Episode 206: Jerry Dipoto Concludes The Offseason With A Bang

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 206 of the Marine Layer Podcast. Jerry Dipoto had a press conference on Monday talking about the 2024-2025 offseason. He said a lot. We'll discuss everything he talked about. We'll put a bow tie on the Mariners offseason. I think Lyle has a little bit to get off his chest when it comes to how the Mariners operated. And then we'll talk about how the Mariners can still be successful in this 2025 season.

[00:00:29] Just your guys reminder before we start the podcast, make sure you're downloading these episodes if you're listening, whether it's on Apple, on Spotify, wherever. Make sure to rate and review five stars, pretty please. And then if you're on YouTube, like, comment, subscribe, and then follow us across social media, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube shorts at Marine Layer Pod. Let's get it rolling.

[00:01:03] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording on Monday evening, February 3rd. And Lyle, there's going to be a lot of negativity here in the back. I think this first 45 or so minutes of this podcast. So I thought we would start on a positive note. Would you like to guess what we're about to do here? I'm going to give you some Mariners trivia. Ready?

[00:01:26] Sure. Sure. Okay. I'll announce the account because this might give away what I'm going to quiz you on here after the fact. But the Mariners have a similar valuation to a publicly traded company. This was tweeted out today. Would you like to guess which publicly traded company is as valuable as the Mariners are? I didn't know this, by the way. That's why I'm asking you. Microsoft? I don't know.

[00:01:55] Microsoft. I mean, obviously not. Obviously, Microsoft is way more valuable. But how am I supposed to guess some random company? It's a candy. Oh. M&M's? No, it is chocolate. Tootsie Rolls. Hmm. Okay. Is that fitting? Can we draw any comparisons here? Tootsie Rolls? Never the best? What's that? Never the best.

[00:02:24] I was going to say, Tootsie Rolls have never been on top of the world of candy. They've never been viewed as the best candy in the world. I mean, both would usually get left out of the bottom of the bag if there were a choice of all of them. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's about right. I think, yeah, that sounds about right. So that was a fun fact. Shout out to Brooksgate, who tweets all that stuff out. That's fun. Oh, I got another comparison. They've never taken the necessary steps to upgrade. Mm.

[00:02:49] It was really improved. It's been the same candy forever, where you've got Reese's doing all these different variations of the candy, and M&M's doing all these different variations, and all these other candy brands doing these other spinoffs of the candy. But Tootsie Rolls, they're just Tootsie Rolls. Well, actually, they have some of those other really weird flavors that are the fruity flavors, I think, but those are not good. No, actually, those are better. Mm, I don't like those. Fruit candy is better than the whatever kind of chocolate they call Tootsie Rolls.

[00:03:19] That's fine, but the Tootsie Roll fruit candies are not good. If I'm eating a fruit candy, I'm picking something else. So then which flavor of Tootsie Roll is, let's say, trading for Colton Wong? Is there one really bad Tootsie Roll flavor? I don't know. Do they have a banana one? I'm curious. Let's see. Let's go with that. Sure. I'm curious here while I'm looking this up.

[00:03:48] This is great podcasting. Does Tootsie Roll have what it takes to invest to get better? That's a real question. Do they have the necessary funds? Actually, dog, I don't know if these, are these Tootsie Rolls? They might, it might be owned by the same company, to be honest. All right, so maybe something else. All I see is chocolate here. That's, that's trouble. That's really confusing. There were a lot of options that popped up when I looked. All right. Anyways, I thought that was a fitting comparison.

[00:04:15] Well, thank you, Teach, for starting us off on a positive, on a positive note. Such a positive note. On an episode that, as we conclude the offseason, may not be all sunshine and roses. Now, let me say this. This is really going to be our final offseason hot stove type episode. Because since we last reported, since we last recorded a podcast, it was reported by Adam Jude and Ryan Divish. That the Mariners' offseason is essentially over.

[00:04:46] They will not be adding any more pieces to their roster. No significant pieces at that. Maybe they'll get some guys off DFAs or minor league deals, like Divish said. But their roster's effectively set. So, this is going to be our final hot stove type episode. We'll conclude everything. We'll say what we need to say. And after that, we're moving on. We're going to start previewing the roster, getting people ready for 2025, etc.

[00:05:13] So, if you've enjoyed all our negativity and ranting and raving this offseason, I'm sorry that it has to come to an end. If you're tired of hearing us complain all the time, well, then we're going to move past it now, after this episode. Well, can't promise it won't come back. It will completely go away. Sorry. Sorry. They still do have to play baseball games, in which there could be plenty of complaining. But that's for about two months from now. So, let's start off with what I think we've been waiting for all offseason.

[00:05:42] I think you and I have said back and forth when the content's been pretty dry. I'm like, can Jerry do a press conference? And, oh boy, he did a press conference on Monday to conclude this offseason. Like us, Jerry DiPoto wanted to put a bow tie on it. So, he talked to us for about 20 minutes today. We sat in there and listened to a lot of what he had to say. Where should I start, Lyle? Pick your poison.

[00:06:12] How about we just start here before we even start diving into Jerry? Why does Justin Hollander not do all of these press conferences at this point? I don't think I've ever once heard Justin Hollander have a single slip up in the media. A bad quote. Something he said that was off. Something he said that pissed off the fan base. Hollander is not in one screw up like that. Ever. Why does he not do all the talking at this point?

[00:06:37] So, let's say it's a bad look for the guy under the president of baseball ops to do his talking for him. Well, it's going so much better when the president of baseball ops does talk. I'm going to be honest. All respect to Justin Hollander. Would he say much different? It comes from the same tree. All these points that we'll talk about today from Jerry DiPoto. I mean, these are org points.

[00:07:05] How would it look if Hollander said something completely different? Hollander wouldn't say something completely different. That's not what I'm getting at. He can just portray it a little bit better than Jerry DiPoto does. We're going to get into what Jerry said. Again, go look through all of Hollander's quotes since he's been speaking in the media. He doesn't have these type of slip ups. He just doesn't. It might be the same organizational philosophy and message, but the wording of it is worded much better.

[00:07:35] I don't know if Justin Hollander is saying we deserve more credit than people are giving us for our offense. And we actually didn't think we had very many holes to fill at all. I think Hollander would have just left that stuff out and talked about we're excited to see what Jorge Polanco can do. We're excited to see what Donovan Solano can do. We had a couple needs going into this offseason. We did fill a couple of spots, and we're excited to see where it goes.

[00:08:04] You see how much better that's worded right there? Then, hey, general public media fans, please give us more credit. Please give our offense more credit for missing the playoffs back-to-back years. As we keep saying, there's a reason that Jerry DiPoto does not do these that often. Because it doesn't seem to matter what the situation is or what he's talking about. Nobody stirs it up more than Jerry does.

