Episode 211: Catcher + Corner Infield Preview

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 211 of the Marine Layer Podcast. It's the first edition of our 2025 season previews. We'll take a look at the Mariners' Corner infielders and catchers.

[00:00:30] Or you can go sign up and get ad-free episodes over there. We're going to be adding more to it soon also. Let's get it rolling. And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording on Wednesday afternoon, February 19th.

[00:00:59] No groundbreaking storylines out of Mariners' spring training today, Lyle, except for one, actually. There was video taken by Aaron Levine of Julio Rodriguez and John Stanton having a conversation. What do we think they were talking about? I'm just going to give wrong answers only to this because that's way more fun. I'm going to say John Stanton looks at Julio and says, So Julio, can you explain this to me?

[00:01:25] There's this father and son who say they, and I quote, bring the boom. Can you explain this terminology? Oh, and then there's a second kid who's not technically part of their family but gets treated as a de facto part of their family. Who just happens to roll in and do a bunch of different videos with them. And everybody says he has ultimate riz. Can you comprehend, please? Yeah.

[00:01:54] So if you want to know what John Stanton and Julio were talking about, that. You had to be watching on YouTube to see what I just did. That does check out because I was trying to weigh the conversation. This video had two parts. Aaron first took video of John Stanton and Julio talking. And then Jerry was talking with some others off to the side. The conversation between John Stanton and Julio Rodriguez.

[00:02:22] What would we say the talking percentage was in this conversation? It kind of felt like a 90-10. Right? It does make you think. It does make you think. Also, you did a terrible Rizzler impression, by the way. It's more like you were just rubbing your chin. It's like this. You got to go like. You got to do the you got to be watching on YouTube to see what I'm doing. You got to like go to the chin and then you got to. And then finger down the side. Mm hmm. So there you go. And close my eyes, I think.

[00:02:51] Well, no one does it like the Rizzler. That's why there's only one. There's only one. What else could he have been talking about? So Julio, why did this John Heyman guy yell, I can't even believe it on WFAN? He just blew up at somebody for no reason. God, what else could he? There's a lot of good options here. Wrong answers only, dog. Wrong answers only.

[00:03:19] Why did Kendrick say, say Drake? Why did he say that? I'm watching the halftime show with my family. And when Kendrick says, say Drake, it's like the rapper. What? What are the current trends? Could we tie this back to? Those are three pretty good ones. Yeah. I mean, there are a lot we could do, which probably wouldn't be appropriate.

[00:03:50] I think those are for three pretty good ones. I think say Drake is about as toe in the line as you can possibly get. Yeah. Yeah, it probably is. But that was certainly interesting. I'd say it was more interesting than any of the live APs they were doing. More interesting than any of the bullpens we saw today. So yeah. Thank you, Aaron. That was fabulous. I think Aaron knew what he was doing, taking that video. Yeah. He did too. Well, we got everyone.

[00:04:19] How often do they get everyone in a non-formal environment in the same frame? It's a fair point. When's the next time every one of those people are going to be in the same frame? It's going to be Ichiro's retirement ceremony. Well, they're all in Seattle. They could be talking at the ballpark. I meant like getting photographed by people. Just any time they might all be on the field at some point for batting practice. That still might happen.

[00:04:50] Rarer occurrences these days, dog. It is. It is, considering the brain trusts do not make public appearances all that much anymore. So yeah. Yes. Do you have anything to say about our live show that we have not done yet, but this will be coming out after the facts? You want to predict something we'll do? Yeah. It was unbelievable. All our fans are awesome. We thank every single person that came out to it.

[00:05:16] And I'm going to predict that I screamed and ran it and went back on my promise about halting talk about Mariners offseason news. And I'll make another prediction is that John Stanton is going to fly up to Kirkland just for this tomorrow. You're going to be like mid-sentence. He's going to walk through the door in the back. You're going to go like. Him and Chris Larson. Him and Chris Larson are going to just burst through those doors together.

[00:05:45] All of a sudden, beatboxes in hand and all of a sudden our live show gets interrupted just out of nowhere WWE style. But they're playing. They see me rolling. Hey, 10. Keeps me riding dirty. Keeps me riding dirty. Yeah. That's good. That's going to happen. This is though a big thank you in advance to everyone who showed up to it. It'll be supremely awesome. I'm sure it'll be great. I can't wait.

[00:06:13] It will have already happened, obviously, while you guys are listening to this. But me predicting here recording on Wednesday is it's going to be absolutely awesome. That's why we're sitting here recording on Wednesday afternoon. We usually record on Thursday, but I think we're going to be a little busy on Thursday. So, yeah. So, look forward to that and look forward to more live shows throughout the season, which we will continue to make bigger and better. And hopefully the next one will be at the new Queen and Beer Hall location at Occidental.

[00:06:42] But stay tuned. We'll see. Well, the rough opening date for that, for Occidental Hall, for anybody that could be interested in that, which if the name doesn't give it away for you, it's right next to Lumenfield and T-Mobile Park. So, if you know anything about Queen and Beer Hall and Moss Bay Hall, you know those are awesome, awesome places to go hang out. And to have one right next to the ballpark for pregame stuff, after the games, oh, it's going to be so cool. They're roughly targeting a May opening date.

[00:07:10] So, will we have another live show before then? You never know. It's possible. If so, might not be there. But are we going to be doing plenty of events out at Occidental this year? Yes. So, stay tuned for that. We will let you guys know when we have another one on the docket. Again, hopefully bigger and better as we keep these rolling throughout the season. Let's get to our first batch of previews. And we're going to start today with the corner infielders and the catchers. And we have to properly start off. Actually, you know what? Let's do this backwards.

[00:07:41] Cal's going last. So, who would you like to start with? Let's go left to right. So, we're going to highlight five players today with this preview. So, it's going to be Jorge Polanco, Luke Raley, Donovan Solano, Mitch Garver, Cal Raleigh. So, let's start with Polo. So, who are we starting with? Let's start with Polo. We'll start at third base.

[00:08:05] He is, you know, he is the most, not known commodity because he's playing a new position, but he is a familiar face rather than, you know, we can save the first base talk a little bit because we're going to have to dive into who is a new face in the organization, Donovan Solano, in a few minutes. But, let's hold off and start with Polo. So, Polo gave Mariner fans a glimpse of, I'd say, two different versions of himself.

[00:08:31] He gave off the tough first impression and then he gave off a second half, which looked a lot like his last couple of seasons in Minnesota. I think coming up into this upcoming season, Polanco thinks and the Mariners organization thinks he's going to be a little bit more like his Minnesota self than he's going to be in his first half Seattle self. And the WRC Plus backs that up. The strikeout rate backs that up. The hard hit rate, etc.

