Episode 20: Jim Callis (MLB Pipeline), And Mariners' Minor League Preview

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode twenty of The Marine Layer Podcast with TJ. Matthewson and Lyle Goldstein. On today's pod, it's our Minor League Preview. We'll take a look at the Mariners entire minor league system and how it projects out for the twenty twenty three season with Jim Kallis of MLB dot Com and MLB Pipeline. Well, of course, answer a listener question, and as always we will close out the show which speak your mind. Let's get it rolling, and we welcome you into this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast on Monday, March twentieth. Lyle, how's your bracket doing? 00:00:49 Speaker 2: It's dead considering I had Arizona winning it all dead? 00:00:54 Speaker 1: That's brutal, you know the way I put it. I think it's so funny that Arizona essentially lost to the guys who will eventually be their boss in future life. Right, those guys at pews that in Princeton, they're gonna be running companies, They're going to be in front offices of NBA teams. Those guys playing on the Arizona basketball team just lost to their future boss. Could you imagine showing up to work in like the point guard for Princeton twenty years later as your CEO, he's like, hey, remember when we were a fifteen and we beat you. 00:01:27 Speaker 2: That would be funny, that would be water cooler talk every single day like that Arizona point guard who works for the Princeton player will never live it down. Honestly, this is probably what I get for picking our rival school to win the whole thing. They go out and lose in the first round. Again, I was just trying to pick a good bracket. But as somebody who tries to think too logically about their picks, Arizona was like a top five team in Kempom offensively. At all these ridiculous wins they won the Pac twelve tournament, I was like, this feels like a pretty safe pick in a year there's no sure thing to win it all. And then they lose in the first round. Welcome to March. 00:02:01 Speaker 1: Except that they didn't have a top forty ken pound defense, which is a key to win in national title. No, wait, top twenty two. I think it is what it's its top forty offense and top twenty two defense one hundred percent since oh four, shame. 00:02:15 Speaker 3: Well, maybe that's where I messed up. I should have. 00:02:18 Speaker 2: I should have realized that they were not a good defense. However, it was not defense that lost from that game. It was the fact that a top five offensive team in the country scored six points in the final eleven minutes. 00:02:31 Speaker 1: That it's so bizarre. I I can't believe that. I'm just gonna toot my own horn. I did a work bracket with a bunch of people I work with at our radio station. I have a perfect Midwest bracket. I'm like, getting a perfect bracket is impossible, but I have a quarter of the bracket that is one hundred percent perfect through two weeks, two rounds. So not to brag, but. 00:02:56 Speaker 3: Now I'm gonna tip. 00:02:59 Speaker 2: I'm gonna tip my cap to that, because to even pick a quadrant of the bracket perfect, it's pretty ridiculous. 00:03:06 Speaker 1: So if if the genies out of the bottle and telling us what's gonna happen this weekend, Houston's gonna beat Miami, Xavier is gonna beat Texas, and then Houston is gonna beat Xavier and snag one of the spots in the final four. 00:03:20 Speaker 2: It's go Kook's right, Sure, Hey, what percentile are you in your bracket? 00:03:27 Speaker 1: Uh? So my Work one does not have a percentile. We're using a not so great service to provide our bracket. I can pull up my ESPN one here if you give me like two seconds, that's my while you're taking it. I think it's in like the I think it's in like the sixtieth percentile. To be honest, I don't think. I don't think it's very good. I have Alabama in my work bracket, and I believe I have Houston with this one. If we find it's fine. 00:03:55 Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's wild because my bracket percentile wise it's like just below the eightieth percentile. A lot of my picks have actually been good, like I had firm and over Virginia for example. But well I know that well yeah, but hey, to be fair, three of my final four teams are still in. I think six of my final Elite eight teams are still in. It's just it's obviously going to end terribly because my winner lost in the first round. 00:04:20 Speaker 1: The one bracket I have that is that that is ESPN is in seventy seventh percentile, which is good. So I have Houston over Houston over Alabama. I have Alabama and Houston in my final regardless in both brackets. So if that happens, I'm doing pretty well. I know a good chunk of the country probably also has Houston in Alabama in the in the in the final. Judging that if you had Kansas or if you had Purdue in your final, well you're kind of fucked now. There's there's there's nothing that's gonna save you. So, man, what a joke. God produce such a joke. I mean, how do you have someone Can you explain to me how you have a seven foot four player facing the shortest team in the tournament, who's tallest players six foot six, and you still lose. 00:05:13 Speaker 2: Well because they're a one man show. And if you watch the end of that game, like everybody else on Perdue looked afraid to shoot the ball. It was just give it to Edie, Give it to Edie, like nobody else wanted to do anything. At least that's how it looked. 00:05:26 Speaker 1: That's crazy. Perdue got fairly dicked. How about that? Does that roll off the tongue? 00:05:32 Speaker 2: Apparently fairly? It does? Apparently fairly. Dickinson's name is fairly ridiculous. That's what everybody on the East Coast calls them. But not so ridiculous, actually very ridiculous this weekend, considering they did with only one other sixteen seeds ever done. 00:05:47 Speaker 1: Before we go to baseball, would you just like to get something off your chest about about Virginia. 00:05:54 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean they just continue to do what they always do, except the one year I kind of puffed my chest out about it saying they were absolutely gonna lose and then they won it all. But other than that, they do seem to do this every year where they're like a somewhere between a one and a five seed and they get bounced in the first round because you know they've been in twenty eight. 00:06:13 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:06:14 Speaker 1: No, I was just say them and Purdue pretty much. So Purdue is now lost to a thirteen, a fifteen, and a sixteen in consecutive years, and Virginia has lost to a sixteen, won a national title, and then went first round, first round. So three first round exits in a national championship. 00:06:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's how it goes. I guess that that Tony Bennett style of basketball works when you have a team like they did in twenty nineteen, where you know they had some real players on that team like DeAndre Hunter. But when they get down, especially with guys that aren't supreme athletes, you know, it's hard for those guys to come back. And that's why sometimes when they run up against an athletic team, they kind of falter in the tournament. 00:06:56 Speaker 3: So it happened again. 00:07:00 Speaker 1: It is a it is a good time of year. I've I've really enjoyed the first couple of days of this basketball tournament. Let's get to baseball though, a little bit of Mariners news this week before we get into our our minor league preview with Jim Kallis. Dylan Moore strained his oblique grade one strain and he will be out two to four weeks. He will be not participating in any baseball activities two to four weeks. You will miss opening Day. No great, it it's it's it. It is not great. And I think the perspective that we're sort of understanding now is relying on more than one platoon means you're relying on more guys to be healthy when the season starts, and then when one guy isn't healthy, the things sort of cascade around it a little bit. 00:07:50 Speaker 2: The Mariners are not the deepest team in the world in terms of position players. 00:07:53 Speaker 3: We know that. 00:07:55 Speaker 2: The good news is it's not a long term injury for Dylan Moore. It's not like he's gonna miss four months. Like he should be back at the latest. I would think by I'll say early May, because obviously, you know, once he comes back from baseball activity, he'll have to get some swings in and then I'll need some live at bats. He'll probably go to Triple A for a few games, so I would guess around early May at the latest. But I think the Mariners can survive without him for the time being. But you're right, they are going to have to rely on some guys they probably weren't hoping to, and it could be somebody like Mason McCoy. 00:08:25 Speaker 1: Colton Wong didn't show anything last year that he's at this point of his career could hit competently against lefties, which is an issue. So you face some good lefties like a Frame or Valdez in your own division, let alone, or Martine Perez too, let alone across the entire league. It's just it's not favorable because and Demo's not just a second baseman, he's also again probably your best backup corner outfielder. As well. So it's so it's a Mason McCoy show where you trade for somebody. I don't know that. Would they trade Chris Flexen to try and get an infel at this point of the season, I don't know. I hope this isn't a nagging injury because it could nag the Mariners all season, that's for sure. 00:09:10 Speaker 2: If it was up to me. And again obviously it's not. I'm not the GM or the president of Baseball Ops. But Sam Haggerty hits lefties pretty well. I mean, you could have him fill that second base platoon role while Dylan Moore's out. Haggarty can play some other positions. Obviously you can play outfield, but if you need a final spot, Cad Marlow was swinging it in spring training, not to mention the fact he was on the taxi squad during the playoffs. The Mariners clearly think he is a borderline big leaguer. I don't know, Like, if you're trying to get the best bats on the roster, that might be the way I go over McCoy, But the Mariners may opt for defense over offense and go with McCoy. 00:09:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, Mason McCoy is a pretty good shortstop down at the Triple A level last year. Defensively at least, he also hit pretty well, especially towards the end of the season. So we're thinking Haggarty. So Haggarty's essentially your full time backup infielder at that point. The only problem is you can trust Ellan more at all four in field positions. Do the Mariners trust Sam Haggerty at all four in field positions, because that's the role he would be taking over essentially, And if they don't, if they're like, hey, Sam, maybe you know, we don't feel you as a shortstop and we don't want to play you at third base if possible, then I think you have to go with Mason McCoy instead of an outfield bat and Kate Marlowe, because you think about, like, where's Kate marlow getting in the lineup? Ever, if he makes the roster, like where where's he slotting in? 00:10:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, he may not be anything more than a bench bat and a backup outfielder. And you're right, I'm not sure the Mariners trust Haggarty to play shortstop or first base. They might feel better with McCoy doing that. So if it's about defense again, they'll probably ought to go with McCoy. Plus McCoy still in big league camp and Marlow did get optioned. 00:10:58 Speaker 1: Now hear me out lyle Isaiah Kiner Filepa. 00:11:04 Speaker 2: Again, I don't really want to trade Chris Flexen, like the Mariners had depth problems in the rotation forever, like I'd rather keep them. 00:11:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, that was kind of a joke because I don't see anything positive on Twitter. I mean, there's nothing ever positive on Twitter, but especially about IKF. Just if I ever scroll onto Yankees Twitter, usually someone's bitching in IKF is usually like pretty often he's a subject of it. So I mean, I'm probably good. I just thought it was funny. 