[00:08:32] Except for John Stanton, but he speaks even less. This offense quote was... Actually, you know what? I'm going to go to the offense quote second. The first quote I want to touch on is about the offseason from Jerry DiPoto's perspective. Here's a quote from DiPoto. He said, quote, It's been a pretty quiet offseason. I think that's reflective of a team that didn't have a lot of holes to fill. And, you know, we feel great about our farm system. We feel great about the stability in our team.

[00:09:01] And we feel like our offense doesn't get enough credit for the things they do really well. So that second part will lead into the next quote we'll talk about. But let's start off with the first part of this quote. Where Jerry says, The quiet offseason is reflective of a team that did not have a whole lot of holes to fill. And before we start ranting and raving about this, I will note, Jerry did mention that they had a couple of free agent deals fall through. I know one of them was the Carlos Santana deal. The other one, I'm not really sure which one he was referencing there.

[00:09:28] But he did mention a couple of free agent deals that went down. And then, as we could have guessed, the trade market never materialized. Therefore, Jerry had to spin the no moves offseason, really, into that quote. Where he says, We didn't have a whole lot of holes to fill. I'm sitting there and thinking, Huh. Sounds a lot different than what they said at the winter meetings. Wow, I have a quote from winter meetings. From Justin Hollander. Did Justin Hollander at the winter meetings say,

[00:09:58] Oh, we don't feel like we have a lot of holes on our roster. He did not say that. So, Justin Hollander at the winter meeting said, We need to add to our infield. That's funny. I thought they didn't have many holes. We're working hard to do that. Wait, again, I thought they had no holes. We'd love to add some type of first base impact to go along with Luke Raley. I guess they did. Then the rest is,

[00:10:26] Then field is flexible enough that we could add it second. We could add it third. We could add in a variety of ways. I want to be honest. That's not a quote that makes me feel like they don't have a lot of holes. Nope. In fact, I would say they felt like they did have holes. This is what I'm saying. Did anything that Justin Hollander said at the winter meetings jump out to you and say, Oh, I can't believe he said this. No. Hollander would have spun this press conference better than Jerry DePoto.

[00:10:55] If he had been the one to do it. Anyways, so Jerry said he doesn't feel like they have a lot of holes, which I don't know how else to say it, but Jerry's wrong. Shocker. He was wrong that they don't have any holes. Yeah, they do have holes. They didn't have a full infield until this week. Yeah. Listen, love Ryan Bliss.

[00:11:18] Could not say enough amazing things about the dude as a person, as a human being, and honestly, who he has the potential to be. He has the potential to be a good baseball player. Could not say enough great things about Ryan Bliss. But when you are a front office and you're banking on a guy that's had a cup of coffee in the big leagues as somebody that's solidified at second base, that's wrong. That is wrong. Now, Ryan Bliss may eventually play himself into that and be somebody that's a proven guy.

[00:11:49] Maybe Cole Young does the same thing. As we sit right now, in February, no. He's had a cup of coffee in the big leagues. He is not established. That is not a filled hole. Let's get to the offense quote now. You know what? Can I add one too? Sure. The offense quote's kind of the big finale of this presser. That's the quote everybody's talking about. So, I would like to add one additional quote here.

[00:12:18] Because, I think this one stands out too. What he said was, Well, TJ, let me just highlight here. Objectively. Purely objectively. Jerry's wrong.

[00:12:47] Again, when you are talking about additions to the roster, one of those guys is an addition. That would be Donovan Solano. A 37-year-old utility player who doesn't play any defense who you sign for $3.5 million. That's your one addition. Polanco was already on the roster. And a Rosarena was acquired at the deadline. What is this idea that of, oh, we acquired somebody at the trade deadline? That actually counts toward our off-season plan.

[00:13:16] No, it doesn't. You acquired Randy or Rosarena in the summer when you were within three games of a playoff spot. You missed the playoffs. Therefore, your roster was not good enough. For all you guys rave about with the six weeks and the final six weeks with Edgar and Dan and how the offense figured it out. You missed the playoffs. Your offense was not good enough. You don't get to add Randy or Rosarena to that equation. And then Jorge Polanco, he mentions in there too, who's on the roster the entire season.

[00:13:46] That's not an addition. That is the Mariners again. And as we mentioned earlier this, as we mentioned last week, running it back. That's what they're doing. Running it back. There's not additions. It is expecting more out of the same players. There's a big difference between those two. That, yeah, that was disappointing, but predictable.

[00:14:12] I know Ty Dan Gonzalez, shout out Ty, friend of the pod, host of the Locked On Mariners pod, who, well, I think he was first. He might have been. There was a bunch, some, a multiple people who mentioned, yeah, this is probably what Jerry's going to say. This is one of the things Jerry will talk about. Let me, let me just read Ty's tweet again, who's become a friend of ours. And I think he said this very well. I see no lies in this tweet.

[00:14:38] And I quote, look, man, we all know they, we all know they tried to accomplish bigger and better things. Nico Horner, for example, this offseason than what they wound up doing. I get Jerry isn't going to say anything bad or concerning about the state of the roster, but acting like they didn't even really have holes to fill to begin with is just flat out disingenuous.

[00:15:03] And then acting like they were filled by guys who were already on the roster is disingenuous. So we go from disingenuous to, I'm not going to say gaslighting because it's the, that's like the harsher way to put it. But I think, Lyle, you and I can both agree that this offense quote from Jerry DePoto is mansplaining 101. Is it not? Drop it on the people. Let them decide.

[00:15:30] Instead, the quote from Jerry DePoto about the Mariners offense is that I think there's a reality of our offense. Then there's the perception of our offense. We play in a tough ballpark to hit it. Our offense has generally been above average based on advanced metrics, WRC plus and things like that for a number of years now. The last three years, we've actually had a very stable offense, particularly good on the road.

[00:15:56] I think one of the top 10 in major league baseball when we're on the road and at home, we play in a tough run scoring environment that really benefits our pitching staff and position players have asked to find ways, have been asked to find ways to succeed. And we've generally done that. We've turned it into one of the best home records. We have a good offensive team and we didn't feel like we needed to do a whole lot, but to find ways to support the group that we had.

[00:16:24] I know the offseason has been long and seemingly slow, and I said that at the season's ends, but we feel like we made a lot of progress late last year. Hmm. Where do you want to start with that, Teej? Where does your mind go when you finish reading that quote? Man, where do I even want to start? Let me actually start with the part I agree with right at the end. They have found a way to win at home.

[00:16:54] He's right. That's not a lie. They win a lot at home. I'll talk about this later in this episode, but that's going to be a main point I'm going to highlight. Yeah, they do win at home. They found out a way to win at home. Great. That's what you want. Doesn't matter how you do it. You just want to win at home. But there's a lot of flaws here in Jerry's argument. And I'm going to read a couple tweets from Luke Arkins as we go throughout this episode as well, who had plenty to say about what Jerry had to say today. Luke's incredibly smart.

