Episode 231: The Mariners Win Another Series & Keep On Hitting. How Are They Doing It?

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 231 of the Marine Layer Podcast. The Mariners have now won four series in a row and are knocking the ball all over the yard. Is this offense legit? We'll discuss what we feel about this offense and this Mariners lineup during the stretch. We'll also talk about Luis Castillo who had another so-so outing here on Sunday. How confident are we in his future?

[00:00:24] Before we start the show, your guys' reminder that if you want to stay on top of all of our stuff, you can head over to our website, marinelyrapod.com, where you've got everything all in one spot. Whether it's our episodes, if you want to watch, if you want to listen, if you want to go see our live show schedule, if you want to get our merch, if you want to sign up for our Patreon, which a reminder to you guys, if you do, you get priority on mailbag questions every single week. All that's over at our website, marinelyrapod.com.

[00:00:50] And if you want to follow us on social media, you can do it all across our social channels at marinelyrapod. Let's get it rolling. And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording on Sunday evening, April 20th.

[00:01:20] Lyle, who gets banned from Canada first? Cal Raleigh or Rowdy Tellez after this weekend? Hmm. Hmm. Recency bias would say Rowdy, but I feel like there's too many war flashbacks for Blue Jays fans at this point of Cal to not have him be at the top of the list. Now it's built up over time with Cal. It's not a one-time incident. Do you know what I got a real kick out of this weekend during this entire series?

[00:01:47] And you could kind of see this effect snowball coming up here to Sunday. Johnny Junta, who's one of the hosts of the Gate 14 podcast, we've had on this podcast last year. We're hoping to have him on again before the Blue Jays come here to Seattle. He was going through it this weekend, watching Cal Raleigh do whatever he did.

[00:02:11] I think it peaked when Cal and Jose Barrios were chirping at each other on Saturday's game. And then sort of just finished the snowball here today when Cal Raleigh hit a home run in the first inning. If you're unfamiliar with Johnny, I would say the platform he exceeds best with is Twitter. I think he does great green screen videos. He loves yelling after games. It's phenomenal content if you're curious.

[00:02:40] You can go check out the Gate 14 podcast. They do a really good job. But Johnny, he's got a lot of energy. And he was going through it watching Cal this weekend. He was trying to chirp Cal. Oh, I cannot wait for this Blue Jays series next month. Because now we're going to get to see it in person. So, you know, we've gotten to know Johnny a little bit just through two team-based podcasts and him being on our show. And, you know, interacting with him on social media and stuff.

[00:03:08] But they're coming to Seattle next month for that Blue Jays series. Him and his buddy Avery, who he does the podcast with. Like, I want to see this live. I'm assuming the answer to my question is yes. But my question is, how much is this replicated in person compared to what he does online? Because it is, I mean, you're talking about him legitimately, like, throwing online haymakers everywhere about a mid-April series between the Blue Jays and Mariners, two non-division opponents.

[00:03:39] I'm going to say no. Because it's harder to keep things up in person. But is he going to tweet just as much? Probably. He has got, again, I know he's great with Twitter. But you know he's a personality, too, from all the Instagram and TikTok stuff and their podcast, obviously. Like, he's got, like, ridiculous energy. It would not shock me if it's pretty close to replicated in person. Well, I guess we'll find out. I think it's something similar with the diehard Blue Jays people we know.

[00:04:08] It's him and our friend Troy. One energy. If we get those two on one piece of social content together, weekend's a win. That weekend's going to be a win. Yeah, I don't think we'll have to say anything. I think they'll do all the talking. Yeah. I'm sure they'll make Mariners fans very happy. Yet Johnny's, you know what? Let me just read Johnny's final tweet after the end of the series.

[00:04:30] I mean, he was cooking up stuff all weekend, which, by the way, included him tweeting through the mini little benches clearing thing between the Mariners and Blue Jays. Which, by the way, what is Jose Barrios going on about in that? He's mad. So if anybody didn't see this, he's mad because he thought Cal Raleigh was relaying his pitches, which Cal said I wasn't. But even if he was, I said this on social media.

[00:04:58] This isn't some Astros thing, sign stealing. If you're tipping your pitches, you're tipping your pitches. That's your fault. Like, be mad at yourself. Be mad at your five ERA so far to start the year, Jose Barrios. Like, what do you want us to tell you? Did Jose, so Jose said signs, right? Did he say tipping pitches or giving away our signs? He said relaying my pitches to his teammates. I take that as tipping. You take that as tipping? Yeah. Tipping.

[00:05:25] I'm thinking about how in the world does Cal Raleigh see what Alejandro Kirk is punching into his keypad 120 feet away? Yeah. This is what I'm talking about. I don't know. Throw better pitches. Disguise your pitches better. It's ridiculous. And Cal's probably saying the same thing. He's like, dude, wouldn't you appreciate if I'm letting you know essentially that you're tipping your pitches? Yeah. Yes.

[00:05:51] Again, I think he's probably more projecting and he's probably not happy with the year he's had. He probably wasn't happy with the start he was having, even though it wasn't some awful start. It is always something in Toronto. Always something. All right. And usually Cal's in the middle of it. Even though Cal's like the most humble, stoic dude who doesn't really start up any drama for the most part, somehow he's always involved. Probably because he torches them. You know Cal gets a kick out of this by now. He wouldn't admit it publicly.

[00:06:20] Do you think he like, low-key just like really enjoys, he gets like a little smirk on his face as he's running the base. And he's like, I know everyone here hates me. Oh, you know when the ball left his bat on that Sunday homer. He's thinking to himself as he's trotting down to first base. He's like, fuck yes. Like, I can't go a series without doing this. He said, look, he's happy to hit a home run anytime. But he's like, oh, the fact I did it in Toronto for all these people rooting on my downfall. It's like, yes.

[00:06:49] Get 10 home runs and 82 plate appearances against the Blue Jays. That's an insane ratio. You know what that is? That's Mike Trout against the Mariners. That's Barry Bonds. This is what that is. I think literally that's Barry Bonds. Well, we've tweeted some Barry Bonds related stuff to Cal Raleigh when it involves the Blue Jays. So, yeah. Surely our friend Johnny, whose tweet you're about to read, had some really good things to say about that.

[00:07:19] Yeah. He said at the end of this series, well, he had a couple. He said, Mariners fans are adorable, man. Here's how the quote starts. Yeah. He says, oh, Johnny. He goes, Mariners fans are adorable, man. I respect it. Zero championship appearances in their team's history. Laughing stock of pro sports. Only series win in the last 15 years was against a baseball team who collectively got CTE at the same time. Congrats on the series win, though.

[00:07:48] He's referencing Bichette and Springer colliding in the outfield. Uh-huh. And then he manages to tweet very, very shortly after. He says, the beauty of baseball is its ability to humble you. After Friday, I truly felt like we were rooting for the greatest show on grass. The vibes couldn't have been higher. Two days later, I'm in hell. I went onto their live stream that they did on Saturdays.

