Episode 202: Ichiro Is A HOFer + Joe Doyle (Future Stars Series)

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[00:00:53] Willkommen zu Joe Doyle von Future Stars und der Overslot Podcast. Wir sprechen über die Mariners' most recent international signing class they signed this past week. Wir sprechen über die prospectus, trade values und über die wir expecten von den Mariners' prospects in 2025. Each year was also inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Today, we'll talk about it. Here's your guys' reminder if you're listening to these podcasts on the audio side. Go, rate and review everywhere, download the episodes.

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[00:01:48] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network. Recording on Tuesday evening, January 21st. We got back from T-Mobile Park a couple of hours ago where Ichiro had his Hall of Fame press conference.

[00:02:18] Well, are we surprised Jerry did not trade someone while we were sitting in that room? Yeah, because he's made so many trades this winter. You have to just think any time you shut off your phone or turn the other way, a trade's coming, right? I mean, there's just been so many moves all winter. Well, that makes me think that it's almost more likely at this point because he hasn't gotten those trades out of his system yet. So, he would do it when everybody's busy with something else? Yes, especially if it was a bad trade.

[00:02:49] It's like, oh, it's Ichiro's day. This is great. And Andres Munoz has been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. Like, ah! Or people are sitting there listening to Ichiro talk, reminiscing on his awesome career. Presser gets done. You walk out. And they signed Yohan Mankata.

[00:03:10] And then you hear Lyle with all the current and former, I guess, legacy Mariners media members all around him, former team executives. You hear Lyle go, You see, you joke, but I really might have done that. Well, you could have walked into the Diamond Club, shut the door, and then screamed. It's like, what's that vibrating sound? Oh, that's just Lyle. Did he just break a table? Yeah, I think he did. That's just Lyle.

[00:03:39] Well, what's the old Kent Murphy voice? I'll paraphrase a little bit. Oh, that's just normal Lyle doing normal stuff. I mean, nothing newsworthy here. Jerry did not make a trade, thankfully. No transactions while we were there. So still, we're the transaction, the big league transaction counters at one for those keeping track. Yes, it does. All right, we're going to get into Ichiro here plenty. I just want to remind people before we do, we talked about it on Friday's show. We just want to keep getting the word out there to you guys.

[00:04:09] Guys, our first live show, Marine Layer Pod live show, which we are fired up about, is coming up in just under a month now. It's February 20th at Moss Bay Hall in Kirkland. That'll be at 6 p.m. start time. So come hang out. Come check it out. We're going to get you details again on more of the nuts and bolts of what the event will hold as time continues to go on. And we plan more of it out. But again, Thursday, February 20th, 6 p.m. Moss Bay Hall in Kirkland.

[00:04:38] Come hang out. It is going to be a blast. So Ichiro was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Or let me reword that. Baseball Hall of Fame. Earlier today, Lyle, he got all but one vote to get inducted. Let's just lay out the details first. He's going to go in with CeCe Sabathia and Billy Wagner. They're going to retire Ichiro's number now on August 9th.

[00:05:07] They're going to have a full weekend about it. His number. It's going to be his number retired. I don't think they're going to add anything with Randy to that number. It's going to be just his number 51 retired in the outfield as they announced. Okay. Yeah, let's get this elephant out of the room. No, no, no, no. Don't you want to do some positive before we just start ripping into the voters? I thought you wanted to jump into it. I just thought it's been a decently positive week for the Mariners community and fan base,

[00:05:33] which doesn't usually happen in recent off-seasons, especially not this off-season. I figured maybe we'd give people a reason to be positive and a reason to have some joy. And then as time goes on into this episode, we can get more into the one voter. I just thought we'd start with some positives. Usually we have to start with just shredding this team and the lack of moves it's making. Fine. Can I start with an Ichiro story? Yes. Yes. Go ahead. I feel like this would be a good one to tell on here.

[00:06:02] This one is about him in his first spring training. This was tweeted by Jack Murphy about the Ichiro story in this spring training, but how Ichiro kept getting jammed and flaring balls the other way. Lou Piniello was in the dugout and he was loudly voicing his opinion that Ichiro couldn't hit the fastball in the dugout, assuming he didn't understand English. Next at bat, Ichiro launches a home run over the right field fence,

[00:06:29] comes back to the dugout, and says in crystal clear English to Lou Piniello, Can I go back to getting ready for the season now? What a legend. Congrats on the Hall of Fame. There's some really awesome Ichiro stories out there. And if you have some time, I would highly, highly recommend you go read a story that came out on ESPN here on Tuesday. It was an awesome column. It was written by Jesse Rogers and Alden Gonzalez, who just tell all these different Ichiro stories from his time in the big leagues.

[00:06:58] And they get all these people to chime in on the story and share some of their favorite memories of Ichiro. It's great. There was one about Lou Piniello, who in a similar sense, because this story you just told was in spring training, right? And then there's another. Yeah. The one I'm remembering is Lou Piniello is getting all worried about Ichiro early on. It's like, this guy just flares baseballs the other way. It's all these rinky dink singles. Is this going to work?

[00:07:26] It's like, and, and apparently Ichiro heard him talking about this. It's like, this is going to be a problem. It's along the lines of this. This is going to be a problem if this goes on long-term. Next at bat, Ichiro steps up to the plate. He rips a home run to right field, comes back into the dugout, says to Lou Piniello, how was that? And Lou Piniello just laughs. And he's like, well, I guess I learned my lesson. And the rest is history, I'd say.

[00:07:54] That's just one of many, many stories in what was an awesome article. Again, they talked about how Ichiro ate the same chicken wings at 5.05 every day. Do you know who I thought of with that? Who? You. Oh, with PB&Js? Well, you eat the, you eat pretty similar food every day, don't you? I do eat very, very similar food every day. Yeah, that's why. I'm like, when you're in routine, you sound a little bit like Ichiro, but not quite chicken wings at 5 in the morning. Apparently.

[00:08:24] No, I think they meant 5.05 p.m. before games. Oh, yeah. Okay. And then apparently they said Ichiro also used to like to dress up and walk around like an Italian runway model. Again, these are all things that most people didn't get to see because he kept it behind closed doors for people that were his teammates and coaches. But again, highly recommend you go read the story. It was awesome. Or when he was with the Marlins in 2017 and he picked up his phone, he's reading through his text messages.

[00:08:51] And he had a text from an unknown number that wanted to know a little bit more about his stretching routine. So he walked into the coach's office and was scrolling. He's like, this dude said Alex Rodriguez gave out Ichiro's number to this person and wants to learn more about his stretching routine. And the coaches were scrolling. It's like, oh, so who wants your stretching routine? And Ichiro reads it. It's like, hey, Ichiro, this is Tom Brady. I want to learn more about your stretching routine.

[00:09:19] And Ichiro picks his head up and looks at the coaches and says, who the fuck is Tom Brady? You know, it's funny. Some of Ichiro's funniest quotes, I feel like he doesn't like to talk about. Well, he doesn't like to talk about a lot of things. But were you watching the ceremony on MLB Network today? Well, I know you were, but I guess I'm more asking the public. Were you guys watching this ceremony on MLB Network?

[00:09:45] Because Bob Costas did a callback to that interview with Ichiro 20 years ago about his quote regarding August in Kansas City is hotter than two rats in a fucking wool sock, was what he said. And Bob Costas called it back today with the clip to Ichiro. And Ichiro didn't look like he was amused. It seemed like maybe he wished he hadn't said it. Even though Ichiro in the interview was laughing his ass off. I know.

[00:10:14] When he said that quote, it was like, guys, isn't this so funny? Yeah, I think that might have been part of it. Part of it might have been, again, he hadn't been in America that long and was still learning the culture. I was also talking to somebody about this today, too, regarding that quote and why today Ichiro may have wanted to walk it back and felt remorseful about it.

[00:10:37] I think it's different culturally in Japan where you kind of don't let that stuff air out and you kind of don't break face, so to speak. It's all about respect. Right. And taking a dump on Kansas City is not respectful. Sure. So maybe that's what he feels like. But anyway, that's not to take away from the quote. Everybody that hears the quote thinks it's hilarious. I thought it was great that they called that back. Maybe Ichiro, however, didn't.

[00:11:07] Now that he's in the Hall of Fame, I really do recommend people go back and watch a video that friend of the podcast, Foolish Baseball, or Bailey Freeman did a few years ago. He took a look at what would happen if Ichiro could hit for more power. And he made a case that Ichiro could have easily been a 500 home run hitter. Let me repeat myself.

