Episode 27: Matt Scheffler (Mariners Catching Prospect), Bryce Miller Debuts, And City Connect Uniforms Unveiled

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number twenty seven of the Marine Layer Podcast with TJ. Matthewson and Lyle Goldstein. On today's pod, we're joined by Mariners catching prospect Matt Scheffler of Double A Arkansas, a longtime friend our own co host Lyle Mettal join us in talk about some stories in Double A Arkansas, about how good Lyle was at baseball, in Little league and in high school as well. They went to high school together at Lake Washington, so it'll be some good stuff to get into. With Matt Wever, three Mariners storylines of the week, we'll take a peek down on the farm and see which Mariners prospect has really performed this week. We have our MLB wrap around topics, our umpire of the week. We will close out the show what's speak your Mind. Let's get it rolling, and we welcome you onto this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast, recording here on a Monday day, May first, Low, I think someone forgot to tell us about the newest highly touted pitching prospect in the Mariners system Easton McGee in. Probably what was the highlight of the week on Saturday? 00:01:14 Speaker 2: What were the Vegas odds on that guy to win the sy Young. I mean, if you put a dollar down on Easton McGee, how much are you getting back if he wins the cy Young you're retiring, Yeah, one hundred, So you're you're thinking like over a million bucks. 00:01:29 Speaker 1: Oh, easily, easily, because his odds wouldn't even be listed. I don't. The odds would be so great that Vegas wouldn't even list those odds. They wouldn't even risk the fact that someone could throw five dollars down and take eight take five million dollars out of their out of their vault at the at the at the MGM. You wouldn't want to risk that. That's that's just not good business. 00:01:51 Speaker 2: Well, I might throw a dollar down now after the way I saw him pitch, although unfortunately just hit the il after one start, so maybe his odds have actually gone down word since then. 00:02:01 Speaker 1: We'll get into it with our three Mariners' storylines. But there is a reason he was the one to start on Saturday and not another Mariners prospect that will once this episode comes out, will have started yesterday on Tuesday. But we'll touch on that a little bit. But I just want to give east McGee his flowers because while he's not one of our three topics this week. I mean, when you open up your phone, you turn on the radio, and you turn on the TV and he's throwing a no hitter in Rogers Center in the sixth inning of his first, his first Mariners start, You're like, how is this possible? How is this possible? What? He was really fabulous and in terms of anyone the Mariners could have brought up in a game they still managed to lose, I mean, still, just all you could say is Wow. 00:02:46 Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. I mean I really couldn't believe what we were watching. And of course, this guy's in the big leagues for a reason. 00:02:51 Speaker 3: Right. 00:02:51 Speaker 2: It wasn't his first big league outing either, he'd thrown a few innings with the Rays before this, but yeah, it was his first career start. And the fact he goes up against one of the best line some baseball and it's just carving him up with like ninety mile an hour fastballs, it was amazing. I mean, I think they would have been happy with four innings, three earned runs out of him, just something that would hypothetically keep them in the game. But the fact he was throwing a shutout, Yeah, that was unreal. And it's again, it's unfortunate he got hurt because now I'm kind interested to see what he could do going forward. 00:03:21 Speaker 1: And he threw sixty five pitches. 00:03:25 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, his pitch count was ridiculously low. I mean, I understand why they pulled him. But if he was on a normal workload and he was a normal starter, I mean, yeah, he could have gone longer. He could have gone a complete game at that rate. 00:03:40 Speaker 1: So you can tell from that the week that was for the Mariners didn't have a whole lot of highlights in it when Easton McGee really gets the crown of the week. But as we record this podcast, the Mariners a chance to go into Oakland and really salvage this road trip, but they sweep. They end up somehow with a winning road trip, which we'll have to see as it goes along. Like just a very very curious week that we will we'll get into here on our three Mariners storylines of the week. But regardless, for one run losses in a row is quite the opposite of what we've been used to seeing each of the last two seasons. But as this first month has come to a close, the Mariners will kind of realize that. I believe they had a team meeting after the game on Saturday where Scott sat down and talked to the team and kind of brought some mount of them where they were able to take the finale in Toronto on Sunday. Let's get to our three Mariners storylines out the week up. First, we got the official news last week Lyle that Robbie Ray will be out for the season. He was going in for another checkup on his torrent on his flexer injury, and the doctors looked and saw a little bit more of a tear in there for Robbie and he's going to have to get surgery and he will now be out for the season. He is expected, though, to be back for spring training in twenty twenty four, so it's. 00:05:01 Speaker 2: Not Tommy John surgery, which if that was the case, Ray would have been out even longer than opening day of next year. But regardless, this is a brutal blow. I mean, I don't think the Mariners thought that they were going to have all five starters make every start in the rotation and in their turn again this year. That just doesn't happen. I also don't think they were preparing to lose a guy for the year. I mean, no team can prepare for that, and this is tough. I get a lot of people like to kind of give Robbie Ray a hard time, but you heard arm talk about it when we had him on the other week. He is essentially their four starter, and a guy that's a four starter and just won the Cy Young two years ago, it's a valuable guy to have, especially after the spring that he had. So yeah, this is gonna throw things in limbo for the Mariners a little bit. 00:05:45 Speaker 1: And thankfully not Tommy John. As you mentioned, the difference between the flexor tendon strain and a UCL strain or UCL tear is the flexer is only nine months, a UCL tear is twelve to eighteen months. So if Robbie Ray has Tommy John right now, we're looking at him back at best by the All Star break of next season, which is worst case scenario for the Mariners. They can't have Robbie Ray out for that long. He's too important to their rotation. So instead, it does look like he's going to be able to get healthy problem maybe by the end of the calendar year at best case scenario. If not definitely by spring training he should be able to ramp it back up and be ready to go. So what will the Mariners do in his spot? Now? Our next storyline will tell you a little bit more about that and more specific. But Chris Flexen was in that spot, it seemed permanently at the start, but he got removed to have East McGee start in that spot instead. So the Mariners were not really pleased about what they saw with Chris Flexen over a couple of starts. We tried making the case for him last week, but the plug got pulled after we had that discussion. 00:06:51 Speaker 2: I'd just like to say one more thing here on Robbie Ray, this is your fault. I've been saving this for the show. This is your fault for when we had our prediction show. You sat up here and told people to take their mortgage and put it on the over for his strikeout total. And now we sit here and well, you put some people out on the street if they've done. 00:07:12 Speaker 1: That, I'm sorry. I don't have any room on the floor of my apartment. So if you like, if you're struggling, that's my bad. You can blame me. There's nothing else I could do for it. You know, you under as they always say, you understand the risk of losing as soon as you place that bet, so teveryone. That is, hopefully you gotta. You jumped in on a bet that had a minning innings minimum innings and start requirement for that bet to be for that bet to be valid. Otherwise the three innings he tossed all season, well, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I mean, at the bottom of my heart, one of my coldest takes of all time. That's why you never whenever I give you gambling advice. As you will probably learn, followush on social media. We try once or twice a week to dabble in some betting content. If you watch me give out some picks and you know, wow TJ gets a lot of picks wrong, well then maybe, just maybe you should just start fading me permanently. Whenever I give picks, pick the opposite, doesn't It doesn't matter how logical I make it sound, Just pick the opposite. Some of our good friends have made a lot of money doing just that, and they will vouch and say, hey, listen, this is a very good way to use money and to make more money. It's just fade TJ. So that's what I recommend from here on out whenever I give you gambling advice. 