Episode 245: George Kirby Returns + Why Is The Discourse Around Julio Rodriguez So Polarizing? (Mailbag)

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 245 of the Marine Layer Podcast. It's a mailbag episode, so we'll open it up and answer your guys' best listener questions. We have a George Kirby debut to talk about as he was back on the bump for Game 1 against the Astros. We'll highlight a standout Mariners minor leaguer when we go down on the farm. And we have a Russell Wilson umpire of the week.

[00:00:20] Make sure to stay on top of all of our stuff, you guys. And if you want to do that, go right over to our website, marinelayerpod.com. You can find everything from our merch to our Patreon, which we'd love to have you get involved with. All our episodes are there. All our live show schedule updates are there. And if you're listening, it is not too late to show up on Saturday for our next live show, Saturday, May 24th, 12pm. Queen Anne Beer Hall. We would love to have you there. Live show starts at 12pm. Watch parties at 1pm.

[00:00:48] We're going to have a bunch of trivia, giveaways, fan questions. Again, it's going to be a blast, you guys. So if you're available and you're in the area, come on out. We would love to have you. You can also find us everywhere across social media at Marinelayerpod. 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 Thursday evening, May 22nd. I'm going to have a somewhat hot take that George Kirby's return outing could have gone better. Sure. Yes. It could have gone better. I'm also not going to put very much stock into it, to be fair. So you can just treat it as a normal ass kicking to the Houston Astros.

[00:01:45] Yeah, especially one in Houston, which that happens a lot. Although it's I wouldn't say it's out of question, though, for the Astros team. They mashed in that ballpark. They flashed it up on the on the on the TV broadcast. They have a WRC plus of 117 at home and I think 83 on the road. It's a pretty drastic difference. G. Loud, do you want to know why I think that difference is? Why do we think they have a huge difference of home and road WRC plus? Oh, maybe it has to do with.

[00:02:15] Oh, the Crawford boxes. Yeah, it's almost like those should just be banned. I think some people probably thought you were about to say trash cans. I could have said that I could have. But I went with a real current actual reason. Hmm. So I can make a joke. It's the trash cans, too. Fine. We said it on our season preview episode. It hasn't happened yet.

[00:02:38] But the minute we have to watch Isak Paredes hit a 316 foot home run into the first row of the Crawford boxes is the day that both of us are going to throw a tantrum. Instead of doing that today, though, I believe it was him who lined a ball into the Mariners dugout and Brian Wu. Dude, that was near disaster. Could you imagine on top of a blowout loss, which look, to be fair, the Mariners haven't had many blowout losses this year. It hasn't happened a lot.

[00:03:08] It's not like it's never going to happen. But could you imagine on top of that if somehow Brian Wu had actually gotten seriously injured off that? I wouldn't have been too happy given the direction the ball was hit. And it was not too far away from his knee. Right. And we we see guys get drilled in the knee. And sometimes in the case of, I don't know, Christian Yelich in 2019, he gets he fouls the ball off his knee and breaks his kneecap. That would have been bad. That would have been really bad.

[00:03:38] Brian Wu's on his day off. He's just sitting there chilling in the dugout. I mean, they're probably sitting and talking about what fruit they're going to put up on the dugout railing next. Now, fortunately, he's fine for anybody that didn't see or didn't hear about the update. He's fine. He went down to the clubhouse with a trainer briefly, but I think they just said it was like a bruise he got on his leg. And speaking of injuries, before we get to Kirby, Lyle, Julio was scratched from the lineup today on Thursday.

[00:04:08] But it sounds like he's going to be fine. He's day to day with back tightness. I was like, well, sounds like the rest of us. I sometimes wake up with a stiff back and I'm like, well, I just don't have it today. Can you imagine like trying to sit with a stiff back in podcast? It'd be like, oh, I got to stretch. Yeah, unpleasant. Dude, we're 27. You can't be talking about stiff backs. He's 20. He's 24. He's a professional baseball player.

[00:04:35] You're telling me you have never woken up with a stiff back? I don't know about never. It doesn't happen a lot. Yeah, it doesn't happen a lot yet. I've definitely woken up with a stiff neck. I guess that's more common because anybody could sleep funny one night. So that's normal. So I go wake up and I show up to the ballpark and I'm like, wow, I just can't do interviews today. My neck is locked. I'm day to day. Put me on the aisle. You're staying home.

[00:05:06] Yeah. So sometimes, dog, sometimes you just have no choice. Fine. But you will be publicly scrutinized on this podcast if you do that. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. Listen, we're public figures now. I know nothing that you or I can do is out of the public light. For example, you can't even just go through a harmless first pitch at a minor league baseball game without just getting ripped to shreds on the internet. So, you know, I got to wear it. I understand what the business is. I can take it. Yeah. Well, maybe don't spike it next time.

[00:05:36] Whoa. Sorry. I'm going to say it again. I didn't spike it. Didn't make it all the way there. There's a difference. Fine. Throw a strike next time. How about that? Let's talk about someone who's actually good at pitching, not me. And that's George Kirby. He comes back today. I thought the stuff looked fine. He was throwing hard. His fastball got up to 98 miles an hour. He didn't finish four innings. He threw a little bit over 70 pitches.

[00:06:03] There's a couple of, you know, issues with Kirby's starts that, you know, it popped. The things that usually hurt George Kirby kind of popped up into this first start. To start off, Lyle, I mean, he's not all the way stretched out. So you could see there at the end, he's running out of gas a little bit. You could see it with his pitch selection there at the end. He threw 17 of his final 24 pitches were all fastballs of some sort. Wasn't throwing any breaking balls in that final section. And that's what knocked him out of the game. He wasn't getting a ton of swing and miss.

[00:06:33] He was leaving the ball out over the plate a little bit too much. And even despite that, I mean, he walked a dude in his short outing. He hit two different batters, I believe. So it wasn't a great combination of the stuff that George Kirby usually does really well. And the Astros, who hit really well at home, they lit him up. And that's my major takeaway from it. It's not like anything groundbreaking in someone's first start back who didn't have a spring training.

[00:07:00] But it wasn't perfect, to say the least. No, but like Goldie said it on the broadcast, and I'm with him. It's just hard to put too much emphasis on this start. It's your first start back. It was a little less than five innings. You're on a 75 pitch limit. Like you said, no real buildup from a full spring training. He may take a tiny little bit of time to get built back up, even healthy on the big league roster.

[00:07:29] It's not crazy to say that. Again, like most of these guys have had weeks and weeks extra to lean into this stuff. Kirby hasn't. So, look, if you want actual takeaways from this start, everything you said is totally fair. I would also say the last inning definitely got away from him. The other runs he was giving up before that, it wasn't like he was getting lit up. There was a couple of really soft singles.

[00:07:58] He barely brushed Peña on an 0-2 pitch that led to a hit-by-pitch. There were some things like that where, like, it was just little things that kind of got him. Again, some bad luck, soft hit balls, an 0-2 hit-by-pitch that barely got him. Some things like that, at least early on. Again, that fifth inning, you could tell this is where he needs more buildup. Because in the fifth inning, it wasn't as smooth. But the fact he's throwing hard and the fact he's using all of his pitches, I think that's a perfectly fine sign.

[00:08:28] It would be really helpful to the baseball savant gods to label his outing correctly. I'm doing some, like, surgery on his. You go pull up baseball savant and you pull up the game. You can look at his pitch breakdown and how many swings and misses he got on every pitch. I think all of his pitches were labeled wrong. The entire outing. They said he was throwing his cutter. He was not throwing his cutter. He doesn't throw a cutter. He throws a slider. They said he was throwing a change-up. Doesn't throw a change-up.

