Episode 136: Jason Puckett (PuckSports), Tyler Locklear Makes His MLB Debut, And Who Do You Trust On This M's Offense?

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 136 of the Marine Layer Podcast. We welcome on Jason Puckett, the founder of pucksports.com and host of the Daily Puck Drop. We talked to him about his new platform, growing a brand and what the Mariners should do at the trade deadline. We also have

[00:00:15] our two Mariners storylines. Tyler Locklear gets the call to the show and Ty France hits the IL. And then who do you trust on this Mariners offense? Here's your guys reminders stay on

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[00:01:05] this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording Monday evening, June 10th postgame for Game One between the White Sox and the Mariners Cal Raleigh just ended the White Sox dreams in Game One. I will still say though, Lyle,

[00:01:23] I kind of want the time back. I watched that game. I want it back. I probably could have done something better for the first seven innings. That was not a.

[00:01:33] How do I want to phrase this? I was going to say it should be exciting. It should be exciting, but it was like eight and a half innings or seven and a half innings. You and I are sitting here.

[00:01:45] It's like, all right, which joker video are we tweeting out after the game? And full disclosure, if the Mariners lose the game to the White Sox, we're probably still tweeting out a joker video. So what's the best way to put this?

[00:02:00] It was by definition exciting considering it ended with a walk off grand slam. That was not a good win. Like like I'll go out and say that, and I feel like you'll double down. That was not a good win, right?

[00:02:11] The White Sox run differential right now is minus 140, 41 44. I think it is or it might. It's probably worse now. It's 148 after this game. So they're on pace right now to be one of the worst baseball teams of all time.

[00:02:27] So yeah, I mean, it should an eight four win should be expected. Not down to the last batter. Be with a well that's baseball. Might I remind you that the White Sox two hitter today, Nicky Lopez,

[00:02:40] you know, two hitters supposed to be your best hitter, the guy you want hitting the most with an opportunity to drive in base runners and establish the offense, be sort of the key cog in the offense. The White Sox number two hitters, Nicky Lopez,

[00:02:56] this dude's had a 50 a WRC plus in the fifties for the last three years. 50. You know who was hitting second for the White Sox this weekend? Zach Deloach. Zach Deloach has played about seven big league games. He was hitting second for the White Sox.

[00:03:14] So yes, the Mariners won and they technically won by four runs, but to get shut out for seven innings at home against the White Sox. I know Eric Fetty's been good. I'll give him

[00:03:28] a touch of credit here because he's had a good year, but you got to figure out a way to score some runs off the Chicago White Sox man like and they're going to face they're going

[00:03:37] to face Garrett crochet on Thursday. If there was a game where I was going to say, okay, the offense is getting blanked and you live with it. I'd say more against crochet than against Fetty. Here's the other thing about this game. Luis Robert was trolling all the

[00:03:51] fans in T-Mobile Park and all of us watching. He was trolling. He just came back from injury. There was the Bob Nightingale report that the White Sox are going to ask for a one Soto like

[00:04:03] trade package for him. We're talking about multiple three to four top 100 prospects for Luis Robert. We had a, we put out a clip earlier today on Monday. Adam Jude wrote a really nice piece in the Seattle Times saying if you have to trade Felanine Celestin to get

[00:04:20] Luis Robert you do it and Luis Robert comes into game one today and hits an absolute tank shot off of Logan Gilbert for all the people in our comments now that were like, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:04:32] He gave them something to think about now he gave us something to think about because we see there and look and it's like, well, there's two more runs than the Mariners currently have

[00:04:40] right now and he hit it off a better pitcher. Can I still say I do not want to see the Seattle Mariners trade Felanine Celestin? I'm with you. That doesn't change. Yeah, that's why he was trolling though because he's like, no, you want me right. Right. Right. Oh

[00:04:59] yeah. Oh, he was trolling big time today. Now it made me think about it. Yes. Luis Robert hitting a home run in Seattle makes me think about it's like, well, do I want this guy on

[00:05:09] the team? But then you think about what the trade package is going to cost and the fact he doesn't play all that much and I'm still like, I'm still kind of out. I'm not totally out, but

[00:05:18] kind of out is where is where my stance is. But you know what? Teach, I'll say with the way things are going down in baseball here on Monday, anything could happen. I mean, we had

[00:05:27] Francisco Lindor traded to the A's baseball canceled due to COVID. What else am I missing? Do you see Luis Robert actually got traded today? Oh, the Phillies. That's right. Listen, we tried to tell Buster only. Can you announce Kyle Tucker to the Mariners please? However,

[00:05:43] he did not comply. So Buster only now officially on my shit list. So if you missed the backstory, Buster only baseball reporter for ESPN has hundreds of thousands of followers had his account hacked today. And the dude who was on there first

[00:05:58] was starting his Buster crypto coin. Just a good start. He's tweeting that out a bunch. And then the dude realized, I'm not sure he was a huge baseball person. I wasn't totally sure,

[00:06:09] but I think he went back into Buster's earlier tweets and was like, hmm, let's see what he tweets. And he was essentially taking requests from people replying. So there's this thing out there and it's probably true that Buster only doesn't like the Mets and someone tweeted

[00:06:22] at him, Hey Buster and the hacker, hey, can you tweet how much you hate the Mets? And this dude just tweets, I hate the Mets from Buster. Like a national baseball reporter has his account tweeting. I hate this baseball team. And then what's funny enough is

[00:06:38] all of his tweets. If you think about those trades, like first of all, trading Lindor off of the Mets, first bad thing for the New York Mets and then trading Luis Robert to the Phillies,

[00:06:49] the Mets arch rival in Philadelphia. So I think that's, that's kind of funny about all this too. So who's up? You know, I hope Jeff Passon has a really strong password because the day his account gets hacked. Remember, well remember Passon's account got hacked

[00:07:05] the day the lockout ended. That was a whole story. Yeah, I do. But the problem is most of these hackers don't play along in like tweet out fake trades. So that's, that's what I

[00:07:18] was going to say is when Passon's account got hacked the morning the lockout ended in March of 2022, I think you worked incredibly hard that morning to get it back because it was some crypto person that took over his account. He had to work to get it back.

[00:07:34] He got it back and then like less than an hour after getting his account back, he tweeted that breaking lockout is over. So to your point, yeah, usually these hackers don't play along. They're just doing their whole crypto thing. The fact this guy, this might be the best

[00:07:48] hack I've ever seen. The fact he was playing along and just tweeting out insane fake news across the baseball world on a real account. I was falling on the floor reading these tweets, especially like again, the Lindor thing, not only him getting traded off the Mets,

[00:08:05] getting traded to the A's, the A's and then him tweeting like I love Billy Bean and Shohei has been banned from baseball for gambling and, and then oh yeah. Expected to be sentenced to prison time August 28th.

[00:08:19] Like seasons canceled for COVID. Like that was, that was insane. Like I don't think I've ever seen anybody play along to the account that they hacked like that. That was, that was nuts.

[00:08:32] And I had a blast. Whose account should get hacked next? So I floated passing out there, but seriously, whose account do you think would be funniest to get hacked next? Oh, I don't even have to think to give my vote. Can you guess?

[00:08:46] Well, Frank, the tank already spams tweets that you laugh at. So I'm going to say that's off the table. No, it's, it's not Frank. It's, it's in the realm of the man who got hacked here on

[00:08:56] Monday. Want me to give it to you? Yeah. John Heyman. Oh, that'd be, yeah, that'd be good. That would be good. I think there would be another good account that would get hacked,

[00:09:08] but I don't think it'd be appropriate for this podcast, but I know you know him very well. So I think you catch the drift down under. Okay. If you thought that was funny. Yeah,

[00:09:18] that would be a good one. Yeah. We'll leave it at that down under your hand. If you're picking up on what we're saying, you probably know who it is. Yeah, you probably know who it is.

[00:09:27] And you probably think it was just as funny. Yeah. Let's get to our MLB storylines now, as we get on a more serious note. So Ty France got hit by a pitch on Friday. He has a

[00:09:38] hairline fracture in his heel, goes on the IL and Tyler Locklear now has made his major league debut. As of today, Monday night, he has played two games and he's expected to be in this lineup

[00:09:51] every single day and hopefully replace the production of Ty France who had really been heating up over the last month and change. It's unfortunate. The Mariners are missing Ty, but now we get to see Tyler Locklear. What do we think of this decision?

[00:10:05] I think it was the only decision. I know you floated out the idea of they could just have Rayleigh play first. You could call somebody else up. You can maneuver some things around, but doing that would involve probably either calling up Cade Marlowe or maybe Samad Taylor.

[00:10:23] Cade Marlowe is not really hitting in triple A right now. He's striking out a lot. His OPS isn't even at 700. So if you're talking about getting the best possible bat up on the roster and the guy to fill the position of Ty France, it was Locklear.

