Episode 25: Aram Leighton (Just Baseball), Jarred Kelenic Continues To Mash, And Luis Castillo Is Becoming A Legit Ace

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number twenty five of The Marine Layer Podcast with TJ. Matthewson and Lyle Goldstein. On today's pod, we welcome arm Layton, the co founder of Just Baseball. We talk a little bit of prospects with Arm, some Mariners Baseball, and some about his company, Just Baseball and what they're doing for the community of baseball. It's a really fun project that we'll touch in a little bit later on in the show. We have our three Mariners storylines of the week. We'll check down on the farm and see which Mariners minor leaguers are standing out. This week, we have our MLB wrap around. I would say, Lyle, I think this is my favorite Russell Wilson umpire of the week. We'll tell that to you when it comes around. It's a good one. This week. We finish out the show, we'd speak your mind. Let's get it rolling, and we welcome you onto this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast on Tuesday, April eighteenth, and Wow, we have some very very exciting news before we get to get to the nitty gritty of baseball. 00:01:10 Speaker 2: Mike Ford is lighting the world on fire in Triple A. This man's gonna fix the dh. 00:01:16 Speaker 1: Spot wait waiting for the pin to drop. 00:01:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kidding. This is not our exciting news. Our exciting news for this week as great as Mike Ford has been in Triple A, because we know how much Triple A stats matter. No, in all seriousness, we've got a couple of big things happen this week. We're starting to continue to make some big steps and grow here as a podcast. Number One, We're gonna start getting credentialed for some Mariners games throughout the year, so a lot of the games that are home games, a lot of the weekend games. Specifically, we're gonna be doing some content as members of the media from the press box down on the field, in press conferences things like that. So we're pretty excited about that. That's step one, and it's going to be a way to just get more content out there and get our podcasts out there. So I think TJ and I are both pretty excited about it. 00:02:06 Speaker 1: It's really exciting. Lyle's going to get to go to the park a little bit more than me, but I will make time to get up there, especially as the summer months go along and my responsibilities down here lighting up with the college season ending, should find some more time to make it out to ballpark. This does not mean we're going to stop going to games, you know, as a paying fan as well, because I think that's also a big part of our content, lyle talking to fans, doing those fan interviews on TikTok on YouTube, on Instagram, which people really seem to like, and you know, people have started recognizing us a little bit, which is really nice. We're not going to stop doing that, but we now have the opportunity to, you know, go talk to some players and build some relationships and help grow this podcast as well. I mean, we're not going to just hand out business cards all the players. Hey, listen to all of our takes, you know, we want to get some of them on here. And some of that includes some relationship building, which can really start with us actually getting to meet you know, other people that run the organization and the players as well, and ny see it from their perspective, which is something you can't do when you're sitting in the stands. 00:03:09 Speaker 2: Our goal with this podcast from the time we started it was really to get every perspective and try to hit every different angle that we can. Because we've been doing fans perspective. With the fan interviews, we've had all these media people on. We're obviously working to try and get players on get their perspective. Now we'll get to be members of the media. I mean, you hear us talk about advanced stats, war WRC plus things like that, but you also have us talk to Brad Adam about which Mariners are the best golfers. So we've really tried to hit every different angle possible that can appeal that every Mariners fan or every baseball fan out there, and now being part of the media is only going to help us with that because we've got some really cool ideas planned now that we have this access. You guys will start to see that unfold as time goes on, and it'll be a work in progress, but we're pretty excited about it because this will give us the opportunity to just give you guys all that much more content and like tid do some relationship building, which should wi should be really great. I think we've got some other exciting news too. I mean a little bit of a milestone we hit this week. 00:04:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, we did. It was really good to hit one thousand followers on TikTok, which is great because when we started this, we had the idea that the best way to grow this was to utilize short form video content, and no platform revolutionized short form video content like TikTok. So it's really good that our stuff has slowly but surely, you know, picked up on TikTok over the course of the weeks and the months, and you know, we had under one hundred followers for I think the first two months, right, I think, so that's what it was. We were sitting at about forty for the first two months, and then it kind of snowballs a little bit once you get some good traction on some videos and it slowly builds, and it's really nice to see it payoff with with one thousand followers on that. But it's not just that Lyles done a great job. He's mostly the one that tweets on the Twitter account, growing that account and getting people to come to our Twitter account and see that, and posting on Instagram with the with the commercials and the and the random highlights which are really fantastic throwbacks, and then all the other short form stuff that we post on YouTube as well, just all the different opportunities to drive people to our content. It's been it's been really nice and really refreshing to see that some of your hard work that people notice and take the time out of their day to hit the follow button. We keep it keeps on rolling up because the more people that follow, the more inclination. We have to continue doing this and hopefully eventually, you know, financially compensate ourselves and and bring and bring better content and just drive traffic, which which is what we did, and provide good content to the people that want to see it. 00:05:49 Speaker 2: We should really say, I mean, it's a big thank you to everybody that listens and everybody that follows us on social media because we can put the content out there. But I mean, I always say the fact that people either take time out of their day each week to listen to our podcast or even take thirty seconds out of their day to watch any of our short form content, like, I take that pretty seriously, and I think I know you do too, which is why we put a lot of time and effort into all of that stuff, because we want people to enjoy it. We want people to engage with us, and the fact that people have is pretty cool and it's funny. You know, you sit on TikTok, right, and you see all these people just booming from TikTok and becoming influencers. Not that we're that by any matter, but it's funny when I when we started this podcast, I never really use TikTok that much. It was a work in progress for me to learn it a little bit, and I would sit there to teach and it's like, doesn't. 00:06:35 Speaker 3: Everybody just blow up on TikTok? 00:06:37 Speaker 2: Isn't it like if you just hop on TikTok, you're probably gonna blow up over time? And he's like, oh, I think that's the outlier, not the norm. So you know, in a little bit of perspective, to hit a thousand in five months at least from what we feel like, is somewhat of a cool accomplishment. And again it's really more testament to all of you guys that have been so nice enough and so interested enough to follow along. 00:06:59 Speaker 3: So we appreciate at a bunch. 00:07:01 Speaker 1: Especially the fact we are in a very small niche right from what our target is. Our target is around the Mariners and Seattle things, if you if so, we will talk to arm Layton later on in this podcast. Their company Just Baseball covers everything. They're appealing to thirty fan bases, so there's thirty fan bases worth of people to look at that we focus on one fan base for you know, for now, that's what our focus is. So it really just means a lot that we can grow while focusing on a certain group of people and appealing to that, and then that people continue to like it, then we continue to do it, and just it keeps us going and keeps us posting short form content. We will hear a little bit, well, we'll talk a little bit more before we get to our conversation with arm Layton, but did draw a little bit of inspiration of not just this podcast, but sort of content strategy from what they do at Just Baseball. But we'll get into that a little bit later. Loud, you have one more thing. It looked like you want to. 00:08:01 Speaker 2: Say, last quick thing before we get into Mariner's storylines. Is one of our now over one thousand Twitter followers over the last week, if anybody knows the name Carson Vitally, he's the Mariner's major league field coordinator, so he's on the coaching staff. We think it's him that followed us on TikTok worried about. I'm gonna say ninety three percent share, just throwing out a number in the high percentile there that it's him that follows our content, which is kind of cool if it's actually him, And maybe if we get a chance to run into him as media members now we'll have to ask him. But so, he doesn't have a profile picture and he only follows a handful of people, but he does follow Julio, he follows Taylor Tremmel, he follows the Mariners, he follows Seattle accounts. So we think it's him as far as we know. 00:08:47 Speaker 1: Carson, if you're listening to this dm US, please yeah, confirm or deny. Confirm or deny if you are. If you are someone who has the exact same name and is not him, I salute you, I really do. Let's get into our Mariners storylines of the week. Storyline number one, Lyle, Jared Kelnick continues to just absolutely match the baseball. I have no idea how this dude did not win American League Player of the Week this week. It went to Garrett Cole instead, But Jared Kelnick over the course of this past week home with four times in the row. He hit a ball last Wednesday at Wrigley Field that I'd never ever seen anyone hit a ball up there, not Mark McGuire, not Sammy Sosa, four hundred and eighty two feet to dead center field and he is slashing. Just listen to this. Three point thirty three, three ninety three six sixty seven a one ninety eight WRC plus Lyle Goldstein. This is me letting you take a victory. 00:09:42 Speaker 3: Lap, dude. 00:09:46 Speaker 2: So they sunk up the not the videos, but the images between Wrigley and T Mobile Park in terms of where the home run would have landed. That home run if it had been at T Mobile Park, lands in the center field bleachers and goes over the batter's eye. I mean, what the fuck you know, I'm the biggest Jared Kelnick fan in the world. I could not believe where that ball landed when he hit it at Wrigley Field. Nobody hits him up there. I mean, I'm you're right, I am taking a victory lap this week. I was at the game Friday when he hit the fourth home run in a row. Oh, and I borderline lost my voice. I was so hyped. 00:10:23 Speaker 1: Nice job there, teach every time you do something, you just happen to lose your voice. No, you guys should if I go to a gate. Let's say, if I ever go to a game on say a Sunday. So we went to a Sunday and a Monday game this year. You notice that the episode after my voice is like a little raspy. It's it's a bit of a problem with me. So credit to Lyle for actually learning from the best like myself and properly enjoying a sporting event there. It's crazy how much power is in that bat. I didn't think he had this in him, right, Like the consistency of power. I thought when Jared Klnick was gonna be me making more contact at the plate, the power was gonna was gonna was gonna received a little bit, which I'm fine with, to go back to a little bit more of a contact oriented approach like he had in the minors. But that's not the case. He is in the ninety ninth percentile of hard hit rate. Ninety ninth. That's that's absurd, absolutely absurd, and I don't think we could have you even could have dreamed the start to the season for Jared. 00:11:26 Speaker 2: No, it's been absolutely amazing. He's been the best hitter on the team right now, He's been one of the best hitters in baseball. He's top ten among position players in war right now, which is crazy how much in terms of adjustment he has made in just one offseason. We talked about it a little bit last week when we talked about him. Last week, he'd only hit one home run so far. He hadn't hit the four in a row, so I actually see the week he just had was crazy. And oh, by the way, even though he didn't hit a home run on Sunday, he basically single handedly won the Mariners that game. I mean, Louis Castillo has something with it two, we'll get to him in a minute. But Kelnick between the single and the diving catch, one nothing win. 00:12:06 Speaker 3: That's all him. 00:12:07 Speaker 2: I mean, Julio's been a little bit up and down in April, which is fine, but Kalnick's carrying the team. 00:12:13 Speaker 1: That was an insane catch. I was trying to dig through stat cast before we were recording to see if that was a four or five star catch. I believe it was only a four, believe it or not. But that has to do with his positioning in the field. If you notice he was playing very much shaded over towards the line. So you've got to credit the Mariners coaching staff and defensive game planning as well to put him in just the right spot to make that catch. That's an insane catch. Ti Oscar Rnanaz is not making that catch. Mitch Haniger is not making that catch. I don't know who else you could dream to put out there in the outfield besides Julio Rodriguez probably not making that catch. It's insane. The gloves there, even though the defensive metrics aren't loving him yet. But that's that's fine. We'll throw that out. And his bat has been really awesome. This is as good of a start as you could have really asked for for Jared Kelnick, and it's hard to see where the Mariners would be without him. 00:13:03 Speaker 3: He has been a real shot in the arm for this team. That's been incredible. 00:13:07 Speaker 2: Okay, Storyline number two, Luis Castillo TJ is taking himself from really good starting pitcher to a borderline ace with what he's done so far. 00:13:20 Speaker 1: Do you say borderline? Just borderline? 00:13:23 Speaker 3: I mean, let's just call him as a eighth. 00:13:25 Speaker 1: He has a thirty nine percent with rate on his fastball thirty nine percent. You thought like his fastball was good last year, it has been better this year. I did not think that was possible. And he's doing it while throwing a mile and a half slower on his fastball. It is insane what Luis Castillo is doing with a fastball that he's essentially just throwing straight and guys cannot touch it. I didn't think this this. We were expecting him to come out through a sitting like ninety three ninety four in April and maybe get hit around a little bit, because we've heard he's a slow starter. This is one of the best stretches he's had. 00:14:04 Speaker 2: We talked to Jason Churchill about it a few weeks back. He said, and I agree with him that the Mariners always felt like they could get even more out of Luis Castillo than what the Reds were getting from him. We're seeing it because his change up all of a sudden's coming back too. Like last year we've talked about his change up was actually his worst pitch, even though over the course of his career it's been basically his best pitch. Change up's been really good so far. In twenty twenty three, he got Ryan McMahon with a pitch on that start on Sunday on a change up that was deadly like McMahon, no chance. I mean his changeup looks like it's back in full form too. So the combination of the arsenal that he possesses and using it to his full potential. You're seeing it all right now. In April with Castillo, we. 00:14:47 Speaker 1: Really saw it in that start on Sunday. He went six perfect innings, got broken up in the top of the seventh. He ended up finishing with seven shutout and nine strikeouts. But alongside that, while you said the change up, the change up had a fifty percent with rate that day, his slider at a forty three percent with rate. He had really everything working. If he can, you know, bring back the elite change up, make his slider, say a plus pitch, just a plus pitch, and then keep the fastball value that he had last year. How is he not an ace? Like I asked you, how is he not an ace? Like limiting, limiting walks, limiting hits, swings and misses on three pitches. That's that stuff aces do, and he undoubted like he there's nothing to suggest he is. He is not an ace through four starts this season. Oh and he's already worth a winning at a win one point one wins above replacement in four starts, which is insane. 