Episode 220: Jason Churchill (Baseball Things)

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 220 of the Marine Layer Podcast. We welcome on to our friend and recurring guest Jason Churchill, the host of Baseball Things for our annual opening week discussion. We talk about some of the best and worst case scenarios for the season, what this offense needs to do to get better, and how Jason thinks the roster is going to shift as the season goes along. Really fun discussion.

[00:00:23] This is brand new, but just a heads up to you guys. We've got a website now. We're really excited about it. TJ will get into it here in a minute or two, but it's your one stop shop to find all of our stuff. If you want to listen to our podcast episodes, if you want to watch on YouTube, if you want to find our Patreon, if you want to buy our merch, which by the way, it's flying off the charts right now. You guys are awesome. So shout out to you guys for that. Everything is over there. Events, you name it. Like what are, what's going to be on our upcoming schedule?

[00:00:50] It's a one stop shop. TJ put a ton of work into it. It looks great. So if you need to find basically anything related to us moving forward, yeah, it's right over there. Go find it. As usual, if you want to support the channel, go check out our Patreon. You can find that on the website too, but it's patreon.com slash marine layer pod and continue to find us all across social media at marine layer pod. Let's get it rolling.

[00:01:15] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network recording on Monday afternoon, March 24th. Happy opening week, everybody. I'm, I'm jumped. I'm jacked for Thursday coming up here. Penultimate episode of the off season. Lyle, uh, how does it feel?

[00:01:50] Didn't we rehash this enough on Friday? Oh, I'd ask again. It's been a whole weekend. Yes, it has. I thought you managed at this point to get everything you needed to off your chest. So you, you go into this week. It's like a door opening and then you get the, ah, as the sun shines through and you're staring down a Logan Gilbert opening day start on Thursday.

[00:02:15] See, there's all these things like specific details that I am looking forward to watching. Are you going to ask me, am I excited and looking forward to watching Logan Gilbert pitch in meaningful games again? Yeah, of course. Am I looking forward to seeing Cal Raleigh at the plate again and hitting bombs? Yes. There's, there's all these things I am looking forward to. It's just overarching picture. It's going to take some time.

[00:02:40] I thought Jay Buhner cracked you up enough to lighten you up when we were at the park on Sunday. That's what I thought. That was pretty good. We've got a social post with Jay Buhner coming out. It'll be out here in the next couple of days. If you're listening to this, maybe it's out already. We'll see, but it'll be soon. And yeah, he's pretty funny.

[00:02:58] We were at that on Sunday because we wanted to go talk to a few guys that we didn't quite get the chance to circle over or circle back with at spring training between Colt Emerson, Johnny Farmello, Durangelo Sanja, who we hadn't actually done any social media stuff with before, but we were very, very happy to do so because he's an interesting cat to say the least.

[00:03:16] And Jay Buhner. So yeah, it was fun. That was a nice way to kind of get ready for the season to start and start getting back into the swing of things. But yeah, I just need a little time with game starting and hopefully it involves some winning and it will be easier for me to sit here and then say, yes, TJ, I am jacked. I am hyped.

[00:03:36] That event was fun. I had a lot of fun for us as media. I looked like the fans had a lot of fun, got to talk to some of the prospects, talk to Ryan Roland Smith, the Paxton to Jay Buhner. Like that's, you know, that that's something that gets people optimistic. By the way, I would stay tuned to our social channels probably over the next couple of months. Lyle mentioned a Jay Buhner post. We did some more Washington trivia with some more of the Mariners prospects. You're going to want to stay tuned who ends up coming up on top. So our leaderboard right now when it comes to Washington trivia, by the way,

[00:04:05] if you're unfamiliar with this, if you only listen and you don't follow us on Instagram. So we've done now two separate state of Washington trivia, not just Instagram everywhere, everywhere. Okay. Any, anywhere on social media, if you're not a social media person and you just like listening to podcasts, we have done social posts now with Justin Turner and Cole Young quizzing them on the state of Washington. Justin Turner, bless his heart, finished one for five in his Washington trivia. It was pretty tough.

[00:04:35] He was over his first four. He wasn't liking it. Cole Young did a little bit better. He was two for four. We did two more Washington trivias at the ballpark this weekend. So you're going to want to stay tuned to know who comes out on top. We do have a, we have a leader in the clubhouse now officially.

[00:04:52] We do. And I was just so fired up to talk to Gerangelo. So we did talk to him just a little bit off the mic down at spring training. And funny enough, we actually ran into him at all-star week. So that was the first time we've met him. So that wasn't our first time meeting him. We have talked to him. We just haven't had enough time in the past to get him on the mic basically. And we had the chance to do it on Sunday. And yeah, I was fired up about it. Cause he's again, he's so interesting and unique that. Yeah. It was fun to pick his brain a bit.

[00:05:21] I want to talk about Mitch Hanegar here in a second because he was released yesterday. Before that little bit of housekeeping, as you heard in the intro, Lyle mentioned it. We do have a website now, which again, we hope is our one-stop shop for anything you can need regarding this podcast. MarineLayerPod.com. Pretty easy to remember. Same as all of our social handles. MarineLayerPod, but just add the .com to it. A lot of great features to it. Like Lyle said, if you want to watch, if you want to listen, if you want to download an episode, if you want to leave a review,

[00:05:50] if you want to buy our merch, if you want to check our live event schedule, which by the way, we have our next live event up on there. So if you want to go see when that is, go check it out on the website, April 19th at Queen Anne Beer Hall. But there's now a place where those live events will live and you can see when it's going to be. So you don't have to send us a DM and we don't have to reply to people asking about it.

[00:06:12] But we now have a place for you guys to go look and see where all that stuff is. You can follow all of our social media accounts from there. You can go find us on Patreon on there. I think it's everything you guys need all in one place. And we're happy that we finally got it rolled out. MarineLayerPod.com is the only place you need to go for anything we do. Anything. It will all be on that website. Very happy it's now done. Same here. And tip of the cap to you. Because one, it looks really, really good. And you spearheaded this whole thing.

[00:06:41] And you really put kind of the, you know, you put the groundwork into all this and it looks great. So when you guys go over and see it and you see how good it looks, you can clap it up for Tiege. So let's get, thank you, dog. Appreciate that. Warms my heart. Feel nice and fuzzy about it. Well, good. Let's get to Mitch Hanegar. Fuzzy discussion. Heartwarming discussion. Not the most surprising thing that he got released on Sunday. As we had spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about, roster fit didn't make sense.

[00:07:12] The injury didn't help. The production didn't help. Rowdy Tellez seemed like a better fit on the roster. But push still had to come to shove. And they had to make a decision on Mitch Hanegar. And they decided, Lyle, even with him being injured, they could have put him on the injured list. And waited three weeks to watch Rowdy Tellez. But instead, they decided to release him this past weekend. Why do you think they did that?

[00:07:34] But I don't know how much new information we're going to sit here and talk about that's any different from what we've talked about over the last couple weeks when we've been speculating that this could happen. Look, Mitch Hanegar deserves all the praise and all the showers of positivity for everything he did in his Mariners career. Because he really, really was a great Mariner. And he had some years where he was a six-win player. He was an all-star back early in his career. He was a really good defender.

[00:08:04] 2021 season capped off by the big single against the Angels. Like, there's all these things that Mitch Hanegar meant to the Mariners in all the best of ways. But it was time. It was just time. It was a sunk cost no matter what. That $15.5 million, you were going to have to eat it. Like Jason Churchill talks about in the interview. This is not the NFL where you're going to save a bunch of money towards your cap by cutting him. It doesn't work like that. And he was a DH who just couldn't hit at this point. Couldn't run. Couldn't field.

[00:08:33] And he didn't really even get to play much in spring training because he was so bogged down by injuries. It was just time. And like we talked about, Rowdy's spot on the roster makes the team more versatile with what you can do with Raley, what you can do with Randy, and what you can do with others. I am a little surprised they didn't IL him. Now, thinking about it a little bit more, he would have needed some rehab time because he would have been out for a decent amount of time. And then he would need to get all those at-bats back he didn't get in spring training.

[00:09:02] And then at that point, you need to make another decision. I don't think the Mariners wanted to have to make that decision later on into the season. I think they had made their decision at some point either during spring or maybe even before spring that it wasn't really going to work out. They wanted to maybe see how he looked coming in, but then could get their answer pretty quickly at that point. So it stinks. Again, I'm happy Mitch Hanover got this contract because he deserved it. And throughout his RB years, he dealt with a lot of injuries that hampered how much money he could make.

[00:09:32] And securing a contract like this was something he had worked so hard to get. And he got it and he earned it. And he's going to earn every cent of the $15.5 million he's getting paid by the Mariners this year. It's just not going to be with him on the 26-man roster because it just doesn't really make much sense at this point. No. And that's probably all there is to it because I think we've talked about every other angle of this for a couple weeks now. I'm happy the Mariners made this decision based off of baseball and not off of money.

[00:10:02] That's what this decision says. Yes. This decision says we want to put the best roster forward that we can. And sadly, it just doesn't include Mitch Hanover. We wish Mitch all the best. Really good dude. Know he works his tail off. Hopefully, he gets another chance somewhere else. Just wasn't going to work here. So, yeah. Happy that's the case because there's a lot of moves that, well, that wasn't the case where money presided over, we thought, making the roster as good as possible.

[00:10:30] But in this one vacuum case, they have made the correct decision on this. And I hope going into the season that they bear the fruits of making the correct decision and that their roster is better off because of it. Right. And the roster is basically set at this point. I would say we don't have to dive into this too much. It'll all play out as the season goes on. I am a little surprised they went with Carlos Vargas as the last guy in the bullpen.

[00:10:55] And it feels a little bit like they're trying to milk anything out of this Eugenio Suarez trade at this point to get some value. But the other side of this too is if Vargas makes three to four appearances over the next three weeks as the last guy in the bullpen and doesn't show you enough and then gets let go once Brash or Taylor come back because he's out of options, I guess it's fine. And Legamina obviously has the option so you can call him up later. I'm just surprised it wasn't Legamina to get the spot.

