Episode 253: Bryce Miller Hits The IL Again, Perhaps For Longer This Time + Paul Hembekides (ESPN)

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 253 of the Marine Layer Podcast. We welcome on Paul Hembekides, you know him better as Hembo from ESPN. We welcome him on to chat about baseball stats, about Cal Raleigh's amazing 2025 season, and some other takeaways from the Mariners roster this year. We'll also discuss Bryce Miller going back to the injured list, Laoti Tavares getting DFA'd, and the Mariners game one down in Arizona.

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[00:01:20] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording on Tuesday morning, June 10th. Shockingly loud, Cal Raleigh goes 0 for 5 on Monday, and the Mariners are a Justin Martinez injury away from getting shut out. Who would have thought? What? You're telling me that Cal Raleigh is the whole offense right now? Yes.

[00:01:49] But shout out to Dom Canzone. That was a sick bat flip. I mean, let's give him credit. He destroyed that ball. Destroyed it. Like, it's not easy to pull a baseball 450 feet, and he did. Yeah, and hit it 116 off the bat against the team that traded you away. Like, I would imagine he was pretty fired up for a number of reasons. Game-tying home run, opponent, ballpark. I mean, it had to all be there for, like, that moment.

[00:02:18] He'd been in the minors for most of the season. He probably really wants his shot to get back at the big league roster and show that his bat belongs at the big league level. To come up in that moment with two strikes and to hit that pitch, I mean, injury or not to a Diamondbacks reliever, it's pretty darn impressive. So, you know, you've got to be pretty happy for him. It was pretty epic. The photos, I'm sure they got us. He was running up the first baseline were incredible. The video was incredible. Unfortunately, it literally didn't mean anything.

[00:02:47] No. And like you said, it is a little bit of a miracle that the Mariners came back in that game to start with. Because, again, it wasn't as if, oh, the Diamondbacks had an injury two days ago, and as a result, they can't use one of their best leverage arms late in the game. No, Justin Martinez got hurt with two outs in the ninth inning up four to nothing. If Justin Martinez stays in that game, they're not scoring. It's four to nothing. And I've always thought this, too.

[00:03:16] When relievers have to come into the game because there's an injury, I always feel like they don't actually take the right amount of time to warm up. I feel like there's pressure on them to get the game back going, and everybody's looking at them. And they don't actually get their proper amount of warm-up pitches in. Because when a guy comes in as a result of injury out of the bullpen, you get as much time as you want to warm up. There's no limit. You can have as much time as you want. But I feel like these guys always speed it up.

[00:03:45] And when Martinez exited the game and when Brigham came in, it felt like he probably didn't take enough time with his warm-up pitches. And I'm not saying that was the whole reason the Mariners started scoring on him, but it felt like it may have played a part. It's so out of routine for them because normally you get your zero-pressor pitches in the bullpen to warm up. You have a set number of pitches you'll usually throw before you enter the game. You get your stretching routine.

[00:04:12] You get the chance to get yourself mentally ready before you actually have to jog back on the field. But in this moment, you usually will do all your warming up on the bump, in front of all the people, all the fans, etc., in the field, throwing to your real catcher. It's just different. Pitchers are very routine-oriented. And that is, by definition, anti-routine for what happened. And the Mariners took advantage of it. And they scored four runs.

[00:04:36] And you have to give credit to the lineup for putting together those runs and taking advantage of an opportunity that you get within baseball season. But then in retrospect as well, Lyle, you also get the fact that in extra innings, you have to score. Otherwise, you're not going to win, especially in this format. And the Mariners went two innings in extra innings and did not score a single run. And that's why you lose. It's the 2023 formula all over again. Yeah. Two quick things.

[00:05:03] One more thing about the bullpen guys coming in as a result of an injury. Why don't they just warm up in the bullpen? Why do they come into the game and throw from the mound? Yeah, they could if they want. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure they would totally be allowed to do that. Yeah. It's more routine based. It's what they know. I'm surprised more guys don't do it with all the eyeballs on them. Anyway, to extra innings. Yes, they did not score a run. Yes, this offense struggled mightily again outside of having two outs in the ninth inning.

[00:05:32] But you know how the kids say these days the line play the hits? And that's what people say these days when you reference something that a person says over and over and over again. Like if you hear somebody repeat the same thing a million times, they'll go play the hits. Like here we go. You're saying it again. Again, we're about to play the hits here on this podcast on the Marine Layer pod because it feels like every week now these days. Here's what consists in our podcast talk. Cal Raleigh, which we just did, talking about how he's the whole offense.

[00:06:02] And here we go again, Teej. We're about to play the hits. What in the world was going on with the bullpen decisions in extra innings? Sorry, I'll let you finish. Do you want me to set the table or do you just want to react? No, I'll let you finish. So, Andres Munoz pitches the ninth inning, which is fine. Tie game, meat of the lineup up. You get your best reliever in there. It's funny.

[00:06:29] Dan Wilson doesn't usually deploy Munoz unless they are winning. But for that game, he decided to use them and he said, yeah, we need to get to extra innings. We got to get through the part of this lineup. So, great. Munoz did. He threw less than 10 pitches and he got out of it. But he didn't pitch a second inning, which, you know, you can argue that one way or another. Munoz only throwing eight pitches. You could say, could he go back out there? They usually don't do that, right? So, fine. They didn't do it.

[00:06:58] You had Matt Brash warming up, like, multiple times. So, he's clearly available. They're clearly not shutting him down for the night. He was up and getting ready to go. But they bring in Carlos Vargas. And you say, okay, interesting not to go to Brash there in the 10th when you got to keep the game going. You're trying to prevent runs. But Vargas gets out of it. Awesome. So, you think to yourself, all right, so Brash for the 11th, right?

[00:07:26] Because, once again, you've got to keep the game going. Well, no. They went back to Vargas in the 11th inning. And then they lose. So, they use their best reliever in the 9th in Munoz. Have him only throw eight pitches. Don't put him back out there for a second inning. Let Vargas go back out there for a second inning, who is at best your fourth reliever on this team. Maybe not even that high.

[00:07:51] But you don't use Matt Brash, who was available and ready and warming up to go, at all. And then you lose. I can't get mad at any of this because the offense didn't score any runs in extra innings. So, it doesn't matter. You're not going to win no matter what the bullpen decisions are if your offense can't score. Two extra innings nowadays is almost a death kneel. Either you win or you lose in that retrospect. Like, that's it. The Mariners needed to score runs.

[00:08:18] If Vargas was pitching an elite with a lead in the 11th instead of Matt Brash, that's legit beef. But the Mariners' offense didn't score for two innings. It doesn't matter what the bullpen decisions were. So, how do you make of Vargas getting a second inning and not Munoz? It doesn't matter because they were probably going to lose anyway. Okay, but we talk about process. This is process. It's what we talk about all the time with these bullpen decisions. The process was realizing the game was probably over no matter what.

[00:08:46] And they'd rather just burn Vargas for tomorrow than burn Matt Brash as well for tomorrow. What kind of mindset is that? The game's over? We're going to give up an extra innings? The game's over because your offense can't score. But you don't just throw in the towel. Yes, you do. It's extra innings. There's a runner on second base. They just need to score one run. We're not talking about the 8th inning. We're talking about the 11th inning after your offense goes six outs an extra inning with a free runner on second base unable to score. Okay.

[00:09:15] Tie game in extra innings. And by the way, you need wins these days badly, especially with the Astros playing the White Sox this week at home. No, you don't just punt an extra inning situation like that. Why was Brash warming up in the first place then? I can't answer that question for you. But once your offense goes two innings without scoring in extras, it doesn't matter what your bullpen decisions are. Because your offense has already essentially lost the game for you in extras.

[00:09:44] Just like they pretty much lost the game for them in regulation as well. All right. Well, everybody can be to blame. Sure. That's fine. But the bullpen management is not the reason they lost in extra innings. No. Odds are when you get a runner like that, even with Matt Brash, they'll probably score a run. Fine. Because, yes, they did not put a run across the plate. They did not take a lead on the Diamondbacks in extra innings or all game for that matter. So fine.