00:08:32 Speaker 2: We have a friend who was just fading you on every UFC bet ever back for a stretch of a few months in twenty twenty, until you got to the point where you said, I'm done betting on the UFC. The sport's rigged. 00:08:43 Speaker 1: It is rigged. You've seen the judges. Yeah, you've seen it, and you Holloway's still waiting for his belt. 00:08:51 Speaker 2: I think you've legit lost every UFC bet you've ever placed. So for those interested, TJ no longer bets on any fighting. 00:08:59 Speaker 1: I don't watch it. It's stupid. It's stupid, Like what to explain to me the logic low before we get back to baseball. Here of a guy just totally dominating through three rounds, and then the dude manages to land one perfectly playsd elbow into his temple while down on the floor getting his head hammered in, and the other guy gets knocked down and he loses. Tell me how that is good for my wallet? 00:09:22 Speaker 2: I can't because I didn't ever bet on UFC. I knew best smart man. Well, I think TJ is going to stick to baseball in terms of his bets for a while. Now going forward, let's get to our second storyline here. So the rotation has been in flux a little bit TJ, but some exciting news. As of today Monday, when we're recording this, they're calling up Bryce Miller, Mariner's top pitching prospect, a top one hundred prospect on MLB pipeline, getting his call to the show up from Double A. So this is their solution going forward. Bryce Miller is their highest touted arm and they're going to give him the keys to run with it. 00:09:59 Speaker 1: I think this works out pretty well for actually our segue here, Lyle, because I mentioned Chris Flexen like this was going to be Chris Flexen's spot if he was pitching well, Bryce Miller would probably not be in the big league starting right now. But instead Chris Flexen has struggled and they haven't liked what they've seen from him. So it's going to be Bryce who's going to get to start in SID And as you noticed, Easan McGee started on Saturday, did not want Bryce Miller. I think the reporting from Shannon Dreer you can go read it in her latest posts. 00:10:25 Speaker 3: I think. 00:10:26 Speaker 1: On seattlesports dot Com, Shannondreer reported that the Mariners were I think we're always planning after I think Flexen's last start, to bring Bryce up and have him start a game. However, the rotation shook out where that spot would have landed on Saturday in Toronto. Now, you as good as Bryce Miller is, and he looks as good as he looks in the minors. That's not where you want to start your first career game on the road in front of forty five thousand. Instead, he's going to face the now five and twenty three Oakland Athletics in front of a crowd of about two thousand on a Tuesday night in the Bay, which is probably a little bit of an easier environment to ease into your big league career. 00:11:09 Speaker 2: Is this Oakland A's lineup he's about to face better or worse than the lineups he was facing down in Arkansas? 00:11:15 Speaker 1: It's pretty close, pretty close. My next mind, my question to you, is the crowd at the O dot Co going to be bigger or smaller than the one in Arkansas last Tuesday. 00:11:26 Speaker 2: I'll have to check the weather in Oakland, but honestly, there's a chance it's smaller. We talked about the other night when the A's had their game. It was our first home game after it was announced that they were moving to Vegas, and there was all the signs saying, you know, Fisher sell the team and all those things, and they reportedly had what five thousand at the game. No way, I'm saying it was about half that at best. So you know, if Arkansas has got crowds of three thousand on a night, yeah, he's gonna be seeing less people than that. Out in Oakland. 00:11:57 Speaker 1: The announced crowd last Tuesday in Arkansas, for measure, was six three hundred and thirty. So simmy A's topped that on a Tuesday night. I mean, I don't think so. I don't think so. You will know by the time you listen to this whether or not they broke it. If you haven't didn't even think of that, please go check the MLB app and see if we were right when we guess this. I'm saying, no, I'm saying, there's no way that crowd that A's are going to draw six thousand on a Tuesday night to watch to watch ms A's. There's no way. 00:12:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you, Although for Miller, though, this is exciting because when you look at his profile and we talked to ARM about him a couple of weeks ago, and Arm thinks he has the best fastball in the minor leagues. I mean ninety five to ninety eight. It can get up to one hundred miles an hour, It has some really good ride to it. He has the slider, which is his best secondary pitch. And look, he's had some up and down outings through the first month here. But if you read what Ryan Divish was talking about today, because he talked about this on Twitter, that he was having some conversations with some scouts and asking about Miller, and they said they think he was work working on certain pitch selections in specific counts where he was trying to work through some things. And that's what the minor leagues is, right, You're trying to get better. It's not always about the results. You're trying to improve your stuff, improve your game. That's what it seems like Miller was doing in a few of those starts where he got knocked around. But his last doubting, it was really good. That last doubting that Miller had, he went five innings, just one earned run, eight strikeouts, and if he can do that or anything close to it in the big leagues, people are going to be pretty excited about that. 00:13:29 Speaker 1: I have the exact quote from Jerry to Poto last week on what they were looking at. They said they were looking at for Bryce. There they don't They're not going to look at his era in terms of this stuff. They're going to look at the quote unquote shove reports and quote. They want to know how the pitchers are executing and oo counts, one to one counts, et cetera, et cetera, and what the physical stuff looks like and how if they're able to repeat it. So if the checklist was Bryce Miller is getting ahead end counts, the physical stuff looks good, and he's repeating his delivery, and he's repeating this stuff throughout four to five innings, then no matter what the era is, they believe that that stuff can translate to the big leagues. And especially against the Oakland A's, I mean, they're really, really, really bad. So this is as much of a soft landing as you could ask for for a pitching prospect to land into the big leagues. And you know, even if he does struggle on Tuesday. The thought process of putting Bryce Miller in this rotation and kind of easing him in and seeing what he can do against the big league lineup. This would be the game to do it, one hundred percent. It wouldn't be on Friday at home, when the next time his spot in the rotation would have turned around against the Houston Astros. Next to facing the Blue Jays and Rogers Center, playing the Astros would also be among the last of the teams that you probably want to face coming out and making your big league debut. 00:14:46 Speaker 3: So well, I have to see. 00:14:47 Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to Bryce. We'll probably see a lot of fastballs in a certain mix, but I'm really excited to see how that fastball is gonna play against a big league lineup. 