[00:08:16] I'm like, I kind of want to see the reaction to rowdy Tellez of all people hitting a grand slam in extra innings. I was trying to find it. I was like, you know, within the last 20 minutes. I'm like, within the last 10 minutes. I'm like, da-da-da-da-da. Oh, no. It's actually literally, I think it was the last 15 seconds because they had to end the stream after Rowdy hit the ball. They were just done. They checked out. I couldn't imagine they were the only Blue Jays fans who did that.

[00:08:41] I think there's somewhere in Toronto, somewhere in Ontario, there was a broken television after that ball left Rowdy Tellez's back. Of all people, Rowdy Tellez, who the Blue Jays called up. He was okay. Then they traded away for the dude they started on Friday. We're not going to talk about that offensive performance. Then Rowdy comes in and just lays haymakers on the Toronto Blue Jays. It's just unbelievable. Even with Rowdy having a bad year at the plate so far, it's the funniest thing ever.

[00:09:13] He brought it this weekend, didn't he? Yeah, he did. He brought it. And it's crazy, too. You said you don't want to talk about Friday. There's an argument that... Let me make sure I say this right. Saturday's home run was obviously the most important because it sealed the deal on that Saturday win in extra innings. But the most interesting one, I think, was on Friday because him and Bowden Francis were traded for each other. And then he hit a home run off of Bowden Francis. Yeah. It's not every day you get to do that.

[00:09:42] Although it's happened twice in five years in the Mariners world when your buddy Abe hit one off Kendall Graveman. As TJ just goes off the screen, shakes his head in disgust for anybody listening, not watching the podcast. Yeah. You know the Mariners were using that as justification to ingrain that into my head. Right? I have PTSD in here probably in big part because of that swing. Even though the swing was a positive.

[00:10:12] Everything that came after that and that was a result of that swing, that's why I'm so damaged today. You're mad that Abe hit that home run? Well, I'm mad of everything he did after that. And I know that swing probably helped him earn some stay time in Seattle. I see. Some more playing time. If that makes sense.

[00:10:34] And look, like Rowdy Tellez, objectively, even after here on Sunday, he had another home run here today, has still just an 85 WRC+. You look at the profile he is as a first baseman that still doesn't really cut it. But having a weekend like he just had is very important for him because he needed it. It was him and Donovan Solano that were still looking to find something offensively. And at least one of them this weekend did.

[00:11:01] And they did it using, I'd say, their best offensive tool, which is their power. We know Rowdy can swing it. We know he's got power. Think about the dynamic on Sunday for Rowdy Tellez. In the 10th inning, there were people online tweeting that he should be cut. You mean Saturday, yeah. Saturday, yeah. That's what I meant, sorry. On Saturday, 10th inning has an opportunity in the 10th inning. Does not come through. People are like, you know, I think I've seen enough of Rowdy Tellez.

[00:11:28] This roster can't be worse off with Tyler Locklear up on this roster instead of Rowdy Tellez. And even Rowdy, in the at-bat in the 12th inning in which he hit the grand slam, got a pitch, middle-middle in that at-bat, and fouled it back. And I saw more tweets that were like, I can't do this with Rowdy anymore. I can't do it. And then all of a sudden, he launches one into right field, and everyone forgets about everything. Isn't it? It's one of the great parts of our game.

[00:11:57] Things can just flip like that. And then he homers on Sunday, too. Yeah. To just do it throughout the weekend. Which, speaking of that, right on the spot here, I'm making an executive decision. We're going to transition, and we're going to very quickly do a state of U.S. affairs 30-second wrap on the Marine Layer pod. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. All right. Rowdy Tellez goes yard three straight days, including on Sunday, in which we say, have you said thank you yet?

[00:12:27] But I'm thanking Rowdy Tellez. Good. To then propel the Mariners to a winning percentage that now sits at 54%, in which we say, stop the count. And that concludes our U.S. affairs segment of the Marine Layer podcast. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. All right. We're done. Back to regular. Thank you for that update, Rowan. What's that? Thank you for that update. Good. We do only get this opportunity once a season.

[00:12:52] And the fact we were able to pack so much news into our one international affair of the season, where the Mariners have to go into international land to play. I mean, that's good. That's true. I was more talking U.S. affairs, but I guess it all intertwines. U.S. affairs. Well, yeah. There's a lot of U.S. affairs these days. Canada. So glad we got all the big storylines out of the way in terms of that.

[00:13:15] But I'm happy for Audi, because if he didn't hit three home runs this weekend, the talk would only ramp up based on the amount of playing time he's gotten at first base, just to sort of make this roster work. You were pointing it out to me at the end of the game today. Just the Mariners score eight runs today and win. And you look at the victory circle after they finish off. You have it on the top of your head.

[00:13:45] What was the victory circle? The infielders, right? The infielders, the catcher, and the pitcher. Yeah, I'm just going to take a deep breath for a second. All right. I'm going to get this all out. So the Mariners win a series in Toronto. That makes it four series wins in a row. They get a crucial series win against the Blue Jays. And to wrap it up on Sunday, we see a series-clinching victory dance on the infield featuring Casey

[00:14:13] Legamina, Mitch Garver, Rowdy Tellez, Leo Rivas, Dylan Moore, and Ben Williamson. That is quite the victory circle from the Gino and Ty France on his all-star season and Cal and, you know, the 2022 team. JP and Adam Frazier. That's quite the stark difference, I must say.

[00:14:42] But you know what the 2022 group didn't do? Well, they probably got close at some point. That group right there has been really good for two weeks offensively. It doesn't make much sense why they're this good offensively. Why a lineup that requires some combination at this point, Lyle, of Myles Mastroboni,

[00:15:05] Leo Rivas, Rowdy Tellez, and, you know, at this point, Donovan Solano in the lineup that has been top five in runs scored the last two-plus weeks. That does not make any sense. It's confusing why a group with those names in it is scoring this many runs. And you look at the infield after Sunday's game and you say, I mean, it just doesn't compute.

[00:15:34] But they're fifth in runs since the start of the Giants series. Fifth in runs scored. Myles Mastroboni let off a game on Saturday. And they had a great offensive game. Like, these things just are breaking my brain. Also, can I call something back really quick? The 2022 team definitely had good offensive two-week stretches. They did. Yeah. Especially, you know, when they won 14 games in a row. Yeah. That stretch. Anyway, 2025.

[00:16:05] Yeah, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Baseball can be very weird in that way sometimes where you just have a lot of things that start to break your way or guys that all collectively get hot together. And that's kind of what's happened so far. Miles Mastroboni is not lighting the world on fire, but he's been productive. He has played the role that they've asked him to play. In fact, now he's even doing a little bit more than that because they're doing things like hitting him lead off.

[00:16:29] But between him, between Rowdy finding a spark this weekend, between obviously Cal and Polo and Demo who have been red hot, it's all kind of collectively come together. In fact, you look at the start of the Giants series. If you want to even zoom a little bit closer in, smaller sample, but I think it's still telling. Since the start of the Rangers series, a little over a week ago, they're fourth in runs. They're fourth in OPS. That's in baseball. It's pretty good.