[00:10:12] In that retrospect, yes. But if you're trying to keep the game going, like a second inning out of Vargas, I did not understand. That was the part that got me head scratching. Like I would have gone to Brash anyway to try to keep the game alive. But like at least use somebody else. It wasn't great. You're right. But again, I'm just I don't want to repeat myself again. It's not the biggest atrocity in extras. All right.

[00:10:42] Let's let's hit on a couple other topics here because we do have a really, really fun interview to get to with Hembo. I mean, I'll spoil it here. Might be one of the best interviews and best guests we've ever had. That is not an exaggeration. But we're not there yet. So we should probably get to Bryce Miller here. I don't think there's that much more to update than what we already talked about on Monday.

[00:11:04] So if you haven't listened to Monday's podcast, you should absolutely go listen where we break a bunch of stuff down in pretty good detail about a lot of the topics that we're going to quickly hit on here. One of them being Bryce Miller, where we said if he goes on the IL and if he has to miss a good chunk of the year or the rest of the year moving forward, like will that be what they do? Should it be Emerson Hancock over him? And we've touched on already that things just haven't looked right with Bryce really most of the year.

[00:11:34] And now him being placed on the IL again and Dan Wilson talking about postgame on Monday that the cortisone shot didn't do what they hoped it was going to do. Validates what we've been speculating now for a bit, that things still just aren't right. And now he's going back on the shelf, unfortunately. What seems pretty clear from this decision is that he did not bounce back well from Friday at all. And was probably not feeling very good after that start. Sure, the Velo was up a little bit, but there was probably a little bit of repercussion for the Velo being up and pushing himself.

[00:12:04] If I'm going to guess, without having any inside information, that's what I would feel like was part of the reasoning behind this. And therefore the reasoning behind putting Bryce back on the injured list. Because it was saying, alright, if he bounced back fine and his Velo was up, why not give him another start? Sure, you have a chance to lose another game right at this point. But you're trying to find a way to get 2024 Bryce Miller back. But it's pretty clear.

[00:12:30] It's like, alright, if his Velo is going to be up and he's not going to recover well from it and his elbow is going to start hurting, we're not really getting him back at this point. They haven't said what they're going to do with Bryce on the IL yet. Whether they're just going to rest him for longer and see if that helps. Or if they're going to do surgery to get the bone spur out of his elbow. But regardless, it is going to be much, I would anticipate, much longer than what he had to deal with last time.

[00:12:59] I would say, bare minimum a month of him not doing anything. I would say. But most likely, they'll just clean up the bone spur and we'll see him next year. Tough pill to swallow. And it sucks for him. Because we know how great he can be. But it's clear, like, he just wasn't Bryce Miller this year. That's what we said Monday. That's what we'll say again here. This is not Bryce Miller. We know what Bryce Miller at his best looks like. And he's just not there right now.

[00:13:28] And it's not his own fault. He tried to pitch through it. He tried to do the best he could to help the team win games. But he just isn't right. Again, we don't know exactly what the result to the extent of the period of time he'll be out will be yet. But you assume it's going to be a little bit lengthy. So Logan Evans, our guy, is going to be up. He's starting today on Tuesday. I would say right now, if I'm going to sit here and guess what the Mariners' rotation plans are going forward, he's making one start until Logan Gilbert comes back next week.

[00:13:58] That's what I would guess. Assuming Logan only needs one more rehab start and not more. Correct. And Logan's going to have one more rehab start this week. I think he's already flown back. It's here on Tuesday. It is today. Okay. Gilbert's rehab start is on Tuesday. So we'll see how he feels after it. We'll see how he pitches. Again, it's not a full lock and guarantee this is his last rehab start. That's what people expect. But they have to see how he feels and everything first. So that's the anticipation.

[00:14:25] I would imagine Emerson Hancock, who, by the way, yesterday on Monday, again, perfectly fine. Five and two. He keeps doing it. He's going out there, giving them a chance to win, which is good. And Velo's staying up. And, you know, he's missed bats, all that stuff. It's funny. Like, you watched him on Monday and things got a little bit away from him at the end with a couple of walks. But you look at Emerson Hancock from that start Monday and say five and two. And you go, oh, like, you know, he went five and two and still had a perfectly good start.

[00:14:53] But he had more potential in the tank in that outing. I thought there was a world he could go six and one and exit with another awesome six frames against, you know, on the road and a tough pitcher's environment. And a real offense. What's that? And a real offense. Yeah, and a real offense. So, again, like, I think Emerson had even more on the tank on Monday. And could have gone even, like, could have produced even better than five and two. Not that five and two is bad by any means. That's a perfectly solid outing.

[00:15:23] But this more speaks to the volumes of if you want to look glass half full, as unfortunate as it is that Bryce Miller is going to be out a while. And it is really unfortunate. It sucks. Emerson Hancock's earned this, man. Like, the way he has pitched since that first start of the year, he has proven that he's a new guy. He's a new pitcher. And he's going to get his opportunity now. So, it's going to anticipate by this time next week, given Logan Gilbert gets back on track and healthy, it will be the four.

[00:15:53] Other four from last year, starters, Logan, George, Brian Wu, Luis Castillo, Emerson Hancock, will be the five in the rotation. Given everybody is healthy next week. And I anticipate the Mariners think that it's going to stay that way for the rest of the season. And they want it to stay that way. Because they do need some stability in this rotation. They need five guys to go out there for two months in a row and get in a rhythm.

[00:16:18] And most importantly, in my opinion, they need this team to refine to strength whose name is not Cal Raleigh. That's what they need. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, there's no doubt about it. The other little bit of information that came out, Lyle, over the last 24 or 48 hours since we last recorded, is the Mariners decided to move on from Laoti Tavares yesterday after just 28 games in one month exactly of time in a Mariners uniform.

[00:16:46] His tenure ends at this point. Now, he could clear waivers and go to Tacoma. And he'll just essentially be a very expensive AAA player this season. He could get claimed still, I believe, and go to another team. I don't anticipate that happening given what happened to him in Seattle. But he finishes this 28 games, Lyle. Negative one fan graphs wins above replacement. A 32 WRC. That one negative one wins above replacement. The worst in baseball. Worst position player. Worst player, period. In that month's span.

[00:17:16] And the 32 WRC+, the sixth worst hitter in Major League Baseball over that span. As well, a side note. Do you know who's last in that span? In WRC+. Yeah. Please don't tell me it's another Mariner. It's not, actually. It's a Mariner's trade. It was a Mariner's trade target. Oh, no. It's Luis Robert. Ha! Dude, I legitimately think that guy is Cook.

[00:17:45] Or maybe he just doesn't care because he doesn't want to play on the White Sox. But he's not helping himself. He's tanking his trade value. Easier to trade when your value is lower. Yeah, I guess. It's the NBA model. I mean, maybe. Maybe he's doing the whole James Harden fat suit. James Harden fat suit. Yeah. See? Great minds think alike. You saw that right there? Or maybe this is even more galaxy brain by Luis Robert that he thinks if he totally tanks his trade value,

[00:18:11] whichever team he goes to long term doesn't have to give up a bunch of high-end prospects for him. Some team gets them for cheap. They keep all their high-end prospects. And then he just starts trying again and starts going off again. And then the team's really good. There you go. I'm down. So now the Mariners could get him for not that much. Hmm? Sure. I hear they have an opening in right field now. Well, yes. Yeah, I don't know how much more there is to dissect this Leoti Taveras thing from what we, again,

[00:18:41] did talk about on Monday at a decent length, which you can go back and listen to for Monday's podcast, where we spend a lot of time on. It wasn't even so much Leoti Taveras. It's more that the Mariners have allocated a lot of money to guys from outside the organization who have not produced in the last two years. And Leoti just getting DFA'd is another example of that, where they're going to eat $3.5 million to have him be the worst player in baseball over a month's span for their team, and now he's gone. Mm-hmm. It's not great.