[00:17:23] We've had him on the podcast here in the last couple of weeks. He knows his stuff. And he was making the point that you can't sell fans on a three-year offensive sample. What? And before you jump to anything, let me just explain before I yell or anything about why that's a flawed way to sell it to fans. So we're talking a three-year sample. And Jerry's right.

[00:17:51] In the last, I did four years. Three years it counts too. There were top ten offense on the road. He's right. That is a correct number. But why are we using the last three years to measure what this team will do on the road? The team's completely different. Who are all the players that contributed to all that scoring on the road the last three to four years that are no longer on the team? If we go back four years, we start with Kyle Seager. We can go to Jesse Winker. We can go to Geno. We can go to Jared Kelnick. We can go to Teoscar Hernandez.

[00:18:22] I'm not going to say Colton Wong because he didn't contribute to anything. But you get my point. All of those stats were scored by, all those runs were scored by people who aren't on the roster. So why does that count? What were they last year? 12th. It was good. It was fine. But it was not top ten. So it's not a top ten road offense. It's a middle third road offense. Middle of the pack. Which is probably not good enough for what the Mariners need to do.

[00:18:53] But they're one of the best offenses on the road. As we heard. I'm going to read this from Luke here. He says, okay, top ten offense on the road last year. But the team fired its offensive coordinator in May. Fired its hitting coach in August. Fired its manager in August. Had to trade for two bats at the deadline. Not including Victor Robles, by the way. And was 18th in runs scored on the road before firing Scott. Does that sound like a top ten road offense? I gotta be honest. No.

[00:19:23] Hmm. It's funny. That's what Jerry said. Listen. Don't. Don't sell people on three-year samples. It's probably not a good idea. It's good for perspective. But a three-year sample is not a reason for success in 2025. Guess what? If you use the four-year sample, Lyle, Julio's not even in part of this sample. Look how ridiculous is that?

[00:19:51] You know who gets to use a four-year sample if you even want to pick such a thing? A team like the Braves. The Braves have, for the most part... Oh. What happened to you? You have to get up out of your chair. Oh, you're getting your phone. That makes sense. The Braves, for the most part, have had a similar roster over that period of time. There's been some turnover, sure. But there's been a core of guys that have stuck around. The Acunas, the Albies, Freddie Freeman, Matt Olsen.

[00:20:20] You can tie those guys in together. Austin Riley, etc. They've had a core. You want to use an example like that for guys who have stuck together? That's one thing. It's still a little bit of a stretch. But it's less of a stretch. Like you just mentioned. The 2021 and 2022 rosters are nothing like the team you're throwing out there right now. How in the world are you selling that? The 2024 offense was not a good road offense. They were fine.

[00:20:47] But this three-year sample with guys that are elsewhere now, how in the world are you trying to sell that? So let's clarify a couple of things here when we talk about a top 10 of what Jerry was talking about. We talked about this with Luke on our episode. If you need a refresher, feel free and go back and listen to our conversation with Luke Arkins.

[00:21:09] We talked about Team WRC Plus and some of the flaws in evaluating teams as a collective in WRC Plus. Because some things don't seem right, like the Mariners last year, especially when we talked about the Mariners in the 2023 season where they were 6th in WRC Plus. But the offense certainly didn't feel that way watching it. It was incredibly frustrating and people wanted better.

[00:21:35] So when Jerry talks about the Team WRC Plus, remember it's talking about weighted runs. Not actual runs. The runs that count on the scoreboard. Weighted runs. So sure, in weighted runs, the Mariners are successful. But the scoreboard does not say the Mariners outscore more runs because they're playing at T-Mobile Park. No. No. They score real runs. And the real runs have the Mariners unfortunately not scoring enough.

[00:22:06] And that's a point Jerry DiPoto used. And Luke was not a fan of that. I mean, there's an entire tweet here I'm looking at about him just tearing into the idea of looking at the six-week stretch at the end of the season as an outlier. Where he mentions, so they had 125 WRC Plus once they fired Scott Service.

[00:22:32] Dating back to 2002 because that's where Fangraph splits end, the highest single-season road WRC Plus for the Mariners is 115. 10 points below that. So, like, he was having a field day. I recommend going and checking out Luke's Twitter if you need some context on any of this stuff. Because he was having a field day today with some of Jerry DiPoto's quotes, as many people did. Anyways, I've hogged the floor, so go ahead.

[00:23:00] He really created just a firestorm on Twitter today, didn't he? He really did. Yes, he did. He has a knack for doing that. Yeah. Should we read Divish's replies? Oh. A couple of those Divish tweets were getting ratioed to hell. Not for anything Divish did. He was just tweeting out the quote. But, man, they were getting ratioed.

[00:23:31] I was shocked, to be honest. They even had him do this, to be honest. I guess I just figured he wasn't going to talk, period. Because every time he talks, it doesn't usually go well. But he talked, and it didn't go well. I was a little surprised when we saw that he was going to be doing some type of press conference. Do you know the stat they did not talk about? Hmm.

[00:24:01] Wins. Wow. Yeah, see, this is the thing about WRC+. The two of us love it, right? It's a great stat, and it's a great stat especially for players. Players specific. But when you try to compare it team by team, that's where it gets a little flawed. Because you just highlighted that perfectly. You can't cook up how your weighted runs are toward the top of the league. Or in the top third of the league is more like it. No.

[00:24:30] At the end of the day, when you're talking about team runs, it's how many are actually on the scoreboard. And if you're not scoring runs, you're not scoring runs. T-Mobile Park and the people that come and play against you in T-Mobile Park do not care about the environment. People care about, are you going to score runs? And are you going to score more runs than the other team? I'm going to plug Luke again. This was a shocking stat I didn't know. So the Mariners did score significantly more runs on the road this year than at home. Do you want to guess the difference in games with three or fewer runs scored home versus road?

[00:25:00] Oh, it's probably like a 20-game difference. At home, they scored three or fewer runs in 41 games. On the road, they scored three or fewer runs in 36 games. Hmm? I thought they were so much better on the road than at home. They have a little bit of higher upside on the road. But in terms of consistency, consistently scoring three or less runs on the road, almost the same.

[00:25:27] But the difference is at home, your pitching staff is so great, they won 13 of those games at home with only two on the road. Yeah. It's flawed. It's a flawed argument. Yeah, the Mariners score more runs on the road, but it's not enough. It's been highlighted in their road record. They barely won over half their road games the last four years. It's true. It's not the scoring at home that is a problem, guys. It is on the road.