[00:08:57] I'm like, alright, I'm assuming that's his splitter. I couldn't tell if they correctly labeled it was fastball or sinker that he was throwing. It was a little messy. So trying to dive into that and actually look. Again, it was overall fine. He didn't get a ton of swing and miss. Kirby's not the ultimate swing and miss guy. It can happen, but it's not all the time. I will say Yiner Diaz helped himself out. Helped Kirby out a lot in the swing and miss category.

[00:09:24] Yiner Diaz is first percentile in swing and miss. He swings at 43% of the pitches outside the strike zone. 43%. He would have swung at my first pitch. I believe that. Nope. Yes, he would have. No, it would have hit him. He would have swung over and it would have hit him in the back foot. It would have been a foul ball. Well, no. Actually, no. It would have been a strike. I don't believe you, but sure.

[00:09:53] He would have swung and miss at that pitch. I fully 100% believe it. So if he's swinging and missing at that, is he taking my pitch into the right center field seats? Because it was an actual strike and it was straight. No, he would have swung and missed at that one too. He's been bad. He's had a bad start to the year. A lot of that Astros team has. It's like Jay Buhner, I think, in the booth was joking that he could get Diaz to swing and miss at something right now. That doesn't sound like Jay Buhner at all.

[00:10:22] Well, once the game got out of hand, they needed to talk about something else. So it was that. It was the fact that Jay has never kept scoring his life. And then Goldie's like, look, man, that's what everyone else says before they start keeping score. So you could start at some point. So they were talking about all sorts of different things. So yeah, the game got out of hand. Game one sucked. We're hoping the rest of the weekend is better. We hope to kick the Astros ass on Saturday.

[00:10:46] And everyone has a blast out at Queer Neon Beer Hall for a noon live show and a one o'clock watch party. So we're manifesting that to the baseball gods. I will also say that. Yes, we are. I will also say this. The most important thing from George Kirby's start tonight. He left the game healthy. He's fine. The fact, again, he was throwing upper 90s and is perfectly fine and scheduled to make his next start. That is what's most important here.

[00:11:14] Again, would it have been nice if he had gone five and one in his debut? Sure. But you know what? I'm just not going to sweat this one. I know the Mariners have not played the cleanest baseball this week. The White Sox series was not pretty. Game one in Houston was not pretty, at least so far. I'm not saying it's been the greatest Monday through Thursday of baseball of all time in terms of fun watches. But I'm just not going to lose sleep over George Kirby having one rocky start his first game back.

[00:11:44] Yes, you're right that he got hit hard toward the end. And that, yeah, it wasn't his best outing. But I wasn't expecting it to be. And on top of that, what else we got out of it? Bryce sounded like he was getting back up on a mound tomorrow, which is great. And he was talking about it on the Root broadcast. Logan was there with a big smile on his face. Yeah. That should make everyone feel great. And Logan's supposed to throw a sim game tomorrow, too, on Friday when you're listening to this.

[00:12:13] So Logan and Bryce are absolutely trending in the right direction. Kirby's back and healthy. Luis was plenty busy today trying to put a banana right in Bryce's wheelhouse in the middle of that interview. Yeah, it was moving the mic up into his mouth. It's like, come on, you got to talk into the mic. I will just say, though, and I say this with the utmost respect to our guys, Emerson Hancock and Logan Evans, who have done a really good job in this Mariners rotation.

[00:12:36] The four, like, I'm not including Luis Castillo in this since he's, like, he's traded for and comes in and is significantly older than all these other guys. The stuff that, you know, the core four have at their best is really hard to match in this rotation. Like, it was pretty evident, like, in the first inning today, my takeaway watching George Kirby, it's like, shit, this is, like, so much different. It's just, like, it's so much better than what else you have.

[00:13:08] 98 with pinpoint command is hard to find. What did Pitching Ninja tell us about George Kirby when he's at his best? This is, like, he hasn't gotten to this point yet, but when he's at his best, this is Greg Maddox. Nobody else does this. I missed it a lot. That's what I realized. I missed it a lot. We got so spoiled. We got so spoiled last year watching these guys go out there every single time and watch it, and you just, you know, you sort of get used to it. It was nice to see him back out there. Yeah, it was. So, I think he's going to be totally fine. I'm not too worried. Again, the early runs he gave up were some bad luck.

[00:13:37] Not that he's supposed to be hitting batters 0-2, but it was so, so, like, minimal. Again, it barely grazed him. Again, two soft hit singles. I really didn't think he threw the ball all that badly until the last inning where he gave up a few hard hit balls there in the fifth, or fourth, sorry. But, yeah, I think most importantly, he's just back on the mound. Yeah. Definitely the most important thing. Yeah. And he didn't get no swing and miss either. He got nine whiffs. It's not overpowering, but that's about normal.

[00:14:06] Yeah, about, yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. And like you said, Kirby's also not the ultimate swing and miss guy, which is fine. But I am excited to see. Thank you, Yannert. Yeah. But I am excited to see what the rest of his year looks like, because speaking of Aaron Goldsmith, when he was on our show with us here on the podcast back in March, which if you haven't listened to that, you still can. Where he said, who do I think is going to take the jump this year? He said, I think it's Kirby.

[00:14:32] I think this is the year you see him take the jump where he's got all these tools and you've seen him have really good seasons. Again, George Kirby has had multiple five win seasons by fan graphs as a pitcher. But to hear Goldie say, yeah, he can go from that to actually taking another step up. Kirby's not going to win the Cy Young this year because he's just missed too much time early in the year. But if it's Cy Young level stuff, that is the definition of what George Kirby taking a step forward would be.

[00:15:00] And if he stays healthy, he's going to have more gas in the tank in August and September than the other guys will. Right. You could say that for him and Logan at this point. Right. So if they stay healthy, you're not getting, hey, it's like the final 185 to 208, say, innings of Logan Gilbert last year. You're getting innings 110 to 130, 140 at that point. And those are like, you know, you're right smack in the middle of the season at that point. Right.

[00:15:27] So again, if anybody was panicking watching Kirby's first outing here, don't. Just don't. He's going to be fine. Yeah. Ready for the mailbag? I am. After we take a quick pause, let's talk to you guys about our friends over at Pogaccia's Pub 85. You hear us say it all the time and we'll continue to say it. It is an awesome spot to go hang out with you guys or to go hang out, you guys.

[00:15:49] If you want to go plan an outing with your friends, whether you want to watch some games where there's 20 TVs in the restaurant or you want to just have some good food or play some darts. That's all there. And if you want happy hour drinks, that's your spot because it's 2 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Those are your happy hours. You guys, they've got long happy hours with great deals featuring drinks that are three and four dollars. Three and four dollars. So, again, all of that is over at Pogaccia's Pub 85 in Kirkland.

[00:16:16] The best piece of financial advice I've ever received is to pay yourself first. That's why now with every paycheck I receive, I start by putting a little bit away for those rainy days. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns recommends a diversified portfolio that can help you weather all of the market's ups and downs.