[00:19:11] No. One month, worst player in baseball, now he's gone. Completely. Off the roster. Right. We can clear something up, too, because we spent a good chunk of time on Monday talking about this very segment, and we talked about it here on Tuesday on Brock and Salk on the radio, too, about money that's been allocated. Yes, I know. Clapping it up. Hey, it made it all the way to Jeff Passan. Yeah. It got read out to Passan. I mean, shout out to Salk for doing that.

[00:19:39] But, yeah, when Passan was on on Tuesday, they hit him with a few questions on this very topic and what he made of it all. So, look at us making our rounds from our own pod and the people that listen to the airwaves of 710 to Jeff Passan. Wow. It's spreading. Like the John Rothstein hashtag dog. Hashtag it spreads. It spreads. Okay, but what we did want to clear up is that we left out a couple of notable names

[00:20:08] and notable numbers from this. Which are bad. Yeah, are bad, are bad. I know, I know, I know. So, let's clear it up. This does make the number look a little bit better. We didn't... So, who did we miss yesterday? Or on Monday's episode? We did not have Victor Robles in there. Yeah. No? Didn't have... The three are Robles, Rayleigh, and then Rowdy. Now, Rowdy's not that significant because he's making a million and a half bucks and he's lost the team half a game this year because his F4 is negative .5.

[00:20:37] But it's the other two that are. Because Robles has roughly 2.8 wins above replacement, I believe. It was 2.8 last year, but then he's negative .3 this year, so it's 2.5. Right. And then you have Luke Rayleigh, who's making a bout league minimum each in 24 and 25. And he had 2.3 wins above replacement in 24, and he's got .3 this year. Yeah. So, it's 2.6.

[00:21:05] And then, like you said, Rowdy's at negative .5. So, that brings the total money allocated. And the only significant real money that's added to this pool would be Victor Robles' salary this season, which at the end of the year will be $4.1 million based off the deal he signed last year. And why we're including Robles' extension in this is because he was added to the org within the last two years. And think about it this way, Lyle.

[00:21:31] They essentially paid him a two-year deal as a free agent two months before he was actually going to hit free agency. That's what they essentially decided to do with his extension. So, that $4.1 million that Robles adds on top of those other salaries brings the total for the Mariners. The last two seasons, they've spent $116.25 million for 5 wins above replacement. That's better than the original number we came out with.

[00:21:57] $116.25 million for 5 fangraphs wins above replacement. It's still not enough. No. Because here's where it differentiates, which again, we'll plug Monday's podcast again. We spent a lot of time on this. So, if you want to go back and listen, you should. We're just adding a couple names to it. I think originally on Monday, what we said is they've spent about $108 million and gotten negative war. No, a third of a win above replacement. A third. Right. Yeah. Right, right.

[00:22:26] But you add a few on, Robles and Raley being important ones because they've accumulated a little bit of value, some wins above replacement in their own right, does not bring the total close to near where it needs to be. Because, again, we'll say exactly what we said again on Monday. One win above replacement in baseball is said to be worth monetarily about $8 million. So, if you use that model with one war being worth $8 million and the money the Mariners

[00:22:52] have spent over the last two years, this group on $116 million that they've brought in should have accumulated about 14.5 wins for the Mariners to get the bang for their buck on all these contracts. They're at five. They're nine and a half wins below where they should be. And if you split that up between the two years, that's essentially an all-star to MVP caliber player short that they are from the value that they should be getting.

[00:23:19] And that's probably an appearance in the playoffs short for potentially each of these last two seasons. And if you want to go back even further, you could say in 23 as well. Right? Like, think of these margins they're missing by and the value something like that would add to these rosters and the difference of everything that could be made if you had that couple of extra wins above replacement value-wise on this roster in the last handful of seasons.

[00:23:45] That could be the difference between us complaining about the Mariners constantly falling short or the Mariners currently on a streak of making the playoffs four seasons in a row. Well, sure. Because if you go back to 23, I mean, yeah, they got Tay Oscar, but they spent actual money on Colton Wong and they spent actual money on AJ Pollock. It's another example of this. Now, to keep the last two years in terms of a threshold in check for what we've been using, I'll say it again. We list out all the names, all the contracts, and all the war they've accumulated on Monday's show.

[00:24:15] So if you want to go back and listen at length on Monday, go do that because we spent about a half hour on this. But just to quickly list the names we're talking about, about players outside the org that they've acquired the last two years. Again, we've talked about Hanager, Garver, Polanco, Stanek, Rosarena, Turner, Rowdy, Solano, Leoti. We go through all the guys that they've acquired from outside the org, what they've made contract-wise

[00:24:44] and what value they've accumulated. And it spits out what TJ just said. It's $116 million for five wins. That is nine and a half wins short of where they should be at to get the bang for the buck on these contracts. Not good enough. Not the most efficient way to spend something that inflation adjusted is about $10 million more than what Shohei Otani on average makes per year, which I believe is $46 to $48 million.

[00:25:13] Of his $68 million deferred, that's what the money comes out to. $10 million more than what the Dodgers are paying Shohei Otani cash-wise now in today's dollars. The Mariners, instead of getting a 10-win season, get a two and a half win season. Right. It's tough. Look, they should be spending a lot more money. We'll be the first people to always tell you that. But you got to spend it wisely when you get the chance to spend it. You got to get it right.

[00:25:43] So, again, talked about it a little bit here again today. Spent way more time on it on Monday. Spent some time on it on Brock and Salk if you want to listen there. So, it's an interesting conversation. I don't think it'll be the last time we have it, but we did want to clear those numbers up. All right. Before we get to Hembo, let's take a quick pause. We're going to talk to you guys about our friends over at Pagatches Pub 85. Because if you want to watch these Mariners or watch really any sporting event throughout the summer or as we get closer to the fall, you can head right over there. It's an awesome spot to hang out. There's pool. There's darts. There's great food.

[00:26:12] There's 20 TVs in the place. And if you want to go during happy hour, make sure to get over there during those hours because there's awesome drink specials. It's $3 to $4, you guys. 2 to 6 p.m. is the happy hours over there, Monday through Friday. Again, four-hour happy hours, five days a week from 2 to 6 p.m. $3 and $4 drinks. It's awesome deals. That's all over at Pagatches Pub 85 in Kirkland. Hembo brings such a great perspective to the Mariners because he's so much like you and I, Lyle. He loves his stats.

[00:26:42] He loves his little nuggets. I mean, he loves like... What's a great way to put it? So the conversation starts with sort of a very ESPN-y segment. He works on GetUp, right? And you know how all those shows are structured. It's a lot of debate television, a lot of semantics, etc. He did want to do like a tiny bit of that at the start, which I thought was really fun. A great hypothetical to talk about.

[00:27:11] Spoiler, we talked about Mariners, Mount Rushmore's, right? We had to. We have to get the clickbait in there, Lyle. We got to do the Mount Rushmore. We got to get the people arguing about it. But then Hembo also is very much like us in the way he loves his stats. He loves his analysis. He loves like very specific things about these stats that tell stories about players. And it can lead to some different opinions on different players. And I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it to you guys to listen to the interview to hear what he has to say about

[00:27:40] some of the specific players on the Mariners roster. But man, it was nice to have him on as he seems like he is online. For all of you who follow him on Twitter, on Instagram to see what kind of stuff he posts about. He's just like that when we interview him as well. I joke that he could be the third person on this podcast all the time if he wanted to. I mean, you're going to hear it from the interview. It really does kind of sound like three peas in a pod talking baseball because it's three

[00:28:05] very number heavy nerds that are very high energy that get a lot out of each other. Like you'll hear Hembo during this. He is fired up for 40 minutes during this interview. And he gets TJ and I going too. Like I'll say it. I said it earlier. I'll say it again. He is one of the best guests we've ever had. I will stamp that. And I think that's because he is so like TJ and I that it sparks some real fun conversations between the three of us on a lot of different topics.