[00:17:01] And if you look at the players specifically on who's being productive, like you would think at this point there would be some sort of aircraft carrier, someone who is keying this offense. I think the closest thing we have to that right now in terms of what we're looking at shouldn't surprise anybody, but it's Cal Raleigh. I think the biggest reason, excuse me, I'm going to cough here for a second. I've been battling some allergies here. Would you like me to fill time?

[00:17:28] Oh, I was in New York this past week in case many of you couldn't tell with my different background. And there are some allergies there where, you know, it's like, it's like I'm Toronto and the allergies are Cal Raleigh. That's kind of what it feels like at that point. It's, it is a decades long battle with me to try and try and stay a hundred percent healthy in that moment and almost every single time I fail. So I'm going to try and try and bully my way through this one. But if you look at the individual players, right?

[00:17:57] So Cal Raleigh in the stretch has been the most important offensive player. I mean, he has seven home runs in his last nine games. Obviously he's going to have the most offensive production of anyone in the team. The biggest factor of the Mariners scoring all of these runs dating back to, if you want to do the Rangers series or the Giants series overall, they play similarly in the league when it comes to offensive production. Most of it has been keyed on home runs and Cal Raleigh has seven home runs in his last nine games.

[00:18:23] That's going to be a huge boost to any sort of offense or any sort of offensive production, which is great. I thought the thing that stood out to me when looking at this offense is that everyone except one player, and I'll get to him here in a second, is finding some way in terms of regular players that is, is finding some way to be very valuable offensively in the things

[00:18:47] you take into place when considering a WRC plus and OPS, something like that. Let me use an example like this. And let me frame it as a question to you, Lyle. Would you consider JP Crawford right now having a string of successful offensive production? I think I know where you're going with this. This is factoring in the walks. I'm not going to sit here and say that in terms of bat to ball, extra base hits, he's

[00:19:16] been lighting it up, but the walks balance it out because he's walking at about a 20% clip right now. JP Crawford right now has a 400 on base percentage and has helped him despite the fact he's hitting for almost no power and no damage with his bat as a 129 WRC plus since the start of that giant series. Would you say Mitch Garver is being productive offensively right now? Off base value? No, but what do you got? He's right there with JP in terms of offensive production.

[00:19:46] Also a 129. He's also got an on base percentage over 400. He's not doing damage at all. He doesn't even have a home run this year, but he's finding a way to be productive offensively. Miles Mastroboni, who we've sat here on this podcast and said shouldn't be pinch hitting, should not be relied upon for his offensive value. And it's not like he's just destroying the baseball. He's not smacking home runs. He's not hitting a bunch of extra base hits, but he's finding a way to be an above average hitter offensively during this stretch.

[00:20:16] And there's a reason why the team is letting him start more often and hitting him at the top of the lineup, which I don't want to see again, but they'll probably do it anyways. Whatever. Whatever. You have your aircraft carriers like Cal Raleigh. You have Jorge Polanco is battling his way through injuries to stay in the lineup and be one of the more complete players offensively on this team. You have, you know, guys like Randy who are a little bit more boom and bust. You have Dylan Moore, who's one of the hottest players in this lineup right now. Hit another home run today.

[00:20:44] Shout out to Demo and shout out to you for your answer on Friday's mailbag. It's going to make me look stupid. It's going to make me look really, really bad that I was doubting Demo. If he keeps this up, the only guy who has not in this two week stretch been lighting it the world on fire offensively has been Julio, unfortunately. But that's it. The fact that the rest of this offense without Julio can be top five in the entire league and run scored and we're just waiting for Julio to come back and replace some of that

[00:21:14] production. It's got to make you feel a little bit better about this offense because some of the more marginal guys will fall off and Julio is going to come back and he's going to take that production back from them. You'd hope so. You'd obviously hope so. But yeah, you would hope that there is some balance to all this where Julio's going to find his groove here at some point in the near future while also understanding that, look, Cal and Polanco may very well have good years.

[00:21:41] In fact, I think obviously everybody expects Cal to have a very good year. There's even a world that Cal even takes a step forward offensively from what he's done the past couple seasons. I don't know if he's quite going to be a 170 WRC plus hitter for the year. That's fine because if he does that, like he's the MVP over judge. But if Cal's going to have another great 35-40 homer offensive season where his batting average goes up a little bit and maybe walks a little bit more, then great.

[00:22:08] All that combined together would make for some sustainability. But right now, I think everybody's still just trying to feel out how much of this is real, how much of it isn't, who's going to come back down to earth a little bit, who's going to heat up a little bit, and where it all comes to the balance. Because they do still need some help from some other guys in the lineup right now. They need help from, you know, they need Luke Raley to get going. It's been a bit of a slow April for them. But we also know Luke Raley has some really cold stretches and some really hot stretches. So at some point, I'm sure he'll get hot.

[00:22:36] They could really, really use Solano to get going at some point. Garver, you hope he keeps this up, what he's done the last week and a half. And then Julio, you would hope that all kind of balances out and there's actually still room to grow and improve here offensively. Talk about improvement. Did you realize during that two-plus week stretch dating back to the Giants series, they're also still last with runners in scoring position? That's where this doesn't really make much sense.

[00:23:03] Top five in runs scored last with runners in scoring position. They're 26th in OPS and last in batting average. How does that make sense? A lot of home runs with guys on first base or solo, I guess. High volume. Do you know what is starting to feel real? Hopefully not that runners in scoring position thing. I don't think so. I think the more opportunities they're going to get and the less and sort of less of those

[00:23:32] really, really catastrophically bad stretches like they had to start the season with runners in scoring position, it's going to even out a little bit. Based on that start, they're probably not going to be near the top, but they're not going to be the worst, I don't think. It doesn't feel like it. What does start to seem to be real, it does feel like they're going to strike out a little bit less. That's starting to feel a little bit more sustainable as it goes on. Sunday was not a great reflection of that, but up until Sunday, their team strikeout rate right now is 21% to an 11% walk rate.

[00:24:01] That's pretty good. And since the start of the Rangers series, if you're curious where their team strikeout rate ranks, 17th? 17th in the league. You'll take that after where it's been the last couple of years, I'll say that. Now again, it's going to go up a little bit after Sunday when they punched out 18 times. Now it doesn't matter, they won. They won, so that's ultimately what's important. And scored a lot of runs. Yeah, they scored a lot of runs and they won the game. So when you do things like that, strikeouts don't matter.

[00:24:28] Where strikeouts do matter is when you're leaving a ton of guys on base and you're not capitalizing on opportunities. But that hasn't been the case because they've been scoring. So if they're going to strike out a little bit less, great. You know what my biggest takeaway of the offense has been so far? Is that a lot of it doesn't look very changed from a year ago because they are relying on home runs, they rely on the power, they rely on some big innings. But the one thing that's a little different is they're not striking out as much.