[00:10:38] I hate the way that Locklear had to be called up in the sense of Ty France is now injured because as we talked about on a very recent podcast, I want to see Ty and Locklear up here

[00:10:49] together splitting time between first base and DH. One DH is one day, one plays first base. Sometimes you flip flop, get guys days off their feet because I think they can both be impact bats. But unfortunately, the reason Locklear got called up is obviously because

[00:11:02] of France's injury. But what do I expect from Locklear while he's here? Look, I think he's got a chance to give a real spark to this offense. I thought that for a while

[00:11:12] now. I thought the moment he's ready to be called up, he can give this offense a real spark because the Mariners have not called up many hitting prospects like this over the last

[00:11:21] couple of years aside from Julio who's kind of in his own category or not kind of. He is in his own category. So when you have the ability to walk, hit for power, you have a good hit tool,

[00:11:31] period, there's a lot Locklear can do. So yes, he didn't play a lot of games in AAA, but I'm excited and I really think he has a chance to provide impact. I think Luke Rayleigh would have made more sense to cover the time at first base if

[00:11:46] the rest of the lineup was hitting and you didn't have a dire need of offense. The problem was as soon as Ty France went out, you lost your best hitter for the last five weeks

[00:11:56] and you have to replace that production. How are you going to replace that production? Well, you got to take a chance with Locklear. I want to be honest. I'm not totally sure he's ready. He played 10 games in Tacoma. He hit well in Tacoma. He had nearly a 900 OPS.

[00:12:11] He struck at only 23% of the time over those 10 games. That's fine. Walk 12.5% of the time. But in his larger sample down in AA, Lyle, he still rocked a 26% strikeout rate. It's not

[00:12:23] perfect just saying, okay, so if he's striking out this much in AA, he's going to strike out this much in AAA over the same amount of time and then the big leagues, he's going to

[00:12:31] strike out this much more. So it's not just a guarantee that Tyler Locklear is going to come up and strike out 31% of the time. But I think I would have been more comfortable watching him play a little bit longer in AAA. Jared Kellnick famously had plays,

[00:12:46] went up and down from AAA multiple times, but he really needed those AAA games in his development to be more ready as a big league hitter and for the most part is still not

[00:12:56] quite as ready as a big league hitter. Julio, Afina, the word I used on our Sunday Night Live show, by the way, if you guys aren't aware and you're listening to this, we go live on YouTube and Instagram every single Sunday night, Marine Lair podcast, Sunday Night Live,

[00:13:10] 7 o'clock Pacific, primarily focused on answering your guys's questions. So if you didn't know we did that, now you do know it. Go wait for us to go live on Instagram and YouTube at 7 o'clock

[00:13:21] on Sunday night. This topic came up on Sunday night and Julio was just this much different because he was a phenom. So he was going to jump AAA. Phenoms don't normally spend a whole lot of time in AAA because they don't need it because they're just that talented.

[00:13:39] Locklear is a different cat though because he's a college bat and he was polished coming out. So the argument could be made that he would be ready for this, but I still don't know if I'm

[00:13:54] totally comfortable with it. Two games in, he's been fine. His first game was great. To go ahead double, ringing the other way in right center field, it's a really nice swing. Haven't seen a whole lot of swings like that on this Mariners roster this year.

[00:14:07] It was refreshing to see. I think there's some upside with this, but as of right now, if we look like three weeks, he's really gonna have to hit to keep his spot on the roster.

[00:14:17] So yeah, we'll see. But we had talked about there was a chance he was going to get called straight up from AA at one point. It didn't happen, but we had talked about that. So is

[00:14:26] it that crazy to call him up? There's just no roster spot for him once Ty comes back. Not if you keep Garver. Garver would have to accept less playing time and Garver,

[00:14:38] as we'll touch on in our next segment, has been a pretty crucial path the last couple of weeks. So he's gonna have to play more. So the idea we were floating out there was so Sebi is off the roster. Garver becomes your backup catcher. And then you rotate

[00:14:53] Tyler Locklear and Ty France. Well, you could only occupy two of those spots. You could occupy all three of those spots, but Cal Raleigh also needs to play. But what? Okay, but what I was insinuating and what I was talking about is was it that crazy

[00:15:07] for Locklear to get this call up despite not playing that much time in AAA? Because again, yes, we talked about. Yeah, I don't like again, we talked about him getting the call

[00:15:16] straight from AA. I don't think it was that crazy. But you didn't need to do that. It would have been I think I don't know. I think I threw the word reckless out there.

[00:15:26] I just don't like you need to just be absolutely murdering it at AA. He was hitting really well, but he's not the guy that you that you look at it and you feel like he needs to be up

[00:15:39] straight from AA. I like I don't think any of us ever felt that way. I don't know about straight up from AA. I will say when you've got a 156 WRC plus for the year in AA,

[00:15:50] you're you're right on that line. It's it's a hard transition, man. I don't know if I would if I would risk messing up the development to do that. And I don't don't know if I'd be

[00:16:01] quite there. I just don't think the Mariners had another choice here. I don't know. I don't know what else he would have done in this situation with the injuries and who else it

[00:16:09] would have been impaired with again. We've got to see what he does here in the next three weeks. But through two games, I think he's looked pretty good. And I know the first game

[00:16:17] was better than the second game, but the second game he had a single and he got hit by a pitch. Thank goodness he's OK, but he got on base two times like through two games. He's had

[00:16:25] two productive games. So and yet, you know, he hasn't hit a home run yet or anything either. That's not even mentioning the fact in his first game in Kansas City. We mentioned it on the live stream too. He stayed right on a change up from Cole

[00:16:37] Reagan's that was out of the zone and Cole Reagan's being one of the best pitchers in the American League and he nearly hit it out of the yard. He had about a 400 foot fly out. We'll see how it continues to look, but he has not looked overmatched.

[00:16:48] I don't see why he can't hit well enough to earn his spot and keep his spot. Your argument would would ring so much truer if he could do anything besides D.H. and play first

[00:16:58] like legitimately if he could be a. Yeah, like a bad corner outfielder or a bad third baseman and he hit this well, then you could make that argument a little bit more. But he's legitimately only a first baseman in a D.H., which stinks for him. He's been

[00:17:14] a couple of nice plays at first, though, I will say very, very pleased in the small sample of what we've seen at first. I just want to give some people context if you don't remember.

[00:17:23] Like so he was drafted right after Cole Young in the 2022 draft. There are some Pete Alonso comps when the Mariners took him 58th overall. Here's his slash line from his senior year in case you're or his junior year in case you're wondering if he was

[00:17:36] ready for 025, 42, 799 and ever he struck out 25 times and hit 20 homers. So yeah, if you could imagine at the college level, he was polished. He was not striking out, walked way more than he struck out with plus power. And then he's done that at every single

[00:17:56] level to minor leagues this year when he was striking out 26 percent of the time in double A was the first time in the minors he struck out that much. So you could make that argument

[00:18:05] and say, hey, TJ, that's an outlier. And I'll say, OK, that's fair. It is 40 games different from the rest of the games he's played down in the minor leagues. So, you know, time will tell.

[00:18:15] Unfortunately, the Mariners are going to have to have him hit. It's not even a choice really if he hits for the Mariners to hit. Well, they're going to need him to hit because

[00:18:30] still it is still even though it's been better after Brent Brown got let go last week still hasn't been what you want. All I'm going to say is this, if like this will all get sorted

[00:18:42] out one way or another because Locklear is either going to hit in the time that Ty France is out or he won't. If he is hitting the Mariners have no choice but to keep them.

[00:18:50] You're going to have to figure out the roster construction and roll with it because the offense as we know, I mean, we're going to beat a dead horse here is not up to par.

[00:18:59] Like, like we've done it a million times. The offense is way underperformed through the first now two and a half months of the season. If Tyler Locklear is up here and he's hitting as a big

[00:19:08] leaguer and he's hitting with power too, you have no choice but to keep him here and to mix in time with him, Ty France and Garver because you need all the bats you can get right now.

[00:19:17] And listen, if he's hitting then I'm wrong and he was ready. But usually it does make me nervous when you only give a guy 10, 10 AAA games though the guys who get that little time in the high minors and come up and succeed right away are exceptions, not norms.

[00:19:34] Okay. So if he doesn't hit in the three weeks or so before Ty France comes back, cause that sounds like about what the timeline will be roughly three weeks could be a little

[00:19:43] longer. We'll see if he doesn't hit, he goes back down and he gets his at bats back in AAA. I don't think it's much harm or foul done considering the guy's already so polished.

[00:19:54] If he has a couple below average weeks, then he spends what the next few months down in AAA could be the rest of the season down in AAA and just gets his development. Yeah. Just remember Dominic Kanzone was the best player in AAA when the Mariners acquired

[00:20:08] him last year. And to this point, Dom has been a below average hitter as a big leaguer. So it's not always seamless if your numbers are looking like that or if you're polished. Cause I think we could have said when the Mariners acquired Dom Kanzone last year,

[00:20:22] yeah, it's a pretty polished minor league profile he has. And he had a homer today, but overall it's not been the smoothest sailing in the world for Dom. So that could be it. The Mariners need him to hit. And I hope for the sake of Tyler Locklear,

[00:20:36] that he goes out there and he absolutely mashes because it, and the other thing we were talking about with this, they haven't really had many bats like this in the minors, not like a polished college bat that rises through the system quickly.