[00:28:35] So for those of you who don't know Hembo, like TJ said, he's on ESPN. Again, he's worked closely with Mike Greenberg for years on Get Up on his old radio show, Greeny. He's on Buster Olney's podcast all the time. Again, he works. He works with Passin Plenty. So he knows his baseball extremely well. He knows the Mariners very well. And like I said, just given the three personalities during this interview, so fun. I don't think it's going to be the last time we have him on either.

[00:29:03] But we're looking forward to having you guys hear this one because I do genuinely think he's been one of our best guests. We won't keep you guys any longer. Let's get you to the interview with Paul Hembikidis. All right. We've got Paul Hembikidis on with us. You guys know him better as Hembo from ESPN. You can catch him on Get Up with Greeny. You can catch him on with Buster Olney. Huge baseball guy. Hembo, we're fired up to have you on. Thanks for doing this. For people that don't know, how did you get into baseball?

[00:29:33] I know this is a broad question, but before we dive into all the Mariners stuff, where does your baseball fandom stem from? From day one. And I have no idea how because I don't come from a baseball family at all. In fact, the story that I'll use to cite that is I played baseball up through college. I was a Division II college baseball player with a great eye and an absolutely no stick, like a 20 on the 20 to 80 scouting scale when it came to my power. We're talking like half a dozen doubles in four years in college, but I digress.

[00:29:59] So my freshman year, I get the headshot on the website, the bio, the height, the weight, the favorite hobbies, where are you from? What are your favorite colors? All that stuff. My dad gives me a call after seeing me on the Cedarville website for the first time and says, it says here that you're an infielder, but I thought you played second base. And so that's my father. My father, who obviously doesn't know second base from left field. My baseball fandom is completely innate.

[00:30:26] It is completely God-given and not passed down from anyone else. My mother's side, my grandfather grew up a Tiger fan and was a casual. But on the other side, my dad's from Beirut, Lebanon. Couldn't know a thing about baseball. And so for me, it was something that I just always was attracted to. I was born in Baltimore. And so Cal Ripken Jr. in the early to mid-90s was my baseball god, my baseball hero. And so for me, if you're born in Baltimore in 1990 and your name isn't Cal, in fact, it's something of an upset.

[00:30:54] And so that was sort of my first soiree into knowing and loving baseball as a kid. I moved to Philadelphia in 1998 and have been a Phillies fan ever since. And my favorite Phillies teams are those in the mid to late 2000s, and they obviously won the World Series in 2008 as part of a very successful run. And Chase Utley is my favorite Philly. I had the chance to meet both he and Cal Ripken actually through my positions at ESPN, which as you might imagine, was a thrill. I've played baseball my entire life up through college, like I mentioned.

[00:31:22] And since joining ESPN, even though I don't major in baseball working there for any number of obvious reasons, baseball is my love. It's first, last, and always. And so not long after I met him, Buster only invited me onto his podcast, and it became something that I did permanently. I've done it every week for the last six or seven years, at least, when I joined Mike Greenberg on the radio on our national show. He did so originally because he knew I was encyclopedic with baseball, and that's such a big thing, of course, in the New York and Chicago markets, which, of course, was

[00:31:50] one of our big audiences on that show. And so I just know it, and I love it. My background at ESPN is primarily in research, so I'd like to think that I blend the, you know, the eye test, the playing experience with the numbers. But ultimately, as you guys probably know, as well as I do, people know me best for my trivia questions and for my stats, for my analytics, for my information. So that's kind of where I'll leave it. And that's kind of my, you know, elevator pitch baseball background and how and why I love the game so much.

[00:32:17] And that right there is why I think a lot of people are going to enjoy this interview, because that sounds a lot like what we do on this podcast. We love using numbers. We love, as two technically former players, though, we never made it to college to play. Now we just instead talk about it instead. We have to go off instead of, you know, looking at the, you know, more physical aspects of the game. We love using our numbers. And you do the exact same thing.

[00:32:43] Do you just like pull, are you someone that will just pull up like a fan graphs or a baseball savant page and just like, and just look? Yeah. Yeah. To me, that's eye candy. That is probably my single favorite hobby. And you just described something that I think is so beautiful and innate in the game of baseball. Like baseball is the only sport. And this is coming from someone that works at ESPN. So 90% of what I do is hoops and football, right? Baseball is the only sport that is defined by its numbers. It's the only sport for which the numbers are the ultimate trump card for which there can

[00:33:12] be no object, no objection as to whether or not a player is good or bad, whether a pitcher is stingy or not. And baseball history is obviously embedded with so many of those numbers that we hold near and dear. If I asked you how many points LeBron James has scored in his career, which is the all-time record, I might not get within 5,000. But if I say 56, you know, it's DiMaggio. If I say 2130, you know, it's Gehrig. If I say 112, you know, it's Gibson in 1968. If I say 511, you know, it's Cy Young's career wins total. And on and on it goes.

[00:33:41] Baseball is the sport for which numbers we hold most near and dear. And if you speak baseball and you're fluent in that language, it's a beautiful thing. There's so many ways that you can enjoy baseball beyond watching the game and beyond the box scores. And if you can learn to enjoy both and blend both, then you have, my friends, the greatest thing that you can have as a fan because you can touch every single part of baseball and enjoy it on both ends. I want to dive into the numbers with you about this current Mariners team a bunch. Before we do that, I know there's something you wanted to touch on that I thought would

[00:34:11] be an awesome topic to throw at you. So let's do it. Your Mariners Mount Rushmore is who? Because you can go a couple different ways with this. Okay. This is a fascinating concept. And I will admit, this is a little bit self-serving because, as you might well know, I have co-authored two books with my co-host, Mike Greenberg, and the third of them is coming out in September. We've already announced it. It's called Got Your Legends. And this, by no means, is a book plug, but the reason why I wanted to bring it up with

[00:34:38] you guys is because I think the Seattle Mariners Mount Rushmore is fascinating. So the idea here doesn't necessarily have to be four players, but we've identified the Mount Rushmore for all 124 teams in professional North American sports. And, naturally, the Seattle Mariners, as being one of those teams, create a lot of fascinating conversations. And so I'm looking at the list that Greeny and I constructed. And without giving much away, what I want to do is see if what you guys have as your

[00:35:04] Seattle Mariners Mount Rushmore adheres exactly to what we do or if there's any deviation at all. So this is a bit of a spoiler alert, but you can't go wrong building Mount Rushmore for favorite teams on any low-key summer day. So the fact that you brought it up obviously makes me feel awfully good about what this book might be. But as it relates to this conversation, fascinated to see how a couple guys that are younger than Greeny and me view the Mariners in terms of their all-time standing. So what do you have as your Mariners Mount Rushmore? Your top four would look like what?

[00:35:33] I think the two of us have the same one, but I think how we usually formulate it is we go Junior, Edgar, Randy Johnson, Felix Hernandez with A-Rod just off the list. Say that once more. Junior, Edgar, Randy, Felix. Oh, you missed one mile. Oh, did I? Yeah, you did. Sorry. He's getting his number retired in two months. My bad. My bad. Sorry. Scratch Randy off.

[00:36:02] I would say Junior, Edgar, Ichiro, Felix. There we go. So that is, I guess, obviously where we landed too. I mean, Edgar, Junior, Ichiro, and Felix to me feel like the most indelible members of the organization's history. I'm not sure that their highest of highs were greater than what we saw from Randy Johnson or A-Rod. And there's also other guys down the line that you would obviously include in the discussion like Buhner and Beltre and Harold Reynolds and Julio Rodriguez more recently.

[00:36:32] You might even argue that Lou Piniella, someone that deserves to be in the conversation. But as it relates to the Mariners specifically and their four greatest players, I'm not so sure that there's actually that much debate. I mean, these are, I wouldn't say that it's a clear and obvious Mount Rushmore. Like there are some franchises for which there are four clear and obvious ones. But I think that you could, I guess in some sense, argue in favor of Randy Johnson or A-Rod. But the thing is for both of those guys, as you know, like you more closely associate them with doing their, reaching their highest highs on other teams.