[00:11:23] And Church mentions this in the conversation we have. He's not a huge Legamina fan either. Actually, I think we talked about that before we started recording. So I don't know if that is. Anyways, I don't think he would mind if we shared this information. But not a huge Legamina guy either. He's not trying to look too much into deciding over whoever the eighth man in the bullpen is. Because what the Mariners' goal is going to be is to get all the relievers healthy and then they don't have to worry about having Carlos Vargas on the roster. And then they're going to have their best possible bullpen.

[00:11:52] So why not let Carlos Vargas try and prove something so you don't just cut him for nothing? Yeah, I'm not expecting Carlos Vargas to be good at all. He doesn't throw enough strikes. Just it is what it is at this point. Eighth reliever. Yeah, just like we're fighting over breadcrumbs here. Yeah, I know that just that Gino trade is something great. It's it's something. All right. You know what? We're not going to do it. We're two days out from opening day. We're not going to rehash that.

[00:12:20] You see how I just stopped myself there in real time? Restraint. Wow. All right. I did want to do this before we get to Jason before we get to Jason Churchill and before we do our real season preview, which will be out on Thursday, by the way. We always do this this week on opening day for you guys, by the way, as we put out our episodes Tuesday and Thursday rather than the Wednesday, Friday, because there's no reason to put out a season preview the day after opening day. So we put it out on opening day.

[00:12:49] Anyway, I just want to. I want to send a message to all Mariners fans here. This is our message to you as fans from us here at the Marine Layer pod. There has been so much discourse about the team and about the franchise since the last time this team played a game at T-Mobile Park. And people are feeling a lot of different ways right now. We have certainly seen every and all angles of that.

[00:13:16] The two of us in a lot of different ways since the last game of the season in 2024. So I just want to say this to everybody because everybody's got a different opinion on how they're feeling right now. So entering the 2025 season, however you are currently feeling about the Seattle Mariners is 100% valid. Let me explain what I mean by that.

[00:13:39] If you're entering this season excited, fired up, ready to go, you can't wait to watch this rotation back in action. You can't wait to watch Julio and Cal and Randy and Victor Robles back out on the field. You can't wait to see a packed crowd at T-Mobile Park. Look, that is all valid.

[00:14:00] If you are pissed off and angry and feel like the franchise has let you down one too many times, especially after what transpired this offseason, that is absolutely valid. If you're somebody that's cautiously optimistic and say to yourself, look, I'm having trouble 100% buying back in, but I want to see how the season plays out. I want to see what this roster can do with the way it's been formulated.

[00:14:28] And I want to see what the upside of this team can be. Even if I'm not totally bought in, I still want to see how everything goes. 100% valid. If you're somebody that just says to yourself, you know what? I've had enough of all the offseason discussion. I just don't care at this point. I just want to watch baseball. Everything else around it doesn't matter to me. Absolutely valid.

[00:14:50] Or if there is some feeling that we didn't just describe in that little tangent that we didn't hit on and that's how you're feeling, that is also absolutely valid. So everybody's feeling different going into this season. But there is no wrong way to feel. There isn't. All of those feelings are absolutely warranted. And I hope what people can get out of this season, it comes down to a lot of really what the team does.

[00:15:17] Because no matter what you feel on opening day, and as Lyle mentioned, there are definitely different factions of what people feel on opening day. There's a big portion of our comment section that will not be at the ballpark on opening day. I can promise that. All of you know exactly who you are in this moment. Exactly who you are. But there are going to be a lot of people who follow us who are also going to be at the ballpark and are going to be so happy that baseball is back.

[00:15:45] If the team stinks, everyone's going to go in one direction anyways. If the team is great, I think everyone's going to be happy. I really hope they win, man. It just solves every problem that everyone has. All these differences people have. All the bickering we do on here and that people do in the comments and that people do online and the different factions of this fan base. Everyone can forget all about it if 2022 just happens again. And that's what I hope.

[00:16:13] And that's what the Mariners, I'm sure, understand from a PR perspective. Looking at some of the discourse that was said about them this offseason is that everything changes if they win. The narrative around Jerry DiPoto changes if they win. Around ownership changes if they win. Around the players change if they win. That's all that matters at this point. Just to remember, going into this season, we can speculate all we want this offseason and nitpick about all these little things. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the wins and losses.

[00:16:43] And we hope for more wins. Yes, it does. All right. Quick pause. We want to talk to you guys about our friends over at Pagatch's Pub 85. That's over in Kirkland. You want a spot to watch opening day if you're not going to the park or if you just need games to watch during the year? Head over there. You can plan a really fun time with your friends. You can watch March Madness. You can watch the Mariners. You can watch other baseball games going on. There's more than 20 TVs in that place. And if you want some great food, it's there. If you want to play some pool or other games, it's there.

[00:17:10] If you want great happy hour deals, 2 to 6 p.m. on Monday through Friday. It's a long happy hour with awesome drink specials. It's $3 and $4. So really everything you need for a really fun time out with your friends or family, it's all over there. So head over to Pagatch's Pub 85 in Kirkland. There's a reason we have Jason Churchill on the show every week before opening day, Lyle. It's because he holds us accountable. I love church. And it is one of my favorite conversations we have on this podcast every year.

[00:17:39] And it's somebody we've really gotten to know well and has been a huge supporter of ours and is one of the smartest people in the community. But all that being said, I don't think we could have him on every show. I got to be honest. And I say that because he's too reasonable for this podcast. He's just way too logical. If one of us needs to go on a tangent about something, he's going to hold us too accountable. And we just can't have that. But it offers some really good perspective.

[00:18:08] I think we covered every corner of the Mariners roster in this episode. And I think this is a good way for you all to get ready for Thursday and put some perspective on what you watch and what 26-man roster takes the field when they get this thing rolling. So we won't keep you guys any longer. Let's get to that interview with Jason Churchill. All right, we got our friend Jason Churchill on with us, recurring guest, the host of Baseball Things, and the author of Mariners After Midnight.

[00:18:38] Jason, thanks for taking some time to jump on with us. I'm curious as we approach opening day coming up here in a couple of days, from a content perspective, Lau and I think have learned the positives and negatives of both in-season and off-season content. I'm curious which one you enjoy better. Do you enjoy speculation or analysis? That's a great question.

[00:19:00] I think I like the speculation, the talking about the possibilities and things like that for maybe about a month, and then I'm done. It's kind of how I feel about spring training. Two, three, four days go by, and it's like, all right, let's just move on here. I'm tired of talking about spring battles, and I'm tired of talking about free agents. So I would say the in-season stuff is, for one, it's easier. Easy kind of plays into the do you like it.

[00:19:30] Like, is it easier to eat pizza or is it easier to eat lima beans? It's way easier to eat pizza. It tastes better, but it's also easier to eat, partially because it tastes better. That's how I feel about the season getting underway versus spring training or versus all the winter stuff. I think maybe one thing for me is I get asked the same questions over and over again, too. And I don't want to ignore people. You get new listeners, new readers, new followers on social.

[00:19:58] You don't want to ignore them, so I try to answer all the questions. And, you know, I was telling you guys a little bit ago, people keep asking about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. And it's like, I've probably answered that question about eight times. The same exact way, but probably like seven, eight, nine times all winter. So that does get old. So I'm very happy the regular season is upon us here, for sure. All right, so we want to kick off the baseball analysis. Let's rip the Band-Aid off.

[00:20:26] Do you have a prediction you'd like to open up this season with of something you would, you know, stamp your foot down on and you think, with this Mariners roster, will happen this year? Will happen? Or that you feel it's going to happen. It's going to happen. This is going to hurt. No matter what the end result is, it's going to be painful. That's what this team does. They're going to play painful baseball. There's no such thing as clean, consistent baseball with this roster.

[00:20:56] There is no margin for error offensively. A lot less margin for error in the rotation, at least to start the year. And certainly in the bullpen, considering the questions there with, you know, Santos and Brash with Taylor out and Rolls back there. We saw what happened last year with no Brash, with no, you know, kind of second, third option to help Munoz out when the game was on the line. I think it's going to be frustrating. I think it's going to be painful.

[00:21:23] And we're going to get the same reactions on social media from the fan base this year as next year. But at the end of the day, if I had to wager, I would lean slightly toward this team being about as good as the Tigers, Royals, Twins, Astros, Rangers, and having just as good a shot to get into the postseason as they do. And it's, for the most part, going to come down to which team stays the healthiest. There you go, Lyle. Time to rev up.

[00:21:53] I was going to say, so I guess your take on how you're feeling ahead of the season here is, well, cautiously optimistic is not the word. But is it cautiously pessimistic? Is that right? Is it like guard up? Like, how would you phrase this? I mean, here's the thing. Like, so I beat the fan out of myself 15 years ago. So this is a lot easier for me to do than fans.

[00:22:18] Not to bring up a painful, you know, moment in very recent marriage history, but the Robbie Ray pitch to Jordan, you know, Alvarez in the home run. I can see the look on Lyle's face right now. He wants to reach to the screen. But, like, while that sucked to see, like, my whole block, the whole city block here was screaming in pain. Like, I could hear neighbors. People were outside. Oh, no. Like, you got to be kidding me.

[00:22:46] And I'm sitting back with a smile on my face like this postgame show is going to be very interesting. You know, so it's different for me. So cautiously optimistic, cautiously pessimistic, it's tough to describe. I'm optimistic on some individuals. I think I'm a little bit more optimistic on J.P. Crawford than some.

[00:23:09] I'm a little bit more optimistic on, like, a guy like Colin Snyder, like a guy like Gabe Spire coming back. And I'm probably a little bit more, you know, pessimistic on, you know, a guy like Matt Brash coming back and just being who he was. You know, Luis Castillo, however, is certainly an arm I think we need to watch. I just think it's – and I don't think it's about ability here.