[00:24:57] Which if that's what they're going to do, hit a bunch of home runs and not strike out. I mean, that's the Marine Layer Pod perfect offense right there. We don't want to watch bunting. We don't want to watch slap hitting singles. But we also don't want to watch them strike out all the time. So if they're going to do this and keep it up, great. It's been very important because this is how we started our live show on Saturday. And we'll talk about it a little bit more between segments.

[00:25:23] But we started off saying, isn't it weird to be sitting here and talking about the Mariners offense being the best part of the team so far? That just doesn't feel right, does it? You were to look at the Mariners winning four series in a row and you'd say, man, they must have gotten some really good pitching in that stretch. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. It was okay. The Mariners bullpen to start has the second lowest strikeout rate in all of baseball.

[00:25:51] They've thrown the most innings, which is a reflection on the starting rotation. And they're about middle of the pack when it comes to runs allowed and some of the other peripheral stats. The Mariners starting rotation has only thrown the 17th most innings in all of baseball, not getting a ton of length. They collectively as a group have an ERA over four. Uh, that's 10th in baseball.

[00:26:15] But when you adjust it to the park and use something like ERA minus, which is ERA minus is on fan graphs. ERA plus is on baseball reference. It's park adjusted error adjusted ERA. And they have the Mariners and minus by the way means you go down to be positive and up as negative. It's at 112, meaning they're 12% below league average as a starting staff when it comes to preventing runs, which is not great.

[00:26:42] And for a staff of this talent, it's kind of shocking at this point. So the rotation's been just okay. The bullpen has shown its clear flaws and shining through all of the fog of those two units has been the offense, which I wasn't expecting. Not as, not when you're reading through some of these lineups, but they've produced. But I don't think there's much level of concern, right? We're sitting here talking about the, where the rotation is at this point.

[00:27:10] The numbers are what they are, but I don't think either of us are sitting here worried about the long-term effects. Cause George Kirby's not back. Kirby will come back and Bryce hasn't had his greatest stuff in the world early in the year. I don't think we think that's going to last. Logan didn't have his greatest start in the world this weekend, which he got some strikeouts, but pitch count got up pretty quick. He got into some bad counts. He really had to fight through, you know, Brian Wu, even though he went seven innings the other day, like he didn't get off to the greatest start.

[00:27:39] They didn't have a, they didn't have a bad turn through the rotation, but they certainly didn't have a great turn through the rotation. I think we know there's going to be some very good turns through the rotation throughout the year. And right now it's just, it's not there yet. And then, yeah, you had Kirby back. And I would guess in Boston is not where it's going to start, but it could be after when they come home and face the Marlins. Right. That feels, that feels a little bit, a little bit more right. But this offense has been very refreshing. It's been fun to watch. Yeah. They have done a lot of things and they've scored a lot of runs.

[00:28:08] It helps. I will note for some context, they have the most runs scored in extra innings in all of baseball this season. That's a, that's a decent factor to the amount of runs they've scored. That's pretty wild. I will say you might not have caught this on Friday. I briefly mentioned it during the intro, which you weren't a part of. That was the day you were, you were out in New York with your family. But do you know, the Mariners haven't won a series against the Red Sox in 10 years at Fenway?

[00:28:38] Just at Fenway, not including at home. Yeah. Just at Fenway. That makes sense. And I remember that 2014 series. That one was kind of crazy. Wasn't it? Didn't they? Yeah. That, I'll tell you what happened. You remember that Dustin Ackley, like loopy little pop fly that got into right field. And, and I think Robbie scored all the way from first base somehow or something like that. Yeah. There was an error in there somehow, but they were going to lose. And until that crazy play happened and they ended up winning the series. And that, that was the last time. Yeah. That was so long ago.

[00:29:08] I know. It was so long ago. Oh my goodness. I mean, they've split some series, but they haven't won a series. And this week's not going to be much easier. I mean, they get to face Crochet in the series. Emerson's going to have to pitch in Fenway. That team hits really well in Fenway. Bregman's, Bregman's doing really well to start the season. Most of that offense is. Oh, great. Well, you know that.

[00:29:35] I mean, he is and Willier Abreu is and you got Jaron Duran and Christian Campbell got off to a hot start. And, and watch them surprise us and Roman Anthony gets called up on Tuesday and he's the number one prospect of baseball, by the way, for those not familiar, they have, they have quite a loaded outfield. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's, it's a, it's a fun group. Yeah. So maybe temper expectations with the rotation of what they do in Fenway. But after that, when they get home against the Marlins and then the Angels, maybe it starts there. Yeah. All right.

[00:30:05] If, if we're mentioning the bullpen here, we have been pretty, pretty positive so far for every good reason. Maris had a nice week. They had a nice series in Toronto. They got an important series win and we knew this was going to be a tough road series. If we're going to talk about the bullpen, can I spend like a minute here on Troy Taylor? Uh-huh. I mean, this, this really just like irked me this weekend. It really, it really just kind of rubbed me the wrong way and pissed me off a little bit. Maybe more than it should. And maybe this is me in my own head about it.

[00:30:34] But I think where this gets me is, well, number one, to the point we just made a couple minutes ago, we've highlighted the early flaws of this bullpen and where it needs help. Right? And they're still waiting for Matt Brash to get back, which I get. But this mindset of mine, I think, no, not I think. It currently very comes off of, it currently very much comes off of the Mike Salk tree,

[00:31:00] which I probably picked up a few things from him over the months, which is things that easily get on his nerves or when a team or a person tells him they're going to do something in sports and then he wants to go see them do it. But when they say they're going to do something and then they don't do that and they do something that differentiates from what they said, yeah, it bothers them. It drives them a little crazy. He'll say, tell me you're going to do something and then do it. That's what Salk likes to say. That's the boat I'm in with Troy Taylor.

[00:31:29] There have been a lot of bullpen moves early in the year, from the early start that Emerson had to making bullpen moves because of him, to all the shuffling they've done so far, even as far up as this weekend, where they now called up Soren Lau, who hasn't pitched yet. A lot of bullpen moves. But a lot of that was because they had a couple of injuries. Brash wasn't back. Taylor at the time wasn't back. And you knew they were waiting for them to get back because one of many things the Mariners said all winter and all spring was, Troy Taylor's a vital piece of this bullpen and

[00:31:58] he's going to pitch in leverage, which I say, great. He threw the ball really well last year. We should expect him to throw in high leverage this year. Well, the Mariners deem him ready to go at the end of Sunday, at the end of the home series, homestand. He makes one appearance in Cincinnati, which did not go good, but it was one appearance and he was just getting back from injury. And then they essentially pull the plug and send him back to Tacoma. What are we doing? Because now that's 15 days minimum.

[00:32:26] You're going to be without Troy Taylor, which if again, you preach the things you say, and you believe the things you preach where Taylor's going to be a huge piece of this bullpen. Well, then why is he getting sent down after one outing? It doesn't really make any sense. I know he has options, but if he's that important, you don't, you don't just, you don't kick him out. You don't kick him to the curb for 15 days. It's the only scenario in which that's understandable as if nobody else in the bullpen has options.