[00:08:58] All of these things that we talked about when he acquired, when the Mariners acquired Jorge Polanco. But we can rehash a few of these things again. If you forget, his second half was actually very productive. And he did this despite playing through a torn patella tendon? Yeah. Yeah. In his knee. So, despite all that, he jumped his hard hit rate up 11% in the second half. He jumped his fly ball percentage up to near 50%. His isolated power more than doubled.

[00:09:26] His WRC Plus rose by 45 points, which was awesome. And his strikeout rate dropped 7%. That's something the Mariners do desperately need there at third base. I'm going to say this with almost every single person except for Cal Raleigh on this list. I mean, there's a chance since the Mariners roster is so thin that any of these players could be forced into more playing time than I think the Mariners anticipate. Polanco is expected to play every day, at least to start. We'll see how he holds up health-wise. We'll see how his bat holds up as well.

[00:09:56] But as we noticed last July, when guys started struggling and started getting hurt, the lineup and the roster got yanked around a little bit. And there were some guys playing more than they probably should have. I will say, though, the Mariners are anticipating Jorge Polanco playing every single day this upcoming season. And hopefully can at least be serviceable defensively at third. All right. So let's start with his defense. That seems to be where you're veering. So let's stay there.

[00:10:22] People need to severely temper their expectations on what Jorge Polanco defensively is going to look like at third base. Now, there are reasons why the move over to the hot corner makes some sense. He doesn't have to move as much range-wise side to side. That should help his knee. Hopefully that helps him stay a little healthier throughout the year. But you're just going to have to temper your expectations on what he can be.

[00:10:48] And I mean all the way to the point of if Jorge Polanco is a 20th percentile defensive player this year, that is a massive win. And 20th percentile on defense is not good by any stretch. But that is also a lot higher than where he's been essentially his whole career and certainly the last few years. So if he's a 20th percentile outs above average fielder at third, that's a win. This is what I mean by tempering your expectations about Polanco.

[00:11:16] He's just not going to play great defense. And I think we all have to understand that. Where it's going to have to be made up is with his bat. His range was a really big problem at second base last year. And it does, again, there's less coverage area over there at third base. But the problem is second base is also a shorter throw to first base than third base is. I'd say at least most of the time for what Polanco was dealing with. Jorge Polanco, as we've talked about, has 8th percentile arm strike.

[00:11:44] That's not great for the hot corner. Some guys make it work. I mean Kyle Seeger didn't have the best arm in the world. He was just extremely accurate over there at third base. And he was arguably one of the five best defenders at third base in all of baseball when he played. So it's possible. But when you combine those two things of shaky range and a weak arm, there's only so much people like Perry Hill can do at this point playing at third. Josh Rojas, by the way, over a third, strong arm.

[00:12:13] So he can make up for if he has a lack of range or if he missteps on something or if he has to backpedal on a ball. Like he makes up for it because he has the arm strength. Like what happens when Polanco has to go back or to his right? Like he'll have to go to his right less. But what happens if he has to play a ball backwards or has to play a ball to his right with his arm strength and with his range? That's what we hope Perry Hill can at least help him improve a tiny bit.

[00:12:41] Asking for him to be a league average defender would be a stretch at this point. Now the flip side to that, if you want to look at the glass half full perspective, is Eugenio Suarez was not a good defender over at third base before he came to Seattle. Perry Hill worked with him. And all of a sudden, Gino's defense got really good. It was league average the first year and then it took a big jump in 2023. Gino also has a stronger arm than Polanco does, so that helps. But if you want to look glass half full,

[00:13:08] I'm not saying there's no world that he couldn't figure it out over there on defense, but I think people just need to set some realistic expectations. That when, during the year, there's some plays that come up at third base that may give Jorge Polanco some trouble, I think people just need to prepare themselves in advance. And again, he is just going to have to provide his value through his bat. Which is why I think him staying healthy

[00:13:36] is the single biggest thing to watch with Jorge Polanco in 2025. I think that's nearly the entire difference on how his 2025 campaign will be judged. And play out, for example, is his health. If he's healthy, I just don't see any way it could possibly be as bad at the plate as it was last year. It's hard to be worse than that. The ultimate, the teller is going to be, how is he going to readjust back to fastballs? We spent a lot of time, remember in our like mid-May or early June report of Jorge Polanco

[00:14:05] taking a look at his fastball numbers last year and we're just flabbergasted how bad they were. Like, this is impossible. This is a guy for his entire career that has hit fastballs. I mean, easily plus run value against fastballs for six consecutive seasons before arriving with the Mariners last year. And all of a sudden he goes negative five. You're going, what? How is that possible? Well, this can only happen to the Mariners, obviously. That's usually the explanation we go to. But you're hoping that he's a little bit healthier, he'll speed his bat up a little bit,

[00:14:35] and he'll be more comfortable handling velocity. People do sometimes struggle with velocity as they age, and Jorge Polanco is no spring chicken anymore. But... He's also not old. He's not old. He's played for a while, but he's not old. If that balances out. He's essentially played eight full seasons in the big leagues, but he's going to be 31 this year. Mm-hmm. So, um... They're... Like, that...

[00:15:04] Like, I think that's the key right there, is his fastball performance. If he hits the fastball, then if he struggles against sliders, like, okay, you shrug. That's like the standard big league hitter. Hit fastballs, struggle against these amazing off-speed pitches that people have. The other thing I think it'll be telling is at least have one strong side, hitting-wise. As a switch hitter, you'd expect he'd be better one side or the other. He was just bad on both sides last year. Is one side going to take that leap forward?

[00:15:32] I would think it's his left-handed hitting swing, facing righties, but we'll have to see, and that'll be the one he is in most of the time since most pitchers are right-handed. For reference for people, I know we talked about this last year, but just to re-bring it up, Jorge Polanco slugged 6-20 against four-seam fastballs in 2023. He crushed fastballs. It was his bread and butter. He actually has hit change-ups pretty well in his career, too. And that's a separate conversation

[00:15:59] because he didn't hit change-ups great last year either. But let's just stick on the fastball point. Has to hit fastballs. If he gets back to hitting fastballs this year, you're going to see a better Jorge Polanco. You'll probably see a much, much improved Jorge Polanco if he gets back to anything close to what he was doing against heaters in 23. But along with the health, he has to get back to doing that. And that was my second point for what the biggest difference in 2025 for Polo will be. Has to hit the heater. This checklist I made for him

[00:16:28] of what's ahead of him this season, it sounds kind of daunting, to be honest. I don't want this to come off as pessimistic, but if I were to read off what the Mariners are asking Jorge Polanco to do this season, you would say, hey, man, that's a pretty tough list. He's going to have to hit in the worst hitters park in baseball. He's going to have to play full-time at a newish position. He's going to have to get re-acclimated with his knee. And he's going to have to prove

[00:16:57] that he's still got it offensively. Otherwise, he's a bench bat next year for somebody. I started to coin this phrase, and I'll start using it more often throughout the year on the podcast. Everything you said has fair points, TJ, to which I respond with 15 million reasons why. 15 million reasons why. Yes, that is a laundry list of things they're asking Jorge Polanco to do.