[00:20:52] If you notice, all their top Mariners, top prospects right now, they're all kids, all young guys up there at the top. Locklear is like an older college bat who's only supposed to hit. That's like the only thing that you're wondering about with him, that he goes up

[00:21:11] there and he hits. And so much, it's almost like you go back to the first couple of college bats the Mariners drafted, Kyle Lewis and Evan White. Evan White was never supposed to be an

[00:21:24] amazing hitter, but those were two college bats that were supposed to get to the majors quickly and neither of them panned out. I mean, Tyler Locklear could be the first drafted, like first drafted college bat to come up through the system in this regime and really stick in

[00:21:42] and stay and play extremely well. What about Cal, aside from Cal? Yeah, besides from Cal, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, sorry, besides from Cal. So Cal, but I mean, it's specifics here. Cal was third round, Locklear was second round,

[00:22:03] so Locklear was drafted a little higher. But even Cal took like 100 games to figure it out at the big league level and remember, Cal's first 100 games were bad. Yeah, no, it's true. So maybe Locklear figures it out faster than that. And if he does,

[00:22:15] then you're right, he will be the first to just like rise through the system extremely quickly, get up and stay. So that'd be great if he does. Right. So yeah. Man, yeah, I'll scratch my brain. I'm like, well, the only other one I could think of

[00:22:28] that people were high on was in the lineup for the White Sox today. Zach Deloach? Yeah. Yeah. It's also a second round pick, if you want some perspective. Right. Two years before. Yeah. Yeah. And we saw him in the Cape League,

[00:22:43] the summer he rose his draft stock up. He was great, but it hasn't totally translated to the big leagues yet. That's all. Right. Okay. Before we get to our second storyline, let's take a quick pause here. We're going to talk to you guys about our friends over

[00:22:56] at Pagachas Pub 85. You guys want a spot to go watch the games, hang out with your friends, feature a bunch of activities, whether it's darts, pool, great food, great drinks, it's got all of it. And if you go during happy hour, you get some great specials.

[00:23:08] They're three and $4 drinks Monday through Friday, two to 6pm. Get there early, get some drinks at a great price, sit and watch the Mariners. You can do all that. That's over at Pagachas Pub 85 in Kirkland. So while we're on the topic of this offense

[00:23:23] and on the topic of Thai France going out, we've got a simple question to ask here. A simple question that's going to involve some deep thinking, we believe. Who do you trust in this offense right now? I had to ask you last night when we were planning

[00:23:42] this subject down. I'm like, so who do I flat out trust or who do I trust the most? Because if you notice there's a different tone in each of those questions, there is either 100%

[00:23:52] trust or there's levels of trust. And I think we have a kind of a mix of both. I made a list. Let me rank who I trust in this offense the most. I trust the most right now, JP Crawford.

[00:24:06] He's heating back up. We saw the two home runs in Kansas City and he's still improving this year. He had his driveline breakout last year, but he's doing things this year that he didn't even do last year. And it's really, it's really nice to see for JP

[00:24:20] with him heating up. So JP's number one, I have Mitch Garver in his hot streak in the last couple of weeks. Number two, has it helped that he's gotten back behind the plate? Perhaps,

[00:24:30] but he's seen the ball better. He's striking out last and he's still elevating the ball. Julio Rodriguez is number three, still hitting too many ground balls, but overall in especially in the month of June and over the last couple of weeks,

[00:24:43] Julio has been a productive hitter. And then Luke Rayleigh is number four. The problem is when I put Luke Rayleigh at four, he's had a big bunt base hit today on Monday. Does the team even trust his bat fully? Because he's still only platoons, only platoons.

[00:25:00] And he's your number four, my number four most trusted bat. So that sort of gives you an insight into what the levels of trust are with individual bats in this offense. Notice some guys I left off this list. Josh Rojas, who had an amazing

[00:25:18] first month of the season has cooled off. He's not on this list. Dylan Moore had a really good May also not on this list. He's really struggled just went on the paternity list. Cal had his walkoff grand slam tonight, but Cal's been on the struggle bus recently.

[00:25:33] So I can't say I trust him either. So the list is short. So we have the exact same ranking one through four. I said JP at one, Garver at two, and that's because he's had 10 good games. I guess that's where the offense is right now.

[00:25:46] Julio's three, again his last couple of weeks have been better like you said. Luke Rayleigh is at four, but at four you're talking about a platoon bat who's had a OPS just above 700 in the last 15 games. That's fine. It's nothing special.

[00:26:00] A platoon bat that's been a slightly above league average hitter. Like that. He swings and misses so much. Right. So much with Rayleigh had a great month of May. If you look at his last 30 games, he's still got an 821 OPS, but yeah, he's cooled off.

[00:26:18] So theme here, like you just said, there's a lot of names we're not mentioning here. Give me one. Give me somebody that's not on this list that pops into your head. Just throw one at me. Cal Raleigh.

[00:26:31] Entering Monday. I did all this entering Monday. Cal Raleigh has a 563 OPS in his last 30 games. He has a 446 OPS in his last 15. That's before the home run tonight, but that's entering Monday here. Give me another name. Jorge Polanco.

[00:26:47] Well, he's been on the IL, but we have detailed at length what his struggles have been. He's not hitting fastballs. He's not hitting period. You know, he's striking out a lot. Yes, he's walking, but all his power numbers are down. So, okay. So give me another name.

[00:27:01] Dom Kanzone. Entering Monday. Dom Kanzone has a 374 OPS in his last 15 games. Like it's not good. He's struggling. He's really struggling. That sucks. Like obviously like we're pro Dom Kanzone people on this pot, but if you're just looking at the

[00:27:18] numbers, it's been a struggle. All right. I'll give you the others because I listed out everybody. Mitch Hanegger last 15 games, 594 OPS. Dylan Moore last 15 games, 418 OPS. Josh Rojas last 30 games, 486 OPS. Yes, he had a hot start, but it just keeps going

[00:27:38] and going and going. Now you can throw in Ryan Bliss and Tyler Locklear. I almost call those guys in a different category because neither of those guys, in my opinion, have had enough

[00:27:48] of bats to really say, do we fully trust them or not trust them? They're in kind of the non-applicable category right now. And aside from those two guys, the only names we have not mentioned that are on the active roster so far are Sebi Zavala, Victor Robles,

[00:28:05] Leo Rivas, and that's your bench right now. So again, like- And you don't trust any of those guys to pinch hit in any situation. Right. So again, like who do you trust on this offense right now? I think like,

[00:28:18] I think we're in agreement the one guy you can fully put your belief in right now is J.P. Crawford. And after that, it gets dicey. You can argue Mitch Garver because his last 10 games

[00:28:31] or so have been good. You can argue Julio because his last two weeks have been better. But man, it's thin right now. It's really thin. And even if you just look at like since May 1st, the Mariners only have six hitters who

[00:28:45] have a WRC plus above 100. That's just like, that's not very much. And then you can poke holes in almost again, almost all of them. Like Dylan Moore, since June started has a 16 WRC plus

[00:28:59] after having a really good month of May and moved himself up to the two hole in the lineup. But this month has a WRC plus of 16. Right. And then all these other guys, you can poke holes in.

[00:29:12] And that's why it was so crappy that Ty France went on the injured list when he did because he would be number one right now. He would be number one on that list

[00:29:21] if he was healthy because he's proved it. He has proved it over the last couple of months with the with with his I had the number written down and it's it disappeared on me.

[00:29:32] But with his really good month last month and he's got a 113 WRC plus. So 142 last month, 113 this month. That's who you trust the most. But now he's out for however many weeks. So

[00:29:46] man, it backs up when you watch a game like like tonight, like seriously, we sit there and we watch this game against Eric Fetty in the White Sox. You're like, so who's going to come

[00:29:55] through against this guy? Who do you trust to come through? And we're pretty much sitting waiting for JP Crawford to come back up. And it's great that Cal came in the clutch tonight.

[00:30:05] It's great that Hanegert a clutch hit and it's great that can zone at the home run like it's like it's good to see guys start to flash a little bit. But if you're taking a larger sample

[00:30:14] here and you're looking at and you're looking at most of this offense in the last 15 games or the last 30 games, it's it's not pretty. And it's yeah, I know this this feels like

[00:30:25] a tired conversation because the whole narrative of the Mariners in the first two and a half months is offense hasn't been there, but it's continuing. So naturally, that's where the conversation continues to go because there just hasn't been enough. Like they got to go trade

[00:30:42] for bat. It's it's and that's not anything groundbreaking either. But they've got to go do it. They got to go get one A level bat and then another supplementary bat because there's not enough offense. No choice. There's no choice. Of course, unless you're trading

[00:30:57] Filney and Tillerson. Yeah, well, then we might get cold feet. Well, but yeah, like some of these guys will turn it around. So, you know, Saris wrote an article in the Athletic detailing that Julio and Cal Raleigh both have been a product of some bad luck so

[00:31:13] far. Now we know with Julio, he's going to have to elevate the ball. But when when you know, talked about it, he was he was basically outlining how guys that are expected

[00:31:25] to trend up who have kind of been on the product of some unfortunate luck. They listed out a handful of guys like Manny Machado was on the list. A couple other guys were on the list,

[00:31:33] Austin Riley, but two of the guys on the list were Julio and Cal Raleigh. So of course, even without you know, writing that article, you'd expect those guys to trend their way up

[00:31:42] anyway. But it's going to be it's going to have to be a combination of both. You're going to go have to go trade for bats no matter what at this point. But you also need

[00:31:51] guys in this lineup to really start clicking like guy like Josh Rojas needs to get back on track and Cal's got to get back on track. And, you know, to get Dom Cam's own going again would be

[00:32:02] great. Like it's got to be a combination here because the offense that's that's showing itself right now. It can't continue or the Mariners are going to be in trouble. The untrust we are the offense that scored 27 runs last four games.