00:14:58 Speaker 2: I think the key for Bryce this is gonna be, Well, one, can he handle the big league workload because he hasn't thrown that many innings in pro ball? And number two, like we've talked about throughout the off season with some of our guests, can he develop that quality third pitch? Now, Look, you can get away with two pitches in the majors. Some guys do it, like Tyler Glass Now Robbie Ray was doing it for a little while last year. There's a few others, but developing that third pitch, that second off speed pitch or second breaking ball, that'll be a big key. And if Bryce Miller could do that, that could be the separator from being a back end starter or a potential reliever long term to being somebody who really sticks in their rotation and makes an impact. 00:15:38 Speaker 1: And the biggest thing, just please throw strikes, Please don't. You don't let the environment get to you. You don't let the big league just turn you from the big league's turn you from a guy who's got pretty good control two guys throwing the ball over the place and walking five guys in his big league debut. So I think those are a couple things we're gonna look at for Bryce Miller. I'm really looking forward to watching him. By the time you listen to this, you already know what Bryce Miller did on Tuesday night. So hopefully we can have some good things to talk about next week. Our third Mariner's storyline of the week. While the City connect uniforms are officially out, and it's not a hot take to say the Mariners have the best non biased best city connect uniforms in baseball. 00:16:18 Speaker 2: It's not a hot take on this podcast, but if you put that out on social media, you might have some people just hopping into your replies. I mean, you shouldn't expect anything to be one hundred percent in this world on really anything ever, But I don't get what people want. I thought they did an awesome job with these jerseys. I love the blue It's not two pilots ask but there is a little bit of a throwback aspect and element to it. I like the black pants like I think it's a nice little touch. You don't see that that often on baseball jerseys. I think the Mariners crushed it with these. I don't know what people's problem is. I think people just like to complain. 00:16:55 Speaker 1: Yeh didn I didn't really understand the complaining with the black pants. It is it's a bit of an ode to the Tacoma Rainiers. I think the official combing through combing through exactly what it is like. So the seattle stitch across the front, the lettering is like equal to the pilot's lettering when they were featured when they played back back in the sixties. And then the backdrop of the Seattle, like how it has a little bit of a black has a black shadow to it. That's similar to the Rainiers who won the PCL in nineteen fifty five, So that's kind of what that plays after, and the black pants are kind of sort of a it plays off that b I think it's also an ode to the Steelheads as well, which is very so the infusion of black on the jersey and pants is the nod to the nineteen forty Seattle Steelheads, which is pretty sick. Again, they're trying to draw in all the different baseball aspects that the Posific Northwest has had to offer. I did notice they pretty much stayed to the state of Washington, which is fine. It's a Seattle based team, but the Pacific Northwest does encompass a lot more than just the state of Washington, which I thought was a little bit interesting. But you know in terms of US where Washingtonians were incredibly biased and love our home states. So yeah, great job. 00:18:16 Speaker 2: I can't wait to see him wear it. I mean, people with more heavy opinions, and I guess valid opinions than just some random Twitter trolls seemed to be pretty consensus that people liked it. Again, there's people out there that don't, but it seems like it's more swung toward people that do. For example, I saw a lot of people talking about that. They thought they were really cool. Friend of the program, a diraftneck mark, he saw him. He tweeted it out and he talked about these are awesome. These are some of the best in baseball. I mean, you think about some of the other good City connect jerseys, right, I mean, you've got the Nationals with the cherry blossoms. I like those white Sox jerseys that say Southside the basically all black. I mean, I think the Mariners are right up there, if not right at the top with all of them. I love this color scheme. Again, some people just like to complain. 00:19:05 Speaker 1: What do we think of the trident down on the hat? 00:19:09 Speaker 4: I like it. 00:19:10 Speaker 2: I mean that's how it is in spring training, isn't it. It's the trident down on the hat. 00:19:14 Speaker 1: I know some people just don't like the trident down. They think it means bad luck. 00:19:19 Speaker 2: Oh well, I haven't given that part much thought. Let's see what their record is in the uniforms. How about that. When we get through like five or six fridays into the year, we can address the record and then address the hat. See if we need to turn the trident upside down into a W sign. 00:19:35 Speaker 1: There are the two tridents on the back of the jersey as well. They knock my mic around. They go like this, and the description for those one of them does represent a W meaning wins, and the other one, the W signifies the state of Washington. So I guess we could call that a win win on that part. So which was which was pretty nice. So they do try and get the good luck and the and the bad luck there on the jersey, so it was pretty nice. I'm glad they came out with them, and I thought they they did a pretty good job, I think, and I love I love the blue. The blue color is awesome. And thank god they didn't go white. I mean the white jersey. I just feel like some of the teams that decided to go white with their City Connect jerseys just left a little bit out on the table. Go have some fun, light, not let your hair down a little bit, have be adventurous with the jersey, and don't don't wear something you can just wear any time of the week. Because every team has white jerseys. You just don't need another brand of that. So that's our three Mariners storylines of the week. Another entertaining week of Mariners baseball and Mariner's storylines is fight the two and four record we have seen so far this past week, it has been it's been pretty entertaining, especially with the City Connect uniforms and hey, it's always good to see Twitter during a losing streak. Among the most entertaining times to ever scroll on that app. 00:20:51 Speaker 2: And look, sometimes you just have to log off, like I want to enjoy watching the team and I'm not gonna lie like, yeah, they were a frustrating point throughout the last week, So sometimes I just have to close out of the app so I don't read all that stuff because, as we talk about, that place is just a cesspool, especially when they're losing. 00:21:11 Speaker 1: I could learn a lesson or two from you. It's gonna be a fun conversation with Matt Scheffler. We have yet to record the interview with him, but he's a good buddy of yours. You guys played high school baseball together, you grew up together in Kirkland across the water from me, so it's it's good that we're having him on our first official player on this podcast, which is nice. And what I'm really excited to talk to him about is, you know, he said double A with all the big time arms in the system, you know, Sands Taylor, dollar dollars in triple A. But the rest of those guys, you know, Bryce Miller is gonna come up. He's caught, I believe, all of those guys down there in double A. So it'll be good, too good to get some some insight from him. And here's some background from him as well about you. I want to learn a little bit about you there too, Lyle. We can't have the bias coming out of your mouth. 