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[00:17:12] View important disclosures at acorns.com slash heartbreak. First up on the mailbag, though, actually, before we get to this first question, I will note, want to shout out to all of our Patreon members for some great mailbag questions this week. If you submitted a question to us on YouTube, on Instagram, fantastic. Awesome. But we're nearly full this week on Patreon questions. And that's what happens when the Patreon members have stuff to ask. So I will say to all the listeners who want their questions answered on this podcast,

[00:17:41] the best way to get your questions answered is to go over to our Patreon page, check out what we have to offer. And you get priority if you become a Patreon member for mailbag questions. So shout out to all our Patreon members. They sent us some great questions this week. So let's start out with Corey. Corey, shout out to Corey. He asks, so I know this will never happen, but we can dream. So I'll ask it anyway. What would you guys be comfortable giving up for Paul Skeens?

[00:18:09] Yeah, this has been in the news over the last week or two, hasn't it? The fact that there is already talks that the Pirates have to trade Paul Skeens now to try to preserve his value and get a haul back because they're not going to win in a five-year window with them. And because they realize they could get a generational package back for them. Right. So what is Trader Jerry going to cook up? Well, what if you if you look at what Paul Skeens have you has, he has four and a half years of control left.

[00:18:37] He's the arguably the best pitcher in baseball and he's 23 years old. What is that worth? What would you be comfortable giving up for him? Oh, I've said it since the end of last year. He is the best pitcher in baseball. I don't care that he was a rookie last year. By the end of last year, he was the best pitcher in baseball. So what would I give up? All right.

[00:18:59] Let's just let's just say this for everybody listening before people want to freak out or start firing off haymakers, whether it's comments or crazy, ridiculous trades. Let's just start with this. Paul Skeens is not getting traded. He's not getting traded. However, we can have some fun, right? Like we can cook up some fun trade packages. Why not? One, we got asked the question. And two, it's a fun exercise. Like, again, why not? For a trade like this, I did want to comp.

[00:19:28] I did want I did want something to base this off of. And I really think there was only one trade in Major League history you can compare this to. That's the one. So one Soto's first trade from the Nationals to the Padres. The package for Juan Soto, if you forget, it was Juan Soto and Luke Voigt or Josh Bell. Go into the. One of those two. It was a throw in with Juan Soto. Essentially. Doesn't matter. Irrelevant to this point.

[00:19:54] Anyway, the package back to the Nationals in that deal was McKenzie Gore, James Wood, CJ Abrams, Robert Hassel, and Harleen Susana. Five prospects. Let me list you where those prospects ranked at some point in their career. McKenzie Gore. He is carving up this year. Former top 10 prospect. James Wood. In the big leagues this year. Playing extremely well. Former top 10 prospect.

[00:20:23] CJ Abrams. Also playing extremely well in the big leagues this year. Former top 10 prospect. Robert Hassel. At his peak. Was a top 40 prospect. Harleen Susana. I don't think he's ranked. But he throws well over 100 miles an hour. And that's the fifth prospect in the deal. At one point Susana was ranked. But he doesn't throw any strikes. So that may have knocked his value down a little bit.

[00:20:50] And remember this package was for two and a half years of Juan Soto. If we're going to take Corey's scenario. Paul Skeens right now has four and a half years of control. Yeah. James Wood. Sorry. Josh Bell was the other player in that trade. Okay. So that was the other guy. Now even though the four and a half years for Skeens is a real thing. I physically don't think a team would trade a package more than this. I think that would be impossible.

[00:21:21] You think? I think Paul Skeens' value you could argue. And I know it sounds crazy. Is higher than what Juan Soto's was at the point of this trade. But I don't think a team would give it up. I don't know. For four and a half years of control of Paul Skeens. So how do you make up the two extra years? You would have to throw a big leaguer in there, right? Probably. Now let me say this. This totally goes against anything Jerry DiPoto and Justin Hollander have preached.

[00:21:49] And have shown the fan base and the rest of baseball that they would do. They do not make crazy, over-the-top, all-in moves like this. They just don't. Even the Luis Castillo trade where they gave up real prospects. That was nothing compared to this. That doesn't hold a candle to what the Paul Skeens trade would cost. What GMs around baseball would do it? I mean, you're talking like if A.J. Preller is still at a farm system. He would do it. Like he would give up anything.

[00:22:16] So there are teams that would offer that level of a package, if not a little bit more. But, or were you going to say something? I was going to say, if we're creating like this hypothetical for a four-year, a four-and-a-half-year control of Paul Skeens, it would be that package. And if you somehow got the rookie of the year version of Jackson Merrill, or close to rookie of the year version of Jackson Merrill, like 21-year-old everyday center field of Jackson Merrill, and added it to that group,

[00:22:47] and then traded him as well. Like that's four-and-a-half years of value. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're the Mariners, and you were even thinking about this, or tried to entertain this, I would probably say every prospect you like, and are attached to right now as a fan listening to this episode, they are going to be in that package for Paul Skeens. All of them. It's going to be four of your position prospects, and then one of the two pitchers you picked in the top two rounds last year. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:17] Yep. But whatever combination the Pirates would want, that would be it. Right. And that is a haul-and-a-half. Now, it's for a generational pitcher, who people, including Jeff Passan, have already said, I think he is on track to go to the Hall of Fame already. So, you know, you understand what you're getting back in the trade, but that doesn't mean a team's going to trade its entire farm system either.

[00:23:46] Also, Paul Skeens has less control than he should right now. Because he won Rookie of the Year, he gets to free agency one year faster. So for fans or listeners who don't know this, they added a new rule once the last CBA got changed, where in order to try and avoid service time manipulation, if a player wins Rookie of the Year and is called up after that, I believe, April 15th date, that if that happens,

[00:24:15] they end up getting to free agency a year faster, a.k.a. they forfeit a year of service time. And because Paul Skeens got called up after that date and won Rookie of the Year, he gets one less year of service time. Now, if you call a guy up on opening day and they win Rookie of the Year, like before that April 15th date, the team gets a draft pick. So, for example, Julio won Rookie of the Year in 2022. He was on the opening day roster. He wins the award. The Mariners get Johnny Farmello. Say that worked out.

[00:24:45] The Pirates decided to try to keep Paul Skeens down for as long as possible last year. Eventually called him up. He was so good he won Rookie of the Year. And then the Pirates lost a year of control. Playing dangerous games. Yeah. I will bet you almost anything, by the way, that's why Bubba Chandler's not in the big leagues right now, who is now the top pitching prospect in baseball, who is also a Pittsburgh Pirate. I would bet you almost anything the reason the Pirates have not called him up yet is for that exact reason,

[00:25:14] to try and avoid him winning Rookie of the Year and going on a surge. Because he's been dominating in AAA. Now, some of you might ask, guys, why wouldn't the Mariners just trade a starter back to the Pirates in this situation? Because those are your most valuable assets. You would give up significantly less prospect capital if, say, you traded Brian Wu, who I believe is on the exact same service clock right now as Paul Skeens, back to the Pirates. For Skeens, you throw in a couple of your top prospects with Wu to make that trade happen. Then I would ask the question,

[00:25:44] why would the team trade away a young, cost-controlled, but soon-to-be expensive young starter away just to get one back? Makes no sense. Right. At that point, just keep Paul Skeens. Because, love Brian Wu. Paul Skeens clears Brian Wu pretty easily. He clears everybody, so yes. Yeah, exactly. So why would you do, you wouldn't do that, for example. So, it would have to be prospects. Right. It'd have to be your best prospects.