[00:32:54] The guys with options in the bullpen, it was Troy Taylor. Legamina had an option still because they had to use the option to call him up in the first place. And then does Munoz have one? It doesn't matter because Munoz is not getting sent down. Anyways, so that part's irrelevant. So it was Legamina or it was Troy Taylor at that point, right? And they decided on, they decided on Troy Taylor. If Legamina did not have an option, I get it. Like they're trying to be flexible.

[00:33:22] The last thing you want to do is you have someone who you view as a big league arm, even if he's not your leverage, big league arm, you view him as a big league arm and you don't want someone else snatching them up and putting them in their bullpen. Can I make a quick comparison to that? Like I use a quick reference point. The Mariners don't want another Tyson Miller on their hands. They let Tyson Miller go last year as TJ is just coughing through all this. They let Tyson Miller go last year and then he had a great year for the Cubs because he didn't have options.

[00:33:53] They don't want that to happen, right? So you protect your assets at the big league level and utilize the options that you have. The problem is Legamina did have that option. And deciding on Troy Taylor, at least in this perspective, makes them feel like they don't view the two of them that much differently right this second in terms of how important they are to contribute at the big league level.

[00:34:22] And look, Troy's going to get his outings in Tacoma. He's going to get better. He's going to ramp up his confidence. Like that's, that part's fine. You would just rather that happen at the big league level, even if it's not going to be in leverage. Cause you know what? The Mariners still need help in the sixth and seventh inning too this year. Yeah. Which again, if they view Taylor and Legamina the exact same right now, well then again, this goes back to the, the Salk theory. It's tell me you're going to do something and then do it in this scenario.

[00:34:51] They wouldn't be doing that because we heard all winter and all spring that Taylor was so important and it, their belief in this bullpen is a reason that they did not go out and get high leverage arms this winter. Something we said time after time that they needed, but they said, we like the group we have that included Troy Taylor and leverage. Now, after one outing, he's back in Tacoma for 15 days. There have been a couple of really quick hooks this year with younger pitchers. Yeah. Really quick.

[00:35:20] Now the Gregory Santos, when I get, he, he needed to go down to Tacoma and figure something out. I don't, I'm not even qualifying that as a quick hook at that point. He had had seven outings at that point. If I have the best five or seven outings at that point, you had seen the struggles with that. Troy Taylor had one. Emerson Hancock had one outing. So, and then Emerson Hancock comes back up and what do you know? He's not a terrible pitcher. No. Also. Yeah. I said it on Thursday. Shout out to Emerson.

[00:35:49] He had a really nice start in Cincinnati. That was really, really nice to see. But I don't know, man. Like again, if the Mariners feel like, okay, we saw an outing from Troy Taylor and we think he needs some more time down in Tacoma to just get his stuff right. Well, how did that one outing make you all of a sudden realize so much? Oh, he needs a lot more time because clearly in his rehab outings down in Tacoma, you had seen enough to say he's ready. Let's activate him. We're happy that he's back.

[00:36:17] But then you send him back. Like if you had just said after a few rehab outings, you know what? We're going to give him a little more time. We want to see him work on some things. We're going to leave him in AAA for now. And then he'll come up when he's ready. That would have been a little different. But it's this one outing the other day to then just turn around and send him back to Tacoma, which I really, really do not understand. And at least if you were to send him straight to Tacoma, you could kind of sell it as like,

[00:36:46] he used his entire rehab stint and we still need more rehab. Therefore, he needs to stay in Tacoma. There is a spin with that, but by putting him at the big league level, you're saying, oh, he's ready. I hope they're not putting guys at the big league level who they don't feel like are fully back. Yeah. Because that's not good. If Brash was like that, not a good sign. I would rather Matt Brash be ready to go than have to worry about, you know, yanking him back and forth between AAA.

[00:37:14] That would be a, that would be a problem. And that would go more to what you, what Salk says. Usually it's like you said, Troy Taylor, Matt Brash and Andres Munoz and Gregory Santos are going to be our guys, our leverage guys in this bullpen this year. And Munoz is the only one you've gotten anything from this year. Right. You didn't go out and get Devin Williams. You didn't go out and get Ryan Helsley. You didn't go out and get any others. Cause again, tell me you're going to do something and then do it. It was the belief in this bullpen.

[00:37:43] Santos is down in Tacoma. Taylor's now down in Tacoma. Brash is still rehabbing. Like it's, it's, you know, it's mixed signals here. And that's what drives me a little crazy is when you get the mixed signals, especially this early in the year and one outing from Troy Taylor. And by the way, I know that outing wasn't in leverage, but I also wasn't expecting him to throw in leverage in his first outing. I felt like where they put him in, in that Reds game was a soft spot to work him back in and ease his way into the 25 season. I didn't think anything of always throwing in low leverage.

[00:38:13] He's already on the hot seat. I don't know. Whole thing was weird. Yeah, it is pretty weird. Do you got anything else on the bullpen? No, other than Andres Munoz continues to look like the best closer in baseball. He's tracking early, but he's tracking towards being an all-star. We had this trivia question, which in case you didn't know, and you weren't at the live show, I had this trivia question that I wrote down for people and some people got it.

[00:38:37] The question was who leads the Mariners right now in baseball reference wins above replacement. It is Andres Munoz, despite the fact he has thrown less than 10 innings this year. Is it 10 innings? Maybe just over 10 innings. I don't know if his stats pulled up. But he has been more valuable than all the starting pitchers and all the everyday position players so far this year. That's incredible for a reliever to do that. So that just kind of underlines how good he's been so far.

[00:39:06] And while we're talking about some young players here, not Munoz, I was more talking about the Troy Taylor bucket. Let me make one more note and then I know we're going to spend a couple minutes on Castillo. But really quickly, I do just want to say Ben Williamson has looked solid at the plate early on. That's been a very, very nice surprise. Now, when the league starts to get more of a scouting report on him, obviously we'll see how he adjusts. And that's something most young players do have to adjust to. But early on, he has not looked overwhelmed. He has not looked overmatched.

[00:39:33] He crushed that home run he hit on Saturday for his first big league homer. Yeah, that's been a very, very welcoming, positive sign. Because if Ben Williamson is a league average bat, that's a valuable player the Mariners have at third base. And he made a play on a ball off the bat of Vladdy Jr. Just this absolute nuke rocket at third base that he knocked down. And I don't think there are any other third basemen on this roster. Maybe Leo Rivas probably would.

[00:39:59] But besides that, besides the two best defensive infielders on your roster, I don't think are making as good of a play as Ben Williamson did. So that was really cool to see. And I think they really do need it. And he's been... To go back to the offense, Lyle, in that stretch, he's been above average offensively. So he's been part of it. Part of something that has been very refreshing for the Mariners so far.