00:21:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be interested to see what stories he had to tell. I'm sure he's got some good ones. I mean we've known each other since we were in second or third grade. I mean goes a long time back, just growing up together and playing baseball together. So you know, I'm certainly always and always will be a big fan of his. I mean, I've seen how hard he's worked over the years to make this happen, and this is something we're going to get into in the interview a little bit too. Is another reason we wanted to talk to him. He's not a household name for people that are prospect followers and maybe people outside of Kirkland. He's got a really cool story and I think people after hearing this will take a rooting interest in him because he's he loves baseball, works his tail off. I mean, he's got his eyes forward everything I mean, I mean, you'll hear him talk about and he's intelligent. He gives a lot of good answers, and you'll hear about like what separated him from so many people as we went on and on in our time growing up in terms of what it takes to be a great baseball player. So I'm looking forward to getting this interview going. So with that, we won't hold you any long. Let's get to our interview with Matt Scheffler. All right, we welcome on Mariners catcher Matt Scheffler. He's currently in Double A with the Arkansas Travelers and he's a longtime friend of mine. Chef, we appreciate you coming on. I've actually been holding this question, I want to say, for a couple of years now, and maybe it's a stupid question, but I wanted to ask it anyway, when you've been in spring training the last couple of years you've been there with justin Sheffield, have there been times where somebody said hey, Chef and like, both you guys turn around and say what's up? 00:23:30 Speaker 3: Oh? 00:23:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it happened a lot this spring is because it's my first Big Week camp and he's obviously known as chef to all the big weak staff and all the big leak players. But I've also been called chef my whole life, so it's a head snapper every time I hear it. And then I quickly realized that nobody's trying to talk to me in Big Week Camp, so I just. 00:23:51 Speaker 3: See him respond and that's about it. 00:23:54 Speaker 1: So what do they call you? 00:23:57 Speaker 4: It was chef also, but you just kind of had to do you make an eye contact with the person or else it wasn't you. 00:24:05 Speaker 2: That almost sounds like a little bit like we haven't had him on, but just from watching some of his tiktoks, Sam Carlson and I'm sure you know him a little bit where all of his content's about oh like, nobody's gonna bother me because I like I'm a pro at riding the bench or whatever. That almost makes it sound like what people kind of treat you like in big league spring right. 00:24:22 Speaker 3: I mean, no, it was. 00:24:23 Speaker 4: It was a cool experience, but uh yeah, being one of the minor league catchers in a catcher heavy staff, Yeah, we're probably similar to that. 00:24:35 Speaker 1: What was your ship moment in spring training? What like the like someone walks past you and you have to stop there for a second and go, oh my god, that's like that's that's who that actually is? 00:24:47 Speaker 3: Uh, probably no players, but I mean it's just like each row is there every day. He's really cool. 00:24:55 Speaker 4: Uh. And the cool one was seen Agri Martinez. That was pretty cool because he's not usually there for too long. I think he only comes for about a week every spring and then. 00:25:07 Speaker 3: And then whole head out. 00:25:08 Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean that was probably I think that was my first time like meeting him, meeting him and seeing him in talking to him in person. 00:25:16 Speaker 2: You know, we knowed each other forever. I mean for those who don't know and are just listening, I mean, you grew up in Kirkland, we grew up playing little league together, high school ball together, and I didn't know till the last couple of years. Somehow you hid this from me or from everybody for that matter. You've got some ridiculous athletic roots in your family, dude, I mean, I mean, your first off, your older brother played Division one ball, So that's enough in itself, but you want to dig deeper into your family roots. You've got NFL tight ends, NBA centers, and a world renowned golfer all within your family trees. So like, what's the tie between all those guys? 00:25:51 Speaker 4: I've never heard this, so I only know there's one official tie, which is Scheffler from the Sonics. You Scheffler, That's that's one I know is official. But I would kind of just be asked with people tell him that Tony Sheffler was my cousin. Not sure if there's actually resembless, but he's from Wisconsin and my dad's from Minnesota, so I'm sure there's some maybe some sort of family tie going back. And uh yeah, absolutely no relations between me and Scotti. 00:26:19 Speaker 2: Oh so you and your brother Joe are just fooling everybody with that every time. Oh so you've been tricking me all the time. 00:26:28 Speaker 4: Yeah, there's no way. If you look at my golf game, you look at his game, think that one person should probably never pick up a cup again. 00:26:39 Speaker 2: Man, so you've been Yeah, you've been pulling a fast one on everybody then, because I see all your Instagram stories and stuff, and I mean, like Scotti Scheffler won the Masters last year, and I'm seeing you guys like post about him and tweet about him, and I just figured right, And actually, I think on your Auburn bio, I thought on there it said something about Tony Scheffler being related. But maybe you were just kidding put that. 00:26:58 Speaker 3: On there, and just why or why not? Maybe somewhere down the line. 00:27:00 Speaker 2: You know, maybe that's why you hit it from me all these years, because it was again, it was only half true. 00:27:11 Speaker 3: I mean, who knows. 00:27:15 Speaker 1: Well, do you think you would have won D one as a golfer if Scotty was actually in your family? Do you think you actually would have had enough? 00:27:20 Speaker 3: Oh? 00:27:21 Speaker 4: Man, I don't know, considering he's only what a year older than I am, which is crazy to think about. 00:27:29 Speaker 3: Uh, probably not, probably not. 00:27:36 Speaker 2: Well, I'd say it worked out okay in baseball, to say the least. You know, if we wanted to get into it a little bit here and some of the nitty gritty baseball stuff, and for the most part, we certainly want to talk about maybe a little bit of your time at Auburn, certainly your time with the Mariners. But you know, I did want to get one high school ball question in there, because for anybody that doesn't know you as well and doesn't kind of know your story, I think you've got a pretty cool one, which is, you know, growing up you were always good, but you know, you weren't the kid traveling around to showcases and Baseball Baseball Northwest events or anything like that. I mean, you only started full time one year on varsity. And it's funny. I remember a conversation that you and I had, I want to say it was after our junior year and you would split time the year before and you'd had a solid year, but you were kind of like, oh, I should add the kid you played with was younger than us back at catcher, and you were like, yeah, I don't. I don't really have intentions to do that again, like I'm gonna go make this happen so I can start and it's my job or whatever. And then you come out the next year and you didn't just win the job, you were like one of the best players in the whole state. And that's when I feel like everything started to kind of take off for you. So I guess my question is here, long story short, what was it either that summer or that fog going into our senior year, where something just changing your work ethic or your mindset. 00:28:52 Speaker 3: I guess I don't know. I guess it was just kind of a right timing thing. I was just like I grew late. I was pretty small junior year. In that summer going into my senior year, I kind of. 00:29:03 Speaker 4: Hit a little gross burt put on a little bit of weight, and I was like, Okay, this could be like a real thing if I want to do it. And I just held myself accountable. My parents help me accountable. They wanted to it would be as supportive and as positive as they could, and pushed me to do the best I could. And yeah, I just turned out the hardwork paid off that way. 00:29:23 Speaker 2: Did your like work, did your workouts change it all or anything? I actually don't haven't heard all this like like or any anything you did at the plate behind the plate, like did you change any of that stuff that year? H? 00:29:34 Speaker 3: No, not really. I mean it didn't really take the gym super seriously throughout high school. 00:29:39 Speaker 4: I mean just I was always so small, and they kind of no matter what I did in the weight room when I was that young, like never really changed. 00:29:47 Speaker 3: But yeah, that offseason going into my senior. 00:29:48 Speaker 4: Year, if I remember correctly, maybe working out four or five times a week, and that's when I just started to see real progress. 00:29:59 Speaker 1: Okay, So I wasn't, oh, go ahead, sorry, Lyle, you're still I was just. 00:30:03 Speaker 2: Going to say that if if that wasn't taken working out seriously back then, Like what does seriously working out look like now now that you're playing pro ball? 00:30:13 Speaker 4: I mean it's yeah, I have a completely different outlook on it because now it's actually my job. It's something I have to do if I want to continue making money playing baseball. So it's either do that and continue making money or maybe take a few days off and not benefit from that whatsoever. 