[00:26:14] All of them. So, again, look at those top 30 prospects for the Mariners. Look at Pipeline. Look at, actually, before even Pipeline, look over at our friends at Just Baseball, because RM does an awesome job with the list every year, and he breaks it down really well. So, if you want to read prospect stuff, you should absolutely go read it over at JustBaseball.com. But, any of those top prospect lists you're going to look at, those guys that you're attached to, say goodbye to all of them if you're going to trade for Paul Skeens, because that's what it's going to take. Yeah. Fun idea, though.

[00:26:43] Thank you, Corey, for the question. Yeah. I started it by saying this. I will bookend it again by saying this, so it cannot possibly be lost in translation for anybody listening. Paul Skeens is not getting traded, and the Mariners are not trading for Paul Skeens. This is just a fun exercise that we wanted to go through, because Corey asked a really good question, and it was fun. It was fun to think through it. So, you're putting it on the thumbnail? Yes. If you're watching on YouTube, the thumbnail absolutely says,

[00:27:12] Paul Skeens, Mariner? Right. Just to have everybody comment in the replies and rage bait and drive up the engagement. Oh, you don't know what you're talking about. He'll never get traded. You guys are the best. That was a good question. Good question, Corey. That was fun. Speaking of good questions, if anybody wants to see TJ's blood pressure boil, you should stick around for this one, because Xander decides to ask. He said,

[00:27:42] I picked on Lyle last week, it is time to pick on TJ. TJ, start, bench, cut. Adam Frazier, Tommy LaStella, Abe Toro. This was actually refreshingly easy. Thank you, Xander, for the question. I'm starting Adam Frazier. I'm benching Tommy LaStella, and you bet I'm cutting Abe Toro.

[00:28:10] Abe Toro is cut. I think most people are going to disagree with you on this, and say there's no- Because Tommy LaStella's in this question. They cut him after fucking 13 games. That doesn't have anything to do with it. Yes, it does. He's asking about the player themselves, not about how long they stayed on the roster. Yeah, Abe Toro was worse. Lower war in their worst season. I think most people cared about the bats,

[00:28:40] and you know who had the lower OPS? Well, that would be Tommy LaStella. No. Nope. Nope. Abe Toro was worth almost negative one win above replacement in 2022. They kept him on the roster for 109 games. His OPS is 563, and he was on the roster for 109 games. Dude, he can never be traded for back here, because if he does,

[00:29:10] if he does, I'm going to laugh, like I always say, I'm going to laugh my ass off. It's going to be ridiculous content, but you're going to have to walk back so many of the things you say and actually have a conversation with this dude. He's getting cut. It's not, it's literally not even close. You know, this list is almost disrespectful to Adam Frazier, who didn't light the world on fire by any way, by any means. Tommy LaStella and Abe Toro were clearly negative in war. Adam Frazier was worth 1.3 in 2022. Like, it's,

[00:29:39] it's not even close. Yeah, I wouldn't say Frazier was great by any stretches. I don't even know if I'd say he was good, but he was serviceable, I guess. He was below average, which is significantly better than whatever the hell Abe Toro was doing in 2022. What do you call that, Lyle? Triple A? It's funny. It's funny. I think if you had to pick among the fans in a popularity contest between Abe Toro and Tommy LaStella,

[00:30:07] I think Tommy LaStella fucking wins because people have Tommy LaStella jerseys in the ballpark still. I cannot believe- I don't see any Abe Toro jerseys. And that's what I was going to say. I don't think I've ever seen an Abe Toro jersey, although I may have to make you one at some point. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll get one for you for your birthday or the holidays one of these days. I'll have our buddy Stitch God make one of his classic jerseys and make it for you, except your first Stitch God jersey is an Abe Toro jersey.

[00:30:36] I don't know if that- I don't know if I'd hate that or it'd be the sickest thing on earth. Well, all Stitch God's jerseys are so sick, so it would be cool. They are sick, but it would be like the ultimate rage versus, oh, that is actually pretty cool. I mean, you would essentially be wearing it as a bit. Now someone's going to come up to us at the ballpark with an Abe Toro jersey. I don't think so. Are you sure about that?

[00:31:06] There's probably one out there somewhere. How? You asked the same thing with Tommy Lestell. He was on the roster for 12 games. Abe Toro at least made it a calendar year on the roster. Well, more than a calendar year. Abe actually made it- Abe actually had good moments on the Mariners roster. Shockingly enough. He actually had a few walk-offs in 2022, which is kind of wild. Yeah, it is kind of wild,

[00:31:35] given that he literally could not hit the ball. Usually to walk off, you need to hit the ball. I remember during the 18-inning game against the Astros, which we always say was before this podcast ever started. However, we were both sitting together at that game way up in fair territory, up in the fourth deck in right field with a few of our friends. And as we're just sweating it out and stressed as all hell, as those innings are going on and on and on into extras, because eventually I tried to break the ice with TJ.

[00:32:04] I just said to myself, there's been so many strikeouts, and everybody's trying to end it with one swing, and nobody can put a bat to the ball. I just go, you know, I think it's time for Abe. And TJ's like, absolutely fucking not. That was my way of telling Lyle to please shut up. Which, because by the way, if you don't remember, Abe Toro was on the roster for that playoff game in that series. He was on the roster because when Jesse Winker got hurt, they had to replace somebody. And I'm pretty sure that was Abe that was replaced.

[00:32:38] I have no clue how there's Tommy La Stella jerseys in the ballpark. Again, in the last two, two seasons, that being 2024 and so far 2025, we've seen three different ones. I don't know how that's possible, but we've seen multiple La Stella jerseys. I don't know who's buying those, but you know what? It's your money. Shout out to you guys. The last one we ran into that we didn't already know,

[00:33:05] he said he just loves collecting random bad player jerseys. Yeah. Yes, we do. Like, all right. I'm like, you just lived the Coachella jersey life. Exactly. All right. This is our last plea before we move on to the next question. To this point, if somebody out there in the world actually has an Abe Toro jersey or has a friend that has an Abe Toro jersey, I'll even amend the statement. It can be one of the Abe Toro shirts. You know, the jersey shirts where it's a t-shirt,

[00:33:35] but it has the last name on the back. Yeah, sure. Sure. If anybody even has one of those and you plan to be at the ballpark, please, please come find us with the jersey and TJ will be taking a hilarious selfie with you in the jersey. Next question, Lyle, from Eric on Patreon. And Eric's question is, not about Abe Toro, thankfully. Over or under one and a half, over or under one and a half for the number of games

[00:34:04] Dan Wilson gets tossed from this year? This is going to be the shortest mailbag question ever. Still a good question, Eric, but very short. The answer is zero. He's getting kicked out of no games. Dan Wilson is essentially like Eric Wedge. If those of you remember how Eric Wedge was the manager, dude had, from what I remember, very little fire, didn't argue a lot, didn't let his temper get up. Yeah, I don't think Dan's getting kicked out of any games. Dan will get kicked out of one game this year and it's going to be

[00:34:34] on accident. He's going to make one comment to an umpire who that week is probably going to win a Russell Wilson umpire of the week because he hears one thing, probably couldn't even tell what was said from the dugout and then just toss Dan Wilson. And Dan's going to go apologize to him after the game because he's the, he's extremely nice. Yeah. So. Yes. That's what's going to happen. I like the question, Eric. Unfortunately, if you were hoping to see Dan Wilson blow up, I would be very shocked.