[00:23:39] And I know it's early, and he's done this before where he's mostly 93, 94, and then April 9th he's making a second start and he's blowing 97 by guys. That's absolutely been something we've seen in a Mariners uniform even the last couple of years. But considering he's had some shoulder stuff in the past, he had the shoulder thing late, where he's at health-wise is going to be absolutely huge,

[00:24:06] which is probably why I keep talking about Emerson Hancock and how, like, you just can't bet on him to be anything that he hasn't. But maybe you're optimistic that the two new breaking balls he's brought to camp turn into something. But, yeah, I think individuals I feel a little more confident in as a team, I think they're going to be better offensively just because, you know, they have Victor Robles to start the year. You know, they have Randy Rosarino to start the year. They didn't have him last year. Can Mitch Garver be worse? I don't think so.

[00:24:35] I don't think it's possible for Mitch Garver to be worse than he was a year ago, right? And now he has a reduced role, at least you have other guys to throw in there at DH if Garver doesn't end up hitting righties at all, right? I think the team is a little bit better prepared to be – how shall I put this? To maybe carry a little higher floor offensively than a year ago, and I think that's really important. The key here is two things.

[00:25:01] One, how much more can Julio Rodriguez give them on a regular basis? And I'm not big on this while I was just talking to somebody this morning about this. I'm not big on this. He struggled in April and May hasn't been good. It's just a thing he does. We look too much at month-to-month. Like, those are arbitrary intervals of the season, right? When you go back and look at Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, we don't go, yeah, Aaron Judge had a 218 WRC plus for the season, but he only had a 163 in May and a 161 in June.

[00:25:31] We don't do that, right? So all we have to do to make sense of this for a guy like Julio is pull it down to human ranges, right? Like, it's okay if Julio Rodriguez is a 138 in July and a 109 in August. You know what I mean? It doesn't mean he's an inconsistent player. But I think he's one of the keys. And the other key is finding someone at the bottom of that order to flip it over.

[00:25:55] Because I think we know the strength of this lineup is, you know, very heavily weighted at the top, those top four guys. And we don't really know what we're going to get for sure from Raley, Polanco, guys like that. So somebody down at the bottom, and that guy's J.P. Crawford for me. He has to be the favorite, right, for him to do that? I would think so. And it's going to be interesting to see, like, what they do. I'm assuming, you know, Raley, Rosarino, Robles, Julio are the top four in some order depending on the matchup for most games.

[00:26:24] And then if Raley's out of the lineup because we really shouldn't be throwing him in the lineup 150 times whether he's a DH or not. Then it's Garver. Maybe Garver is the six-hole hitter instead of the cleanup guy. And, you know, somebody else is bad for it. Maybe it's Solano. Maybe it's Polanco. You know, we'll see what happens. But, yeah, I think wherever J.P. is hitting, like, the fact that he generally does put the ball in play, I think he was a little bit unlucky last year, too.

[00:26:52] Like, you know, career high in barrel rate, career high in hard hit rate, and he has one of the worst years of his career. Like, it doesn't make any sense, right? So I think he's probably a good bet to bounce back. But I don't know what that order is going to look like. Might they shove Solano down to the seven-hole a lot or something like that? And then, you know, to be honest with you, what do they get out of second base? I really don't know what to expect from second base as a whole. Like, if you told me Dylan Moore was going to be the guy every day, you know, maybe.

[00:27:18] But if you have Ryan Bliss on your roster, he has to play. He's got to start more than half the games. You can't sit him on the bench. You can't ask a 25-year-old who has so little experience in the big league level to come off the bench more than half the time. You just can't do it. Like, it's malpractice. Malpractice. Like, I will be calling for Dan Wilson's firing on April 2nd if that's what's happening. You know? Like, it's his job to put those guys in a position. That would be one of the most idiotic things a manager can do.

[00:27:45] A young guy, unproven, and he's sitting the bench four days a week? Get out of here. I'm afraid that's what they're going to do. We'll see. Okay. Okay. I'm interested here because not the answer you just gave, but your last answer. You were just rattling off some people you are high on and some things you're going to be watching for. I had two follow-ups to it. One of them you just answered, which is J.P. Crawford and why you're a little bit high on him for 2025, which is interesting.

[00:28:09] The other part I wanted to ask you about and maybe push back on a little bit, you don't buy the Julio slow start thing at all? No, I'm not saying he didn't start slow. I'm saying it just doesn't matter as much as people think it does. And people like to look at month-to-month intervals too, right? Yeah. I don't care. I don't care about that. If you're telling me he hit 244 until July 3rd last year without a lot of power, I know that's a fact. I memorized that from the end of the year.

[00:28:37] But if you tell me at the end of the year he puts up a 150 WRC+, I'm not going to say, yeah, but he was inconsistent. I'm going to say, damn, what a year. Okay. Look, if he's a 150 guy, I'm not- It's a nine-person lineup, right? Yeah. But even if he's a 120, even if he's a 120, but he was a 95 in April and a 104 in May, I'm not going to say, yeah, but. There's no yeah, but. This is who he was. Period. End of story. All right. That's how baseball works. All right. That's how baseball works.

[00:29:03] He just feels to me like he may be somebody who is a slow starter. Maybe that's short-sighted, but between the weather in Seattle in April, just how he's fared in his first three years. His OPS in March and April for his career is significantly lower than all the other months. So it is just something I look at. Sure, but is that because of the weather? Is that because of the ballpark? Is that a combination of? Is that because he didn't get enough time in spring training to work out some of the kinks? Do we know the answer to that question?

[00:29:33] No, we don't. We don't know for sure. Right. Yeah. So when people look at the end of the year and go, yeah, he was only in 116 WRC plus and he was really inconsistent. I just go, what do you mean? Like, what are you saying? You know, I'm not saying that he didn't struggle in April. He obviously did, but it's not the end all be all like guys that have a great April. Hey, Josh Rojas was great for six weeks, six weeks. He was horrible after that. He was one of the worst regulars in all of baseball at the plate.

[00:30:02] After the first six weeks of the season. So, but are we looking at that and saying, man, those first six weeks though, Josh Rojas, baby, let's resign this guy. Of course we're not. Right. We're looking at the whole picture. Right. And so this whole inconsistency thing is just like, it's a weird conversation. He's like, oh, you know, he was like this in April and this in May. You know, there was a, there was a month last year just for wild example. Every player goes through this. Aaron judge was like a, like a two 40 WRC plus through like the 19th of the month. I want to say it was June.

[00:30:31] I can't remember. And then the last 10 games in the month, 11 or 12 days in the month, he was like a 12 WRC plus. So his monthly WRC plus, and I know not everybody uses WRC plus, but, um, his average OBP is OPS, whatever you want to use. There was also terrible the last. So it brought his production for the month way down. So it might look like, oh, he like kind of, you know, relative to the rest of the season, relative to the month before, relative to the month after he really struggled in May or whatever it was. No, he did not.

[00:31:01] He had a bad 11 days. You see what I'm saying? Like we, we carve up these monthly intervals and they just don't matter. What if the final two weeks of March were great and the first two weeks of April were great, but he was terrible. The final two weeks, did he have a mediocre April? Yeah. Okay. Okay. But then he also had a good season. If he had a bad first two months and was pretty good after that. Right. You can't have it both ways. It just drives me crazy that we carve this up in these April, May, June, July kind of things. And it just doesn't matter.

[00:31:30] It absolutely doesn't matter. Okay. So your gripe here is with fan graphs and baseball reference and the people who carve it up that way. Not, no, because like they're just giving information. I think it's how people tend to use the information. Okay. I don't look at Julio Rodriguez as a wildly inconsistent. Has he started slow for three years? Yeah, he has. Does that make him wildly inconsistent? No, they're two different things. So you would look at two different solutions too. So, so how would you look at Julio instead?

[00:32:00] Would you look at, he is, there was like, there's something missing mechanically from his swing. Cause I think it was highlighted last year as he was getting his way into the latter months of the season. That it's clear. Something was off with his timing. There's a reason he wasn't spraying doubles in the gap and all that stuff. Is that how you would look at that instead? Yeah. So if you look at through like the, the way I've kind of halved his season and when he started to find some things right around July three is when he really started to take off.

[00:32:28] Which hilariously enough is about six and a half weeks before Edgar Martinez showed up. Remember that. Up to that point, Julio was struck. Like he hit the ball hard a lot, but what did he do? He had 107 mile an hour rockets to Bobby Witt Jr. at shortstop. You know, 97 mile an hour rockets on the ground to the third baseman, to the first baseman. So there's a lot of ground balls.

[00:32:50] You go look at the second half of the season, or if you want to carve it up by date, like July three, July four on ground ball rate, fly ball rate tells the whole story. Done and done. You can get into the hole. He pulled the ball in the air more and that's meaningful, but ground ball versus fly ball is really all we need to know with Julio Rodriguez. He literally like, he went from, he went down 12 and a half percent, give or take in ground ball rate.

[00:33:18] If I remember correctly, the second half of the season and up 13% in fly ball rate in the second half of the season. And therefore was one of the 10 or 15 best hitters after that point in the season. That's kind of how we look at it. Is it a good thing that Julio was bad the first half of the season? Of course not. Of course not. It's not. That's a mechanical things. It was definitely mechanical things. You could talk about timing, but when you're hitting that many ground balls that hard, you're going to make a lot of outs.

[00:33:46] Like we know that no matter how hard you hit the ball, you're a lot more likely to make an out when you hit it on the ground than if you hit a line driver, you hit in the air. And that was really the biggest problem. And he seemed to solve that there in early July. And he really had a, what do you have a great, like maybe 10, 12 day stretch there in September where he might've been the best player in baseball, like the best we've ever seen him. And maybe we get a little more of that. But the whole early season thing, I don't know what the answer is. You know, the team seems to think let's get him more at bats. Let's get him, you know, going.