[00:17:25] This is what a budget like this gets you. I know, I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole. I'm writing it like Bart Simpson on the wall. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, this is what that gets you. What did I say in my big rant? You're putting what is unfair expectations on a lot of guys to carry a lot of weight. And Jorge Polanco, fair or not, is being asked to carry a lot of weight. He needs to play serviceable defensive third play every day, stay healthy,

[00:17:54] which he hasn't done a lot of his career, also hit solidly from both sides, also get back to hitting fastballs, also strike out less. Yeah, he has to do a lot. But this is the hand they've been dealt. One, I would say, positive out of that, and difference from last year, is he's not going to have to be the three-hitter in the lineup this year. He's going to be, what, sixth? Maybe seventh. Yeah, or lower. So in that case, there'll be less pressure.

[00:18:24] But then as I also wrote down, it's like, when someone gets injured, because it's going to happen, are the Mariners going to be in mid-May and Jorge Polanco's back to being your cleanup hitter? Depends on how he's hitting and depends on how many guys are healthy, I would say. Does it depend on how he's hitting? Yeah, because if he's really not hitting, they could shuffle it around in other ways. To be fair, when Polo was hitting in that area of the lineup,

[00:18:54] when he was hitting in the middle of the order last year, they didn't have a Rosarena for the most part at that time. Robles hadn't really heated up at that point in time. So they do have a little more protection now, and how much they rely on Victor Robles is a different conversation. We're going to have to get to that in another episode. But they do have more projected protection on paper right now than they did when Polo was hitting in the middle of the order in 24. Yeah, they do.

[00:19:21] So the best case, obviously, is for everyone to stay healthy. So this is the best case scenario for Jorge Polanco. They need him to be like the fifth or sixth best hitter in this lineup. Yeah, which is fair. And by the way, with that, I mentioned the strikeouts. That was my other point with him. The third bullet I wrote down for what he has to do this year to have a turnaround season. Has to strike out less. He doesn't have to strike out 15% of the time.

[00:19:50] Although a lot of his career, he's been under 20%. He's not a guy that struck out a ton in his career, and he's had a pretty good approach. Just has to strike out less. 29% out of him, it just can't happen. He's got to get it down to that 22 to 24%-ish range. Even if he's at the strikeout rate where he did in the second half, he struck out 25% of the time in 2023 in Minnesota, and that's what he did in the second half last year. I think that, at this point, it's a win. That's a little better.

[00:20:20] In this ballpark, I think it's a win. 25%. That's a little better, especially considering one of the things Jorge Polanco did do well last year is he continued to draw walks, which was a good sign. So if he can continue to walk the way he walks, but strike out, yeah, at that 24, 25% mark, great. It just can't be up at 30%. Until something changes at T-Mobile Park, you look at the average strikeout rate in baseball, and you add a couple percent to it. Right. Always. Because then that would be the average.

[00:20:47] So Jorge Polanco striking out 25% of the time while playing half your games at T-Mobile Park, you're like, well, sure, he's going to strike out above average no matter where he is, but he's going to strike out more because he plays on the Mariners, which play 81 games at T-Mobile Park, and it's really difficult to hit in. Next up, Donovan Solano. Solano in San Diego last year, 118 WRC+. He was worth less than one fan graphs win above replacement,

[00:21:15] a reasonable 21% strikeout rate, eight home runs, and 309 plate appearances. There's some positives we can talk about with Donovan Solano. I do think he's what they need. Dude hits a ton of line drives. He's hit for a high average for a very good reason. It's something they really emphasize. The Padres are one of the best teams when it came to batting average last season. I can't believe Lyle going down this road right here, but we'll talk about it because that is something the Mariners do need. They need a higher volume of contact in place.

[00:21:45] That was what they need and what they say they need. The Padres are really good at that last year. Donovan Solano was a big part of it. Some of the at-bats he brought in there, he's a veteran. He knows what he's doing. He grinded his way to this spot. The dude took forever to be a regular MLB player. Can he bring part of that and fill the Justin Turner hole for the Mariners this upcoming season? Now that Turner's off the board, it's going to be on Donovan Solano to kind of bring that veteran

[00:22:14] contact-oriented approach to this lineup and embody what Dan Wilson and Edgar Martinez are trying to get out of this lineup. And I hope, I really hope, to the Jorge Polanco point, that since Donovan Solano is best when he doesn't have to play every single day, that we don't end up in the middle of May and Donovan Solano's going to have to play six straight weeks at an infield position at 37. Mm-hmm.

[00:22:43] 15 million reasons why. Anyway. Wow, I thought we said no more. Okay, but this is going to be a theme throughout the year. Again, let me say this. I'm giving you a hard time. I'm giving you a hard time. Get it off your chest. Get it off your chest. I'm coming back down to earth. The Mariners can absolutely be a very good team this year. I haven't wavered from that. We still believe that. There's absolutely plenty of realistic possibility the Mariners are a very good team this year. However, this is the situation they're in. They have, like,

[00:23:13] almost no margin for error. This is what an offseason, like the one they just had, gets you. This is what happens. Somebody goes down, 37-year-old Donovan Solano's going to be playing six straight weeks at a position. So, buckle up. What I will say is, man, he, I hope people appreciate what Justin Turner did last year. Turner's getting six million in Chicago. Solano's getting three and a half million here in Seattle, which is about right when you look at their production,

[00:23:40] because I would say Solano is a little bit of a lesser Justin Turner in terms of what Turner did in Seattle last year. I think that's fair. Similar-ish profiles, where they're going to fill the right-handed side of a first base platoon, don't strike out a ton, good approach, veteran guy. There's similarities, but Justin Turner really played well when he was here last year. The dude had a, so Fangraphs doesn't really let you split up very easily. Guys' numbers,

[00:24:10] if they were traded midseason, it just compiles it all together. But if you look at OPS plus instead, Turner had a 128 OPS plus in Seattle last year. I mean, he was really good in true his walks, and we know everything he did in the clubhouse. Turner was on pace for like a three and a half worse season. I don't know if he would have gotten there, but he was. And helped with the hitting approach. Yeah, big time with the hitting approach. I don't know if Solano's going to quite be that. The guy's never been a two-war player.

[00:24:40] He just isn't that type of guy. He can be a good player, but not a two-war player or better. So, we'll see what the difference in production there is between those two, because that is the role he's going to fill, and we know Solano is a model of consistency at the plate. Look, in five of the last six years, he has had a WRC plus of 105 or better. He is consistently an above-league average hitter. The Mariners need above-league average hitters,

[00:25:08] but I will be interested to see the difference between what Solano does and what Turner did. Another kind of niche, hopeful improvement for Donovan Solano is, he was really good at hitting sliders last year. A guy with his sort of approach can manage some of these nasty sliders that guys are throwing these days. And this comes back to the Padres' whole team philosophy. I heard Mike Schilt talking about this earlier this week, where he was talking about his team's hitting approach.