[00:35:03] Could use a good base throw. There was a, I think it was Nick who responded underneath to that, who will get to Nick's question here in a little bit, but he responded underneath and said, yeah, there's going to be one thing in September of the Mariners. I couldn't remember if it was either that the Mariners had locked up a playoff spot or they were out of a playoff spot at this point, but Dan's going to like do an ode to Lou and he's going to just randomly out of a break of character, start kicking dirt and throwing bases and cussing out the umpire just, just one time and then go back to normal.

[00:35:33] It could be an ode to Lloyd too. Another former Mariners manager. I could. Yeah. Lloyd knew how to, knew how to get himself tossed ahead of a game. Oh, he did it better than almost anybody. When you're going to get tossed, just like go full throttle. Don't, don't be boring about it. Yeah. I think, I think you got to read the next one for a good reason. I will read the next one because the next one comes from my mom. Shout out to my mom. Barb's question is, what is it with Randy stepping out when he takes pitches? It drives me crazy.

[00:36:03] It's a good question. You can go on this. You had, you had good reasoning. Yeah. So I was going to say, um, I did look this up because I was kind of curious. I was like, I was wondering if there was an answer to this. So I, I, I type it into Google. I was curious because I can't think like now here in 2025 is the first time someone's been pissed that Randy steps out of the box when there's a pitch just like 93 down the middle. It's like, what the heck are you doing, dude? I went on Reddit, you know,

[00:36:33] the all knowing Reddit and actually found an answer to this from a race fan. And the race fan said, uh, his username on Reddit is bill to the E with a two instead of a T O. Anyways, uh, he said Randy at the end of, end of 2022 started doing this. Uh, and then if you go look on any of Randy's stat pages, you'll see that his walk rate went from 7% in 2022 to 12% in 2023. And it's like, huh?

[00:37:01] Why exactly does he do this? So this race fan said he started stepping out because he was trying to force himself when he would try and just take and be patient while staying in the box. He would see good pitches to hit, but already told himself he was going to take and you get a little frustrated about it. So to offset that he would force himself to step out of the box so he wouldn't get frustrated that he just walked, watched a pitch down the middle. And when he was ready to hit, he was ready to hit to go back in the box and he's always looking to swing

[00:37:30] as opposed to just letting the pitches go by. It's more so to the point of like Randy, I think, playing psychological games with himself to help himself take more pitches. It's, I wouldn't say it's unique, but instead of it just looking like Randy being like, meh, like not caring, it does seem like there's some strategy behind it. Yeah, and Randy doesn't do it all the time. It's not like every at-bat he's stepping out of the box

[00:37:59] and taking all these pitches. It's very certain moments and at-bats where he seems to really pick his spots where he wants to do it. He doesn't do it all the time, but I just wonder and believe off of reading that it being Randy's way of every so often he says, all right, let's reset a little bit. Let's check myself a little bit. Let's not get over aggressive in this specific at-bat and make sure I'm seeing pitches. Because again, he doesn't do it every at-bat. It's every now and then.

[00:38:28] So I'm guessing there's times where he just feels like, okay, let's check the ultra-aggressive approach at the door here and make sure I take a couple pitches. And I'll also note that we have not talked to Randy about this. So this is not first-hand information. We did, I did dig this up on the internet. So just, not a primary source. So we would fail this assignment in school. It is interesting that Randy Arrozarena physically steps all the way out

[00:38:58] of the box on these pitches. It is interesting that he doesn't just say to himself before the pitch, all right, I'm going to take it. Where he sells it a little more, where he doesn't pick the bat, or sorry, he still picks the bat up off his shoulders. He still gets fully ready and loads and strides and everything else, but he's just fully accepting before the pitch that he's not going to swing. Because if that was, if that was the case, this wouldn't be a story at all. But it is very noticeable when he does this because he fully steps out of the box when a pitch is thrown. Since he started doing this,

[00:39:27] his walk rate has been 12%, 11%, and now it's 13%. The strategy is working to see more pitches and get on base a little bit more. Yeah, he draws walks. Sometimes he swings and misses a bit, but he draws walks. That's important. Okay, well, that's a good question, Robert. And again, you had us dig this one up because of it. So hopefully people learned something from that. We learned it today when we found out the answer after doing some research online. So yeah, shout out, shout out the question. Or sorry, Barbara,

[00:39:58] shout out the question. Robert's the next question. So shout out your mom for sending a good question in. Robert asks, well, this is right up our wheelhouse. He says, if you were to compare the Marine Layer podcast to Step Brothers, the movie, who's Dale, who's Brennan, and why? I don't really know how to answer this because the whole idea from Step Brothers is those two are peas in a pod and are exactly the same person. Tita and I have a lot in common. I don't know

[00:40:27] if we're exactly Dale and Brennan. I don't think we're having a straight yard fight where we're using a bicycle as a weapon. I will leave it up to you to answer this question since you can recite the movie by heart. So you're going to have to make a decision on this. I mean, you can kind of flip a coin. It's not like one's better behaved than the other or one's calmer than the other. So, all right, like, let's just flip a coin.

[00:40:58] Flip. All right. I'm Brennan, you're Dale. All right, cool. Glad we got that figured out. I wish we had a better answer to this, but I just, unfortunately, for as amped up as I can get and for all the funny things that TJ does, I just, I don't know if we can quite say we're Dale and Brennan. So, I don't know if I have a perfect answer on this one. I wish I had a better one. Maybe because, I don't know, like, Brennan eats nachos

[00:41:27] at the start of the movie where he's microwaving them in his microwave. I did used to eat a lot of those nachos as a kid where you just put the cheese that you buy from the store, like the shredded cheese on chips and you put it in the microwave as a snack. When I was a kid and used to get home from school, I would make that sometimes. So, I guess if you want one Brennan trait that I can relate to it'd be that. That's a good one. Yeah. You used to eat a lot of nachos. Me? Yeah. Yeah, you. Yeah, well, when I was a kid. Or if you see me eat them another time.

[00:41:58] Dude, we were, when we were on the Cape, we'd go to that tavern and we could order the huge plate for like $8 and you ate the whole thing. You're right. Okay, so usually I don't eat a bunch of things like that. However, if a plate of nachos is put in front of me, even to this day, I'll finish, I'll finish the plate. I mean, that was like six years ago at this point. And I would still finish the plate now. But, like if you were going to put out, like make a list

[00:42:27] of guilty pleasure foods that I would eat, I mean PB&Js are always number one every day and always. It is very, very much been talked about on this show at this point. But, if you were to create a few items past that, like nachos isn't that far down the list. So, sure. Pretty good. And that way I can be Brennan. Unfortunately, you don't play the drums so you can't be Dale. No. My dad played the drums though so I can, I'll say it's in the, runs in the family. Did you ever touch his drum set? No. Well, there's no, never been any drums

[00:42:57] in the house. Oh. So, unfortunate. You can't touch the drum set. No. Next question comes from Nick on Patreon. This is a bit of a longer one so I'll try and summarize it. Nick says to Lyle, a Lyle versus TJ challenge. And he notes, I'm closer to Brock and Salk's age who gives Lyle a lot of crap for not knowing things. And I've joined hearing Lyle's reactions to pop culture assignments. But what about the both of you? Especially when it comes to baseball movies.

[00:43:27] So he essentially asks the question how many of these 10 baseball movies have we seen and what's our score out of 10 one point for each movie? The movies are the original. Do it one by one and let's just say if we've seen them or not. Okay. So the first movie, the Bad News Bears, the original one. Seen it? Love it. Yeah. I've seen that one too. The Natural. Seen, oh, you know what? Start to finish.