00:30:34 Speaker 1: Matt, I know Lyle's not going to gas himself up with this, but you guys want to state title together in twenty and sixteen, and I want you to tell everyone how crucial Lyle's role was on that twenty sixteen state championship. 00:30:45 Speaker 4: Tllo vibes guy throughout the whole team, without a doubt. I mean, it's just everybody on that team was I we was kind of cheesy to say, but it was a it was a brotherhood. We were all like extremely clow like. Everybody had a good relationship with everybody. There was never any beef or any clicks throughout the dugout or anything. It was just everybody came to the field every day, it did their thing, and I mean just jelled perfectly. 00:31:15 Speaker 1: Oh see here always at the Was he always at the front of the line when you got back and you scored. Was he like he's the first guy out of the dugout right every time. 00:31:23 Speaker 3: Matter who it was for, there is the first face you see for high five. 00:31:28 Speaker 2: See he's being nice. What I was telling TJ before you hopped on was I was like the worst bunner in the history of the universe. I mean there were times there were times where we'd be out there and I'd have to drop down a few buns to start a round of VP, and I would shock myself that I didn't just get like thrown off the field after trying to drop down a couple of buns, where it was like, how did you make it this far on a baseball field or whatever? But yeah, no, that that season was always a lot of fun, and you know, I think we'll always hold memories up. 00:31:57 Speaker 1: Well, I'm shocked you didn't break your nose. 00:32:00 Speaker 2: How did you know? I mean, that would probably require making contact with a bunch first. I would just straight up miss half of them that I took. But but yeah, okay, so what's that. 00:32:14 Speaker 3: One thing was overrated in high school? Anyway? 00:32:17 Speaker 2: Oh see, that's that's the whole that's the whole theme of our podcast. Is like TEAJ and I just roll our eyes watching bunning in big league games. So maybe maybe I was just before my time. Maybe I knew, maybe maybe I knew it wasn't worth the time or whatever. 00:32:32 Speaker 3: The place, time and the place. It's rare, but time and the place. 00:32:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly if we wanted to start to kind of roll along here. I mean, so we touched on the high school stuff a little bit. Obviously, you spent two years at juco ball, then you get to Auburn. I mean, I'm sure that wasn't the only place you were kind of getting recruited after your two years of junior college. But what made you pick Auburn out of all your choices? Uh? 00:32:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a few other smaller schools, no other Power five schools, and it was kind of late. 00:33:02 Speaker 3: Auburn kind of came in the picture later on. Uh. 00:33:08 Speaker 4: It was actually through my brother because he was committed to Old Dominion and uh, Auburn's recruiting coordinator when he was recruiting me used to be an assistant coach at Old Dominion, and the Old Dominion coach gave Carnldnanamaker, the coach at Auburn, my name, and kind of through the grapevine that way. Uh, he kind of called by coaching junior college and then uh called me and they flew out for like a one day private workout type deal, and we got a visit set up. And then I I don't know if you've ever been to any SEC baseball schools or stadiums, but I mean you see it and like you're like, yeah, I want to go here. 00:33:51 Speaker 3: It was it was awesome. 00:33:54 Speaker 2: Okay, what was the coolest non Auburn SEC stadium you played. 00:33:58 Speaker 3: At, non Auburn or SEC. 00:34:08 Speaker 2: Take an Auburn out just because like, I'm sure you have a bias toward it. What you shout? 00:34:11 Speaker 4: Obviously probably Mississippi State because we played there our series there was the first home series with the whole thing, like their whole new stadium, brand new open. So that was that was pretty It was like sixteen thousand people there or something like that. The whole weekend that was that was. 00:34:30 Speaker 1: A see a lot. 00:34:33 Speaker 3: See. 00:34:34 Speaker 1: Lyle and I and our friends say that eventually we would like to go hit one of those teams. I think that probably is number one on our list, because I don't know when else we would ever go to Starkville for anything ever, so. 00:34:46 Speaker 3: For anything but to go maybe watch a football game or at baseball. 00:34:52 Speaker 1: So I was thinking, so Starkville's won Oxford, Like the two Mississippi stadiums seem like two of the most fun I know. Florida's got a really nice one. I mean the box at LSU is supposed to be insane as well, and probably a little bit easier to get to than the two Mississippi ones. But on those five, I don't know if there's any sleepers in that group that you've seen as well. 00:35:14 Speaker 4: I never played at Florida. Arkansas is up there at the Baum Stadium. I'd say that's right behind Mississippi State just because like facilities wise, Texas A and M was really cool. Never played at Alabama, never played at Tennessee. Vanderbilt was extremely underwhelming. Really, Yeah, it's just kind of I mean, for as much of a baseball school as they are, I was just expecting a little more. 00:35:49 Speaker 3: But I mean, damn good baseball team. 00:35:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean you pretty much hit on the head MISSIPI, our old miss is really cool. 00:35:58 Speaker 3: That's probably the best, uh. 00:36:02 Speaker 4: Like best fan base for baseball, I'd say, just because how close they are it's the field, and how much they get into it with that student section in right field. 00:36:11 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because what's the old myths story with the fan base? Because like it's like when somebody on almost hits a home run, everybody out on the burn like chucks their beer into the air. 00:36:18 Speaker 3: Or something like that. Eight hours. 00:36:19 Speaker 4: Yeah, just no matter what's in your cup, you just throw it up. Yeah, it starts smelling like a like a brewery. 00:36:30 Speaker 2: I was gonna say, I can't even imagine being an outfielder out there for like seven eight innings or whatever after somebody goes yard and it probably just smells like I don't know, like a dive bar or something. 00:36:39 Speaker 4: Like that. 00:36:41 Speaker 1: Smells because you imagine what they're saying to you. 00:36:44 Speaker 4: Usually the fans are pretty good, especially to uh. I mean they're young college kids. It's not like it's a pro ball or anything, so they take it easy. And you like to fans in the miss City State was awesome. I mean they were barbecue and stuff. They're like, come back, come back after the game, we'll give you in leftovers and stuff. 00:37:02 Speaker 3: So it was pretty pretty good. They treat you pretty well around that. 00:37:07 Speaker 2: That's really cool. You know, so if we wanted to keep going here, So twenty twenty happens, right, and you're off to this phenomenal start in your second year at Auburn. Then the season gets canceled, the draft gets shortened to five rounds, and I guess the one upside, if there's a such thing to having the draft shortened, is people like you. You got like a little bit more of your own pick of where you wanted to go. I guess it depends on where you got not I mean recruited is not the right word, but looked at or who had interest in you in terms of the MLB teams, and obviously growing up like growing up in Seattle, I'm sure it was a pretty cool thing to sign with your hometown team. But there has to be more than that for why the Mariners were an intriguing team to sign with. So like, what, yeah, what kind of stood out about the Mariners to you when you were trying to make that decision? 00:37:55 Speaker 4: It was actually, my agent did an amazing job with a kind of like laying out or by org on like what catchers or what teams have catchers in their top thirty prospects, which teams have the most money invested catchers versus which teams don't have much money invested the catchers, catcher development, player development in general. And they kind of laid on a full list with like grades on which teams would be a good fit for me. So yeah, he made it really easy that way. And then it was kind of a pick between three teams and I was like, fancy, it would be really cool, And yeah, I mean clearly made the right choice. 