[00:25:36] And it's not the same verbiage as what the Mariners use, but Mike Schilt essentially came out and said that, hey, we're not up there to walk. We're there to hit and get on base, is what we're there to do. That's the player Donovan Solano is. That's the player Luisa Rice is. And when you bring some of that in Donovan Solano over to the Mariners, where, I mean, Edgar is going to say, you know, work your count. If you get a walk, you get a walk. But I know the previous,

[00:26:03] the previous hitting approach really did emphasize getting on base. The Mariners were among the leaders in all of Major League Baseball when it came to drawing walks the last three full seasons. Not saying they're not going to do that with Edgar Martinez, but there will be more of that emphasis on bat to ball. And I think Solano embodies that. And he doesn't, you know, he doesn't walk a ton. He had a 7% walk rate last year, which is a little bit below the league average at this point.

[00:26:29] So where does this come back to when it comes to like contact in the zone? Well, it comes back to sliders because they're not, instead of sitting there and spitting on sliders on the outside edge, there's a 50-50 chance that it's called a strike or not. Solano instead was really good hitting against sliders. And the Padres as a team last year were really good hitting in sliders. They were the second best team behind the Dodgers in all of baseball last year in terms of run value against sliders. The Mariners were 20th. Can the Mariners inch back up closer to where the Padres were

[00:26:58] with this pitch that gave him a ton of trouble last year and mitigate it a little bit? There's another guy on this list who really struggled with sliders. So can they, can you offset some of those struggles by Solano being really good against that pitch? You hope so, but that's only one guy in a lineup. That doesn't necessarily mean Julio, Garver, et cetera, aren't going to see sliders in there at bats. This is where the, the veteran leadership,

[00:27:27] like spreading out your influence across an entire roster comes into play back to Justin Turner. Like that's the effect he had. Can Solano at least try and mitigate some of that? You would hope so because again, you just mentioned it. There are a lot of guys on this team that struggled with that pitch. I'm sure we'll talk about it with Garver here in a minute, but he did. Julio did. There's others too. Solano, there's a lot of things Solano could do for this team.

[00:27:54] And I hope he does a lot of them and checks a lot of boxes, helping guys adjust to off-speed pitches a little bit better and breaking balls. Sure. That'd be great because he's clearly had success with it. So if he's going to have that presence in a clubhouse where him and obviously Edgar and Kevin Seitzer should help with this too. And obviously the final few weeks of the year, they hit a lot better than they hit for the majority of the season. Hopefully that really helps turn some things around. I don't think the Mariners are going to be the best team in the league at

[00:28:24] hitting breaking balls. I just don't. I'm going to sit here and break some news. I don't think the Mariners are going to be elite breaking ball hitters. I just, but can they be closer to league average? League average? Sure. And I hope they are. And hopefully Solano leads a bit of the charge with that. Now for Solano himself, if we're just talking about pitch selection, I do hope he gets back to hitting fastballs similar to Polo. Or, sorry, I should say this. I hope he continues to hit fastballs well, where Polo needs to get back to hitting fastballs well.

[00:28:53] Because Solano hit fastballs well last year. He really did. He's another guy that slugged over 600 against them. So keep doing that. Do you know the first question we should ask Donovan Solano? We're in spring training next week. Let's hear it. What do you think about the batter's eye? Donovan, we had a bunch of questions prepared about wanting to get to know you as a person. Wanted to just sort of highlight your personality. So we welcome you into this, onto this Mariners team.

[00:29:23] What are your thoughts on the batter's eye? Does it glare? Does it reflect? Is it trouble at sunset? Is there a, what do you think about the Marine layer? Hmm? In which he responds somehow, somehow, like some way seeing our stuff. The Marine layer? Oh, those guys are morons. Wait, that's you? Oops. Well, I'm out of here. Slides the, slides the mic flag off the mic. Who are those guys? He, we should ask him. You, uh,

[00:29:52] you ever talked to one Teoscar Hernandez? You should get his thoughts on the batter's eye. Is it crooked? Do you feel slanted and like tilted sideways standing in the batter's box? We should ask him. We should. And a reminder for the people that forgot when we highlighted it, when Solano signed, since he played in San Diego last year, the second worst part to hit in, in baseball is San Diego. Right now there's a big gap. But, it is technically 29th in baseball.

[00:30:22] Yeah, and if he can hit in San Diego, it shouldn't be some drastic drop off in Seattle. There is a bit of a drop off. We know Seattle's the toughest park to hit in. But it's not like San Diego is easy. Petco Park is no hitter friendly park. So you would think some of that would translate over. And I'm sure that is not the entire reason the Mariners signed Donovan Solano, but part of it. I'm sure it played a piece of, I'm sure it played a piece into the puzzle for why the Mariners were interested in him. That, okay, if he's hitting a pitcher's park in the past and did well with it,

[00:30:52] why can't he do it again? We'll leave the two best players for last. Do you have anything else on Solano? Otherwise, we'll get to Mitch. Keep hitting lefties. That's my last thing. If the Mariners have tried so many platoons over the years in the DePoto era, and there's a whole lot of them that have not worked out. But there's always a way to talk yourself into it, right? And it's easy to talk yourself into this first base platoon,

[00:31:19] because if Solano just hits lefties at first base and there's no injuries, great, because he was an 8-16 OPS hitter against lefties last year. If he just does that, and Raley just hits righties, which we know he crushes right-handed pitching, on paper, that's an awesome first base platoon. Now, we've said that about a lot of platoons over the years, and it just hasn't worked. Last year. Yeah. But on paper, it makes sense. And it has a chance to work.

[00:31:50] If I gave you an over-under of 10 and a half years, are you picking over-under that amount of time for the Mariners to have one or less platoons in their lineup? Over. Yeah. Same. One, I don't think they can help themselves, and two, they don't have the funds to go spend on pieces that can cancel out platoons. You see what you're doing? You're baiting me back into this. You're reeling. I'm not.