[00:11:31] He made a case, going back and looking at some of Ichiro's Japan numbers and his U.S. numbers, that Ichiro could have been a 500 home run hitter if he wanted to. He is an incredible athlete. Just a remarkable hitter. Which is, I get the biggest laugh at when we had this Arise discussion and there were some people who were like, oh, he's kind of like Tony Gwynn. Oh, the Mariners had Ichiro. It's so similar. It's like, oh, no. Like, take a look at some of these things.

[00:12:00] I really recommend you guys go watch that baseball bits that Bailey did. Go just look up Ichiro on his channel. You'll find it. I think it's the only Ichiro video he's done. It's a phenomenal video. And just shows how unique of a baseball player there will be. There's, in the Hall of Fame, there's a lot of unique profiles, but there is a little bit of crossover. Ichiro is one of those one of ones. There will never be another Ichiro.

[00:12:26] There's never going to be someone that comes to baseball at the age of 27 and still has over 3,000 hits. That's never going to happen again. Very unique scenario for Ichiro because he's already played pro for six years before that. But that's still never going to happen. Not a chance. Someone, say another Japanese player came over from NPB and played from age 19 to age 25. Played the full time in Japan and then came over to Major League Baseball then and had 3,000 hits.

[00:12:56] That's a complete hypothetical. I don't think that would ever happen again. Like, this is a one-of-one player all time. Yeah. Shohei came over at 23, I believe. And I've said it before. I'll continue to say it. I think Shohei is the greatest player to ever live. But he's not getting to 3,000 hits. He may put together an—not may. He is going to put together an unprecedented career in his own right. And he is going to go down as the greatest player to ever live, as I continue to say.

[00:13:24] But he's not going to be a 3,000-hit guy. That's just not his game. The pitching's gotten too good, etc. Yes, there will never be another 3,000-hit guy. I don't think anybody's ever breaking Ichiro's 262 hits in a single season. I don't think you're going to see anybody go for 200 hits for 10 straight years again either. Things like that have just changed and gone away from the game of baseball. And Ichiro, like you said, there's nobody cut from that cloth.

[00:13:49] How remarkable is it now that there are now four members of the 99 or higher percent club in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame? 50% of it is made up of Yankees, which is expected because they're the most historic and greatest franchise in baseball. And the other two are Seattle Mariners. Does that feel weird? Did either of those guys ever play in a World Series? No.

[00:14:19] No? Oh, sorry. I must have missed that. My bad. It does show you the... Balance is the wrong word. But I do think it's ironic that you have baseball's best and worst franchise occupying the 99% club down the middle. Yeah, it's pretty wild. It's very, very wild. Okay, last story I want to tell before we take away what we heard from him and the presser and everything. Which was... This is kind of on a personal note. I don't even know if you know this.

[00:14:49] It's not like something I've ever... Nothing I tried to hide or anything like that. In fact, it was awesome. I just don't know if I ever got around to telling you about it. So I'll tell you here along with everybody else. My brother and I got to do that thing on Kids Appreciation Day when we were much, much younger. Where on the last day of the year, they have kids run out to each position. And then the player runs out and they sign a ball. So I want to say I was 13.

[00:15:18] And my brother and I got to do it. My brother was told the position you're going to run to is first base. So he got Mike Karp. I'm sure he'll remember that forever. And I got told, yeah, you're going to be in right field. I went, holy hell. I was like, so I'm going to meet Ichiro and get an autograph from Ichiro. And I did. I was in way over my head. It was the wildest thing ever back when I did it.

[00:15:47] I shook his hand because I think it was my dad that gave me the suggestion of if you do that, you'll always remember that. So I did. And, you know, how everybody talks about his English has always been very good. He just prefers to speak in his fluent language of Japanese. Well, sorry. No, he's fluent in English. It's just his first language in Japanese. But when he talked to us for the minute that he did, he was speaking good English. And he was talking and he was friendly, which was cool.

[00:16:14] Obviously, as somebody who grew up admiring the guy, I'll always remember that. So last little story on a personal note. But they always had a great fan appreciation day at the end of the season. Always. Because they were never in the playoffs. What? Games haven't been packed on game 162? No. Well, they have. No. You're lying. They're always packed. They just... But think of it. If they made the playoffs, maybe you wouldn't have gotten that opportunity.

[00:16:44] That's true. I guess I didn't think about that. But I think I'd still take... Well, for that one year, maybe... It's glass half full, dog. Yeah. Yeah, it's glass half full. That's fair. So what did we learn at this press conference? All right. Let's start with some of the easy stuff. Ichiro got to reminisce and talk about while he's sitting in that room. He's sitting next to Alan, his interpreter. And he's sitting by Kevin Martinez, who started the interview and started the presser.

[00:17:10] He said, look, I don't think anybody on earth thought that 25 years ago when I got here, I guess technically 24 years ago, that I was going to be sitting here today. That I was ever going to be a Hall of Famer. But here he sits as one of the greatest players to ever play this game, which is crazy. Ichiro was revered in Japan. He was put on such a pedestal.

[00:17:35] And it's crazy to think that, I mean, it's crazy to think now that he came over thinking, am I going to be a nobody? Is this going to work? Can I succeed? As somebody who was such an icon in his own country. But clearly there was doubts from himself, from people around him, from a lot of people that, look, you may have a good career over there, Ichiro, and you may have some success, but are you going to be a Hall of Famer? Didn't seem like that was a consensus. And to sit here today and look back on that, it's like, wow, full circle.

[00:18:03] If you think about it more, the impact of what Ichiro trailblazed from Japan and really the uplift of, I think it was Shannon Dreher describing it, like the uplift of the psyche of Japan. Or was it Salk today? Shannon was on. She was talking about it. Yeah. Just his performance in the big leagues uplifted Japan so much in a number of ways.

[00:18:31] And I think it comes around to think about this point. Does Shohei Otani play baseball if Ichiro's not a crazy success story? Some world you could still say, yeah. You could say, TJ, of course. He's like this freak natural athlete. Of course he's going to try and play baseball. Players love playing baseball in Japan. Like, I get that.

[00:18:53] But is it as incentivizing if you know there's not a path to the ultimate goal? Like, players could still play in the NPB. But is there that confidence that you can go over and do it if Ichiro didn't do it 20 years before you did? Probably not to the same level. And I'll tell you what. If Shohei had been the trailblazer, if he had been the first guy to ever go stateside and try to play in Major League Baseball,

[00:19:22] I doubt any team would have seriously said, yeah, we'll let you go two ways. Because not only would a player from Japan have never come stateside, especially a position player, to try and succeed before. But I don't think anybody would have taken the idea seriously of, yeah, this guy can come play two ways in the U.S. Teams would have said there's no way. But when people saw the success that Ichiro had when he came over, it set the standard.

[00:19:48] And people said, yes, guys from the NPB and guys from Japan can succeed here. Some of the best talent in the world is over there and we know that now. So look, is Shohei Otani still playing baseball one way or another? I'm sure he is. But is Shohei Otani at the same level that he's at right now? Had Ichiro not paved the way? I don't know if he is or not. Egal, ob sie gerade erst beginnen oder ihr Sicherheitsprogramm erweitern. Wenn Sie sichern, herausragende Sicherheitspraktiken zu demonstrieren und Vertrauen aufzubauen, ist wichtiger denn je.

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[00:21:03] Erhalten Sie sichern, die ich für die Frage habe. who like who are who are some people you heard from like who maybe gave you the biggest smile when you saw it or something i don't know that remember the exact words but that's he he just he just was asked what players have reached out to you today after the announcement who have you heard from and instead of just listing off everybody he said man i was really happy i heard from this

[00:21:31] person because you know i've never gotten a chance in the last few months to well i never got to say goodbye to him when he left this organization he said scott service i was so happy i got a message from scott service today and i never and then itro made sure to put in there by the way which i fully believe was intentional i never got to say goodbye to him when he left this organization

[00:21:57] and i was like wow i mean i know they probably work together itro was on the field all the time when scott was managing and scott managed itro and then worked with him once itro moved into a front office role but i'm gonna be honest i didn't think that was the answer that was gonna come out of each hero's mouth when i think of notable player people to reach out to jerry depoto no offense to

[00:22:20] scott it's he's not on top of the list all right we've been all we've been all overjoyed and and sentimental for enough time now let's go back to normal marine layer pod tinfoil hat time because i'm putting it on here it's tinfoil hat time now let me preface this by saying this is this is all speculation being put out there by the two of us however it's well known people don't know a whole

[00:22:48] lot about each row how he thinks what his hobbies are etc just just about his life he's he's a closed off guy and with that people don't people don't know what his internal thoughts are on the organization these days at all but when i heard that quote and he made it very very clear how hot how happy he was to hear from scott service and spend some time talking about scott service well knowing how things