00:11:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he's a good defender, but I know he didn't play well in the Bronx last year. And you know how Yankee fans are. Somebody doesn't perform in pinch stripes, they'll let you hear about it. So I'm gonna guess the Mariners opt to just go with some positions in house. Speaking of in house, we've got our Minor League preview coming up this week. 00:11:53 Speaker 3: The Great Show. 00:11:54 Speaker 2: We had Jim Kallis on of MLB Pipeline and MLB Dot com breaking down a ton of prospects with us for an episode like this where we're doing a full minor league episode, I feel like that's about as good a guess as we can have on. I mean, now, obviously a white whale of this podcast would be to get somebody like Jerry Depoto on, which would be awesome, But of course if you work for the team, you're gonna prop up your own guys. Where Jim writes for a third party website, he can give an unbiased perspective on everybody, and he gives some pretty good breakdowns on some guys. 00:12:27 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was really pleased. I think we spend some time going through most of the top ten and then scattered throughout the rest of the system and sort of how the system projects throughout the season. Jim is very in depth with his breakdowns, which I like, so it's really good good getting some analysis from him, especially maybe a little bit of an insight of how they view the system overall. They haven't done their overall system rankings yet for pre season rankings for systems for farm systems, so it's good to sort of get that from Jim Callus to to preview this season. The minor league season. Minor league's break camp. They break camp at the end of this week, so it'll be a couple days after this podcast ends. I know because a certain minor league friend of ours will be sleeping on my couch on Saturday or Sunday night, so we'll be looking up and then he'll be up in your neck of the woods screaming at your front door. In uh what, We'll give it a week, I think. 00:13:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll be up in Tacoma. 00:13:29 Speaker 1: With re we go. Let's get to our interview now with Jim Kallis. 00:13:35 Speaker 2: Before we get to our interview with Jim Kallis, we're gonna have a bonus episode release this Friday. TJ and I'll do our prediction show where we make our season predictions for the Mariners win total, some player props, and a whole lot more. We're still gonna have a normal episode next Wednesday with another great guest, but be sure to check out this bonus episode on Friday as well for our season prediction show. We welcome Jim Kallus onto the Marine Layer podcast. Jim's a senior writer for MLB dot Com and MLB Pipeline. You can occasionally occasionally catch Jim on the MLB Network as well. Jim, thanks so much for taking some time with us today. How busy has your spring been so far? 00:14:14 Speaker 4: This actually feels a little bit lighter, Like we just got done doing all of our top thirty prospects lists. And there have been years where I've been running around spring training and trying to write top thirty prospect lists at the same time. And so this year, the way my schedule worked out, all my lists are done, so it feels a lot more relaxed than some years. And I mean, really, it's been nice. And this is first time since twenty nineteen we've had a spring training that hasn't been altered either by the pandemic or by the lockout, so it's kind of business as usual. So it's actually been as enjoyable as can be. My four or five days in Arizona so far. 00:14:54 Speaker 2: Sounds like you enjoy your time a little bit more in Arizona than you do in Florida, at least talking to you a little bit before this recording started. 00:15:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just I mean, nothing against the greatest state of Florida. It's just it's a lot easy. The spring training set up is definitely better. In Arizona, all the teams are an hour might be on the high end, like all the teams are within I think you can stay anywhere kind of in the radius and get to any of the parks in forty five minutes. And Florida is a lot more driving, a lot more humidity. So I'm headed to Florida, so hopefully I will enjoy Florida almost as much as if I've enjoyed Arizona so far. 00:15:29 Speaker 1: And all the teams in Arizona for the most part, Sands, I think the Angels and the Cubs all share a facility. I think in the A's too, they all share a facility, so it cuts down on that travel even more. But in Florida that's not really the case. I don't have a memorized Jim, do you remember which teams in Florida share Do any of them share? 00:15:49 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's and in fact, I'm going I'm getting kind of easy part of Florida's And again, the five teams are close together, but Houston and Washington share West Palm Beach and Flow, the Miami and Miami and Saint Louis shared Jupiter and Jupiter and West Palm Beach are within like a half hour of each other, so so yeah, but it's it's it's a totally different setup, you know. Out here. I think the Brewers are so low there's one other team, but the Giants are solow. But I think there's five pairs of teams that share facilities out here, and so it's nice, is you double, Like I went out to do White Sox stuff today, but I also I do our White Sox list and do our Dodgers list just coincidentally, and they were playing the Dodgers on the backfield, so I got to see a bunch of you know, and I went from one end of the complex to the other. So it was it was a great time. But yeah, it's uh, spring training, very very fun time of year. 00:16:48 Speaker 2: Well, before we get into some Mariners talk more on this show, I did want to ask you a little bit about your career and how you've kind of built your way up to where you are now, because you're now, I mean, very arguably the too prospect writer in the whole industry, So how did you kind of work your way up to that? 00:17:04 Speaker 3: As time's gone on. 00:17:05 Speaker 4: I guess I've gotten old, but it's it's nice to hear to say loud. You know, it's funny because I mean I will sound old here, but like when I started, the industry was totally different. I mean, there really weren't places covering prospects other than Baseball America and I read I remember when you know, there was no Internet back then. This was in eighties when I started getting Baseball America and it's just like, wow, they're covering the minor leagues, college baseball, and nobody else is covering this and you couldn't really ESPN had maybe a College Game of the Week in the College World Series. We couldn't even really see much of those teams or players. The minor leaguers got almost no publicity before that. You know, there was none of this build up for Julio Rodriguez. Like like Kate Wick, when I started Baseball America, there was probably more hype for Kan Griffith Junior than there ever had been. And it's like a small small percentage of what the hype was for Julio Rodrigaz last year. Like everybody knew Julio. You'd seen videos of Julio, You've seen who Holio speak on social media, You've seen him play on TV, you know, and all this stuff. It was different. But anyway, I covered baseball at the University of Georgia and I covered a lot of sports there, and I just I thought Baseball America was just like a really cool magazine and they had a very small staff at the time, and I got an internship there. And back then, you know, the industry is a lot different too. I mean, there was no Internet, there were no blogs, there were no podcasts, there wasn't there weren't really regional sports networks except with a couple exceptions. And so if you wanted to write, if you want to go into sports writing, you would basically go work for your local paper and compile ag it and cover high school football on Friday nights. And maybe you get a chance to write a feature now and then, and you kind of have to wait for an opportunity. And you know, now, obviously you could show I mean, you guys are doing a podcast right now, and people can blog, and you can you know, record video and do your own you know TV show you and posted on the on the net and people can see it. But it was a great aptitude for me in Baseball America because instead of you know, well, I was the fourth full time editorial employee at the time. So instead of like you know, compiling box scores and common high school football, you know, I was the main college baseball writer, and I was helping out on the draft and prospect coverage, and I was assigning stories and editing stories, and I think I was the photo editor at the time. I mean, everybody had to do everything because there was only four of us and we came out every two weeks, and so I was just fortunate right off the bat, instead of I mean I worked real hard, but I didn't really have to pay my dues of doing you know, groat work of you know, compiling box scores or whatever, or you know, pulling type off the ap wire. I was going to college World Series right away. I went to Cuba for the Pan Am Games when I was I guess what, twenty three years old. I was covering the Olympics in Barcelona at twenty four, and so I was it was like right place, right time, and you know, you kind of do stuff long enough, and I guess I've been doing this for my thirty fifth year now old, and you just build up contacts and the like that I think it was great about Baseball America too. Was Alan Simpson, who founded the magazine basically just because he loved the minor leagues, He loved college base all this stuff the Sporting News used to cover in the seventies and then got away from when they started to become more of an all sports magazine or the Big four sports type of magazine. Alan like he just did things right. Like when he did draft rankings or prospect rankings, he cared about getting I mean getting I mean, you don't know that you're right at the time, but he cared about doing them right and getting them right rather than you know, trying to, you know, do something shocking or outlandish to draw at tension. And I think that everybody in baseball really respected the way Allan went about it. And so from day one, I mean it was shocking to me. You know, I was twenty one years old, and like I could call like I remember calling Josh Shirholds it was a Gym of the Braves in spring training, and like he didn't know how ill I was, and he called me back in like fifteen minutes because I could say Jim Cows from Baseball America was a message and you just had people like. It was great at starting and I mean again, I mean I worked in probably sixty hour weeks all the time because we were doing everything. But it was cool, like anybody I wanted to talk to him Baseball would basically call me back because I was with Baseball Americas, So I did, you know, it's funny. I mean, I'm doing a lot of the same stuff, not really covering college baseball the same way, but doing a lot of the same stuff I was doing thirty five years ago, and it's still interested me. I still like trying to figure out, you know, which prospects are the best or who's going wearing the draft. But I give a lot of credit to Baseball America and Alan Simpson kind of for showing me how to go about doing this type of stuff when nobody else was doing it. And it's a good process. And you know, you know, I think if you do this for a number of years, you know, people know they could trust you and tell you stuff candidly and you're not gonna, you know, attribute it to them or sometimes people tell you stuff so I don't want to see, you know, don't write this, but you know, blah, blah blah. When you're talking about players and they know that you're you know, you could be trusted. You know, that just kind of builds and and and it makes it easier over the years to kind of build sources and talk to sources, and you know, with the draft, with the draft especially, it's kind of nice because it's kind of a two way street. Like a lot of times what we're doing prospect coverage, like I don't do our marriage list, but when I'm doing you know, whoever's list I'm doing, Like teams know how good their players are or you know, good or bad or whatever, but with the draft, like they may not have scouted a guy as heavily, and so we get asked all time and you know, what are you hearing on this guy? Are teams talking about him? Or even in the first round the draft at least until you could trade picks, you know, and then we'll probably be down the NFL path where everybody last everybody. But you can't trade picks in MLB draft, so it's not like everybody tells us this is who we're picking. But you could kind of be like a clearinghouse in a way of like if a team's picking eighteenth, Like I want to know who they're hearing might go fourteen fifteen, sixteen seventeen, but they want to hear who I'm hearing because I'm talking to like I'm spending a lot more time worrying about who's going where than the team is. And so it's like kind of a two way street. Like I always enjoy that where I feel like it's not just me calling up and asking like, hey, how good is this guy? How's good to that guy? I mean, oversimplifying it, but like I can actually exchange information, so that too, Like when you having again done this forever, you know you've helped so many people over the years as they've helped you, it just makes it easier. Then it's weird, like I've been doing this long enough. I mean, there are I don't know, if Tom ahead, there are a lot of gms who I used to talk to when they were a farm director or scouting director or whatever who you know. Mean, shoot, there's a lot of there's some farm directors of scouting directors I remember talking to when they're players and obviously let me do this long enough. There's a lot of prospects I remember their dads covering their dads as prospects. So I think it gets easier after you've done it for a long time and just you kind of build more and more sources. 