[00:32:19] This is our thing, where we say, one platoon. One. Oh, I mean you're reeling me back into, like, hot stove talk and spending and all that. I honestly think they, this front office can't help themselves with platoons. Yeah, you got to, like, you have, given the constraints, yeah, you have to. You have to try. Unfortunately for the Mariners, all these platoons they've run out hasn't resulted in enough playoff appearances. Yeah. Will,

[00:32:48] will there be a year we don't get baited into a platoon? Oh, on paper. Looks really good. We're not wrong for saying this platoon on paper makes all the sense in the world, right? Oh, it does. Totally does. Yeah. But does it always work out? No. Like, we sat here on this podcast during the preview section of last year's preview section at third base and said, you know, if you combine Josh Rojas and Luis Sirius,

[00:33:18] it could be better than Gino Suarez. That didn't work out very well, did it? No, but I'm going to sit here again and say, if you combine Luke Raley and Donovan Solano, could you have a four war first baseman? Yeah. There is a world. Hmm. Four? Four? Just note, playing different positions, these two weren't even worth four wins combined last year. I guess playing the outfield does help with war more because Raley would move around

[00:33:48] in the outfield a bit more and we don't, and we, we're not at Raley yet, but we know his first base defense isn't great from what we've seen, but Raley... His outfield defense wasn't great either. No. So baseball reference had Raley a little above three wins last year. Fangraphs had him lower, but three and a half wins, three and a half win first baseman, there's a world. I'd say three wins will be a win because if you, like, if you move, take Raley's production from last year and move him to first base,

[00:34:17] I'd say his war is two or lower on Fangraphs. Okay. We're already talking about Raley plenty. You want to just transition to Raley and save the catchers for last? That's fine. Okay. So let's do that. Luke Raley, congratulations. You are now the new Thai France. How does it feel? Are you going to start liking our Instagram posts about the Mariners' lack of spending? Hmm. I'd be down. We need someone currently on the Mariners roster to do that. Yeah.

[00:34:46] Thai France did do that for those who may not be as active on social media as we are. He did drop a like on one of our posts about how the Mariners' offseason is over and they didn't do anything or nothing of, like, real significance. Let's take a quick pause to talk to you guys about our friends over at Pagatches Pub 85. It's over in Kirkland. We'll keep talking about it with you guys because it's well warranted that we do. It's an awesome place to go hang out with your friends. Guys, spring training games start on Friday. Friday! Games are back in action.

[00:35:15] And if you want to go watch games with your friends, whether it's spring training, whether it's college basketball with March Madness around the corner now, et cetera, there's 20 TVs in that place. You've got plenty of space, plenty of options, plenty of things to do if you want to plan a time with your friends. You can play pool, you can play darts, you can have some great, great food. And if you show up during happy hour, drink specials are awesome. They're three and four bucks from Monday through Friday, 2 to 6 p.m. Again, that's three and four dollar drinks for some awesome happy hours. So all of that is over at Pagatches Pub 85 in Kirkland.

[00:35:47] The Mariners would, since he's already on the roster, the Mariners would be totally foolish to do anything, I'd say, with the bat of Luke Raley or like move him, for example. And I say this because before you say, TJ, why the hell are you trading one of the best hitters on this roster? I'm not. But just remember the sort of approach that the Mariners are championing, this champion, championing, this offseason and into this season, what they want to do kind of like the final guy

[00:36:16] we'll talk about in Cal Raley, Luke Raley very much embodies the prior regime, not as much as Cal because Cal walked a lot more, a little bit more selective with his pitches than Luke Raley is. But Raley's, he's not flaying it the other way to stay alive. It's, no, it's getting hit pretty hard or striking out when it comes to Luke Raley. But the thing is, he's managed to be very productive. And while you and I last year, we're looking at this,

[00:36:46] this preview with Luke Raley and saying, okay, he's pretty volatile. He strikes out a lot, doesn't walk a lot, hits for good power. Can he keep this up while playing most of the time for an entire season again? And he put up the exact same WRC Plus again. So to answer the question, yeah, he can do that even with the volatile profile. And now he's going to be tasked like Polanco with learning a new position to play full time while trying to keep up his offensive productivity.

[00:37:15] You forgot one of Luke Raley's outcomes, buddy. You said, strikeout, hard hit ball, no filleting it the opposite way. The other thing he might do, bunt. If he bunted enough for his strikeout rate to go down to 25%. I might, might put up with it then. Okay. No left home runs. It only takes out of the strikeouts. Okay, then sure. All right, cool. But I'm down.

[00:37:45] I still hate bunting. Like, that's not new. Yes, correct. And since Luke Raley's going to be hitting in the middle of the lineup, he should be trying to drive runners in, not move them over. Correct. So for Luke Raley this season, what can we expect? Because I look at this two ways. Does the volatility catch up with him this season when he has to learn a new position and he's got a little bit more going through his mind? Or, despite the volatile profile,

[00:38:14] is he going to continue to be consistent offensively as he's been the last two years? It's not like he's played no first base, but yeah, he hasn't played a ton of it in his career. Luke Raley's only played 79 career games at third base, which is another thing the Mariners are banking on a lot here in 24 is a lot of these infielders to essentially just figure it out. Because one thing we didn't mention with Jorge Polanco, he's played 24 career games at third base and since 2017, he's played 15 career games

[00:38:44] at third base. So, the Mariners need these infielders to just basically figure it out in spring training and for Perry Hill to work his magic. Because yeah, I never thought Raley looked all that comfortable at first base defensively last year. I hope with a whole off-season of work and time in spring training and knowing that's where he's going to be playing the majority of his time this year that he's ready for it. But more than anything, I think, I don't think it's going to affect his offensive production all that much playing first base because ultimately

[00:39:14] I think we just kind of know who Luke Raley is as an offensive player at this point. Do we think Luke Raley looks natural at any position? Well, no. No, he's just not a natural... What's the right way to play? He's quick but lumbering. Yeah, sorry, not to say I wasn't going to say natural athlete. He's obviously a natural athlete because he's a great athlete. He's a professional athlete. But what... It's more going back to what Scott Service always used to say about him. He doesn't look smooth doing anything, but that doesn't mean he doesn't do it well.

[00:39:44] He doesn't need to be smooth at first base. He just needs to not be terrible. Right. And by defensive run saved, he was a negative one guy at first base last year. Now, defensive metrics, especially for first basemen, I think are hard to judge because it's hard to judge range. There's not a whole ton of impact you can make at the position defensively unless you're somebody like Evan White. It's difficult. It's difficult to judge. I just... I never thought Luke Raley

[00:40:13] looked great defensively at first base, but they're not paying him and playing him to play defense. They're playing him so he can have his bat in the lineup against right-handed pitching. Let me highlight some of this volatility I'm talking about and then we can talk about the splits a little bit. He did show the volatility last year, even though he ended up with a 129 WRC+, which is very good. The volatility showed at times. I mean, take a look at his April. He didn't make a great first impression. I know the Mariners weren't playing him

[00:40:43] early in the season last year, but he still only put up a 46 WRC+, in the month of April. And then he had another really bad month of July where it was 57. Then every other month was at least 142. It's pretty volatile. So I'm glad you're highlighting this because one of the notes I have down about Luke Raley is, again, people should just set their expectations with him at some point similar to how I said people should set your expectations

[00:41:12] about Polanco's defense. The expectations I'm going to tell people to set about Luke Raley is there is going to be some stretch during the year where he's going to look unplayable when he's in the lineup because that's just what he seems to do. He's had stretches like that in his career where he's just in the lineup and he is ice cold. He can't buy a hit. Remember in spring training last year? He could not have looked much worse. I mean, he couldn't put a bat on the ball, remember? And it was the same thing in April and then he got going in May.