[00:34:17] I have a hard time believing it's the weather. Hard time believing that. Like why, why can Ronald Acuna Jr. do it? But Julio can't. Like, what is it? There's got to be something different about the human, right? It just doesn't make any sense. So I just think it's too early to kind of say that it's that or a combination of that in the ballpark. Maybe he isn't getting his timing down in spring training when it comes to the regular season and just kind of struggles to get it going. But, you know, the whole ground ball, fly ball thing, I don't know that it's any more complicated than that.

[00:34:46] Speaking of hitting a lot of fly balls, I want to go back to the person we were talking about before Julio and J.P. Crawford. And I want to bring up a debate Lyle and I had when we were talking about J.P. Crawford's 2025 season and trying to use some past seasons to evaluate what he is. What do you think the Mariners in their new hitting regime think J.P. Crawford is? Do they think he's that 2023 version? Because it doesn't sound like from their messaging, that's what they want out of hitters is what J.P. did. Let me ask you this.

[00:35:11] If I asked both of you guys to give me odds, like 10 to 1, 20 to 1, 50 to 1, 100 to 1, like gambling odds on J.P. Crawford putting up a 136 WRC plus like he did in 2023, what kind of odds would you need to lay 100 bucks on that? Yeah, I'd probably. I'm looking at TJ over here wearing the Arizona State hoodie and the Seattle Steelheads hat. We made him change his hat before the show, by the way. He's wearing a Seahawks hat. I like to report some cyberbullying.

[00:35:41] He's ridiculous. On my own podcast. Right, yeah. I ashamed him. That's my bad. I shouldn't have done that. No, you should have. I'm sitting here saying that. But you wouldn't bet on that. You'd need like 101 odds or 500 to 1 odds. You're like, I'm not going to give away $100, right? You need really serious odds. You need that payoff to be really high to go 100 bucks on Crawford repeating that, right? I think the team feels the same way. I can't imagine J.P. really truly believing he can get back there, but why can't he be average or above average like he was the two years before?

[00:36:11] That's all I'm really looking for from him. That's all Seattle really needs from him. Play 150 games. Do your solid shortstop thing. He's not going to be spectacular. Be consistent. Put the ball in play more than he did last year. Get back to being kind of a gap-to-gap guy that maybe try to throw out 35 doubles instead of hitting 18-20 homers again and deal with the sub-400 slug. Get that 340 OBP back or that 350 OBP back, and that's going to play really well.

[00:36:38] What happens if Victor Robles isn't exactly what you hope he is? And what are you going to do at the top of the order? Well, if J.P. gets back to what he was two years ago or three years ago, 2022 and 2021, at least you have another viable option towards the top of the lineup, right? He's comfortable there. He's done it. Gets on base. Puts the ball in play. I think J.P. Crawford's pretty pivotal here. Yeah, I like that.

[00:37:01] But TJ's got some big picture questions for you, but I feel like we should honestly save those because I've got a few more, not small picture questions, but just kind of roster construction questions that we've talked about. And I want to get your two cents on before we dive into some of the bigger picture stuff. Do you guys not really like how Jerry and Justin put together rosters? No. You know what? It's not them for me. I think everybody who listens to this podcast knows where my gripes are, and it goes, you know, a little higher than them.

[00:37:31] So I think I have more gripes with the baseball operations. I think no. I think for me, they work with what they've got pretty well. And, you know, yes, they didn't do much this offseason. And we've documented that about a million times. But I think for the most part, they do try to get very creative. And I know I know you are kind of in that boat, Jason, right? Yeah. Yeah, I am. There's always things you can point to with GMs. Pick a GM.

[00:37:58] I'll tell you five things that it looks like they're bad at, but they're probably not because there are circumstances, right? That's kind of how it works in this league. But, yeah, I think for the most part, Jerry DiPoto and Justin Hunter do a pretty good job. To be honest with you, I don't love the Jorge Polanco thing, but is there some upside to it? Yeah. Did it fit into their budget? Yeah. Did they blow every penny of their budget just to blow it? No. And I think that was probably a really smart thing to do because their best opportunity might actually come in July. So it's probably a good idea.

[00:38:26] It's probably really good and really smart that they, I don't want to say saved it, because if you had somebody to give it to that it made sense to give it to, you should do that to cover the first two thirds of the season. Sure. But it might pay off in the end. So, you know, we'll kind of see what happens there. But, yeah, I think maybe my biggest gripe with the way Jerry looks at things is they're always trying to take the, and when I say always, it's relative.

[00:38:52] They seem really resistant to spending on relievers, but they're at that point in their development as an organization in terms of contending where I think sometimes there's been opportunities out there for them to go trade for a guy. That they can kind of pair up with Andres Munoz back there, and the cost would have made some sense. Like maybe last year at the deadline, Ryan Helsley.

[00:39:14] Can you imagine heading into this season, even if it cost you Michael Arroyo and Michael Morales and, you know, Ben Williamson? Can you imagine having Ryan Helsley for two months last year and entering this year with Munoz and Helsley? I mean, it's a game changer. You know, as much as he's not a middle-of-the-order hitter, like that's a game changer. Not that it has to be Helsley, but I think they've had opportunities like that and they just haven't pursued anything. And Devin Williams with this offseason. It's a perfect example of that, I think.

[00:39:43] Devin Williams would be another, but yeah, you get somebody like that, and then you also throw Brash back into the equation. You throw the potential of Santos back into the equation. Yeah, that's a huge game changer. So I would have done something like that, sure. But yeah, for the most part, look, I'm like you. There's some things that they've done that I won't say are head scratchers or maybe some people feel like they are head scratchers, but there's plenty of moves that they've made that I've really liked. The Luke Raley trade last year ended up working really well. You essentially gave up a kind of a bench-rolled utility player to get a guy that absolutely mashes.

[00:40:12] Or, you know, like the Jorge Polanco thing didn't work out great last year, but the process behind it, I was all for it. I was fired up when they made that trade. That's one you didn't like, though. Is there something in the last, either last year or this year, that you were like, whoa? I would say their main offensive acquisition they've aimed for each of the last three seasons, outside of the organization, not talking about the guys already on the roster, talking about adding outside the roster.

[00:40:38] They haven't worked, and they've all entered the season after that with drastically different expectations. So I'm saying Jesse Winker in 2022 didn't work. Bad fit. Hang on, hang on. Stop right there. Stop right there. Stop right there. Bad fit. Bad fit, or did he just not hit, and there was something going on there that really still lives today, even though he's found a way to be somewhat productive? Like, Jesse Winker hasn't hit for power since he came to Seattle. Right. Nowhere.

[00:41:07] Something was different about him physically after Cincinnati. Something happened, right? Right. So is that really a front office thing? I don't know. I'm not trying to be like the DePoto defender or the guy that just appalled. Like, it didn't work, and things are not going to work, and I do think he's made bad deals. Of course he's made bad deals. He's made, you know, you can think of five or six that are just like, man, if you could bring those back, you'd be in such better shape from five years ago or whatever. And it was being a huge win because they acquired Geno, too, almost on accident. Right.

[00:41:35] It just seems like the fact that Winker didn't pan out, like, what did that have to do with, like, Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander evaluating players? Because it wasn't T-Mobile that did it. He didn't hit anywhere. Right. And he still hasn't hit for power. That's the thing, you know? So it wasn't a singular Mariners issue, but I would feel like, and as you mentioned before, that nobody's perfect, and clearly this is an example of that.

[00:42:03] But this was, like, so they acquire him. He doesn't hit. He's the headliner. He was the headliner of that season. Sure. They go to the next one in Towska Hernandez, who was an above-average offensive player for the Mariners, but clearly was a poor fit in the ballpark. He admitted how much he hated him. He was a poor mental fit. Poor mental fit. Right. A poor mental fit. How do you know that in advance? That's the thing. Like, is it something you should know in advance? I have a hard time just automatically skipping to yes.

[00:42:33] Oh, you have to know that he's going to be a head case if he hits 105-mile-an-hour fly balls to right center field, you know, 17% of the time and makes an out. He's going to get frustrated. He's going to hate it. You have to, how? He's never done that before. He's never been through that before. So how would you, how would you, you see what I'm saying? And it's like, I have a hard time just skipping to that point. I think a lot of people do that. I don't think you're alone there. And, you know, and it's still on, you know, Jerry to make the best decisions possible.

[00:43:02] And not everything they do that doesn't work is not their fault. But, like, it's hard to lay it at their feet because, like, how are you supposed to know Jesse Winkers lost his power? He was great, you know? Like, did something happen during the season? Like, you don't know that's going to happen either. You don't have control over that either. There's no way to know Tay Oscar's a head case when he starts to, when that starts to happen to him. You know, there's just no way. I don't know. Like, it's, I don't know what happened with Mitch Garber last year. I have no idea what happened with Mitch Garber last year.

[00:43:31] And we found out after the fact Polanco was hurt. But clearly you could see something was up with Polanco as well. You can have a good process. That might be the worst one of the last couple of years. Yeah. I think the Polanco decision last year, like on paper, looked fine. They didn't spend a lot to get him, so I didn't have a problem with it. And then they just bought him out and then they bring him back and whatever. But, like, couldn't you kind of see the injury thing coming? Like, I think that's probably worse than the Winker thing, worse than the Tay Oscar thing. That you, this was who he was for a couple years.

[00:44:00] And you were, here's that word again that we use in this town with this club. They were hoping he would bounce back. Not just from a performance standpoint, but from a stay on the field standpoint. From a B close to 100% for 130 games standpoint, which he hadn't really done much lately. So that might be, to me, that's worse than Tay Oscar and Jesse Winker. Okay, so here's actually... So, Lau, hold on. Just finish the sentence of, I think you can have good process of acquiring players,

[00:44:29] but the bad results still are on your resume. Of course they're on your resume. And the results ultimately are, I think... Just like moves you don't make that people think you should make. Right. Like, who gets to decide what's on his resume or not? His next employer. We don't. You're right. You know what I mean? Like, his next employer, you know? Sure. So, yeah. So, that's tough. You're right. Like, there's a process to it. I think Seattle has a pretty decent process. I think solving T-Mobile Park is...