00:23:58 Speaker 2: The Mariners farm system has gone through so drastic changes because all the blue chip guys you heard about are in the big leagues now a lot of them are having a lot of success, but now their farm as a result looks different. So from your view, how different does it look compared to years past, and what are some of the strengths and weakness as of the farm system now? 00:24:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean when Jerry Depotto at the beginning, you know, he was trading everybody left and right, and there was a while I don't even think they had a top one hundred prospects on the list. And then when they come into rebuilding and they're making trades for prospects and not trading prospects away. Their farm system was one of the best of the game. And then obviously, you know, you graduate, Olier Rodriguez, you graduate. I still I'm still not sure what to make of Jerry Kelnick. But Jerry Kelnick was an elite, elite prospect, you know, like George Kirby graduated. Why am I drawing. I've drawn a total blank on the picture from Stetson Logan Gilbert. I couldn't come. I was thinking Logan Warmouth, the guy North Carolina is not a career. I knew it wasn't Logan Warmouth. Bus get hung up. But you're graduating guys like that who are all like upreachelon prospects, you know your system is going to take a hit. I mean, I still think they have some interesting guys, and I think it's the farm system rankings. We haven't done our new ones yet, so I don't know what we're gonna have. The marriage exactly are so cyclical because it's like a team like the Dodgers right now, where the Braves when they were on their long stretch of win division titles or the exception, where you win and your farm system remains strong every year because especially now with the bonus pool system internationally in in the draft, if you win, you get less money spent on the draft, and so you can't even if you're your team that's willing to spend ten twelve million on the draft every year, if you win, you might have a five or six million dollars bonus pool and can't do that. So, I mean, the nice thing I think is from the Mariner's standpoint is they do have a number of interesting guys. They brought in a bunch of interesting guys last year. You know Cole Young, you know Ford at the top of the draft, you know fell In Celliston, you know, just out of the most recent international period. So it's just it's like, where's the last couple of years, last two three years, you had a bunch of prospects, you know, on the verge of making the best prospects, on the verge of making their big league debuts. Now a lot of their better prospects are, you know, probably two three years away. 00:26:25 Speaker 1: What do you think the upside of it like is this is this? Uh say, we check back in at the end of July with this system where the Mariner's best prospects, as you just mentioned, are all young guys. Harry Ford's young Celliston who they just signed as young. I mean, we like lazarro Montes who they signed last year in the international class, young Cole Young from the twenty twenty two drafts number twenty one overall pick a nineteen year old, plus three first round picks in the first round uh in the first round in this upcoming July draft. So say we check in on this system in July, is there a real chicks that it's you know, back near the top fifteen. 00:27:04 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's too. It's weird too, because farm system, the rankings are very vulnerable, you know, because again most you know, prospects don't develop in a linear fashion where you know, the guys gets gradually better gradually, but you know, guys get better, guys get worse, guys get hurt, you know, and and so like they could their young guys are super interesting, but like you mentioned, like a lot of those guys haven't really done much yet or even have the opportunity. Walter Ford's another super interesting guy who would have been in this year's draft if you hadn't really classified, and I think he could take a big step forward too. So if you get these guys who go out and they start playing you know, full season ball, you know, Celiston will probably play rookie ball obviously somewhere because he's just seventeen. But these guys go out and they start to play well, Like I mean, Coleye only didn't miss our top one hundred by much you know Selston, it's hard to go crazy on inter national guys early, so he's maybe you know, a year or so away from the top of one hundred. But like maybe Gay Roganzales cractics the top one hundred. Maybe you know, I don't want to make it Ederson Hancock, maybe i'mon Hancock jumps back in. But yeah, I do think they have a number of guys who with upside, like you mentioned with three early picks in the draft, like that's you know, I can't remember. I don't know if you guys probably do it better than me, like what exactly his picks are, but like you know, that might be like a top one hundred guy and then a couple of guys who are close to making the top one hundred. So like, yeah, I think when we do our mid season rankings, it probably makes it like if I had to guess, they probably will move up because A of the draft picks and b they're not losing guys like I don't think looking at their top ten prospects lists. I mean maybe Bryce Miller, like his just stuff's pretty good, he can move fast. But outside Bryce Miller, I don't think they're really gonna lose any of their top prospects to the big leagues. And if they're younger guys get better or even are as good as we think they are, and they just prove it against better competition, then they're gonna look stronger too. And Tyler the Locklerson that the guy should have mentioned the Lasty's draft who you know, we'll see where he fits position. But he hit the ball. He hits the ball that as hard as anybody out of last year's draft class. And I mean like the entire draft class, not just the Mariner's draft class, and so like, as those guys get more established, I think the system could look, you know, significantly better at midseason. 00:29:17 Speaker 2: Their top prospect, of course, being Harry Ford catcher taken in the first round of the twenty twenty one draft. When you guys described him and on his bio on the MLB Pipeline website, there's some comparisons that you guys gave him to Craig Vigio, who obviously the Hall of Famer. But what about his game warrants that comparison. 00:29:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's just you just don't see catchers who are as athletic as Harry. I mean, he's a plus runner, like he could I think he could legitimately. Legitimately, you could probably play him almost anywhere in the diamond, you know, from an athletic standpoint, I mean he's got plus arm strength and plus speed, and you know, you know, maybe you get to a point at some point where you're like like Dasher's do with Bigio, Like, look, this guy is really athletic. Do we want the catching to grind that out of him? And do we want you know, maybe the offense to blossom even more if he's not getting worn down by catching. But like, I think that's the main reason. And yeah, I mean he's obviously the pride of Great Britain that right now, as well as the pride of Seattle. But I mean he can hit two, you know, super young, super athletic. You just don't see many catchers like that. I mean, you know, Vigio is one. You know, Mahler was kind of a taller athlete. You know, he Harry Ford's got more of that Vigio build. But like that's why it's just it's it's just really unusual athleticism for a catcher. 00:30:48 Speaker 1: How valuable is that WBC experience you you could make the case that throwing a twenty year old into a tournament with a bunch of you know, grown you know, professionals, could be detrimental to their their progress. He could you know, shake the confidence a little bit. But I don't think that's the case for Harry. He's he's thrived in that environment. 00:31:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think the way teams look at it is, you know, like for most of those guys, they're not going to play more than four games anyway, unless you get you know, through the through the round robin. So like even if Ferry Ford went over fifteen, like, it's probably not gonna kid, it's not like, yeah, you're playing a month. And if he hits like one hundred and hundred and twenty at bats, he starts to questioning himself. So I think most teams look at it as a opportunity, like like you could only benefit from it, you know, like like it was it was brief enough that if he struggled, it wouldn't weigh on you. But like yeah, no, I mean yeah again it's it's just four games. But he played very well. He hit a couple of home runs, really didn't name for himself, you know, the I think maybe less so on the Great Britain team just because they have his main big leaguers, But like you get exposed to big leaguers like and I you know, maybe the Mare had guys on other teams. Well, I mean, I don't know who they who they would have run into necessarily, but like he might have be interacted with big leaguers on other teams. It's just kind of being in that kind of big time environment. Like like like, even if he struggled, I think it would have been a positive because I doubt he's ever played in an environment with that kind of electricity and you know, you know at the ballpark and people being interested in it. It just kind of gives you a small taste of hey, like this is what you're gonna be dealing with in the big leagues. And he obviously handled it well too. 00:32:31 Speaker 1: What's the biggest thing you're looking for in his development this year to take that next step as a prospect. 00:32:37 Speaker 4: I think it's probably the catching. Just the consistency of the catching. I mean, I mean, look, you can improve in all faces of your game when the year that young. But I mean he's hit for average. I think there's more power in there, Like, I mean, he's young. You know, catching wears you down. I think, you know, his power is probably gonna bossom a little bit more. He draws a lot of walks, he's got the arm. I think it's just probably, like the biggest need is probably just get more consistent with his receiving. I don't know that, Like that's a really profound statement for me, because like, I think you can say that about any twenty year old catcher, that he can improve his receiving. Like that's just the nature of the game. And he's not terrible. It's not like you look at him you're like, I don't know if Harry can stay on and plate. It's not that at all. It's just he's young, and he hasn't caught a whole lot, you know, professionally, and he needs more experience. 