[00:40:25] Before we get to Castillo, and after I talk about this, I want to talk a little bit about our live show on Saturday, and then we'll wrap up with Castillo. But before that, let's talk to you guys about one of our newest Just Baseball Network sponsors, Rhythm. Let's be honest. Betting on baseball guys can feel like throwing darts. But not anymore. Because of Rhythm. We've partnered with Rhythm, an app that helps you build data-backed betting models in just minutes.

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[00:41:20] Use code JUSTBASEBALL for 50% off a full year. That gets you access to Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA, and college hoops projections. Try it free for seven days and bet smarter with Rhythm. Let's talk a little bit about our live show on Saturday. That was fun. We were at Queen Anne this past Saturday. Lyle, if you were to tell someone who wasn't there why they should come to a future live show of ours, why?

[00:41:50] There's a bunch of reasons, but the coolest part about it for me is you get to sit and really get to have some fun conversations in person, often one-on-one or two-on-one, with people that we often wouldn't get to interact with. And, you know, not just hear about them, but get to really talk baseball with all these people. And it's a really cool way to just bring Mariners fans together. Not just watch games together, but, like, bring other Mariners fans together with other Mariners fans.

[00:42:19] We learned this weekend, like, there's people that are friends from Mariners Twitter. Like, they're friends in person and have been friends for a while and met through Mariners Twitter. So, like, it's my way of saying that there is a real Mariners community that exists out there amongst fans. And we got to see a lot of it this weekend at the live show with everybody that showed up. So, between getting to interact with people, between getting to watch the games with people, and getting to know some of our fans, like, that's what the best part of it for me was.

[00:42:46] And if this sounds like something that would intrigue you, I encourage you to come out to the next one. We don't have a date yet for the next one. There's a number of ways you can sort of pay this off and make it enjoyable for yourself. If you just like listening to Lyle and I talk baseball, we spend plenty of time doing that at this live show. If you want to directly interact with us and ask us questions in person, there's an opportunity for that.

[00:43:14] But I think the best part, Lyle, and I think the most fun part for everybody is we're doing some trivia. Second time we've done trivia at one of these live shows, we had so many things to give away. One of our hoodies, our hats, our limited edition hats, by the way, because we don't have hats available for sale. But we do have some Marine Layer Podcast hats that are sitting here in my room that we're able to give away. And I think people really enjoyed them. Shout out Colton. Colton from Mariner Mojo 1-1. I think he's really happy and enjoying that. And a ton of Corona stuff.

[00:43:44] Corona did a great job helping us set some stuff up. Gave us a ton of things to give away. It's going to be awesome working with Corona for these next five live shows throughout this 2025 season. So if that's something that sounds fun to you, trivia, questions with us, listening to us talk baseball, watching Mariner games at an awesome location. I really, I really think you guys should come out for one of these live shows. If that sounds fun to you, you can make it work with your schedule.

[00:44:09] And we're going to try to give as many people as possible an opportunity to come to one of these things because I think they'll have a lot of fun. They're great. I can't wait to do a bunch more of them. The first two have been a blast. This one really was a blast, especially the fact we got to sit and watch the game with everybody. It was fun. It was a fun environment. And people were, you know, people were cheering and getting into the game, especially because it was a really good game on Saturday. It was really fun. I'm glad we did it. All right. Let's get to the final segment of the show today.

[00:44:38] Let's talk about Luis Castillo. I did not think we would be doing a starting pitcher evaluation this early into the season because it's been not long enough. I don't, I really think the sample size still has plenty of time to get bigger and for us to give, I'd say, a better evaluation. But Luis Castillo and his start today had us thinking about what to talk about. And to be honest, Luis has still not looked like himself to start this season.

[00:45:07] And I'm not even saying based off of what he did last year, I'm saying his stuff is down from an already down year that was last year. And that part I find very concerning. You could start a lot of different ways with this. If you want to talk about just the pure stuff, this fastball velo is down a whole mile an hour. I know it's April and often Luis's velo picks up as the weather gets warmer and the season moves on.

[00:45:33] But that doesn't feel like a great sign where he's got his fastball velo, again, a whole mile an hour down from where it was a season ago. And his velocity last year was already down a mile plus per hour from his 2023 season. I would have been fine if he just started at where he was last year and then worried about working up. But now he's starting behind where he was from last season. And it's not just the fastball velo.

[00:46:00] His whiff rates are already down from a down whiff rate season last year. His chase rates are down from a down chase rates season last year. His walk rate is way up. So he's not getting the swings and misses. And he's not throwing as many quality pitches to get guys to swing at when they're outside the strike zone. Which has made him just a less valuable pitcher. You look at the combination of someone with a 19% strikeout rate and a 10.5% walk rate.

[00:46:29] That's kind of hard to make do with. And I was hoping, as I'm typing out a lot of these numbers that I had, these were before his start today. And I was hoping his start today would be a step in the right direction. That a lot of these numbers would be skewed back in the right direction. And we had some sort of positive thing to talk about. But today he gave up 10 hits in 5 innings and allowed 3 runs. So I just couldn't do that. He got hit around. Still walked 2 batters. It still wasn't great for Castillo today.

[00:46:59] No. And, well there's a couple, again there's still a few different ways you could go with this. It's early but he's still got this lefty righty issue. This is one of the other things I wanted to kind of pinpoint here. We talked about last year he had a real lefty problem. Lefties hit him hard. It was kind of like the Miller-Woo thing in their rookie year. Where he was good against righties, lefties hit him. So far this year it's been the same story. He hasn't had that much of an issue against right-handed bats.

[00:47:29] But the lefties are OPSing over 800 against him. And now that he doesn't throw that changeup as much anymore, again it does make it a little harder to get lefties out. His changeup usage, by the way, keeps going down year over year. Since he's gotten to Seattle, it's decreased and decreased and decreased just a little bit as years have gone on. Right now, that changeup usage is down at 11%. When that was at his best, and when his changeup was his primary pitch,

[00:47:58] he was throwing that thing 30% of the time. But when he's throwing it that little these days, again, what's pretty much a career-low clip, not only does that say that Luis Castillo and the Mariners pitching staff understand that the pitch has not been very effective, but it almost makes me feel like Luis doesn't have a ton of confidence in the pitch anymore. Because he really, really relies on his fastballs these days,

[00:48:26] on his two fastballs, to be the backbone of his outings. But his fastballs are also down a whole mile an hour, velo-wise. So, fastball velo's down, changeup usage way down, maybe he's lacking some confidence in it, not throwing strikes. Again, it's early, but there's a lot of fairly concerning signs here. And versus lefties especially, his four-seamer, that's the highest use of any pitch he has against any handiness.

[00:48:56] He throws his four-seamer now 56% of the time against lefties, which is an abnormally high amount. I think the only person you would see throw a pitch, one single pitch that much against a certain handiness in this rotation, is Brian Wu, because that pitch is such a unicorn and so good. And Castillo's fastball net, while he's been in Seattle, has been very good. With the lower velocity, it loses a little bit of effectiveness. He's been able to get some more ground balls this season,

[00:49:26] but that's really, I think, the only positive step he's taken this year, as opposed to his former years as well. The changeup, by the way, for the numbers, if you're curious, Lyle, against lefties, he threw it about 25% of the time last year against lefties. This year, it's 17.5% so far. Small sample, but it is noticeably down in that stance. Yeah. And again, just to contextualize it for people.