00:15:43 Speaker 2: Top ten in the league and wins above replacement, So pitchers and hitters combined, he's top ten. And among just pitchers, I mean he's fourth, and then he's third in e RA right now. The only guy's ahead of Castillo in ERA right now are Suddy Gray, who's off to an awesome start, and Jeffrey Spring the Rays, who unfortunately now needs Tommy John surgery. 00:16:03 Speaker 3: But that's it. 00:16:04 Speaker 2: I mean, Castillo has been one of the five best pitchers in baseball through the first half a month here, two thirds of a month. Now, there's a long way to go, but the Mariners have to be as pleased as they could ever be about how he's looked so far. 00:16:18 Speaker 1: Speaking of pleased, I'm very pleased with a third storyline, ty France. He's almost been flying under the radar a little bit, but he started the season up. He actually sorry, he did not start the season this way, but he had eleven game hit streaks snapped last week. He had hits in thirteen or fourteen games to start the season, and it's been so awesome to see him moved up into the two hole where I thought he probably should have been hitting instead of Colton Long. And he is slashing right now three twenty eight, four twenty seven, four eighty four, walking and striking out at the exact same rate, the lowest strikeout rate of his career. And importantly, while he is healthy and ty France healthy continues to look like an All Star first baseman. And now we asked ty France, please keep this up ball season like you should. You're healthy, this is the standard you set. 00:17:11 Speaker 3: He looks like first half twenty twenty two ty France, doesn't. 00:17:14 Speaker 1: He Yeah, he does. He honestly looks better. I look at the strikeout rate, ten and a half percent strikeout rate is pretty insane for his stature. He's really doing it all. And he's again he's walking twice as much as you did last. 00:17:30 Speaker 2: Year too, that's the big part. And he's not chasing. That was part of the problem in the second half. We don't know if it was injuries, whether if it was pitchers were exposing him, or if it was a little bit of both, but one way or another, Ty was chased a lot of pitches in the second half of last season. It led to a lot of strikeouts. It led to him getting away from his approach. He wasn't as productive. So far, that's all been cut out and he looks like the guy that put himself into the All Star Game last year. I mean, he's leading the American League doubles. He's been the table setter at the top of the lineup. He looks fantastic and the Mariners need that version of ty France if they are serious about competing this year. 00:18:10 Speaker 1: I have a stat for you. So he has eight strikeouts and seventy six play appearances while keeping a top twenty five percent quality of contact. Those two things do not overlap that much, to be honest, they do not, and he's he's managing to do it, which is exactly what you need in the two hole. When you have Julio in front and usually Suarez behind you, both you know can float between a twenty seven to a thirty one percent strikeout right between the two of them. You need that guy in the middle who's actually not going to strike out, because the shitty thing about strikeouts is well, they're always out and they're really rally Killers. So when you have ty France there in the middle, at least you know you got something there to put a stop block in that. 00:18:55 Speaker 2: There's been a lot of positive storylines this week, and when the Mariners sweep the Rockies and have a much better week than they did on our last show, there's a lot more positive stuff to talk about here. So it's between Kelnick, between Luis ty Frantz, a lot of good stuff looking up for the Mariners here in twenty twenty three and going forward here from April and on. Okay, we're going to get to our interview with arm Layton here in just a minute or two, but to kind of set the table for it a little bit, so, TJ's talked about his day job being covering Oregon State and Corvallis. That's what he does when he's not covering this podcast. One of the things I do when not doing this podcast is I do some writing for a site called Just Baseball. Who if you haven't heard of them, they're kind of a new baseball media site. They've been going for a couple of years now, and I got to tell you they're killing it. I mean, they are doing a fantastic job with their podcasting, their writing, their social media content, I mean everything, and they really genuinely cover all thirty teams really well. The guys who run it three guys by the name of Arm Layton who we're going to have on today, Peter Apple and Jack McMullen, and I actually know two of them. We know Arm and Jack because we were in the Cape Cod League with them calling collegiate summer baseball for a couple of years back in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. So we had Arm on this week to talk about a bunch of different stuff, and I mean, I won't speak for you today, but I thought it was an awesome interview. 00:20:18 Speaker 1: No, it was Arms, Arms awesome. We haven't got I Lyles talked to Arm more recently than I have. Prior to us interviewing him yesterday. I had only been introduced to Arm a couple times and mostly see him on the internet. But at his core, he just loves baseball, which is the kind of people want to have on this show, and he is doing a pretty cool, cool thing with just baseball. The ideas they have are very uniquely our generation of baseball content, which is something that was sorely missing and as you'll hear in the interview something they say, well, what is the thing all those network shows are missing? What are they missing? These guys seem to fill in that missing crack. 00:21:02 Speaker 2: I mean, you see a lot of sports media companies these days, and some of them are doing really well, even some of the baseball specific ones like john Boy Media for example. I got to tell you, we'll see where Just Baseball's at in the next five to ten years, but don't be shocked if they're close to, if not right, at that same level, because that's where it seems like it's going. And that's another reason I was really excited to not just get arm on but get involved and start doing some writing and some different stuff for Just Baseball because it's been really cool so far, and the idea they've put behind it is really really awesome, and you'll hear arm talk about that here in the interview. Okay, so this interview is basically split up into three different parts. We certainly encourage you to listen to the whole thing, but if you want to know how it's split up. First, about twenty minutes is some prospect talk, and it's a lot of Bryce Miller and Harry Ford, who Arm has on his top one hundred prospects list. Second third of it is big League Mariners, talk about where the team's at, a couple of the big storylines, and the last third of the of the interview is talking about Just Baseball, how they started the company, where it's going. And honestly, if I had to recommend any of the three parts, if your attention spans not that long, listen to that part because it's really really cool what they're doing. I mean, if you want to support me, if you want to support Arham this podcast in general, you should go check out this interview and certainly go check out Just Baseball because the stuff they're doing is awesome. But that's how the interview split up, really really cool interview. So with that, we won't keep you any longer. Let's get to our interview with Arm Layton. All Right, we welcome on Arm Layton. Arms the co founder and executive editor of Just Baseball. He's also the host of the Just Baseball Show and the host of the Call Up podcast. 00:22:43 Speaker 3: Arm. 00:22:43 Speaker 2: We appreciate you coming on. You guys just released your top one hundred prospects list. I know that's a big, big, event for Just Baseball every year. You did a great job with it. I got to sit and ask, though, do I want to ask how many hours went into that thing? 00:22:58 Speaker 4: It's so funny. My mom sent me a text this morning and said, I just clicked on it. Where did you find the time to put all of this together? I don't know. I like almost don't want to put it together and guess because I think it would almost make me a little like nauseous. I was making the comparison to like Modern Warfare two. I played that game so much as a kid, and when I realized how many days I played, I was able to go back and look at it. I was like, oh, man, obviously this serves a little bit more of a purpose for my career and for our business. But I don't even want to know how many hours. I'd say each physical ride up takes a couple hours. But then also it's you know, days of video and in person looks and things like that. So it's always really really relieving when I can finally put that thing out. 00:23:45 Speaker 1: Do you start at the top, you start at one or do you start at one hundred? 00:23:48 Speaker 4: That's the funny part, man, is I kind of jump around because I like to finish the writeups of like usually i'm doing system by system, so I do top fifteen prospects of every team, and then once I do like half the league, which is where we're at right now, and now we're going to knock out the rest of the league. It's almost nice because I'll have you know, when I did the Mariner system in the past, it would have given me like four or five from the top one hundred that are already done this year, not as many, we'll talk about that, but still a few. So I was able to kind of just put that in there and paste it in, and then I kind of have to fill in the gaps of either systems I didn't finish yet or new guys that might enter it, or whatever it may be. But for the most part, it's it's kind of sporadic, which is good and bad, but it kind of keeps it fun. 00:24:32 Speaker 2: We'll get to a couple of the Mariners guys here in a second, But as somebody who called games for the Dayton Dragons last year, I've got to ask you a little bit about Ellie because you've got him at number one, and I got to tell you he was the best non major league player I've ever seen in person, and TJ and I sat and watched Spencer torcle set in college for three years. 00:24:49 Speaker 3: I mean, that was maybe the most fun. 00:24:50 Speaker 2: Part of the job outside of calling the games, was getting a front row seat to Ellie de la Cruz every night. You've got him at number one on your list, and I'm all for it, but I'll kind of let you describe. 00:24:59 Speaker 3: What are you likes so much about him? 00:25:01 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I would imagine, you know, turning it back on you. You mentioned he was one of the best players you've you've really seen that's not a major leaguer. Would you say that he kind of did things on a baseball field that you've never really seen on a bit like on a baseball field. 00:25:16 Speaker 2: So I always described it like this, And I'm not a prospect evaluator, but as somebody who just loves baseball and loves watching quality talent and maybe borderline elite prospect talent. What I always said is there are parts of his game that reminded me of Tatis, and the way he would move to his left on balls at short, combined with the arm, gave me flashes of Carlos Korea. I mean, that's what it looked like to me. So, yeah, there were things that he would do that you just don't see, especially for a guy that's six foot five and runs the way he does exactly. 00:25:44 Speaker 4: So that was the thing that stood out to me. And of course you have a Jordan Walker who's off to a really solid start and his you know, big league Stinton has flown through the minor leagues and he was number two there, And for me it was you know, you run a thousand simulations of Jordan Walker and Elie de la Cruz's career. I think there's a couple occasions where Elie de Lacruz is the best player in Major League Baseball, maybe several occasions of that simulation where that happens. Sure, there's a little bit more risk. I still think that there's more risk with Jordan Walker than people think. I think he's going to be a really solid player, But there's a fair amount of swing and miss there, and you feel get zone contact like they're pretty similar, and I think people would be surprised at actually how good Elie de Lacruz was in terms of zone contact, right around eighty two percent, which is right about average slightly above for a guy that hits the ball as hard as anybody. It's seventy grade power, it's seventy grade speed. You mentioned the arm, it's a seventy great arm. You don't see sevens across the board like that, like you almost think that there's something wrong with what you're seeing, Like you're not seeing it clearly. And that's what he is. You pair that with the fact that he's a switch hitter, with the fact that he continues to get better defensively, and really the only thing that's missing is the approach, and I think it's really just aggressiveness. How do you tell a kid that's hitting three eleven with almost thirty bombs to swing last, Like, it's a really tough sell to tell him if he's striking out too much to the point where it's impacting his batting average. Shore But he was I believe, the only guy in the minor leagues to strike out thirty percent of the time and hit three hundred. I'm not worried about the strikeouts. Ultimately, I think he rains that in and can you imagine that power playing in Great American Ballpark? Like I know you saw him hit some home runs that you know would have left any yard anywhere. He's gonna miss hit balls that leave. 00:27:20 Speaker 3: Great American ballpark. It's crazy. 00:27:24 Speaker 2: I mean the pop that he has is nuts. And the right handed swing actually started to develop a little more as the season went on. Like there was a part of me that wondered, oh, is he gonna just cut the right side at some point and go left on left? But it seems like he's pretty committed to it. And the right handed swing did get better, absolutely. 00:27:42 Speaker 4: And the thing too, is it doesn't need to be great, it just needs to be better than you know, left he left, he splits to your point, and if he goes left on left and you know, is putting up a six fifty ops, Like that's a lot of guys in Major League Baseball that are very good hitters put up six fifty seven hundred ops left on left. If he can be seven to fifty ops guy from the right side, you're still getting value there. And from the left side, I think he could be one of the best hitters in baseball. So really excited about what he's gonna potentially do. He should be back playing any day now. And I know Reds fans are are gonna be pretty ampt about that. 00:28:16 Speaker 1: I want to sneak one Jordan Walker question in here because I asked this of Lyle before we get to the Mariners. Does he not look exactly like Ian Desmond? 00:28:24 Speaker 4: Ian Desmond like exactly like it? 00:28:28 Speaker 3: The swing he thinks, gosh, i'd. 00:28:30 Speaker 4: Have to like dial up to Ian Desmond tape. I could see some similarities there in terms of the power and a little bit of whift too. That that's there, like the upright setup and into that swing that's geared for a lift. I could see that that's that's I haven't heard that name in a minute. Ian Desmond just disappeared off the off the face of the earth. 