[00:37:01] And so Edgar, Griffey, Ichiro, and Felix, it sounds like there's some consensus in the room. Mm-hmm. I like that Mount Rushmore. The way I think about it is there are, I wouldn't put A-Rod in this group. I think there is a combination that you can put a five different guys that I feel like you would get the least amount of argument about. So you take A-Rod off the list, but you have Randy, you have Ichiro on there, you have Felix, you have Edgar, and you have Ken Griffey Jr. I think if you put any of those five on the Mount Rushmore, someone might push back at you.

[00:37:29] But it shouldn't be like an extreme, an extreme pushback. I feel like that's a pretty solid group. A-Rod just didn't play with the team long enough, I don't think. Even though, man, this dude was worth almost 40 wins in six seasons in Seattle, which, I'm going to be honest, outside of Griffey, none of those other guys did, and weren't even particularly close. No. A-Rod, there was a season in which, off the top of my head, he hit like 360 with like 350 total bases. He was 20. 20. He was 20 years old.

[00:37:57] So the one guy that I think you could credibly argue does not belong would actually be King Felix, because he's the least great among these four players. I mean, Felix Hernandez, in my judgment, should be a Hall of Famer. I don't think he's going to get in on the first ballot. I think he should get in someday, because his peak was so extraordinary. But, I mean, Edgar Martinez is a top five conservatively DH of all time. Griffey in the 90s was a vibe, and was one of the defining players of his era.

[00:38:24] And you can't tell the story of the Mariners, especially the 2001 team that won 116 games, without Ichiro's absurd rookie season, and obviously what happened subsequently with him breaking George Susser's record three years later. And so, those three guys, to me, are set in stone. If you want to argue about Felix versus Randy, I think that's actually a fascinating debate, because Felix Hernandez just isn't close to the pitcher that Randy Johnson was, even though he did it all in Seattle. Right.

[00:38:49] Yeah, it's funny, and maybe you know this, but fast forward 25 years later, like, people around here still do not love A-Rod. Like, you bring up the name A-Rod, and a lot of that generation, probably the generation ahead of the two of us, do not love him. And it's funny, because, like, the two of us sit here and say, well, the guy took more money to go elsewhere. Like, is it that fair to hold a grudge against him? But yeah, people, like, he's polarizing still. Yeah. I mean, let me ask you this. Like, who actually loves A-Rod?

[00:39:17] Like, in all candor, who is the, what is the franchise that builds an A-Rod statue? I mean, he wasn't beloved in Seattle. He didn't spend that much time in Texas, although there he was unbelievable. And look, I live and work in New York. I mean, he is not beloved by Yankees fans. And his 2014 season, in which he was washed for being suspended, is a black eye on the organization. I mean, he's obviously done a pretty good job in resurrecting his self-image. But A-Rod's not a build-a-statue player in any city. I mean, he's inarguably great.

[00:39:47] But his career is obviously super stained by steroid stuff. And the fact that he, you know, bopped around like he was an NBA superstar doesn't exactly help his, you know, beloved case either. To answer your question, who would build the A-Rod statue? I think only A-Rod would build the A-Rod statue. It would be the photo of him kissing himself in the mirror. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Here's my last thing on this, Hembo. Because Lyle and I were talking about this in a previous episode. To think like the Seattle Mariners, which have been the least successful baseball franchise

[00:40:15] of all the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, at the same time had arguably the greatest starting pitcher ever, greatest center fielder ever, greatest DH ever, greatest shortstop ever on the same roster. And they won one division title and missed the playoffs a couple times. That's a history YouTube series that one day you and I can throw together. But it's a well-made point and also a perfect example of why the mainstream baseball fan in

[00:40:44] this country hates the big market. And again, I live and work in New York City. I root for the Philadelphia Phillies. But baseball is that sport. It's that sport for which you actually can't afford to keep all the greatest players. And so if you want to try, you've got to give Bobby Witt Jr. $300 million five years before you have to because there's no other way to keep him. I think it's an objective good for Kansas City just as an example. But Julio is another good example. But when you have to make that bet so early, it creates really uneven dynamics.

[00:41:13] And baseball is the only sport, the only one for which that applies. Let's talk about Julio for a second. Because talk about a guy that's become polarizing inside a fan base and inside a city. He has just because got the big contract, great defender, can run the bases. His offense over the last two years is up for debate where he's still productive. But he isn't in that Bobby Witt level of production over the last two seasons when you look at his offensive output.

[00:41:42] So for you and somebody who loves to dig into this stuff, when you look at Julio Rodriguez, what do you see these days? I see an extraordinary athlete and a baseball player that still is less mature than I would have expected him to be. And that is not a value judgment on his intellect. For all I know, he's brilliant between those lines. But I see a very successful war accumulator because, as you put it, the defense is plus plus at a premium position and he can run like the wind. I mean, he's breathtaking.

[00:42:10] And I think the fact that we've seen him go nuclear for as long a stretch as we've seen him go nuclear, it demonstrates that we know this is in his bag. And so he becomes everyone's tantalizing February MVP because this is going to be the year. This is going to be the year that he puts it together. But the problem is his swing, like the actual mechanical nature of his swing isn't good enough. And unless Julio Rodriguez makes wholesale, mature swing adjustments and market corrections,

[00:42:40] he's only going to be a player, and of course only being in air quotes, whose batting line is between 15 and 25 percent average year over year. That's going to be the player he is. That's going to be worth between five and seven war in his prime. But it's not the kind, he doesn't have the kind of old man skills that you would hope or expect from a player that you want to be there for 15 years. And the number that I'll use to demonstrate that is this. A player with the kind of bat speed that Julio has, and we know the torque he generates is completely off the charts.

[00:43:07] He absolutely, in count leverage, should be cheating to catch the fastball out front and hit the ball 450 feet to left center. And what I'm looking at right now is Julio Rodriguez against fastball, how much does he launch the baseball? And his average angle when he hits fastballs this year is 1.3. Julio Rodriguez consistently beats baseballs into the ground against velocity. It consistently beats him to the spot.

[00:43:35] And what I would say from afar, and you guys watch every at bat, I can't claim to, but from afar what it looks like to me is that Julio Rodriguez times up stuff wrong. He times the fastball to go to right center, and he times the breaking ball, times the changeup, times the splitter to go to left center. And this is not something that I can't prove or we can't even know. But a hitter of his caliber should not be doing that. That's a Luis de Rye's approach to baseball.

[00:44:01] What Julio Rodriguez should be doing is matching batted ball location, for lack of a better term, to pitch location. You go in, you pull. You go away. Regardless of pitch type, you go oppo. And the problem is that he is consistently being beat by fastballs, which he should be pulverizing. There is no excuse for him to have a 202 ISO this year against fastballs, but the reason it's a 202 ISO is because his launch angle is 1.3 degrees. The hard hit rate is 51%.

[00:44:30] It isn't good enough. For a player of his caliber, there needs to be a wholesale change made to where he's meeting fastballs out in front, and I'd actually be willing to live with a little more whiff if he's able to make that adjustment. And he still swings and misses a decent amount because it's not, over the course of these four years, he has not been able to taper down his chase rates at all either. He's in fact, I think this year, been a little bit more aggressive because he's been going after way more first pitches. And, you know, that's sort of a mindset as you step in the box, you're going to go up there

[00:45:00] and you're going to swing if the ball's even somewhat close to where you want it to be as opposed to looking for your specific damage pitch. I think it's a real work in progress for Julio. I do think eventually he's going to get there, though, because he's going to get so many at-bats by the time he hits his prime years, like 27. That will be year, if I'm counting correctly, yeah, that'll be year seven in the big leagues for him by the time he starts in his real prime. So, Hembo, I would say I feel like he's going to get there. But here's the next question. Oh, time out. He wants to interject.