[00:41:42] it's just one of these things that seems to come along with Luke Raley's game is there's just stretches throughout the year where he gets ice cold. That being said, there are then stretches throughout the year where he can be one of the 10 best hitters in baseball. So it's a very wide net of which Luke Raley are we getting today, this week, this month, but when you accumulate it all into the course of a full 162 game season, productive player. We questioned if

[00:42:12] he could really hit against lefties because he gives the impression of a, he definitely, so first of all, Mariners treated him like a platoon player last year. He hit like a platoon player. His WRC plus was twice as high against righties than it was against lefties, 142 and 70. So like that checks out for what we see with him. But in Tampa, the previous two years, he actually had hit lefties at a slightly above average rate in a tiny sample size. So we're sitting here thinking, oh, maybe he can't hit lefties.

[00:42:41] Not really. I don't think they're going to ask him to hit against lefties all that much because the production against righties is way too good. I think about Luke Rayleigh this year and how pitchers attacked Mitch Garver last year. If they're going to try attacking Luke Rayleigh the same way, what did Mitch Garver struggle with the most last year? It was breaking balls. Well, Luke Garver saw breaking ball or a slider specifically slider or curve ball 40% of the time. Luke Rayleigh was only at 32%. Now Luke Rayleigh's big damage pitch

[00:43:12] is fastballs. There was not many players in Major League Baseball that were better against fastballs than he was because he had a 13 run value, one of the, I think, the top 25 best marks against any pitch in baseball this past season. And in fact, Jordan Schusterman, no, no, no, no, sorry, Churchill put out this stat in front of the pod. Jason Churchill tweeted this out when he's taking back and looking at Luke Rayleigh. These stats against fastballs and non-fastballs are pretty drastic with Luke.

[00:43:42] It's a 306 average against fastballs with a 628 slug against non-fastballs. It's a 190 average and a 267 slug. Could pitchers decide to just junk it up against him this year knowing he's not? He's not a huge walk guy. He swings a lot and you just pound him with breaking balls, something he struggled against. You could find a way to get an edge on him. There is, this just shows that he's elite against one pitch and he does definitely have his struggles against certain types of pitches

[00:44:11] which pitchers could take advantage of. Yeah, and what was the number two pitch that he did damage against behind those four seam fastballs? Sinker. A.K.A. two seam fastballs. So, he had no problem with fastballs, but what's everything else going to look like? I'm sure the scouting report on him is there now. Yes, you're probably going to throw him a lot of junk and we'll have to see how he responds to that. Maybe his position mate, Donovan Solano, could help him. Luke Raley, for a guy

[00:44:41] that's a little older, doesn't have a ton of big league experience. Where Solano does. Maybe Solano can help him with some of that stuff. They could really use it, especially if that's how Raley's going to start to get attacked after the way he did damage against fastballs last year. It'll be interesting, but if that's the case, because he doesn't walk, he's going to have to find a way to continue to put the bat on the ball and do it with some damage. And I think he did a decent job of it, especially in the second half, like a lot of these guys did

[00:45:15] first half versus second half. In the first half, it was an 86-9 strikeout to walk ratio, in the second half for Luke Raley, it was 49-18. Hmm. Pretty drastic. Yeah. The last thing I'd say on Luke Raley, before we move on, is while we always say one platoon, one platoon, no more, if I had to pick one for this year, it is first base. Don't mess around with this, please. We now

[00:45:44] know what Luke Raley is good at. We know. We saw it all of last year. They treated him like a platoon player, and guess what? For the most part, it worked. Luke Raley, for his career against left-handed pitching, while he might not have a ton of it bats, he's a 575 OPS hitter against left-handed pitching. Donovan Solano had an 816 OPS against lefties last year. Just simplify it. Don't mess around. Don't put Raley in the lineup against left-handed pitching. Just have them against righties. Solano plays lefties.

[00:46:14] Done deal. And if someone gets hurt, whoever's playing first, whether it be Solano or someone else, you could always just call up Locklear to be the right-handed version of that platoon. There are at least options to continue the platoon, as opposed to some positions where you're like, uh-oh. Right. For example, if it's Polanco that gets hurt, Solano could slide over to third, you call up Locklear to keep the platoon going. Because Solano's platoon, splits, aren't super

[00:46:44] drastic. He is better against lefties, but he can hit righties. Yeah. Let's get to Mitch Garver. We'll talk about him briefly, and then we'll get to Cal. Yeah. How are the Mariners going to get the most out of Mitch Garver this season? I'll frame that question to you. How are they going to do that? Similar to Luke Raley, just play him against one side of the plate. Just play him against lefties. Because hitting lefties actually wasn't a problem for Mitch Garver last year, and we talked about it.

[00:47:13] He had a 124 WRC plus against left-handed pitching. However, if you're asking the question of how do they get the most out of Mitch Garver to get him to live up to the $12 million he's going to make per season? Well, he's going to have to earn more playing time, and he's going to have to prove that he could be a guy that is slotted back into the DH role more regularly, and earn it, and be productive there. Because right now, the way you're going to get the most value out of Mitch Garver is if he just continues to be George Kirby's catcher and

[00:47:43] plays against left-handed pitching. So many ways to think about this. This seems like the most likely candidate to have like two hot weeks, and then he plays every day again. Historically, Mitch Garver's not a platoon player, which is I think the justification the Mariners would use to put him back in the lineup. Say he faces three lefties in a week, has a really good stretch, and they decide, okay, we're going to move him back into the DH.

[00:48:15] At this point, based on how the roster is, I don't know if I hate that too much unless he starts sucking again, in which case I would hate it because I need the Mariners to hit a lot. Well, I get it while you're thinking on that, and I'll tell you why. When you go back to 2023, it's so easy to forget at this point off of how the year went for Mitch Garver last year. But while Mitch Garver didn't play a full season in 2023, or for that matter, he's never played a full season in his career. When you look at hitters with minimum

[00:48:45] 200 plate appearances from 2023, Mitch Garver ranked in the top 15 of the league in WRC+. He was a 140 guy. 140. And nobody's sitting here expecting him to end all, be all, get back to that. But it's in there. It's in him. Plus, hey, it's an odd year. Shouldn't this be exactly when Garver bounces back and has a huge season? It is. And we also know, I think, what Mitch has

[00:49:15] said publicly on the record, a big part of what hurt him last year is he just, could I say he wasn't all in it mentally? Like, he opened up that he had a lot of struggles mentally last year dealing with the park, dealing with the struggles, dealing with the pressure of his contract. Thinking about the combination of, this was the first time he was being asked to be a middle-of-the-order bat. Well, having the salary to back it up and that pressure, it got to him. And he ended up getting overexposed and pitchers found his weaknesses and

[00:49:44] they really exploited it last year. So, the Mariners are going to try and put him in a good position this year. He's going to only, at least at the start, only hit against lefties. He'll get those DHJs against left-handed starters, which is nice. And then he's going to play against George, while George Kirby starts, as you said. And he's going to see some righties there and hopefully get a little bit better against those sliders because that was the big problem last year was Mitch Garver against sliders.