[00:23:14] ended here with the total you know scapegoating that went on to get him out of this organization and then doing no hiring process to bring in a new manager and then giving him the full-time job each row might like dan wilson a lot but if he likes scott service that to me feels like there is a chance that each year was sitting there and said yeah i'd like to get my thoughts out there about this without crossing a line and that to me if you try

[00:23:40] to pick up the tea leaves may have been what was going on i'm gonna be honest because especially that he that he like you said tige he put in the point of yeah i didn't really get to say bye he didn't have to say that he could have just said oh i heard from scott service it was great he could have said i heard from scott service i heard from dan who's here today i heard from olrood who was here today because dan wilson and john olrood were at the press conference for any of those interested but he could have said you know heard from junior heard from buehner heard from

[00:24:08] whoever he could have listed off a bunch of people spent a lot of time talking about scott service and how he really wished he could have gotten a chance to have some closure with scott service i don't know this is something itura would have picked up on but sitting up there because there were a lot of people in that presser it was hot in that room there was easily 100 people in there right i would say easily oh there was a ton and there was a ton of japanese media there too which

[00:24:36] you would fully expect with a day like today neither of those decision makers lyle were in the presser that we saw oh here we go here we go again neither of them were there tin tinfoil hat is fully on the head right now again people you didn't really think we were going to go some whole episode just sitting here being sentimental and emotional no no we we've got we're back we're back to your standard programming

[00:25:03] now so who was not in the presser teach the two i would say ringleaders of people that i would say the mariners work very hard to keep out of the light out of the limelight these days jerry depoto john stanton were not there they were not present at the meeting we were there we were sitting through it the two of them were not there and then you have ichiro sitting there talking for a long while

[00:25:28] about scott's service hmm do we think they were in the hall outside because the entire mariners front office did a like an ichiro chant they lined up up and down the hall if you check the mariners socials like employees up and down the hall they could have been there like there's a there's a chance they could have been there and not in the room because they didn't need to ask ichiro any questions

[00:25:53] so here let's lay out our our theories on this that we think i love this lao and i are two opposite sides of what's happening here i think it's a total non-story i think jerry was probably working he might have been on the phone trying to get a trade through and there's good we're gonna get a pass a notification here in about an hour and you're gonna have to stay up even later tonight so we can record our emergency episode when they acquire uh don't say y'all i'm on kata well it's gonna be a

[00:26:22] trade so we'll say alec mo great that actually that'd be great yeah that would it would yeah it would be great worth staying up for jerry like jerry could have been working stanton i'm not sure why stanton was there like he's the chairman of the team i feel i do feel like that is something you go there for but i will say it's not like nobody was up there kevin martinez is now second in line in the organization outside of the ownership group and he was up there on the podium and it is at this

[00:26:51] point of ichiro's career not a baseball thing it is a business thing for the seattle mariners that's why the president of business operations kevin martinez is sitting up there on the podium i wish you and i had strong disagreements to take to the pod more often because it makes for great content it makes for great podcasting i really wish now that we don't disagree on anything but i wish we had strong opinions on polar opposite sides more often because man it makes for good

[00:27:17] content i will say for anybody listening drop us a comment on the youtube comments let us know whose side you're on on this i genuinely want to know you can send us a dm too but we encourage you to drop a comment on youtube so why do i think those two weren't there again here we go again tinfoil hat time i just put it right back on why do stanton and jerry stay out of the public nowadays why do they

[00:27:43] not do many public media sessions well because the two seem to put their foot in their mouths a lot the offseason has gone nothing short of terrible so far in terms of what the on-field big league products going to look like so far and this also would have been the first time all offseason that not only any seattle media would be in the vicinity but a huge group of seattle media now i'm not saying they were going to go up there and answer questions because they weren't it wasn't their time it wasn't

[00:28:09] their show this was for each year old my take is the mariners didn't want them anywhere near media people in general to avoid any potential disaster if anybody would have tried to ask him something see tj's already shaking his head and saying no i don't think this is the craziest thing in the world they just want him nowhere near anybody it's a room full of adults watching each year old have his moment what kind of moment would it be if you're a beat writer and instead of like enjoying the

[00:28:38] moment with each year old you instead like decide it's time to drill jerry depoto on his offseason like seriously again everyone in the room is adults is an adult every single person jerry's an adult john's an adult they know how to handle themselves in a public setting surrounded by their peers watching a franchise icon get inducted into the baseball hall of fame they can stand there for a

[00:29:04] 20 minute press conference without having to worry about sticking their foot in their mouth i think they can manage that how many companies has john stanton founded okay how many how many i don't know a lot okay there we go those require a lot of conversations right where you don't stick your foot in your mouth because you stick your foot in your mouth you don't create the company the company fails again i'm not saying anybody would have interrupted the presser to ask them things that's

[00:29:33] not what would have gone on but there were people talking in the hallways after when things ended who's to say somebody didn't try to again they've been unavailable everyone's adults they're not going to do that okay it's not about being an adult i'm not saying somebody would have drilled them but like tried to ask anything about what in the hell has gone on this offseason again well jerry and john then just wouldn't have answered the question we were standing right next to the elevators they would

[00:29:59] have gotten the elevator and they would have went back up to their office fine then i say why were they not there so far because we were talking about this pre-recording too tj doesn't have an answer for this so this is the answer i'm going with is they did not want to be anywhere near a i don't have an answer for john jerry was probably working okay so how jerry has less of a reason to be there again he's the president of baseball operations there's no baseball operations going on at that press conference

[00:30:27] okay fine so how about this well jerry doesn't do much media stuff these days he did do some sort of end of season press conference it was you know it had some moving parts to it where i don't think everybody knew it was going on because it was very sudden when it happened but he has talked and he was around at the winter meetings even if he didn't do a public session like he was there the guy you're scratching your head more about not being there the owner of the team the ceo of the team who really

[00:30:57] doesn't go anywhere in the public these days why is he not there my take especially on him the jerry thing i can i could be swayed on could the stand thing no i'm sticking by that that's why he was not there what is stand at a family emergency oh well i mean then i then yes that that yeah like we don't know no hence why i think john can handle himself standing in a room watching each row

[00:31:23] answer questions again i think everyone else in the room could handle standing there next to john stanton without being like oh is the payroll going up is the payroll going up john is the payroll going up okay now 30 million dollars now you're blowing that's out of proportion because that's not what i'm saying i don't think that's what anybody would do but like again to your point about people being adults people could try and ask a question like an adult that's what i'm getting at they didn't want

[00:31:52] them doing that no that's my guess again this is all speculation but this is not a scenario where jerry and john are running away from media yeah that's what i say you go okay so so come up with an answer to this question which i think i asked you pre-recording too stanton was at the 54 conference but he wasn't at this one different scenarios again we don't know what's going on in john

[00:32:22] stanton's life i know he but i can't give you an answer why he wasn't there but i don't think it's because they're shielding him from the media well again it's not his it's not his presser but if you're an owner there to write stories about each year old they're not there to investigate the budget okay again that's i'm not saying you would get peppered but just they're just trying to avoid any

[00:32:47] question at all and and again like even if it's not your press conference which again yes it's not but wouldn't you want to be there for an owner of a team for one of your franchise yeah i don't have a good i don't have a good answer why he's not there but i feel like as the chairman of the team you can handle when someone asks you a question about the offseason you can say no comment or take it up with pr and then walk into the elevator i'm sure he's done that a thousand times maybe but it's more fun

[00:33:16] why would this time be oh deal breaker i well can't can't show my face well i mean this this offseason and its discourse has been about as bad as it's ever gotten that being said could he have taken that route yes and i gotta be honest it's way more fun to go with this story you're being boring my story is more fun there's more to talk about

[00:33:40] well i'm trying to be logical for an illogical franchise and i'm trying to cook up and i'm trying to cook up why the owner of a team wouldn't be there to see his franchise cornerstone go into the hall of fame and you know have his moment in the sun there might have been some other owners in there but we just don't know what they look like i think we know what some of them look like the top ones yes like at least you know the bottom bottom 10 maybe not but i think i mean

[00:34:09] there's at least you know there's at least a handful if not more that we'd say oh it's that guy so well so were they there not anybody that we recognized well also shout out to the the mariners are redoing their sod on the field yeah great metaphor for the offseason we walk out there we walk out there to shoot our social clip and i'm looking around like man they're really tearing up

[00:34:38] this field it looks kind of rough right now i'm thinking like oh wow that's ironic yeah yes it was oh you know what last thing on this on this whole combo because when you talk about ownership stanton seems to always be the one that's brought up because he's the face yeah let me bring this up where was chris larson guy's a ghost all the time your franchise cornerstone's going into the hall of fame don't you want to see him have his moment oh no you're just you're not going to show up well