[00:45:30] Listen, I don't necessarily want to interject. I just need you to show me the back of the napkin because you're going to have to do better than he's going to get another 2,000 plate appearances. If Julio Rodriguez keeps hitting like this and he doesn't adjust to location to spin, then Julio Rodriguez is going to be an approximation of this who is subject to batted ball luck. And that isn't a strategy. It might work for a season. But if you're going to tell me that he's going to get there and be a superstar with his bat,

[00:45:56] a 170 OPS plus merely by virtue of plate appearances, I would push back and see, I'm going to need to see the back of the napkin that demonstrates how that happens. Not just I'm betting on it happening based on volume of play, for lack of a better term. Now, if you could, I was going to say, I think a good sort of, well, go ahead. Before we even get to that, I've been hesitant to throw this comp out there. But since you're so adamant about this topic and this subject and you make real points to back a lot of this stuff up,

[00:46:25] let me throw this comparison at you and you tell me what you think. This is the first time I've ever broken this out on the podcast, but I've talked to TJ about it a bunch. Is his profile as a player just Adam Jones with better defense? Like, is that essentially who he is? The reason I gave you time to vamp there is because that clip right there is going to be seen by a million angry people. I just wanted to make sure that it had an opportunity to breathe. He's a demonstrably better player than Adam Jones because it's considerably, I think, better raw power. It is better defense.

[00:46:55] And he's Adam Jones juiced up. I mean, I think that's a, I understand why you're making that comp. I don't, I actually don't hate it. But no, I don't think, like Adam Jones was so swingy and so chasey and never demonstrated over the course of six weeks that he can get that hot. Adam Jones was never a, we have to give this guy a nine-figure contract as soon as we're able to because we can't risk losing him. I mean, he was never that talented.

[00:47:20] Julio Rodriguez is a player that you don't have to squint that hard to imagine him someday going into the Hall of Fame. And so that's why I'm so fascinated with the notion that he'll get there someday because of playing time where I'm someone that wants to see like the, I want to see like the demonstration of performance change. I want to see the adjustment made. I want to see the league has adjusted to me. They're beating me with velocity. I'm going to beat it back. I want to see the stay backside on spin down and away and drive that ball into the right center field gap.

[00:47:49] I want to see him hit a double down the right field line on his C swing rather than swing over a pitch. To me, there's a lot of elements to his game at the plate that need to improve. And if they never do, he's a four to six war player through his 20s and that's just fine. But I think we all know that there's a lot more to tap into. Sure. Yeah. And that's kind of why I threw out the comment. And like what I've talked to TJ about this when we brought it up is like using the Adam Jones comp that by no means like it's not supposed to diminish Julio. In fact, it's saying he's a really good player.

[00:48:17] It's just it was me saying, yeah, exactly. Like Chase is a decent amount. Good defender. In fact, Julio is a great defender. But like I said to you at the start of this topic, just not in the same conversation as Bobby Witt as 2024 Gunnar Henderson, like other guys that are kind of in his class. Maybe saying he's just a tier below that, but still a really good player. But to your point, the talent is probably superior to what Adam Jones was. So, yeah. Okay. What is the difference, Hembo, of what Cal does with damage pitches versus what Julio does?

[00:48:47] I mean, Cal Raleigh in the zone is Mike Piazza in the late 90s right now. I mean, he is he's hitting out of his ever loving mind and he's been really good from both sides of the plate and been good every single day as a catcher. It's astonishing. His exit data is off the charts. It's bananas. I mean, it's the kind of thing that if you if he was playing a value negative first base, it wouldn't much matter. If he was exclusively a DH, it would not much matter.

[00:49:13] I mean, imagine if Jordan Alvarez last year was a plus defender behind the plate. He's having a phenomenal season on track to be an eight or nine more season. And the only reason he won't be considered an MVP favorite is because he happens to be playing in a league with Barry Bonds without taking steroids. He's having an astonishing season. And I'm so impressed on a day to day basis with what Cal Raleigh does, because as you guys well know, the fact that he plays every day is ultimately of the utmost virtue.

[00:49:39] And the batting line that he is putting forth right now is is basically unprecedented. What I looked up using OPS plus was what are the best seasons that a catcher has had in which they played at least 100 games? Because I'm not doing this like Salvador Perez stuff where you you catch three times a week, four times a week. And we do the minimum 50 percent of games played at catcher and decide all the games are created equal because it's it's not true in Cal's case. He's going to catch 120 times this year.

[00:50:06] I mean, the best batting line of anybody to ever catch 100 games in a season is 185. It's Mike Piazza in 97, which is about what Cal Raleigh is right now. And the only other catchers to clear 170. So that's considerably less than where he's at right now are Joe Maurer and Buster Posey. In their MVP seasons. And a lot of that, of course, is the damage he does in zone. He is obviously a little whiffy and a little chasey. But to me, like when you have that much big raw, I can live with whiff and I can live with chase because it's actually kind of a proxy for I know how much damage I can do.

[00:50:35] And I'd rather swing and miss over this 2-1 pitch than try to hit a ground ball up the middle because, candidly, it's a waste of an at bat. And I'm subjecting myself to a potential out. So he's definitely cracked the code in figuring out like when to be super aggressive. And a sacrifice, in my judgment, the appropriate amount of whiff and the appropriate amount of chase that matches the extraordinary value that the barrel of his bat provides. It's funny you bring that up because a week ago, at least at the time of recording this, when people are listening to this, it'll be two weeks ago.

[00:51:03] But we posted about this, talking about Cal Raleigh's 2025 and where he's pro-rated to be in terms of a full-scale basis. Compared to 2012 Buster Posey, 1997 Mike Piazza, 1999 Pudge, 1972 Johnny Bench. He's on pace to outwar all those guys, at least he was as of a week ago. And WRC Plus-wise, he's set to surpass every single one of them not named Piazza in 97.

[00:51:28] So like what's crazy to us is he's elevated himself from being talked about as not just one of the best catchers in the game of baseball and being compared to guys like William Contreras, Adley Rushman, etc. To like one of the best players. So I guess like our fascination with this, and I'd love to get your thoughts on it, is like just how good can this guy be going forward? So, I mean, this is him at the peak of his powers. I mean, there's not like an 11-war season in his future.

[00:51:54] He's not going to put a cape on and become Josh Gibson, but this is as good as it gets. I mean, we've not seen more than half a dozen catchers in the history of baseball have a two-way season quite like this. In fact, I put together this list for you guys. So make sure that I have this proper because I think delivering this information, I want to nail it because I couldn't believe when I looked it up. So here's what I looked up. I looked up if you were a value-positive defender, the best hitting seasons in the history of the position, and I went since integration.

[00:52:24] And it's Posey in 12 who we mentioned, Maurer in 09, Gary Carter in 1982 was phenomenal, and there are multiple Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, and Roy Campanella seasons. We are talking about all Hall of Famers, literally all of them. He's on pace to have 332 total bases in games in which he has caught that Piazza. It's Pudge. It's Yogi. It's Gabby Hartnett. It's Roy Campanella. It is exclusively Cal Raleigh and Hall of Famer.

[00:52:50] So it doesn't require hyperbolized commentary or live-in-the-moment, day-to-day talk radio banter to reach the same conclusion whether or not you're a numbers cruncher like me, a Mariners enjoyer like you guys, or anything in between. Cal Raleigh's having one of the great catching seasons of all time, and you don't really have to couch it by using the term catching because we know full well that if Aaron Judge did not exist,

[00:53:14] he would be the odds-on favorite to win the MVP of the American League, which is an exceedingly rare accomplishment for any catcher, as you guys well know. Does he have any chance of taking some points away from Judge or even passing him? Any chance at all? I think Judge will obviously have to taper off some. The Mariners are going to have to enjoy an enormous amount of team success as well, and I think you're going to have to have a groundswell of national media influencers, for lack of a better term,

[00:53:42] that demonstrate that war is not a satisfactory way to quantify his value, and I'll be someone pushing that narrative because it's not a narrative. It's true. You can't properly quantify Cal Raleigh's impact behind the plate using wins above replacement because we can't quantify everything. We know the way that he manages that staff is admirable and has been. He's an 87th percentile framer, and Aaron Judge playing right field can't provide any ancillary skill that valuable. Now, that is not to say that Aaron Judge's barrel is not more valuable than all the things that Raleigh has put together,

[00:54:12] because to date, it has been. But when you consider the value that he provides on a daily basis at the most important position, with 1,000 OPS, I think one could make a credible argument that he is an MVP peer of Judge, but you have to do a little bit of stretching to reach a point where you, I guess, acquit them, whereas I'd only be comfortable comparing them. Now, we've seen two great months of Cal Raleigh,

[00:54:38] but we've seen two, I'd say, polar opposite months of the rest of this Mariners' offense as a whole. They were really good in April. They were pretty poor, bottom third in all of baseball in a lot of categories in May. Do you buy any of the rest of what is around Cal Raleigh? Not really. I do think that the call-up of Cole Young has a chance to be an impact move beyond, of course, his debut, which, of course, was so exciting.