[00:32:21] How they did that. I don't know. And I'll tell you what, despite scoring 27 runs in the last four games, does it feel like just off vibes that they really went to and to in those games? No, no, no, considering considering they probably should have lost all those games,

[00:32:37] considering you got shut out for seven innings against the White Sox and played maybe the most gut wrenching game I can remember on Sunday against the Royals. Yeah, it doesn't feel like two and two. No, no, no, it does not. Shifting gears to our interview. It was good

[00:32:57] to get Jason Puckett on. So we had not we'd not I'd never met Jason Puckett before before we had him on. So he if you are unfamiliar with his work, former host at KJR, and he had

[00:33:11] a situation play out earlier in the season that led him to create Puck Sports.com out of his own name brand and start dropping start hosting the Daily Puck Drop, which is now his own podcast. So he is someone who has transitioned from

[00:33:31] old fashioned radio on KJR to now he is starting his own site with regular guests and sponsors and pushing out content every single day. And that would that's what makes this conversation which takes up the bulk of the start of this conversation about creating your own

[00:33:49] brand because Puck is doing very similar to what Lyle and I are doing right now. He's getting a little broader and he's got a lot more experience in this field than we do.

[00:33:58] But he is a like a radio lifer coming on and starting this new endeavor. And you know, he sheds a lot of light on things he's can things he considered and what he what he works

[00:34:11] on with all this stuff. And I thought that part was was very interesting in realizing in him realizing as well, you know, where the business has shifted a little bit and him understanding it and helping him embrace his new path forward. And he's also a really fun guy

[00:34:29] because we also got to talk about Mill Avenue a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And there's some Mariners mix in there too. If you want to hear Puck talk about the Mariners, that's kind of

[00:34:37] in the second half of the conversation. But, you know, it's interesting as two people like TJ and I who are navigating our way through this to, to talk to somebody who's just starting

[00:34:46] his own journey, kind of building up his own brand and what he's learned and the Avenue he's trying to go and all that stuff. And just to pick the brain of somebody who's been in sports

[00:34:56] media for so long and has been on the air for so long. It's a really fun conversation. It's, you know, we get to learn from him. Hopefully he learned a little bit from us because we had

[00:35:05] some back and forth about like what we've done so far overall. Really fun. Like Jason Puck, a really fun personality knows his stuff. And we think you guys are going to enjoy it.

[00:35:16] Absolutely. And you guys check all this stuff out at puck sports.com. We won't hold you any longer. Let's get to that interview with Jason Puckett. All right. We've got on Jason Puckett, now host of the daily puck drop podcast founder of puck sports, formerly of KJR.

[00:35:35] How is life as a full-time podcaster puck? Well, I appreciate you guys have me on. Thanks Lyle. It's, you know, it's busy. It's, it's much busier than it probably was when I was just doing radio. But you guys know, you know what it's like, you know,

[00:35:50] when you're kind of running your own thing, it's, it's a, it's a lot more, you know, hands-on, but it's, it's been fun. It's the creative side of it's been really cool. So

[00:35:58] it's, it's exciting and I like it. I like it a lot. And, but it's, it's been, you know, fun and challenging and all the kinds of things I expected probably going in, but all in all good. What was the first thing that made you go like,

[00:36:12] whoa, okay. I didn't realize this was something I'd have to pay attention to. Yeah. You know, TJ, I don't know. I think the, what I love about radio and I've always loved

[00:36:24] about radio is just the it's live, right? And so you can't screw up. I mean, you can't screw up, but like, there's no take two. I think in this, like in this venture, like if

[00:36:33] you screw up, okay, I can stop recording or I can edit something out. There's you, I miss a little bit of just like the excitement, I guess the of live performance, what I like to call it. But

[00:36:49] I think that I don't know if that surprised me that I've missed it so much like that, but we're, I'm going to incorporate a lot more live stuff. And when we do do live stuff, it's,

[00:36:58] it's fun and kind of gives me that, that, that juice back. But in terms of like anything else that surprised me, nah, I mean not, I've done so much of this stuff when I was younger,

[00:37:08] editing and all the behind the scenes stuff. So it's like, like I wasn't overwhelmed at all by any of it. But just more time consuming, you've had producers do a lot of this stuff and now

[00:37:19] you're kind of the, you're the host producer director, all of it all in kind of one. How long had an idea like this sort of percolated in your, in your brain? I read somewhere that during COVID especially when a lot of us were soul searching thing about like,

[00:37:35] okay, what, like a, what can we, what can we change? What's sustainable? What will work in what will be a new world when this is all over? I'm pretty sure from what I read,

[00:37:44] you were starting to think of it then. How much did you think of it now? And then how much did it build up over time? Well, I mean, yeah, you're right about COVID DJ.

[00:37:54] I thought we all thought we were going to get laid off during COVID because there, you know, it's five, six months, right? Of not talking about anything. And so, you know, you're thinking like, well, if revenue runs out, I mean, corporate radio, they're going to,

[00:38:08] they're going to let some people off. They're going to let some people go. And, you know, we're sitting there in mid days and I'm like, I'm not, I'm smart enough to know

[00:38:14] that I'm not going to get rid of drive time. I'll get rid of mid days first. So I think back then I just, you know, I had kind of thought in the back of my head that, hey,

[00:38:22] if anything does happen, if, and you know, and that's, that's the way of life, you know, I want to continue to do this. You know, how am I going to transition into something else?

[00:38:32] Like, how do I keep what I'm doing on the radio alive? And so I think I thought about it back then, but it had been such the back burner. But I think that you always have to have a plan B,

[00:38:43] no matter what it is, right? I think, you know, athletic directors, especially college sports talk about this all the time. They have a list of coaches they are going to hire if their coach gets fired or leaves for another job. I mean, it's just, you've got

[00:38:57] a plan for things like this. So I think for anybody, you got to plan kind of what the next step is in case you lose your job or you leave your job or your job changes. So yeah, it was

[00:39:07] kind of filed back then and I just kind of workshopped it probably for a few years in my head until the time came that when reality hit and I was able to pivot,

[00:39:17] you know, pretty fast. Did you pay attention to much of the new age media stuff that was starting to really come to fruition in the years it's kind of built up since around COVID time?

[00:39:29] Like in terms, like what do you mean, like the new age stuff? Wow. Like just like in podcasts and things like that. Sure. Yeah. Podcasting or YouTube stuff, YouTube video, short form content. Like, like had you started to see the transition and were you paying attention

[00:39:43] to it over the last few years at all? Yeah, for sure. I think that, you know, I think especially with like how we consume television now, I think more than anything,

[00:39:52] it's, you know, a lot of it is what you get to choose and direct to consumer is so, is so popular now. And I think this radio style format has been a little bit slow

[00:40:04] to get there. But I mean, look at you guys are probably the perfect group to talk about. I mean, I would assume I'm going to assume something, but maybe I'm wrong. Do you have

[00:40:13] cable? No. Yeah, I mean, not really. TJ, you don't have cable Lyle, you don't have cable? No, no, we don't. So how do you guys watch the mayor? How do you, how do you, you do a pirate off some streams somewhere? Okay. So you have Fubo.

[00:40:28] Well, he can't a bit to breaking the law here on recording. Yeah. You can break the law. I used to pirate it all the time. I mean, um, I used to have the MLB, uh, TV app. And then I would,

[00:40:39] I would get a VPN and block it out so I could watch. Yeah. I mean, I just got tired of, you know, paying for cable like a lot of people, but, um, yeah. So I've got,

[00:40:48] I got Fubo's to, to watch the Mariners. But my point being is that like there is, you know, I think the younger generation will, you know, find the ways that they want to

[00:40:58] consume things. And so you look at Netflix or Hulu or whatever Apple plus or all that kind of stuff. Right? You get to choose now what you want to watch more so than, Hey,

[00:41:07] cable is put right in front of you. You've got to watch this. This is the only thing you can watch. I think the same thing goes for radio or, or, you know, any type of entertainment is

[00:41:16] that you now get to go out and choose, you know, what you want to listen to, what you want to watch. Um, and I think I benefit a little bit just because I spent

[00:41:25] so many years doing radio, you know, 20 plus years. So you build up a little bit of an audience. So you're not starting just fresh new without an audience. I think that helps a little

[00:41:33] bit, but, um, yeah, I think that, I think people now just want to listen to or watch what they like and they just don't necessarily sit on one particular channel or one particular radio station all day long anymore.

