00:28:10] make a run in 2025 which you should with this whole core becomes munio's helsley brash santos

[00:28:16] spire sauce i don't know man compared with that rotation who says you need any offense

[00:28:22] could we just have like a lot of fun and just say that mariners should trade back for edwin

[00:28:26] dies could you have suggested a pete alonzo trade if they're the bets are going to trade

[00:28:31] pete alonzo they might as well just trade a reliever too the difference is would the

[00:28:35] mariners be willing to take on the 20 million dollars a year that absolutely not but you know

[00:28:40] jerry will find a way sure well just rehire brody as the match gm and he'll agree to eat

[00:28:45] all the money perfect that works so you can they get sent diaz and then they can throw

[00:28:49] lindor in there too sure perfect brody brody only one only one of those owners is worth

[00:28:55] 35 billion dollars so it's fine he can take steve he can take the bill right i am serious

[00:29:01] about the hellsley thing though i know we're kind of joking i'm serious when i say that sounds

[00:29:05] like a really like really good idea these two teams have been linked for a while as trade

[00:29:11] partners so why not we finally just why don't they just rip the band-aid off and do it for

[00:29:16] for an arm like that that sounds fun that would be sick if ryan helsley was in this

[00:29:21] bullpen so maybe that's the one to dream on again i would keep watching jordan ramano i would watch

[00:29:27] tanner scott i think those are two that make a lot of sense maybe a couple of those nationals

[00:29:31] guys like harvey could make some sense maybe there's a guy that's a little bit lower leverage

[00:29:35] but the mariners like all the expected dawn and some of the underlying numbers on that we're

[00:29:39] not even thinking about but if you want to dream on one again you can think about ryan

[00:29:44] helsley now we can pivot to what we were just alluding to before we were just diving

[00:29:50] into potential trade pieces there's somebody in oh go ahead you can finish your go ahead yeah

[00:29:58] there's somebody in house that they could consider here too that's what i was going to say

[00:30:03] and so we've talked about logan evans potentially being a big league ready arm this year if you

[00:30:10] think about it so he's currently sitting currently sporting a one three four e.r.a.

[00:30:16] and double a pretty good you know if he gets to july he's probably not going to hold a one three

[00:30:21] era as nasty as he is it's really hard to hold a one three era as a starter but even if this

[00:30:27] dude is sitting in like the two fives with a high strikeout rate and his walks are under

[00:30:31] control by the time you reach the middle of july probably you get him a few months and

[00:30:37] double a and if he's proving that he is clearly too good for double a and he continues

[00:30:42] to dominate but you don't have room for him in your rotation and you won't barring injury

[00:30:47] and you won't if emerson hankock stays in the organization and is your number six starter

[00:30:52] there's no there is legitimately no path to the big leagues for logan evans this year

[00:30:55] logan evans this year if all of those things continue this year unless you put them in the

[00:31:01] bullpen hey if that is one way to get minor leaguers ready for big league batters is you

[00:31:08] put them in the bullpen and you let them pitch against big leaguers just in shorter spurts

[00:31:15] is it best for logan evans's future as a starter to put him in the bullpen it's like

[00:31:22] a wishy-wash like it really depends on the pitcher and what they need to work on but i

[00:31:28] don't know if workload is something and distance in games is something logan evans

[00:31:34] necessarily needs to work on not yet at least that might be a big league issue for him but

[00:31:38] that's a bridge they can cross when they get there what if logan evans is getting close to

[00:31:45] what the mariners team should be his innings limit this year and he's only got like three

[00:31:49] starts left what's a way to prolong that put them in the bullpen put them in the big league

[00:31:54] bullpen and let that 90 like that four pitch mix throw in as much as high as 99

[00:32:02] help you push for a playoff spot oh he's got more than four pitches he talked about it with us now

[00:32:07] he might use four more than the others but if he chooses to he can throw what seven guys got an

[00:32:13] arsenal and a half so let me ask all you fans and listeners this would you be interesting

[00:32:18] would you be interested in adding to the bullpen an arm that throws 99 miles an hour

[00:32:24] with a deadly slider i would hope the answer to that is yes i would be interested in that

[00:32:30] and in terms of logan evans development i think he'd be totally fine and here's why i say that

[00:32:36] logan evans future is not a bullpen arm when the off season comes around the mariners will

[00:32:42] tell him yeah build back up as a starter train to be a starter when you get into spring

[00:32:46] training you're going to be a starter that's all well and good but you can help us win in

[00:32:52] 2024 if it's the all-star break and the mariners are looking at logan evans and saying

[00:32:58] this is one of the 10 to 12 best arms in the organization and we have a chance to win the

[00:33:03] world series this year if we get in with this rotation we have a chance to make a run we just

[00:33:07] need to shore up the bullpen and you say that arm can help us make a world series run this

[00:33:14] year yes you absolutely call him up to be in the bullpen you know who's done this in the

[00:33:18] past the dodgers dustin may when he was a prospect was throwing ridiculous 99 hundred

[00:33:25] mile an hour darts with crazy off speed but the dodgers rotation was so deep they didn't have a

[00:33:30] spot for him at the time so they said listen dustin you're a big league arm we just don't

[00:33:34] have room in the rotation you're going to be put in the bullpen for time being the mariners

[00:33:39] can do the exact same thing here with logan evans and in 2024 specifically he can be a

[00:33:46] lights out reliever that throws gas at the back of the bullpen and help shore things up

[00:33:51] for the mariners that's a real option ryan divas tweeted out the same thing the other day

[00:33:56] this is a real possibility do not be shocked at all if we see logan evans in the big leagues

[00:34:01] this year and it could be as a reliever i'm sure logan would be all in on the idea

[00:34:06] just to note he didn't relieve his final two years of college so he's not like he has spent

[00:34:11] a long time as a starter recently it's not it's not something you just snap into matt brash

[00:34:18] himself starter in the minor leagues needed to go back down to the miners and throw out of the

[00:34:25] bullpen before he came up to the big leagues as good of the stuff as he had he went down to

[00:34:30] the minor leagues to work on some things and to specifically throw as a bullpen arm it might

[00:34:38] like this i can't guarantee as high as we are on logan evans and as awesome of a dude as he

[00:34:42] has we can't guarantee he'd be good in the bullpen on the book we can't guarantee he'd be

[00:34:47] good in the bullpen he has amazing stuff but it is not it is not the same as starting you gotta

[00:34:52] you gotta be able to land you don't get like a mistake pitch in an outing as a reliever so if

[00:34:57] the mariners deem that he's ready to do that then we might see him if they don't feel like

[00:35:02] trading him or whoever else to to go get a bullpen arm it really might come down to that

[00:35:08] point right if they're trading for a hellsly with a year and a half or really getting like

[00:35:13] a young reliever if it's hard to see the mariners overpaying but if they did logan evans is an

[00:35:20] incredibly valuable asset that you have in your organization a starting pitcher whose major league

[00:35:25] clock has not even started has all these pitches and has crazy stuff it does not get much better

[00:35:32] than that when it comes to prospects that you could you could trade i don't know if they trade

[00:35:38] him for a bullpen arm it would have to be somebody crazy to trade him like i said i don't

[00:35:42] can't imagine they'd overpay but he certainly would be very valuable to other teams if they

[00:35:48] were able to able to land him yeah yeah i'm sure i'm sure other teams are valuing him at this

[00:35:54] point doesn't mean the marines would trade him either so what does that lead to we could see