[00:55:04] I will be steadfast in my belief that if the Mariners are super serious about being super serious this year, they're going to have to add another bat before the trade deadline, and I do think they obviously have the minor league bandwidth to do so. We also know that they're not that keen on trading high-end prospects for players, and that's part of the reason why they're somewhat well-positioned, albeit not all the way there. I would argue or could argue that because they have so many high-quality position players in the minor leagues, that being patient is the right move, to which the counter argument is obviously,

[00:55:34] well, we have so many present-day studs in our pitching staff that by the time those guys are ready to come up, as you guys have discussed in the past, it might be too late, right? So that's the needle that you have to thread. I think, in short, there's no question that they need to add another bat, probably either a corner outfielder or someone who can play third base, and no team can go wrong by adding another bullpen piece or two, even though right now you have the eighth and the ninth inning canvassed. But ultimately, the success of your season is going to very likely come down to, like, what are we going to get from Logan Gilbert?

[00:56:03] And you guys know better than I do when he's coming back and how good he'll be. And is George Kirby going to be a mid-rotation starter or a top-of-the-rotation starter? And if we get affirmative answers to those questions, I'm optimistic about a Mariners team who is playing in a less competitive division than I may have thought. But I'm a person that believes that the lineup drives your floor, the pitching sets your ceiling, and right now the floor is a pretty low one considering it's Cal Raleigh and a bunch of guys that are, by and large, underperforming in the month of May and beyond. Man, there's so much we could get to with you.

[00:56:32] But to hit on a couple other topics here, you mentioned Kirby. And talking with you a little bit before the show, I think your perspective on him is a little different, I want to say, than maybe what the consensus is. And I want to tee you up for this in that way. So when you watch George Kirby, like, what do you see? I want to apologize in advance to all of the George Kirby enthusiasts in your audience, of which I'm sure you have thousands.

[00:56:58] But George Kirby is my least favorite kind of pitcher in baseball. He's a stud. Don't get me wrong. I view him as a mid-rotation starter and not as a frontline rotation starter. And when I say he's my least favorite kind of pitcher in baseball, what I mean is he pitches like he would rather give up a run than a walk. And I hate that. I'm a Philly fan, and Aaron Nola is that guy for me on my team. He is just too aggressive in the zone. His stuff isn't good enough.

[00:57:27] His fastball isn't good enough to get away with middle middle. His fastball isn't good enough to get away with a 3-1 cookie. And George Kirby often pitches like that. And so every offseason, you look at his peripherals and you say, oh, he outperforms his expected ERA, his FIP, better than his ERA. To which I always respond, you kind of got to watch the games. You've got to see the damage that's done and when it's done. Because I believe that George Kirby would be better if he walked more guys.

[00:57:55] I'm not chasing a strikeout to walk rate of 8-1. Because to me, that's not the foremost virtue in pitching. The foremost virtue in pitching is not walk prevention. It is run prevention. And I'm not willing to give up a solo home run on a 3-1 count at the risk of hurting my strikeout to walk rate. And I feel that George Kirby often pitches that way. There's a difference between command and control, as you well know. There's often a big difference, of course, between strike throwing and strike creating. George Kirby is a strike thrower.

[00:58:25] Logan Gilbert is a strike creator. One is a mid-rotation starter. The other is an ace. George Kirby is a strike thrower. I don't want those at the top of my rotation. He's a perfectly fine number 2 or 3 starter who, on occasion, is going to wind up on pitching ninja for doing cool stuff and having 11 strikeouts in one rock. But if he allows five runs in the game because he decided to live in the zone and not risk walking anybody, then you're going to wind up with an ERA of 3.5 every year when your ERA should be 3-1 or 3-2 every year, even if your whip suffers as a result.

[00:58:55] It's funny that that's where your argument goes because I was going to say I was fascinated to see how you took this conversation. And if you're going to make the argument that you're making, I think that is the route you have to go. And you highlighted it pretty well. Like the two polar opposite sides to this, right, is you mentioned pitching ninja, who we've had on a couple times. He's a great guest, who loves him, absolutely loves him, and talks about that his absolute ceiling, if everything were to go right, is like Maddox with more velocity and bigger stuff.

[00:59:25] The other side to this, right, and kind of what you're talking about, is when he gets too much in the zone, especially against the wrong team, it's a matchup that does not favor him, paired to the fact that the two of us have talked about this a bunch. He still doesn't really have an out pitch. And when you don't have an out pitch and you're always in the zone, yes, sometimes that can lead to getting hit fairly hard. Oh, this is fascinating. Fascinating to me because Rob and I are on totally different ends of the spectrum,

[00:59:54] and I very much value and respect his work. It's extraordinary. But George Kirby isn't 10% of the pitcher that Greg Maddox ever was. George Kirby has an excellent strikeout to walk rate and pitches like he has Max Scherzer's stuff. These are notions that don't intersect the way that they should, the way that he thinks that they should. But George Kirby pitches like he has front line stuff, and he simply does not. He has excellent control.

[01:00:23] He's a person that can live in the zone, and when he gets ahead of you, he's a ball rolling downhill, and that's an avalanche to stop if you're an opposing hitter, and that's very challenging. But he permits too much damage to be that aggressive, and hitters' leverage count. And so I'm totally good with the idea of praising George Kirby for having these inflated strikeout to walk rates, for having these 10-0 strikeout to walk starts, and things of that nature. I think that's definitely a sign of efficiency.

[01:00:52] But we needn't allow efficiency to be our greatest virtue. The only thing that matters is the scoreboard, and what he needs to learn to do is pitch through conflict with men on base considerably better if he's ever going to be an ace. Again, I like the pitcher. He's a 2 or he's a 3. But he will definitively not be an ace until either his stuff improves, or he better learns to live on the paint and not in the meat of the zone. Is his stuff good enough to pitch like Logan Gilbert pitches? No. Okay.

[01:01:20] I think that George Kirby is a 2 or a 3, like I continue to say. The problem is that his misses are so excruciating and so excruciatingly predictable. That's what I hate most about George Kirby. He doesn't have stuff good enough to live in the zone that much, and he doesn't have that put-away pitch the way that Logan Gilbert does either. And that's a huge difference. One of the most important things that you can have as a pitcher in today's game, do you have multiple fastballs? Do you have a put-away pitch? Well, what does your plan be? Can you keep the baseball off the barrel?

[01:01:48] And there's so much heavy barrel potent contact against him because his stuff doesn't move that well horizontally. He doesn't stay off the barrel that well. And so much of his stuff comes down to did he win the first pitch of the plate appearance? And that's, to me, like a plan A pitcher. But the best pitchers in the sport are those who can win if they have their C game. George Kirby's C game is five earned in five innings with two homers allowed. That's the pitcher that he's been. And until he modifies his approach, I think that's the pitcher he's going to be. Why does that work so well for Brian Wu then?

[01:02:17] Because Brian Wu gets such incredible vert on his fastball that it's so difficult to pick up and that he gets so much more whiff beneath it. George Kirby's stuff is good. Brian Wu's stuff is better. Brian Wu's stuff is considerably better. And until he picks up a legitimate third pitch, he won't be a one either. But Brian Wu's fastball is a demonstrably better pitch than George Kirby's fastball. Because that low release height, that crazy spinning, crazy vert, that's the hardest pitcher in baseball to try and square up is where that ball is consistently living above your barrel and then he drops that ridiculous hammer.