00:33:33 Speaker 2: So going off that with the idea that he's probably athletic enough to play some other positions, is this the year we might start to see the Mariners test him out at a few different positions from time from time to time. 00:33:47 Speaker 4: I don't necessarily think so, I don't. I don't think that you want what. I don't think you want to do is. I don't think you want to just experiment with him for the sake of experimenting, Like if you want him, if you if you're trying to make him a catcher, you wanted to focus on catching. And I think it's like maybe distracting is the best word of it, Like, hey, we're gonna play a little second, we're gonna play a third, we have you run around the outfield, Like that's putting a lot on his plate. I think it's more if you got to the point where you decided, hey, we've got a better defensive option a catcher. I mean, let's say, and I'm not saying they've done this, Let's say that, you know, let's say this year. Let's say cal Ralely goes out and he hits twenty seven homers again, and and you like his defense, and you're like, you know what, we like cal Raley catcher, but we need a second basement. Then you move Harry. Like I think if you're gonna move him, you move him full time. I don't think you say, okay, we're gonna play him, you know, move him here and there and see what he looks like. I think you move him if you're gonna switch his position otherwise, I think you develop him as a catcher because he needs a repspind to play. 00:35:00 Speaker 1: How special is it of his that, you know, he's a nineteen year old kid in his first professional experience playing against you know, some really really talented guys, and he still goes out there, shakes off a two month slow start, and ends the year with a non base percentage of over forty two percent. I mean, that's that's pretty insane for a teenager who who's just getting exposed to the big leagues, the big leagues, to the minor leagues for his first time, and just doesn't seem to be like Wavered at all. 00:35:27 Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. And the I don't think statistics to see. I think that's the importance of statistics or of minor league performance rises as you rise through the minors. Like if he got out hit to thirty with a three thirty on base percentage, I wouldn't have been especially trouble because I would have said, like you just did, Oh, he's nineteen, it's this introduction pro ball. Hey, he's trying to catch too, and like that that requires a lot of time and effort and focus, but the stat like if I had to look at one stat for hitters and for pitchers combos stat but anyway, it would be strike out to walk ratio. He's like, how well you control the strike zone? And that's like what was really impressive is you know, because again I can't under emphasize how demanding catching is. Like this is first, like you know, Harry's coming out of high school, we might play what two or three games a week, and now you're kept playing seven games a week or six games a week, and granted he's not catching all six, but like it's a lot. The season is a lot longer than it was when he was back at high school in Georgia, and to be able to keep that kind of focus and discipline and approach at the plate is really really impressive. And that's why, like I said before, like Gil he only hit eleven homers. He's nineteen years old and low a and I think we'll see more power out of him as he continues to get older and more experienced. Like it was, it was a really impressive year for him. 00:36:53 Speaker 2: Their top pitching prospect, of course, being Bryce Miller fourth round pick out of Texas A and m wasn't not all that big of a build. But man, you look at him in spring training this year, along with the season he had last year, he's generating all the buzz on the Mariners. 00:37:08 Speaker 3: Farm right now. 00:37:09 Speaker 2: What about the improvement or I was just gonna say, what about the improvements he made? Really stood out to people like yourself to say, Okay, his ceiling just jumped up a bit. 00:37:20 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, with him, I think it was really a matter of getting opportunity. Like he spent in your junior college at Blynn and then he transferred to A and M and he was in a bullpen for a couple of years. They had several pitchers. He got drafted and so he really didn't get a chance to start until his draft year. Yeah, I think had we had an rmal draft in twenty twenty, Like he had offers to go in the top five rounds, even though he really hadn't pitched a whole lot. There were teams on him, and you know, he got a chance to play. You know, dominated got to double a He's got that fastball that's in vogue. You know, it's I mean it averages ninety five, which is obviously good, but it's it's just the shape and the carry and then vertical break. Guys just do not hit his fastball. And he's got some power to his slider. He's got a curveball that's a distinct second breaking ball. He's got some feel for change. Even though he hasn't, you know, pitched a lot of innings he didn't really use in the bullpen. He I think the biggest I don't surprise the right word, but the I'll use the word surprise. He got for a guy who doesn't have like the cleanest delivery, Like there's like it's pretty high tempo delivery times. He threw a lot of strikes last year in his pro debut. Again, well you know, I don't know what his career high for innings was at A and M, but it wasn't you know, he pitched one hundred and thirty four innings last year for the Mariners in the minors. It wasn't it wasn't close to one hundred and thirty four. And that you know, he was able to keep his stuff all year and throw strikes all year. So he's he's pretty I actually think it's weird because we rate prospects. I guess I shouldn't say anybody's underrated, because we should just rate them higher if that's the case. But like I do think he's underrated as a prospect a little bit just to general maybe you know, he wasn't a first round pick, and he wasn't you know, a three year starter at A and M. But his stuff is really really good. 00:39:11 Speaker 1: What about what is it about the Mariners development that really allowed him to sort of burst because like we could, you could always see the talent and you mention, guys are on him even in his junior year when he's not playing all that much at A and M. But he was kind of a middling college pitcher, right if we look at results, the results really just weren't there for him. And he comes into the Mariners system and his you know, his walk rate especially just plummets. His whip is you know, right around one after sitting at around one three, one four while he's in college, and all of a sudden, it's like, hey, I'm striking guys out, I'm not gonna walk anyone, and really just all of a sudden, I burst onto the scene as a top one hundred pitcher. Yeah, as a fourth round pick. I just think it's kind of crazy, and I'm curious what you think really clicked for him. 00:39:55 Speaker 4: You know, I don't think it's so much that they did anything like they changed anything or anything like super significant along those lines. And especially to like when you draft a guy usually let him kind of go out there and showed he could do before you start making changes, you know, especially with pitchers. I think it was as much as anything, probably the confidence they gave him. But like, look, it's different, like you're not an SEC. You're trying to win, Like I mean, you are trying to develop your players too, but they see programs. If you don't win, the coach is getting fired. Like it's not going to be like, oh, he's produced a lot of big leaguers. No, you need to win or they're gonna have a new coach. And you know, if you look like his role kind of changed, and you know, he bounced back and forth a little bit between starting and relieving, even even in his final year there. And I think, yeah, I think the consensus from St. Texas is one of my draft states, So he was the guy I had in the draft, and talking to scouts is he was the kind of guy they felt would be better as a pro when it's like, look, just go out there and pitched. You don't have to worry if you if you walk a guy or you walk two guys, might be a quick cook, or you might be out of the rotation this week into the bullpen the next. Like, we think you're a start, you know, once he gets him says we think your starter. Just go out there, work on your pitches. You let the results happen, don't worry about it. You're a starter. I think that might have been as important as anything. 00:41:18 Speaker 1: Really, do you see him as a starter in the big leagues with with that delivery? 00:41:24 Speaker 4: I do. I mean here's the thing, like this is something else that's changed a lot. So you know, back in the day, you know got his starters will go you know seven, Yeah, I remember when the quality starts start being used, people are like six innings, that's not a quality start, Like what are you talking about six innings? Now? Now if your start to go six innings, you're like, oh my god, Like you know he went through the order a third time, right, part it's totally different. And so back in the day, when you wanted a guy who had that really clean delivery that he could repeat, because you know, you want to be able to throw one hundred and twenty pitches and go nine. We're not asking guys to do that anymore. Like pretty much everybody, it's like, go out there, max out your stuff, and when you get tired, we're gonna bring in the next guy. And unless you you know, you're an elite, elite starter, most of your starters, you're gonna pitch, you know, five or so innings, and we're not really gonna have you go through the order the third time that much. So you know, I guess what I'm saying is like, do I think like Bryce Miller's delivery would be conducive to pitching two hundred and twenty five innings in a season. No, not really, but we're not asking guys to do that anymore. So Yeah, I think he's a starter. I think he's got like a wlowbo of average fastball, solid plus slider, curveball and change up perffective, and he throws enough strikes like there's a pretty good pitcher. I mean, you could also argue you don't really need a third pitch to start these days either, because you're not only going through the order twice, but he's he's got enough pitches, he's got enough feel that do think he's a starter. 00:43:03 Speaker 2: So long term you have the confidence that he's a starter. But for this year, obviously, the Mariners have some pretty good depth in their rotation between the big four and Castillo, Ray, Gilbert Kirby, Marco Gonzalez is going to be the five. They even have Chris Flexen in their bullpen. But if Bryce Miller starts dominating in the miners again and they're ready to bring him up, do you think they wait until there's a potential opening in the rotation or do you think they take the Julio Urias Dustin Mayrouth that the Dodgers did and kind of start him in the bullpen and just let him get some big beginnings until he eventually moves to a starter. 00:43:35 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the ladder low because it's one again. Stars aren't going that deep, so you can use him the role where it's maybe pitching three things at a time in relief, and you know, like, I mean, that's a valuable role too, And I actually think that's a great way to break guys into the big leagues. I go back to when I was a kid growing up in Northern Virginia and we didn't have a team and watch and the closest team was Oriol So we had Oels games on TV. And the Oils had a lot of success with pitching. Now, one of the reasons was they had like some great defensive teams or a weaver I think was ahead of the game and realizing how much defense impacted pitching. But the other thing they did, and they were really successful with it, they very rarely had rookies come up and debut as starters, in part because they always had good starters, you know, Jim Palmer and company. But they would bring guys in and they would pitch like one hundred innings in a middle relief role, you know, and go, Yeah. It was just a way to kind of get them acclimate to the big leagues without putting a ton of pressure on them, without putting heavy workload on them. And so, like, I actually think what you're saying is a great way to develop big league pitchers. And that would almost in some ways be the best thing for Bryce Miller, because, like, you know, if he's ready to pitch in the big leagues, and let's say you're fortunate and your five starters stay healthy all year, like why waste the bullets and triple A get up to the big leagues and you know, on a day where you know, maybe Marco Gonzalez is your starter and he only goes three and a third, you know, maybe you know, you bring Bryce Miller in. He gives you three and two thirds innings and gets you to the eighth inics. So yeah, I could definitely see them doing the latter. 