[00:49:53] So against lefties, it's down, because it's gone from 25% to 17%, like you just said. But overall, it's gone down as well, because the overall numbers are what I read, and he is overall throwing that changeup just 11% of the time. Yeah. It's not a lot. I will say most of the drop-off comes against lefties, because he threw it 5% of the time last year against righties, and then he threw it 6% of the time this year against righties. Uh-huh. So that's where most of the difference is. But it does come back to your point that when you don't throw that pitch as much,

[00:50:22] you don't have a good feel for it, and you don't feel as much confidence throwing it. And he would rather rely upon his slider and his fastball to get guys out, but it just hasn't happened so far this year. No. And the issue is, is that the way Luis Castillo is pitching right now, he's arguably pitching worse than what I think people think Emerson Hancock does in the rotation. It's not a good platform, I'd say, to be on for him. Especially since the Mariners are paying him all this money,

[00:50:51] and we know Luis is a bulldog out there on the mound, and we're trying to find a way to get him to find some of that spark he had not even two years ago in this rotation. I don't know if it's just age. I don't know if the wear and tear of his arm is catching up to him, and the loss in fastball velocity keys a lot of this. But I think the Mariners want to find a solution,

[00:51:14] because this version of Luis Castillo is unfortunately not what they really need to succeed this season. They need him to be better. Emerson Hancock goes out there and goes five innings, two runs again in his next start against the Red Sox. You know, there's a lot of people out there that won't want to hear it. We'll be fired up for Emerson, because we love to see good Emerson Hancock starts.

[00:51:41] But, you know, I mean, obviously Luis Castillo has some real name brand associated with him, because he's been a star in this game for a long time. But if you did a sort of thing where you extrapolated some numbers, put duct tape over the two names, and showed a bunch of fans, hey, here's player one, here's player two, here's their stat lines over their last X amount of starts. Who are you taking?

[00:52:06] Yeah, Emerson over a two-start stretch would be better than Luis has been in his last three-ish. Which, yeah, like, again, people, not everybody's going to want to hear that, but Emerson doesn't walk, guys. You know, he's gotten the ground balls. So, yeah, it's going to be, again, it's going to be very interesting. This is not me saying Emerson Hancock's going to replace Luis Castillo when Kirby gets back. It's nothing like that.

[00:52:32] This is just me saying, like, Luis Castillo gets more leeway when he struggles, right? And he should, because he's built that up, and that built up the right to have more leeway over time. But we're also saying, when you just look at the results, they just have not been there so far. And I'd be curious to see what the stats look like after today, because baseball reference usually takes a day to update, but it's...

[00:52:58] Emerson Hancock, like you said, after he has another good start, where the two stack up? Because right now, you just look at it from a raw numbers perspective. You don't take into account ballpark factors. You don't take into account luck or anything else that goes into war. What you sit there and watch for 10 hits in five innings and allowing three runs, if the offense regresses a little bit, then that becomes a little bit more important. Great, the Mariners scored a ton of runs today. They should do that as often as possible.

[00:53:28] But as you and I talked about earlier, you look at the names, and you don't feel as confident that over the course of 400 plate appearances, those guys are going to continue to produce offensively. You're going to need better stuff from the guy who has the proven track record in Luis Castillo to go out there and be productive. Yeah. Yeah, that's absolutely right. The only other point I wanted to make on Luis is, this is still a small sample, but I will use it. His two home starts so far, he has a 212 ERA. He's been good at T-Mobile Park.

[00:53:58] About the two starts he made on the road this week on this road trip. It's early, but this once again comes back to the narrative of what is the ceiling of this rotation at home versus on the road? Because Luis Castillo right now is pitching a lot better at home than he is on the road. And you're going to make half your starts on the road. So he's going to have some things to figure out. I know Cincinnati's a tough park for pitchers. I know the AL East is often tough parks for pitchers.

[00:54:29] But, you know, you play with the hand you're dealt and you know you're going to pitch in these locations. These guys have to find some way to be more effective on the road. They just do. Because we know the only guy that wasn't affected by it last year was Wu. The other four guys are going to have to figure out how to pitch on the road. Because otherwise, the stipulation will stay with this rotation throughout the year. Whether or not you like narratives or not, that will be a real narrative. Then on top of that, we spend so much time talking about trades.

[00:54:58] How valuable are your pitchers in trades? Whether it be Logan Gilbert and he hypothetically doesn't want to sign an extension and you want to trade him and get value back for him. Or when Luis Castillo's no trade clause expires and you want to offload that money from the books. Well, if teams don't believe your pitchers are actually very good because of where they pitch, that's not good. That really kills any sort of return you get back for those guys when you're trying to just deal with other teams. It's like trading for a hitter from the Colorado Rockies.

[00:55:28] How good are you in somewhere that's not inflated for your specialty? That's why I was always skeptical about the whole Trevor Story free agent thing. That was back before we ever started the podcast. But, you know, Trevor Story had some years where WRC+, which is park adjusted, weren't that high despite his numbers being inflated, the basic numbers. And we've seen some of that translate in Boston. So, it's interesting. Yeah, if you're going to look at the Mariners' entire rotation,

[00:55:56] they have an ERA of 4, but it's still 12% worse than league average. And that's because that's where they pitch. Yeah. That's what it takes into consideration. That's what other teams are looking at when they evaluate these arms and look at it. I think that's a long roundabout way of saying most of the Mariners' rotation now needs to pitch better. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because we hold them to a very high standard, and I'm sure they hold themselves to a very high standard as well. And it's been very clear over the years that that's what they can do.

[00:56:25] Well, it's not been perfect. We expected a little bit of regression this year, and it showed. So, I'm sure they're expecting to turn it around. Yeah. And the team has incredibly high standards in them because they said, we don't need to do anything essentially this offseason. We're going to pitch and pitch while in the bullpen and win a lot of close games, and that'll be that. Well, that is putting a lot of pressure on your rotation. Yep. A lot of it. Yep. Speaking of offense, last thing before we wrap up the pod, Ronald Acuna's a Mariner.

[00:56:54] Oh, yes! Yes! That is what I meant to talk about, Lyle. Thank you. You remembered it. Yeah. Good. He's a Mariner. Who would have thought the years 2025 and Jared Kelnick may have forced Ronald Acuna onto the Mariners? You have some galaxy brain about this, don't you? So, hear me out.