[00:35:59] logan evans in the bullpen maybe we'll start to see logan evans getting some bullpen outings

[00:36:04] in double a and i'll tell you what if he starts throwing out of the bullpen in arkansas

[00:36:07] the mariners are going to be playing their hand and that's fine but if we start to see logan

[00:36:11] evans throwing bullpen outings in double a people that are seeing it in our world they're going to

[00:36:16] say oh they're gearing them up to get to the big leagues is this even a card you need to hold

[00:36:21] close to your chest i don't think so like what that doesn't really change anything no i'm just

[00:36:27] saying people would start to get the idea of what we're saying may actually happen if we start

[00:36:31] to see him throwing bullpen out throwing bullpen outings i'm not saying the mariners need

[00:36:35] to keep the card closed i'm just saying if we begin to see it well no this is a plan they

[00:36:40] have at some point though they might not have a choice they might just have to call them up like

[00:36:44] like say if someone else in the bullpen gets hurt like how much does that speed up the clock

[00:36:51] do you think like i think it does yeah unless they're unless they're going to go out and

[00:36:54] trade for someone right now when the trade market's usually not very active on the 14th

[00:36:59] unless actually unless you're trading tyson miller away after you got dfa'd but overall

[00:37:05] the trade market for quality big leaguers is not not robust right now right yeah it's certainly

[00:37:12] possible and it's going to be something to watch again come july i think we'll be circling that

[00:37:16] idea a lot the last thing i'll say on this subject is please wrap andres muñoz in bubble

[00:37:23] wrap because they cannot afford to lose that guy they're already relying on him heavily

[00:37:27] because the bullpen is down and it's not at full strength that guy is he might be up there in terms

[00:37:35] of guys you cannot afford to lose at this point i'm like am i saying you am i saying he's more

[00:37:41] valuable than julio of course not but i'm what i am saying is you lose muñoz this bullpen is

[00:37:47] in big trouble so i understand that they needed him to get the four out save on monday but

[00:37:53] just i'm not saying the maris are making irrational decisions either again they have way more

[00:37:58] information on this than we do i just hope he is managing to stay healthy all year that's all

[00:38:04] i'm that's all i'm saying because they've already lost brash santos isn't going to pitch until

[00:38:08] the summer they need muñoz but do they have a choice like the all of his outings where

[00:38:14] he's had to go that long like he's had to right right because they and you thought you

[00:38:21] would hope there would be someone else behind him but there's not he's it right i know so and to

[00:38:27] be fair he has not thrown a whole lot of outings in the last week or so they've been very spaced

[00:38:31] out so he may be more built up i'm just saying more from the perspective of please stay healthy

[00:38:36] just please please stay on the field because the bullpen needs them very badly yeah like he

[00:38:41] is making a case right now given the state of this bullpen that he's like one of the more

[00:38:45] valuable relievers in baseball as good as he is we're going to bring out the subjective value

[00:38:50] term when we talk about andres muñoz because he offers something that not many other guys in

[00:38:55] baseball do and he's doing it over distance and he's doing it with efficiency as well and

[00:39:00] we love to see it and by the way we haven't even barely mentioned him he looks really good

[00:39:04] very good he looks unbelievable and he's look he took a little bit of a step back in 23 but

[00:39:12] so we've talked about over the last now two and close to a half years he's been one of the best

[00:39:18] relievers in baseball like let's make sure we're not saying this whole value thing in the sense

[00:39:22] of oh where did he come from no like we all know he's been one of the best relievers in

[00:39:26] the game but now when you talk about how important he is to the bullpen it just adds

[00:39:30] that much more emphasis on him being this good yeah well well it was good getting brad adam

[00:39:36] on the podcast we got to catch up with him this week and he was giving me a little

[00:39:39] bit of crap for eating ice cream in the press box but you know what i'm gonna let that slide

[00:39:43] because brad adam good friend of the podcast now recurring guest he hasn't gotten a golf quite

[00:39:49] as much this year which i'm a little disappointed and you'll hear that at the

[00:39:52] start of the conversation but it is all really good to catch up with brad adam one of the

[00:39:57] best in the industry host on root sports and yeah we talked about uh pretty much a lunch

[00:40:04] pails worth of stuff in this uh in this in this interview we kind of just talked it sounds

[00:40:09] like three friends talking which is the best type of conversation for a podcast

[00:40:14] for those who don't get to see it i do want to just shine a light on something brad adam is

[00:40:21] loved by everybody like he is he is seriously friends with everybody most people obviously see

[00:40:25] him on tv tv flips on for the pregame for the post game you see him there it's very

[00:40:30] easy to tell he's a likable personality on tv but then when you see it away from the cameras too

[00:40:35] i'm talking he's friends with the players he's friends with the coaches he's friends with all

[00:40:39] the media people he's friends with the security people he's friends with the people that work in

[00:40:43] the media dining area everywhere like everybody is friends with brad adam he is a friendly

[00:40:48] face to everybody around the ballpark which is super cool and you'll see it through this

[00:40:53] conversation it very very much comes through and i just wanted to put some perspective

[00:40:57] on that because he's we love talking to him but everybody loves talking to him for good reason

[00:41:02] and after this conversation you'll be friends with brad adam too so what the

[00:41:06] let's get to our conversation with brad adam all right we welcome back on our friend brad

[00:41:12] adam now recurring guest pregame post game host for the mariners on root sports last time we

[00:41:18] had you on it's been a little over a year you talked about a bunch of different mariners

[00:41:23] that are really good golfers and guys you've been impressed with and you rattled off a

[00:41:26] bunch of names so now sitting here a little while later i want to circle back and ask you

[00:41:30] if you have to pick three who are the best three golfers on this team that you know of

[00:41:35] first wow hold on has it really been a year it's been over a year oh really yeah you guys

[00:41:42] asked me once every every year but which makes sense because i watched you guys at t

[00:41:47] mobile and like you're getting big time right now you're getting players you're getting

[00:41:52] coaches i mean you don't need me anymore so i'm glad that you know you still make time for me

[00:41:59] fit me in i'll put it once a year i guess is all i get but that's fine i'll take it i think if

[00:42:05] laura were bigger golfers this would be like a once a month thing we'd need to we'd need to

[00:42:09] we need to talk more the the problem right we have so much baseball but we don't have any real

[00:42:14] golf guys you're the golf guy and if we were golfers it would be like yeah we we got to at

[00:42:19] least recap once a month how bad when i shot it whatever course we're playing gotcha okay so i've

[00:42:25] got a big ask from you tj in a second but let's thank golfers um with the new guys um

[00:42:36] let's see kirby still the best player um oh i brash would be second best but obviously he's

[00:42:46] not gonna pitch or play either for the rest of the year i haven't got an update on him

[00:42:50] in a while it's been pretty quiet on him hasn't it so we're recording this here on thursday the

[00:42:56] ninth we'll probably put this out on wednesday i'm guessing by the time this podcast is out

[00:42:59] we'll have an update because hollander usually gives the updates friday so i'm guessing right

[00:43:03] our time tomorrow we'll hear something i mean i'm guessing that he's going to need some type

[00:43:07] of surgery right i mean that's the guess if you can't play catch without hurt with the elbow

[00:43:12] hurting something is not right so right um which is a bummer so he won't be able to

[00:43:17] play golf for a while so um i'll pass him in the standings which kind of bittersweet um

[00:43:25] let's see who would be who would be the third guy i don't know if some of the