00:38:41 Speaker 1: So you get to pro ball, then who is the first bullpen you caught where you realized, oh my god, like this stuff is like just on another level, like it's almost hard to like to track this movement. 00:38:53 Speaker 4: So I didn't get a first pro ball season until twenty one, but when I got when I signed my free agent deal. I got sent down to the fall instructs that they had that year in twenty twenty, which is just like six weeks down in the spring training complex, and we just played other other orders just on the backfield or spring training stadiums. But god, I can't remember who was there for pictures. I mean, I was roommates with Matt Brash. That was his first year. 00:39:26 Speaker 3: I roomed with him before he was the Matt Brash. 00:39:33 Speaker 1: Did you catch him? 00:39:34 Speaker 3: I did. I caught one of his bullpens on those first days. 00:39:40 Speaker 4: He's a much He's still doing some build up stuff because COVID shut everybody down. 00:39:45 Speaker 3: But uh gosh, I can't remember what pictures we had there. 00:39:50 Speaker 1: So is his slider than you've caught his sliders? 00:39:53 Speaker 3: Is? 00:39:53 Speaker 1: Is it the best pitch in baseball history? As we've been told? 00:39:56 Speaker 4: Uh? 00:39:57 Speaker 3: So, I haven't faced him. 00:40:00 Speaker 4: I've heard that catching him is a whole different or facing him in the box is a whole different ballgame than catching him like I heard, like the pitch just looks absolutely completely ridiculous, like from inside the batter's box. I've never had the chance to face him, but I've caught him and I don't. I don't really have any aspirations of standing in the box. 00:40:22 Speaker 2: Well, i'll tell you what, You're not alone, because neither do his Jose Ramirez is one of the best hitters in the world, and Brash made him fall in the seat of his pants on opening nights. 00:40:31 Speaker 3: When you're looking at his stats. 00:40:32 Speaker 4: Now, I don't think anybody really wants to get in there and face him because he's punching guys out at a crazy right right now, it's crazy. 00:40:40 Speaker 2: What did your what did your off season look like after fall instructs that first year in twenty twenty where I mean, I'm sure there's still some stuff in limbo, right and maybe you're forced to do some stuff on your own and there's not a set program yet, Like how did you make that work where you didn't lose any ground and with that gained some ground heading into spring training that first year. 00:40:58 Speaker 4: So yeah, the members are super about off season stuff, and they'll send you like stuff you need to improve on in kind of like a whole like a road map of stuff they need to improve on, how to improve it, like what are the action stets to take to improve it? So they give you a really good layout and all that stuff, and then I mean, weight room's pretty much on your own. 00:41:17 Speaker 3: It's kind of just. 00:41:20 Speaker 4: It's not required, but it is required. I don't think anybody would argue that it's extremely important. But yeah, it was kind of a shorter, shorter off season for me just because we got done in early November and then spring training was right around the corner in April, and. 00:41:42 Speaker 2: Then when you start to get rolling, right, I mean, I've actually wanted to ask you this for probably a year now or so since it kind of got implemented, because I haven't had a chance to ask many people about this, specifically many catchers about this. But how much have you gotten to toy around with pitchcolm a little bit? Because, like I mean, you hear about it and you get to read about it a little bit, but I'm guessing you've actually got to to some extent use it, Like do you like it? 00:42:05 Speaker 3: I love it. 00:42:05 Speaker 4: I think it's the if there's a way to speed up the game, it's gonna be that way without a doubt. Don't get me wrong, pitchclock works. Pitchcock is great. I got no problem with the pitchcock. 00:42:15 Speaker 3: Uh. And if you'd ask any. 00:42:16 Speaker 4: Other player I think that they would also agree with that. But yeah, if they're if they're looking for another way to speed up the game instead of to pickoff rule or whatever other stuff they've implemented, I think the next step is going to be allowing pitchcock at every level, or PitchCom at every level, just because I mean runner gets on second. I mean you're giving three different signce sequences and if the pitcher shakes, it's a step off and then it's a full, another full, another thing again. Uh, I mean you just click a button. Nobody's there's no more sign ceiling, there's no nothing like that. It's it's just has to be the most seamless way to call pitches. 00:43:01 Speaker 1: What was the biggest thing you had to change when say the pitch clock came in, And like the PITCHCLM and the pitchclock both, as you said, like really speed up the game. But all part of being a catcher is like you're almost like you know, the commander out there on the infield, making sure everyone is everyone set and working with the picture. And you've got a lot of things to think about, a lot of things to communicate, a lot of things to keep track of on the base paths, but all of a sudden, it's now condensed from however long you want into fifteen seconds with going on and twenty seconds with a guy on. 00:43:28 Speaker 3: So where do you like? 00:43:29 Speaker 1: What was the biggest adjustment to making your I guess, your thoughts more efficient and still managing to work with the picture and keep track of everyone on the base pats as well. 00:43:42 Speaker 3: Nothing really changed that much. Honestly. 00:43:44 Speaker 4: It took about i'd say probably about a month for everybody to get used to it. It was definitely a big learning curve, but I mean you kind of just it's like getting used to anything new. It's just you got to learn how to and quicker. But also realizing that we're not the only ones that are on the clock to if there's a guy on the base, he doesn't have all this time. The batter in the box doesn't have as much time to step out. I mean he has to be in the box before the picture even has to be on the rubber, So it's a lot more time than you actually think. Everybody's freaking out about it, including myself at the start, like it's a terrible rule, Like yeah, it's gonna speed up the game, but it's also going to ruin the game. 00:44:26 Speaker 3: And I think everybody that said that has been completely wrong, just. 00:44:29 Speaker 4: Because everybody's adapted to it, adapted to it because they realize that it's here to stay. 00:44:33 Speaker 3: And uh I then put in the big leagues this year that just confirmed it anymore. 00:44:39 Speaker 1: Have you gotten called a pitch clock violation? 00:44:42 Speaker 3: Uh so, I haven't really been called as a hitter. No. 00:44:45 Speaker 4: We've had a few pictures that happens to I mean, that's just it's just gonna happen to everybody a few times. 00:44:51 Speaker 3: But uh, as a hitter, I've never been called for it. 00:44:55 Speaker 4: But I've been in the box when a picture has been called for it quite a few times. Actually, there's some things that everybody than others. But uh yeah, well usually everybody's pretty pretty standard. 00:45:10 Speaker 2: People gotten used to it by now in the sense of like okay, like pitchclock violations happen, or there's still guys getting you know, irked out there where it kind of rattles them. 00:45:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, there's there's some I mean there's some hitters that are just completely oblivious to the clock and then we'll kind of zone out for a second and boom they get banged on it. And then they got a strike and they're like, oh, craft, like that's on me. And then there's sometimes like umps will be quick on the trigger and like bang a picture for it, and then there's like a little dialogue between a pitcher and the ump or the catcher in the ump, and then it kind of just all blows over. 00:45:46 Speaker 1: Matt, let's talk a little bit about the arms down there at double eight. So we want to ask about all of them. But since there's some news breaking, Like you guys obviously knew a little bit earlier than we did, but the news is now out. It's being reported on that Bryce Miller will start when you're listening to this podcast. This will release on Wednesday. He'll start on Tuesday. But you know, just want to fill in a little bit about what makes Bryce such a good prospect as someone who's caught him and seen his rise throughout the minor leagues. What I guess start off in general, really like what makes Bryce such a such a good prospect and why you think he's going to be successful in the big leagues. 