00:45:12 Speaker 1: A guy who's not projected to be in the big leagues this year, but the Mariners' first round pick last year, twenty first overall, Cole Young. I mean, the coming out of Pennsylvania High school, the clamor about him was his bat and he hit right away in the system last year. What you know, that's like, that's the focus for him this year. I mean it's like the Mariners are are are they worried about like the defensive position or are they just going to say, hey, Cole, even if, like you know, the projections say you might not be a shortstop long term, we just want you to go out and hit this year and crush pitching as a nineteen year old. 00:45:50 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and I mean there's something I mean, like especially too, like the way the draft is so late now, like guys just don't get to play. He's only played seventeen pro games, so the main thing is to go out. And I mean it's kind of a shock to everybody's system when you play that first full professional season. Again, Cole played in Pennsylvania and like you probably played I don't know, twenty five or thirty games last year in high school and they probably played three games a week or whatever. And now he's playing six straight games every week for five months, and that's like a huge difference. So a big part of that first season. And let's get back to Harry Ford when I was saying like I didn't really care about his numbers that much, is you know, like a lot of guys learned, Like guys just on into the White Sox today about Coles Montgomery, who had a really good season last year for them. He's their best prospect, but he also wore down at the end of the season, which is natural for these guys. And so part of that first season isn't even just performance. It's like, Okay, understanding what it's going to take, how you have to prepare in the off season to be ready to get through that grind. And so I think with Cole, then other thing you do kind of the vining guys career is like even if like, yeah, I think there's some question is he a shortstop long term? Like he's probably more of a second basement. We say that about everybody and the sudden these guys just tickets short but what they're like, we don't know is he shortop said, you play the guy at the more difficult position early in his career to see what you have. So like, I'm sure he's gonna go out and be the shortstop this season, and you know, then they'll decide where they want to go next year. I don't think they're gonna move any times. See, And it's more, he's probably an average ish big league shortstop. But it's it's weird because like you think, boy, average big league shortstop, that's pretty good, but most teams want don't want an average defender at shortstop, if that makes sense. So like the typical big league shortstop is probably an above average to plus defender, which is weird. Then you can debate what average really means. But you know, I think he could play shortstop. You probably would say we'd want somebody who's who's better. But he could play short stop, but yea, they'll roll them out of shortstop this year and hope he keeps hitting like he had one of the best high school bats in the draft, and he can run. I don't think he's gonna be a big power guy, but he might be that like to eighty to three hundred and fifteen home run type and like, to me, that's fine, Like if he can't, I'm pretty convicted he'll hit. If he can't play shortstop, that still plays at second Dace. 00:48:14 Speaker 2: There there is a little bit of optimism that he can add a little bit more power into that bat, right, I mean, I'm not saying he's going to be a thirty home run guy, but there seems to be some optimism that there's still more pop to come with him. 00:48:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean he look, I mean, he's young, he can get stronger. He has really good hitting ability, and so the guys who have hitting ability, it's a lot easier to hit for average first and power later than is to be a guy who's got big rob power and swings at everything and chases and then figure out how to hit. So he's got the hit part down pretty well already. But yeah, I mean, you know, i'd say fifteen would be kind of the median of where his power falls. But if you tell me that he could be I mean, it's a real could swing. And if he got stronger, I think he's added supposedly twelve or fifteen pounds in the off season. You know he's going to continue to mature physically. I could see twenty plus. I mean, that's not undrealistic go off. 00:49:14 Speaker 1: And you would envision he's spending all season in low A modesto. 00:49:19 Speaker 4: Not necessarily, I mean, I think it just you have to see I don't have their their kind of depth chart, committed memory. But like, I mean, he's one of their best prospects. So if Cole goes to single A and he hits three twenty in the first three months of the season, well, I'll put it this way, when Cole accomplishes everything, when he shows that like he's accomplished every think accomplished in single A, they're gonna promote him a HYA. It doesn't matter if that's May or July or next year. He's a priority prospect. So like when Cole's ready to move up to the next level, Cole move up whoever's playing Shortstu that level, will you know, move to different pacesition or whatever. See he's tellent enough. It wouldn't shock me if he spent you know, a month at the end of the season or more in high end. 00:50:12 Speaker 2: We're just kind of going down the list here, I mean, per MLV pipeline. Harry Ford's the Mariner's number one prospect, Bryce Miller's number two, Cole Young's number three, and number four is Emerson Hancock, a guy who I know, Jim you were really high on when he was coming out of the draft at Georgia. Jerry Depoto said when they took him that they believed he was the best pitcher in that draft. He's batted some injury the last couple of years. He's healthy now. Is there still a chance that if he's healthy and on the field, he could return to having the upside that people believed he had when he was drafted. 00:50:44 Speaker 4: I guess the way. I don't know, Like I thought he had a chance to be a front line starter, and now I'd say he's more of a mid rotation guy. It would be the ceiling to me. I don't think it's weird. I went to Georgia, so I followed him closely. He was an under to go number one overall in the twenty twenty draft. But I think realistically, like he in twenty nineteen when he was a sophomore, he came out in the first like eighter ten starts to year. He was the best pitcher in the country, which is why he was came to god number one. And he had a minor injury and he missed a couple of starts and then came back and like he's never been even at Georgia, he was not that dominant ever. Again. Now part of that's a little unfair because the next season was the pandemic season, which never really got going. You know, sinc A Mariage drafted him. I think he had what shoulder issues in twenty one, They had load issues in twenty two. And the stuff isn't as crisp as he as it used to be. It's more I think average to solid than solid to plus. You know, he still throws strikes. I will say he looked really good in the futures game, like he like I mean Grant, it's a one inning look and you know you could get amped up and you know, to pace yourself. I I thought he looked really good at the Futures Game last year. So I think I think the biggest thing the Marriers one out Emerson Hancock at twenty twenty three is stay healthy for an entire season so we can see exactly what we have in you and you know, and he might be like I said, I mean when we were just talking about I mean, they have a pretty loaded rotation right now. They got Bryce Miller ahead of him. You know, maybe he winds up being more that multiening reliever than you know, a three, four or five starter. But those guys are still valuable too. Yeah. I just think the key is stay healthy for full year and then we can see exactly what we got. 00:52:35 Speaker 1: Would you anticipate that with a healthy season as velocity also comes back up, because I noticed that was also a major thing from last year. 00:52:43 Speaker 4: Yeah, his velocity was down. Yeah, I mean it could. I mean if he had a fully healthy season and the shoulder and the lad aren't bothering him. It's just the concern is in the last three full seasons he's had I'm not counting twenty twenty because of the pandemic, and he barely pitched. He's had physical issues, so like you start to wonder about the durability a little bit too. 00:53:05 Speaker 3: We're just going again, just kind of going down the list. 00:53:07 Speaker 2: Here at number five, we've got Felon and cell Uston, and after him, we'll kind of jump around to some other guys that jump out to TJ and I that we wanted to ask you about. But sell Ustin, the highest international signing the Mariners have ever made, signed for just under five million dollars. He may have the highest upside of anybody in the Mariners system. And you guys said he has a chance to be the highest rated or highest upside shortstop of any international shortstop in. 00:53:34 Speaker 3: About a decade. 00:53:36 Speaker 2: So it sounds like you guys think, if everything pans out, this guy could be really, really special. 00:53:41 Speaker 4: He could. I will say, I do not write this scouting report and to say he has a higher ceiling than Wander Franco, I might quip it. It's weird, like the three guys who when we will go over with the report cited, well, wander Franco. He's like one of the best minor league hitters you'll ever see. Marco Luciana, who's a forty home run shortstop, so I'm not sure if he has a higher ceiling, then I'm not saying Lucian's gonna hit forty home runs, but he's got that ceiling. And they mentioned Robert Posson, who's been a huge dispoint for the aides, like I don't I don't know why. I mean, Robert Posson was a big ticket guy, but like to make the point, I might not have included Robert Poisson in there because I hope he has a higher ceiling that the Robert Posson does now. But the point is, but yes, he's he's extremely talented. I mean, you know, it's always hard figuring out where to rank these international guys because I mean not only I mean he's seventeen now, but like these guys usually commit early, so it's not like he's really been seen a lot in the last couple of years. But if you want to dream, and he hasn't played protball yet, I mean he's, you know, an athletic shortstop who's gonna get more fiscal He's already got some fysicality to him. And again I'm just saying this is his upside. I'm not saying, oh, he's gonna do this, But yeah, he could be a thirty thirty guy who hits for average and stays a short stop, which is a really good player. Like it's really easy to dream on dream on him. 00:55:08 Speaker 1: At this point, we're probably two years away then from getting a real read on what kind of player the Mariners have. 00:55:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this year, I mean he's he's exciting. I mean, you could bring him to the Arizona Complex League, but like whether he plays in the Dominican Summer League or the ACL, I don't really think we're going to see him full season ball. If we do, it would be like for a week at the end of the season or something, so like he might tear up rookie ball or he might not. Sometimes the highly rated guys don't right away. But like I think we'd like, you don't really get a full read on what guys like that are. It was true with old Marte, who they've traded, It was truly Rodriguez until they get that first year in full season ball, and that's when like, oh, if he performs his first year and full season ball, then you run the guy away up the list. 00:56:03 Speaker 1: So where was Wander at the end of his first season. 00:56:06 Speaker 5: I don't remember he went, see he was different, because like you can't like because you can't, you can he went to the Appalachian League, which no longer exists, which is. 00:56:18 Speaker 4: A rookie it's an advanced rookie level. It's above complex league ball. But you the league, no, that classification no longer exists, so that's not a possibility. 00:56:30 Speaker 1: It was so it was short it was short season. 00:56:33 Speaker 4: Well no, I mean yeah, it was in between, you know, like short season, like a was the Northwest and the New York Penn League, and you had the Apple League league where rookie advanced leagues, and then you had the at the time the Golf Coast League in the Arizona League were complex league. So it was in between. But like it was a really aggressive assignment for a seventeen year old kid. And if I recall, he was like mvat like vladimirger junior tore up the Apple League and one Franco went in and put up even better numbers. So if I think I'm remembering that right, But in any case, they challenged him in a way that you couldn't even challenge cell esteem if if you wanted to, because again that level doesn't exist anymo. 00:57:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. It will not be the same path for him. 00:57:21 Speaker 4: Yeah, even if Jerry to Poto Company said we want to send him to the Appy League, there is no Appy League, so they can't. 00:57:31 Speaker 2: I still come away from that breakdown that you gave us on saleson positive Okay, it's definitely. 