[00:35:07] that's interesting he's never around has chris larson showed up to oppressor no never that'd probably be a david's question he'd know if he did i'm gonna my money's on no again that would be the type of thing where he would to see a franchise cornerstone going to the hall of fame sure okay well you say sure but then like if you're not even if you don't have any like i mean okay let me say it like this if if

[00:35:36] you're not interested in showing up for ichiro if you were around and available like then like what are we doing like okay let's think about it from an owner's perspective you are so high up in the organization that you don't need to sit in a press conference to sit there and like congratulate each your own talk to him just remember that john stanton and chris larson if they wanted to could talk with each or a one-on-one congratulations oh this is great without having to sit in that stuffy room

[00:36:04] for 30 minutes listening to questions well i'm just saying sends a nice message oh it would you're not wrong you're not wrong yeah we miss anything else from ichiro favorite ichiro moment yeah okay let's end with this and then we'll get to joe for me it's the 258 hit i was so young it was the first full season i really remember that being 2004 which is an unfortunate

[00:36:34] first season to really have a lasting memory of because that's when all the losing started in this franchise in my lifetime in your lifetime and our generation's lifetime was 04 but the the shining moment of that season was ichiro surpassing george thisler as the game's all-time single season hit leader and i remember i was watching every game back then i was dialed in on ichiro and him chasing this

[00:36:59] hit record and i remember that night when he needed the two hits i remember the big the big candy hop over third base that he had to get 257 to tie it and then i remember the ground ball back up the middle to break it and i remember six or seven year old me was going nuts i was fired up i like i thought it was the coolest thing ever i was like we have somebody that is just the best in baseball at this

[00:37:25] and not a lot of teams have that no other team had an ichiro especially in that point in time so that was my favorite moment it was my first real wow we don't just have a really good player on this team we have an icon on this team a legend on this team and yeah i loved all that i don't have memory of that season but i do have memory of the 2009 season where ichiro hit a walk-off homer over mariano

[00:37:50] rivera that was pretty cool dave sims had the legendary call couple of hall of famers going head to head there's a drive deep to right field ichiro has beaten mariano rivera walk-off two-run home run did i get that right yeah all those words uh i think he he also added in there going back swisher ichiro as the ball landed he's like beating mariano rivera yeah pretty legendary swing and i think that encapsulated what ichiro was going back to my point earlier when i suggested you watch foolish baseball's

[00:38:18] video on ichiro ichiro could have done that a lot yeah he he 100 in that moment steps up to the plate nose like yeah i'm the winning run why don't i just tee off on this one and boom it was awesome what a great moment for again he played on such just a mediocre to bad stretch of mariners baseball and was so unbelievable that those moments right there should have happened way more often but didn't

[00:38:44] so it was a treat when it did get to happen and ichiro got his his shining moment against mariano rivera it would have been nice if he got to do it in the playoffs but we can't all get what we want so shout out ichiro for that awesome moment last thing because we haven't gotten to it yet to the one person the one person that decided not to vote for ichiro fuck off you're not allowed to vote ever again could you imagine working your way up through

[00:39:13] the baseball writers association earning the right to vote for the major league baseball hall of fame looking at ichiro's resume with his over 3 000 hits his mvp award his 10 gold gloves and deciding that's not a hall of famer i would call that sad i don't know how else to describe it baseball voting for

[00:39:37] the hall of fame is so stupid how do you not have to publicly put out your ballots that like i guarantee you if bubble if ballots were public this guy's not leaving ichiro off his ballot whoever this is thinks it's hilarious whatever discourse is going on right now about the fact that ichiro missed one vote and he made it about himself for a career that wasn't his and somebody who worked his ass off because he's some pretentious writer who wanted to make a scene the whole thing is so stupid i cannot

[00:40:05] wait till all these boomers get out of voting i legitimately think this person should lose their vote the one person who didn't vote for ichiro the one person who didn't vote for derrick jeter the three people who didn't vote for grippy you guys should all lose your votes again i'm asking you have 10 votes you look at the players you are asked a simple question is this player a hall of famer yes or no

[00:40:31] not maybe in three years he's a hall of famer why he doesn't play no he's a hall of famer right now you have 10 votes there are never more than 10 hall of famers on any ballot there's never more than like three on any ballot so vote please it's ridiculous and sad it really is sad god these these stupid voters well maybe the one person that didn't vote for jeter thought he was such an

[00:40:58] atrocious defender which he is and was that he didn't deserve to be in the hall of fame did you see the fake mets rider taking a victory victory lap claiming that he was mark gooden the account that guy's funny yeah that he was like i was the one who didn't vote for each row and i saw some people i saw some people falling forward it's like embarrassing he puts in his bot he put in his bio in the last line as did not vote for each row and i thought it's the funniest thing god that was great all right

[00:41:26] well congratulations each row you had an unprecedented historic one of one career and you deserve all the recognition that's coming your way we will be fans of yours forever before we get to joe let's take a quick pause we're going to talk to you guys about our friends over at pagatcha's pub 85 you got nfl championship weekend this weekend you also got college basketball you got hockey you got a bunch of sports you want to go watch games with your friends head over there because there's 20 tvs in that place so watch all the games that you might desire you have some awesome food you can go play some darts you can

[00:41:56] go play some pool and if you want happy hour drinks that's your spot because drinks are three and four dollars at happy hour and happy hours let happy hours last from 2 to 6 p.m on monday through friday again those are three and four dollar drinks during happy hours so go have yourself a fun time over with your friends that's over at pagatcha's pub 85 in kirkland we wanted to have joe on because of the

[00:42:22] international signing class that was signed last week highlighted by your hair batista that is by the way how you pronounce his name i think we mispronounced it for the first few times we talked about him but it is your hair so we spend a little bit of time on him there's some interesting points to lie with joe that i want people to pay attention to at the beginning of the conversation when we talk about the lack of movement movement with prospects this offseason puts it in some really

[00:42:48] good context i learned a lot especially when it comes to moving players off the mariners roster and what it would take hint hint hint hint hint no doubt joe's great he's so tuned in so knowledgeable about well a ton of baseball stuff but certainly prospects which is what we spend time talking with him about joe's become a friend of ours we've loved getting to pick his brain as much as we have and

[00:43:12] we think you guys are going to enjoy this one because again your hair batista is a legit prospect his nickname's the beast and there's not that much out on him yet so if you want a full breakdown on this guy listen to this interview with joe and i think you're going to come away pretty excited about who this guy could be we won't keep you guys any longer let's get you to the interview with joe doyle all right we've got our friend joe doyle on with us he's a writer for future stars he's also the host of

[00:43:41] the overslot podcast go check that out when you get the chance joe good to have you hop on as always your off season can be described as how what off season seems about right no i mean um yeah i stay busy writing about prospects and stuff but from a from a local standpoint um paying attention to mariners baseball and reading about mariners baseball um yeah no i think my point stands what

[00:44:11] off season well given how quiet the off season has been i'd imagine there is some relaxation yes uh yeah i don't know i mean i i'm not i don't find myself writing about uh mariners prospects being traded or prospects being traded into the organization which is i i think a weird middle ground for mariners content creators or mariners writers because just the history of the organization has always been

[00:44:40] one of rebuilding and bringing prospects in or um you know especially of late the jerry depoto era has been adding talent and and trading prospects away so uh in that regard yeah i haven't had much to write about um but just from uh previewing the 2025 season um just very very little to write about and frustratingly so because obviously the 2024 product wasn't good enough and a lot of the key pieces

[00:45:09] with this 2025 product are a year older now so that has to be something of of a concern why are no prospects getting moved yeah i mean i think the the addition of that extra wild card team a couple of years ago is huge i think there's just so many teams that think okay there's one more playoff spot what if we get hot you know you think back like even last year the pirates a lot of people didn't

[00:45:36] think the pirates were going to be competitors last year and they got hot and they were in it for a lot of the season and a lot of times you're a prospect or way a prospect or two away from competing i mean look at jared jones and paul skeins and some of the things that they were able to do in pittsburgh so i don't think it's a matter of uh teams not valuing prospects i still think uh they're the market inefficiency they're they're the way to get better and sustain success over time

[00:46:01] but i just think from a realistic standpoint moving big league talent for what if talent at this stage in the winter is just going to get harder and harder as every year goes by do you feel like as time goes on in an off season that people will open the door more to trades or do you just mean in general unless you're one of those bottom feeder teams the white socks the marlins etc people are just going to stand pat and say no we're going to try to add to the big league roster yeah i think it's

[00:46:28] the latter um you know what if you are the uh let's throw out a team the cincinnati reds see and maybe that's maybe that's the issue is that i'm sitting here and i'm like what teams are going to be bad you know like what teams are going to be truly bad even the oakland athletics you're like well you know what if brent rooker and jacob wilson and louis severit like what if they get hot and they've got a couple of bullpen pieces that make the end of games interesting like i think that mental exercise that i just went to kind of speaks volumes it's like i don't i can't really point to