[00:44:58] I don't want to say it's especially difficult, but I think they've been... Because this started with Jack. This started with Jack. Jack went after some of the same types of guys that, early on, DePoto went after. The Adam Lins of the world. And the Russell Branions of the world. Corey Hart. The CJ Kronz. Yeah. You know? And it's like trying to find these guys who... They're strikeout guys. They hit 240, but they hit 25 homers. Why? Like, why is that the guy you're going...

[00:45:26] Well, they're cheaper than the guys that hit 280 with a 350 OBP that might not, you know, hit for a lot of power. That's why they're doing that. Well, who controls that part of it? Well, not Jerry. And not Jack, right? If you gave Jerry DePoto... What do you think... Let me ask you guys this, and we can move on. What do you think Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander would have done if John Stanton and Chris Larson and that ownership group said, 200 million is your limit to start this season?

[00:45:57] I mean, you probably see Christian Walker here right now. That's for sure. If he wanted to play here. But you see him. You might see HaSung Kim here. You might see a trade or two get made. I think the roster looks a lot different. That's for sure. I would... Yeah, it would be a first baseman. It would be another infielder, and it would be a reliever. And I think you could do that with the... What, that's $50 million of space? You could do that with $50 million. You could try to do that with $40 million, let alone $60 million, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. What did we just conclude?

[00:46:26] That the fact that they had to bring back Polanco and their big acquisitions with Donovan Solano had so little to almost nothing to do with Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander. We just stretched out their payroll to reasonable and maybe a little beyond numbers and the whole expectation was different. You actually believe some of these other things would have happened, whether it be HaSung Kim or whether it be Christian Walker, whether it be trading for Josh Naylor or something like that, right? Like, it would look a lot different. And it's like any job, really.

[00:46:56] It's like if I go to work... And this has happened to me. Like, I started Future Stars and the idea is, dude, generate content, monetize it. That's your job. We'll add to your budget. You'll be able to bring people in. And some things have happened in the organization that have prevented us from doing that. We've had to put our funds toward the event side of the business and to cleaning things up, into expansion there where opportunities came up that we didn't expect, area code games,

[00:47:25] indie ball, things like that. And here I am without the budget that I was promised two years ago, right? Three drafts ago. And I'm still there, right? So what is my boss doing? Making damn sure he doesn't judge me for it, right? Because then you got nothing to do with me, you know? So I think what we're concluding here is where our gripes have mostly lied. And not just me, TJ's too.

[00:47:52] I think the front office thing is a much smaller part of TJ's equation than what we just talked about. Where our gripes lie, where a lot of fans' gripes lie, are probably fair. I think that's worth it. It puts a lot of pressure on every move you do make is that much more important and more difficult to get right. Right. Because if you're the Yankees and you go out and you sign Jorge Belonga and he doesn't work, what are you doing in July? Right. Who's the best third baseman out there available? And you're not thinking, oh, but this guy makes 20 million. I can't do it because I'm already paying Polanco eight or whatever. Right. Exactly.

[00:48:22] Totally different. It's totally different in Houston even. Right. You know, than in Seattle. So try to consider those sorts of things. And I try to stay away. I mean, obviously, ownership needs to spend more money. I try to stay away from that conversation. But the criticism on the front office, it's so football. It's so football. And it really seems like, and even the last couple of days, you guys probably saw this. Mitch Hanegar gets cut and people are like, why didn't they cut him a long time ago and save more money? It's like, hey, this is not the NFL, bro. You know?

[00:48:49] And I think that mentality happens a lot because it's a football town more than anything. You know? And people have been Seahawks fans their whole life and they jump into baseball maybe a little late and they don't completely understand. And so the expectations are different. I think that's a lot of it. Right. And again, this is why my gripes for the most part are not with the front office. And that's what we just talked about. All right. When I said roster construction, it's funny. I was actually going to take that a different way, but that was a really good piece of that conversation. So I'm going to rattle off a couple of these, maybe more as rapid fire.

[00:49:17] And then I'll let TJ get to some of the things that he wanted to dive in and dive in on. How long is Randy or Rosarena going to last in left field? Because that defense is suspect. To be honest with you, I think it's fine. He's fine. As long as he's hitting, as long as he's 15%, 20% above average, which is about what he's been the last couple of years, what he was with Seattle last year. He's fine. Just leave it alone. I think we stare at these, these metrics, you know, a lot, or we focus in on, oh man,

[00:49:45] it took him, you know, a little too long to get that ball in or he didn't get to that ball. And we focus in on those like three balls all year that that happens to, or we see these very short term metrics that tell us he's, you know, minus six OAA or minus four DRS, you know, defensive run saved outs above average. The, and I think they mean a lot less than, than what they scream at us at the end of the day. Uh, and even though Seattle is, is very starved for offense, people will, I mean, everything's

[00:50:15] magnified. You know, your bullpen's magnified, your defense is magnified. You make a, you make bad, you know, outs on the bases. It's magnified because you're not going to score a ton of runs. Um, so I just think it's important for a Rosarino just to be playable out there and to just not kill them. I think it's okay that he's pretty firmly below average out there. Um, I don't think the metrics are wrong. I just think sometimes they're hard to read in terms of what they actually mean to the

[00:50:42] value on the field for a month, for a week, for a season. Um, and therefore, as long as he's hitting, you could deal with it. It's not perfect. It's not ideal. Even rather than having him be at DH, I guess was kind of my question here. Yeah. I think that the problem with that is like, that's a completely different position and a completely different mindset. You know, we've heard people talk about how difficult it is going from playing every day in the field to sitting on the bench and then your bat comes up.

[00:51:09] It's different and not everybody can handle it or it takes a while to transition or some people can just never figure it out. Um, so I think that's important. Um, otherwise he'd already be at DH. They've done that in Tampa. So I think there's probably some sort of a comfort issue or at least a concern that he wouldn't be comfortable doing that on a regular basis, but I expect that DH to be Garver, Tellez, a little bit of Solano, a little bit of Polanco, a little bit of a Rosarina, a little bit

[00:51:37] of Robles, once in a while a Julio, five, six, seven guys are going to hit in that spot, I suspect. And they're just going to play matchup with it. And I don't think anybody back there, even if Garver bounces back to some significant extent, I don't think anybody's going to be so good where you're like, he just has to be in the lineup every day. I just don't think that, that, that exists on this roster at this particular point. All right. Fair question. Number two, I had on these kind of three rapid fires is we listened to Shannon Dreyer on seven

[00:52:04] 10 talk about, she's getting the sense that Luke Rayleigh may do a lot of hitting this year against lefties. And if that's actually the case, why that, that, let me say this. So let me say this. Um, I guarantee you the team doesn't plan on that. They're not telling Luke Rayleigh. Yeah. You're probably going to face lefties a lot this year. It's probably more like we're going to give you some opportunities early and see what happens.

[00:52:33] Because if you run this guy out there against a bunch of lefties in April, May, and he does nothing again, Dan Wilson should be fired. If we come to June and he's, you know, three for 42 against lefties and he's still facing lefties. You know what I mean? Like, so you can do that sort of thing. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I wanted that last year. Like, let's get him in there sometimes against some lefties just to see what happens. I, I don't know that it's time to come to a 100% conclusion that Luke Rayleigh is not going to hit lefties well enough to keep them in the lineup.

[00:53:02] Um, but I also don't think you can go overboard with it because you have guys like Solano and, and Garver on the roster and Polanco from the right side and, and Dylan Moore and Ryan Bliss who might be, Ryan Bliss says reverse splits oddly enough, but most of those guys tend to pitching than Luke Rayleigh. But I don't see anything wrong with giving him some opportunities the first month or two of the season and kind of seeing, and I, I'm the same way with Mitch Garver against righties, like kind of see what happens there with both of those guys, give them the opportunity, but

[00:53:31] you're going to get to a part of the season where the experimenting has to go away, you know, and you just got to put the best guy up there, you know, and use the information you have instead of trying to create new information. Cause that's what they're trying to do. So I guarantee you, nobody told Shannon Dreher, he's going to get a ton of the bats against lefties this year. He's going to start so much against lefty that didn't happen, but signs that they want. I think they talked about it on the broadcast on, um, on Sunday, um, that Dan Wilson would

[00:53:59] like to, to see what Rayleigh can do against lefties. That doesn't mean it's September Luke Rayleigh's, you know, starting against, you know, I don't know, name a great left Garrett Crochet, you know? Um, but if he shows something the first couple months of the season, maybe you do get him those opportunities because it'd be nice to have an everyday guy, wouldn't it? Cause right now Rayleigh's not that he's kind of a, you know, five day a week, four day a week. But, uh, yeah, that's an interesting, uh, it's interesting, you know, uh, but at some point

[00:54:26] he's 30 years old and you know, you, you, you do have to give that up. This is probably his last shot, probably his last 50 to a hundred plate appearances, you know, against lefties. If he doesn't do anything. Sure. And the last one I got for you is how long do you think it takes us to see Ben Williamson up in the big leagues playing third base? AKA when does Polanco kind of move off the position play elsewhere? And then we start to see Ben Williamson take over due to what his defense can be. Yeah, I don't, I don't think that's a thing.

[00:54:55] I think it would take injuries for Ben Williamson to get to the big leagues. I just think that right now there's no reason to buy that he's going to hit and to turn third base into a defensive position, considering what the roster is right now. Like I can't, I can't see that making a lot of sense. Now, if Ben Williamson makes an adjustment or two and looks different in the minors and is driving the ball and getting the ball in the air a little bit, um, maybe it changes that conversation a little bit.

[00:55:22] But, uh, he's kind of one of those guys in the minors that's like really close to big league ready and does everything except hit, right? Makes contact, uh, takes enough pitches, uh, pretty good athlete, you know, above average runner, I'd say smart base runner. Obviously he's a 60 defender at third could probably pay a little left if you wanted could probably spell, you know, a guy at second base if you wanted, but you can't hit two 42 with no power. Right. So let's see what happens in the minors.