[00:43:29] the new relievers i don't know if bolton plays or miller new kirby c i don't know if these

[00:43:34] guys play um you know i'm still waiting to see cal play but he plays every day so

[00:43:41] off days he just zombies out which i get um oh man who's my third guy to play with me right

[00:43:52] uh you know i'll take dylan more his wife was a college golfer in florida and uh he plays with

[00:44:01] her and he says that he still really can't beat her which makes sense right i mean if

[00:44:06] she's mid 70s still after two kids which is impressive but he says every you know he'll

[00:44:12] get closer once more so i'll go i'll go to dylan more i think la la loves that last answer right

[00:44:18] there i do yeah he's how well is he playing for jp right i mean yeah hit after big hit and just

[00:44:24] play him anywhere and he's just he just does the job and he makes plays it's amazing you're

[00:44:30] preaching to the choir brad i've been a dylan more fan for a long time so yeah i'm all

[00:44:34] about that yeah i figured you weren't gonna say logan here i was gonna say i don't think

[00:44:39] we've told the story on the podcast i don't know if we've talked to you about it but logan was

[00:44:42] telling us a story in spring training and maybe he's talked to you about it too that he likes to

[00:44:47] play golf oftentimes the day before a start because it relaxes him it's like a it's a

[00:44:51] mental thing for him that he kind of it's kind of a way to get him away from baseball and

[00:44:56] yeah a good headspace and we were asking him so like are you pretty good he's like no

[00:45:01] like i like to play but i'm not any good so is that really relaxing then does that actually

[00:45:06] clear your brain or by the time you get to the 18th hole you're just like

[00:45:09] you're pissed off and you're ready to throw baseball as hard as you can

[00:45:12] no i don't think he turns into walter on the golf course i think if you have

[00:45:17] low expectations and you just know you're not going to do well i think that's one way to go

[00:45:22] and it was a excuse me you know go outside you doing yard work right get all this dust

[00:45:28] and and we're fine there and some some grass and some pollen i will say emerson hankock

[00:45:34] i think it's pretty good too so when he comes back we'll have him in there so as like i could

[00:45:40] think of myself if i were to golf like even if i set my expectations on the ground so first of all

[00:45:47] i don't know what would i shoot like a 150 let's say i shoot a 150 because i don't i

[00:45:51] don't know the last time i swung or yeah i'm dead serious i don't know the last time i've

[00:45:54] swung a real golf club on a real golf course with distance and bunkers and anyways it would

[00:46:01] would be a pretty poor sighted you know i probably need what five packs of balls just to make it

[00:46:05] through 18 and even if i set my expectations on the floor i would you know get to the 18th hole

[00:46:14] and i probably chuck my driver past the past the 18th green because i'd be so pissed off

[00:46:20] so you know if i think about it if i were to actually be like a starting pitcher

[00:46:24] like that nothing would make me more motivated to play baseball than that

[00:46:28] realizing how bad i am at golf oh there you go maybe he uses it to motivate himself i like that

[00:46:34] hey and you using five packs of balls reminds me of of our good buddy felix i don't know if

[00:46:40] i told you i mean at least a dozen balls around i mean easy and not not a care in the

[00:46:47] world wouldn't even look for him doesn't even care just reload reload reload we'd play and it

[00:46:52] would be i would be counting and it would be like is felix gonna lose more golf balls or

[00:46:56] drink more of course life it's like a dozen each you're like is that about right i'm exaggerating

[00:47:03] a little bit on that but it was he was a lot of fun to play golf with at school i could probably

[00:47:08] come up you know and still be involved which is which is good to see you know i feel like

[00:47:14] you know adult me maybe would be able to balance it out a little bit more if i'm

[00:47:18] enjoying myself on the golf course a little bit more and actually want to you know spend

[00:47:21] money on alcohol and and do that kind of stuff then you know then maybe i'm not quite as pissed

[00:47:26] but i can't imagine logan as you know a professional athlete at the peak of his game

[00:47:31] is putting down like you know five ipas on the golf course while he's you know whatever

[00:47:36] he's doing yeah it starts next day because he wakes up he's like oh man hey i tell you are

[00:47:42] we not a good idea yeah a way to cure um yourself of throwing clubs go buy yourself

[00:47:50] a good set of clubs you know clubs that you spend your money on and they're good

[00:47:56] and you know it's not their fault if you have a bad shot

[00:48:00] i haven't thrown my clubs in years since i bought them you know it's like dang you want

[00:48:04] to keep them nice and real nice and shiny works no no uh no uh little nicks or anything on them

[00:48:10] so you don't throw anymore it's not like not throwing my phone or my computer that's

[00:48:15] very good idea probably good idea there you go hey so hold on yeah go ahead oh okay oh

[00:48:20] well you're while you're taking a sip of water brad i will say i play a little bit more

[00:48:24] than tj i probably play once a year i can probably shoot these not i know not a lot

[00:48:28] you gotta play a lot but i i can probably shoot it's not good but it's probably like 110

[00:48:33] to 120 better than tj good for once a year it's not when lao and i start making more money

[00:48:37] on the pod we'll play more golf there you go there you go that's our motivation get some golf

[00:48:41] sponsors she used to go playing at the course we'll work on it we'll work on that all right

[00:48:46] tj i got some oregon state questions i need some info okay my girls now remember i have three

[00:48:52] teenage girls and my oldest just got back from college freshman year at arizona so yeah we

[00:48:59] heard arrival school it's disappointing i know i'm sorry but they are infatuated with um

[00:49:07] i'm blanking on his name second baseman setting all the travis travis was on all the records

[00:49:10] yeah yeah do you know anything about this guy obviously he's pretty good top five pick right

[00:49:16] yeah i mean he's got great makeup he doesn't really have a weakness in his game like he's

[00:49:23] got a good head on his shoulders all this kind of stuff great conversation and i mean

[00:49:27] does he have an exit focus oh yeah yeah like roland smith okay i know they're good they're

[00:49:32] good friends yeah he keeps talking about yeah i know like he after his freshman year i have the

[00:49:37] story right travis was up staying with ryan roland smith in his house to go train a driveline

[00:49:43] that off season so it's ryan sort of you know trying to keep this australian baseball community

[00:49:48] going and when we had ryan on a couple months ago you know that's what he's explaining it's

[00:49:53] like i'm i'm here doing my part as a guy who's already made it to pass it on to the next

[00:49:57] generation and this kid here at oregon state certainly has the the opportunity to uh to be

[00:50:03] the best ever yeah oh what wow what drew them to him oh he's cute oh well yeah he is good looking

[00:50:11] too they don't they don't really care much about the baseball part and i do

[00:50:15] and because roland smith kept talking them up but he's legit right like a top oh yeah

[00:50:19] five pick is he playing second or short first overall he's his second baseman second best

[00:50:24] that's crazy to think about that first overall yeah i was trying to think of a way for the

[00:50:28] mariners to somehow get that draft pick but i was gonna say who is it cleveland yeah it is

[00:50:34] cleveland i don't yeah it's it would be impossible for them to move up and get them but i'd be like

[00:50:39] it would be a perfect fit in their farm system a second baseman are you kidding me right

[00:50:43] that'd be great wouldn't it yeah two years of palanko and then bring in travis yeah so they

[00:50:47] they want me to you know if he works rolling smith camps or something they want me to invite

[00:50:53] him dinner somehow get the girls to meet him i'm like all right we'll see but you like him