[01:02:48] That, I think, is the biggest difference is that between those two guys, like the best pitch among those is Brian Wu's fastball and then it would be George Kirby's breaking ball. Okay, I want to get to a couple more things here as we start to wrap up. Cole Young, you mentioned him. What could his projection be as a prospect? We've tried to set people's expectations and say, look, when this guy's at his best, he can absolutely help this offense. Please do not put the expectations on him that he's going to come in here and save it. We've tried to tell all Mariners fans this,

[01:03:16] but we also know he can be a really good player. So what do you think he can be? Yeah, I'm going to comp into Bryson Stott, who's a second baseman for my favorite team, the Phillies. I don't know that their games necessarily run on parallel tracks, but what I mean by the Stott comp is you go through a game, he doesn't show up, he doesn't do anything crazy, but oh yeah, he went one for three with a walk, right? And that adds up to four war over the course of 150 games. It's, in a good year, a pretty close to even strikeout to walk ratio,

[01:03:45] plus defense potentially. Like he does everything at a 50 grade or better, and that makes him a pretty effective war accumulator. I don't know that he's ever going to be an impact middle of the order bat, because I don't know that he has that much barrel control. I don't know that he can do that much damage. I don't think he's ever going to be a gold glover necessarily, but when you can do enough good things, he's definitely going to be a part of the solution and not the problem when it comes to what the Mariners are going to eventually do. What will determine whether or not he's a league average regular, a two war player, or a four war player,

[01:04:14] is how much damage he can do. Because it's a 432 career slug in the minor leagues. That ticks down to probably 45 to 50, like average on the 20 to 80 scale, in terms of what his big league power projection might be. And so I think you can be excited about him, but he's at the end of the season, oh, how did that guy get to four war? Rather than, oh my goodness, how did he not get more than four war? I think that's the player he's going to become. Hembo, one of the guys you've been such a big fan of talking about all season long, if we want to go back to the pitching staff, is Andres Munoz.

[01:04:44] He's been unbelievable this season. There's so many good things to talk about with him. What's your favorite thing about him to talk about? I was a right-handed hitter, and he would have broken my metal mat. The way it is, I think my favorite thing about him is that it's an impossible combination to square up. Like if you're going to run your four seamer 11 inches arm side and a two seamer that runs 17 inches arm side

[01:05:11] with a slider that goes 37 inches of vert, like that's insane. It's such a, as a hitter, it requires you to cover so much surface area that you can even guess right and miss. He can make a mistake and miss because he doesn't really rely on command to be effective. The stuff is so good, and he can throw three pitches, and in the ninth inning, what I want to face is someone that can only have two, and what I hope is that that guy happens to be missing one that day, so I can guess. I can guess which half of the plate am I going to cover,

[01:05:41] and which pitch do I have to cover? And Munoz makes you cover all four quadrants with three pitches. I mean, you're doing multiplication at that point. So, like, I think he's so good, and by the way, I think Brash is so good in the inning before him that you guys have to, if you can build a seven-inning game, like that's the Mariners' path to making a deep playoff run because I think the stuff is that dominant, and if the infield defense can do its job, that to me is my favorite thing. Like, I think it's very, it's very much like what we saw from Emmanuel Klasse previously, but honestly, like, even though Klasse's cutter is just diabolical,

[01:06:12] Munoz's pitch mix and the way that everything runs off of each other is basically second to none in the sport right now. Just how good is Matt Brash and his return to this bullpen and to this team? This is my final question for you. I could do this with you for 11 hours as I've already demonstrated, and I'm upset that this is the time I wish I had to pick up my children from daycare. However, I think Brash is, much like Munoz, a phenomenal reliever who keeps the baseball in the ballpark. To me, this is a critical component of high leverage.

[01:06:43] Like, I understand, obviously, we want to chase swing and miss in today's game. Everyone gets that. But to me, like, a high ground ball percentage, the ability to limit damage, to permit damage, this is really the Mets genius with how they've built their pitching lab, is to keep that slug number as low as can possibly be. And with Brash and Munoz, even if they concede a couple base runners, they're probably going to be bleeders. Maybe there's a walk in there. But the idea that with their stuff profile, you're going to see somebody backspin a baseball and hit a homer in a high leverage moment

[01:07:12] in the playoffs is just so unlikely. And that's what I want to control for. We know that you want to close with that average as 15 strikeouts per nine, because of course you do. But that also typically comes with really high walk rates. And that's also a tough way to get base runners on in the ninth inning too, when everyone's teeth are clenched, right? So I think the Brash-Munoz combo is so genius because they're so adroit at keeping baseball on ground, baseball off of barrel, that you're not worried about that blow-up inning. When you go into the eighth inning and you're up four to one,

[01:07:42] you're almost assuredly going to win the game. Man, this has been a blast. We can have you on every episode with us, I feel like, from here on out, knowing how this conversation's gone. But Hembo, this has been legitimately awesome. What's up? What's up? I have to ask you one more question before I go. Oh, go ahead. So I have some strong opinions. Obviously all of them are rooted in fact. But the thing that I have said, for which you most disagree, is... Hmm. That we most disagree. I would say the... I like your Kirby argument,

[01:08:10] but I think his stuff personally... We've seen his stuff... We've seen his stuff play up a lot. And when his stuff does play up, it is just about as good as Logan Gilberts is. Okay. So your biggest take... Your biggest takeaway for me, in terms of what you most disagree, is that George Kirby's stuff is better than I've sold it. Yes. Fair enough. That's probably what I'd say too. Okay. Really good argument, but I think he's got more in the tank

[01:08:40] than you're giving him credit for. That's what I do. Hembo, I would go back last year. Go watch his start against the Diamondbacks last year. That is... If he can do that more, then what he does works. And that's the genius of our conversation, is that you've watched every pitch, but I think the danger of doing that, and I'm a Phillies fan, so I do this with my own team, with my own players, is that I often over-rely upon anecdotes and under-rely upon data. And when I see his stuff plus for the career at 102,

[01:09:09] and I see all the end zone damage that he permits, that would drive me crazy if I were watching every pitch, because I know that guy could be a one if he just pitched a little bit differently. But look, you've seen more George Kirby starts than I have, admittedly, and so you're probably right, and perhaps my opinion is too strong. Well, it's that idea of being like, arguing if you're too close, like too close to the situation, so to speak, rather than the bird's-eye view perspective that you have. So like, this whole thing's fascinating, but genuinely, Hembo, this has been a blast. I certainly hope this is not the last time we do this, so thanks for hopping on,

[01:09:39] and we'll have to do it again. Yeah, let's do it next time the Phillies and the Mariners meet in the World Series, shall we? I hope it's before then, but sure, considering the Mariners have never been, I hope it's before then. Let's go with that. Later, boys. Thanks, Hembo. Shout out, Hembo, man. That was a blast. Like I said, I think we're going to have him back on again because we had so much fun talking to him. I will get one laugh in because we recorded that interview with him late last week,

[01:10:06] aka ahead of George Kirby's 14 strikeout outing against the Angels, when he's like, eh, I'm not a huge buyer and believer in George Kirby, and then we texted him on Sunday after Kirby's outing, and we're like, well, any update on Kirby today, Hembo? And he's like, eh, he looks pretty good. That was pretty funny. Baseball does have a way of humbling people. Always. Always. We get humbled plenty, but it does humble people. All right. That just about wraps up this edition

[01:10:36] of the Marine Layer Podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to find all of our stuff, it's all over at our website, marinelayerpod.com. Go get your merch. We'd love to see you rocking it over at the ballpark throughout the city, et cetera. Summertime's a perfect time to go get yourself some Marine Layer Pod merch. Again, you can find it all over there. Go subscribe to our Patreon. We'd love to have you get involved. We'd love seeing people get involved in the first couple months of it. We'd love to see more get involved. So that's over at our website. Live show schedules at our website. All of our episodes are over there.

[01:11:06] And again, it's a one-stop shop for everything you need. That's marinelayerpod.com. You can also find us all across social media, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube shorts, at Marine Layer Pod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.