[00:25:54] Their road things, their road play is the problem. It's not what happens at T-Mobile Park. So let me get into what I wanted to hear from Jerry DiPoto that I did not hear about today. We didn't hear anything outside of injury updates about bullpen, did we? No, and we should probably mention there is an injury update. Troy Taylor apparently strained his lat, which that doesn't sound great. So it sounds like he's going to be delayed in spring training.

[00:26:23] And as a result, he may start the season on the IL, which is unfortunate because for a team that has a shaky bullpen already, Troy Taylor, a guy who really flashed at the end of the year last year and pitched some valuable innings for him, now is going to start the year on the shelf. On top of all of that, we have two different timelines on Matt Brash. Yeah, we should probably hit on this, speaking of the DiPoto quotes. Weird. So weird.

[00:26:48] So according to Dan Wilson, he was on with Wyman and Bob on Seattle Sports on Wednesday last week, and he said the timeline for Matt Brash was mid-season. Jerry DiPoto today said third week of April. Those are very different timelines for Matt Brash. That's about two and a half months of difference. There is always the chance Dan Wilson just misspoke,

[00:27:15] but if he didn't, doesn't that seem like there's been no communication between manager, coaching staff, and front office on when your most valuable reliever may be returning? It'd be one thing if they were a couple weeks apart. Then you say, all right, one person said one thing, another person said another. It's just slightly different. Two and a half months difference from mid-season, a.k.a. I interpret that as the all-star break, to third week of April?

[00:27:43] Are we not on the same page here? All-star break sounds way more realistic than third week of April, Jerry said Brash was going to be ready to go as soon as spring training started. His ramp-up would just be slower. And even if Brash has some setback, which happens sometimes during recovery, rehab, if he had a setback that was a couple weeks, then it's mid-May, that's still a huge difference between timeline to timeline. That'd be middle of May versus middle of July.

[00:28:12] That's still a two-month difference. Again, like, what's going on here with the communication? If I had the answer, I'd tell you. Maybe Dan Wilson just misspoke. It is possible Dan Wilson just misspoke. But if he didn't, that is odd, man. That is really, really odd. For a manager that, you know, Jerry DiPoto was adamant on hiring. Yep.

[00:28:40] And if Matt Brash doesn't come back until mid-season, I'm a little nervous about this bullpen. Oh, I'm very nervous about this bullpen because you do not have Matt Brash in that scenario. We'll see how long you don't have Troy Taylor. Andres Munoz you have. But man, he has been worked a lot these last few years. Gregory Santos is healthy. We got that update here on Monday, which is a good sign. And he should start on a normal timeline down in Arizona, which that's great. But even still,

[00:29:09] we need to see Gregory Santos pitch and pitch valuably because he hasn't done that yet since being here. He's only thrown a few innings. And then what? This bullpen is a huge question mark. Jerry can only talk about really what he's asked about in these presser settings. But man, I just feel like there has not been enough said from the Mariners about their bullpen in any sort of way that would incline they're going to add. Because man, if there's one thing I thought was missing today,

[00:29:39] it's about the pitching staff. Do you know what I think was the biggest reason the Mariners didn't make the playoffs last year? Guess what? It wasn't the offense. Pitching staff on the road. And that includes the bullpen. Includes the bullpen. But the starting rotation was good, not great on the road, but they were better. They were still top 10, as we've mentioned. The bullpen was not. And there has been zero inclination

[00:30:06] and zero addition as of right now to bring the fact forward. Like, hey, we understand that was an issue last year. We're going to fortify that. Not mentioning the offense. A lot of talk about the offense. But not a whole lot of talk about a bullpen that threw the fewest innings in baseball last year and still was mightily suspect. I think there's a reason this presser was held on Zoom,

[00:30:36] not in person at the ballpark somewhere, because there wasn't a whole lot of time for follow-ups. And the press conference wasn't very long. Like you said, it was about 20 minutes. It wasn't a whole lot of time for everybody to get their questions in and follow-ups to be had, because there were some necessary follow-ups that could have been used. We didn't get those. People didn't have the chance to ask them. Disappointing. I'm nervous about this bullpen, man. Yeah?

[00:31:05] We can complain about the offense all day. But man, they need... That bullpen needs to close out games. And yeah, they'll be good at home. Can they win games on the road? Winning games on the road is where this team struggles. Not playing at home. Let's clear that up. It's not at home. It's on the road. And their biggest road weakness is not their offense. It's their pitching staff. That's where I would have... That's where I would have been looking. And there wasn't any inclination of this presser about adding to a bullpen that, again, is now down Troy Taylor,

[00:31:34] who would have pitched some leverage innings for you this year, given what you've put in that bullpen. But now he's going to be out for however long. And the most reliable... the two most reliable quote-unquote leverage arms you right now have in your bullpen. We can throw Gabe in there at three. Gabe had a bad year last year. Spent a lot of the year in the minors. We're rooting for him because he's our guy, but he didn't have a great year last year. Gregory Santos... Huh? I think he was injured a lot. He was hurt.

[00:32:03] Hurt and spent a lot of time in the minors last year. I think he spent time in the minors because he was injured. But he spent time in the minors. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Gregory Santos barely pitched last year because he was hurt. And then Andres Munoz got used a lot. In a very similar amount to what Matt Brash got used the year before, he got hurt. I'm a knock on wood. But Andres Munoz got thrown a lot. So... Like,

[00:32:32] that's what they're rolling with right now. Makes me nervous. And I thought that was a missing point from the discourse around the Mariners' Twitter community and in the press conference today. So they're going to be relying on people like, yeah, Gabe Speyer to bounce back. And we'll see if that happens. We certainly hope it does. They're going to be relying on Colin Snyder to somewhat repeat what he did last year. They need Sauce to continue to be reliable. And he was really good

[00:33:02] for a portion of last year. And there was portions of last year where he struggled. And then they're going to rely on some of these minor league signings, whether it's Shintaro Fujinami, which we know that guy has great stuff, but we'll see if it actually plays, if he even makes the big league roster out of camp. Could it be somebody like Adonis Medina? Could it be a handful of others? Dare we say Naftali Feliz? I mean, Drew Pomeranz? They're going to have their pick of the litter

[00:33:31] of spring training invites to put in this bullpen. And we'll see if it, we'll see if it works. You know, you know what? If we're talking about bullpen, you know who this bullpen could really use right now? Tyson Miller. DF Adom. Yeah. Yes, they could use Tyson Miller. Man, what a press conference. I gotta say, I had some expectations and Jerry still manages

[00:34:00] to set a new bar. Yes. Thank you, Mariners. Never, I'll say, Lyle, the Mariners are never boring. Well, I'll give you that one. The Rockies can be boring. Right. Rockies are boring. Mariners, Mariners are not. The, the, the twins, for example, the twins can be boring when they're a 70 to 85 win team. The Mariners, so they're not boring.