[00:50:58] he's gonna get a good kid so okay oh yeah all right yeah he's he gets my stamp of approval

[00:51:03] okay thank you so he's good but yeah i mean even if he's in cleveland system i wouldn't

[00:51:07] like that connect i know that connection is very strong those two have yeah so okay you

[00:51:12] should just push them towards ryan and say hey ryan here help help me out a little bit

[00:51:16] yeah i do have to ask about your daughter going to the university of arizona tita just

[00:51:22] said it a second ago but the two schools in arizona one is in the middle of absolutely nowhere with

[00:51:28] basically nothing to do outside the campus in u of a and one is in tempi that's near phoenix

[00:51:33] near scottsdale there's pro sports there's shopping there's eating like of course no

[00:51:38] bias in this question in any way whatsoever from the two of us but how in the world do

[00:51:41] you look at both of those schools and say yeah i want to live in the middle of nowhere well

[00:51:46] i think you have to look at it from a father's perspective and you kind of answered

[00:51:53] your own question tucson small community not much around there quiet golf golf good

[00:52:03] arizona state mill street big lots going on they have a bar street in tucson too

[00:52:10] true but not quite as big and the campus is smaller and it's very walkable and nice and she

[00:52:16] got into both and she visited and luckily like tucson better okay so i was encouraging that

[00:52:23] because i was a state school guy and we know how to do state schools they have a little

[00:52:29] reputation of being a party school just a little state schools you know we take academics

[00:52:36] you know somewhat seriously so from my perspective i kind of encouraged that and

[00:52:43] i'm very glad that she went there no offense against asu right so that was good our good

[00:52:50] buddy willy bloomquist you had coached baseball so like asu but yeah when you guys get older

[00:52:59] have kids especially girls you'll understand keep them away as long as we can but you also

[00:53:07] know brad the sort of the pull of you know growing up in a colder i guess weather area and then

[00:53:13] wanting to go to school in the sunshine it's amazing yeah it's lit it you know it not only

[00:53:18] is a big cultural thing getting out of you know getting out of the house and getting out

[00:53:22] under the umbrella to go live a little bit i mean that's you know what lao and i are

[00:53:28] completely different people because we did that so it's amazing even though again disappointing

[00:53:32] choice of school but in the sun nonetheless right you understand that i will say i hate to

[00:53:38] make a point here to back back up your case brad but divish was on the podcast a while back and

[00:53:44] he told us a story about how him and his girlfriend were down in arizona they went out

[00:53:49] to mill avenue one night just to for them to go and hang out and see it they went to one

[00:53:53] of the more low-key bars but they're obviously outside walking around it's early

[00:53:57] in the school year it's a friday or saturday night and divish's girlfriend turns to him and

[00:54:01] says my daughter's never going here and and you know what she says my son isn't going here either

[00:54:09] but it is a double standard i mean i probably encouraged by the sun encourage him to go there

[00:54:15] but yeah it's exactly see they get it yeah so you understand yeah yeah 100 percent brad i was

[00:54:22] curious we asked we had divish on the podcast last week i asked him this question and i ask

[00:54:28] you this question as well if we were to get you on the mini mic and do an interview

[00:54:33] what subject are we doing besides golf uh something that i would know about and could talk

[00:54:41] about yeah let's let's say we're doing a top five list of something what are we doing

[00:54:47] um i'd like to think that i've got pretty good knowledge of taylor swift thanks to my

[00:54:52] daughters that would that would do really well wow yeah yeah i got that um i i now my personal

[00:55:02] genre would be you know 80s rock so i think if you had some 80s rock questions or bands or

[00:55:07] something i think i would do well with that um let's see what that's a good question um

[00:55:16] uh yeah i probably just that would be interesting yeah i don't have a lot of

[00:55:22] talents or knowledge of other things so i'm gonna go with that yeah so we could do two top fives

[00:55:26] we'll do one about golf like pick the subject i mean i'm sure you got it you got it nailed

[00:55:30] down no matter what and then then we'll bring the swifties onto the the the podcast channel

[00:55:35] and sort of channel that energy a little bit more was that like is this something that

[00:55:41] you're just like sitting there watching like the the the interest of of your kids just

[00:55:48] yes just yeah she's like a wave coming over you and now by choice or not exactly that's all you

[00:55:54] know yeah she somehow she she rules the world you know it's it's amazing you know we want the

[00:56:02] heiress tour the girls went we got tickets which was nice uh we've seen the movie multiple times

[00:56:07] um we listened to everything spotify is taylor swift did they do the thing where you went to

[00:56:14] the theater and they actually everyone started singing in the theater during the movie uh i did

[00:56:18] not have to go to that oh good yeah okay i'm glad you saved yourself but they did yeah okay

[00:56:24] okay draw the line there um yeah and you know i i think that the new albums that she came out

[00:56:31] with about the latest breakup she had a couple of years ago i think are kind of

[00:56:36] you know they're kind of melancholy little downbeat so i don't like them as much as

[00:56:41] the other ones oh my daughter's giving me thumbs down right now that's true like kelsey breakup

[00:56:47] album though is gonna hey that one's gonna hit it's coming that one's gonna be special

[00:56:51] right that people don't think it's coming it's gonna yeah it's yes so i i'm looking forward

[00:56:56] to that throwing some homes references super bowl stuff they have the super bowl yeah it's

[00:57:00] gonna be good yeah it's coming right that's what she does yeah and i'll say as of recording

[00:57:08] today back into the baseball world like paul skeens just got called up for the pirates

[00:57:12] yeah i don't know how much you know about his girlfriend back because she's lived on okay

[00:57:17] not much but but she is very famous obviously and i can already tell baseball's trying to push

[00:57:23] them as a whole taylor travis narrative for the baseball world except i think they

[00:57:28] got to do a better job marketing if they're serious about that because the nfl did a

[00:57:30] master class job marketing those two were baseball at times to do a better job marketing

[00:57:35] we could argue they need it they need something like that yeah especially after this whole jersey

[00:57:40] fiasco and you know you still first of all can't take many people to take the league

[00:57:46] seriously from a marketing perspective and second all it's a league that struggles the

[00:57:50] most with drawing in young people yeah that's that's how you do it yeah i'll be curious to

[00:57:56] see how how they do it um i know it'll be past since this airs but it's going to be

[00:58:01] saturday against the cubs and is is she gonna be there um are they gonna treat her like yeah i think

[00:58:07] you know you think she's gonna be there they're gonna treat her like like um like taylor and

[00:58:12] put you know cameras on her and reaction put her in the box and put her in the box and

[00:58:16] make a big deal and talk about her i don't know camera yes box maybe maybe i don't know i

[00:58:23] don't know it's it's different too because you know with nfl there's what 17 how many games

[00:58:27] they have now 17 17 right as opposed to 162 so it's hard to make one game

[00:58:33] even though it's the debut i get that so but i was gonna say in the case of skeens if he's as good

[00:58:38] as everybody thinks he has a chance to be because you make what 32 starts a year as a

[00:58:42] pitcher roughly 30 starts a year you can treat it a little bit more like the nfl in that way

[00:58:46] if it was a position player it would get oversaturated but as a starter like you might

[00:58:50] get away with it yeah you guys know is that a home game or is it chicago yeah yeah it's

[00:58:56] in pittsburgh so that'll be pretty cool yeah that'll be cool which is right you know hopefully

[00:59:01] they will market it and do something special about that because you've seen other debuts

[00:59:05] and just don't make a ripple you know and and you're right baseball needs to do better