00:57:38 Speaker 4: I would just say, well, where you could certainly dream on these guys, and he's super interesting. And I wrote up some guys as well, like like Sebastian Walcott with the Rangers and Deernichi Valdez with the Cubs, and a bunch of my like Brando Maya with the Yankees. I think half my top ten lists had a very prominent signing. I just would not necessarily have compared any of those guys to wonder if well, you know what I should, I should? I should take that back because I am and I look, I heard the comps. I'm the same guy who wrote that people were comparing Jason Dominguz of the Yankees to Mickey Mannol and Bo Jackson my trap. So I actually apologize what I was gonna say. I would not have compared him to those guys, but I did that with Jason Domingu. So if somebody gave me that comparison, I would have used it. So so there, I just I think he's really interesting. I think Wander Franco was a cut above Wonder Franco was kind of on his own shortstop tier when he signed there nationally, and Celestine is kind of in that next tier. Guys who you get really excited about. 00:58:46 Speaker 2: Okay, so not quite an eighty hit tool, but still could be really Again, I. 00:58:49 Speaker 4: Take that he has to wait to get the Yeah. 00:58:54 Speaker 2: I think that's fair. Well, those are the top five Maritors prospects. Regardless, there are still some really interesting guys as you go further down the list to people should be excited to watch as the year goes on. You know a guy that's pretty interesting, Taylor Dollard. TJ and I actually both saw him, TJ more so than me when he was in the Cape Cod League, and he was really good back then, and you fast forward all of a sudden now he had a phenomenal year in Double A. But that being said, if the Mariners wanted to bring him up, you would be able to answer this better than me. But I'm not so sure his stuff profiles in the bullpen. So I guess my question is what is his path to the big leagues? 00:59:34 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean his best attribute is his control, like his best pitch price slider. You know, we've got fifty five on the slider, sixty on the control. The rest of the stuff is average or fringy. He's not. He's he's a high floor guy rather than the high ceiling guy, like more of a guy you pitch in the you know, he's a he's a pitchability right, who would eat evenings in the back of the rotation or like sometimes these guys could be valuable as openers or is you know again a multiening reliever. And I agree, like, you know, even if like I think, we all think, like, okay, you put the guy in a bullpen, he's gonna throw a little bit harder. And that's usually true. It's not like automatic. But if like he gained two miles an hour going to the bullpen, he'd probably throw in ninety three. And that's not you know, it's not like he's not gonna blow you away with stuff like you put him in the bullpen. He's a middle reliever. It's not like you're bringing in Taylor Dollard in the eighth or ninth inning with the game on the line to shut the door because he doesn't have that kind of stuff, but he can really really pitch. It's just it's his feel for pitching is what stands out the most. So I agree, like I don't think it's it's probably more if they bring him up. I mean again, I think it's gonna be hard to crack the rotation given the guys they have, and bryceon Miller's not too far away either, But I could see him being in that kind of multiightening reliever, you know who maybe pitches nine year, one hundred innings a year at the big league level, and you know, eat some innings and you know you're starting, gets knocked out in the and he keeps you in the game for three or four innings. He's more of that floor guy. 01:01:04 Speaker 1: It's really funny, Jim, because when I saw him pitching for the Cape League team I called games four back in twenty nineteen, he was the closer and he was blowing guys away with ninety I thought he was I thought he was throwing a lot harder, but we didn't have a gun at the on the scoreboard. At least you'd have to peer down out of the press box and look at the stalkers down below you which team was It was the Whitey Red Sox. Okay, the Doughnut Burger, which is now yeah, Pick with the now discontinued Doughnut Burger. That's That's meant we. 01:01:34 Speaker 4: Can talk about pick forever. But I was like, that's classic, Oh my god, which is why he's won what six CAP championships? Five? 01:01:43 Speaker 1: I think it's six. Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure it's six. And you know, having top prospects, you know, bunt and situational drills in a showcase league, which he's just out of ten. 01:01:55 Speaker 4: His guy's execute. And I'm what I was gonna say about Scott Pickler, who's I think he's still the coach at Cypress Junior College when he's not coaching the Cape. 01:02:04 Speaker 1: I think he's a legacy coach there. I'm not. I don't believe he's still coaching, but yeah, I've been out of it now for four years, I think. 01:02:11 Speaker 4: So I don't want to call pick old, but I call myself old, so I can call Pick old too. So he might be whatever it Cypress, But anyway, he always brings him players a lot from the West Coast, and his guys just execute. And what I was gonna say is, it does not shock me that Dollard throws strikes. It's a wood bat league. He puts the ball where he wants, probably very hard to do a lot of damage against him with wood back, especially you know, with the way he moves the ball around that it does not surprised me that pick would make him a closer at the big league level. I don't know that even if he threw a little bit harder like you got him up to ninety twen ninety three, that that's going to play in the late innings. But he can really pitch. And yeah, I actually I think to me, it's almost more fun to watch guys who can pitch and have to move the ball around, mix their pitches ran the guy who max effort throws ninety eight and just tries to overpower you. So I like watching guys like Taylor Dollard, And I do think he's a big leaguer. Realistically, he I mean, pitchers get hurt. He might be in the wrong organization. I guess oneing to say is barely put it. He get a better chance to start in a different organization because the Mariners have some really good starting pitchers in the big leagues and they have Bryce Miller coming too. But I wouldn't be shocked. I bet we see Taylor Dollar in the big league issue. 01:03:36 Speaker 1: What the way I think about it, Like if Dollard was say, three years earlier, I mean he might have Marco Gonzalez's role right now, right. I mean that's because that's kind that's kind of what Marco Gonzalez is. 01:03:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, I mean Marcus left handed, but yeah, he's basically the right hand version of Marco Gonzalez. I think that's that's very fair. 01:03:57 Speaker 1: Another guy I think we want to touch on from the internet national scene for the Mariners that was that the Mariners signed last year was lazarro Montes. I mean, he spent the last last season in the in the Dominican Summer League. It was a it was, you know, an up and down year. He showcased a lot of power. He had I think ten home runs in fifty five games. He struck out over thirty percent of the time. Just curious what you what you thought of him when he signed in what I guess what you'd want to see out of him this year besides just cutting down on the strikeouts. 01:04:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean he's he's interesting. I mean in the DSL for your listeners who aren't maybe not familiar with it, it's a lot of guys, you know, it's a lot of Dominicans, international players in their first year pro ball. A lot of them are seventeen years old, you know, as was Montes last year. So it's kind of the stats don't necessarily mean a ton. It'd be like looking at high school stats that said, like he had you know, I mean he had ten home runs. I mean, it's the classic you huge, there's a huge swing and misconcerns you again, like we were saying, we will sell Stein, you just don't really know what you have in those guys. Like you'll have a better we'll have a little bit better idea when it comes to Arizona Complex League this year, but you really won't have a full idea of what exactly he might be like, or how much contact he's going to make, how well the power is going to play until he gets to full season ball, which would probably be twenty twenty four. When it'll be nineteen, he'll still be young. It'll be nineteen years old. But like, he's you know, big time power, decent athlete. You know, probably a left fielder, but he's got that profile power that you want in a left fielder. It's just a matter of you know, the next couple of years we'll find out. Like I mean, thirty three percent struck out rate is pretty high for the DSL because it's not like you're facing a lot of polished pitchers. But you know, until we see him in the US, like is it approach based? Does he just chasing stuff? Does he have a particular hole in the swing? They can make an adjustment. I think the swing can get long at times. I mean, you can learn to correct that. So it'll be you We'll have to see how it plays out. But like's his power potential. I mean, shoot, he's what eighteen years old? He wanted to make a nineteen. He's six three to ten and he's eighteen years old, Which makes you wonder, like how big is this guy going to be when he's fully physically mature, and how much power you might have. 01:06:21 Speaker 1: Speaking of comps, I don't think comparing him to yord On Alvarez when he signed, I forget who who tabbed him that, but that probably didn't do him any any any favors. But given that yord On is one of the most complete hitters in the league in his early twenties. 01:06:36 Speaker 4: I mean, I guess if you're I mean, yeah, I agree, I mean that I don't always love comps and like they can put you know, pressure player. And again, I know I've wrote about Jason Demiguez, but like, I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess for his age, he was a big, physical, left handed hitter who was probably gonna line up in left field. So you see that's the problem comps is like so along those lines, yes, you could say similar to Ordon Olvarez at the the same stage as their careers. But then someone who doesn't look at comps like how they're intended would be like, oh, they're saying, this guy's gonna be Jordon Olvarez. He's one of the best hitters of baseball. Like there's a there's a long way to go from where he is now to where Jordon Alvarez is today, which again shouldn't be surprising because I think Jordne is what eight years older than the Montes, So there's there's no there's some there. There should be a great distance between where Montes is and where Alvarez is now. But like I get, I'm not gonna say I endorse that comp but I could see why you'd make it because, like I said, he's this big, physical, left handed hitter who's got just a ton of power. So I can I can see where that came from. I'm just trying to look up real quick where ord On Alvarez's DSL stats were in his pro debut. Oh, he got I forgot. He got traded before he made his pretty abuse. He didn't play a lot. But or and On Olivarez only struck out seven times in fifty seven but fifty seven plate appearances, So yeah, for whatever that's worth. But yeah, I get where they're coming from. But that's we'll see. He's he's got a long way to go to get to where yard On Olivre's is today. 01:08:22 Speaker 2: Jim's done a great job of covering a bunch of Mariners with us so far. There's definitely still a couple other guys here that I think are worthy to talk about, because I think the Mariners system here is pretty interesting, even with some of the blue chip guys graduating we're on this trend here of international prospects. 