00:28:49 Speaker 1: I had never watched any video of Jordan Walker in the minor leagues, and I'm seeing him in his first week with Saint Louis, and I'm just watching that swing and it's just like the lack of leg kick on the bottom and sort of just lifting and falling forward while he's swinging it. I couldn't get Ian Desmond out of my head, which is probably not the comp you want to make for Jordan Walker. If he's your number two overall prospect, maybe you shoot a little bit higher than an Ian Desmond, but I yeah, I could. I couldn't shake the cob webs off of that one. 00:29:16 Speaker 4: I think he's uh. I at the end of the day, like Desmond did make a lot of money to play major league baseball. And that's the thing with prospects too. I think people like are always hoping for, you know, the the best, best, best outcome, and I know you're you're hoping for more from Jordan Walker, but you know, I think that you look at what he can do in terms of the approach, how advanced he is, the guy that's only going to get better. 00:29:38 Speaker 3: You know. 00:29:39 Speaker 4: You mentioned the simplicity of the swing though, Like that's that's a guy that's just built to crush baseballs with minimal effort, and I think that's always gonna, you know, help him be a productive hitter. But yeah, Ian Desmond at his peak was it was a pretty darn good baseball player too, So it just didn't quite continue the way I think a lot of people hoped once he went to Colorado. 00:30:00 Speaker 1: We could shift gears now and get to the topic of the Mariners in the minor league level before we talk some big league Mariners. And then talk a little bit about your company just baseball as well. So you put together your top one hundred prospect prospect lists and released it this week. Overall with the Mariners system, though you mentioned you go, you know, top fifteen's first, and then put the entire top one hundred list together. So at an overlook when you're looking at the Mariners minor league system, what do you see when you see that group? 00:30:28 Speaker 4: You know, obviously the Mariners have paid the price of adding high end MLB talent. I don't think there's one soul in Seattle. You can correct me if I'm wrong. That would undo the Louis Castillo trade. As you know, Lyle recently just put together an awesome article kind of detailing about, you know, just how good Louis Castillo has looked and how talented he is. And you know, that's the price to pay for a team that's in win now mud So, I mean, this was a system that was once one of the best in baseball and now a team that is focused on, you know, potentially competing for a World Series. You know, converted those assets either into major league talent in the form of Julio Rodriguez and now Jared Keelnick or in the form of a trade like you know, Luis Castillo. What I do think they've done a pretty good job of is reloading, though in some ways, I think Emerson Hancock being off to a great start this year bodes really well for the system. He did just miss the top one hundred because of you know what we saw last year, but he's a guy that's knocking right on the door. The development of Bryce Miller I think has really helped as well. That's one of the best fastballs in minor league baseball. And then Harry Ford, I mean, that was one of my favorite picks of the draft when it happened, and he continues to progress so nicely and looks like a really solid prospect for them as well. And they've got several other guys that can really throw that I think are climbing up the ranks quickly and knocking on the door. So, you know, while it's not the elite system it once was, they've done a good job of, you know, maintaining talent, developing talent, and keeping the system from being towards the bottom of the league because we know Depoto might want to make another move or you know, might want to start to bring these guys up because I do think Bryce Miller could help the Mariners in one way or another at some point this year with that fastball. 00:32:02 Speaker 2: Let's just dive into Bryce Miller here, because you've got two Mariners in the top one hundred, one of them being Miller. He's at number seventy overall on your list, and you just touched on it. You think he has the best fastball in the minor leagues and it gets up to triple digits. So I'll ask you what do you like so much about that fastball? 00:32:19 Speaker 4: It is in terms of the velocity, of course, that's great, and I think people will compare, you know, an eighty grade fastball to like, let's say Hunter Green and Hunter Green. Yeah, sure that was an eighty grade by a lot of people, but the shape of it was not great. And that the shape is what's interesting, right, because there's shape and velocity, and if you have both, you have a really good fastball. Bryce Miller's ninety five to ninety seven you mentioned, can touch triple digits, but he has twenty one inches almost on average of induced vertical break, which is counterintuitive. It basically means that it's how much the fastball looks like it's rising or that riding action or basically just staying on a line. So hitters often swing under it because your brain you mentally calculate where you think it's going to drop, and it basically plays a trick on your mind because of how much life it has. Christian Haavier is one of the best with that. Joe Ryan is another example of that at a lower velocity. So you have the high velocity in the high induced vertical break and that's why you see Bryce Miller being able to just overpower dudes with his fastball. Last year he threw it fifty two percent of the time and opponents hit one sixty against it. That shows you, you know, just how good it is. What stood out to me with him especially is I queued up every single fastball he threw in hitters counts one oh two, oh three to one, and he can miss middle middle with it, and good hitters, good hitting prospects, we're swinging right under it, and that's a great sign. So that pretty much gives him a high leverage relief floor. But the slider has gotten so much better too. He's even got a little bit of a feel for a change up now that I think he's got a great shot to be potentially number three at least be a back end of the rotation starter that when he's on, will give you flashes of a lot more. 00:33:55 Speaker 1: How many more innings do you think he needs down at the double A level before he really reaches what you would qualify. Yeah, this is probably about as much development as he's getting in the minors, because it seems like he's about to the point where you're like, Okay, like you said, he can help the Mariners out today, So where is that point? 00:34:13 Speaker 4: Like? 00:34:13 Speaker 1: How many more innings would it take for you to see everything you've absolutely needed to see. 00:34:19 Speaker 4: I think he's getting there. You know, I'd like to see him limit the contact a little bit more. So far this season, in the early going, he's been he's been hit a little bit more than you'd like to see. But at the end of the day, he's pitching in one of the most brutal leagues to pitch in as a fastball heavy guy, as a flyball guy pitching in the Texas League that's pretty much second to the Pacific Coast League in terms of, you know, least pitcher friendly environments. You know, I'd like to see him stretched out a little bit more. But I thought last year was a huge step for him, throwing over one hundred and thirty innings. So I really feel like if he makes a handful more starts and looks really good. So far, the command has been great, that's the one thing that's been good. Maybe he's almost been around the zone too much. Ten strikeouts, no walks, thirteen hits. I think he could almost benefit from not being in the zone so much. That's something that will feel out. And I think if he puts together, you know, a handful of strong starts, he could be a guy that they look to bring up because he could serve that Matt Brash role. Even if you're not gonna use him as a starter, have him in that multi ending relief and if he's in high leverage with that fastball up to ninety nine, probably one hundred and shorter spurts, he's gonna be really good for you. But I guess if they don't need him right now, why not just continue to let him, you know, develop those secondary pitches, because ultimately he could help you right now in short spurts. But I don't know if he's totally ready for that, you know, five inning, six inning, second, third time around the lineup of a big league order. Uh, you know that that's where he might get hit around a little bit. 00:35:40 Speaker 1: Do you think he has a plus plus secondary in his arsenal somewhere? 00:35:46 Speaker 4: That's the that's the one thing. But I would say the slider has gotten to the point where I could see it be a plus pitch right now. Have it at above average? Uh, that's the pitch that has the best shot. But I don't know if he'll ever have that, you know, elite, elite slider. I don't know if it's quite there. But the thing with these guys is they go to a pitch lab, they make a tweak and then all of a sudden, this pitch looks totally different. So you never know he's got the arm talent. But right now that that's the one thing is I think the slider's you know, fifty five at best right now. 00:36:20 Speaker 2: You know, people forget this oftentimes you talked about maybe Miller gets up and he just pitches out of the bullpen because a lot of Mariners fans will sit and talk about, well, what do you have to do with one of your starters when he gets up. The truth is, I mean you look at guys like Dustin May and Julio Urias when they came up for the Dodgers, they were in the bullpen until they found a spot for him. So I think with Miller, at least my take on it is, if you feel like he's ready, just get your best arms up in the big leagues and him let him develop in the bullpen to start, and if you if you need a starter, you can let him start. 00:36:50 Speaker 4: I'm with that because ultimately, too, you know, this is a guy that in a team with the team that you're looking to compete, which is very now, that's great experience for them, Jesus WIZARDO. Same thing with Oakland when he first came up. He made a lot of his his most important and earliest appearances out of the bullpen and playoff games for Oaklandand that's a good experience for these guys. And you know, I know they want to build up the innings, but you also don't want to run him into the ground. So if he's thrown a lot, you know, if he makes fifteen twenty starts, and then you want to bring him up later in the season. It's a good way to manage his workload a little bit as well and keep him fresh. So I am interested to see how they handle him. It was really interesting to see how they handle Matt Brash And regardless, this is a weapon that you'll be able to use one way or another, whether it's as a swingman or a different role. They think the Mariners are going to be very happy that they have at the end of the year. 00:37:41 Speaker 1: Let's get to the other prospect you had in the top one hundred's that's Harry Ford. You had him at number forty four, And where'd you say? You teased it a little bit that he was one of your favorite picks of the draft. Now you could tell a little bit and you're right up if you want to go read arms breakdown at just baseball dot com and it's top one hundred prospect rankings. I mean, you don't see these kinds of athletes that catcher and you know, we've gotten this consensus over that Harry Ford, you know for the last almost two years now that he's been in the organization. But it really is just it's so unique in that retrospect and it seems from a lot of your write up that I don't even know if you're sold he's gonna stay behind the plate. Well, you know, a lot of things we've seen is that they're planning on it for now. But but you it doesn't seem like that. 00:38:25 Speaker 4: You think that, so I think he's got a good shot too. I really like what I saw from him, even in the WBC. What I love about Harry Ford, though, is that if he doesn't, he's still a great player and a great prospect, which is which is so rare because you have the stigma with high school catchers that are drafted. I think there's no worse profile track record wise than high school catchers when it comes to just what they do in their professional careers. The beautiful thing about Harry Ford is he's not your typical high school catcher. He's a guy that if it doesn't work out behind the dish, he can play center field. And that's the craziest part. But also you're seeing from a catching perspective, this is the new wave. He's the most extreme example. But JT. Realmuto, who's been the best catcher in baseball for a long time. Maybe Adlie Rutchman's on his heels, but we're seeing the catching position kind of be revolutionized into an athlete's position. Gabriel Moreno, who just came up, is a really good athlete. Adlie Rutchman was a kicker in college. He's a good athlete, you know. 00:39:25 Speaker 3: JT. 00:39:25 Speaker 4: Good athlete. Andy Rodriguez one of the best catching prospects of baseball at the Pirates, really good athlete. A lot of these guys that's the future here, and those guys seem to develop well. The way he's able to block and move back there is really encouraging. His receiving keeps getting better. I think he's got a great chance to stick there overall, but obviously there's a lot that has to happen. There's a lot of progress that needs to be made, and they might just look at him and say, hey, you're more valuable to us in center field. I let Dalton Varshow. Like Varshow proved that he's good enough to stay back there. His defense got better and better and better, to the point where he was actually a solid defen behind the dish. But his bat was so good, his legs were so valuable, and his defense was actually so good in the outfield that that's where they ended up playing him. It doesn't seem like that's the plan for the Mariners. So the more that he continues to just play behind the dish, the more I think that's going to be the case. But with that kind of speed and that feel to hit, he's a really patient hitter already as well. It'll be interesting to see what they decide to do, you know, a year from now, two years from now, given the tool set that he has. 00:40:28 Speaker 2: I really like the Dalton Varshow cop because people have tried to find comps for Ford so far, and a couple that I've read are things like Craig Bigio, which, don't get me wrong, I think Mariners fans will get excited about when you hear it, and I get the idea behind it, but it's also you're talking about a Hall of famer when you're comparing him to Harry Ford. Now, var Show is a guy that he was a good catcher, and he still is a good catcher. But if you need him to play other positions, which the Blue Jays are doing right now, you can do it. So with Ford, you know, cal Raley's still catching at a high level when he comes up in a couple of years, you can easily move him, and with. 00:41:01 Speaker 4: The value that you get from Ford like that, you don't want to have a situation here where like Gabriel Moreno, you got to go trade him away. And it's ironic that this example here they were actually traded for each other, but you know that's that's not what you want to do. If you like the bat and you like the profile, and I think they do like the bat. This is a guy that can really swing it, who has a chance for above average power and one of the best chase rates in his entire organization as a teenager last year, Like that's very rare, and I think he's only going to get better and better, so that bat's going to be really valuable. I think he could be a twenty five to thirty stolen base threat if he wants that to be a serious part of his game. And I do think there's fifteen to twenty home run power there. So that's a really good profile that sounds a lot like Dalton var Show, and you know, you assume that speed translates into other positions. He's so good, you know, in terms of the way that he's able to let his athleticism translate into the game. So I'm very interested. He's one of my favorite guys to watch this year to just see, you know, how he progresses and how the Mariners decide to use him. But I do agree with the idea of developing him as a catcher and then figuring it out afterwards, because if you want to throw that guy in the outfield, he'll figure it out quickly. Jas Chisholm's making strides in center field and he was playing the infield. I think Harry Ford could figure out the outfield pretty quickly, But once you go away from catcher, it's really hard to go back and get him to continue to progress there. So I like this baseline regardless, and I think you could turn into at least an average catcher there when it's all said and done. 00:42:28 Speaker 1: I think you said in your right up that he could potentially be in the top fifteen when he debuts. 