[00:46:58] like a whole bucket of teams that are for sure going to be bad in 2025 and because those teams don't exist and they're not willing to wave the white flag teams aren't willing to move they're starting third baseman or they're starting second baseman for prospects unless they have something like a matt shaw waiting in the wings and we saw that chicago the cubs moved a lot of infielders pretty quickly uh this offseason and so they kind of came off the board

[00:47:27] but yeah i just i think it's the latter lyle i just don't think there's going to be a lot of teams that are willing to move contributors for the future does the is the prospect value getting low enough where the mariners can't even just attach a prospect to mitch hanniger to to get rid of that salary because this is something lown i've talked about a lot over the offseason it just seems logical to to shed that 15 and a half million dollars he has and it's like you're gonna have

[00:47:55] to sacrifice a prospect because no one's gonna just take it on for for free obviously if you want someone to take all that salary you attach someone you value that the other team hopefully would value and just absorb mitch hanniger's salary is do it does a team look at a prospect in that point say even that's not worth it for us yeah so i think that's a misconception that a lot a lot of fans have with with this team um with just how much 15 million dollars is especially in one year for you

[00:48:25] know look at what the braves did uh to to take on uh marco gonzalez uh it took jared kelnick uh jared kelnick was not he was not a nothing i mean a lot of the league still believed he was going to be a two and a half win player with four years of control left um and while that hasn't been the case uh the the ability to find 15 million dollars in value from a prospect to get rid of a mitch hanniger and to find a a suitor that's willing to take on 15 million dollars at this stage in the winter i

[00:48:53] think is tough i think if you're looking at like a 15 million dollar prospect this the list is short it's not felney and selestin it's not lazaro montes it's it's colt emerson it's cole young it's guys that project yeah it's guys that project to be one and a half win players for one year it's 15 million dollars of value i mean look at it from this point of view if you move cole young and he is a two win player or a one and a half win player i think you guys would agree cole young's

[00:49:21] not going to be a three and a half four four and a half win player you are essentially moving um for the control years nine war the the chance to potentially get nine war um which equates to you know i'm doing the math in my head 70 million dollars but that's that's on the upshoot you know there's a chance that cole young might not work out um so i i do think that it would

[00:49:46] require a pretty sizable prospect like i don't think harry ford would get you 15 million dollars off the books personally yeah i mean they could they could probably knock the price down and only clear seven i mean seven would make a huge impact on what they currently have it doesn't it doesn't need to be all 15 and a half i think of a team like the marlins who i believe are on that list with the a's of a team needing to spend money otherwise they're going to get a grievance filed against them

[00:50:12] that feels like an advantage a situation you take advantage of yeah i think that would probably be a better way of attacking it if you were trying to get you know eight million bucks off the book off the books i don't know what that would look like you know i don't know if that's a michael arroyo i don't know if that's a johnny farmello but i would just i would just say that the prospect capital is going to be higher than i think people expect just for one year and 15 million bucks that's interesting like i guess i figured it would be somebody lower on the prospect rankings and

[00:50:41] somewhere somebody lower on the list than that but man just thinking about this out loud you try to get rid of one year mitch hanniger and you have to give up farmello to do it that would be those would be bad optics here's the thing lyle if if you are trading a prospect to get rid of money uh the team that's uh receiving that prospect has to know that it's a big leaguer because if that person never makes it you just ate all that money for no no value you didn't you didn't add any value because

[00:51:07] they didn't make the big leagues and so i look at a guy like michael arroyo for example who isn't a good defender isn't a great runner um you know doesn't have a dynamic throwing arm like it's it's hit or bust there's a reasonable chance that michael arroyo is in the league for five six seven years and you know puts up three war for his entire career in a part-time role and if you're a three war guy

[00:51:32] um is it worth acquiring six control years of a three career war guy and eating nine ten million bucks i think you can make the case that you need more you need a bigger upshoot so and that's why garver it seems like would be the more likely one if they were going to try and shed one of those two since he actually could provide value at the big league level this year he would be more likely than

[00:51:58] hanniger would be yeah and i think you would bet more on a mitch garver bounce back than you would a mitch hanniger bounce back just because you can fake it as a backup platoon catcher and also mitch garver's career last year was such an outlier for mitch garver that i i think if you get him in the right spot uh there would be more takers for sure so joe breaks down prospects as well as anybody which

[00:52:22] is why we love to have him on as as much as we do and there's obviously news out of the baseball world but the mariners world for sure this week as the new international signing classes put pen to paper over the last few days for the mariners they've got an exciting class highlighted by your hair batista who is obviously the blue chip marquee name in this class he was number six per mlb pipeline on their personal rankings of where he fits within this class and there's not that much

[00:52:52] information out there on him yet and you've been on him for a long time and you've you've been watching film on him for a long time for what's out there and talking about him etc so for those who don't know yet because i'm guessing it's a very small number of people that have a true breakdown on who this guy is i'll just start with this from your perspective as a little bit of an overview who is your hair batista as a player yeah um i think exciting would be would be the best word for

[00:53:20] it he's probably up there with noelvi marty in terms of the best pure athletes at the time of signing um that seattle has acquired in the last handful of years felney and selestin was was always kind of in that same bucket but felney had to grow like felney and selestin was like you know the broad shoulders the long limbs the super projectable like your hair is here uh six foot one 185 pounds um he's ranked

[00:53:47] six at mlb pipeline he's ranked like you know upwards of nine to 15 other places i pulled nine scouting directors i have a relationship with nine scouting directors um a lot of them have him in the three to five range to be honest um so i would say this like what i was told was your hair batista has as good a chance as anybody in this class to be a five tool player uh which is hard to come by it's plus

[00:54:16] arm strength it's a center field profile it's plus run times um it's plus bat speed now that's not to say all of this is going to come to fruition once fully matured he could slow down things can change but he can run he can throw he's got bat speed and power um and yeah he can go get it in center field i think the biggest question for your hair batista over the last 18 months at least as long as i've been following him has been is he going to hit and that's the question with a lot of these international

[00:54:45] free agents they're teenagers uh on a regular day basis they see 83 to 86 mile an hour fastballs they don't see good breaking balls yet and your hair batista has always had a really noisy swing very handsy a lot of moving parts um and so you know evaluators question whether or not all of those moving parts will allow him to hit better stuff but i'll tell you having watched his film over the

[00:55:09] last 18 months it has calmed way down i mean he is really quieting um his swing down at the plate so i'm bullish um and i think he's the type of guy that uh if it if it clicks right away in the dominican summer league uh this year i would be very very excited because it means his skills are translating to professional ball and that's always a good sign i want to tap into your expertise for

[00:55:35] this how does someone earn the nickname the beast you know i don't know um i know the story behind it his teammates in venezuela donned him the beast when he was 12 um and he's just he's been the beast since he was 12 or 13 years old um i i mean the beast it's it's hard to find many nicknames that rival the beast if if it comes together for this guy and he ends up being a 25 stolen base 25 homer

[00:56:03] center fielder at the big leagues uh i could i could get behind the nickname the beast but those are big shoes to fill for sure and then in terms of prospect value how how does he compare to the other top international signings the past few years you can go back to julio you mentioned noel v felmin etc all of these guys i mean i would still comfortably put felmin uh at the top of the list at the time

[00:56:29] of signing uh and i think the signing bonus speaks for itself i mean felmin was a four million dollar player um i think your hair is 2.1 2.2 maybe 2.3 now there there is a small difference in that uh international scouts are generally a little bit more comfortable signing prospects from the dominican republic because they see better competition uh coming up the ladder uh but

[00:56:52] venezuela is is no uh you know no chump change either i would say he's probably along the same lines as um i would say he's probably in the same bucket as noel v marty i would put felmin at the top i would put your hair and and noel v in that second bucket and then probably dowel joseph would be four and

[00:57:17] um i think you would have to put las montez at least for me at five or six i'm forgetting someone too but those you know those would be the names that immediately come to mind and i'd rank them like that i'm glad you mentioned las because here was one of the questions i had for you just off what some outlets have so far again from the very little information we so far have on this guy the power grades that batista has seem to match up to las except that batista is supposed to be the

[00:57:47] way better athlete or the power is the power projection that serious well here's the thing las is gonna get to it effortlessly um he just swings the bat and has 70 grade raw power because of his size and his strength your hair is six foot one 185 pounds so while he can generate plus bat speed i wouldn't personally stick a 65 grade i don't put a 65 power grade on anybody i always go either six