00:46:23 Speaker 3: I just think it's the way he carries himself. 00:46:25 Speaker 4: It's just like I said, he could have given up ten runs or he could give up no runs and will be the same exact guy coming off the field every single time, just the way he the way carries himself, in the way he handles his emotions. Uh, he does it at a big league level, and I think it shows like greatly on the field. 00:46:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk really what really? So his fastballs is like his notable pitch. It is the pitch that everyone raves about, and it's what scouts and analysts say, like, this is what meant like in terms of stuff. This is what makes him a big leaguer as a from a catching person, Like, really, what makes that pitch so great? What is it that he does with that pitch that makes it that dominant? 00:47:07 Speaker 4: He throws it extremely hard, he gets an insane amount of ride, and he can put it just about anywhere he wants. It's just it's it's a very tough pitch to hit. I mean he throws it in the upper nineties consistently. Yeah, he gets about twenty to twenty two inches of vertical movement and just like you said, does crazy command with that and all of his pitches. As a matter of fact, his. 00:47:36 Speaker 2: Slider's taking a lot of steps too. As I mean I know that's kind of his go to breaking pitch, but it seems like nowadays it just continues to get better and better. 00:47:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, So he's got two different sliders. 00:47:46 Speaker 4: He's got a short gyra one that he throws really hard at about eighty nine to ninety, and then he's got a big, a big sweeper that he calls the cannon ball, and he throws that as the sweet slide. That's a little bit slower, but it moves like crazy. I mean, he's just every single day's working to get better and as longer and longer as he keeps going in his career, I think he's stuff is never gonna have a never gonna stop. 00:48:15 Speaker 3: He's does an extremely high ceiling. 00:48:19 Speaker 1: Is that gyro slider? Is that almost like a cutter? 00:48:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I wouldn't quite call it a cutter because it's not as much. 00:48:28 Speaker 4: Vertical movement, but essentially, yeah, it's more of a bigger cutter that he throws a little bit slower than an actual cutter. 00:48:39 Speaker 3: But yeah, it's it's pretty deceptive. 00:48:44 Speaker 2: If we were going to touch on a couple of the other guys here as well, because I mean, Bryce Miller's been awesome and I think everybody's excited to see him debut in the big leagues. But those double A starters, I mean, there's some dudes down there, and you get to catch a bunch of them. So we were hoping to at least get a two to three sentence synopsis on a couple more of them. So we were just going to roll down the list here of another couple. But yeah, So Emerson Hancock, I know he's battled injuries the last year or two. He's healthy now he's off to a really good start. I mean, what have you noticed about the strides that he's made from last year to this year so far? 00:49:20 Speaker 4: Everson's one of those guys that is probably the hardest worker that you'll ever meet. From the weight room to the training room to his catch play. The guy's just obsessed with baseball, and it's absolutely showing last year and it's absolutely showing again this year. 00:49:34 Speaker 3: Just all of his stuff is extremely dominant. I mean, his fastball is the mid to upper nines. 00:49:40 Speaker 4: He's got a really good slider that he commands extremely well, and has an insanely deceptive change up that grades out beyond a lot of big league arms. 00:49:52 Speaker 1: What about Brian Wu. He just came away with the Mariners Minor League Pitcher of the Month and he has really been a story of Mariner's pitch development and he's really been thriving down there at double A. So what makes him so like what has allowed him to take this step? 00:50:08 Speaker 4: I think for him it was just staying healthy. His stuff has always been good. It's improved a lot this year too. But I mean, it's another guy that throws mid to upper nines consistently, and he's just a freak athlete and whatever he wants his body to do, it'll do. He gets into some crazy positions and has great command for all of his pitches, and it's just when he's on, he's on. It's really fun to watch. 00:50:37 Speaker 2: Then, the last guy we're hoping to ask about is pre Lander Bureau, where if you listen to Harry Ford talk about him back in spring training, he was like, that is the deadliest arm I've seen all spring and the stuff that he has, I know, is pretty ridiculous. So does it pop out to you when you're behind the plate catching him? 00:50:52 Speaker 3: It does? 00:50:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, it comes in not actually harder than others, but it feels it feels like it is, it's got some jump it. 00:51:02 Speaker 1: I have one more more pitcher, Matt. How much have you caught Taylor Dollard. 00:51:07 Speaker 3: I caught him for about seventeen games last year. I think him in so. 00:51:15 Speaker 1: So as we talked about the other guys. I mean, you say hard with really sharp breaking stuff, But Taylor's he's not that. He's not a guy who's gonna run it up there in the upper nineties. He's gonna more you know, dot the corners and stuff, but you know he's still probably gonna pitch in the big leagues like that. So, like, what what is it about the control of Taylor that you know that makes him so good and able to control his pitches like almost like he's like holding it on a string. 00:51:39 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's pretty much exactly what it is. He fills up his own uh and it's just a lot of weak contacts. Not a huge strikeout numbers guy, But Dollars could probably roll out of bed with the blindfold on and throw a strike. 00:51:52 Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what the situation is. 00:51:54 Speaker 4: Who's at the play at well Stadium, he's in, what the weather is, Like, guys, you know that guy's gonna get on the mount, He's gonna dominate, and he's gonna throw rice. 00:52:02 Speaker 2: I've got one more question for you before we kind of wrap We'll tie this whole interview up and wrap it up in a little bit of a fun way. But one more question for you is maybe for those who don't pay that close attention, like the minor leagues, is really a grind between the hours, the time you have to put into it, everything, So maybe you can give people a little bit of a peek behind the curtain for you. Let's say you're starting behind the plate, it's a seven o'clock game. What does your day look like from when you get to the ballpark to first pitch. 00:52:33 Speaker 4: Seven o'clock game. I'll probably get to the field. I'd probably say twelve thirty ish cages. Early cages would probably open at one or one thirty, so I'd get there and do my movement prep routine, go hit in the cages for a little bit, come back in, hang out for a little. 00:53:01 Speaker 3: And then go stretch ground balls and field outfield and then hit vp come back in. Have the hitters meeting on the pitch we're facing that night. 00:53:13 Speaker 4: Have the pitchers meeting with the lineup that we'll be facing that night, and then yeah, I mean it's pretty much bad, right into more stretching and then right into my free game routine. Yeah, I mean the then game from seven o'clock to anywhere from nine thirty to ten o'clock, some post work in the training room. You're probably getting home around at eleven thirty every night. 00:53:42 Speaker 2: How much extra stuff do you have to do also just being a catcher going over scouting reports. I mean, how much time do you have to carve out for that stuff each day? 00:53:50 Speaker 3: The members is super good about it. 00:53:51 Speaker 4: They got a bunch of statistics and stuff, so we don't have to do all the deep diving. 