[00:41:48] Do you ever ask your kids like, what would you consume? Well, you know, it's so funny. So I didn't know anything about YouTube shorts until probably a few months ago. I mean, I did, but I never looked at them. Never did any of them, nothing, but I

[00:42:07] would watch my kid who my son who's 10 and just, I mean all day long through his phone on YouTube shorts. I mean, that's how he like consumes everything. And like, like his sports,

[00:42:21] news, all of it. And so, and I see that now when we post stuff up there, when I post stuff up there, just how much traction, you know, things like that gets. And, you know, it's the good

[00:42:32] and bad, right? People's attention span nowadays are so bad, right? You can't, no one can just sit and watch or listen to something. You know, they need, you know, 20 second or 30

[00:42:41] second clips and then they got to, uh, they got to move on. So, you know, watch, you know, my kids are, you know, in that perfect spot, right? I'm 15 year old daughter and same thing,

[00:42:51] right? Tick tock and all that kind of stuff. Snapchat. I mean, it's just those quick little clips that, uh, that engage people. So I think for me, it'd be 48. That's been hard

[00:43:01] to kind of like wrap my head around, but I also grew up in a, in a time when I went to broadcasting school and doing TV and doing radio, especially on the TV side.

[00:43:12] And it's kind of prepared me a little bit for this, like the YouTube shorts and things that you put on Instagram is that, you know, in TV, you want to like a five second clip.

[00:43:20] Like that's it. Like a quick little sound bite and you move on. Like anything longer than that, especially in television is like way too long. And then in radio, you know, we generally had a rule that anything over 15 seconds was, was way too long. I think people's tune,

[00:43:35] you know, start to tune out after 15 seconds listening to something. So I guess in a weird way that kind of prepared me for kind of this new like media new age.

[00:43:44] Was, was all that a part of what made you decide to also do a YouTube form video form of your podcast too? Cause I was reading, I think what TJ was reading about you starting

[00:43:53] into this new venture and it sounded like at least from the way the article was kind of toned that you were thinking about maybe just go in audio only at first. And then it sounds

[00:44:03] like you kind of pivoted to add some video to it. Like, was that a part of it all? Part of it is, is, you know, as we, you know, we do this here on, on this, this platform is

[00:44:13] like Riverside. It just gives you video too. Right. And so I'm like, Oh, if you're going to do it, might as well just upload, you know, upload it to YouTube. But you know, I came

[00:44:23] across so many articles and still, you know, to this day, I think holds true. It's one of, if it's not number one still, it's like it's top two or top three people consume these

[00:44:33] shows on YouTube. I mean, they have it on the background. They listen to it. They might not watch it all the time, but they're listening to it and YouTube is only growing. It's just,

[00:44:42] it's not going to stop. It's not going to slow down. And so I think if you read anything on it right now that a lot of people are consuming shows like this on YouTube, people want to be

[00:44:53] visual. They want to see the people that they're listening to. And so yeah, I think it all plays a part in it. And I think it's, I think it's cool. I think it's a different element

[00:45:05] that you can provide the viewer or the listener and all part of that too is once you kind of have advertising and things like that, it's another element. It's another revenue growth that you can put in different spots and commercials that give your advertisers another

[00:45:22] way to earn money. But I just think as many platforms you can be on is probably the best. So you're 140 plus episodes into your daily puck drop and trying to post a podcast every single day. And throughout that, what has been the most rewarding thing

[00:45:41] you've achieved so far? And what has been the most challenging thing you've had to learn or do? I think that probably the most rewarding thing, TJ would just be that just the amount

[00:45:52] of people I think that have checked in and listened to. I mean, I think that you think there's going to be an audience there, but you don't really know. It's a new venture. And so

[00:46:03] I was certainly scared and nervous about it. And I think in radio, we have these numbers that would show us how many people are listening or what our ratings are and these PPM meters and all this weird, I want to bore everyone with the details, but it's like

[00:46:19] in radio, you're judged on like a group of people that amass, it's like 350 people out of over a million people in the greater Seattle, Tacoma area. And then they just aggregate that and they come up with a number based on your demographic. And you're like, God, really? 300

[00:46:38] people. I mean, that doesn't seem right. It seems like a really weird way to judge shows and things like that. So you hope that there's an audience out there, but I think once I did the

[00:46:51] first several shows and not knowing anything about what were good numbers for a podcast, I had zero idea. And so then I said, well, I started looking at them and then I would ask

[00:47:06] people that had been in it, that had been in radio, but now do this. And they said, these are great. These are unbelievable what you're getting so far. So I think once I realized that,

[00:47:16] it energized me a little bit more to obviously, I think I made the right decision, keep going, keep moving forward. What has been challenging? I think the day, I think the challenging part is just you're kind of, I would radio be done at one o'clock,

[00:47:36] be kind of done. And I think with this, I'm working a little bit more. I think it's the self promotion is probably the most challenging part. But challenging is not that much. I'm just

[00:47:50] saying that I used to be, I would say more in radio a little bit lazy being done so early in the day and then just kind of coasting a little bit. But when this new platform,

[00:48:02] as you guys know, you guys are grinding, is that it's not so much more, not so much more coasting going on right now for me. I totally get the promotion part though.

[00:48:13] But I think it all ties in to be honest. So we're sitting here talking about short form and YouTube and such like that. And YouTube is kind of a self promotion, the long form, kind of because YouTube will suggest your videos to people clicking onto the homepage

[00:48:27] of YouTube who they think might be interested. But what's amazing about the even shorter videos is that no matter how old your video is, the algorithm always has an eye on it and will always

[00:48:39] show it to someone who like your kids are just scrolling throughout the day and might suggest it. And someone might accidentally stumble upon to your program that had probably no idea who you were and what you were talking about. Like say you're talking to John Kansano and

[00:48:54] they're interested about what's happened since the Pac-12 has finished off this past month. And they're like, oh, that's kind of interesting. And they click and they keep watching and they keep listening. And I think that's what Lau and I have felt like promotion wise. It's outside of

[00:49:10] like a different, I would say from radio advertising where, I don't know if you would ever, you're not advertising the same way. You're not marketing yourself the same way. I guess you're marketing yourself more with your content than something else.

[00:49:26] Yeah, a little bit. I think radio is also a lot about or was about, you are buying into the whole as a station, but you also are buying into that certain host or that certain show. I was fortunate enough that I had such good relationships with people

[00:49:46] that I was able to take some of those clients that I had over with me to this new venture, which I am going to be forever grateful for and just hashtag blessed. You got to use that

[00:50:04] like some college kid doing an NIL deal. But yeah, you promote yourself a little bit differently, but I do think it's very similar in a lot of ways. You try to make yourself as

[00:50:21] relevant as possible. And I think for them, I think for the advertisers and a lot of them understand it, but I think some of them who are so old school a little bit in their thinking of

[00:50:33] let's say radio or even television, to get them to open up to this different side, which they are in already, but to understand that almost the reach is even greater on platforms like this. And I think once they realize that and they get a little bit more

[00:50:51] educated on some of the analytics and numbers behind it, then I think they tend to see what you see. And I totally get where you're coming from too about the whole get in, get out portion

[00:51:01] of radio. And that's actually something I was curious about is I always wonder if radio hosts who transition to podcasting feel that, oh, it's nice to kind of build your own schedule rather

[00:51:11] than there is a time you have to get into the station. You've got hard outs to get to commercials, things like that. But the flip side of it is something that we've definitely learned is

[00:51:21] you can kind of pick and choose when you want to start working for the day, but then you're also up later a lot of times trying to get stuff done. Like most people in a normal

[00:51:30] nine to five job are not up in the wee hours trying to edit shows and post it to YouTube. Now I'll stay up late doing that stuff a lot of the time because you pick when you start,

[00:51:38] but it can also lead you kind of running late. Yeah, I've yeah. Yes. And that's why I tried to and have done pretty much a normal schedule every day. So there are times in which we

[00:51:53] record things that may be later or the previous night that's going to air the next day. But for the most part, like the Daily Puck Drop, which is just me that I release every day at 10 a.m.,

[00:52:09] which was the start of my radio show. I record that pretty close up until that point, give myself some wiggle room about a half an hour or so to be able to edit stuff

[00:52:21] quickly. But that goes up at 10. So it's kind of like the same routine I had before. And it's 30, 40 minutes of me. And then the guests that would have been on my guest on the radio show

[00:52:35] on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, those are the same. They're on the same days that they were before the ones that came over. And then we record those in between 10 and 1130 and they get released at one. So I made myself, I forced myself to

[00:52:51] have a routine every day to where like the first part of the show gets released at 10, the second part of the show gets released at one o'clock. So then I did like to your guys point

[00:53:01] to stay on some type of schedule, because yeah, if I was all over the place and I was doing something at 10 and then something at three and four, I would like you guys are young and can

[00:53:12] get away with it. Like I'm old and married and have like a boss I've got to answer to and two kids. So I've got to have like a set routine. And I wanted it just kind of a

[00:53:20] set routine. I mean, I like that. So, you know, I think it's good. It kind of keeps me on point a little bit more and, you know, a little bit more efficient.