[00:55:52] It'd be interesting to see how they handle him, you know, in the minors and, and, and what that looks like because, uh, yeah, I expect Polanco to hit well enough to stay on the roster most of the year, if not the entire year. So I don't know if that's ever going to happen. And I think if you want to improve that spot, you just go make a deal. Okay. Yeah. And let me be clear. That question is not when does Polanco get taken off the roster? I don't think that's going to happen. It's more like, when do they start to move Polanco to other places to potentially let Williamson play more third, but that's a good answer. Yeah.

[00:56:22] And whether it's Williamson or someone else, um, if you find a better option at third base or a better combination of options, maybe Polanco becomes your DH. If Garber doesn't really hit or, you know, Tellez doesn't really hit, but Polanco is, but he's just really struggling at the third base part. And, you know, maybe Polanco becomes, you know, part of your DH situation. Uh, maybe you play him one day a week at second base. Um, there are some things you, it's not like he's so bad at second base where like, if you put them out there, he's going to give up a run, right? Like that's not what we're talking about.

[00:56:50] If he plays out there one day a week, you're probably okay. So yeah, I could see something like that. If I were looking to make a trade without considering what I think might be available, third base is where I would start because there's a potential below average offensive player there and a below average defensive player there. So it becomes that spot where when you think of the typical third baseman, um, as long as he started quality, you're going to upgrade at both spots. All right. I lied because you just said that this is the last, last thing.

[00:57:20] And I'm going to let TJ get to his stuff because you just said third base. This is something we've talked about too. Very recently. If they make a trade, could it be Kobe Mayo? Yeah. I wouldn't blame a third though. Have you seen that guy play third base? He looks like Jim Tomei at 24 years old. Like I'm not. Yeah. All right. I'm not doing that. Um, Kobe Mayo is interesting though, even though he's swung and missed, you know, uh, more than I did, uh, the dating market this past year, the, um, the, the, the problem

[00:57:48] there is you don't know he's going to hit, you know what I mean? You don't know that he's going to hit. You hope he does. You think he does. So he's another one of those guys. Um, but he does have a better track record than, than Tyler Locklear. There's a lot more ceiling there than Tyler Locklear. Or for Mayo over, you know, a couple of other guys in their system right now. Um, uh, or on that, uh, on that roster right now. But, uh, yeah, I think their, their best bet at third base is still probably going to be a guy like Alec Baum.

[00:58:16] You know, look around and see if Philly is in the market for best third baseman available and then don't go get that guy. Go get Alec Baum. Hmm. You know, there was a chance Philly went after Alex Bregman. Right. This winter and they just decided not to get heavily involved, um, and made plans for other things. And if they did that, Alec Baum becomes available and then you have your viable, you know, fringe average defensive third baseman who's probably average or slightly above average offensively.

[00:58:45] And you have an upgrade there and a guy you can play every day. Um, yeah, I would keep an eye on that. Third base can be tough though. Like it is like, it's, it's a tough spot right now. Um, but we're going to see, like I was asked the other day, how come there's just not a lot of really good third base prospects? Well, those guys, the, the, the, the position next to their name is SS right now. It'll be third base in a couple of years. Just wait, you know, and including maybe Colt Emerson. That's where I have him landing. Ultimately, um, is third base.

[00:59:14] So there are plenty of guys out there that you can slide over to third base and have a long-term third baseman and you have one in your system. That's probably two years away. What do you think is going to be the biggest change in the Mariners offensive approach? You're talking hitting specifically. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think this is going to be more behind the scenes things we don't really see for the most part. Um, I think it's going to be catered more toward each individual player instead of we'd

[00:59:43] like our players to do X and Y it's going to be okay. Julio likes to do this. Robles likes to do this. Or Rosarino likes to do this. Raylee likes to do this and then just have the hitting coaches because that really isn't what they did before. It was more of a, here's what we want to do as a team and try to get the players to buy in as much as possible. And it obviously didn't really work. Um, not longterm. Um, so I think that's going to be the biggest thing. I really like Kevin Seitzer.

[01:00:09] I think it was a very underrated move getting a guy like Kevin Seitzer. And the biggest reason for that is he and Edgar Martinez are the same. They are the, they were the same hitter. I'm not saying they were the same caliber of hitter, but they were the same hitter. Like you go back and watch Kevin Seitzer and some of the things that he was really good at Edgar Martinez was good at the same, he was just better at the same things, but they had the same strengths of weaknesses, very similar attack plans, uh, capable. Hitting a ball down the right field line for extra basis, capable of hitting a ball

[01:00:38] down left field line for extra basis. Edgar just had more power and was more consistent at it. Um, and I think they just believe in the same things. And I think that was reflected in their, their playing career. So I really liked that get. Um, I think one of the things that we're going to see a lot of, um, which really isn't a, a hitting philosophy, but it's an offensive philosophy. They're going to run more than ever. Julio's going to run. Robles is going to run. Rosarino is going to run. Master Boney is going to run. Bliss can run more is going to run.

[01:01:06] Like Rayleigh's going to run a little bit. I think we're going to see so much running that it's frustrating. I think it's going to ultimately is going to end up being good, but I do think we're going to see a lot of running. Well, do you think that's, do you think that's a productive offensive strategy? Like that is, that it's going to make it better. I think the idea will be how can we properly take risks on the bases to cover for we're struggling offensively right now. And I think they're better equipped to do that this March than they were last March.

[01:01:36] They didn't have Robles or Rosarino on the roster last year. Right? So those are two guys that can run a little bit. Uh, Master Boney can run a little bit too. Um, so they're going to have some dudes. I think they're better equipped to do that. I think they'll equip, uh, they'll eclipse their, uh, stolen base total by 20 or 30 or more, um, this season. I think they'd be really aggressive early. Anytime they're struggling, I think we're going to see them look for opportunities to run. Well, I'll say this before you get to your next question, Teej. If they're trying to get runners into scoring position, that's better than bunting. Right?

[01:02:07] Oh man. You just had to go there. Didn't you? I mean, we despise bunting. I cannot stand watching bunting baseball. So yeah. Yeah. Really quick. My thing on bunting is if you can at certain points that you should never do it early. No matter, I don't care if you're facing Zach Wheeler or Pedro Martinez, you should never bunt early. First three innings of the game or so you should never bunt early college games at colleges are still doing this. It drives me crazy.

[01:02:31] Uh, uh, Lindsay did it at you dub and it's just like, man, I just, you know, um, I think you can get to certain points in the game. Uh, the situations in the game where if you can get a guy to third base, we're at the end of the play, there's one out with a hitter coming up after him. That's very capable. It's not your, it's not your, one of your worst two or three hitters. Then that can make sense. That absolutely can make sense. There are, which would mean maybe extra innings. You know, you get the stupid ghost runner, basically. What do we call him that?

[01:03:01] The zombie runner, the free runner, whatever we're calling that. You get that guy at second base. If that guy's a pretty decent runner, if it's Dylan Moore, Randy Rosarena, and you get a guy at the play who can actually bunt. That's the biggest key to all this. Can this guy bunt? Not should he be able to bunt? That's the thing that drives me. Oh man, it drives me crazy. Everybody should be able to. Yeah, he should be able to, but he can't. So why are we asking him to do this? Right? That's the biggest thing. There are a few situations where bunting does make sense. Otherwise, yeah, I'm out.

[01:03:29] Bunting a guy to second base pretty much never makes sense. Never. I can't think of one off the top of my head where bunting any hitter to second base, no matter who's up next, makes sense. Bunting him to third can make sense. Okay. That's where I am on bunting. So I'm pretty much with you on bunting. Okay, good. You're absolutely crazy. I don't even like the bunting the decoration because the word is the same. So opening day is just going to be like a vomit inducing experience for me. There's too much bunting. Ah, yeah.

[01:03:58] I want to go over to the pitching side a little bit. We've spent so much time on hitters. I haven't talked one lick about the rotation, so let's do it. Rotation's good. It's good. And let's start with the best of them, Jason. Lau and I, again, we're previewing Logan Gilbert. We're trying to figure out what exactly else he needs to do. Do you have an idea of what else he needs to achieve? To do what? What's the end? To get better? Yeah. Maybe fastball command.

[01:04:27] Like if he can dot the fastball a little better because he's a power guy and most power guys are about where Logan is right now, you know, locating the fastball. And he has pretty good control. But in terms of being able to manipulate the location a little more, I think that's probably the next step for him. Obviously, making your pitches better. A better splitter. You know, even if it's 1% better. You know, 1% better splitter, 1% better curveball, 1% better slider, whatever it is. Those things are going to happen. But I think probably the biggest thing is being able to dot the fastball, you know, maybe a little bit more.

[01:04:56] I think that's probably Logan's next step. And when you throw 95 and with that kind of extension, being able to throw it where you want becomes really, really important. It's not the same, but it's almost Chris Sale, Randy Johnson, you know, like where you're reaching out and handing the ball to catch a little bit. And being able to stay out of the middle of the zone and stay in a hitter's weak area, living at the top rail or, you know, whatever it might be. That's probably his next step. Unless he's got another pitch up his sleeve that he unveils in June or something.

[01:05:25] Because it sounds like he's just sticking with last year right now. But he might be keeping a secret. You never know what that guy. I think he said he broke out a splinker at some point during spring. Yeah. And I think he toyed with that a little bit last year, but it didn't sound like he's going to throw it. So, yeah. Okay. Let me follow up on something you just kind of alluded to. Are you in belief the best pitcher in this rotation is Bryce Miller? No. Oh. No, I think right now it's Logan Gilbert. And I think second is George Kirby, you know.

[01:05:52] But, I mean, Bryce Miller, Bryce Miller's, I think here's where Bryce Miller has passed George Kirby. I don't necessarily think he's a better pitcher right now. It's relatively close between those three. But where Miller has passed Kirby is the arc in which he's developing. We have seen Miller's off-speed stuff improve 25% better, 40% better than Kirby's has.