00:42:34 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that there's a legitimate chance that this guy could be one of the best prospects in baseball if he continues on this trajectory with the versatility, with the athleticism, and with the bat and the youth. If he has a big year this year, I think that with the graduation of other guys, with him climbing up, he could easily be a top fifteen to twenty prospect in the game. 00:42:58 Speaker 2: Arms right up is awesome on all these So again, if you want to go check that out, it's over on Just baseball dot com. If you want to know about a prospect, you can find it over on that on that article, because arm gives a pretty detailed outline of all the top one hundred guys. If we wanted to move over to the big league guys here and the Mariners for for a little bit. I know you guys talking talk about him a decent amount on the Just Baseball Show. I know Peter's pretty high on him, especially this year, But from your perspective, how did you view this team entering the year. 00:43:28 Speaker 4: I like, I was buying when Peter was selling. I know Peter has like a World Series future about on them, and and honestly, I see it, you know, I see it. You know, a lot of what Peter does is as a betting guy is look for value. So were they his favorite to win the World He's probably not, but at that value, I totally could see it as well. And you know, you look at the team from top to bottom, like I feel like they've answered a lot of their their questions and then to go get a toy Oscar Hernet Like. I love Mitch Haniger, I absolutely, He's one of my favorite players in a long time. But at the end of the day, he's just not available. He's yet to play this year. And you replace that with ta Oscar Hernandez, who is very available and has been very available, and I think it can be even better offensively, or at least very close to what we saw from that, you know, peak year from Hanneger with a little bit more athleticism I loved, and I know he hasn't been off to the best start. I loved the Colton Long pickup. I thought that was exactly what they need. I like this team from top to bottom, I really do. Kirby and Gilbert are some of the most exciting young pitchers I think in the game. And then you got Castillo, who looks like a bona fide ace, Like this is a ridiculously talented ball club. And that's actually not even using Robbie right at this point, who had a nice spring training and then hasn't you know, really been able to throw much and then we know what the bullpen is. So I think it's really hard to poke a hole in this team. I think you could poke some holes, maybe offensively, just because of you know how they get left handed heavy sometimes, and you know, maybe shortstop with JP Crawford, because that's a guy that you know, you can probably point towards that position and say that's one where if you're playing another team, that's gonna be one of the areas where maybe the other team has the upper hand. But even then, when JP Crawford's playing right, he's not He's not a problem. I'm interested to see what you guys think about him. But with the improvement ACCOUNTC, it really seems like it's impossible to poke a hole in this in this team, Like, what's what's the issue with the Mariners? Like what do you hear from Mariners fans? Because I think from top to bottom, this is a really well rounded team. 00:45:26 Speaker 1: You said you love the Colton Wong acquisition, but that's really that has been one of the gripes so far. It's been the perennial black holes throughout much of the Jerry to Poto era is left field, second base. Uh, since Nelson Cruz left d H as well, which you know occupies Colton Wong. Tomula Stella, Uh right now, Cooper Hummel, It's. 00:45:50 Speaker 3: It's a ass. 00:45:51 Speaker 1: So like, uh, I think Colton Wong's gonna get better. It's gonna be really hard to beat what the Adam Fraser and one of my favorite players of all time, Abraham Toro did last year for the Mariners. But yeah, it just it is funny to see these these early season reactions to Colton Wong. But you know, he doesn't really have a high bar to to clears, so that's instantly could say, yeah, I mean, yes, it was good. It's a it's a good signing and a good fit. Yeah. You know. 00:46:15 Speaker 4: The thing for me is like I feel like fans, you know, this is your first look at Colton Wong, who has a three WRC plus through the first fourteen games. But look at the larger sample size here. This guy has been a walking two win player at second base every single year. 00:46:29 Speaker 1: Is that guy? 00:46:30 Speaker 4: Is that gonna change things for you know? But you just mentioned how bad the position has been in the past. If you get above average offense and solid defense and he's a two point five win player, which he has been legitimately every single year of his career. I don't think he just fell off a clip at age thirty two or thirty three. No, he's still thirty two. So I really don't think that this is going to be a problem. I think he's a guy that's going to actually be a really nice table center for the more bottom of the order bat you know, once he gets going a little bit. But other than that, like I know, Hummel, that was more of just kind of a swap, like change scenery guy. You know, you send ky Lewis out, you get a little bit more of a versatile outfielder and player in Cooper Hummel. Obviously he can't really hit much, but you know, that was a fine move too. They're gonna make another move, I assume too, like you can go get another bat. But I really feel like from top to bottom, this team is really well rounded, and I think the offense is only gonna get better. Jay Rod's gonna kick it in the year. I think a lot of the other guys that have gotten off to slow starts will kick it in the year. And it's a fun team overall. 00:47:29 Speaker 2: Colton Wong has been not only is he a two win player just about every year. But even his offense, he's right around like a one to ten WRC plus most years, which is perfectly above average, especially for a smaller second basement. And the Mariners are going to platoon him once Dylan Morgan's back to basically solely play against righty's. I guess he's been mostly just playing against righties to begin with anyway, but they're playing to his strength. I don't think the first fourteen to fifteen games are gonna be indicative of what his season's gonna be. 00:47:55 Speaker 4: I also love I know, I know he doesn't do that much statistically, but I love Dylan Moore like he's just. 00:48:04 Speaker 1: This man right here in the middle is the biggest Dylan Moore fan of all time. 00:48:10 Speaker 4: So we always joke about it on the Just Baseball Show, like who's the kind of crappy player that you like way too much? And mine is mine is Dylan Moore. I loved my prospect version of that was ty Frant, Like ty France was one of my favorite He was never crappy, so he raked. But ty France I was never a highly regarded prospect and I actually like label when a guy has a really ridiculous feel to hit and no other tools and gets overlooked. I have any Pascantino as a guy we on our top one hundred list that no one had. I literally call it the ty France effects. Now because of ty France, he put up numbers, though Dylan Moore doesn't really put up numbers. But I love that guy, like he's he's just finds a way to help you win. He plays all over, he's fastest hack Like, I'm glad that I have another Dylan Moore truther out there because I think he's a great bench player. 00:48:59 Speaker 1: I'm crashing the first meeting of the Dylan Moore Fan Club. I didn't realize that, but I came ill prepared for this. 00:49:07 Speaker 2: Like what what I always say about him is not just the things that you mentioned between being fast, being able to play all over the field, stealing bases, but he's got sneaky pop and he also has a good walk rate. Like, yeah, every team needs a Julio mostly to win a title, but you also need the Dylan Moores of the world too, which is why I like what he brings and I always love seeing him in the lineup, especially against lefties, which is where he thrives. 00:49:30 Speaker 4: And you mentioned the splits, and that's what's interesting too, because you know a kount it's been awesome and they might he keeps in like this. You plan him every day, but you know, if you want to shelter him from lefties, I still think AJ Pollock's gonna be better in a left handed masher role. I know he's off to a very slow start, but that guy. The one thing that never goes for old hitters is hitting lefties. We'll get Albert poolholes, but like it's not just pool holes, like a lot of guys once they're washed up and over the hill, which I don't even think Pollock's washed up, but once you're over the hill, you could still hit lefties. Like that's the one part of a guy's game that almost never goes. So you'll be able to get that from Pollock. I like the way that they can mix and match. You mentioned more and long, like that is something that if you're not gonna have a star at a certain position, you can piece together a much better value from platooning. We saw the Giants do it in that year where they want one hundred and whatever, one hundred eleven games. Whatever it was, We've seen the Rays do it on several different occasions. It won't be as dramatic here, but I do like the way that they can kind of mix and match and be matchup dependent. And then also like cal Rally, are you really worried about cal Rally? Like he's obviously going to have a better than a six to seventy six ops. So I do think this team's gonna really hit its stride soon. 00:50:43 Speaker 2: The Twitter world in general is just I mean, as we all know, just as Cesspool. I mean, there's Mariner fans out there, you go on Twitter that are legitimately worried about Julio slumping over the last week, and it's like, you know what, I'm. 00:50:54 Speaker 3: Just gonna chill a little bit. 00:50:55 Speaker 2: I'm gonna take a little bit of a chill pill and come out of you know, give you the bold take of saying I think he's gonna figure it out here, especially considering how awful he was last April too. 00:51:08 Speaker 4: I'm not gonna lose sleep over Julio Rodriguez, I'll tell you that. And that's the other side of it, right, You've got a player who was one of the favorites for the MVP and still should be considered an MVP candidate who was a seven to twenty one ops. So the first sixteen games, if that happens, you tip your cap and say the season's a wrap, like that's fine. If that's how your season goes down, like that's fine, you can accept that as the reason why it's not gonna happen. He's gonna be just fine. So that's the thing too, is you're looking at this Mariner team that has won a handful of games in a real like you mentioned, that's eight and eight, and I think that things have gone as poorly as possible for them offensively in a lot of ways outside of Jared Kellennick, which has been you know, I think you'll take that right, like, if Kellenick is doing this, you know the other guys are gonna figure it out. That was the one guy we didn't really know about was Jared Kellennick. We had no idea what we were gonna get from it. I know you wrote your piece on just Baseball dot com Lyyle your shot. He said this is gonna be the year he puts together. But you were kind of on an island on that one, like there wasn't a lot of people that were standing there with you, and you know, I didn't know where I stood on him, because at the end of the day, he's twenty three, and like, there's so much time to work things out. But there were times where it just looked real bad, so which you guys know, so it was really tough to peg. You stuck with it. You believed in them, and look, this is I think this is somewhat real. Like obviously he's sitting through sixty two with eleven hundred ops, Like I don't know if he's gonna do that all year, but obviously there's something real here with the swing adjustment and what he's done. If that continues, the rest is gonna work itself out. I don't I don't think you should worry about you know, cal Rally Juillio Rodriguez, Taskar Hernandez, like those guys have hit for a long time and will hit for a long time. I'm not worried about that. 00:52:50 Speaker 1: How much Jared kelnick Stock, were you holding while he was struggling? Were you selling quick? Were you or you were you one to the ride the downturn and wait until wait until it crested a little bit man. 00:53:04 Speaker 4: So I have a couple of Jared Countic baseball cards. And for those who don't know, I'm like a big card collector. Vintage cards were always kind of my bread and butter, but now I like to get into the speculation market and you know, pick up some cards to some youngsters, some prospects, all that good stuff. If I got a decent offer for one of my counted cards, I would have sold it. Reality was, I would have had to sell it for super cheap because a lot everyone was jumping off the train and I wasn't willing to jump off for like, let's say thirty cents on the dollar. I would have probably sold for seventy cents on the dollar, maybe even sixty cents on the dollar. So for that thought exercise there, like, I was definitely worried, but I don't think I was. I was like, if I was the general manager of the Seattle Mariners, no way would I be giving up on that kid. And I think I was somewhere in between, if that makes sense. But I was definitely worried. There was definitely some points in times last year specifically where it was all right, if he's not doing it now. I don't know when he's gonna do it, but there he is, looking like a new guy, and I definitely think this one might be for real. 00:54:09 Speaker 2: The bat that stands out to me just in these first couple of weeks with Kellmick is they were in Cleveland last weekend. He's facing Emmanual class A, who, for my money, might be the best reliever in all of baseball, and this guy's just thrown him ridiculous sliders and cutters left and right. He gets down two strikes and he's just spitting on all this stuff in the dirt from class A, which is obviously really hard to lay off, especially because some of Kellnick's issues over the first couple of years was he was just flailing out against off speed out of his own and he spat on all of them. And he ended up working a walk with two outs in the ninth or in the ninth inning with the Mariners up a run or two, and they got an insurance run because of the walk, because they strung together a couple of hits after that. And that was what really stood out where I was like, Okay, WHOA, the old Jared Kelnick's not drawn that walk, and then the game's following was when he just had this ridiculous week with all the home runs. So the fact he's really seemed to make make an adjustment on spitting on a lot of pitches, I think that was the big first signal. 