[00:59:10] right i know many of the mariners players are happily either have a happily have a

[00:59:15] girlfriend or married or whatever and they're great and like that and that's fantastic

[00:59:19] but you know the mariners would extremely benefit from something like that they're very

[00:59:23] they're a very good marketing franchise yes but something like that again like our platform

[00:59:31] our personal platform on this podcast is to engage with people in around our generation

[00:59:38] and something like that would be another way to get more young people engaged in the franchise

[00:59:43] when there really hasn't been i would say that many opportunities in the last 25 years to

[00:59:48] grab the 34 to 34 to 20 34 to 18 right range right so something like that would be great

[00:59:58] yeah we get you did it would it would probably not pull you equal to the seahawks but certainly

[01:00:05] try to give you something yeah yeah i agree okay since they just wrapped up this series of

[01:00:11] minnesota brad the mariners that being i do want to ask you because it's fairly relevant

[01:00:17] right now did you play in that media basketball game in 2017 the infamous one were you a part of

[01:00:23] that i was yes and the um but what the what's the home of the um timber roll so i forget their

[01:00:30] practice facility it's fantastic it's this huge gym it's got three nba courts it's

[01:00:34] magnificent but that was one of the worst ideas that we had ever had you know our traveling

[01:00:40] secretary uh jack mausman who's awesome younger guy this is back with a 17 is that right

[01:00:47] yeah so he was so what's that seven so he's barely 30 you know we had off day and it was

[01:00:54] i believe it was the first road trip so we're talking yeah we're talking april and it was like

[01:00:59] zero was that when it got like they it got like snow delayed on opening day yeah coldest

[01:01:05] ever like what are we doing get a roof for don't come here till may it was ridiculous oh

[01:01:09] do we just want to talk about roofs we can get to that after yeah that's good idea so

[01:01:14] he has jack has the idea like hey we're across the street you know let's get a basketball game

[01:01:21] going and then you know the rest of us middle-aged guys were saying hey good idea

[01:01:29] but it wasn't obviously um so it was funny too because we started um i think we got to 10

[01:01:36] so we started five on five full court right and like we go down once come back once and we're

[01:01:44] like okay time out let's make a half court we're not doing full court this is ridiculous what are

[01:01:49] we doing so we got to half court and i think we we dropped one so i think we did four on

[01:01:53] four half court and then um gosh if my memory serves me correct sims goes down first and we

[01:02:04] thought nobody's guarding him top of the key had the ball he just went down you know sniper got

[01:02:09] him so we were thinking he turned he thought he'd turn an ankle or something so he's out

[01:02:13] like all right and then um riz i mean rick riz is playing like what were we thinking

[01:02:19] edgar's playing like what are we what are we doing right in goldsmith myself it's like so

[01:02:28] uh so sims is out and then riz is going for a loose ball don't know why he's going hard

[01:02:32] for loose ball and collides with someone and and tears um dislocates his bicep like it folds up in

[01:02:39] his arm so what the hell are we doing so he's out right then it's like like are we going to

[01:02:48] continue this like what are we doing and i'm guarding edgar right and i'm like he's a

[01:02:52] hitting coach at the time and i'm like there's no way i'm getting anywhere near it so like

[01:02:56] when he drives he goes up and he comes down and kind of tweaks his knee a little bit and

[01:03:01] i'm like i'm out i walk off i'm like no more done so we stopped playing riz has to um

[01:03:12] riz had to go home because of a pleasure he had to go home because of his bicep

[01:03:16] and um sam's they went to the the uh twins doctor and he said yeah you ruptured your

[01:03:22] achilles so you have to go home so they both had to go home um couldn't even finish the

[01:03:28] the road trip and it was like this carnage of bodies you know on the cord we're just going

[01:03:33] my gosh those of us who made it out uninjured it's like you know it's still hard hard for

[01:03:39] us to talk about it you know wow what an idea what an off day crazy oh was was divish

[01:03:51] playing in that game too or was he not a part of it he wasn't there okay maybe that's

[01:03:56] for the best he feels like an aggressive pickup basketball player yes yeah yeah he said that if

[01:04:02] we played um because i played um a little more than he did and um he said he would just foul me

[01:04:08] he said i wouldn't be able to guard him down he would just elbow me just maul me i'm like

[01:04:12] well i don't i don't need to do that for so thanks bud uh no it was uh skip started to

[01:04:19] in the first game skip was there um strength coach named cliford was there uh me sims

[01:04:27] riz goldsmith uh gary was there gary hill

[01:04:34] and uh jack the traveling secretary and me so it was 10 so i mean i've got most of them down

[01:04:41] there so wow yeah no no no players were allowed to participate right because you get they were

[01:04:47] it would be no competition right we played horse with some players later and i tell you it's

[01:04:54] probably a better idea right yeah and some shooting games that uh that d gordon had

[01:04:59] it was pretty fun i tell you what d gordon has some game i mean he was telling

[01:05:02] that when he was coming out of high school getting recruited by patino and doing an in-house

[01:05:07] with him i can't remember patino was at louisville at the time i can't remember but

[01:05:13] i was like really and he was like i mean he was just super quick and bounce easy threes range

[01:05:20] i mean he was good uh seager was was a good shooter seager has a leading score uh in his

[01:05:26] high school high school history leading score so he had a good shot too um let's see i think

[01:05:32] hanniger played he he didn't have a very good shot um i think ryan healy was there at the

[01:05:39] time and he didn't play much basketball you could tell guys who played in high school who didn't

[01:05:45] um so that was fun to do and much safer and i tell you words started to get around about

[01:05:51] the game you know and so we tell those guys and then the next day at the ball park um guys

[01:05:56] kept saying hey what's the update what's this what that was i said yeah achilles bicep they're

[01:06:01] like oh my god you guys are insane i said yeah so it's it's fun how the word starts going

[01:06:06] around and everybody starts having a reaction to it so yeah oh whoa just just imagine if you had

[01:06:15] actually played tough defense on edgar maybe divish would give us a complaint in that game

[01:06:19] maybe whether i had to write a story the next day in the times saying brad adam injured

[01:06:23] future hall of fame or edgar martinez exactly right the guy that's going to try hard guy

[01:06:29] going at it you know in a in a pickup game but man that was

[01:06:34] i know and any player last time i played done any player comps for some of the players any any

[01:06:40] of the any of the media members player cut like like what are like real NBA player comps

[01:06:48] yeah well okay so first of all what's your nba player comp when uh when you're playing

[01:06:53] oh now back when i was playing it in shape um let's see who's a good heady little point guard

[01:07:05] i say mark price back in the day you know okay what about the current version of yourself

[01:07:10] current version um i could dribble but i can't i couldn't shoot if deep like staff um see how

[01:07:20] i go right to the the best player in the nba like that um that's a good question

[01:07:27] rajan rondo so you have some good good handles yeah i could shoot good passing

[01:07:31] okay better shooting better than rondo yeah um uh matthew delavadova great little gritty

[01:07:41] also nausea you just lacking the accent i was yes yes now i'll go with um

[01:07:46] uh

[01:07:52] yeah i'll go with sga i guess from oklahoma city oh i like him congrats nba brand yeah well

[01:07:58] i should have right should have yogic got it should have um yeah sga a little bit everything

[01:08:04] yeah okay yeah i like that player comps boy i wouldn't even insult you know the guys like

[01:08:11] i mean little skill kind of you know lambir types a lot of hard fouls not a lot of you know