[01:06:19] But Kirby will always have, like, he's the power of Greg Maddox, right? Like, he will always have that edge on most guys. It's not just control. It's command. Like, he can dot. If you told me Logan Gilbert dots like George Kirby can all year, I would tell you Logan Gilbert wins a Cy Young running away. Yeah. That's how good Kirby's is. No, I think Miller's, you know, on his way. Like, I think they're, maybe at the end of this year they have three, four to four and a half

[01:06:47] win starters in Kirby, Miller, and Gilbert, depending on how much time, you know, Kirby actually misses. But, yeah. The one thing I want to see from Bryce is, like, I like his curveball. I want him to throw the curveball more. I know he likes to throw the fastball up in the zone, but the best way to work off that fastball up in the zone is to throw something that teases the same eye level but doesn't end up there, right? The splitter doesn't.

[01:07:15] The splitter's down, waist, knees, ankles. You're never really like, oh, this is top rail, and then, oops, it's an 82-mile-an-hour curveball. I want to see him throw the curveball more off the fastball. I want to see four-seam, curveball, curveball, four-seam, curveball done. Like, I want to see more of that. I think he can get there. They're not alike, but Bryce Miller reminds me an awful lot of Billy Swift. And just the way that they, and I know this before your time, Billy Swift was a sinker

[01:07:44] ball guy, not a big strikeout guy. But the way that they want to attack hitters is very, very similar if you go back and watch some Billy Swift. So if Swift was trying to get weak contact, where Miller's, he's working up in the zone trying to give up. But there's a lot of similarities between the east-west, north-south thing with those two guys. And Miller has, you know, significantly better swing and miss stuff. So that's what I'd like to see. I think when you throw 95 and your second best pitch is, you know, 88, like, I want to

[01:08:13] throw something 80 miles an hour now, you know? And, and he's got that, whether you want to call it a sweeper or a curve ball or, you know, whatever. Like, I think that's probably his next, you know, if you're talking about next steps, like with Gilbert, if he can find a way to do that, like if you can get a guy 95, worried about 95, because you're always worried about 95. And with Miller, it's not just 95, it's 95 with carry and movement and all that good stuff. And he's got a split. That's a power split.

[01:08:41] Like, what does that hitter almost no matter who you're talking about, what does that hitter now have no chance of doing? Handling a curve ball, right? Handling like an 83 mile an hour curve ball just out of the zone. He will, he will let that pitch go like 99% of the time. He will let that pitch go even with two strikes because Holy wow. How am I going to hit that? Cause it's not a fastball, but it's not a splitter either. I'm lost now. I want to see Miller do that. I think that's the next step for, uh, for Bryce Miller. Yeah.

[01:09:09] Bryce Miller has really turned out to be a, um, like he and Gilbert are very similar cerebrally. Like they're very, very similar. And you know, they do their own, they have their own conversations. Um, they instigate their own, uh, developmental discussions with each other, with coaches, with blank, with, with Pete. Um, very, very similar. You don't hear that as much with Kirby, not that he doesn't do it. Um, but they also like to talk about pitching, which is, which is really fun.

[01:09:38] But, uh, yeah, you know, it's, you know, what's funny is there's a chance Luis Castillo is the worst starter in this rotation. Oh, I'm, I'm really high on Brian Wu. So yeah. Yeah. It's weird. It's weird to think that cause he started an opening day last year, you know, and deserved it. And there's a chance that he's the worst starter in this, this rotation. It was just pretty ridiculous. So yeah. Bryce Miller second half last year. Do you, is that correlation with his curveball? Do you think?

[01:10:08] Uh, could be something else to look at. Um, but he didn't use it as much in like even situations. Like when he was ahead, Oh, two, one, two, he'd kind of waste one, you know, and, and sometimes get the swing and miss. Um, but when it was two, two, three, two like that, or, or he's behind in the count, he's not throwing that pitch. I want him to get to the point where it's like, it's two, one.

[01:10:36] And here comes a curve ball outside corner to the left hand batter. Now it's two, two. And now the batter is seen for seamer up swinging a miss splitter down, fouled off or whatever. Um, and now we've seen a curve ball that's that I have to honor because it was either call the striker was too close. Right? So now he's Oh, two or he's one, one. And you could just attack any way you want. And being able to like, like tease that eye level again with that fastball can just do wonders for guys. I'm a big curve ball fan. I've always been a big curve ball fan.

[01:11:05] I think Emerson Hancock spike slider is essentially a curve ball. Um, there used to be this whole, it's hard to get the curve ball to be called the strike, but there's just so many more curve balls nowadays that are 83 to 87 miles an hour. And the shape of them is different. It's not the big Bowie, you know, sort of Barry Zito, you know, uh, Burt Blylevin style curve ball. They're a little different, you know?

[01:11:31] Um, so yeah, I, I want to, I want to see some guys get back to that. I think Bryce Miller might be able to do that. You know, like George Kirby, man, in, in the minors, George Kirby had a good curve ball and isn't really throw it that much or the one that he throws, which they're probably like stack cast is probably calling a sweeper. It's just different. I want to get back, you know, to some of that, you know, to kind of see what guys can do, uh, using that pitch and, and, you know, especially two strike situations like that. Like that's a fun one. That's a fun one to kind of fall.

[01:12:00] Uh, if I could, I was asked this yesterday, my dad said, Hey, if you could land, if you could hand any pitcher on the mirrors roster, any pitch from a previous pitcher, you know, what would it be? And I thought if you could take Luis Castillo's two and four seamer slider changeup and just say over the course of his career, he has the average version of all four of those pitches and you could hand him like Nolan Ryan's curve ball, he would be Pedro Martinez.

[01:12:30] But Bryce Miller might be able to do that. Bryce Miller might be able to do that. George Kirby might be able to do that. Yeah. So it's going to be interesting to see, uh, how those guys continue to develop some of those, those, the second breaking ball, you know, because the, the, the slider or the sweeper is the first one. And then the slower one where they call it a curve ball or sweeper, it's kind of a second version. That's what Emerson Hancock's trying to build. So yeah. Fascinating. They have a fascinating pitching staff and not just with the arms that the coaches are fascinating too.

[01:12:59] I think anytime, you know, blank or Pete opens their mouth, like listening is a really good idea. How does Luis Castillo not be the worst pitcher in this rotation? How does he what? How is he not the worst pitcher in this rotation this year? I think Brian, we was just not there yet. Like, I think, I think at least to start the season, it's, it's not a, you know, a surefire certainty that he's a six inning start in, start out kind of guy.

[01:13:27] I think his secondary stuff, while it improved quite a bit is behind still probably a year behind Miller. I think he's probably, Wu's probably at a point now where Miller was about a year ago, you know, or late in the season when he came up. And, and while Wu has an even more valuable fastball, which is ridiculous to say, although true. Yeah. I just think he's, you know, that's where he's going to have problems, you know, like

[01:13:56] if on, on the days, if there are, what do you, what do you walk? 2.8% of the batters he walked, he faced last year. It was just stupid. It was lower than Kirby's. Walk rate was less than Kirby's. Yeah. It was just absolutely crazy. I don't know that that's really sustainable. I'm not saying he's going to all of a sudden walk 10% of the batters, but maybe it's more like five or something, which is almost twice as many. So maybe he's going to be in some more tough situations, particularly against left-handed batters where he's going to have to backdoor break a ball or throw the back foot slider and actually execute the pitch, you know, maybe a little more often.

[01:14:23] So as long as there's nothing wrong with Luis Castillo's health in the big picture, that's what I suspect. If there's something going on and he's 93, 94 in May, I'm worried that he's hurt. I'm worried that he's hurt, but there's no pain, right? Which makes it really difficult. I think that's the only way that he's the worst guy right now. But yeah, there's a chance at the end of the year we're like, well, look where Wu came this year. Just like where Miller came last year and Castillo's the worst guy.

[01:14:52] But Castillo even last year was a three. It's like they have four twos and a three. Was Castillo's issues last year mostly stepping back to his velocity, especially with this fast ball? No. No. Like he too often, he didn't have his change up and his slider went south on him. I get backed up on him a lot. Like where he was trying to bury it in a low or low and away. And he hung it over the middle of the plate a little bit, even though it was down. That happened a lot.

[01:15:23] If you go watch. Dang it. I can't remember they're playing now. It might've been in Cincinnati. I think it was on that trip though. Was it a Cincinnati, New York playing the Mets? Was it a Mets Reds trip? I think they were on. That was 23. I think. Yeah, that was. That was. Okay. Okay. So that, that wasn't it. There was a game last year on the road where I think he gave up two homers in the same inning and it was the same pitch where Cal was, I think it was Cal setting up like,

[01:15:52] you know, middle away and here's where you throw it. It breaks out of the zone or mostly out of the zone and it didn't really break. And it was just kind of hung over the middle. I think that just happened too much for Castillo last year. So he just didn't get the value out of his change up and his slider as you really want to get. And even his fastball didn't really perform as well, but I don't think it was velocity. Yeah. I don't think it was velocity, but I mean, again, unless he's hurt, he'll clean up and figure it out. Does that conclude all your big picture questions, TJ, or do you have more? Okay, good.

[01:16:21] So I wanted to wrap this up with two things. One's a follow-up on a Louise thing and one's kind of an overarching ending question. I think I've asked you this before, Jason, but just since we're talking about it, I'm going to ask again. What on earth has happened to that change up of Louise's? Because I'm not saying it was going to be an elite pitch forever, but the drop off over the last few years, basically since he's got to Seattle with that pitch. Now, to be fair, his fastball has gone the other way and it's gotten really good, but it's crazy. The changeup is essentially a non-factor at this point. Yeah.

[01:16:49] I think some of this is like he's not throwing the two-seamer as much either, and that change up works off the two-seamer. It's a similar feel. They're similar pitches in terms of movement. So even if he throws a decent one, the effectiveness is going to be shaved a little bit. It's going to decrease a little bit. But he's throwing more four-seamers in Seattle than he did in Cincinnati. But his entire career, actually, the changeup came and went. If you go back and look at some of the write-ups on the day of the trade or the day after the

[01:17:19] trade, there was a lot. I know I mentioned it. There was a lot of mention of when he has his changeup. You know, like he's really tough. Because it's never really been a consistent pitch. If you go look at the performance against the pitch, like at Savant, when you do that, you get what happens when they put the pitch in play and how often do they swing and miss at it. But you don't really get a true value out of that. And I'm not sure I buy the pitch values that StatCast puts together.