[00:43:56] I don't know if I've ever seen The Natural in full length. I've seen plenty of parts of it on TV over the years. I don't know if I've actually ever physically sat down and watched it start to finish. So maybe I get half a point for that. I've seen that one. So that's a point for me. Bull Durham. One of the great baseball movies ever. Yep. Seen it. Same. Seen that. Major League One. Of course. How could you not? Mr. Baseball.

[00:44:26] I've seen that one. It's solid. It's not one of baseball's best movies ever. I don't think you've seen this one, right? No. I actually hadn't heard of it until I looked it up. Well, so this was over on Bullpen Banner once when we did one of our trivias, which maybe you guys know this by now, but we do national baseball content too. Over the last few months, we've started it. It's a lot of social media stuff. It's called Bullpen Banter. If you ever want to go check it out, like we're doing trivia with players and stuff like that.

[00:44:55] And the two of us do a bunch of it and things like that. So like we put the link in our bio for most weeks. But yeah, if you want to check it out, we're on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, all that stuff. It's pretty new. Anyway, we did one with baseball movies once. And I asked you if you knew who T-Rex Pennebaker was and you said you had no idea. Well, it makes sense because again, I've never heard of the movie before. Right. So we did a trivia about that about baseball movies. I was like, where's T-Rex Pennebaker rank for you? And you're like, I don't know who that is.

[00:45:24] He was he was a brewer's legend. Next movie, Lyle is eight man out or eight men out. Yes. And I think this is one of baseball's most underrated movies. Really good. And I've never seen it. So I think Field of Dreams is the next one, right? Yes. Well, Field of Dreams is the next one, which I've seen. And you have not sad. Yeah. I was going to say about the two 1919 White Sox movies because eight men out

[00:45:54] and Field of Dreams are obviously about that team. The 1919 White Sox that threw the World Series. Field of Dreams is the much more popular baseball movie. And it's such a fairy tale type story that people love it. But if you actually want to get the nitty gritty of why the White Sox threw that World Series and what went behind it and how they ended up throwing games and then what the court case looked like afterwards and then how they eventually got banned from baseball.

[00:46:24] It's really good. It's not a documentary or anything like that. Like it is a movie, but it's very much based on the results of that 1919 White Sox team. It's really good. So I think it's one of the more underrated movies. We'll have to see it alongside Field of Dreams. Yeah. Got a lot of catching up to do. Right. A League of Their Own. Also one of baseball's best movies in my opinion. Love it. I thought it was really good too. Agreed. Little Big League. Yeah. Little Big League is fun. I've seen that one.

[00:46:55] Although the problem with Little Big League is like any movie watcher, you're supposed to root for the protagonist and the protagonist in that movie is the twins and Billy Haywood, who's a kid managing team. Problem is they go up against the Mariners in the end. Yeah. So you actually have to root against the Mariners as a movie watcher because you're supposed to root for the protagonist with Junior in it and Randy in it and a few others are in it. I think Dave Magadan's in the movie. Those guys. But it's make-believe.

[00:47:24] So, you know, the stats don't really count. Well, that's true. Oh, Lou Piniella's in it. Yeah. I'm not going to make rooting for the Mariners to win a World Series in a movie. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. Instead, Lyle, I'm going to ask you the last one. Rookie of the Year. Shout out Henry Rowan Gardner. Yes, I've seen Rookie of the Year. Yep. All right. I'm at a 7 out of 10 on this. I think I got all of them except for not seeing the natural start to finish. So that's 9.5 out of 10. That's pretty good. It's pretty good.

[00:47:53] There are not many baseball movies I haven't seen. I don't think I've ever seen For the Love of the Game with Kevin Costner, but it's a short list. I've seen most of them. Well, you guys know which ones I haven't seen because they're on this list. Dude, I'm going to tell this story again for the people listening. We literally planned a month in advance to do this cross-country drive from Seattle to the Cape League in one of the two summers that the two of us were broadcast interns in the Cape Cod League when we

[00:48:23] were in the summer after our sophomore and junior years at Arizona State, and we did this really awesome internship. You had to get your car out there. You had to drive cross-country. I originally said I was not going to drive across the country. It sounded awful, but then we planned out all these cool things to do, so we planned stuff out, and we did it. Somehow, we planned to go see The Field of Dreams. You knew a month in advance we were making this road trip. You'd never seen the movie in your life at the point where you're 21 years old, which I don't know how at that point, and then in the month's time we had leading up to going to see The Field.

[00:48:53] You still didn't see the movie, and you still haven't seen it now. I was watching Game of Thrones. What can I say? So did I. You got me to binge watch Game of Thrones in a freaking month before we made that cross-country drive, and I did it. I binged through that show like crazy. I was watching episodes on episodes a night. It was ridiculous the pace I watched it through, and got through it the night before we started the drive. The last episode when

[00:49:24] Bran becomes the king of Westeros, which, sorry, spoiler, if you haven't seen Game of Thrones by now. Stupidest fucking thing ever. Okay. I finished that episode the night before we got on the drive, and you could not carve out two hours at any point in a month to watch Field of Dreams. Here's my pushback on this, though. I would have been extremely disappointed getting there and realizing the corn wasn't out. There was no corn. That part did suck. They had a bad spring, they said, and they

[00:49:54] didn't get a lot of rain, so as a result, the crops didn't grow. So you didn't actually get to go, like when TJ and I were there, we didn't get to be out at the field and look out at the field and see all these high-growing crops to basically make out the entire area behind the field and where, like, home runs would land. It wasn't there. It was just dirt because the crops didn't grow. It was too bad. The only thing I got were bug bites at the Field of Dreams. It was still cool to see. You're exaggerating.

[00:50:24] Anyways, you know what I need. You know what movies I need to see. So, yes, that is what it is. We'll get there at some point. Yeah. Yes, we will. Okay. Last question. This one comes on Instagram. This is from Jake. And I think this one will be interesting. He said, why is the Julio Rodriguez discourse so polarizing amongst the fan base? Because people like to argue. People do like to argue.

[00:50:54] And people are arguing about it. There's a simple answer to this. And then there is where my brain went a little bit in terms of thinking a tad deeper. Now, you may say it's overthinking. And if you listen to what I have as rationale and say it's overthinking, you're warranted to think that. But this is where my mind went to a little bit when I was thinking about it. Is it fair to say the easy answer and the baseline level answer here would be people have seen Julio play like an MVP caliber player in his career

[00:51:23] and now are frustrated that he's not playing to that level all the time? Is that fair? Yes. Because that's exactly what I think. It's human nature to want what you cannot have. Sure. I want a billion dollars, but I can't have it. People have seen Julio be an MVP, but they can't have it. Not right now. That's what it is. And then people, when they get angry, they project. They try and project it on other people.