[00:50:13] He was atrocious against breaking balls going away from him last year. That kind of stuff just did not work out very well. The lineup feels a little bit better to me, at least in an aspect, and that fits a little bit better when they're facing lefties because they actually have a DH against lefties in Mitch Garver. They don't really have that on the other side of the platoon when there's a righty on the mound that they're going to be facing most of the time. But I'll say at least against lefties, because of Garver, it does work out a little bit better. Well, that could be a

[00:50:42] scenario where Solano DHs, because again, he's not awful against either side of the plate. Against righties, you could see Rayleigh at first, Garver's on the bench, the three outfielders are what you'd expect, and then Solano DHs. It's not awful, not advantageous, I'll say. Okay. But yes, playing against lefties, there is a solution there, because Solano would be at first, Garver DHs, and then the outfield, for the most part, remains the same. Do we think he's a candidate to benefit from this approach? New approach.

[00:51:12] We'll say, in Dan's time, he is a 105 WRC plus hitter. That's what I was going to say. If you want to look at a positive light for Mitch Garver going into 2025, the final month of the year, he actually hit a lot better. That final month of the year, his OPS was 773. He had a good month. He hit 231. That was the highest batting average in any month that he put up, considering the other five months of the year, he didn't get above 200 as a batting average in any month.

[00:51:42] So, there's still a couple things that you can take from Garver's year last year and say, okay, he could carry this over. One of them is, while he might have swung and missed a lot, he actually didn't chase a lot. He wasn't whiffing at bad pitches off the plate and getting away from his approach. He just was swinging and missing a lot. So, the fact he still has the right eye for pitches is a good sign, and he's not starting to expand the zone as he ages in his career. But yes, how does he get

[00:52:11] back to being a guy that they rely on more? He's got to hit both sides of the plate, got to get back into his power a little bit more, and he's just got to get off to a hotter start. He dug himself into such a hole early last year, that when you do that, as any player, you see those numbers up on the Jumbotron and in your baseball reference page, and it's hard to not just see it glaring at you. A hotter start for Mitch Garver could do a lot. And then the worst case scenario here is he is a very expensive backup

[00:52:41] catcher that you hope runs into one. That's it. Exactly. And that's what he beat, play against lefties. He's not going to have to play a whole lot, though, behind the plate, because of our final guy we're going to preview here today in Cal Raleigh. Is there anything Cal Raleigh can get better at, Lyle? I'm doing our prep for this episode, and I'm just looking up and down at Cal Raleigh's season last year, and I'm just sitting

[00:53:09] there saying, what more does he have to do? I don't think he has to get any better. I wouldn't say no to him getting even better, but I think he just has to basically maintain. If he does what he's continued to do the last few seasons, he will continue to be one of the most important players on this team, if not the single most important offensive player on this team. And yes, I'm saying most important, even above Julio, because it is so hard to find offensive catchers that also do everything that Cal does

[00:53:38] as a leader and especially on defense. So I think for him, just maintain. This is a long roundabout way of me trying to get to answer your question by saying, could he hit for a slightly higher average? Yes. I understand he is a 210 to 220 hitter and there's going to be boomers that yell at us about his batting average. And I say to you, if you care about that, look in the mirror and come back with a new take because Cal Raleigh is not defined by his batting average at all.

[00:54:08] Could he also strike out a little less? Yes. But again, I'm not going to lose sleep about it with everything else he does. So yeah, if you want to pinpoint some very few or specific things that Cal could improve on, there are things, but I'm not that worried about it if he can, if he just continues to do everything he does. It's so amazing to, to, to watch Cal Raleigh and to think that even though the votes won't be there, he's a top 15 MVP. He's like a top 15 most

[00:54:38] valuable player in baseball, if not more based on the impact he has at the plate in this lineup, having to play almost every single day as a catcher and managing this pitching staff to just another level. Like the pitchers took a step forward last year because those pitchers are amazing. They all throw really hard. They're all really dedicated to getting better and improving and the organization knows exactly what they're doing when they're going out there and utilizing their strengths. But Cal's a huge difference in this. I keep coming back to this quote from last, last August where Bryce Miller

[00:55:08] was talking to Divish and said that sometimes Bryce will shake Cal off and Cal just won't call another pitch. He'll just stare at Bryce until he throws that pitch. Exactly. Because Cal's like, I know, I prep for this stuff. Like I know what I'm doing. I know how to get the best out of all of you guys. He's an elite framer. He's never had a better framing season than he had last year. He's never had a better season of throwing out runners on the base paths than he had last year as well. I mean, it's, it's just the complete package, man. Like the Mariners should be

[00:55:37] so blessed they have this dude in their organization, both as a leader, as a personality. I mean, no issues really at all besides his post 2023 thing. How do I want? He was complaining that they weren't spending enough money, which he was right about. Fuck that being a quote unquote issue. He was a hundred percent correct for saying that. He was correct. But that like, that's the only thing you could even think about calling an issue in that sense. But he even walked back his words. He hasn't said anything

[00:56:07] close to that sense, even if he still thinks it, which I would just guess a lot of people think that these days. So you sit here and think there's a lot, there are things Cal Raleigh could get better at, but when there are multiple top 10 catcher lists that have you at number one and you're already the best catcher in franchise history, this isn't, this isn't something where you need to scrape and claw for every last little thing. I know Cal wants to get better, but to be honest, man, like you said, if he

[00:56:37] just runs back his five and a half win season he had last year, Mayers will be totally happy, clean bell health and do what he did last year. If he runs back his 2023 season, that's fine too, where he wasn't a five and a half win player, but he was about a four and a half win player. I'm not complaining about that either. He is one of the best catchers in baseball year in and year out now. And he's proven it. And I don't see any reason why he's not going to continue to do it. Sure. There are some minor things he could get better with, but I'm not that worried about it.