[00:34:30] Let me put a bow tie on this press conference before we get to your rant. So warm up, do some high knees in the background there while, while I, while I get my last point in here. Oh, thanks Russ. Ultimately, Jerry and company wanted to spend a lot of time talking about, uh, things that they thought were valuable, but I think they, A, missed some of their biggest concerns in this press conference. On top of that,

[00:35:00] they didn't actually account for the things fans actually care about. Or, you know, Jerry's talking about his three year samples, but not talking about the division titles they've won because they haven't won any. Or the playoff appearances, which they only have one of. Or the World Series appearances, which they also have none of. So, misses the mark. And I'm just, I'm disappointed, but can't say I'm all that surprised in, in how that went. This is just part of the course

[00:35:28] for how the communication goes with this regime and this franchise now the last 10 years. You're not wrong. All right, let's take a quick pause, talk to you about our friends over at Pogaccia's Pub 85. That's over in Kirkland. If you want a great time to hang out with your friends, have some great food, watch some games, you know the Super Bowl's coming up. You need to make Super Bowl plans? Head over there, get a group together, go watch the big game. And if you do that, well, that'll be on Sunday, but if you go during a happy hour

[00:35:59] over at Pub 85, you can get some awesome specials. Those are $3 and $4 drinks from 2 to 6 p.m. on Monday through Friday. Again, those happy hour deals are so awesome. Play pool, play darts, again, great food and drinks, awesome time with your friends. So head over and get the whole nine yards that's over at Pogaccia's Pub 85 in Kirkland. All right, I think we need to set this up a little bit. I promise the people on social media,

[00:36:29] maybe on our last podcast, I can't remember, definitely on social media, that with this coming to an end, there needs to be a true bow put on this offseason. This offseason here on the Marine Layer Pod has been filled with rants and anger and frustration for all valid reasons, good reasons. And now we're finally going to move on like we said at the start of the pod. When this is over,

[00:36:57] it's time to start looking into 2025 and getting ready for the baseball season. But we cannot do that without truly concluding our final thoughts on this hell of an offseason. And before we do that, is there anything you would like to say? Is there anything you would like to get to here? Because you've got thoughts. Or would you rather wait just until I'm done? Are the people curious what all the outlets think about the Mariner,

[00:37:28] the other outlets think about the Mariners offseason? If you had to guess, Lyle, what would be the median grade? D minus. You're close. I found three, two Fs and a D. So I think they'd be pretty close to a D minus. Unless we're going to E's as well. Okay. Let me, let me, so that, that's a factoid. Let me just say my piece here before Lyle probably shatters my eardrums with his. I hope the Mariners understand when they went into this offseason

[00:37:57] how important it would be for a number of reasons. Let's, let's just start off on the winning reason. When you look at the talent you have on your roster and you understand if your true goal is to win a World Series, what we currently have has shown to not be enough. Therefore, we need to add more. They didn't do that. Very disappointing. So essentially, a clear oversight of their part where they're either overestimating the talent they currently have on the roster or making their intentions clear that they never,

[00:38:27] they don't want to win a World Series. Those are the two outcomes there. And neither are good. Next point. Not only, that's from the baseball winning aspect. Why don't we take a look at it from the selling your fan aspect. I have a really, really hard time thinking that John Stanton and Chris Larson don't see how angry fans are. I have a really hard time. I would be shocked if they're just like, everyone loves it.

[00:38:57] Everyone's loving this. I feel like that's almost impossible for you to walk around and not see how pissed off people are. Because guess what? When you're in charge of something like that, you want to know everything. You want to know every single thing that everyone is saying and what is going on. It's like a college football coach, Lyle. You want to read everything everyone is saying about you. And I think... It's like, really quick, it's like David Sampson said to us,

[00:39:26] 30 owners medal. 30 owners medal and they know every single thing that's going on around their franchise. People would like to think that they're hands off, that they're not in everyone else's business, but no, they're there. They're paying very close attention and they don't even need to listen to our podcast. I doubt Chris Larson puts on some AirPods and listens to the Marine Layer Podcast every Wednesday and Friday. He should, but he doesn't. But you know what Chris Larson probably does, Lyle?

[00:39:56] Probably reads the Seattle Times. I read an article the other day from Matt Calkins, friend of the pod. Guess what he said about this offseason? Right on the front page. You don't have to go to us to see it. The legacy outlets are saying it too. Tune into KJR any day of the week. Any day. They'll say it. It's hard to miss. To think that the ownership doesn't hear that stuff

[00:40:26] I think is laughable because they do. But despite all of that, to still continue to operate this way is incredibly disappointing because the fans have told you I will not go to the park if you operate this way because it's clear that you don't have an intention to spend money on this roster especially the players that we currently like. You can talk about the future all you want. Oh, we want to be sustainable. You know what's not sustainable? Developing good Major League players and letting them walk because you don't want to pay them. That's not sustainable.

[00:40:56] It's literally not. So when you decide to do that, that doesn't incentivize anybody to go out there and spend their hard-earned money on your product which I feel like you should want because if you care about money, you want more people to spend their money in your park. The best way to do that is to put a product that people want to see on the field. And you know what? You can still make a profit if you spend more money because people want to see a good product.

[00:41:25] And here's another reason for that. The TV deal. There's been a couple teams this offseason. The Texas Rangers the most recent one that have broken out their own streaming services because their RSN deal is falling through. I don't know how much longer Root Sports has to hang on but I don't think it's for the long haul. And if you want to get people to sign up and watch your product, you're going to have to get them in the future to buy a streaming package

[00:41:55] from you. Directly from you. I'm not talking about a cable bundle. I'm saying directly from you. And now why would people want to spend their money on a cable package or sorry, not a cable package on a streaming package from you if they don't think you have their best interest in mind? They have no reason to do that. So let's highlight the three reasons I just outlined. It's the winning on the field reason. It's the getting fans in seats reason. And it's the monetary reason.

[00:42:24] All things I feel like the group running the team should care about and they decided to neglect all three this offseason. I think that's just a massive oversight on what they have. And if you're going to take the fan base for granted, just think about this. This is an entire generation of Mariners fans that grew up with a team that was beyond mediocre. Mediocre and uninteresting is the worst combination ever.