[00:58:14] or seven but i i wouldn't attach something that high to a 17 year old at this stage we'll see where it ends up i mean throwing a 65 power grade on a kid that's six foot one at the age of 17 is suggesting that he's going to hit 32 to 35 homers as a pro playing center field which i think is um rich for for that age for a player of that size so he's certainly not the natural power hitter that las is

[00:58:41] but even if he's you know one degree of separation away from las uh he projects to be a considerably better hitter than lazaro montez if it comes together the way scouts want it to so um i think for a guy his size and for his how twitchy he is if if you get 24 to 28 homers out of him in any given year you're pumped yeah and then the other side of that before tj gets his next question in is

[00:59:08] whether or not he has las's power it's very clear that he has power and you just outlined that there but do you believe again i know you said things can change over time but sounds like you feel like he has a real shot to actually play center field depends uh that's a tough that's always the toughest question to ask you know he's 6'1 185 as a 17 year old i mean lyle you're still in great shape tj you're still in great shape like i don't know what you guys look like at 17 but people get a lot

[00:59:35] bigger especially as they train i mean listen like felney and selenstein looks huge right now i mean he looks very very um bulked up and that's not to say he's not gonna play shortstop but the point is players age differently that their bodies change and so if he ends up being 6'1 205 um you know he might slow down a little bit and he might profile better into right field but um yeah so it's almost impossible to say that right now he has gotten faster he has gotten more athletic from the time

[01:00:05] he was 15 to now it's hard to know what he's going to look like at 22 why does a prospect like your hair batiste is signed despite being rated higher sign for a smaller signing bonus than the next guy on the list that we want to ask you about kendry martinez a couple of things uh i mentioned the dominican republic thing um there's more scouts in the dominican republic internationally than there is anywhere else the level of competition in the dominican republic is higher than anywhere else

[01:00:34] for the most part at least at the amateur level uh so the players in the dominican uh generally get bid up earlier than players in venezuela or columbia or uh some of these other latin american countries the other part of it is uh these deals are consummated super early um they're they're consummated very very early i think one thing that people don't realize is your hair batista was supposed to be a

[01:01:00] chicago white sock um he was uh he had a handshake agreement with the white socks at the end of 2023 it fell through for some reason seattle swooped in i think they offered him like 300 000 more than the white socks had at that time and that handshake agreement between organization and trainers and the families uh is is extremely important for partnering in the years to come if you renege a handshake

[01:01:27] agreement late in this late in the you know status late late in the cycle and the team doesn't have the money to make up that that lost uh those lost wages it can crush the relationship between team and agent for a long time so i think if you asked most teams um i think they would say your hair batista was more of a three million dollar player this year a 3.1 million dollar player than he was a 2.2 or 2.3

[01:01:54] million dollar player so um yeah it's just it's just one of those things where trainers don't want to ruin a relationship with a team that's you know it's it's one of those like don't bite the hand that feeds this team is going to offer us 2.2 million dollars let's not ruin the potential to sign other players with this organization seeking a bigger payday last one i've got for you on the beast which is if he hits well in the dsl like you talked about could happen this year

[01:02:22] what is a reasonable timeline we could see him in affiliated ball in modesto because you would assume after the dsl he would spend some time in arizona could it be sometime in late 2026 yeah the mariners haven't rushed anybody i mean they've the year one has always been like the entire year is spent in the dsl and a lot of that has to do with education language schooling they want assimilation to the united states and to major league baseball and so i wouldn't expect

[01:02:50] your hair to spend even a day uh in the arizona complex league or modesto in 2025 i would expect depending on how things go that he starts in the arizona complex league in 26 and it's not a foregone conclusion that he jumps right to modesto if he proves just like totally um overmatched like he's totally overmatching the opposition he could be in modesto as early as you know middle of may

[01:03:16] in uh or i guess early june in 2026 yeah let's discuss kendry martinez the second highest rated guy in this international class i've seen his tools aren't quite as loud so what does he bring to the table in this i i think he's a little bit more on the polished side this is a perfect example so kendry martinez gets what uh 1.7 i don't have my notes in front of me but it's like 1.7 and why

[01:03:42] because he's a dominican shortstop um it's exactly like like your hair batista is much more than a 400 000 excess value than kendry martinez um i think when you talk about kendry martinez you're talking about a guy that you really hope is an above average hit tool guy a guy that can hit 270 a guy that can hit 275 at the big leagues because not going to be a runner not going to be a terribly

[01:04:08] impactful um impactful power type of a guy uh and he's going to have a smattering of average tools so i think when you talk about kendry there's a chance that he is a starting shortstop or second baseman at the big league level i think most people think he's a second baseman or a third baseman and given the tools um he probably projects to be another one of those you know at peak one and a half uh war type of a guy he's just not the most dynamic player in the world but he is a better

[01:04:34] pure now hitter than your herbatista is so he's not even uh like a mike in the michael arroyo bucket well i mean the thing the difference there is michael arroyo is five nine i don't want to say michael arroyo has a bad body but for all intents and purposes from a prospect perspective it's a bad body um kendry is left-handed he's got three or four inches on michael arroyo you can look at

[01:05:02] kendry martinez and squint and say oh this could become something a little bit more athletic whereas everyone knew when michael arroyo was an amateur that the body was going to go in a certain direction and he was going to have to hit if we want to move on to some of the other prospects in the mariners system as we start to ramp up toward the start of 2025 i we've definitely got a few in the bucket for you so let me start here which prospect that could be a blue chip guy or somebody that's flying

[01:05:30] under the radar from your perspective could take a big jump this year i tell you the guy that i'm paying attention to and i i'll be the first to admit i was wrong on las montez uh i you know back in 2022 i said anybody that's coming up posting a 33 strikeout rate in the dsl how is this going to

[01:05:54] translate to full season ball i don't i don't see it um 2023 was an absolute breakout star year for for las he's going to be tested this year with the best pitching he's ever seen and for me um the comp that i've always put on las is um oh now i'm forgetting the guy's name the carlos paguero except slower to be totally honest with you which is a scary player um but that's always the

[01:06:23] comp that i had is carlos paguero like this guy is going to hit 210 but this guy might hit 30 home runs and the difference that paguero had was he could run and he could throw las can't run las can't throw las can't field so he's going to have to bang he's going to have to bang and i think the farther he can get away from the narrative that oh he's going to be a 37 38 strikeout guy

[01:06:52] the better i am hoping from a from a mariners prospect viewer perspective that we get a surprise from last this year and he posts a 24 strikeout rate and takes arkansas by storm and makes dickie stevens look small and because i think at that point once he starts doing it in double a against those pitchers it's time to believe like it's time to buy in but if he comes up and does another

[01:07:21] 32 33 34 strikeout rate at high a and i know he's young i know he's 20 21 years old you you genuinely you genuinely have to question like what's the ceiling for a guy that is going to hit 210 with all these strikeouts and is definitely already a dh he's just a scary prospect to me and i really hope he takes another mammoth step because he'd be a really really fun player to believe in

[01:07:47] how do you weigh the start of his time in high last year where he came up and he was about as bad as you could possibly get and then versus the end of it where he totally turned it around and he looked a lot more like he did modesto that and that's kind of what what bleeds into that that answer for me is he was actually pretty damn good at the end of the season i don't have the numbers in front of me but i want to say he was rocking like a 24 strikeout rate the last six weeks like it was better it was it was

[01:08:12] frankly it was good um and i think if he can take that version of las montez and i would start him at high a again but if you get him to arkansas in june and he shows that he can hit man like that is the middle of the lineup force that this team desperately could use in frankly 2027 but would sure be a nice luxury to look forward

[01:08:37] to uh on the horizon is there a benchmark you feel like he needs to hit in high a before you promote him are we looking at strikeout rate or are we just looking at overall production like ops what do you want to see there well there's a couple of things the last thing i want to do with las is is bucket him into a platoon power hitter so i would want to see that he's handling his own against left-handed pitching um i would want him to bat every single day against left-handed pitching and give him as much

[01:09:04] exposure to that as he possibly can and then the other thing i mean if we're looking more surface level even though this isn't like the biggest indicator yeah it would probably be rolling strikeout rate the evs are always going to be there the extra base hits are always going to be there i think if people are you know waiting to see las montez improve in right field i think it's a total waste of time um let's just see him putting the ball in play with his massive raw power and um holding his own

[01:09:31] against lefties i'm not saying he needs to be a 290 hitter against lefties but if he can hit 240 against lefties and still slug a little bit um my excitement level for that player is going to go up let me give you three names logan evans brandon garcia michael morales of the three who do you think makes the biggest impact on the big league roster in 2025 and from where you stand right now