01:08:37 Speaker 3: How good could Gabriel Gonzales be? 01:08:40 Speaker 4: Yeah, he like, I don't know why necessarily he I mean, I don't know if I mean, I guess it's because he's just getting started. But like, yeah, you know, so we've ben talking about these in national guys and I said, like, you don't really get a feel for what they are till they get to full season ball. So, like, Gabriel Gonzales really solid in the DSL and his pro debut tore up their zone, a complex league, and then he spent a month in Modesta last year, and I guess he was what he was eighteen, you know, eighteen years old, single, a first time hit for a month and he hit two eighty six. I mean, he didn't hit for a ton of power, which to be expected, controlled the strike zone pretty well, and so what I see in him is like I like, kind of like we're talking about Coleyon, Like I think we've seen hitting ability there. It looks like it's real. There could be more power to come. You know, maybe he winds up being a two seventy twenty home run hitter. I mean, he's probably more of a left fielder than a right fielder. But and he's not a center fielder. But you could see, like I think he's gonna hit. He looks like he's gonna hit, and that's the most important tool. You don't play in the big leagues if you don't hit. So yeah, he's super interesting, very encouraging what he did at the end of last season when he got to a single A at eighteen, And I'm really curious see what he does. Like he'll obviously spend the entire year in full season ball now you'll stole only be nineteen years old to see what he does with it. 01:10:07 Speaker 1: What about pre Lander BARROWA, he looks like now from what we've seen from him in the spring and all the things we're hearing out of camp, he seems like a shoe in for the Mariners bullpen at some point this season. 01:10:17 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's funny. So I do our Giants prospect list. It's funny. I like, as I was, Donovan, Walton's kind of your classic gamer high IQ guy knew his dad. You know, it's a very good college coach. I like Donovan. I was really shocked the Giants traded per Lander Barroa for Donovan Walton. I mean, the stuff's super nasty. I mean it's mid nineties up to one hundred, good run on the fastball. It's kind of a short slider, but it's got some power to it. You can throw a change up a little bit. It's a big time arm. He's not he's not a tall guy. He's former infielder when he signed. He's not thrown a bunch of strikes and that's the question. But I mean, the guy just missed his bats. 01:11:11 Speaker 3: You know. 01:11:11 Speaker 4: I think he's one of these guys, you know, it's time before I forget who were you or maybe were maybe we weren't, but you start guys to get them innings. I think he's clearly a reliever with his size and his delivery. If you're putting bullpen, his stuff might tick up and he might be sitting ninety six ninety eight with him. I think it's just gonna come down to, you know, as not a big guy with not like the smoothest delivery. You know, does he stay healthy and you know, then the other question is how many strikes does he throw? Like if you get him, if you got him to average control, maybe he has closeror eighth inning stuff. If he if he can't throw strikes or he doesn't improve where he is now, then he's probably more that guy you bring in the sixth inning. He throws real hard, but he's he's interesting. And I it was weird because like that was almost like you're trading a like really high floor, low ceiling guy and Donny Wallam for a guy with a really high ceiling and a low floor for Lander Barroa. But I was kind of surprised that the Giants made that trade. 01:12:14 Speaker 3: It's funny you say that, Jim. 01:12:15 Speaker 2: I know this quote didn't come from you, but there's some articles out there of scouts and some other people that, when talking about that trade Donovan Walton for p Lander Barroa called it the worst trade of twenty twenty two. So it sounds like you're not the only person that maybe scratched your head a little bit. 01:12:32 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and I respect on the wan. I just like, yeah, I just thought that was a high upside arm to give up for Donald Walt and he's got a limited big league ceiling. But you know, who knows, Maybe the Giants know something that I don't. 01:12:48 Speaker 1: Last question for me on the twenty twenty two draft class. Any of those guys, the other guys like Tyler Locklear or Mike I mean, Michael Morales was twenty twenty one, but he he hasn't pitched a whole ton, so maybe him to Walter Ford Ashton, is he? I mean, out of those guys, is there anyone you're you're kind of expecting to jump based off what you saw from him, uh, from earlier on. 01:13:10 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of those guys are are are super interesting honestly, Like you know, I was telling you guys, you know, Walter Ford was supposed to be in this year's draft and reclassified. And I think at times, because he was a year younger, he likes like he didn't have an unbelievable senior season. I think he like maybe suffered in comparison to guys who were a year older, you know, maybe a little bit more physically developed at times. But like I like a lot of I like, he's the guy who interested me the most of those guys you mentioned, Like he's up to ninety seven, He's he shows you know, some pretty interesting feel for slider. He you know, he's actually a pretty good two way guy. He's athletic. He just needs to get more consistent. And I think now that he's not trying to prove himself for the draft after reclassifying, he just focused on becoming the best pitcher that he can be. I think he could be really, really good, and I think he's got good makeup, so I really like him. But they had a lot of Like I said, I think Locklear hits the ball as hard as almost any player in the entire draft. You know, Ashton Izzy, who they got in the fourth round, is super projectable pitcher. He's got a chance to have three solid pitches and maybe solid control. Like so, they have a bunch of interesting guys. I think to kind of keep an eye on. 01:14:35 Speaker 2: Can Walter Ford live up to the hype of the nickname he's given himself, which is the vanilla missile he calls himself. 01:14:40 Speaker 3: He live up to that. 01:14:42 Speaker 4: I do like that, and I do like his confidence. And you know, I mean, the guy already hits ninety seven, so I think it'd be one thing if he was throwing like eighty six eighty seven. I don't think you can call yourself a vanilla missile, but if you're touching ninety seven, and you should really be a high school senior this year. Yes, I will. I will grant him permission to call himself Vanilla Missile. I think he's got a chance to be really, really good. 01:15:10 Speaker 2: I think we've covered just about everybody we wanted to talk to talk about prospect wise, and again, you've done a really great job of hitting all the details on so many of these guys. I guess if we had one last question for you, and I know the drafts a little bit further away, but to kind of wrap up the Mariners minor league talk here, when you look at their system, you detailed it, a lot of their best guys right now are really on the young side Ford Cole Young, Celliston, some others, and they had a bunch of guys graduate. So when targeting this draft class, do you get any sense that the Mariners might try to fill some of that gap with maybe some high end college bats that'll be at the High A, Double A level in the next year or two, or do you think they're more just focused on going best players available. 01:15:56 Speaker 4: I think though, I mean, you look at what they did last year. I mean the system was kind of similar shape and they took Cole Young High School, Waterford High School. You know, Locklear was a college guy. You know, Izzy was a high school guy. I'm forgetting who their third round pick was, you know, I think especially at the top of that. You know, I guess they're picking roughly the same area, right are they picking twenty two this year? I think, and then they get the Julio's cool, you get the Julio Bonus pick, and then the competitive bounce picks they picked twenty thirty. I think they're pretty much their mo has been to take who they think the best guy is. Now that's said. The good news is that I do think the depth of this draft is in college hitters first foremost, and then it's probably college pitchers versus high school hitters. So the aaight's possible they could take two or three college players with those picks, just because that's how the draft rolls out, not that they were Ye came to speak specifically specifically targeting him, is what I'm trying to say. I was just trying to scroll through a list like right now, our top thirty players, on our top one hundred that we did in December, twenty of them are college guys. So I mean I would think the odds would be prop like they'll probably wind up with at least two college guys there anyway, But it's just it's hard to know, Like I don't I don't think they were necessarily looking to take a high school guy in the first round last year, but I think they looked at it and rightfully so that they really believed in Cole Young's bat and believe he'll play up the middle and they just can pass on him that he was the best player on their board. I think they'll do the same thing this year. I think you'll they'll line up their board and take the best guys. 01:17:40 Speaker 3: Will Well, Jim, this has been awesome. 01:17:45 Speaker 2: I mean, TJ and I have certainly learned a ton here in the hour and ten minutes that we've been sitting here talking about some of these Mariners prospects, because I mean, we follow the prospect world and we love to follow a bunch of these guys, but there's not many people that can break this stuff down better than you can. So we really appreciate all the time to help us kind of give us some insight on what this farm could look like in twenty twenty three, because it sounds like it's going to be pretty exciting. 01:18:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, like you guys sit at the top. I think there's a lot of upward mobility with this farm system. Now, this was fun. I enjoyed it. Like I even feel bad now that I was calling in to question our cell steam comps and I realize they've done the same thing with Jason Dominguez. So I can't put the stones and my glass house here. I know you guys asked a bunch of good questions. There's a bunch of interesting guys. It's cool. I mean, they got a lot of interesting young players in Seattle and more guys, more guys on the way. 01:18:37 Speaker 3: Well, thanks so much, Jim, we really appreciate it. 01:18:39 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no problem at all. 01:18:42 Speaker 2: Well, that was a great interview with Jim Kallis here on our Minor League episode. This isn't going to be the last time we talked about minor league throughout the year. We're going to be doing minor league talk really throughout most of the season on most of our regular season episodes. We'll have a minor league segment in there too, so we'll try to keep you guys up to date as best as we can. We really appreciate all the time. From Jim Okay to Jay. Let's get to our listener question here. It's kind of a fun one this week, a little bit random, but certainly one that we're all here for. And we get a question this week that says, can we get a rant about Jack's Loenzick old Mariners GM about Jack Z kind of out of the blue, But you know what, I'm going to guess we're not the only people who have a thing or two to say about him these days, So let's do it. I you know what, I'll kick it to you first, Jack's Loenzick. 