[00:42:54] And that's what a lot of people in this area grew up with throughout the 2000s into the 2010s until they broke the drought in 2022. Think of how many people are not Mariners fans because of the neglect to the franchise over that span of time. 21 years. Probably a lot. Think of how much more full the ballpark could be if you had incentivized more fans to be fans of your team because they wanted to watch the team play instead of watching whatever boring version

[00:43:24] of the roster they put out there. Well, the worry is after trying to reel fans back in, if you give them another reason not to watch you, I don't think they will because guess what? It is 2025 now. There are a lot of things for people to go do instead of watching baseball. It's not the only thing in town now. So it's disappointing if you want to capture that next generation of Mariners fans, the opportunities in front of you. And if you let some of their favorite players just walk away

[00:43:53] because you don't feel like they add enough value, I mean, the goal is not to be the Tampa Bay Rays because guess what? Rays, don't draw. That doesn't sound like fun. I'd rather be a team that has a lot of people in the stadium during the summer to watch a fun baseball team play and to try and win a World Series, which is the biggest failure of them all. It just doesn't seem like that there is a priority. I think that's about what I got, Lyle. So I hope you're nice and warmed up now

[00:44:22] for what I imagine is going to be one heck of a rant here. Bars high. What you just said was well thought out and well done. Probably a little more rational than the route I'm going to go. I got to tell you, that was good. You made a lot of very, very valid points. Whew. Whew. Okay. I really feel like I have to gear up for this because I don't want to let people down.

[00:44:51] But, yeah. We are now at the end of the offseason. The Mariners have made one true addition to their roster. Donovan Solano, like we said. One true addition. You had a stupid $15 million budget that absolutely handcuffed everybody in this organization from doing anything

[00:45:21] that could drive this ball club significantly closer to winning a title. They could still win one. Pitching could be great. Offense could figure some stuff out and bounce back. They could still be a really good team this year. But if that happens, that ain't because of the people up at the top of this organization. That would be the players on the field and the coaching staff. What they have done this offseason. Everybody coming together

[00:45:51] just non-stop person after person example after example showing their frustration either as a fan or for this fan base for how they've chosen to operate this offseason. The narrative is clear. So let me just say this as we now officially get into this. This is the worst offseason they've ever had. You're talking countless after countless after countless examples of total

[00:46:21] non-interest in winning baseball during a window that is as great as one that you might ever have. With a rotation that you may never replicate again and it's going fast. This window is closing fast. And let me just say this. This has absolutely nothing to do with Jorge Polanco or Donovan Solano at all. Nothing. This has everything to do with everything that went on around them

[00:46:50] or more so lack thereof. People want to be mad at the front office. People want to be mad at Jerry for the things he said. Go ahead. For me this is not about that. I'm looking right at you. Ownership. The owners. Whether you're Chris Larson, John Stanton or any of the 15 plus people on that ownership group. If any of your mindsets were anything other than this is an unbelievable

[00:47:20] unprecedented window. It's time to go for it. If your mindset was anything other than that. How you chose to go about operating this offseason is a flat out embarrassment. You're embarrassing your players, your rotation, your coaches, your front office, and an entire region of baseball fans. An entire region of people that by the way pour their hearts, souls, and time into this

[00:47:50] franchise and have been about as patient as any fan base in any sport. And every time they've had a chance to rewrite the narrative it's not worth it to them. Let's just start here. They flat out lied. This ownership flat out lied. When you threw Jerry DePoto to the Wolves back in 2018 and told him and I quote, by 2021 the way the roster is set up will give us incredible spending power to go after generational

[00:48:20] free agents. Jerry DePoto is not saying those words unless that is an organizational philosophy. He is not undermining ownership by putting those quotes out into the public. That was an organizational philosophy that they wanted out there and it is clear as day. They lied right through their teeth to an entire fan base as if it's a game to them. They're playing a game with people's livelihoods, passion, and joy for a baseball team that all they want to do is just love.

[00:48:49] You flat out lied. You have not gone after generational players. You haven't come close. We've talked about that plenty. But let's just go through this offseason. This offseason when you had a chance with a window that you know is closing to put this thing over the top, stomped on it. Christian Walker, not a smart strategy. Santander, not a smart strategy. Willie Adamas, not a smart strategy. Two-year deal with an opt-out for

[00:49:18] Ha-Sung Kim, not a smart strategy. There's still two marquee impact players out there in free agency right now. But you're not going to go after them because you've deemed that you're not even in that market. You've deemed it's not worth your time. You're going to let them go elsewhere. They are sitting out there right now and you have chosen to not even entertain the idea with their prices going down. This $15 million budget is poison. It's a joke. It's an embarrassment and I don't believe for one second and

[00:49:48] no fan should believe for one second that that is your real budget. It's not. It's made up. You're trying to save money. You're pocketing money and you won't invest it into your roster. Soto. Ha! Forget about that idea. I mean what a stupid idea to give an elite player real money to come play for your franchise. Every time they had a chance this offseason to rewrite this narrative you stomped on it. So now I say this to ownership.

[00:50:18] Do everyone a favor. On the rare occasions that you go out in public and speak I don't want to hear you say ever again that you care about winning baseball games ever because you don't. You're lying through your teeth if you say that. You are happy to win baseball games. You would be satisfied winning baseball games because it helps you make a profit but you do not care about winning baseball games. Your actions do not even come close to those statements.

[00:50:47] The Dodgers, the Padres, the Braves, the Yankees, the Giants. Rattle them off. Those teams care about winning baseball games and they put their money where their mouth is. You do not have any right to use the same words as those owners and those teams. Keep those words out of your mouth. Do not say you care about winning baseball games ever again. Don't say it. Just don't say it. Don't let yourself even get near the thought. Don't say it when

[00:51:17] you're talking publicly. I mean that quote from Jerry just absolutely magnifies the gaslighting that has gone on in this organization for way too long and it just continues to go on and they expect that people are just going to let it fly by the wayside. No. People have seen enough of it and now while this team is still competitive, you're not giving yourself the chance. Look at what you've done. Look at what you've

[00:51:47] done after your quote talking about going after generational players. The two biggest free agent position players you've ever signed are Mitch Garver to a two year $24 million deal followed by AJ Pollock on a one for seven. That is the second biggest free agent position player contract you've ever given out and guess what? This team may still be competitive as we start to wrap this up. This team may still be competitive because this is a core that has the chance to make a run.

[00:52:16] But now what you've done is you put unnecessary and unreasonable and unjust pressure on the guys that are on this roster especially this rotation to carry a ridiculous amount of weight with zero margin for error and banking on a ton of bounce backs. And you owners, you owners, you better hope those players do just that because if they don't get off to a hot start and this team falls short again this year, your optics and

[00:52:45] choice, your optics and how you choose to manage your franchise is going to drive every last fan right out of the ballpark. The whole thing is flat out embarrassing. It's pathetic, putrid, tired of it. Fuck! How did I do? Scene. Let me add a cliff note here. Yours was directed at one group of people.