00:55:05 Speaker 4: You can you can learn a lot about a player's comfort and how they feel from their takes, and that's one hundred percent I think spot on there. You look at the chase rates, small sample size in the early going here, but you look at the chase rates, they're they're pretty low relative to what we've seen. You look at the zone contact rates, they're pretty strong. His swing decisions overall have been pretty good. He's also driving the ball to center a lot more. There is a guy that you know wanted to go pull side a lot more. You look at the spray charts, I believe he's got countada right now. He's got four three homers, four extra base hits straight dead center, whereas you look at the minor league spray charts. That was one you know, I wouldn't say red flag because I still thought he was consensus top five prospect in the game, no doubt about it. But there was like one little yellow flag if you're trying to spot like one, like one, minor minor, minor imperfection. It was how much he wanted to go to his pull side for his power, and how many of his home runs were to the pulse, And I think that was kind of taking him in and out of the zone a little bit, kind of causing him to pull off a breaking balls. And now you've seen the guy that's confident not only against the breaking balls, but confident that he can hit the ball out to all fields. I think that's opening up a lot more, you know, opportunity to see the ball deeper, drive it to all fields, make better swing decisions, and then also just drive the ball effectively wherever it's pitched. So that's why I really think this is a legitimate, legitimate improvement. And it's also important to note, like this guy flew through the miners, he's twenty three years old. If he was instead of struggling up and down from the big, big big leagues in Triple A, took a slow progression through the miners and tore up Double A for a full year, and then tore up Triple A for a full year and was a little bit slower and is tracking through, you know, and we might not have hit the panic button as much, but he got to the big league so quickly that we expected him to get going after a year, and then after the second year it was like, Okay, now we're really worried. But sometimes it takes that long for guys, and it seems like he's a different guy now. 00:57:02 Speaker 1: A lot of the beef that some of the Mariners fans and some writers had when they were watching him play and some analysts is that he he changed who he was as a hitter when he got to the big leagues. Maybe it was Mark McGuire whispering in his ear or something. I don't know if we could pin down exactly what it was, but that he really changed as a as a hitter once he got to the big leagues. The thing is now, though, as you said, I don't think he's the same hitter he was in the miners, because people in the miners like, oh, well he's you know, he's not going to strike out a ton. He's going to spray the ball around the field, and like you said, if he needs to go power, he'll go pull side. Well, now it looks like with that swing, if he hits enough fly balls. I mean, this dude could hit thirty thirty five home runs without an issue, because I didn't even like the fact that a guy who's six foot two oh five has the power hit a ball four hundred and eighty two feet. Now, you don't really see that all that much. It just just kind of crazy that he changed. He's changed again, essentially a third different version of himself as a hit or as a pro. But it might, honestly might be his best version of himself. 00:58:05 Speaker 4: That's the thing is, you know, he's in the bucket of guys that don't need to try to generate power like he effortlessly does it, and especially with these big league baseballs, Like that's the one thing I'll see a lot too, is you see the jump and exit velocities for guys when they get from the miners to the majors because of the change in baseball is a little bit too, But with Kelnick like, he can pretty much take his b swing and still drive the ball out of the yard. So I always look at ninetieth percentile egsit velocity, which is a really telling stat on the power of guys in the minor leagues, and uh, you know, that takes top ten percent of baseballs you hit, you know, and kind of get aggregates and gets the average of it there. So his ninetieth percentile exit velocity there though, is up from last year, and that includes the minor league. So by by nature almost maybe he doesn't hit that that one twenty or like one hundred and eighteen. I don thing he's ever put it up a one twenty obviously, but those one sixteens, one seventeens as much. But he puts up a lot more one tens, one's, eleven's and one twelves. That's still better. Uh, you know, that's better. So if you're more consistently getting into the one one hundred and eight mile an hours to the one hundred twelve miles an hour, then you know, occasionally popping a higher max exit velocity, you're gonna be a better hitter. And we're seeing him just with more ninety five plus even the the driving the ball the other way with authority and realizing that even when he's not selling out for it, he's still gonna be able to catch it. Hit the ball really, really far, and it looked like he didn't even take a big swing when he hit that ball for eighty two, Like it seems like he's trusting that he can hit for power without consciously trying to hit for power, and that's making him look like a much more complete hitter. 00:59:45 Speaker 2: I said before the start of the season that Kelnick was the unquestioned X factor of this team and if everything really clicked for him the way it has these first couple of weeks, that they have a legitimate shot to win the AL West. Now, I don't think when it all is said and done, they really have the firepower to overtake Houston. But I said, what's the scenario where it can happen. It's if kell Nick clicks and now and when the months get rolling, and like we said, when Julio gets going, when cal Raley gets going, because we know they're going to despite maybe with some people on Twitter like to say, this team all of a sudden gets that much deeper offensively with another legitimate potential star somewhere in the middle of the order with Kelnick. 01:00:24 Speaker 4: That that's the thing. It's like found money, right, I mean that you would not have been able to go out on the free agent market and you know, find a hitter for what you're going to pay Keunic obviously, but in general, there weren't that many hitters in the market that are capable of what a Kelnic who figures it out is capable of doing. And if they, if you were, you're gonna have to pay a lot of money, So you know, to go get ta Oscar, which I thought that deal was fantastic. And then now pair that with an improved Kelnick, this lineup could be a lot better than last year. And I expect Julio to take a step forward to he was really good last year for a rookie. He was incredible for a rookie. But as Vegas would kind of echo, we're expecting him to take that leap to you know, MVP status or at least in that conversation he does that, that's a big game you just made across the board. And then don't forget Ty Franz like he was playing banged up last year. That guy's healthy. He is being fantastic to start the year. That's a guy that's going to improve. Like this lineup is going to improve I think a lot just by itself through guys maturing, and then you go out and have some of those outside editions that you were able to kind of bring in here. I think that's going to put him over the top and really make them a force to be reckoned with. 01:01:43 Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the Mariner's rotation. Luis Castile right Lyle and I talked about earlier in the season about how is he like actually become an ace? How does he become a true number one. We see he's like, well, he's a lower end number one, a high end number two for the most parts when the Mariners traded for him last year. But what we've seen this year from Luis Castillo, I mean, he looks like like a legit ace, like a Garrett Cole, Jacob de gram level ace. Not saying he's better than those guys, but on that level, pretty certain. What we've seen from Castillo this season, if he keeps it up for a full season, puts him in true number one territory, right. 01:02:23 Speaker 4: I mean, I think the difference has really just been the command going from good to great. So far this year, he's just been drilling his spots. He's only walking four and a half percent of batters. His strike rate is up by about four percent. So when you've got the stuff that Castillo has, and now you're pounding the strike zone, you're going deeper into starts, you're more efficient, and you're more dominant. And that was really the difference. And that's a lot of times the difference between a good two and a three. A lot of these guys have stuff. Most of these dudes have stuff. That's how they get there. But how do you command that stuff? And he was always pretty good with the command. Now he looks elite with it. And if that's the case, like there's something that look at which is like non competitive percentage and still way too many of his fastballs last year were non competitive so far this year fraction compared to last year. And the fastball so fastball command really sets the tone. And then we know what he's got with the slider and the change up. He's commanding both of those pitches better. Small sample size, he's only throwing fifty six change ups this year, but he's landing them for a strike in a near eighty percent clip. Forty four strikes twelve balls on the change up like that is almost impossible to be when you've got just better commanded the rest of your arsenal and the fastball set in the tone. If he can keep that up, I think he could be a top top ten pitcher in the game this year, because again we always knew the stuff was there. The command was always solid, but now the command has been great, and that might be the difference maker for him. I'm really excited a monitor and kind of see how he continues. It's funny because the vlo's down a tick. I don't think that's for any reason other than he's commanding it better at this spot at averaging around ninety five than averaging around ninety six to ninety seven last year, and he's drilling his spots. It's better to be there and drill your spots then be a little bit more erratic and a little bit higher of a velocity. 01:04:11 Speaker 1: And I think a lot of what will come besides the command, as you mentioned, is the fact that the something the Mariners have done with his fastball and how they have him throw it has made that pitch from sort of a get over pitch to more of probably a best case Bryce Miller's fastball scenario pitch. He is, as you say, like throwing his fastball straight down the pipe and guys cannot touch it. They just don't hit his fastball, which is it's incredible to watch because if you go look at a savant page, this fastball is never his best pitch until last year, and it looks even better now. 01:04:46 Speaker 4: So another really really fun stat is in zone with so it's obviously just like the opposite of zone contact in zone wiff on. His fastball actually was right around Bryce Miller range in the minor leagues last year. It was right around thirty one percent for Castillo at the big league level last year, and now he's up to thirty three percent this year. So that's beyond elite territory. And when you have to worry about a four seamer riding and a sinker diving down and you can't really tell until it's you know, you tunnel so well, you can't tell it till the final fifteen twenty feet and you got to worry about a change up. There's three different trajectories you got to worry about, and that's not even mentioning the slider that's breaking this way. So he's got things kind of moving in three to four different directions and he tunnels them all so well. He kind of slingshots the arm. I think he's really figured it all out. You mentioned the way he's worked with the Mariners. Think the Mariners have helped him figure it all out. And I think this is the best version we've seen him at thirty years old, which is which is pretty darn cool. It's cool to see guys kind of continue to learn, develop and be open to change as they get older, even though they've had success through their late twenties. 01:05:50 Speaker 2: One last rotation question for you here and then I do want to hear a little bit more about everything that you've started and created now with Just Baseball. But Just Baseball had the Maritors rotation ranked it number three, inside the top five entering twenty twenty three. And we know how good Castillo can be. But if you have him ranked that high, I'm guessing that means you guys are probably sipping a lot of Logan Gilbert and George Kirby t Yeah. 01:06:15 Speaker 4: So the thing with George Kirby is, I've he's been one of my favorite prospects, like dating all the way back to right after he was drafted out of Elon. I mean, the pitch ability mixed with the quality of fastball, and you know, maybe he doesn't have the most elite secondary stuff, but it's continued to get better and better and better, and he commands the hell out of it like he's just such a pleasure to watch. And then logan Gilbert's cut from a similar cloth, where he just pounds a strike zone, great stuff, and it has continued to tick up. It was kind of average stuff through the miners, and now it's ticked up to really good stuff and now bordering on great with some of the adjustments to his shape. You combine Gilbert and Kirby in the early going in this year, and I know Kirby hasn't been, you know, totally to the standard of what we saw in the second half of last year. I think he'll get there. He'll be just fine. Underlying stats look fine. But thirty two strikeouts between those two guys, five walks. You add Castillo to that, that's another twenty six strikeouts and four walks. These guys strike dudes out, They pound the zone, they don't walk anybody. That's a good recipe for success, especially over the course of one sixty two. We love the rotation. Could we expected Castillo to be Castillo not even this good, but to be that frontline guy Gilbert and Kirby to take that step forward, and you know, Robbie Ray gets a lot of flak, but at the end of the day, he's still a really solid middle of the rotation starter, and there's a legitimate scenario, and now I think it's already pretty clear. 01:07:37 Speaker 3: He's there four. 01:07:38 Speaker 4: If Robbie Ray's your four, you're in fantastic shape. And then we also were considering, you know, Marco Gonzalez is a solid depth arm who will always defy any advanced stat you look at. He just gets out, just gets outs. I don't know howbody gets outs every single year. And then you have like alternates like Matt Brash, who is a reliever but can plug in if you need him to. We talked about some of the prospects that are the wings, and then Chris Flexen's another kind of get out skuy. I know he's been bad to start this year, but when we were making the rankings were like, that's your six or seven starter, Like that's pretty darn good. Hopefully he can get it going. Obviously it's been a disastrous start for him, but that's just another good depth arm. They're deep, they've got the balance of youth, and then the proven frontline guy. It's hard to find many better rotations in this. 01:08:24 Speaker 2: Well, if you've heard this interview now for the last forty five minutes or so, you probably have sat and thought to yourself, Yeah, Arham really knows the Mariners. 01:08:30 Speaker 4: Well. 01:08:31 Speaker 2: The truth is, he could break down all the thirty teams like this, and I would think all three guys on the Just Baseball Show or not. I think I know all three guys on the Just Baseball Show between Jack and Peter two can do the exact same thing. Because you guys have started up this company now for the last few years. I mean, we've been watching it from afar for a while. We think it's been awesome. But I did want to ask you about how you guys got it started and what kind of inspired you to start this whole thing. 01:08:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, dude, that's a great question. 