[01:09:55] which of those three has the highest ceiling wow that's a really good question and it it makes you think about a number of things like i think brandon garcia is a is a reliever um in a in a comfortable setting i i think seattle would prefer that he be a five out type of a guy where he pitches one and two thirds or or two innings um so that kind of caps his ceiling from an impact perspective but you know we've seen there are relievers that are just so dominant that they have you know incredibly impactful

[01:10:25] roles on the team he would probably be number three for me even though i'm most intrigued by what he can do uh he could also be i think uh maybe the first name up from this group i would probably put boy it's a toss-up for me between morales and and logan evans they're so similar i would i would probably say this might be a might be a hot take i think michael morales might have a

[01:10:53] slightly higher ceiling than than logan evans and the reason i say that is morales is a little bit younger um i understand he doesn't throw as hard but he found a way to strike batters out this year and that's always been my my thing with logan evans is everyone's so juiced on him but i'm like point to a single pitch that logan evans has that misses bats he doesn't have an out pitch right he doesn't have an out weapon now he has a ton of soft contact weapons and there's a ton of value in that

[01:11:22] in major league baseball but ultimately it kind of limits him to a number five starter at the big league level i don't think morale is i don't think his ceiling is much higher than that i think he's a low four maybe a solid four if he unlocks another mile and a half on the fastball and he has the thing that's been interesting about morales is he has seen pretty gradual linear development which is exciting in a way but i think i would be most excited about so to answer your question i think

[01:11:50] brandon garcia could impact the team the most in 2025 but i think the highest ceiling is michael morales how did those three then compare to the two pitchers the mariners drafted at the top of the 2024 draft when we had you on post-draft post-dallas in the summer you were pretty high on durangelo sangia and ryan sloan and what they could do this upcoming season how does that whole picture shake out with the then the five of them by the end of this year man that's going to be really fun that's

[01:12:17] going to be really fun to watch i don't think there's any question that uh ryan sloan and durangelo sangia have the higher ceiling than any of the three that we just mentioned i think people are very interested to see how durangelo sangia stuff is going to translate to the next level i mean there are some things that he does you know he's up to 98 miles an hour from a lower slot and he's super athletic and he can spin a breaking ball um i don't know if he's got the full accoutrement of pitches to be

[01:12:42] you know in this bryce miller brian woo conversation but i think he could be a pretty good low two or a high three you know maybe the 2024 version of louis castillo to be honest there's some similarities there um and then with ryan sloan what a complete unknown um i i mean he is a six foot five inch 230

[01:13:03] pound high schooler like high schooler he is the size of logan gilbert and he's 18 19 years old i don't think i i don't know if there's really anybody that knows what to expect from ryan sloan this year there are things that he can do that have me excited again up to 98 big body workhorse frame uh change

[01:13:28] up cutter slider i comped him to lance lynn during the draft um i have no idea what to expect from ryan sloan because nobody has seen him uh at least in like a big setting on on track man and nobody really knows what to expect from his stuff so maybe ryan sloan might be the most interesting player we look forward to seeing this year i'll be interested to see if he breaks camp with the team they might keep him at the complex league to get him a little bit stronger like they did walter for there for a

[01:13:56] while and you know maybe he starts affiliated ball in june colt emerson i'm gonna say i'm gonna preface this question by saying it is probably unlikely but i want to get your four one or i want to get your two cents on it anyway in what scenario could we see him up in the big leagues at the tail end of 2025 oh man um well let's assume seattle doesn't sign a third baseman this winter that would be troubling

[01:14:25] not not the hottest take we've heard not the hottest take indeed frustrating um man that would be such it wouldn't it wouldn't absolutely stun me i think the more concerning thing would be um where is seattle at from a record standpoint that they feel the need to call colt emerson up in september um you know it's possible that they just don't have any better options on the

[01:14:52] infield and you know they're fighting for a playoff spot and that's probably likely but seattle has generally been pretty slow with its prospect pretty conservative i mean julio is prodigal in in the way that he came about and jared kelnick to a to a certain extent was also kind of a prodigal prospect in nature i don't think that is colt emerson and colt emerson still has a lot to gain

[01:15:19] and a lot to learn in minor league baseball uh he's got to learn how to hit for power and backspin the baseball he's got to get better at shortstop um so he's not as complete a product as the two guys that i mentioned before him i would expect we see him at the end of 2026 um but man if we see him in 2025 one of two things has happened the mariners are in bad shape or colt emerson is a star so that's what i was kind of getting at we kind of we took opposite routes on this you're thinking in the

[01:15:49] sense of the mariners are playing terribly and they don't have anybody left to fill third base come september i was almost thinking of it as what if the team's playing really well i know colt didn't have a great end of the year once he got to everett but if he has a monster 2025 throughout the minors and part of that being in double a is there any world that for one final shot in the arm as the team's trying to make a play uh playoff run they call him up to play some type of role in

[01:16:14] september that's where my mind was going in a perfect world yeah i i don't think they would call up colt emerson this year unless i mean he's gonna be 19 this year isn't he he's gonna be or no he's 20 all season he's gonna be 20 all season yeah i don't think there's a way that they would call him up unless he is hitting 340 at arkansas with and this is maybe the bigger part he would have to be

[01:16:39] showing bigger exit velos they're going to want to see the contact quality improve with colt you know for as much love as he gets for the hit tool and it is a really really good hit tool colt hasn't proven that he's going to hit for power you know he's still looking like a guy that could be a 15 to 18 to 20 homer a guy at the next at the next level and so how much you know how much impact can he really provide if it's just the hit tool um at the next level i i don't know i would be very surprised but

[01:17:10] if he is up in september it would tell me that he's hitting the absolute hell out of the baseball how about one of colt's uh prospect infield mates down there in the minor leagues and cole young who i'm pretty sure we all expect is gonna have some sort of role on this mariners roster this year whether or not he is ready what would you expect for cole young at the big league level this year i'm excited for cole young i i might be more excited in the immediacy for cole young than i am for cole temerson and

[01:17:39] there's there's something about cole i got to know him when he was a junior in high school and the way he carries himself is it's the type of energy and cole temerson is the exact same way for the record it's the type of energy that just kind of exudes itself in the entire dugout and then the entire clubhouse he is a he is he's mitch hanniger energy in like a 22 year old kid um and i think his game is also going to translate to the big leagues pretty well he strikes me as a guy who's going to

[01:18:08] take a lot of walks he takes uh strikes me as a guy who is going to hit the mistake pitch out of the park at nt mobile park which i think is exciting and he's got the swing to hit it uh over that right field fence um i've comped cole young to uh jeff mcneil for for a very long time and i think if you can get a two to two and a half win second baseman year in and year out on this roster hitting

[01:18:35] in the you know seven eight or nine hole you're pretty happy about that and uh i'm looking forward to seeing what he can do for seattle and i would i would expect to see him you know in in june two and a two two to two and a half win players damn near one of the best offensive players on the team at this rate so yeah not wrong and maybe the best second baseman can oh yeah one of the best

[01:18:57] second baseman they've ever had yeah yeah i mean um i i would i mean i wonder how many second baseman the mariners have that accrued 10 war with the team i mean bobby brett boone and and reynolds yeah yeah i bet there's not i bet jose lopez was like six i'll look this up while tj asks another question or while we stall time here i'm curious let me ask you about someone else then because it

[01:19:26] we've watched yeah i would say at least in some prospect lists and some discourse online another mariners prospect going in a different direction it seems like harry ford's losing a little bit of helium why is that you know the thing with harry has always been plate discipline it's always been his biggest strength he's going to take his walks and he's got sneaky power and the fear with harry coming up the ladder has always been when you reach a level where they are throwing more strikes

[01:19:56] and they are hitting the corners that passive approach doesn't work and it's why i tell people all the time when they're evaluating prospects at low a and in the dsl and the complex league don't pay attention to walks because walks for a hitter should be the baseline if you aren't walking at the lower levels and you're striking out a ton aka las montes and dsl um that's when i'm concerned

[01:20:22] so i think with with harry it's you know he's a five foot ten inch right-handed hitter um he's striking out more than he ever has he's not hitting the ball as hard as he ever has now dickie stevens is going to kill a guy like dickie stevens park is just brutal but um and and i just i don't think he has taken to catching at the rate that i think the team was hoping it's not to say he's a

[01:20:49] bad catcher but he doesn't look any more like a full-time catcher at the big league level and so um i think you're you're putting a lot of uh you're putting a lot of emphasis and a lot of value on his ability to run uh considering all of his other tools and that's almost lost a little bit behind the plate and you guys watched the left field thing was rough so like yeah like worst scenario rough