[00:53:14] Yes, and it's on that. I'm going to loop Jerry DiPoto into mine. All right. Fine. Because he did get a budget. It is his decision to run back the current roster which won the fewest games of this four-year stretch. Just to understand, most of the blame will always go upstairs every single time. But there are other choices made this offseason, highlighted by all members of the managing party

[00:53:43] that make decisions on this roster. So. Okay. But is it fair to say with a $15 million budget, he literally could not go sign Christian Walker? Teams spend less money and win more games than the Seattle Mariners do. It sucks. But it's possible. But with this window and the Mariners are the only team that have this problem here. With this window and this

[00:54:13] rotation, your goal should not be to be the Brewers. It should not be to be the Rays. Yes, it should be to be the Brewers because the Brewers make the playoffs six times in the last seven seasons. The Mariners have not made the playoffs six times in the last 47 years. The Brewers don't win titles. This is the Mariners. Yes. And your goal should be to aspire to be a team that does not a team that doesn't. The team needs to take the step towards actually making the playoffs first.

[00:54:43] And that doesn't worry about winning a World Series. And that doesn't happen with $15 million. That is a joke of a budget. There are teams that win more with less. How many teams have a $15 million budget? The Brewers. Is that all they had? They probably spent, I think they shed payroll this off season because they traded Devin Williams. And guess what? If I had to put money on it, the Brewers are going to be a better baseball team than the Mariners because they run better.

[00:55:12] I think there's still a world the Mariners can be better than the Brewers. Like that was, that's what's lost in my rant. With all that, like this team still can be good. I'm not, I'm not disputing that. But they had a chance to be great and this ownership has stomped all over it. The ownership has. Yes. And I'm not carrying water for any, in any sense of the Mariners ownership. Don't get this confused. But there's blame to go around to everybody for how this off season went. Every single person. And if the roster falls short again, I will circle

[00:55:41] circle right back to the same two points. Ownership has failed the fan base. And the front office has failed the baseball team with being unable to utilize the resources given to them to put together a competitive roster when half the league spends less than they do. And there are plenty of teams that win more than the Mariners do with less money. But what did you, what, what was, what did you want them to do this off season? Because we said trading Luis Castillo and getting

[00:56:08] that money off the books in exchange for trading that player would suck. So you're not going to do that, which, which you shouldn't because that does not make you better. How is this front office making this team significantly better this off season? The Brewers traded Corbin Burns and won a division title. Now I'm asking what the Mariners could do this off season with $15 million. What can Jerry and Justin do to make this team better with $15 million if it's not trading Luis? Improve an 85 win team. If they said they wanted to add more offense, they said

[00:56:38] the offense was a problem. And guess what they didn't do? Add to the offense. How many guys are in their stupid budget? Could have made some. How? If they tried hard enough, I'm sure they could have. Last I checked, Lyle's Mitch Hanegar still on the roster. He is. But what did Joe say? It would cost a lot. So what? A lot. And those are terrible optics too. To trade a high end prospect to dump money. And who does that come back to? It's this budget all over again.

[00:57:09] You should be able to win with what you currently have. All can be true. We were also told they were going to spend a hell of a lot more than they're spending right now. They're lying. Everything we're talking about can 1000% be true. All of it. Now my Jerry point will probably need another season. But like they went 86 games again and missed the playoffs. What are we doing? Well fine. Yeah that'd be what look

[00:57:38] this isn't necessarily me carrying the water for Jerry either but I just don't know. I don't know how Theo Epstein has handed 15 million dollars and says well you've got this current roster go win a championship with it. I don't maybe that sounds a little bit like the Jerry DePoto prime babe Ruth can't even save us me saying that about Theo Epstein but I'm serious. How many how many GMs in baseball are taking that stupid budget and doing anything with it? There's a few. There's not many. What's the Guardians payroll

[00:58:08] like 120 million dollars? I mean it is possible yes. It is possible. But you made it but look the teams that do it are outliers. You made it damn near impossible on your front office. Mariners are an outlier. But not in a good way. Ownership has made it damn near impossible on their front office to do anything. Yes it could be done. You can criticize them if you think they should have done more and it's it's warranted 15 million fucking

[00:58:38] dollars years after you said we are going to go after generational free agents and again two biggest position player free agents Mitch Garver AJ Pollock one year seven million dollars that's ownership. It's a lot of a lot of blame to go around Lyle. You can put blame on the front office. That's fine. I'm I'm 10 toes down on this and until they do anything

[00:59:06] else in terms of how they choose to operate my opinion on this and them it ain't changing. Well again I if you have criticisms of the front office it's it's fair you are in your right to have them. I'm not saying I don't have them but I'm outlining what the biggest problem is. I'm not going to sit here and act like the biggest pro the biggest problem is the front office. It's just not it can be a problem.

[00:59:35] 15 million fucking dollars. That is a joke a disgrace and embarrassment and it's absolutely putrid. Let's end the episode on a positive note. Smiles. Yay. Well hey that's it people for everybody that hate hearing all the negativity. It just ended right there. Now we're going to start preview in 2025 for everybody that doesn't want to hear us be negative anymore. It's over. It's over. Now if now if we're talking negatively they'll have actually done something negative on the field and not negative in theory.

[01:00:05] Mm-hmm. Woo. Okay Lyle. So how can the Mariners succeed with what they have. We've talked about the limitations they've had. We've criticized the lack of efficiency with the budget they have. We've criticized the budget itself for being stupid for being made up for it probably being 30 million short of what it should be. But this is what they have. So how can they be successful? And they can be. They can be successful with this roster.

[01:00:35] It's not going to be easy but it can happen. I highlighted five things. I think you're going to narrow in on a couple specific ones. But I looked at this. Rotation has to stay healthy. That's number one. It has to. This rotation loses two to three guys they're in big trouble. Has to stay healthy. Final six weeks of 2024 they've got to be real. Victor Robles doesn't have to carry a 200 WRC plus. It's not realistic.

[01:01:04] But this offense has to remain consistent through a full 162 games. What they did in the final six weeks has to somewhat sustain. Number three. Within that same narrative you need a lot of bounce backs. JP, Garver, Polanco most notably Julio. You need bounce backs from those guys. Nobody bigger than Julio but the guys around him too. JP, Garver, Polanco. And you're paying Garver and Polanco money that isn't insignificant. So you need those guys

[01:01:34] to really produce. Santos and Brash are going to have to be healthy all year is point number four once Brash gets back. And point number five you need some contributions down on the farm this year. Of guys that come up and help the team win to some extent. Last year they had some minor league guys come up. You didn't get enough contributions. Whether it's going to be Cole Young, Harry Ford, more of Tyler Locklear or some of the pitching this year too whether it's Logan Evans, Brandon Garcia, etc. You need guys from down

[01:02:03] on the farm to come up and help. Speaking of Tyler Locklear did Jerry say his name once when talking about first base today? No. No. Not the most encouraging thing? No, it's not. It's not. I wouldn't say it was a very ringing endorsement on Tyler Locklear for the Mariners to spend all offseason looking for a first baseman. And then when they preview their first base position in this press conference they didn't talk about him at all. So yeah, you're right.