[00:53:30] I know John Kansano was one of your inspirations because he's been and he's a guest on your show and he's done a fabulous job with johnkansano.com launching his own independent site and he's been

[00:53:46] wildly successful. So I know he's one of them. Are there other inspirations that you've taken from that you're trying to style the way you present content after? Yeah, John, you're right about TJ, right about John. I mean, John was a huge,

[00:54:00] huge influence, you know, because he, you know, he did something that was, you know, his day and age, right? Not many people did. I mean, he broke away from a newspaper, started his own thing, took a chance on himself. So I was, you know,

[00:54:14] I leaned on him a lot for sure just because, you know, he has gone through it. It's a little, you know, it's a different platform. He's writing and I'm, you know, doing more, you know, doing

[00:54:26] more like media-like based, you know, videos and radio style show. But it's the same kind of thing, right? You're breaking away from kind of a corporate side and kind of doing your own

[00:54:37] thing. So yeah, I've, I've, I've leaned on him a ton. I've got two friends that used to work at our radio station. They weren't on the sports side, Carla Marie and Anthony. They were morning show hosts on Kiss FM. And you know, they've been doing this,

[00:54:53] probably, shoot, they're probably four years, I think, removed from doing radio. They were doing morning, morning show. Now they do a podcast called The Morning Show and they do it every single day. So I took basically the, the, the genesis of the idea of

[00:55:09] the daily puck drop, which is just me doing every single day. Cause I needed to do something every single day. I didn't want to do something that was once a week or twice a week. I needed

[00:55:17] kind of the action of doing something every day. Cause there's always something going on and I've been doing it for 22 years and I'm just used to it. So they, they do something every day called the, you know, The Morning Show podcast, which is like 30 minutes,

[00:55:29] just them talking about the daily events. And so, you know, I leaned on them a lot and just, you know, sought out their advice, just to, you know, how they did things. And

[00:55:38] I think that they liked the daily nature of it as well because it kind of keeps them engaged rather than doing it once or twice a week. But I would think those, those two are probably the biggest influences. I mean, there's, you know, there's countless others. I mean,

[00:55:50] you can't be in this industry and not, and not look at someone like, you know, Bill Simmons and say, you know, you have to take something from him and give him a lot of credit. I mean,

[00:56:02] like for people in my industry back in old school radio, you have to look at like Mike, if you guys know who Mad Dog is, Mike Kelly, Suska Mad Dog. So you got to look at those two

[00:56:12] guys. And if anyone's in sports stock radio, you've got to salute those two because they were, you know, the real godfathers of the industry without them. I mean,

[00:56:22] you know, I don't think it's not going to be as popular as it is now. And then I think for this type of format, you know, I think what Bill Simmons was able to do and have success at it,

[00:56:33] just, you know, you have to pay a lot of respect to, you know, how he's been able to do it and promote it and, you know, you know, produce all the kind of content he's been

[00:56:44] able to do. So on that note, the last question kind of on this topic I have for you before we transition to a little bit of Mariner stuff is 10 years from now with the way everything's trended, what do you think the landscape of Seattle sports media looks like?

[00:57:01] I think more of this probably. I think more of this. I think you're going to, I think in the, I think less than 10 years, I think in the next five years, you're going to see a lot of people leave. I just think it's, I think,

[00:57:11] I think more and more people are going to realize, like you guys have realized, like I've realized you can go right to your audience. And I just think that you'll see this,

[00:57:20] this type of media grow as people, you know, smart TVs and phones and just all of it, right? It's just easier to get access now to anyone at any time of day. And so,

[00:57:33] you know, I think that will continue to grow. It's just a slow kind of drip, dripping death, right? You've seen it with the newspaper industry. You're going to see it with television and you will see it with radio. You get these big corporations that come in there

[00:57:48] and they just slowly siphon everything off. And it's unfortunate. It's sad really, in a lot of ways, but I think you will see, you know, I wouldn't want to be one of those

[00:58:01] people in this industry to be slow to move because, you know, if you're too slow to move, you'll get caught being left behind. But I just think it will evolve more and more to this type of digital platform, I think for everything. I think you'll see the newspaper

[00:58:17] industry really become and really what the times should be. You know, they still produce a daily newspaper and all that, but I mean, they should be more of an actual news media site. You know, they should have an audio presence. They should have a video presence. I mean,

[00:58:33] they should have, if I was the Seattle Times, I would have a nightly news show. I mean, I would rethink myself rather than a newspaper. I would think of myself as a media

[00:58:44] company. So I would have anchors and I would do a nightly show. I would compete with, you know, King and Como and Cairo and all those and just, you know, see where it's at. I mean, I think there would be an appetite for that.

[00:58:59] What about live sports? Do you think there's any venture of live sporting events changing or the way live sports are like we've seen the crack in distribution change? I think we're imagining root eventually, whether it be next year or the year after will go away.

[00:59:15] Like how else what else about that do you think will be in the future and how people around that will adapt? Well, I mean, I think more and more is going to go streaming for sure. I think

[00:59:26] hockey is unique because hockey has got to be able to bring in new fans. So I think the hardcore fan will stream it for sure if that's the like the only way that they're going to watch

[00:59:37] it. You'll always have them, but the fan that's on the on the on the fence looks like me. I'm not the biggest hockey fan in the world, but like am I going to go pay a package to watch them?

[00:59:49] I don't know. It depends how much it is. If it's free, like it's going to be next season. Yeah, that's fine. I'll watch that. I think it's good. I think it's good for a sport

[00:59:57] like that. I think when you get into the other more popular sports like take, for instance, if they put the NFL all on streaming, let's say they just went where we're going to go all YouTube

[01:00:06] or all Peacock, everybody would sign up for it. Right. Right. It just you'd write any amount to watch it because you're just obsessed with it. There'd be a lot of people that would do

[01:00:16] that for baseball. I mean, I think baseball would fall a little bit probably, you know, not as bad as hockey, but you know, there you would have more people signing up than hockey.

[01:00:24] But yeah, I think, you know, five, 10 years less than that. Again, as you get back to that, you know, five, 10 year window, you know, so much of this will be will be streaming. Right.

[01:00:36] I mean, a lot of it will be you see it now. I mean, look at all the different things that you signed up for. I mean, the partnership with ESPN and Warner and all that

[01:00:46] just the I mean, it's funny. We saw all sign up for all these streaming services to get away from cable. And now you're paying more. Yeah. A lot of instances, right? Sure. Because I was going to say it like you combine it all if you pay for Apple,

[01:00:59] if you pay for Hulu, you pay for Netflix, you pay for HBO. Like it all adds up. Does I mean, it's honest. And that's the funny thing is like I never

[01:01:07] for me, it was never the cost. Like I it wasn't the cost for me why I went away from cable into more of a streaming service. It really like literally was cutting the cord. I hated

[01:01:21] all the cords. That's what drove me crazy. Like, because I mean, I've got TVs in every you know, frickin room, TV outside and I just was tired of the A the boxes and the cords

[01:01:34] and just hanging down everywhere. I'm like, I'm over it. And then what really pushed me over the edge was I, you know, and I don't Comcast, I think it's finally changed now. But

[01:01:46] you know, when you're out and about, let's say I'm not by my TV and I wanted to watch the Mariners game, like I want to watch on my phone. Why can I not? I pay for something.

[01:01:56] And I'm not at my home Wi Fi. Why can I not watch it? I'm paying for it. And so that when finally Fubo came out with it, I was like, I'm done. Just done with it. And then

[01:02:07] and I hate Fubo, by the way. That's the other thing. I mean, I hate it. But I have to get it because of you know, they got the Mariners. Because because the root sports. I have an idea

[01:02:15] for you, Jason. Yeah, it's gonna tie in what I was going to ask the last question about what you remember the question like your future content ideas are. But since you're wearing this shirt, and we're talking about streaming at like the idea, the Sonics on

[01:02:28] puck sports calm, you could start amassing some capital for that. You kidding me? Jesus, you imagine with that would be unbelievable. You guys aren't old enough to remember this. But when I was a kid, when I was in high school, they used to be on pay per view.

[01:02:42] You had to pay to watch them. Yeah, it was the game. Yeah, the games were not on games were not they tried that now. The games were not on free TV. You just it was

[01:02:52] not so this was and you got to remember this was the heyday of them too. This is like that there's this is the early 90s that you had to pay a service to go and watch it was

[01:03:03] the Sonics pay per view TV. And I my parents didn't get it. But my neighbor did the Redells and I would I would over the Redells every single night to watch the Sonics play.

[01:03:12] It's crazy. Could you Lyle, could you sit down and pay $5 to watch every Mariner game individually? Yeah, you could. Like I don't I wouldn't want to but I feel like just out of

[01:03:25] so much loyalty is spending my whole life as a fan. I would bring myself to do it. I think it's easier when if like, okay, now imagine if they were imagine if the Mariners were like the the Braves or the Phillies or something or the Dodgers.