[01:08:18] rick mahor like you know that the pistons in the 80s mahor sally lambir those kind of guys

[01:08:24] yeah someone's got isaiah thomas though they just got to get under someone's skin yeah that

[01:08:29] would be um uh we'll give that to goldsmith just oh okay interesting goldsmith of all

[01:08:38] goldie everybody would get under someone's skin sure sure let's just yeah he could talk

[01:08:45] he's got good hair you know okay i want to get his hair messed up while he's playing

[01:08:49] yeah let's go with that we'll go with goldie i like that yeah yeah okay if if we were going

[01:08:55] to move on to a little bit of baseball talk here brad let's do that yeah uh the mariner's

[01:09:00] come off series loss to the twins this was their first series loss in quite a while now

[01:09:05] which is a credit to them but i don't i don't expect you to have some perfect answer for this

[01:09:11] but how are they going to fix the strikeout issue you know a good question they thought

[01:09:16] they did right getting rid of the players that struck out the most but now they're

[01:09:20] striking out more than they did last year um they had 15 in the last game against the twins

[01:09:25] 51 in the four games against minnesota reaching double digits in every game

[01:09:30] um it's a lot of strikeouts even for them

[01:09:37] uh it's hard we not putting the ball in play it's hard to get consistent and to put up some

[01:09:44] innings and to get rallies and to get runs um it's just pretty obvious they've been fortunate

[01:09:49] to hit some home runs lately and that's how they've been able to score and win some games

[01:09:54] but if you'd like to think that those numbers you know would come down it'll get back to the

[01:10:00] norm hopefully with these guys or maybe you just say that's the game right i mean we're going

[01:10:06] to try to slug we got guys are going to strike out a lot we know that um but they're

[01:10:11] going to do some damage as well um the guys that need to be more contact hitter type guys

[01:10:16] or the the frances the ploncos the guys that you know can't strike out as much as they

[01:10:21] are because they're not you know 35 home run guys you can like if cal strikes out

[01:10:26] 200 times and he hits 40 homers that's right right julio kind of the same thing right um

[01:10:34] but these guys have got to put it in play and just because obviously good things happen when

[01:10:40] balls are in play and not able to do that it hurts them offensively and it shows how

[01:10:46] you've seen it just have to be so so inconsistent over the top that this is these first 38 or so

[01:10:51] games um but i you know at some point i don't know if this continues in your game 100

[01:10:58] you're still leading the league in strikeouts maybe just say that's that's what we are

[01:11:01] you know and try to figure out how to score and deal with that you know so uh the game

[01:11:07] is is it's not like it used to be i know i'm old school like you guys only you know

[01:11:13] more than twice your age but like you know you used to get penalized for striking and now you

[01:11:17] don't and so it's just a little different you know but um if you like to think that it will

[01:11:22] improve forward they're just gonna have to figure out a way around it you know i don't know

[01:11:26] do strikeouts bother you when like looking at a lineup are you are you someone who's okay

[01:11:31] with the strikeout if the right amount of power is there i think i think so i mean you look

[01:11:37] at mike trout over the years you know he was the best player in baseball until injuries

[01:11:41] got him i feel terrible he's out again with a knee injury i don't know if he's ever gonna play

[01:11:45] a full season but um his strikeout numbers were high you know 180 190 200 every year

[01:11:52] and nobody talks about it because who cares when you're doing what he's doing at the plate right

[01:11:57] producing and putting up those numbers um some guys you know are just prone to strikeouts you

[01:12:03] know uh gino suarez was a guy who had 40 homers in cincinnati hit over 30 here and

[01:12:08] he struck out over 200 times and you knew that going in so it wasn't a surprise right um it is a

[01:12:15] little you know disheartening when you look at the lineup and you're like well these three or

[01:12:19] four guys you know are are not i want to say black holes but the guys that are gonna punch

[01:12:25] out a lot and so it's hard to get things going first and second no outs punch out punch

[01:12:30] out ground out you know bases loaded no outs punch out double play you know the strikeouts

[01:12:36] are the ones that that that just you know stop the rallies and nobody moves every you know it's

[01:12:43] just it's it's it's harder to you know obviously to get get things going offensively striking out

[01:12:50] obviously um but the guys who who who are legitimate threats like cow your julio's your

[01:12:58] mitch hanniger you know they're gonna strike out some but they're gonna make up with the

[01:13:01] damn shit those guys you're kind of okay with but kind of like i was saying before the guys

[01:13:05] who for more contact guys need to put it in play they can't strike out like them and do it

[01:13:10] it's just too hard to overcome offensively and and i think that's kind of how this team has

[01:13:16] to be built like tj and i have talked about that a lot the four guys they got rid of that

[01:13:20] had huge strikeout rates last year with gino tayo kelnick mike ford those guys all had

[01:13:25] power and last year's team was a little bit more built on power than this year's team and

[01:13:29] you you know all this this team is more built to put the ball in play and strike out less

[01:13:33] the problem is there's still a lot of strikeouts so strikeouts combined with a team that's not

[01:13:39] super power oriented it's not always the greatest combo right no you're right that's

[01:13:44] kind of what we've seen i mean if not for a historic run of 22 games right by this

[01:13:50] starting staff in the bullpen as well but i mean if it wasn't for those 22 games of

[01:13:56] pitching like we've never seen before in the majors you know i i i shudder to think maybe

[01:14:01] kind of what their record would be you know as we talk now they're two games over 500

[01:14:09] without the pitch i think we saw that in the series against the twins when they lost three or

[01:14:15] four they got outpitched they had one quality start at a four castillo's first the first game

[01:14:20] they lost three to one they were they were fortunate that cal had the pinch hit grand slam

[01:14:26] they were able to put up 10 and come back a couple of times in that when they were

[01:14:30] fortunate they finally out slugged another team and scored and picked up their pitching

[01:14:35] but then the last two games we saw you know twins pitching just eat them up and strike

[01:14:40] them out 15 times the last game you know it was it it's hard for that offense to

[01:14:48] put up numbers and when they don't get a quality start like they did in the last couple

[01:14:52] of like last three games of that that series it's hard for them to win you know so i think

[01:14:59] the pitching staff is has certainly covered up a lot of flaws for the offense so when they don't

[01:15:04] give up one or two runs you know then it's kind of magnified right you see the offense not

[01:15:09] producing and other offenses when they hit the pitching again it's hard for it's hard

[01:15:14] for the mariners to come back out of all the spots on this roster that are struggling is

[01:15:18] there one that worries you more than the other ones um that's a good one um i'm still

[01:15:26] kind of surprised about palanko and garver and they're getting it going a little bit here

[01:15:31] there but they're both still well under 200 i'm not worried about them yet just because they

[01:15:37] have such track records you know better guys i don't worry about them they're certainly

[01:15:42] not going to hit under 200 this year um and the funny stat for me is um is julio being on

[01:15:49] pace for four home runs this year which obviously is going to hit more than four that's

[01:15:55] just kind of funny to think about now um um and i'm worried about i would like to see

[01:16:05] you know ty france get going a little bit first we saw rayleigh play the last game in minnesota

[01:16:09] had a couple of hits maybe they work him in a little more you know i don't know uh we'll

[01:16:15] see what jp is going to be like when he comes back he wasn't doing a whole lot you

[01:16:19] know before he got hurt um and lial's favorite dylan moore was doing well

[01:16:24] and and i'd like to see hannicker get going a little bit he you know i i he struggled more