01:08:56 Speaker 1: So we. 01:08:59 Speaker 4: It was right around twenty twenty he graduated from college during COVID and I was hosting a podcast Unlocked on I was hosting two actually was on the Lost, walked on Marlins and locked on MLB prospects, the prospect stuff. Obviously, you could tell a big passion of mine and that was starting to take off a little bit, and I was really excited about it and like leaning into it, kind of getting out of the Marlins shell as much as I love, you know, where where I started was, you know, with fist drive, writing free blogs and the Marlins. You know, small fan base was kind of like where it was it all began for me. But I realized like if I wanted to try to grow an audience and grow anything, I had to get into something else. So I got into the prospect side of things, especially after the Cape, which was really fun for me, and you know got me into player evaluation and you know, bringing those guys in the podcast during COVID was really fun and kind of just growing it from there. But then I was ready to do the play by player route. Saw my job disappear when they canceled the minor league season, and it's kind of caught in this holding pattern, and you know, it was talking to a lot of my friends, Peter and Jack about you know, what we wanted to do, like what we were going to do to kill time and what we kind of felt like was missing in the baseball space. And you know, at first it came into an idea of like you know, kind of making a site that balances analytics and stuff for the casual fan and kind of making it this like this home base for everybody. And then we thought about it a step further and like, wait, all we hear about is how baseball is dying and how viewership is down. Blah blah blah buth. We don't really buy it. We still think there's a ton of interest there. How can we prove that? So Peter had been really adamant about video and having more video content, and Jack, obviously Triple, a broadcaster for the Indianapolis Indians Pirate affiliate, is just so good on the mic and so talented and just you know, really thought that there was a lot of potential on the podcast side. I was building a WordPress website and I was like, okay, how can we build this all together? And we wanted to test it out. So we started this the Just Baseball Show, and at that point it was called Project the Plate, and we were like, Okay, let's just get together, let's talk about baseball, let's have some fun, and let's see how it goes. We started clipping it, you know, clipping the podcast, putting it on TikTok, and then you know, I also wanted to build the site where we could have you know, one stop shop where you know, people can choose whether they wanted to read written work, listen to the podcast, watch full video on YouTube, or watch the short tiktoks for those abbreviated clips. And what we realized is there's a lot of interest in baseball on TikTok and that was something that was funny to me because that's a very young base that's a very young audience, and that was very telling. So we were like, okay, we had I think it was one of the first things we talking about Gary Sanchez framing and it blew up like one hundred and fifty thousand views, was just making fun of Gary Sanchez's framing, and at that point we're like, okay, there's something here. Started reaching out to some of my other classmates that were stuck in a holding pattern to bring them on as writers, and I was like, we could maybe funnel this all into one different way, So like we would take those articles that somebody would write, make a short TikTok on it, encourage people to go to the website, encourage people to go to the podcast, and it kind of just built up from there. But the TikTok was was an area where where I think it was a way to give us exposure, almost free promo, and then people came over to the website, came over to the podcast and stuck, and that's where we were really lucky. And then things just kind of spiraled from there and turned into something that you know, caused us to take this seriously, which I never thought we'd do. I thought it'd be like a fun, fun, little side hustle thing we could put on our resume, and now we're here, so it's it's it's pretty cool. 01:12:28 Speaker 1: I remember that Gary Sanchiz TikTok. I remember watching it. I don't remember the exact hit. I can picture in my head. I could probably go back and watch it be like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. But I remember that so clearly. That's so funny. 01:12:45 Speaker 3: You know, I've got a little bit of a funny story for you. 01:12:48 Speaker 1: Ar. 01:12:48 Speaker 2: I'm just speaking of just baseball and how much it's grown, because for people that maybe aren't familiar with just baseball, I mean, it's really really blowing up. I mean, arms sitting here talking about how it started. But if you go and look at any of it channels, the site, TikTok, YouTube, I mean, you name it. 01:13:03 Speaker 3: It's really really thriving. 01:13:05 Speaker 2: And I had always kind of seen I mean, I always had seen you guys doing this work from afar, and again I always thought it was cool as somebody who just loves baseball. But last year I was calling games for the Dayton Dragons, and in the span of a couple different days but close to each other, this is what happened. I made a friend who was on the sales team with the Dragons. We were driving somewhere together. He says, I like to listen to this baseball podcast. I said, okay, that's cool, and he turns it on and it's the Just Baseball Show. And I turned out right and I'm. 01:13:33 Speaker 3: Like, well, I know these guys. I was like, you do. I was like yeah. 01:13:35 Speaker 2: I was like, I was in the CAP League with these guys. I was like, I was in the k League with Jack in twenty eighteen. I was in the KP League with arm in twenty nineteen. It's like, oh, that's pretty cool. 01:13:43 Speaker 3: So that happened. 01:13:44 Speaker 2: And then a few days later I met one of his friends who was at the Dragons game and he's wearing a just Baseball hat and same thing, same thing. I'm just like, oh, just Baseball. It's like you fan of those guys. It's like, oh, I listened all the time. It's like the same thing. I was like, I know those guys back from the Cape League, Like this is this is how we all know each other. That's how I know their stuff. He's like, yeah, I love listening. I texted TJ about it and I was like, there's people out here we're in just baseball stuff, and he goes, yeah, dude, they've got like over one hundred thousand followers on TikTok and I wasn't on TikTok back then, but I was like, that was the first time I realized, whoa, they're they're really doing this thing. Like so, I guess long story short for you guys, like when did you really start to notice picking up traction. 01:14:27 Speaker 5: Like that? 01:14:27 Speaker 4: That's crazy to me because like we, you know, we we start to like get those those tweets or like we'll be out and about and see someone wearing a just Baseball shirt or hat and it's like it almost feels like a joke, Like it just doesn't feel real, like it feels like someone was planted there, like that story. Even you can see my reaction, Like it still was very surreal to me, Like I would say, gosh, when did it really start to like because I still feel like we're we're like on the cusp of you know, doing what we want to do. And and it's funny because I think I know Jack can speak to this too, Like we never really felt it because it was genuinely just us having fun, like we didn't really know like what was happening. Like Peter would run the TikTok most of the time and take the clips and post them and he would see the video numbers more but like a lot, Jack and I like didn't even really go on TikTok, so we didn't really know. Peter would be like yo, like that one got like one hundred K, and I'd be like okay, yeah, sure whatever, Like I didn't really think anything. It wasn't really real, and only comments would be like mean most of the time because it's TikTok, so like I don't know, it wasn't really real to me. But then it started to become real when we would go to the ballpark and someone would come up and be like, hey, man, I love the podcast, which is just the coolest thing in the world, Like for someone to take the time to say that, and like for me, it was like, yeah, some people might see our clips and yell at us and say we're wrong, but to see like a real human in the flesh come up to me and say, hey, man, I enjoy the show, like that was really cool. Sometimes I didn't even know my name, but they enjoyed the show like that's all that I can heard about. Like that is very cool to me. So that was when it was like very real. We went to a couple of Mets games, went to a couple of Yankees games, and like had a kind listener come up. And then I went to Saint Louis for the last Poolos's last game, Pools and Yati's last game. I'm going with my girlfriend Ellie, who's you know, a big time Cardinals fan. Grew up a Cardinals fan, and somebody came up and said love your stuff, and I'm like, man, I thought like, maybe just New York because it's New York. But then then it happened to Saint Louis and I was like, this is really cool. So you know, honestly, it just really was a byproduct of loving it. Like I see you guys love Mariners baseball, and I think that's why this is going to be really successful for you guys. But like we plugged away for a while and like we had a like fifty seventy five hundred listeners. Like then it just was what it was. But I think the passion just kind of shined through and when you just keep at it, like I think people just really appreciate that and latch on. And I think that's why I think like it was a slow burn, but it was a slow burn that caused us to have like a really like intimate relationship with our listeners. Is like hornies that sounds, and I think really allowed us to like retain and grow and and while it was a little bit slower, it wasn't like this overnight, you know thing that you see in some other stories. I think it's allowed us to really have this solid base and go from there, which has been really humbling and really cool. 01:17:20 Speaker 1: The thing, I really appreciate what you guys kind of showed me and I because Lyle didn't really watch TikTok as much until probably a little bit more recently when you know we're doing this for our show, is that, like you guys said, showing that like people on the internet and especially on TikTok really do love sports and they do and you know that you're right. It's not always positive, but it always it does drive interaction and people are interested in it and it's a way for for more people to see your stuff. I mean, we've been to the park a couple of times already to like to do some some some content at the park, and people I don't know if they would recognize, like they don't like like, oh, like I might have seen you guys because we're like we're at we just passed a thousand Well I think we'll mention earlier on this podcast, but. 01:18:04 Speaker 4: Those are a thousand real people that, right are right Mariners fans that are probably at the ballpark like it is. It's it is amazing, Like you bring it up like it's just a number, right, so like you just look at it like a number. But those are like a thousand real people out there somewhere that that appreciate it, and you don't realize that like unless the number has like six or seven digits. We assume like it's it's insignificant, but there's a thousand people out there that sit down and listen to your takes on the Mariners, which is so damn cool, Like it's it's really awesoight, and like that's that's something that I think is only going to grow and I think it is a very cool and surreal feeling. 01:18:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, And I would just say you got you guys. I'd say you guys inspired us a little bit, especially with the with the TikTok content too, because realize it was that it is probably it is the if you're going to promote something, that's one hundred percent of the right way to do it, because the algorithm of all these short form short form outlets like want you want video to be seen, which I think is really important and something you can't just do by linking it into tweet, right, It's just that does not work and you have to fight other ways to grow. And I think your guys' company, to be honest is a great example of that. Thriving at its highest level and finding your like niche like not gambling advice, like like the right niche, right of of baseball content that just brings it to the forefront and brings people in. 01:19:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate that, and I think ultimately too, like you, you look at at Twitter and I tried to grow a podcast through Twitter for a long time and you can't show the passion through there. And I look at TikTok like it's a an ad would be the poor word, because it's it's content that people enjoy, and most of the time ads are not that. But it's almost like an audition. You're auditioning for for people's attention, as crazy as that sounds, because there's so much stuff out there and you want to be able to show like, hey, we are some passionate guys that really love what we're doing and really love talking baseball, and here's a thirty second clip of us doing it, like hopefully you enjoy it, and then the algo does the work, and if people enjoy it, then you'll bring them over. If they don't, then you kind of get that instant feedback. And you know that's the cool thing about it too, So you know that's where that's the one beauty of social media nowadays, is it gives you the opportunity to really, you know, showcase your talent your passion, what you really enjoy, and then a lot of times people will we'll be able to sense that, and that's how you build the community. And I'm just glad people have, you know, begun to sense that with us, and I can see they're doing it with you guys. And that's the cool part about the modern aspect of the way sports are covered. It could be tumultuous, it could be very overwhelming with all the stuff that's out there, but I think just through passion and energy, you can really separate yourself kind of. 01:20:51 Speaker 3: To TJ's point. Again, and we're still pretty new. 01:20:54 Speaker 2: We've only been going on this about five months or so, but I was at the ballpark this past week and we were doing some fan interviews for some social media content. And it's funny, like when you walk up to people and ask if they'll answer a quick question, like a couple of people now have seid it's like, oh, I've seen you guys on TikTok, which is again not the same thing as people coming up to you, but I texted to teach. It's like, that's just the wildest thing in the world. Like people actually recognize us or they know who we are. But so to your points, it's happening on a big level with you guys these days. But I wanted to say, I mean, what I appreciate about you guys the most is you hear a lot of the times, not just with baseball but with sports in general, is you know X media outlet has a bias toward these teams, or they only cover East Coast teams, or you know this, and that you guys genuinely talk about all thirty teams and you really really know what you're talking about with all thirty teams. So I'm gonna guess that was a point of emphasis you guys had when starting this thing. But I should ask you is that you guys have tried to focus on. 01:21:50 Speaker 4: So it's funny you say that I actually to It kind of ties back to the previous question of like, kind of when did we start to realize we're breaking through a little bit. It was on see the small market teams because the Peter's a Yankees fan, but Peter loves baseball, so Peter wants to talk about other teams a lot. I grew up a Marlins fan, so I like know what it's like to be an underserved fan. And a small market and then Jack is a White Sox fan, so he's kind of in the middle. But what we kind of realized was we started to talk about the Reds and we started to talk about I remember we did this. We just started arguing about something stupid with the Reds and a small market team. But it turned into a lot of content about the Reds and we had it just kind of take off where the Reds fan base really glatched on to us because like, no one pays attention to us, and you know, that was really cool. And then we saw it with the Tigers, and we saw it with a few different other fan bases where it was like, we are underserved and these guys a national quote unquote podcast take the time to talk about us. So you know what I noticed is, you know, you see a lot of you know, especially the networks and things like that, they're going to talk about what pays the bills. It's basketball, It's always the Lakers, right baseball, It's gonna be talking about the Yankees and the Red Sox whatever, no matter what. And you know what we realized is like, what do we want to hear about? We want to hear about the relevant teams and even if some teams aren't relevant, like we want to give them their shine and we I think that paid dividends big time too. And also it's a fun little challenge to like know every team, know what you need to know about the Tigers or whoever. But yeah, doing stuff on the small market teams, I think really helps us break through because at the end of the day, yeah they're small market, they still got millions of fans, and they got millions of fans who feel very underserved and are very very passionate because you have to be if you're a small market fan, because odds are your team hasn't been doing that well unless you're the Raise or a few others. So, uh, there's a lot of like a lot of passion there, and I think that build some loyalty there on our base. 01:23:44 Speaker 3: I've got one. 01:23:45 Speaker 2: Final question for you to kind of wrap this up, and I feel like this is a good place to wrap on. Maybe we'll have to have Peter on at some point to dive in depth with him more about this, but I'm going to ask you on behalf of him, what's the story with his love for cal Quandrill, because I have not heard that like he's a Yankees. 