[01:03:41] Okay, you do it. That that's what the Sonics were. Right? They were the three of the top five team in the NBA. So people would flock to it. But yeah, I think about that a lot

[01:03:51] now when people say, Oh, this, you know, sports should be free and you have to pay for all this stuff. And I hate streaming. And I always think back when I was in high school,

[01:03:58] I'm like, yeah, we already did that. We did that already with the Sonics. And they were like kind of ground breakers. They did it before anyone. Well, as I think a lot of people

[01:04:06] realize now if you don't want to pay for sports, well, then the sports won't also pay what you want. Pay other things. Well, yeah, I mean, it's what the Mariners realized. And that's the thing. I mean, live sports dominates it, right? That's the reason cable

[01:04:22] is still around. That's why cable still is breathing is because of live sports. And I mean, everyone knows and realizes just how much money it's worth because it's one of these things like

[01:04:33] like for this, like people can go back and listen to this and watch this any time or, you know, within, you know, a couple weeks of it and all that kind of stuff. Live sports, man, you've got to watch it right then and there. It's like I don't

[01:04:45] know if you guys are like this, but I cannot tape a sporting event and watch it later. I cannot do it. I've done it, but it drives me nuts. I need to watch it right away. And if I can't,

[01:04:58] I'll just pick it up where where it is. But I will not sit, you know, and go, all right, I'm going to turn my phone off. I'm going to get home and I'm going to sit and watch it.

[01:05:09] And that's I just don't like it because I want to be watching something at the same time that everybody else is kind of watching it. Right. Right. And especially in this platform, like we need we most likely need to know things when they happen.

[01:05:24] So most likely, like we're so trained now whenever something happens, like there's a notification on our phone. If someone hits a homer, boom, we know right away. So when you're going back and watching the replay, you know that the person at the plate, unless you

[01:05:35] got the notification, probably didn't do anything. You're like, why am I watching this? Yeah, I just I don't know. I Lyle, I don't know if you agree with this. I just feel like

[01:05:44] I'm left out of the party. Yeah, well, I was in terms of in terms of not wanting to record games and stuff. Yeah, like I was going to say that's why it's nice that like so TJ and I

[01:05:54] went to journalism school too at ASU. We met all these like minded people who are just sports nuts. But I was going to say growing up, I would be around at times some people that weren't

[01:06:04] the world's biggest sports fans. And if there was some big game on or something, somebody would suggest if we were out somewhere before they'd say, well, we can just record it. And when we come back, we can we can just start we can just start watching

[01:06:16] then and I being like the sports nut that I am, I tell them absolutely not. And I was adamant about it. I was like, there's no chance while everybody else is an hour ahead. Am I

[01:06:25] starting this thing at the start? There's no way. It's all on the same way. Yeah, let's get a timeout and talk about ASU for a second. Okay. How was that? Just come on. This is worth it better than Pullman.

[01:06:38] I bet it was. Yeah. How you just TJ, you give me a give me I want a description of Milav on a Friday night at seven o'clock. So first of all, Puck, let me let me provide

[01:06:48] some background on my decision making for college choices. I went to hot women and nice weather. I toured wazoo first. Okay, good impression. Yeah, it's great. I was like, well, it's a little small. But it's not it's it's nice out here on this charming.

[01:07:06] So come back and go down to go down to ASU. I think it's mid October. It's what 8087 degrees. Beautiful. And you know, it's a football game day, I think ASU in Colorado, I think

[01:07:18] as you won by 35 that day, then just walking around pretty much exactly what yeah what you said just walking around and I think shorts and probably heard you probably heard the story from Ryan Davis when he walks down Mill Avenue with his with his girlfriend,

[01:07:36] they're looking around and like, yeah, and his his girlfriend says, Yeah, my kids are never going here. So I think that's a pretty accurate description of what you would see on a

[01:07:45] on a on a Friday night. Yeah. All the stories are that Lyle tough decision for you good school. You know, it's funny, I'm the same way as TJ was I was pretty torn between

[01:07:57] Washington State and ASU. And part of it in high school was the fact that I knew so many kids going to Washington State. And I thought that the whole starting over thing and the whole not

[01:08:06] knowing anybody when you got to school, like was kind of an intimidating thing. But I'm glad that there was some portion of my brain that told me, look, the journalism program first

[01:08:16] and foremost, but also the fact that you're in a great area. It's a bunch of fun. There's a ton of things to do. Like, go to ASU if you're that unhappy after a semester or a year

[01:08:26] you can like you can always transfer. But as soon as kind of I got to school and got into the flow of things, I'm like, yeah, this is this is where I was meant to be. This is what I call

[01:08:35] eye candy is pretty damn good. All right. Yeah. But I don't get this about TJ. TJ, you went to ASU. But why have an Oregon State poster behind you? Well, I work here now. I

[01:08:43] work in Corvallis. Oh, you work in Corvallis. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. Pack two. This is almost like a pack two podcast. This is a pack two podcast. I don't know. Why are we not playing multiple times this year in football? I would really piss me off.

[01:08:56] They should have a should have played a home away. They should have a championship game. They should have a championship game. It's a free extra game. Let me ask you this. Now you work for Oregon State. If the Big 12, how fast would Oregon State jump at the Big 12?

[01:09:11] You have to leave wazoo behind before they asked. They would go and say in a second, they would break up their partnership so damn fast. There would be birds flying. Oh, Jesus. I love it. I mean, they're all united now. But if one of these conferences said,

[01:09:27] yeah, we'll take one of you with the other ones out, they're like, okay, we'll see you later. Man. Is that I think that's a good transition to talk some Mariners here, right? We got the college sports talk in there and we're always happy to talk

[01:09:41] ASU because we don't have enough good things to say. I mean, we have too many good things to say about it. But if we're going to transition a little bit, we mentioned Ryan

[01:09:51] Divish, friend of your show. He's on with you every week. You guys have talked about a bunch of different stuff over the last week or so because there's been news and it's a lot of

[01:09:59] the news that everybody's kind of cooking up these days when talking about the Mariners. What could they do with the trade deadline? Because they're probably going to need some bats. So in your perfect world puck, is there a certain guy out there that you want

[01:10:11] to see the Mariners go get all of them? Just anyone that's available that can hit a ball, just someone for the love of God, they just need offense. I mean, think about it. Think about

[01:10:25] like last night's game, right? They let a guy who goes in as we record this, right? So the Wednesday's game against Oakland, the second game in the series. That's the hard...

[01:10:35] ATJ asked me, that's the hardest part I got to do. I can't time stamp anything and I always time stamp everything back in radio. Now on this platform, you can't time stamp anything.

[01:10:47] They let a guy with a damn near 70-yard reg pitch a perfect game against them. I mean, Jesus, what are we doing? Offensively they are so challenged and it's just, they're such a maddening baseball team because pitching wise, they're unbelievable.

[01:11:05] I mean, when Brian Wu is your fifth starter and right now he's like your best starter, that's, it's just ridiculous. Like, you know, from a stat standpoint and it's unbelievable what they

[01:11:20] can do and you can just imagine what they would be in a short series in the playoffs with that pitching staff. I mean, there's look at Brian Wu, he wouldn't even start. Think about that

[01:11:31] for a second. You would take, you would use him out of the bullpen. Like this guy would come in like the fifth inning or the sixth inning and be like, okay, you've got, I don't

[01:11:41] know, 30 pitches, mow them down and he'd just be, he'd be just heat gas. So Perfect World, I mean, listen, they, you know, they could use an outfielder. I mean, I know Luis Robert would

[01:11:56] be out there. I think he'd be a great fit. I think there's going to be issues with all of them, right? Because he hasn't stayed healthy. His work ethic is a little off, but I mean,

[01:12:07] everything else is good. He's fast, he's a good defender. He's clearly good offensively when he is healthy. You know, we, Ryan and I talked a lot about Vlad, Vlad Guerrero Jr., whether or not

[01:12:18] he'll be available or not. I don't really believe the GM of the Blue Jays. I mean, of course he's going to say that. He's trying to drive up the asking price. There's a reason

[01:12:25] they put him over at third base the other day. Not just because, oh, they want to let him play third base because he played there as a rookie. And they're showcasing him a little bit

[01:12:32] to say, hey, he can not only play third or first, but he can also play third. And by the way, like he is on a heater right now. You go look at his numbers since May 1st,

[01:12:42] the last 32 games of the season, he's cooking. He cooked today on Thursday, like he had a great game. So I just, I mean, those guys come to mind just because they may be available. I just think any offensive help that they can get, you know, first,

[01:12:59] another outfielder, third base. You know, second base, he got a hole. I mean, just because of Planko, I don't know what he's going to do. I mean, even if he comes back, he hasn't been

[01:13:08] good. DH, they are just, they are, it's, I'm amazed probably like you guys are probably amazed too. I'm amazed they're in first place. I'm amazed that this many games over 500 with this offense, but that just goes to show you just how good their defense has been. And if

[01:13:28] they just got an offensive scored, I don't know, half a run or more a game. I mean, where would they be? They just, no one would stop them. Oh, fast forward. Let's fast forward to August 1st and like, let's pick,

[01:13:42] I'll have you just, just pick one of the guys that you could see them acquiring out of there. Like how, how would you fit them in and then how would you shuffle what the

[01:13:49] current roster is? Or do you think there are guys on the current roster that should see a downturn in playing time or off the roster by then and then replaced by whoever they would add?