[01:16:30] than than i thought he would in the field um and at the plate he's been going through

[01:16:38] you know a tough 20 game stretch or so and hopefully that turns around so i'd like to

[01:16:43] see that pick up a little bit get a little bit more from from first base um i think you're

[01:16:48] a static of what you're getting from third love it and curious to see what you're going

[01:16:53] to get from left can canzone comes back because rojas still play out there a little bit

[01:16:59] because you got to start getting some production from from the corners yeah see could we get to

[01:17:04] the point where like if palanko's still struggling in the middle of this season do they

[01:17:10] give rojas an opportunity at second even with all the resources you just gave up

[01:17:17] to get palanko if we get to june and the performance hasn't picked up and rojas is

[01:17:22] doing what he is it feels like your hands are tied at that point um yes i i think you could

[01:17:29] see him you know get a few starts like we're seeing him now get a few starts in left field

[01:17:34] um i think it might depend a little bit of how urias is doing he hasn't done a whole

[01:17:38] lot offensively had a couple of big home runs but you know and he's been fine defensively

[01:17:43] i don't know how many times we can play him at third uh but i that's a good point i mean i

[01:17:49] could see rojas playing maybe some left playing some third and playing second here there

[01:17:54] plonko first right if he's hitting play first yeah because they still if they still haven't added

[01:17:59] a first baseman at some point and they need the production there who's to say i think that

[01:18:05] they'd give rayleigh a look first i i'm guessing at first base but you're right rojas

[01:18:11] maybe could play there too but which right if it's june and plonko's hitting 180 yeah i think that

[01:18:17] maybe you know you move things around and see if you can get something going maybe give him a

[01:18:22] little mental break for a few days or something right and try to work in some guys but sure

[01:18:27] hopefully we don't have to have to worry about that yeah you know my my level of

[01:18:33] confidence with palanko and garver are still pretty high and palanko especially like he's

[01:18:38] just been way too established in his career to like you said ran hit like this all year yeah and

[01:18:44] it's unfortunate the first six weeks or so have been like this but i would i would be pretty

[01:18:47] surprised if we're looking at the all-star break and so or so and he's still lingering around

[01:18:52] where he's at right now i would think he's gonna get hot here at some point like he had

[01:18:56] a he had a pretty good 10 game stretch about i don't know a week or two ago and then it's

[01:18:59] cooled off a little bit so maybe it's kind of ebbs and flows right now yeah yeah and we've

[01:19:03] seen that with with this offense i think we're gonna see it because it's just like like we were

[01:19:09] talking about the strikeouts and some home runs and guys you know underperforming it's just not

[01:19:14] going to be a real consistent offense right now and remember you know hitting is hard it's

[01:19:19] the hardest thing to do in all the sports is is hit and so when you face good pitchers like

[01:19:25] twins have have a good starting staff they have good relievers too i mean it's hard to get

[01:19:29] things going and and i think the twins are similar to the mariners offensively i just

[01:19:34] think that they're just hot right now you know and they've been able to sustain it the

[01:19:39] mariners have gotten hot but not like this for 17 games like the twins i mean this is

[01:19:44] offensive and just impressive to watch so obviously i think when the weather heats up

[01:19:49] it's gonna be better here at home and i think it's gonna be better for the hitters i think

[01:19:53] they'll they'll get better i don't know and we've seen it last couple of games i don't

[01:19:58] think the pitching is going to be able to throw a quality start every game so that's why the

[01:20:03] offense has got to be able to put up like they did the one game against the twins put up 10

[01:20:07] they're gonna have to be able to score especially on the road against some of these teams because

[01:20:12] you look at the next the next trip is um it's a it's a brutal east coast trip right you got

[01:20:17] baltimore new york and i can't remember the other one maybe cleveland or miami i don't know

[01:20:24] anyway they're gonna need to score you know what i mean in that series i mean four against

[01:20:27] the yankees in that ballpark three against the orioles you're gonna need to score especially on

[01:20:32] the road so i you know heats up the offense has got to get better pitching kind of comes

[01:20:36] maybe down a little bit and you know it's still going to be good enough to win obviously i mean

[01:20:42] still one of the best staffs you know the baseball and excited to see you know woo added

[01:20:46] to that staff see how he'll do um but i i think i think they're still in a really good

[01:20:52] spot as we say all this you know it's kind of funny to say you know what you look at aos

[01:20:56] there what a game back or whatever it is against texas and the pitching is way better

[01:21:00] and the bullpen is way better than texas right offense doesn't compare but i would take pitching

[01:21:06] over a season you know then then the texas offense which obviously very good but can be

[01:21:11] shut down like the mariners did taking two or three they're in texas so and houston's a

[01:21:15] mess angels are a mess the a's are a surprise but come on right come on this is a toro

[01:21:22] starts for the a's come on guys come on it is hitting like 280 he's like playing well

[01:21:26] it's crazy so i think i think it's going to be texas and seattle i think obviously houston's

[01:21:32] gonna have to play better than what they are now but man i don't know if they're gonna be

[01:21:38] able to get get back in this race so still mariners still in a really good spot is what

[01:21:43] i'm trying to say yeah and the rangers wrote i mean the rangers have so many injuries

[01:21:47] building up too so this is another opportunity for the mariners to capitalize on all this

[01:21:50] and not that the mariners don't have a little bit of an injury bug themselves but it's not

[01:21:54] compared to the rangers so there is an opportunity here and with that said brad like this is one

[01:21:58] of the final questions i had for you is the theme of all this mariners talk seems to be

[01:22:02] how great the pitching's been the hitting needs to pit like cut down on strikeouts

[01:22:07] and that's been the that's been the theme for most of the season so far so all that being

[01:22:11] said with the offense being at least for now the weaker link does this to you feel like a

[01:22:16] season we're being aggressive at the deadline is a good idea absolutely absolutely because

[01:22:24] a lot of reasons um one you don't want to to say hey we had the best staff in baseball

[01:22:32] young guys on the staff making the minimum and we didn't do enough to capitalize on that

[01:22:40] right so i think there's that aspect of it i think the aspect of you know it's

[01:22:48] i think it's going to be a two-team race with them in texas you know um i think you look

[01:22:52] right i think i think the blue jays are in in a lot of trouble i don't think they're going

[01:22:56] to be a i don't know a competition for the postseason like they have been the last couple

[01:23:02] of years um i think there's some other teams i think the mariners are better than some other

[01:23:08] teams and the staff certainly is so i think by adding at the deadline um and it doesn't maybe

[01:23:14] has to be you know uh all-star type mvp type player but just somebody who gives them a jolt

[01:23:21] that helps out offensively i think that's going to be huge and i think that you know

[01:23:29] if they they know if they get to the postseason that they match up against anybody

[01:23:36] right and you want three four starters you go to the fifth coming out of the pen how do you want

[01:23:40] to do it right they are loaded and nobody wants to face them because of the october be cold again

[01:23:46] the pitching just dominates so i think getting there like we saw two years ago they played

[01:23:52] very well against houston i know they got swept but they could have won each game right

[01:23:56] and the pitching was locks you know lights out and it's going to be that way and so i think

[01:24:03] add that all up and know that this is their time right take advantage just get back to the postseason

[01:24:08] get in there and they match up well against anybody right and they got a chance to to go

[01:24:14] all the way once they get in but they got to get in first obviously last thing for me brad

[01:24:18] thought i would end on a positive note yes all the turns in this rotation which guy has been