01:19:33 Speaker 1: See, I feel like giving this attention is really a waste of time since we're just so far past this. I mean, Jerry Depoto has now been the general manager since twenty and sixteen, and we really haven't had to worry about Jackson for a while. But if we're going to bring up Jack C, I just want to bring up one of my favorite parts about Jack soenzic tenure as Mariner's manager, where Jack Soenzick when he was being hired back in what was at nine two thousand and eight, which exactly was it? Oh nine? Yeah, that sounds right, Okay, So When he was being hired, Jack Sarringik portrayed himself as a scouting stats hybrid because that's what he needed to do to get the job. But Jack never understood one iota about statistical analysis. To this day, he evaluates hitters by home runs RBIs and batting average and pictures by wins and era. Statistical analysis was foreign to him, but he knew he needed it to get into door, into the door. So in summary that came from the Seattle Times, I think Ryan Davish might have written it, but the article has been wiped from the website, so unknown regardless, just my funniest bit ever that he just straight up lied in his interview to get the job, got the job, and then did absolutely nothing as Mariner's general manager. Oh sorry, actually got on the cover of Sports Illustrated once. Don't forget that. 01:20:59 Speaker 2: So just to quickly clarify, he was hired in October of two thousand and eight, so his first season was two thousand and nine. But you're saying, TJ. You're sitting here saying that when the Mariners were kind of in the trenches in twenty fifteen and Jacks Loenzik went out and made the splash of the century for Mark Trumbo. You're telling me that wasn't an analytics move. 01:21:22 Speaker 1: We know what he was looking at, and it was not Mark Trumbo's defensive numbers in the outfield. I'll tell you that much. 01:21:30 Speaker 4: Uh. 01:21:31 Speaker 2: I mean, you're right that we're so far past this day and age like the Mariners were witnessing. Right now is totally a new era for the Mariners, which is awesome. And this is honestly, the reason I actually want to ran about this a little bit at this point is not even so much because of what happened in the past, and I did used to rant about it a lot in the past. In fact, most of our friends from college who have no connection to the Mariners have heard me just rant and rant about all the drafts that they had. But the reason I kind of want to ran about it now is because there's still people out there that somehow complain about Jerry Depoto and the job he's done. It's kind of like remember where you came from, the old saying, remember where you came from? You want to go back to that where in twenty eleven, they were all but set to take either Anthony Rendon or Francisco Lindor, but they decided to go take Danny Holtson or even back in the bill Butvezy days, the five draft, the O six draft, the O nine draft. I mean, I don't want to go back to that. I really like having Jerry Depoto here, a guy who actually uses analytics, not Jack Ze who pretends to. 01:22:39 Speaker 1: Hmm, that was good. That was up to part dog. I'm gonna give you a round of the Claus good. 01:22:46 Speaker 2: I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad of your test. Well, it's always there. I can always get it off. Sometimes I just need to be triggered for it, like this question did for me because I said, Hey, ran about Jackson. 01:22:58 Speaker 3: I'll give you my thoughts on jack Ze. 01:23:00 Speaker 1: You know, I'm really glad they made the playoffs so we don't have to really reminisce on all the swings and misses throughout the drought. I'm glad. I'm glad it's over. We don't have to worry about it. 01:23:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, but hey, we're in a new day and age now. And I'll say it again as we wrap this up, appreciate Jerry Depoto because again, you want to remember BAVESI. You want to remember forensic, you want to look around the rest of baseball at some of the other gms and presidents of Baseball operations. You could have it a lot worse. Jerry Depoto is good at his job. I will stand on that hill forever. 01:23:35 Speaker 1: I miss Pat Gillick. 01:23:38 Speaker 3: Well, I think is great. 01:23:40 Speaker 1: That's that. I think that's fair. 01:23:42 Speaker 2: I mean Pat Gillick's like a legend though. I mean he he won two World Series with the Blue Jays. He helped the Mariners won one hundred and sixteen games, he won a World Series with the Phillies. I mean yeah, Like, I can't say to poto's there yet or if he'll ever get there, but I think he's doing a pretty good job. 01:24:00 Speaker 1: We could just reminisce forever we could. 01:24:03 Speaker 2: Okay, TJ, let's close out this show. Let's speak your mind. 01:24:07 Speaker 3: Speak your mind, Spook. 01:24:12 Speaker 4: That would be unwise. 01:24:14 Speaker 1: What is necessary is never unwise. 01:24:18 Speaker 2: I am genuinely curious to hear what you're thinking about this week, So let's hear it. 01:24:23 Speaker 1: It has to do with the NCAA tournament, but it has nothing to do with the basketball on the court. I think the most overhyped story of the weekend is the fact that f Fairleigh Dickinson University has a junior running their media relations department. And besides, my first thought when seeing this, and I saw some other people who thought just like me on Twitter, which I'm thankful that they saw it this way, that I was kind of worried. I'm like, it made me raise an eyebrow. It's not the fact, Oh, man, super cool that this kid, whose name is Jordan Sarnoff, is a junior at FDU and runs the basketball team's media relations, which is a full time job, by the way, people make you know, salaries, running that full time at every major university in America. Yet some student at FDU was running it, and people were like, Oh, that's such a cool it's so cool, he's getting all this experience. Oh that's awesome. And all I could think about is, man, I really hope he's getting a paycheck like that. That is a full time job. I mean, you're not only coordinating interviews, you're doing stat packs, You're you're making sure like organizing media, You're running social media, especially in the smaller schools, sprunting social media, doing graphic design, like all of these things. But he was like, Oh, it's so cool. He wanted to He always wanted to do it. When he got to FDU, he went there as like as a senior in high school and told the athletic department he wanted to work there. It's like, well, I sure hope that doesn't mean they're taking advantage of him and paying him like half salary while he's at school. He's like, well, you're a student, so we can give you a stipend, but you can do all the work you want. It's like, it's like he should be making a full time salary doing that job and being a student at the same time, and no, scholarship doesn't count. He's working a job. Pay him for his job. I believe he did say it was compensated. He didn't say how much. It's just disappointed that I even have to like speculate this, knowing that, you know, universities and other places are cutting salaries all over the place and just sticking a student in there to fill it up. Would would be really on brand, to be honest, if that was actually the case, which I really hope it's not. 01:26:29 Speaker 2: Oh so you don't think he's getting a paycheck. I guess I assume that he was. 01:26:34 Speaker 1: I believe he is. I believe he said he is. Now I hope he's making what a full time adult would be making working the same job. Yeah, like me and you both know, like we've been in college recently, Like we know some jobs that people get paid professionally that college kids have to do for free. Me and you did the exact same job at ASU that I do, that I've done. You're at Oregon State and I get paid here. I did not get paid a single cent at ASU, So I'll leave it at that. 01:27:07 Speaker 3: It's true. 01:27:08 Speaker 2: I mean, the sports journalism world, the sports media world is tough, but like you said, for somebody who's working a full time job and being a student, you would hope he's getting paid for it. So yeah, you can only cross your fingers. Okay, I have two I have two topics here for my speaker mind. My first one is quick watched. The first episode in the New Ted last O season was great. I'm gonna keep harping on you about this. I'm not gonna let you go until you watch it because like everybody else in the world watches it. I know you don't have Apple TV, but it might be worth the one month to subscribe and just binge it. It's not that long. 01:27:44 Speaker 1: I'll think about it. 01:27:45 Speaker 3: Okay. Number two. 01:27:47 Speaker 2: I know we usually get away from baseball on these topics. I'm bringing it up on this one because the discourse around the World Baseball Classic this week has been absolutely insufferable. Like, I'm Mets fans that you lost Edwin Diaz for the year, but you're ready to speak out and try to cancel the whole damn tournament. Like, no, these guys chose to play. Edwin Diaz chose to play in the WBC. You know what, it was a freak injury. It could have happened in spring training too, And then what you're gonna cancel all the spring training? Nobody gets to ramp up. See how many guys love this sport and not even I shouldn't say this sport, love this tournament. It means something of them. Mike Trump never gets to play in games like this. They want to play, Like, stop trying to cancel fun baseball. 01:28:36 Speaker 1: But it would be peak America if that happened. Because there's one thing I'm convinced after watching this tournament is that most Americans hate fun. They really do. 01:28:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, look, as Mariners fans Drew Smiley got hurt in twenty seventeen. I was really, really furious when it happened, because Smiley came off a good year of the year before. He was supposed to be a vital piece of that rotation, and they didn't have them all year. He never threw an inning for the Mariners. Am I sitting here saying the WBC should have been canceled? No, if it were up to me, what I I guess what? I prefer that pitchers, specifically from my own team, don't pitch, I guess yeah, And that's why you see a lot of starting pitchers not participate how Castillo opted out. But for the position players especially, Like, what's the big deal for the relievers, what's the big deal You're throwing an inning a game? How is that any different than spring training? 01:29:30 Speaker 3: Like? 01:29:30 Speaker 2: The World Baseball Classic is fun, It's really fun, so stop trying to cast it aside. It's only once every four years anyway. 01:29:38 Speaker 1: But Lyle's it's it's it's it's not it's not fun. Baseball's not fun apparently. 01:29:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, when Trey Turner called that grand Slammy hit the biggest hit of his life. It sounds like he was really having a miserable time, like he was forced to be there. 01:29:53 Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I can't wait for the regular season to start. Bye roll. Yeah h I've had such a blast watching this tournament. So anyone who doesn't want to watch it, I mean, go watch paint dry, Like I don't care. See. Uh the ratings, the ratings would would say that people around the world, in the world baseball class like really enjoy watching it. 01:30:19 Speaker 4: Well, was it. 01:30:19 Speaker 1: Sixty three million people watch? Japan Korea? Sixty three million? I believe that would top every single baseball game that has ever been broadcast in the United States. Ever, so I really wouldn't say that nobody cares and that it's meaningless because just because it's meaningless to the people who only see baseball as a as a to fulfill their own self interests and monetary interests in the United States doesn't mean you know, the other three hundred million people in this country. So seven point seven billion people around the world don't care. So sorry it. 01:30:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been fun, it's growing the game. It's a worldwide event, which is awesome. Also, last thing, totally separate from people complaining about this stuff, this stuff. Were there really people that didn't know who show Hee Otani was before this, WBC? Because he's gained like a million and a half Instagram followers. I'm just surprised that it took people this. 01:31:17 Speaker 1: Long, not that they didn't know who he was, but he got promoted into their feeds. And it doesn't necessarily mean it's just in Japan and the United States. It could be elsewhere too. So I mean that's a good thing though, because if there's one thing Major League Baseball sucks at is growing social media followings. But they should. It's what Baseball has to be most frustrated at is how they are not the NBA when it comes to that. You go look at any random bench player in the NBA and they have half a million followers on Instagram. But I don't know, go check Matt Festa's Instagram. How many followers does he have? 01:31:58 Speaker 3: You not? Yeah? 01:32:01 Speaker 1: No way, right, that's my point. 01:32:04 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:32:05 Speaker 2: So in conclusion, WBC, good for the sport. Watch it or just don't say anything at all. That's what I have to say. Okay, that'll just about conclude this week's edition of The Marine Layer Podcast. You guys, know by now. If you guys want to listen to the full podcast, you can do so on Apple, Spotify, Google, and Amazon. Full video podcast is on YouTube. Our social media accounts Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts go follow them all at Marine Layer Pod. Also didn't say it during our listener Questions segment, but seriously continue to send us listener questions. Send us whatever you want to send us, make it fun too, and if they are, we'll certainly answer them. 01:32:45 Speaker 3: For TJ. 01:32:45 Speaker 2: Matthewson, this is Lyle Goldstein. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you next week. 01:33:23 Speaker 4: Yeah,