[00:57:06] If he just continues to do everything else he does when we had our buddy Jack McMullen on early in the off season, which by the way, who of just baseball, the just baseball show, which by the way, he's the new voice of the Marlins radio play by play voice of the Marlins radio play by play voice of the Marlins. So pretty cool to Jack. That's so cool. We'll have to have him on maybe when the Marlins and Mariners get set to play or something like that. But anyway, what Jack said was how many catchers in baseball handle the best staff in the league, play elite

[00:57:35] defense, and also hit 30 homers. It doesn't exist. No. The only one you could even get close with is William Contreras, who is the one guy in the league who you can argue should be over Cal Raleigh. That's the only one. And William Contreras doesn't have the pitching staff to deal with that Cal does. So it's unbelievable what he does. And among every player, all the 20,000 plus players that have played a major league baseball in its history, no one has

[00:58:04] hit more home runs as a catcher in their first four years than Cal Raleigh. Not a single one. Which is hilarious considering his first quote unquote season where he barely played and didn't play well, he hit two or three. Exactly. It's like essentially three seasons. Mm-hmm. He did it to break Piazza's record. That first year he hit two. This dude's incredible. Mm-hmm. Hat tip. Hat tip to Cal Raleigh for doing everything needed to keep this ship afloat. That's what he does. He keeps the ship from

[00:58:35] tipping over and sinking. Mm-hmm. It's valuable. I would say one more thing he could probably get better at. We talked about this last year. His right-handed hitting is fine. He could be better. He slugged more as a right-handed hitter this year. But overall, as a net hitter, it actually went down in production a little bit. So it could get better. He could find the combination of overall production, less swing and miss, and power. He dialed down the swing and miss. He dialed up the power this year right-handed,

[00:59:03] but he didn't in like a WRC plus sense. He wasn't above league average as a right-handed hitter. So he could do that, but the Mariners are paying him to go up there and hit left-handed 85% of the time and swat the home runs off the hit, the cafe. Is it still called to hit it here? I don't even know. Anyways, irrelevant. I'll forever call it that. Irrelevant. Anyways, think of, and just one more point here on Cal Raleigh. Julio Rodriguez is the

[00:59:32] top-paid superstar. Let me, let's walk that back because we famously on this podcast said he's not a superstar. So let me walk that back before I double-crossed myself. Julio Rodriguez is paid like the star of this team. $209 million guaranteed, plays great centerfield defense. Many people have him as the best centerfielder in baseball. Totally fine. But while Julio's been up and down in his career, his volatility has really not helped the Mariners offense. Cal Raleigh has been

[01:00:01] Mr. Stability, not only with his offense, but with his defense as well. And it just, when you sit here and you preview his season, you say, man, I almost feel like we know what we're going to get. We're going to get that dude behind the plate. Mm-hmm. I'm just trying to enjoy Cal Raleigh being the Mariners catcher. I hope. I'm not going to get too far into it. I'm just going to say I hope the Mariners find a way to keep him around for a long, long time because I would hate to see him ever put on another uniform. I really would.

[01:00:32] That would be tough. I know. He's got some time though. Does. Yeah. First star of year this year. Yeah. It's true. Last thing. Last question. Then we'll wrap it up. You asked me this pre-recording, so I'll turn it around to you. Do you think the new Edgar, Kevin Seitzer philosophy is going to change much with Cal Raleigh and his approach at the plate? Great question. No. Wow. Look at you saying great question. It was my own question. So let me pat myself on the back.

[01:01:01] Pat myself on the back. I'm going to say no. Doesn't Cal Raleigh perfectly embody what the previous hitting regime did? It was not a cautious approach at the plate. Very patient, waiting to get your pitch and then putting your best swing on it. That's what Cal Raleigh does. He walks double digit and he hits a bunch of homers. Yeah, that's it. Right? If I were Edgar and Kevin Seitzer, when you talk about simplifying things, which they are trying to do here in

[01:01:30] 2025 with all of their hitters, simplify one thing for yourself. While you're giving Julio a laundry list of things to work on and Garver a laundry list of things to work on and Polanco a laundry list of things to work on and hammer out anybody else you might put into that category. JP Crawford, I would walk right by Cal Raleigh as you're on a line handing everybody their homework. Julio do this, this, and this. JP do this, this, and this. You walk by Cal. Cal, just keep doing what you're doing and walk away. That's it. Exactly. Don't even bother.

[01:02:00] He's not the type who needs to choke up with two strikes and make more contact. Yeah, he swings and misses a lot, but again, it's consistent. He gives them exactly what they need. And on top of everything else you ask this guy to do while catching more than any catcher in baseball. I would not change one single thing if I were Edgar Martinez and Kevin Seitzer. And for those of you that are going to complain about the strikeouts and batting average with Cal Raleigh, you go tell me what catcher you'd rather have instead because I'm going to tell you this. There is no other catcher in

[01:02:29] baseball I'd rather have. Even William Contreras. While some people might rank him as the best in baseball, I am not taking him over Cal Raleigh. That should be Cal Raleigh's pitch when he walks into Jerry's office and they start negotiating this extension. What catcher would you rather have? Yeah. Exactly. So we'll see. I hope we can have a conversation with Cal. We're hoping to get Cal on the mic down there, but even if we just get to chat with him, I'd love to hear what he thinks about this subject. It's like, that's not

[01:02:58] really your approach and you've been very successful with it for three consecutive years. How does it change that much? So we'll see. Hopefully we'll have a lot to talk about in that perspective when we record next Wednesday. And our first pod down there in Peoria. Definitely. Look at you. Look at you putting your big J journalist hat on telling everybody you want to start to have more real conversation with people rather than just doing things like going up to Emerson and be like, this doesn't matter if fucking sucks or whatever it's like.

[01:03:28] Well, that'll still happen. Yeah, I know. It will. But sure. If Cal wants to dive in on this whole philosophy with us, great. Yeah, I'd love to chat it up with him, too. That'd be awesome. Never say no to more information. Never, never, never. And we're mostly joking for the most part. We've had real conversations with guys, but do we lean into being good? I will tell Emerson that I think Stetson Bennett is not good. Yeah. However, I was going to say, do we purposely lean into the whole like light

[01:03:57] hearted, free flowing kind of joke, joker type conversations a lot of time? Yes. But we enjoy doing that. So we do both. Anyway, good preview. Hopefully you guys have a pretty good baseline of what to expect from all the corner infielders and catchers going into the year. We're going to keep doing these previews on Fridays as the offseason continues to roll along and spring training rolls along because it'll take us right up to basically the start of the regular season. So next week we'll do middle infielders and get you guys set with all the guys that will be playing up the middle.

[01:04:27] That'll be next Friday. 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, rate, review, leave it five stars. If you're watching on YouTube, like, comment, and please hit that subscribe button. And if you're on social media, we know you guys are. Follow us everywhere at Marine Layer Pod, including including our Patreon, which is brand new. Five bucks a month, ad free episodes.

[01:04:56] We're going to be adding more to the Patreon as time goes on. So get over there and get started with it. We're really looking forward to integrating more into that and just having more of a chance to connect with you guys. So go check out our Patreon. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.