01:23:59 Speaker 3: Fan and he loves that guy. 01:24:01 Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like somebody that's a Yankees fan that loves Otani or Juan Soto, like Cal Quantrell, who's a good pitcher. 01:24:06 Speaker 3: There's just a little random like how'd that start? 01:24:09 Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a really funny podcast episode too when he had Cal on. So it like, I'll talk about the Cal thing too from that lines. But basically, Peter always looks for an undervalued pitcher and when it comes to betting, because he's always looking for that edge. Flexen was one of those guys for a while, like just get out, gets Out. So was Mark Oganzoz how Quantrell was the ultimate value guy. Vegas would always undervalue him when he pitched, and he never lost at home. I think he went on like a twenty five and oh stretcher. So it became really funny because he kept just hyping up Cal Quantrell. He'd bet on him and he'd win, and he'd win, and he'd win and he'd win, and it just turned into a bit. But then it turned into a thing where it was like it was beyond like I'm winning my bets. He's fully buying the Cal Quantrell's like a better arm than he is. So then we start arguing about it on the podcast and I'm like, dude, I get that he's winning. You bet he's not that great, And we went back and forth, back and forth, and it turned into a whole debate. So I bet him that Cal Quantrille would finish the year with above a three five R. If he finished with a below three five R, I have to get a tattoo, which I still need to do. So he finishes with a sub three five R obviously, despite literally getting cranked walking dudes, it's just wine drives at guys like just horseshoe up as you know what. But you know what, he's an awesome guy. But it became such a bit people making fun of me for losing to bet, Peter tweeting about Cal every week that Cal found out, and so then we were able to get Cal on the podcast, and you know, I had to tell him like, yeah, dude, like I got to get a tattoo because I bet against you. So it just became like a whole thing and a whole story that became larger than life. And now he's Peter's like favorite human I think. But also he came on the podcast, and once he came on, Stanford guy super smart, super nice, super cool, We're like, damn, this guy's awesome too. So he just became like this like beloved guy at just Baseball and even I love him now, man, I gotta admit he's a really good dude. 01:26:08 Speaker 3: That's a really cool story. 01:26:09 Speaker 2: I guess I didn't realize there was a tattoo bet somewhere tied into this. I just knew Peter liked to tweet about him a lot, and I figured it had something to do with his bets. But oh, man, what do you have to get the tattoo up? Have you decided yet? 01:26:19 Speaker 4: So I asked Cal and he said, it doesn't ask to be anything crazy. He said, just just get my number or or he said get my number, or get my x c r A. Since you thought that matter, So we're gonna go with his number. It's smaller. My mom will probably cry if she finds out, but I'm gonna probably throw it right on my hip, like I just got hip surgery a year ago. Throw it right between the scar there and try to forget about it. 01:26:48 Speaker 2: Sure, that's story. I mean, that's an even better story. Than I realized it was. So that was a good way to wrap this thing. Well, we appreciate you taking some time here to talk with it today. If anybody's listening, I hope this is intrigued you enough to go check out Just baseball dot com, the Just Baseball Show, follow Arm on Twitter. I do some freelance writing for Just Baseball, which I've loved so far, So really go check all that out, go check arm out and arm We'll have to do this again sometimes because this was awesome. 01:27:16 Speaker 4: Anytime, guys, I really enjoyed and still excited for the Mariners this year. 01:27:23 Speaker 3: That was an awesome interview with Arm Laighton. 01:27:24 Speaker 2: We hope you guys enjoyed it, and we definitely hope you guys learned a little bit about Just Baseball because it's really thriving these days. 01:27:30 Speaker 3: All right, TJ, let's go down on the farm. 01:27:36 Speaker 2: There have been a couple of Mariners this week that have really gone off in their last handful of games. 01:27:41 Speaker 3: So I'll toss it to you first. Who have you been looking at? 01:27:44 Speaker 1: Cole Young Mariners number three prospects in their first round pick from last year's draft. You know, we see a guy picked from a Pennsylvania high school. It's like, huh, interesting now from Florida, But no there because he's supposed to be this incredible hit or well, he has done nothing since going to Single A Modesto, but absolutely rake. Over the past week, he hit three eighty seven, an on base percentage of five thirty seven, slugging six thirteen. He entered Major League MLB pipelines Top one hundred prospects on Sunday. It was never a mystery. I think we tried to talk to about Cole Young a little bit with Joe Doyle earlier earlier in the offseason, and he said, like, there's if there's one thing that's an absolute guarantee with Cole Young, he'll hit. 01:28:32 Speaker 3: You know. 01:28:32 Speaker 1: I was kind of like kind of raised an eyebrows, like yeah, okay, because you kind of look at his high school stats and you know, it's it's it is tough to judge high schoolers. Man. This dude has just destroyed Single A. Eighteen games in Modesto three eighty six, four seventy seven, five seventy one. He has fourteen walks, eight strikeouts, five doubles, a triple, and two home runs. I'm not saying it's gonna be like the Wan Soto Path, where Wan So is gonna play like eight games at Double A and get called up. But I'm starting to think while that Cole Young might be a little too good for Modesto, just just a little bit. 01:29:12 Speaker 2: I'm not sure how much more time he spends down there, maybe a couple of weeks, but if this continues, the Mariners are gonna have to sit there and say, yeah, he's got to be challenged a little bit more than this, and they'll move him up to Everett because he is. 01:29:23 Speaker 3: He is tearing it up. 01:29:24 Speaker 2: He tore it up at the end of last season when they put him there, and he's picked up right where he left off this year. Okay, the guy I'm looking at this week, we've talked about are we gonna talk about the blue chip minor leaguers. Yes, but we want to highlight everybody in the minor leagues, and if there's somebody that's not one of the blue chip guys that's doing really well, we're gonna talk about him. So I'm gonna talk about one of them, Spencer Packard this week, who was taken out of Campbell Campbell University College in North Carolina just a couple of years ago by the Mariners. He's been going off in Double A Arkansas. This guy has a hit all but one game so far this year. He's recorded four multi hit games already. He has two three hit games. This past week he hit three eighty four with a home run. I mean again, he's not in the Mariners top thirty. He was a late round pick. He wasn't a top three, four to five round guy or anything like that. But he's hitting and he continues to move his way through the system because his bat has been that good. It was great in college for two of his three years and he's continued it through the minor league so far. So he's hat tip to Spencer Packard. He's an underrated bat in this system. 01:30:36 Speaker 1: Something that truly good farm systems do is produce talent, not just from their blue chip guys, but from guys that quote unquote fly under the radar as well. They're not flying under the radar to the own organization, but to the general public. These guys do generally get under ranked. Again, he's not even on the top thirty, so it is really good to see guys off to a super hot start. Let's just remember, you know, it is a small sample size here early in the season, but we encourage guys to continue hitting because, hey, it makes our job a lot more fun if you continue to hit throughout the minor league season. Let's get to our mob wrap around. First up on the mob wrap around, Lyile, we talked about this trade a little bit when it happened in the off season, kind of raise an eyebrow at it a little bit. It seems like the Pablo Lopez Luisa Rise trade has worked out brilliantly well for both the Twins and the Miami Marlins in ways I didn't think what was gonna happen, but apparently has. 01:31:40 Speaker 2: From the Twins side, they felt like they were a top line arm short of competing for the AL Central. They go and get it with Pablo Lopez, and now here we are sitting in the middle of April, Twins are leading the AL Central and again, small sample size, but Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray, and Joe Ryan have been awesome so far, and Pablo Lopez specifically is just lighting it up. He's got a one seven to three era already. The Twins didn't waste any time. They said, yeah, we're gonna go give you an extension because we want you here for a while. It's a four year extension seventy three and a half million bucks. So the Twins lock up one of the best arms in their rotation. They're gonna have this core there for a while. 01:32:22 Speaker 1: And if you look at the Twins staff as a whole and the impact he has had and really helped that staff, they lead to majors in Era Era plus strikeouts, third and fifth with with Pablo Lopez. That's the goal when you trade for a top of the line pitcher is for your staff to take that leap forward. And that's exactly what they've done. And we look on the other side of the trade. Luisa Rise has hit five eleven through fourteen games five eleven trivia question, lyle, who is the last player to hit five eleven through fourteen games? So Barry Bonds, Yeah, that is correct. In two thousand and four, he was the last person to hit over five hundred through fourteen games. And if you're not, you haven't been freshened up on your Barry Bonds. Like Baseball Reference page trivia. That's probably the greatest, arguably the greatest offensive season of all time by a hitter that two thousand and four Barry Bond season. So that's just like, that's just, you know, pretty good. I would say he's already worth one point two Baseball Reference wins above replacement five eighty six on base percentage seven oh two. His hit chart is sprayed perfectly around the field. He hits the ball to all fields. He really is just a throwback. He's a guy who's not focused on the exit velocities. He'll dig out some power. He's got some power in that bat. But Luisa Rise does a great job of spraying hits around the field and in doing exactly what the Marlins needed coming off a season last year they couldn't hit. And they go out and they trade for a batting champ. You're like trading for a guy who's an average guy at this in this day and age in baseball, it's worked out pretty well. Luisa Rises just a he's just a good hitter. 01:34:12 Speaker 2: The dude defies advanced stats and he makes almost no sense as a modern player because he's a guy that does not hit the ball hard. He doesn't square a ton of baseballs up. I guess he's got a little bit of power. It's not a lot, but he just continues to put up an average by not striking out and just getting hits. He's the king of batting average these days. I mean, he's hit three hundred or better all of his entire career except for one year where he hit two ninety four and twenty twenty one. You don't see many guys like that these days, but Louisa Rise has been a total total shot in the arm for the Marlins and a Marlins team that decided, yeah, we'd rather up some offense. We'll bank on our young pitching down the road. And it's worked out so far. So I mean, credit to both sides. This is what a trade's supposed to do. It's worked out for both sides and so far, and so far it has okay. Second storyline here tj Adley Rushman might be an MVP candidate this year. 01:35:12 Speaker 1: I'm not so certain to say that if Adli Rutchman and Julio Rodriguez play the same amount of games last year, that Julio still wins the Rookie of the Year award. I like, I cannot say that for certain, I can't. I it might have been fifteen first place votes each last year, like do you disagree with that? But I think it would have been fifteen to fifteen if Adley plays as many games as Julio did and he's not he doesn't get injured in spring training, comes up at the beginning of the season, and they both play for an entire season, I think it is split right down the middle. 01:35:42 Speaker 2: I'll say Julio still would have had the slight edge, but it's not twenty nine to one, like it would have been really really close if they both debut on opening day. 01:35:52 Speaker 1: Adlei Rutschman this season is slashing three point fifty one four seventy nine five ninety six eight WRC plus He's already worth one win above replacement. He's walking twenty percent of the time. It's it is incredible as a catcher who, by the way, is great at game calling, great at throwing out base runners, and is a good framer and good blocker as well. Oh and he switch hits like this. These that does not happen. These players do not exist except for Radley Rutchman. Oh and he also managed to tackle Christian McCaffrey on a kickoff in college. You need another athletic accomplishment. 01:36:31 Speaker 3: He was pretty good. 01:36:35 Speaker 2: It's crazy because he doesn't strike out a lot, and the strikeout rate doesn't really deteriorate no matter what side he hits on. Now, Adley Rushman is way better from the left side than he is from the right side, and most switch hitters do have a dominant side of the plate, much like Adley. But regardless the fact he's switch hitting the way he does, he's a catcher. He's got power, he walks, he's doing everything. The orio'll sneak into the playoffs this year. Don't be shocked that Dadley Rushman has a real MVP case. 01:37:04 Speaker 1: I said before the season started, I think he all this year, at age twenty five, is going to take j t Romudo's crown. 01:37:11 Speaker 4: I don't. 01:37:12 Speaker 1: I don't think that's a hot take. Really he does. Jt Romuda is so good behind the plate, but ADLEI Ruschman's offensive upside just it dwarfs JT. And JT's good hitter, but it dwarfs him. 01:37:28 Speaker 3: I'm with you. I don't think it's crazy at all to see he could to say he could be the best catcher in baseball this year. 01:37:35 Speaker 1: Our third topic on the MLB rapper on. A couple of extensions happened this week. First up, Logan Web Lyle logan Web, the pitcher for the Giants, agreed to a five year, ninety million dollar extension, the biggest contract given out under the current regime of the Giants with Foreign Zaidi. They had they had a very notable contract this offseason fall fall through the cracks with Carlos Korea, but they do lock up one of their stars, one of the best young pitchers in the game and notable to the Mariners because this is sort of a template probably for an extension for the guys they're looking for in the future, younger pitchers who have pitched well in your system that you want to keep there. And he gets five years and ninety million dollars. 01:38:21 Speaker 2: Logan Web's deserving of every penny he got. So Logan Web gets an extension from the Giants. Meanwhile, Ian Happ gets an extension from the Cubs. So Web's extension sits at what is five years for ninety million dollars. Happ got three years for sixty one. I don't really know what the Giants are doing, to be honest, because they're spending money to try and win, but it's not really with a group of players that feels like it's gonna stick around very long, like anybody besides Logan Web, to be honest with you, but they are spending. And Logan Web's a guy that, over the last two years has been one of the best starters in the National League. And the Giants said, yeah, for a guy who's twenty six years old has as good of a sinker as he does, for as effective as he's been, we got to keep him around, and they did. 01:39:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's so I look at the wins above replacement here three point nine and twenty twenty one when the Giants won one hundred and eight games, and he was worth more last year four point eight. When I look at him and Logan Gilbert in terms of like innings in the big leagues have kind of followed the same path, and they're also the same age as well of productivity and such. So he gets five for ninety and he's been worth a little decent amount more than Logan Logan was worth a little bit over I think three wins last year and Logan Web was worth about five, and he got a little bit under twenty million dollars a year, which again is I think sort of a template there for Jerry Depota to look at for eventually extending these two starting pitchers in George Kirby and Logan Gilbert. 