[01:21:18] i don't even think he looks like a left fielder personally like i don't and maybe maybe you can give him 50 games out there and he looks more comfortable but um tracking the ball just he did not look like he was a natural type to track the baseball and that that worries me a little bit you know um jose marmalayos was was good at tracking the baseball um harry ford looks pretty uncomfortable out there now he is he hasn't had the reps it could get better and it probably will get better but i don't

[01:21:45] see him being better than a below average defensive left fielder at the next level for me and this is just if you guys want to reference he's not a not a top 100 prospect for me that seems to be the route that a lot of people seem to be going with him so it makes sense on a more positive note i think the last one i've got for you is the mariners have their most exciting wow did we get an answer yeah second base we have do we have more than three ten war i almost forgot jose lopez was at exactly

[01:22:15] 10.0 baseball reference war that's right on the dot oh no no no no we got to do fan graphs we got to keep we got to put defense in here we got to put defense in here because then you're going to call and you're going to tell me unieski bettencourt was an eight win shortstop and i'm going to be like no no he wasn't and we're talking about 10 wins just as mariners not for career just as mariners just as mariners oh okay yeah fan graphs is a little different than baseball reference yeah

[01:22:42] yeah if we're talking about shortstops let's talk about the value middle infielders let's talk about value jose lopez's career war on fan graphs was 4.8 so that's a little his career war yeah yeah now he probably lost some toward the tail end but yeah i bet you know now that i'm thinking about it brett boone was only here for three and a half maybe maybe two and a half years he was not

[01:23:07] here a very long time but it's still nice i still don't know with his glove if he was a 10 war second baseman i know robbie was i think robbie was like 15 14 15 16 and then i would guess harold reynolds is also pretty clean i'm gonna guess boone was just because he had a couple of monster years while he was 39 in 01 he was an eight win player and then the year after he was a four win player so

[01:23:34] wow that oh one year he was pretty nuts oh sorry and then oh three and oh three he was a seven and a half win player so yeah wow so he was like a 17 win second baseman yeah he was yeah he was almost a 21 player in three seasons wow i uh i did not give his glove enough credit that's that's amazing now i'll say those were the three best seasons of his career by far because i don't he didn't exceed 2.2 or barely even two the rest of his career in any single season so well and then the mitchell

[01:24:03] report came out yeah but no i mean for anybody to hit 39 homers i think that was his peak was 39 um you know supplements or not it's hard to hit a baseball and brett boone was sensational for those three seasons no doubt in seattle too which is in seattle i think the mariners have their most exciting upcoming draft pick that they've had in a decade and that's probably putting it lightly

[01:24:30] upcoming here this summer they have the number three pick thank you mlb draft lottery is all i can say so with that as we sit here in the middle of january what are a couple names you're circling as of right now for who the mariners may be targeting i mean it's it's really hard not to look at college pitching um i think you look at the way this farm system is set up and you look at the

[01:24:56] control years of some of the pitchers that they currently have in the big league roster i think you're going to have a really good shot in this class to take an impact starting college pitcher whether that be tyler bremner whether that be kyson witherspoon whether that be jamie arnold uh there's going to be some some college pitching that's available at three that i think is going to be it's going to be it's going to have to be a heavy focus on the bat side um this is where i struggle

[01:25:24] a little bit i've said this on on over slot quite a few times i don't think there is a a franchise pillar uh to be had at least right now in this draft on the college side um i don't see jace laviolette as being some sensational player i think he's going to strike out a lot i think he's going to struggle with lefties he is going to hit a lot of home runs um but you know i i don't know exactly

[01:25:49] where that profile is going to go college bats that i would look for i would keep an eye on someone like iva arquette i think three is rich for iva arquette just because he doesn't really profile to be a dynamic defender at shortstop he might be third base he might be troy tulowiski he might be mike morse you don't take that margin for error at three um i'm i'm struggling a little bit like

[01:26:13] you guys in terms of circling a college bat that i would be ultra excited for um on the high school side i know fans don't want seattle to go after a high school player uh given their competitive window and where their farm is at that might be the most impactful player that you can get at three whether that's billy carlson the high school shortstop at corona i think xavier nines in mount vernon is

[01:26:38] someone to keep close tabs on especially because xavier nines at three might be a little bit rich and he's the hometown kid he might afford you a decent little underslot deal where you can go even bigger at pick 35 um i'm personally not on the ethan holiday bandwagon at three but um there should be let's put it this way from january 19th until july 17th or whenever the draft is there's probably

[01:27:08] going to be a couple of names that surfaced near the top of the draft that we're not talking about today that we're going to be a lot more excited about than we are right now so maybe i'm reading too much into how you listed a couple of these guys off but when you were listing the college pitchers you had jamie arnold the third in your mind is is he not the clear-cut starting pitcher one because i know in a lot of people's minds right now he is i've also seen some of those videos at driveline where it looks like the numbers he's spitting out are off the charts so they are yeah so maybe

[01:27:37] you are higher on him than i'm yeah i i will just say this with with arnold um he's a crossfire lefty and this isn't to speak fear into anything so don't cut it like that danny holtson was a crossfire lefty um jamie arnold has way better stuff than what danny holtson had um i just think there are certain organizations and i'm not saying this is uh what seattle is like because seattle has

[01:28:03] gone after some pretty outlier arms over the last few few years later in drafts there are risk aversion uh organizations at the top of a draft who would just prefer not to take the unorthodox lefty who throws across his body and is six foot one and is touching 98 you know like sometimes the math just doesn't add up so if you want to go more cookie cutter and like hey this is what they look like tyler bremner kyson witherspoon probably are a little bit more of like hey this is what's shown in a

[01:28:32] magazine whereas jamie arnold is like you know the freak like you want to reach for chris sale you want to you want to try and get something real spicy then you take someone like arnold has a draft lottery worked uh for what it was intended to do no i don't think so i mean like the white socks are one of the worst teams of all time last year and i don't think you could find a person in chicago who

[01:28:59] would say the white socks were purposely trying to be bad like they took their shots they paid for players they went in on free agents they made trades and it went so poorly that they had to deconstruct that roster they weren't tanking for for a bad pick and i think the same can be said about the rockies i think the same can be said to a certain degree about the royals um the athletics

[01:29:24] live in a bucket of their own and some other organizations like you know the pirates they don't spend like they should um they live in on an island of their own but the draft lottery was put into place so teams couldn't pick at the top of the draft more than once or twice in a row i i don't know about you guys but i don't feel like the league is tanking any more than it did

[01:29:48] and i actually think it's been more punitive to teams like the royals and the athletics and the white socks and the nationals who against you know forces against their control just ended up being worse than they they probably should have been it almost just seems much more random than some of the other lotteries i've seen we can use the guardians example from a season ago like they were in the playoffs and they got travis bizana who could very well be on their big league roster this

[01:30:17] year because he's that good and then the mariners were a game out of the playoffs and they're going to pick third that almost that does in a technical sense sound unfair to some of the worst teams but it's almost like just turning it into a crapshoot yeah the the issue i think with this lottery and i don't have the percentages in front of me for the nba but the issue with the major league baseball lottery is if you have the worst record in baseball you have a 16 and a half percent chance of getting the

[01:30:45] number one pick like that's not a great that's not great odds and that equates to the three worst teams having a 50 chance of landing the number one pick so there's it's essentially a coin flip that one of the three teams that isn't the worst in baseball will land uh the number one pick which i think is crazy and that applies through the top six picks so i think every year you're going to see a team or two

[01:31:13] that just has no business being there uh jump up into the top up into the top six it's worked out well for for the al west i mean the rangers have wyatt langford and you know hopefully seattle can land a player of of of his caliber at the at the number three pick joe this has been fun as always you're the best we love talking to you and i'm sure we'll do it again

[01:31:39] soon yeah you guys are the best too thanks for having me on and uh i i always enjoy hopping on marine layer so appreciate you guys hope you guys enjoyed the interview with joe doyle again if you want to check out all of his work you can go listen to the overslot podcast and you can go find all of his written work over at future stars joe was great hope you guys learned a lot about your hair batista and some of the other guys in the international class and some mariners prospects

[01:32:04] as well but my takeaway from that i cannot wait to watch and see what the beast does moving forward because he's a real prospect all right that just about wraps up this edition of the marine layer podcast you guys know the drill if you want to listen to the full form podcast you can do so wherever you get your audio pods make sure to download make sure to rate and review leave a five star review it really does help us out if you guys do that go like comment and hit subscribe on youtube

[01:32:30] and if you're on social media follow us on instagram tiktok twitter youtube shorts at marine layer pod one more reminder less than a month from now our first ever live show thursday february 20th 6 p.m at moss bay hall in kirkland we cannot wait we hope to see you guys there that's tj i'm

[01:32:49] lyle as always we thank you guys for tuning in talk to you soon egal ob sie gerade erst beginnen oder ihr

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