[01:24:24] your favorite to watch so far oh that is a good one it's fun each guy you're like

[01:24:30] different start you're like oh they're all unique they all do something different and they all do

[01:24:34] it really well and they're all righties but you're right they are unique which is cool to see

[01:24:42] oh man kirby start at home we had 12 seven seven shutouts

[01:24:55] diamond back strikeouts yep his career high 12 that was that was something else

[01:25:04] logan start you know uh that is a tough one i might give it to

[01:25:12] let's give it to logan his start um not not his last start is minnesota but uh the one

[01:25:20] before that in houston they had ending two hitter you know to do it there against that team i mean

[01:25:26] two what they bunt singles right that's all he gave up those those two hits i think i think

[01:25:31] that kind of where and who against was the most dominating i think performance and kirby's

[01:25:38] 12 strikeouts probably second how about you i so i think that kirby's start he had against

[01:25:44] the diamondbacks was it might be my one of the best starts i've like ever seen from a mariner's

[01:25:51] pitcher like you have felix's perfect game i thought george's start against the orioles last

[01:25:57] year on felix's retirement night is also up there i mean right that's why like that's why

[01:26:01] this dude really has a ceiling unlike pretty much anyone else even you can argue even among

[01:26:06] in his own rotation it's just really hard to match the combination of stuff he has

[01:26:11] and when he comes out and he he got like seven swings and misses on his fastball in the first

[01:26:15] inning yeah it's i mean it's just boom boom boom hit this i dare you and they could not do it

[01:26:21] it's like it's one of the the coolest things um really ever so i would yeah you know i

[01:26:27] know george struggled against the against the uh against the twins but like so far this season

[01:26:33] like uh it's probably man it's really hard and then bryce you know what let me strap

[01:26:40] everything i actually just said and let me just say bryce miller because we hadn't already seen it

[01:26:45] yet we'd seen good starts yeah we hadn't seen him like pulling out a johnny quato wiggling on

[01:26:51] the mound and then throwing 96 past somebody where it's like oh okay okay yeah i like this

[01:26:58] and it's like sort of resetting the expectations on what we see from him so i'll go with bryce

[01:27:03] how about miller being your fourth starter right and and honestly like my favorite guy is

[01:27:10] probably brian luda watch pitch of all these guys and just because of the idea of what he can be

[01:27:15] like i've read a bunch of articles that from very smart pitcher savvy people that have talked

[01:27:21] about what his arsenal is and how high the ceiling is on him if he can figure everything out

[01:27:27] i just like both his fastballs are so good that that's already such a bread and butter

[01:27:33] for him that if he just keeps developing some of his other pitches i think his ceiling's

[01:27:38] through the roof too so we're seeing what bryce miller's done in year two like he's stayed like

[01:27:41] he's he's neutralized lefties a lot more splitter's been awesome some of his breaking

[01:27:45] stuff's gotten better but then i think woo now that he's healthy can take a similar step to

[01:27:50] what bryce has taken and if that's your five like that's crazy crazy yeah he's gonna need

[01:27:56] to figure out like miller did good point that you had a lot about that splitter something to

[01:28:00] get lefties out we struggled last year with that so he's gonna figure that out but you're

[01:28:05] right if that's your i mean one through five you know in hancock waiting in the wings in case

[01:28:10] something happens that's what i'm saying i mean take advantage of this right you're not paying

[01:28:15] any of these guys except for castillo so that is 90s braves that is like how else do you

[01:28:21] describe that yeah one through five it's just hard to come up with a rotation you can

[01:28:26] you can get to like three maybe four right some teams you think about but but man one

[01:28:30] through five that is just it's it's awesome to watch and all righties so there's not a lot

[01:28:35] of differentiate differentiate and all outside of castillo under the age of 27 right under control

[01:28:41] for years that's why this is the time right right exciting yeah just like to your point again

[01:28:46] like they have just got to find a way to get into the field and who knows where it can

[01:28:50] take them that's the whole key absolutely just got to get in yeah and i will say too

[01:28:54] the the bullpen we're gonna have to find maybe they need to add there too at the deadline

[01:29:00] because they're gonna have to find another leverage guy that they can depend on i mean

[01:29:05] ryan stanick's done a nice job filling in but he's sometimes you know struggles get through an

[01:29:11] ending so you got spire who's been great munos has been great but you're gonna have

[01:29:15] to find another one because if rash is going to be out and santo's going to be out for

[01:29:18] who knows how long we'll get i think they're going to need to add one more power arm

[01:29:24] stanick right now is is not you know super reliable yeah so i think that's something to watch too

[01:29:32] here's an idea for you brah before we really wrap this up tj and i floated this out there

[01:29:36] so the mariners traded for mitch hanniger back this offseason right the diamondbacks keep

[01:29:40] losing there's a certain reliever out there that'll have half a year on his contract he

[01:29:43] probably wouldn't cost a lot you trade back for paul seawald wow uh well i don't know why

[01:29:51] not right he only has left just a half year this is that's it yeah well we know what he can do he'd

[01:29:58] fit right in he'd love right there absolutely yeah look be a sam with eighth ninth inning guy

[01:30:03] absolutely yeah you need an open arm there's a guy that kind of knows the system and you can

[01:30:08] rely on it so i i i you know how happy that would make this entire region of fans if they

[01:30:13] get that yeah he's popular dude no doubt about that yeah so i'm gonna say that on air and

[01:30:19] and claim it as my own obviously go ahead and when it happens i'll give myself all the credit

[01:30:24] okay that's fine you know what we're not we're not we're not big credit seekers out here we're

[01:30:30] not we're not one of those people that hops online it's like oh i saw x person say this

[01:30:35] it's just so it's so funny i happen to notice that we just said that three days ago and we

[01:30:39] didn't get the credit no we're we're not those people if you say that on air brad tj

[01:30:43] and i will be watching from afar and deep down we'll say hey somebody inspired that exactly

[01:30:48] you'll know and that's the important thing exactly good like this is yeah always fun brad

[01:30:53] thanks as always for hopping on always have a blast talking to you and we'll see you out at

[01:30:57] the ballpark yeah i guess we'll do this next year is that next year it is let's make it

[01:31:01] a point let's make it a point we'll do this again sooner we'll do it after the draft when

[01:31:05] travis gets drafted i'm down let's do it if you meet him and then we'll do this before

[01:31:10] maybe before the deadline or after the deadline okay and we'll do we'll do it right after the

[01:31:16] offseason comes around and lial and i once the offseason the the offseason is upon us

[01:31:21] and we have more time on our hands and we go golfing and then then we'll get back on and

[01:31:25] discuss how our rounds went and i like there you go okay deal awesome dudes appreciate it

[01:31:32] thank you guys we always enjoy talking to brad adam hopefully you guys enjoyed that

[01:31:39] conversation and he is always always a friend of this pod recurring guest for a reason

[01:31:44] we're looking forward to having him on in the future too so with that that'll just about wrap

[01:31:48] up this edition of the marine layer podcast you guys know the drill if you want to listen

[01:31:52] to the full form podcast do so wherever you get your audio pods download leave that five

[01:31:57] star review leave a written review it all helps us out if you're watching on youtube

[01:32:01] click subscribe hit a like on this video drop us a comment and then go follow us on social

[01:32:05] media too we're on instagram tiktok twitter and youtube shorts at marine layer pod

[01:32:11] that's tj i'm lial as always we thank you guys for tuning in we'll talk to you soon