[00:57:18] If you want to put your tinfoil hat on and think about this just total like 3,000 IQ idea that I think Jerry DiPoto might have cooked up here when he got rid of Jared Kelnick. So, Jared Kelnick clearly had a tough end to his Mariner's career. He broke his foot kicking a cooler. He gets salary dumped to the Braves. But what I don't think we realized, Lyle, is that Jerry DiPoto, when he trades Jared Kelnick,

[00:57:47] trades him to the Braves, and he's like, okay, how are we going to cook something up to the future? How is this going to make us better? Because clearly this trade on paper, trading him to the Braves, does not make us better. Does it? So, how are we going to do this? Well, I'm sending Jared Kelnick as a plant to the Atlanta Braves to sour their relationship with their star player, Ronald Acuna, coming off an MVP season, and he's going to force a trade to the Seattle Mariners years later.

[00:58:18] Jared Kelnick is going to have Ronald Acuna so pissed off that Ronald Acuna is going to say, I'd rather play in Seattle than Atlanta. Yes. Got to give the man credit, Lyle. Well, that would be chess, not checkers. Would you like to fill people in who aren't as online? Oh, we should probably do that. Yeah, I just realized. All right. So, for those who just heard that and think that's totally out of left field, this weekend,

[00:58:48] Jared Kelnick hit a ball off the wall in Atlanta. He pimped the bat flip and he thought it was a home run. I was going to say he pimped the home run, but it wasn't a home run. So, he's walking down the first baseline and he thinks it's gone and then it hits off the wall. So, then he starts running hard and he ends up getting thrown out at second base because he wasn't running all the way through. And it's been a tough start for Jared, too. He's hitting a buck 75, not off to a hot start, all that stuff. So, anyway, that happens.

[00:59:18] Brian Snicker, the Braves manager, was asked about it after Saturday's game and he kind of just brushed it aside. He said, like, do I really need to address it? Like, whatever. Like, again, he didn't spend a lot of time talking about it. And that quote got put out there by Mark Bowman of MLB.com, who's the Braves beat reporter. He posted what Brian Snicker said in response to what happened with Kelnick.

[00:59:43] Well, Sunday morning, Ronald Acuna hops on Twitter, responds to Mark Bowman's tweet and says, If this had been me, I would have been taken out of the game. And if you go click on the account, yes, that is Ronald Acuna's actual Twitter account. Now, the tweet got deleted and as TJ very, very astutely pointed out,

[01:00:08] I'm sure Ronald Acuna's agent sprinted to that clubhouse as fast as humanly possible to tell Ronald Acuna to take that tweet down. And he took it down. However, what's said has been said. There's been issues between Acuna and the Braves in the past starting to all kind of boil over. And you know what? He needs a fresh start. And what better place than to get as far away from Atlanta as you possibly can in the game of baseball and go to Seattle?

[01:00:38] Which, by the way, a team that needs a right fielder. As I said on social media. Not just right fielder's, cost-controlled right fielder's, Lyle. And he, well, he's cost-controlled. Dude, that contract. So I looked it up here on Sunday because obviously I was actually delusional enough to waste enough time on this and start looking at Acuna's contract. And I was just trying to remember, look, he, I wanted to remember that he signed an awful contract,

[01:01:08] which I obviously knew, the 8 for 100, but I wanted to remember just how bad it was. Oh my God. Going and looking on SpowTrack and reading the year by year, it's worse than you even remember. Ronald Acuna has this contract go through this year and next year. So 2025 and 2026. Then there are two club options each of the following two years in 2027 and 2028.

[01:01:34] So he has four years of team control because whoever he's with, whether it's the Braves or anyone else, is obviously picking up those club options. You're not letting Ronald Acuna walk early. Each of the next four years, Ronald Acuna is making $17 million. That is a million and a half more dollars than Mitch Hanegar is making for the Mariners this year. A guy that the Mariners almost kept on this roster and played.

[01:02:03] That's the slight amount more that MVP Ronald Acuna is making each of the next four seasons. And Mitch's money comes off the books after this season. I'm thinking, well, if the budget will be $15 million again, and then you take 15 and a half of Mitch Hanegar off, that's $30 and a half million. I think that works. Oh yeah. I think they can afford that.

[01:02:34] Woo. Ronnie. Ronnie. Braves. Whatever you want. Pack your bags, Ronnie. You're coming to Seattle. Yeah. Like, I don't think much of the baseball world was expecting to see that on a Sunday morning. I didn't even know Ronald Acuna Jr. had a Twitter account. Well, you do now. Yeah. I don't think he's going to be tweeting that much more.

[01:03:03] And I will say, Acuna is actually right about what he tweeted because in 2019, he did something very similar where he did not run out a ball that was off the wall. He thought it was gone, didn't go out, and he got yanked out of the game by Brian Snicker. So he's not wrong. But if you're mad about it, if you're mad about it, Ronald, like I said on social media, I'll say it right here. We here at the Marine Layer Podcast make an official stamp. We're making an official stamp right here.

[01:03:32] This is our official release. You are welcome to Seattle with open arms. And if you come here, you can do whatever you want. Whatever you want. You want to jog out balls in the gap? Like, do what you want to do, buddy. Play the game however you want. I mean, we had Miles Mastroboni leading off game 21 of the year this weekend.

[01:03:57] Like, that and that Jared Kellnick was officially a Mariners plant in the Braves organization. Yes. Yes, he is. Jerry knew what he was doing. Jerry knew what he was doing all along. The sour relationship between Jared and the org was actually manufactured. All for Ronald Acuna. Well, that's funny. I love a good tinfoil hat moment. That's fun. Love it. But baseball needs so much more of this stuff, dude. You know why people love the NBA? Because there's all this ridiculous drama.

[01:04:27] If we had like two or three of these stories a week in baseball, like the NBA, baseball's popularity would be soaring, even more than it is right now. Ronald Acuna, if you need a comparison, pulled up what usually what Kevin Durant does. That's usually how Kevin Durant is online. Uh-huh. Need more of it. Which, you know what? He can tweet whatever he wants if he's here in Seattle. Yes, he can. Again, though, that contract of his is a legit disaster.

[01:04:54] I mean, there's a guy who came up the same year as him that is a glorified DH now making $765 million. Wants him. Well, yeah. I figured that was enough of a description for people, but yes. All right. Ronald Acuna's a mariner. So that's how we're going to wrap this show up. Anyway, you guys want to ask any questions about Ronald Acuna? Well, we do a mailbag every week now. You can send us some questions. We talked about Ozzy Albies last week because somebody sent us an Ozzy question. We can certainly talk about Ronald. It's up to you guys.

[01:05:24] Open floor. Anyway, that just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to find all of our stuff, it's all in one spot now, you guys. MarineLayerPod.com. That's our official website. Everything's there. Audio episodes. Video episodes. Go download. Go rate and review. Go hit subscribe on YouTube. Pretty please. And go get some merch. There was a ton of people at the live show this weekend, you guys, that had merch. It was so cool. We just sent a bunch of our merch out to the players that they just got over the last week. People are repping it.

[01:05:54] It's awesome. So go get some of yours over at our website. MarineLayerPod.com. Again, our Patreon's over at our website too. It's all there. Go check it out. And then go follow us everywhere on social media at MarineLayerPod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.