[01:17:47] But there were times where, yeah, the changeup legitimate weapon, there are times where the changeup is just garbage. And it's a feel pitch. And, you know, he doesn't absolutely have to have it. But if he's going to, I'll tell you this, if he's going to be 93-94, I'm not saying he's going to, but if he's going to be 93-94, has to have the slider, has to have the changeup. If he does, he can be the same guy.

[01:18:12] But if he's 95 plus, which I expect, like you don't have to have the changeup all the time. You know, you spin that slider up there. It's not a big spinning slider. It's a power slider. That's what I was saying. If you could throw an 80 mile an hour knee buckling curveball into that, like he would never be touched. Right? Like 95 plus top rail, two seam, four seam, east, west, north, south. Now you have, you know, big Uncle Charlie coming in. I mean, it's crazy. But, you know, not everybody has that kind of thing.

[01:18:42] And that's more of a pronator versus supinator conversation than anything. But yeah, Luis, I don't really know what to expect from him. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't really know what to expect from him. And it's the coming and going of both slider and changeup now for the most part. So we can look at the numbers against the fastballs. But it's hard to say, well, the fastballs weren't as good instead of, well, the fastballs didn't play as well because they didn't have these other things and guys were sitting on it. The hitters were sitting on the fastball. And I do think that happened quite a bit. So yeah.

[01:19:12] Last one I've got for you. The Mariners make the playoffs in 2025. If what? If what happens? These are my three keys to the season. So I'll give you three things that if they happen, they're a playoff team. In fact, if these three things happen, obviously injuries is the first thing. They're always the first thing. So it's actually four, but I think it goes without saying. You have to stay pretty darn healthy. And the Kirby thing hurts a little bit, but I think you're going to be okay.

[01:19:42] But these three things, you have to get something significant from the combination of Santos and Brash. Now, if that's barely anything from Santos and Brash's nails, that could work. If it's Brash is pretty good for the last two months, but the first two months he's struggling to get his footing, but Santos is at least a pretty solid middle guy. That could be enough. Right. But if neither one of them are capable of handling high level situations, that's a, that's bad.

[01:20:11] Like that's going to turn out really tough. Now you're asking Troy Taylor to do it. Once he gets healthy, Colin Snyder to do it. Maybe Gabe Spire to do it. That's going to be real. And I think the bullpen would look a lot like it did last year where sometimes it looked great. Sometimes it didn't because you're asking the same two, three guys to get out, get the outs all the time. And mostly Andres Munoz. So that's number one. Number two, can they get something offensively from a prospect, from a Tyler Locklear, from

[01:20:37] a Cole Young, from a Harry Ford, from a Ben Williamson, something offensively somewhere on the field, whether that's first base DH somewhere, whether that's filling for an injury or it's just adding to what they have. I think that's going to go a long way. And it could just be Cole Young coming up to the big leagues in July and being an average hitter, but your everyday second baseman. That would go a long way for this club. Being able to throw the same guy out there day in, day out, get above average to plus defense, get some pretty good base running and get solid plate appearances. That would go a long way.

[01:21:07] Anyway, number three is Julio Rodriguez. Be Julio. Be on like a rate status, what you were in 2022. If those three things happen, this team's winning the division. Yeah. I just wouldn't bet on all three of those things. I certainly wouldn't wager on it. Well, you described what I think most would think of as a perfect season. Because if all three of those things happen, you're right. I mean, not only would they win the division, but they'd be one of the favorites for the

[01:21:37] entire American League. Yeah, they could be. I do think they're going to make interesting deals as long as they're in it at the deadline. I do think that's very much in play. There's a really good chance, depending on the situation they're in and what the landscape is in the rest of the league, that Jerry's more aggressive at this deadline than any other. Is that a reflection of the American League thing? The system is overloaded. There's almost too many good players. Really.

[01:22:03] It's like at some point, you're going to have to move Colt Emerson because you have other shortstops. At some point, you're going to have to get Laz Montez out of the outfield because you have too many other guys. Or you're going to have to move Arroyo because he's moving up in the system too fast and Cole Young's going to be the second baseman. What are you going to do with that? So you either have to trade him or you have to move him onto a different position. I think there's probably five or six prospects that are like that. And they're going to add more in the draft.

[01:22:30] I mean, they're set up to a perfect world. They make an impact deal at the deadline and get an answer somewhere in the infield for two years and two months or more. And they do the same thing in the winter and win the World Series next year. I think most people would buy that. I'd buy that. With that. More margin for error next year. A little more payroll. A little more, you know, the system's ripe, you know, for trades to start helping you as

[01:23:00] well. I think that really helps out Jerry. But yeah, if they could just get the one thing in there that's the toughest, it's not Julio. Like if you asked me to bet on Julio's WRC plus this year, I would say, I would say he's going to be at least as good as he was his rookie year. He's throwing up at least a 140 WRC plus this year. That's what I would say. Chance that it's better. Chance that he goes closer to Bobby Witt Jr. Nuts this year. Right? The bullpen thing.

[01:23:26] I think it might take him a little while to get going, but I buy Brash in August and September being pretty darn good. Right? They're going to be smart about him. Santos, I don't know. And what do they do to counter that? Does Troy Taylor step in? Maybe. Do they need more than just Troy Taylor and Matt Brash? Maybe. But Julio's the thing I'm worried about the least. It's finding that offensive piece in your system that can help because someone is going to get hurt or somebody is going to disappoint and it's going to act because they already need a bat. They're healthy and they already need bats. Right? Probably two. Right?

[01:23:56] So if somebody gets hurt, it's like, man, now you need to close a gap that you're not going to be able to fill it to trade that line because you already have other holes. You're going to try to trade it, you know, fill it to trade that line. So that's the tough one. To be honest with you, I just can't imagine it's Tyler Locklear. I can't imagine it's Ben Williamson. It's almost Cole Young. I can't even see Harry Ford because I just don't see where he fits on the field. It's really got to be Cole Young. And that's a lot of pressure on Cole Young. I just, I don't buy that. I don't buy that he's major league ready.

[01:24:27] At this point. I just don't. So I don't know. We'll see. Jason. Maybe the guy they drafted number three goes right to the big leagues, guys. Cam Smith. Right? Cam Smith. Maybe they draft Ivo Arquette and he's their starting second baseman in August. Who knows? Seen crazier things. Full Angels. That would be fun. Full Angels. Yeah. Full on Angels. Full on Angels. Oh, that poor organization. They're going to be a pain though, guys. The A's are going to be a pain. The Angels are going to be. Well, the Angels were a pain last year.

[01:24:56] They shouldn't have been, but they were. Those two teams are better. I agree. I don't know how bad. The Astros are worse. Pretty close. Yeah. Yes, it was. Not too much of a talent. Yeah. Yeah. It's a weird division. Yeah. Yeah. The American League West this year is the central. Yeah. Yeah. In every league that has a central. That's what it looks like. Four teams are kind of, you know, squished together. Interesting. Jason, I don't think there's a single American League team now with a win total projected over 90. Not one.

[01:25:26] Yeah. I buy that. The Orioles aren't? No. They don't have the pitching. They're behind the Yankees. Yeah. I would bet on them winning 90. Okay. Not 95, but I would bet on them winning 90. All right. But they have my MVP pick this year. Gunner? Yeah. It's a good one. Yeah. I was on him as my pick. I didn't want to go chalk, so I didn't go judge. The trendy one is Bobby Wood Jr. So I was thinking, you know, Gunner, Corey Seager, if he's healthy, certainly a candidate. Jordan Alvarez.

[01:25:55] And I went to Gunner and then I was like, I'm going to back off Gunner, so I'm going to go with Seager because Gunner's been hurt. But then I read yesterday that they think Gunner's going to be back in, you know, early to mid-April. So I think that's enough. Yeah. Jason, this has been awesome as always. We're going to have to catch up on opening day. That'll be fun. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to be there with Luke Arkins. I'm going to touch base with Scott Hanbury. So, yeah, let's hook up for, you know, a little bit before the game and say hey or whatever if you guys aren't too busy.

[01:26:24] Or even during the game, I don't care, you know. The game's incidental to me. I'm going to be staring at the bunting trying not to vomit. Jason, it's always good having you on. We appreciate it every time. Thanks. Nice hat, bro. Love talking to church. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the conversation. And hopefully you're just about geared up heading into opening day because we hit on a lot of topics that are going to be very relevant. And he provides some awesome perspective, as always, on the Mariners.

[01:26:53] And for this sake of the episode, heading into 2025. As a reminder, we will have our opening day preview coming out on Thursday, the day of opening day. So, again, instead of our usual Wednesday, Friday release schedule for this week, for this week only, it's Tuesday, Thursday. And we'll have you guys all set leading to first pitch and what were just days away now from the start of the season. So, with that, that just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast.

[01:27:20] If you want to find all of our stuff, once again, it's all on our new website. Marinelayerpod.com. Everything. Audio episodes, the ability to download, to rate and review. If you want to watch on YouTube, you want to find our Patreon. If you want to find our live event schedule. If you want to buy our merch, which shout out to you guys, by the way. You guys really, really are the best. We've had this merch up for just a couple days. And people are buying it pretty left and right already, which is super, super cool.

[01:27:47] So, if you want to find all our merch, again, all on the website. And we asked this on social media. I'm going to ask you guys here. If you buy it, take a photo, post it on social media, and tag us. Because we want to see people in the gear, in the merch. And we'd love to repost it and retweet it. So, do that. Everything else is over on the website, too. And if you want to find us on social media, you can do so everywhere. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube Shorts, at MarineLayerPod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.