[01:02:33] Contributions from him would be great. Doesn't sound like they expect it from him. I think most of your final point comes back to Cole Young. What we've talked about with Joe Doyle about Cole Young like that's where I think most of that pressure lies when it comes to the farm this season. Yeah, Cole Emerson in a 100th percentile scenario could be up this year but you don't rely on 100th percentile anything because that's we've used this word before

[01:03:02] disingenuous. Right. But and I'll highlight the pitching again too if injuries are to happen I hope they don't but if they do in the rotation you're going to need Logan Evans this year. Brandon Garcia may start some games this year or he may just pitch out of the bullpen if they think he's going to be that big of a dynamite arm from the left side throwing that hard out of the bullpen. You need those pitchers this year too as good as your rotation is you're going to need more pitching down on that farm and now some of it is close to ready.

[01:03:31] Yes, Cole Young is the guy that you are going to highlight the most. Maybe Harry Ford gives you something. We'll see. It's hard to know but maybe he gives you something. Cole Young's the big one. I have two points as you mentioned. Number one I think almost every other point is completely irrelevant if this one is true. Julio needs to play like an MVP. He's got the talent too and if this team is going to be hamstrung talent wise by the budget it has

[01:04:00] then Julio's got to play up to his talent potential. He's got to play like this the entire season. You can't roll into the trade deadline and Julio's sitting again at like a 105 WRC plus. That can't happen again. That cannot be a thing. You know what Julio needs to be at that point? Like 140, 150. It might be a little high. What'd you think? Oh my god. That's really high. Really? Well they want to win. That's what it's going to have to be. Notice how that six week stretch Jerry and company love talking about

[01:04:29] Julio's at 159 during that stretch or something close to that. So if he does that for an entire season yeah maybe you can reach that ceiling you were in the last six weeks of the season because the offense when Julio hits like that is miles different than what it is when he's like he was for the first four months of this past season which is frankly for a player with his contract unacceptable. Like you can't do that not for what the kind of pressure they put on you to do that. So most everything

[01:04:59] is irrelevant if he doesn't do that. The impact he has in wins and losses the last two years the two years he's been the most inconsistent of the three he's been in the big leagues his OPS and wins last year Lyle 857 his OPS and losses under 600 bad when Julio stinks so do the Mariners the season prior in 2023 he had a 960 OPS and wins and losses

[01:05:28] it was 652 this team rocks like a teeter-totter whether Julio Rodriguez is good or bad at the plate wow very important it's almost like they could have used more impact bats around him good thing 15 million dollars gets you that wow sorry sorry sorry sorry we're doing things to go right sorry my bad my bad force of habit but Julio doesn't even need that he doesn't need protection does he it could help it could help yeah you think

[01:05:58] you think it's a coincidence Juan Soto's best season in his big league career so far was when he had Aaron Judge hitting behind him no not a not a coincidence but Julio had decent protection he had Gino hitting behind him in 2022 and he had no problem look he can do it but more could have been helpful anyway yeah some people might say oh it's crazy to say Julio can be a 150 WRC plus bat well that's what the Mariners paid him to be so but also by the way

[01:06:28] he does have protection in the lineup it's like the spots behind that where the issues start in an ideal world Cal Raleigh doesn't hit fourth Cal Raleigh hits fifth sixth and you have real impact behind Julio Cal Raleigh's an impact back Cal Raleigh might be the best catcher in baseball but if you had Marcus Semien hitting ahead of Julio right again there are like things we can nitpick here but he's not going to have

[01:06:57] like Robinson Cano level protection in the lineup in 2014 no no no yeah that's true okay number two Mariners need a top 10 road pitching staff now the rotation did its part on the road last year of course they were first at home on the road they were 10th great we talked about the difference between home and road and rotation but despite the big run environment difference they're still top 10 pitching

[01:07:27] staff they're still top 10 rotation on the road the bullpen is where the problems lie as I talked about earlier I'm not going to repeat too much of what I said but I will repeat this one that the Mariners were 23rd in ERA on the bullpen 23rd despite pitching the fewest amount of innings of any bullpen all season long they were 26th in slugging percentage as well so it wasn't the volume of hits it's that they when they gave up hits it was loud

[01:07:56] contact and they didn't they didn't really limit it that much so this bullpen's got to get it figured out on the road because if based on the talent level this offense Lyle if the Mariners bullpen's 23rd in road ERA again they're not going to make the playoffs they don't have the depth to do that because if that's the case they're probably going to send some guys

[01:08:33] there's one injury in pitching staff say they repeat what they did last year which is the best case scenario that's not a top 10 road rotation because you're going to have a

[01:09:03] rotation improves a little bit on the road JP gets back to being a 105 to 110 WRC plus hitter Garver is a 110 WRC plus hitter Polanco is a 110 WRC plus hitter and the rotation like we just said pitches better on the road with Julio bouncing back what does the team look like that team's in the playoffs I agree that team could have 90 wins next to their name and that might be enough to get you in

[01:09:33] but that is that's a lot of optimism it's a lot of optimism but if that all goes right there is a world this team is sitting in the playoffs there's a team this there's a world this team is winning the AL West so again hopefully we highlight that a little bit here at the end of the show that for as pissed off as we are about off and it's warranted John Stanton and Chris Larson and the rest of the ownership group sorry sorry anyway as pissed off as we are about the off season this team is good enough to get into the playoffs and with this rotation make a run and if

[01:10:03] enough things go right yes this can be a uphill climb to get there but there is an uphill path there is a path fun off season dog we made it through good because I couldn't take much more I really couldn't do you know what's funny the timing

[01:10:33] of this I think it wasn't groundhog day yesterday maybe so yeah the groundhog signaled the end of the off season as well they lined it up great it's true yeah well they have done similar things over and over so if you've made it to this part of the episode we'll note we do have a mailbag coming on Friday Lyle and I will be out of town so you will hear that it will be recorded a little bit in advance we'll talk to

[01:11:03] Trevor May next Wednesday and then we will get to start diving into spring training because pitchers and catchers will have reported I believe by the time we record a week and a half from now for our Friday episode right so again the next two episodes that are out we'll be out of town we're going on a trip with a few of our friends so mailbag Friday Trevor May next Wednesday and then we'll be rolling into spring training it's about time it is about time all right that

[01:11:33] just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer podcast oh here's a reminder for you guys if you want some dates we didn't say it during the show but we'll remind you again our

[01:12:04] training come find us if you're down there please come say what's up come talk some ball with us we'd love to if you want to listen to the full form podcast you can do so wherever you get your audio pods make sure to like if you can even like on podcast if you can go ahead download rate and review leave a five star