01:39:58 Speaker 2: I have to follow that closely there, because we're talking about two logans and you're talking about Logan Web versus Logan Gilbert. And maybe maybe next time we'll go Logan versus Walter. Then everybody I'll know what we'll talk what we're talking about. 01:40:10 Speaker 1: Perfect. 01:40:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, but Logan Logan Web's deserving of the extension, and you're right, it probably is a good model for both Kirby and Gilbert down the road if the Mariners are serious about extensions at some point. It's a pretty fair deal. Five for ninety for a guy who's been really, really good for the last two years. He was also really good in the postseason. Now, for Ian Hap, it felt like he was on track for free agency, but the Cubs got this thing done in the middle of the season, which often doesn't happen in a player's walk here. So first off, good for Ian Hap. And I got to say, well, I don't really know what the Giants are doing, and I don't think the product they've built is sustainable for success. I'm gonna give a hat tip to the Cubs. I'm not saying they're going to make the playoffs. I wasn't given them much thought when the season started. They kind of have my attention now. I mean they're that's a that's a respectable team. Nico Horner ansby Swanson. Ian Happ say, as Suzuki, you can. 01:41:03 Speaker 1: Work with that, nan HAPs A. He's a pretty versatile player. He's got some really good power as well. And you mentioned all those guys. All of them are under contract through twenty twenty six, which is really important you get some continuity in that. I think Nico Horner got his extension earlier this year, and they at least attempted to get another core piece when they traded Craig Kimberll. It was Craig Kimpbell for Nick Madrigal. Madrigal has not really been quite as good as a as a big leaguer as he was as a prospect, so that's probably a whiff on their part. But the rest of it, I think they have really filled out that roster pretty well, and eventually you would think they'd be back to being good again, and they're a team that spends while they're still sort of building back up, which is which is good because you get your big league tablet town established and then you'll supplement around them. 01:41:57 Speaker 2: I think that just about wraps up the MLB wrap around. So there's a decent amount of stuff going on across baseball this week, and a couple of extensions for sure for teams that are doing their best to try and spend money, spending money to win. So yeah, you know, baseball's kicking into gear here and there's gonna be more and more storylines that come up as the season goes on, and as every week goes on. TJ, I know you're just itching to talk about this one, so let's get into it. Our Russell Wilson Umpire of the Week. I think this is our best one yet. I'm just gonna give it to you. Lay it on everybody. 01:42:31 Speaker 1: Let's get a round of applause for Brian Debrawer. That's how we say his name, right, I think that looks like Debrower. He spells it very weirdly, but it is Debrower. 01:42:42 Speaker 3: Right as far as I know. 01:42:45 Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, cool, congratulations to Brian Debrower, who's behind the plate this week for game three of this weekend's last this past weekends Florida Georgia college baseball game. Yes, we are going to the college level for the first time this year, and it's well deserved. He ejected Florida closer Brandon Neely in the after the top of the eighth inning after striking out a Georgia hitter. He got really fired up and was flexing, slightly flexing and sort of if you're watching us on YouTube right now, doing like bringing both his arms together and flexing a little bit like as a fired up Like it's like what Paul Seawall does when he's done. He goes like he kind of goes like this and sticks his arms out and screams. 01:43:28 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:43:28 Speaker 1: That's essentially what Brandon Neely did. And he was like he was looking at the Georgia dugout and while he was doing all this, he said, come on. Apparently during the game there was already a quote unquote sportsmanship warning eye roll on the Florida pitching staff. So without hesitation, mister Brian Debrauer from behind the plate comes out, without hesitation, just tosses the closes out of the game. He didn't He didn't say anything to the Georgia dugout. He didn't even walk that way. He did not take a step towards the Georgia dugout. And this man throws the Florida closer out of the baseball game. It gets better, lyle before you react to this. Per NCAA rules, if you are kicked out of a game for sportsmanship with the umpire deams a sportsmanship violation, you. 01:44:25 Speaker 5: Are suspended four games for this. So because Brandon Neely shows some emotion off the mound, he gets a four game suspension for the Florida Gators' next series against number six South Carolina and one of the best college baseball series of the weekend. I don't have anything to say besides just laughing at this because they do it again. 01:44:52 Speaker 2: Dude, umpires need to get a fucking life, like yeah, like have some fun like no, so, like I guarantee you there's nobody out there telling you to throw players out of the game for celebrating. Like maybe if he actually walked toward the dugout, sure get out of here with that, dude. Like if anybody's watched college baseball, it is built on raw emotion like things like that. The way Brandon Neely reacted is why people watch, not to watch some umpire throw the best reliever on the team out of the game when you've got the biggest series of the year upcoming. Good lord, dude, I mean you want to see both our blood boil on this show. This is always the segment to tune in for. I like, I couldn't even fathom it when I saw that. 01:45:39 Speaker 1: Did you catch the part that happened in the bottom of the eighth inning where Jack Caglione comes up and hits a grand Slam for Florida to supplement their lead and help Florida really win the game. His celebration quote unquote, he didn't he on purpose showed like negative emotion. He turned himself essentially into a robot, walking with stiff limbs across home plate and walking straight to the dugout without high fiving a single person that came out of the dug out to celebrate him hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning. Thank god, I'm shocked the umpire didn't throw the whole Florida team out after that celebration. 01:46:18 Speaker 3: That was hilarious. 01:46:19 Speaker 2: Jack Kaglion for those who don't know that name as a real shot to be the number one pick in next year's draft. Some people call him the show Heyo Tani of college baseball because he pitches and hits at an elite level. But yeah, that celebration was hilarious from Kaglion's side. But yeah, congratulations to Brian de Brower, who again refused to let a play develop to win this prestigious Russell Wilson Up for the Week award. You got to either nazee over the middle, not let a play develop, or just be insufferable. I think he did each of the latter two. Forget where I was going here, something about Kagliola. 01:46:54 Speaker 1: It was, Oh, did you know sportsmanship was supposed to be a thing after you graduate little league? That we're keeping track of sportsmanship here? I mean, like, what are we doing? Like, what are we doing? Sportsmanship? Probably, to be honest, I think one of the most overrated terms. This is not time for a littlely grant, So I'm just gonna pocket that. But like, they're not sp He's not supposed to strike out the dude in a a in a close game in the top of the eighth inning, walk over and shake his hand and say good job in I appreciate the battle here. What did you expect? 01:47:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, if that's how you want to watch baseball be played, like go back to the nineteen tens, I don't know what to tell you. That's not baseball anymore, but umpires seem to want to believe that it is. So Unfortunately, they like to ruin games for people a lot of the time, including what they did for Florida this weekend. 01:47:46 Speaker 1: As much as this segment would qualify for our next segment, it really would, because we do a lot of speaking our minds. We do still have our official speak your mind. 01:47:58 Speaker 3: Speak your mind spoke. 01:48:03 Speaker 1: That would be unwise. 01:48:05 Speaker 3: What is necessary is never unwise. 01:48:09 Speaker 1: Okay, wow, what is on your mind this week? 01:48:13 Speaker 2: I'll make this one a little bit quicker. But man, I gotta tell you I might be on the verge of having to get a new computer here. So I've had this computer for like seven years, basically since I got to college, and it's just given me a lot of problems this week and it's just been a total headache. Actually it's not just this week. It's been for a while now and I've just kind of made it work, but I think the Wi Fi card is basically like nearly busted with this whole thing. It's nearly broken because it's hard for me to connect to the Wi Fi half the time, and it's old and I've used it for a while, and like, obviously it's kind of tough to want to shell out the money for a new computer. But between doing all this stuff, it might be finally worth it to just invest in an Apple computer. So I'm I'm not there yet, I'm pondering it because it's just given me headaches trying to like connect to the Wi Fi and restart your computer different seven different times a day. 01:49:02 Speaker 1: Well, if you buy a good laptop, it should last you probably about as long as you've had that one, So mean that laptop has really given you all the length you need. I've had my laptop now for probably two and a half years, and I'm expecting it to last me another five. So no pressure, no pressure at all. But the money is usually well worth it if you buy a good product. I like Apple products because I just like everything being connected makes it a lot easier to operate and move things around to different devices. So that would be my recommendation. 01:49:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's always tough to again shell out the money, but I'm with you. I really like Apple products too, and you just have to get in the mindset. Sometimes of these machines are not meant to last forever, and I know that, And that's what I'm trying to think about, is it's probably worth the investment. Again, if we're gonna be doing all this podcasting and content creation, which requires a lot of editing a lot of the time, it's it's probably worth it. So I'm leaning toward the getting an Apple computer. So that's what I'm thinking about this week. 01:50:01 Speaker 1: My speaker mind this week will be flipping around to a question to you, are you staying up so we're recording here on Tuesday night? Will you be staying up tonight until midnight to watch the finale of The Mandalorian? 01:50:16 Speaker 3: I would absolutely love to. The issue is to give you a little bit of a peek behind the curtain. 01:50:21 Speaker 2: So when we do the editing, TJ usually does the audio stuff, then I do the video stuff, and the actual editing and putting the stuff together between the two platforms isn't that different. The issue is the video side obviously takes way longer. To export, so it has to sit in extport on the computer for a while, and you can't really do a whole lot else while this stuff's exporting, because it takes a lot of energy out of your computer, and usually by the time it's done, it's pretty late. So as badly as I am itching to watch this finale because they left us on such a clifhanger last week for The Mandalorian, I might just have to wait till tomorrow being Wednesday, to then sit and watch it. So that's where I'm kind of sitting at. Are you staying up? 01:51:01 Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to because I know it. I usually won't. I'm not able to watch it on Wednesdays until usually Wednesday night. By then I know something's gonna get spoiled. I'm gonna either open Twitter, I'm gonna open TikTok, I'm gonna open Instagram, and something is gonna get spoiled, some little detail which I do not want spoiled, because this is a pretty big finale, right because this finale will lead into the next season of The Mandalorian and the upcoming Ahsoka series, which I'm a we're both pretty big star wars nerds. I have like watched all the cartoons multiple times through, so I'd say, like, I don't think Lyle's watched the cartoons. So these shows are like very like for the people who watch the cartoons, like the Clone Wars and the Rebels, like Clone Wars and Rebels on if you have Disney Plus you can watch them make them that much more intriguing and interesting. So I know there's gonna be some cliffhangers for multiple shows tonight, so I just can't risk it. I just want to give Jon Favreau a hat tip and all the people at Disney who put this stuff together. Their television shows have been awesome. The fact that we've gotten and Or and Mandalorian in the last six months two of the best TV shows, not just Star Wars, two of the best TV shows that I've been able to watch because there's so much background story there and they've just they have just nailed it, and it's awesome. It is so good. 01:52:33 Speaker 3: I can't wait to watch it. Mandalorian has been awesome. 01:52:35 Speaker 2: I mean, again, we've talked about and Or a little bit, how I wasn't sold on it at first, and then as the season went on, I realized how good it was, but Mandalorian just continues to be unbelievable. 01:52:45 Speaker 3: So I cannot wait to watch this finale. 01:52:47 Speaker 2: Honestly, maybe I'll have to watch on my phone or something because I don't really want to wait around to watch it because I'm itching too. So we're gonna have to talk about that next week. Maybe we'll give a Mandalorian review an update after we've watched it all be. 01:53:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think I think we'll have some stuff to some and we'll have a full week to really digest it too, because it something is going to happen, something, something, something. I would not be shocked they left us off on like a bad cliffhanger, like something bad happens someone, someone might die. I don't know. You'll probably know by the time you listen to this episode, so don't. 01:53:21 Speaker 3: Spoil it for us. 01:53:24 Speaker 2: You're probably right, and we may pop on this show pissed off next week about how awesome the cliffhanger was. Akay, how long we have to wait for the next season, But that's what good TV shows do, right, So I guess if the Mandalorian does its job, we'll probably have some of that this week. Okay, I think that just about puts the clothes on this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast. 01:53:45 Speaker 3: You guys know the drill. 01:53:47 Speaker 2: You want to listen to the full form podcast, you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon or Google. Full form video podcast is on YouTube and if you want to check out our social social media channels, we're on Twitter, Instagram, Take Talk, and YouTube shorts at Marine Layer Pod. Leave us a five star review, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Hey, if you see me at the game this weekend walking around either on the field or see me up in the press box, give me a wave and I'll probably wave back. 01:54:14 Speaker 3: So for TJ. 01:54:16 Speaker 2: Matthewson, this is Yle Goldstein. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you next week.