[00:51:53] It's human nature. That's how I kind of think about this. And you can tie it all in too because Julio was a former top prospect. He isn't flamed out. You could say, oh, well, we didn't treat Jared Kellnick this way. Well, once you could tell Jared Kellnick didn't have this sort of... He wasn't that good, unfortunately. Then you sort of let that go easier. But you know Julio's good enough to do that. So you sit there and you get really frustrated why he's not doing that, even though he's getting all

[00:52:22] the opportunity to do so. Right. So again, I think that's more the baseline level here. My mind went somewhere a little bit different. And I just can't help but wonder if any part of the animosity and the frustration that people have around why he's not playing like an MVP. And let's stress this again. Julio has played well through the first almost two months of the year now. He has played like a very good baseball player. Not an MVP, but a good

[00:52:52] player. And his defense will always do that. He's also started better offensively than he started most April's. And he had a few home runs this week, especially in the White Sox series. He won them that White Sox series in a lot of ways. But why I think there's frustration around people and where they sit in terms of their expectations with Julio, I'm sorry, but I do wonder if part of this goes beyond Julio Rodriguez himself. And it is people being frustrated about some

[00:53:22] mixed messaging and some a little bit of organizational mixed messaging in that way. Kind of what and what I mean by that is Julio is marketed as the superstar. He is paid as the superstar. Yes, I know that he's not going to get $475 million unless he wins multiple MVPs, etc., etc. He was still paid to be the superstar. Baseball markets him as the superstar. The Mariners certainly market him that way. And they also have not gone out and added true star power to this lineup and this roster over the

[00:53:51] last couple off seasons and their way of spinning it. And not spinning it, but the reason and the rationale in their minds and what they project out and speak out about when asked these level of questions is, look, when Julio's at his best, our offense doesn't have problems. And our offense is great when Julio is great. So I just can't help but wonder if some of the animosity among the fan base is going a little bit

[00:54:21] deeper than just Julio's not playing well. And it's, well, all we've done is been told and been fed that we don't need anything else because Julio is that guy and that one superstar alone can drive our team. And when it doesn't happen, Julio essentially is like metaphorically a shield and takes a lot of the criticism where in reality, even though the offense has been good to this point in the year, they need more star power around them and they don't have it.

[00:54:52] I don't even know. I don't even know where to start. That is my line of thinking here. And it goes a little bit deeper than just he's not playing like an MVP. Does adding more star power stop Julio from chasing sliders off the plate? No, I'm not saying it'd be perfect, but I'm just saying I think that I think there may be again, less frustration among this conversation as a whole. If Julio Rodriguez had other stars around him that

[00:55:21] were playing like stars and it wouldn't affect what people view him as as much. I mean, the other star on this team is top three in MVP voting right now. Yeah. Cal Raleigh's played like one of the best players in baseball. I just can't buy that this has anything to do with with anyone but Julio. I can't. I can't. I cannot buy that. What? OK, let me ask this. We haven't talked about this a ton.

[00:55:50] Why is attendance not where you would expect that has nothing to do with that question? Nothing, nothing, nothing to do with the question. The questions about Julio people's reaction to Julio the attend about whether or not they want to show up to the ballpark and watch games. But again, if if Julio was playing like an absolute superstar and they were like and and everything that had happened in the last year a goal, they don't miss the

[00:56:20] playoffs because he'd been playing better, like more people show up. Right. But that's not the question. Again, the question is why the Julio discourse is so polarizing. I think what does that have to do with attendance? Again, I think it goes deeper than just Julio himself. I think people are ultimately mad that the roster is not where it is and they're projecting on Julio because it's on Julio to try to make the roster something that it may just not be. And that as a result drives

[00:56:49] people crazy and it gets pushed out on Julio. I think I think this is being overthought way too much. I think it's because Julio has showed us he can be an MVP caliber hitter, but he only does it for a month or so at a time. And people want him to do it for five months and said, and that's why they're mad. Not because they're mad that the rest of the roster is not in their eyes, not good enough because like look at the roster this year. They're hitting extremely well in the discourse is still bad.

[00:57:18] Like you're telling me it's just because the name, there's no other name net recognition on the roster. They're going to project their feelings onto Julio. Fans are fans and fans aren't always rational. The question is why is the fan discourse like this? I can't buy that. If Julio has a 150 WRC plus the offense is the exact same. They didn't do anything else this offseason. Discourse isn't polarizing. Julio is just playing well. Well, right, because then in that scenario, Julio is playing like an MVP and this discourse doesn't exist.

[00:57:48] But, but then that like dispels the offseason like thing that people were frustrated about the offseason because then it's just about Julio. I guess. But again, like this comes back to Julio may just not be that player. He just may not be an MVP. The Mariners market him like he is. As they should because marketing gets people in the seats. Okay, but it's, it's not getting him in the seats right now. Well, you got to market somebody.

[00:58:18] Do you want to market Mastro? Jorge Polanco? I just wonder again, what do we start this, this conversation with that? Why are, why are people frustrated that Julio is, is, it doesn't appear to be off to the, their ideal start? Why is that? Again, like the, the biggest reason probably is because of what you said in terms of they've seen him play like an MVP and he's not doing that.

[00:58:47] But I just wonder if there's something a little bit deeper here that make play into this as well. If you're not going to get a perfect answer on this because you can't pull a whole fan base, but people were frustrated at Julio in the 23 season before he went off in July and August and they had a great off season. They just made the playoffs. You know what? I don't, I don't think it was at the level that it's at now with Julio and 23 people were frustrated, but it's, it's now gotten to a point. The discourse has gotten to a point where again, we

[00:59:17] sit on here and say, guys, people are being ridiculous. Like he's played well. It wasn't like that back then. It's gotten to a little bit of that point. Now it's, I think as simple as him playing like an MVP dispels everything. That's what people's expectations are of him. If so, maybe Lyle, like let's separate the off season conversation from this, right? I think the, the expectation for Julio from the marketing of the team from Julio himself, from, you know, all, all these other things is

[00:59:46] that Julio's rise is supposed to be like this. Right. And he's, you know, he's not gone on that plateau and that rise. And it's quarter, it's sort of stayed right around where it is. Like, like that maybe somewhere in the middle of what we just talked about in terms of like, you know, this is, this guy should be winning an MVP and he's not, and I'm frustrated about it. Like that, like I can hear that argument, but I, I, I, yeah, I just can't buy the, like,

[01:00:16] we're mad about the off season. So we're going to take it out on Julio. I don't know. Like, again, maybe fans don't even realize it. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Like, I don't think so. They're sick and tired of watching him swing. It's the same slider off the outside corner and swing and miss. I just feel like a lot gets projected on him for again, a roster that he is supposed to carry and maybe people ask too much of him. I mean, people are pretty transparent when they're complaining about the off season. Usually it has the word Stanton and not Rodriguez in it.

[01:00:47] Yeah, I guess I still, I still, again, like I said, I still partly wonder if people project onto Julio and don't even realize why they're doing it. The easy thing is just to say Julio's not playing the way we were told he's going to play when in reality they're mad about something else. Well, let's pull our entire fan base. Please leave a comment in the description on why you think people are mad at Julio. Yeah. And again, we are like, and let me say two things to wrap this up. Number one, the two of us are just going to

[01:01:16] agree to disagree on this, which is fine. That makes for good podcasting when not everybody has the same opinion. So we want to hear from you guys. Like, what do you think? Number two, and I want to make this very clear. TJ and I are not mad in any way about the way Julio's playing right now. Would we love to see him hit 310 and OPS 900 and win an MVP? Yeah. But we are not mad at the production he's put up to this point because Julio's on pace to be a five-win player again. So, and that's a great player.

[01:01:46] So again, this is not us saying these things about Julio. We are answering a mailbag question about why is the general fan base always butting head so much about Julio and what he's supposed to be and who he's supposed to be. And we just have different answers on the whys behind that. Yeah. So. But it all gets solved if Julio plays like an MVP for the final four months of the season and people stop complaining. Great. Yeah, for sure. Good. Yeah. Good.