[01:14:04] Well, I just, let's, I'll just, I'll play along cause I know, cause his, it is antagonize a lot of Mariner fans is the been the Guerrero trade because of what the asking price, at least what Ryan said, the asking price was. And that just asked him a question.

[01:14:18] Hey, what would it cost to give him to get him? He gave an answer and people lose their mind. You can't possibly trade coal. I mean, okay. I mean you can trade any of these guys,

[01:14:28] but I'll just take Vlad for a second. I mean, he's my first baseman or it could DH. I mean, you know, I mean, I don't, I think it's a little overblown how bad he is defensively.

[01:14:38] I mean, he made a nice play on, on in during Thursday's game. I mean, he's, his tie France a better defensively third baseman than him. Yeah. But I mean, offensively this guy's a few years removed from finishing second should have won the MVP

[01:14:50] you know, the year he finished second. So he's having a down year, but you know, his numbers are still good and they're trending up now as the season has gone on. Who would it mean less playing time for probably Mitch Garver, you know,

[01:15:04] Mitch Garver would be the odd man out, you know, in a scenario like that. So, you know, the risk of adding someone like him would be okay. You got them for another year and what do you make this year? Like 19 million. So you get them for another year

[01:15:19] and then you've got to pay them. That's, that would be the one thing with Guerrero. I would be leery of because I don't know if I would trust the ownership to pay them.

[01:15:31] And you make a move like that, you know, and you part with those two guys, even know that again, I don't get up obsessed with prospects like others do, but you part with two guys

[01:15:41] like that who are very ranked, very high in your organization. You want to sign someone like Guerrero. And he's only 25. I would be leery if this organization would do it because they don't really sign guys other than Julio to big deals and I'm just not very confident in

[01:15:54] them. I think that's where Luis Robert makes a lot of sense because he signed through 2027 and so he's not a free agent until 28. It's, he's not getting a lot of money anyways. I think it was at 50 million, 60 million somewhere right around in there.

[01:16:10] Okay. If he gets hurt, I just don't think you're investing all that much into him. And then, you know, who's, who's spot does he take? Well, I mean, it's, you know, Mitch Hanniger spot. I mean, it's, it's just the odd man out. And that's unfortunate because I

[01:16:24] think everybody loves Mitch Hanniger, but you got to perform and you got to be healthy and you've got to be available. And he's just, he got off to a pretty good, you know, real good start, but unfortunately they overplayed him. And I think you're starting to, you see

[01:16:37] that overplaying of him starting to catch up or has caught up. The outfield bats is kind of where we've found ourselves looking the most. And sure, like Vlad is going to be an option. There's no doubt, but we even threw this idea out there

[01:16:49] in the sense of what the Mariners could do. And I'll run this by you. See what you think is they turn Mitch Garver more into the backup catcher. You let them play him against lefties because that's where he really thrives. You call Tyler Locklear up him and

[01:17:03] Ty Frans can split time between DH and first base. And the outfield is where you go really look to trade for an impact bat like Robert, for example. Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't get the Savala thing at all. I don't get it. And it was

[01:17:17] highlighted this week because I guaranteed the decision in the game and get the second game against Oakland not to pinch run for, for Cal Raleigh with Ryan Bliss was because he didn't want to catch Savala because he's terrible. And okay, then why is he on the

[01:17:35] team? Like just going to get rid of them, just move on because for Scott's service, there is in a, in a one run ball game or was it two nothing at that point? No, it was two one.

[01:17:47] There is no other reason to not why is Ryan Bliss on the team. He's there to, to run play defense and run. He's fast. He's fast as hell. And you chose not to

[01:17:57] pinch run him because I don't know. He never was asked about it in his press conference, but I believe it was because he knew if he tied the game,

[01:18:06] he'd have to go to Savala in the bottom of the ninth or the 10th and he doesn't trust them to catch. And that's, that's terrible. So I loved it. I liked the idea. I think maybe it'd be good

[01:18:16] for Mitch Garver. Um, you know, clearly being a full-time DH isn't hasn't helped him. You know, he struggled with it. Last thing from me, Puck. So we saw this past week, the first

[01:18:28] domino of, I would say accountability or line of fire or scapegoat or however you want to frame it fall this week with Brian Brown getting let go is do you have, do you have a sense of who

[01:18:38] you think would be next? Is there any, is it a play? Could it be a player? Could it be, is it another coach? Is it something in like that move shows, I think like,

[01:18:52] like it's business time. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to think, um, I don't know what player they, you know, I mean, I don't know if I can do anything with

[01:19:03] Garver. They're paying them. Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't maybe another coach, but I mean, I think that was their move, right? TJ, I think that was the move. The move was, Hey, we are going to sacrifice Grant Brown and it's because you guys haven't performed.

[01:19:20] See, for me that firing of Brown for me was put into motion in the off season because they didn't do anything. I mean, he can only coach the players you give them and you gave them, you know, you can give them good players. You went on the cheap,

[01:19:34] you got cheap players. That's what happens when you, when you get cheap players who are injured and you don't pay him any money. Like you're not going to pay injured players money. You're going to get those results and that's the results they've gotten right. Nothing from

[01:19:47] Garver. Nothing from Polanco, nothing from Mitch Hanniger. Those were your three big off season moves and you got nothing to show for it. Really? Yeah. Nothing at all. So, you know, they had to sacrifice Brown. I mean, I don't know like, dude, was he giving them too much

[01:20:04] information behind the scenes? It kind of sounds like that, right? Kind of sounds like maybe he was overloading them with too much stuff and, and they got, you know, just too much information. But they've always kind of been an organization that gives a lot of info and,

[01:20:17] I mean, I think less is more, especially when it comes to hitting. You know, I always compare like hitting to golf, you know, hitting a golf ball. Like I think some of these guys that get

[01:20:25] out there with the track man and golf and analyzing their swing left and right, I just think it's way too much. I think you'd get up there, you hit the ball, you kind of feel

[01:20:34] where the ball's coming off the face of the club and you can kind of react and adjust everything to that. I think sometimes with, with hitting, you know, I always go back,

[01:20:43] I always go back to Tony Gwynn who's the like greatest hitter of all time. And he had like, he had two rules. His rules were make sure you're balanced and then take the knob of

[01:20:53] the bat to the ball. That was his two rules. That's it. That's all he ever had. And, you know, I think he was a pretty good hitter, you know, back in his day. And so,

[01:21:03] yeah, I don't know. I think for Brown it was, they should have fired the guy where they immediately named him the offensive coordinator. That's when they should have fired him. The dumbest thing I've ever, that's probably the dumbest thing the organization's ever done, name him an

[01:21:17] offensive coordinator, not football. Yeah. Well, I mean, hopefully the bats start to wake up here soon. Does that light a fire? We'll find out. Are they going to trade for some bats? We'll find out in the coming months. But yeah, like there's no doubt there, there's going

[01:21:31] to be moves to be made. And I think it's going to be interesting to see what they do here in the coming weeks. So I guess we'll all be on watch. I mean, I think that, I mean, if they don't do

[01:21:41] something this year, Jesus, I mean, yeah, I mean, this will be, this, this will be the worst year that they stand pat. Absolutely the worst year because the division's terrible. They should win the division easily. They really should. And then I look at the rest of

[01:21:58] the American league and I don't, I don't know. I mean, who's, who honestly scares you in a series? Like, I mean, really puts a absolute fear in you. I mean, I know the Yankees are

[01:22:08] playing great and they're playing awesome. And if Garrett Cole comes back and he's great, then you're like, Oh Jesus, Hey, you're scared to death of those guys. And you're scared to

[01:22:14] death to go play in there, right? Go play in that little softball field they got. But I mean, their pitching staff, what I mean, think about again, Miller and Wu are coming out of your

[01:22:24] bullpen. I mean, no one else has that. Right? So just a few more bats. They just need to score like half a run more and they'll be fine. They can be a league average offense. Yeah. I think

[01:22:38] they can, they can go a long way. That's, that's what I'll say. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, Pac, this has been really fun. Thanks so much for letting us talk to you for a bit,

[01:22:48] coming and hang out, hanging out on our show. Hopefully our listeners are interested to check out your new stuff and follow your new journey. And hopefully we get the chance to do this again soon. Anytime, fellas, anytime. I enjoyed it very much. Hope you guys enjoyed the conversation

[01:23:04] with Jason Puckett. That was a bunch of fun. We enjoyed having him on big time. Make sure once again, go check out all of his work that's over at puck sports.com. With that, that'll

[01:23:13] just about wrap up this edition of the Marine Lair podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to listen to the full form podcast, you can do so wherever you get your

[01:23:20] audio pods. Make sure to download, leave a five star review. We have a written review. It all helps make sure to like comment, subscribe over on YouTube and go check us out on social media. We're posting every day on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube shorts at Marine Lair pod.

[01:23:34] That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.