[01:02:15] Mailbag questions. As always, you guys always bring it, bring it every week, continue to bring it every week because you guys do an awesome job with it. You guys always get creative and think of good questions. So keep doing it. And if you want to make sure it gets answered, say you've put a lot of time into a good question and something's burning on your mind and you want the two of us to answer it. Well, if you go sign up for our Patreon, it's guaranteed that we'll answer it. So just a thought for you. We'd love to have you get involved. We really would. And we'll do one last plug of it here mid show. We would love to have you come out to the

[01:02:45] live show this Saturday. It'll probably be tomorrow when you're listening, but this Saturday, May 24th at Queen Anne Beer Hall show starts at 12 p.m. Watch Party immediately follows at 1 p.m. Let's go down on the farm. Lyle, who is your standout Mariners minor leaguer? I'm going to pick this guy partly because he is absolutely dominated, partly because we haven't talked about him enough in this segment and

[01:03:15] partly because you all are going to get to hear an interview with him in about five days here, right here on this podcast. And that would be one Gerangelo Sanja. When we went to Everett, we sat down with Colt, who you've heard that interview by now, or if you haven't, you should go listen because he was awesome. And we sat down with Gerangelo too, which was a blast. And that will be out on Wednesday. Anyway, why he is the featured guy on this segment for me? Well, because as our buddy Joe Doyle put it when we had him on

[01:03:43] Wednesday, he is bullying hitters in Everett right now. The guy's got a basically two ERA as a starting pitcher in Everett. He just won Northwest League Pitcher of the Week. He threw six shutout innings. He has been on real. And where the Mariners draft him middle of the first round. He wasn't the first pitcher off the board, but he looks unbelievable. And I don't think he's that far away from going to

[01:04:13] double A at this point. So shout out Gerangelo, man. He has been everything you could hope for so far and more. I'm going to say his right arms too good for the Northwest league. I would say that's right. And I would say the left arm is probably why he's still there. And I go back and if you haven't heard our conversation with Joe Doyle on Wednesday, I'd go back and listen to it. He talked a little bit about Gerangelo and how they've been using him in Everett. They have, I think,

[01:04:42] switched things up a little bit. They've modified it. I'd go recheck Joe's comments on that because he definitely stays tuned to that. But yeah, I mean, he is just dominating with the right arm. That's the stuff is it's so next level with that with that right arm. It's the who gave us the the Stroman comp. It was Stroman and Quato. I think were the two comps. Callis talked about that Gerangelo reminded him of Stroman out of the draft. So yeah, that's probably who it was.

[01:05:11] But the unique thing about Gerangelo too is he is a low slot righty and the Mariners seem to like these guys. Who better is an example than Brian Wu, who is the ultimate low slot righty. Gerangelo doesn't quite release it where Wu releases it, but he throws from that low slot and he gets the fastball rise and he's looked really sharp so far and ever. It's been awesome. The guy I want to highlight is the other the next pitcher in that draft class. Ryan Sloan has been just done. Speaking of dominating,

[01:05:41] he's been dominating pretty pretty easily down in Modesto. He's got a 270 RA in his last six starts. He threw four shutout innings yesterday or Wednesday and he's I mean he's been doing well even despite the fact he's had to be limited with his innings. I was trying to go back and see how many innings he threw his draft year last year in his draft year in high school. The number I think I found was 39 innings total last year. So there's a reason why

[01:06:09] Ryan Sloan is limited to about four innings to start right now. They're trying to be very careful with him as they bring him along but man he's he's looking good. He is he's really cruising along and even the fact he's the same age as a lot of these guys down in Modesto but it certainly doesn't look like it. I mean as a 19 year old to put up these numbers is is kind of crazy. It's a 3-3 ERA for the season but his last six starts as mentioned the ERA is under three striking out a ton of batteries. He's not walking guys. It's been it's been really good.

[01:06:39] Dude shout out Ryan Sloan and he just put together a good start in his last outing which was pretty cool. Fastball looks great. Again the fact that he is built the way he's already built. Well when he came out of the draft but even year one here in Modesto people have talked about he's got a chance to be a fast mover. I don't think they're going to rush him by any means in Modesto. He may spend all year there but man he has looked impressive. And he's got such a clean delivery too. It's so easy.

[01:07:09] And you especially from high schoolers you like to see that because it's repeatable and it's something you sustain as you move move up the levels. So that'll help him develop and that's awesome for Sloan. He's pumping gas. He's looking great. Well let's close it out with a Russell Wilson umpire of the week. And man do we have a good one this week. So Mike Estabrook was umping a Red Sox game earlier this week that Walker Bueller was pitching in. Walker Bueller throws a pitch that was it wasn't quite down the middle but it

[01:07:38] was very clearly in the strike zone bottom part of the strike zone. There's a steal on the play and the catcher throws down to second base. Estabrook completely misses the call as the catcher throws down to second. And Walker's like hey that was a strike. That was like clearly a strike. Why didn't you call it a strike? Um did Estabrook didn't like that Bueller said that and takes his mask off and is like and throws him out of the game pretty quickly.

[01:08:08] And I saw some more tweets about it like as soon as Estabrook takes his mask off he's elevating the situation. He's not answering the question from Bueller. So instead of answering the question it's like I'm threatening you instead. Then Alex Kaur gets tossed out of the game. All this goes away. Maybe just call a strike. I have a new proposal for Major League Baseball since they seem to have no interest in any way whatsoever in giving these umpires repercussions

[01:08:37] or trying to settle them down from always making the show about them when things elevate to this and making them the center stage when this is not what people sign up for to go to a baseball game with their friends and family. I've got a proposal here. Oh. If an umpire makes something like this about himself and tosses a player out of the game like Estabrook did here fans should be entitled to a refund. Wow. Yeah. Now maybe not a full

[01:09:05] refund depending on who the player was when it was in the game. But for example it was in the middle of the game that Bueller got ejected. Red Sox fans should get two-thirds refunds when an umpire makes it about himself and throws a player out. Now these things can go to the league for review and the league can well but the league would never get give fans their money back. How about it goes to a third party for review and if the third party declares if I like the idea though I don't care that it dude you know what you just did right

[01:09:34] there the wedding crashers line here you come with your negativity your goddamn negativity just trying to shoot down ideas goes to it here's the idea goes to the third party if they deem that the umpire made it about himself and stole the show for no reason at all and acted like an asshole fans get part of their money back they get some sort of refund or they can get credit for a future game they get ticket credit for a future game. Well I'm for the people so sure let's do it. Umpires suck that's what I'm getting at here.

[01:10:04] It was not great Walker Bueller was not very happy about that. No. Shocker and he shouldn't have been. I hope he goes on the just baseball show and lights Estabrook up. Yeah. And he probably will. I don't know if he goes on as much now just I don't think he does just because he's so busy with the year he still goes on sometimes but it's not every week anymore so he's not rehabbing anymore he's got he's got a little bit more to do but right offseason. Yeah for sure. I hope Estabrook gets lit up. That's all I that's all I'll say. I hope somebody really

[01:10:35] you know gives him a business again because he deserves it. So anyway God umpires really are the worst. All right 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 over our website. Go get your merch go sign up for our Patreon. You can find all the episodes over at our website too audio and video and again come to the live show Saturday. We would love to have you there. It is Saturday May 24th 12 p.m.

[01:11:05] at Queen and Beer Hall. We're also doing a watch party right after at 1 p.m. So information's over at our website. Everything's over at our website. Go check it out and then follow us everywhere across social media at Marine Layer Pod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.