00:53:54 Speaker 3: But we got a kick ass pitching coach that is extremely good at his job. 00:54:00 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:54:01 Speaker 4: I mean, you face the lineup six times in a week, you kind of start to get a feel for some of the guys, so it gets easier and easier and it goes on. 00:54:07 Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, it's no, it's no easy job. You definitely gotta get your work done. 00:54:14 Speaker 1: One last minor league's question from me, who's the nastiest guy you faced down there? 00:54:21 Speaker 3: Hm hmm this year or just in general? 00:54:27 Speaker 4: It could be in general in general, Uh, I was some pretty good ones that we saw in double A last year and then this year already too. 00:54:40 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:54:44 Speaker 4: Gavin Stone from the Dodgers was he was pretty nasty last year. That changed up his No, Joe, Uh yeah, I'd probably I'd probably say Gavin Stone. 00:55:01 Speaker 2: He's just yeah, and he's generating a lot of buzz in the Dodgers world these days, so that's a good answer. 00:55:07 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:55:08 Speaker 2: Okay, So if we were gonna start to kind of wrap this up, we're gonna start to do this with any players that we have on present and future. I guess you'll kind of be our guinea pig with this, but we're gonna wrap interview up, every interview up by asking five rapid fire questions and you can just give us a quick answer, so we we've got them prep for you. So hopefully, hopefully this goes smoothly and hopefully this can give people a little bit more of a peek behind the door of who you are. So okay, first one I've got is go to pregame and postgame meal. 00:55:38 Speaker 4: Not really up to me, it's up to start training staff or whoever orders the food kind of whatever it comes for pre game, post game I'll do it, okay. 00:55:46 Speaker 2: So let me let me twist that question a little bit. If you got to pick what your pregame and postgame meal would be, what would it be? 00:55:52 Speaker 3: I got to pick. 00:55:55 Speaker 4: Out of probably some like chicken and rice dish, probably before the game, something light, and then post game, probably just like some pasta or something like that. 00:56:04 Speaker 3: Pretty good. I'm a simple guy. 00:56:09 Speaker 1: We get some We could just simplify that to Chipotle, right. 00:56:13 Speaker 3: I don't know about yours, but it kind of sits heavy sometimes. 00:56:15 Speaker 4: I don't know if i'd want that pre games definitely some a little lighter. 00:56:23 Speaker 1: Okay, all right, the next question, Matt, your top three favorite TV shows of all time? 00:56:29 Speaker 4: Top three favorite TV shows of all time? Entourage is number one? Uh, probably Breaking Bad number two, and then probably Yellowstone number three. 00:56:50 Speaker 1: Wow, okay, no Game of Thrones in there. Interesting? Okay. 00:56:54 Speaker 3: I got to do it for a few seasons and I just never got back into it. Wasn't the biggest fan. I'm gonna get hate for that, for sure. I do all the time, Matt. 00:57:04 Speaker 1: Matt, I've watched it through four times, so yeah, probably the wrong. 00:57:09 Speaker 3: Person episodes probably six times. And it took me that long. To get through them. 00:57:14 Speaker 1: So that sounds about right. 00:57:18 Speaker 3: It was so boring. I'm just like the rest of the show is probably exactly well, I'll. 00:57:23 Speaker 2: Tell you what. You just gave me three new shows to watch, which is probably sad that I haven't watched any of those three between Entourage, Breaking Bad, and Yellowstone, But now I've got three on the list on the bucket list to knock go. Yeah, yeah, exactly, okay. Third question, Best and worst baseball road trip? 00:57:40 Speaker 3: Best and worst baseball road trip? 00:57:44 Speaker 4: Uh. Best is probably Wichita, super showy stadium, super showy clubhouse. It's test you guys, really well there, really nice facility, these really nice field, really nice hotel, hotels walking distance to the field, so that's nice. 00:58:06 Speaker 3: And the wind howls out there, so it's a fun part of that. Worst, without a doubt, is San Jose in the Call League. 00:58:15 Speaker 4: Tough, really bad field, old stadium, old wooden stadium, clubhouses, a glorified bedroom size pretty much. Then you shove thirty two thirty five guys in there, it's it gets. 00:58:26 Speaker 3: Real tight, real quick. It's just fun, nice hotel, but you just didn't really didn't really want to be at that field. 00:58:37 Speaker 1: Jeez, Okay, next question, what would you be doing right now, Matt if you were not playing baseball right now? 00:58:44 Speaker 4: If I wasn't playing baseball, what I always say is I'd probably just be working construction, probably doing that. I don't really see myself sitting at a desk or anything for nine hours a day and more of like an on physical labor type guys. So yeah, I was just say if I wasn't playing baseball, I probably worked in construction. 00:59:07 Speaker 2: Okay, So I was slightly off. I had a guess on this one before you hopped on. I said it was gonna be something with cars, but okay, construction isn't that far off? 00:59:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I could. I could see myself doing that too, but mm hmm, definitely good money and just some my kind of interesting sure, Okay. 00:59:24 Speaker 2: And then the last one to wrap this thing up is favorite all time Mariner. It can be past or present, so it can be a teammate or just somebody you love grown up watching. 00:59:41 Speaker 4: Probably Acre Martinez. I mean, I could say the cliche answer of Ken Griffey Jr. But uh, I mean Acre Martinez. Watching him swing the bat was crazy. I'm just one of the best to ever do it. And I mean, I don't think anybody ever hated him. Uh and now, especially now that I got a meet into just knowing the kind of guy he is, it's probably him with an honorable mention to Dan Wilson if he listens to this at all. 01:00:09 Speaker 2: Oh, there we go, There we go. I mean, yeah, Catcher's got to stick together. 01:00:19 Speaker 3: With this all spring training. And he's I mean, they call him Dan the Man for a reason. 01:00:23 Speaker 2: Sure, well, Chef, this has been awesome. I mean, we obviously appreciate you taking the time to hop on. As you know, I'm always rooting for you, and and I'm one of your biggest hype people. We're I mean, we can't wait to watch you keep thriving. And hey, I'll throw this out there too. I'm stealing this from a certain other sports podcast that I think the three of us all listen to. If you ever see anybody giving you hate online, you can send it our way and we'll jump in the replies for you, so that way you don't have to. 01:00:52 Speaker 3: I'm not giving you any of my contract money though, all. 01:00:56 Speaker 2: That's fair, so we don't get the Josh Allen money, but but we'll still hop in the reply for you well, Seff. Thanks again, buddy. This has been great and we can't wait to watch you the rest. 01:01:06 Speaker 3: Of the way. It was fun. I appreciate what you guys having me on. 01:01:10 Speaker 2: That was a great interview with Matt Schaffler. As always, we appreciate all of our guests taking the time. We really we really enjoyed talking with him, and it's cool to get a player on after all these months now and hopefully we can start to get some more. Okay, TJ, let's head down on the farm. Who are you looking at this week? 01:01:29 Speaker 1: Tyler Locklear the first time. We're bringing him up this year at the number ten prospect in the Mariners system, a guy who they drafted in the second round of last year's draft. I'm I'm like, I'm intrigued with him because they draft him as a bat first guy at a VCU, the highest drafted player at a VCU in the last eighteen years. And he's continuing to really hit this year. In Hia Everett, he's hitting three zho five three eighty three, five thirty seven for home run seventeen is his last game before we recorded this. He had a multi home run game against Spokane and he's he is right in the midst of an eight game hit streak. He's twelve of thirty two, hitting three seventy five those two home runs. Yesterday on Sunday nine, RBI's second career multi home run game, he had eleven total bases. The dude really hits, and I didn't realize this. So I went and I looked back at his MLB pipeline profile and Dan O'Dowd compared him to Pete Alonso when he was drafted last year on their broadcast when they drafted him, you know, as a bat first guy. We see that he's going to be profiling as a corner infielder in the Mariners system, and there's just, as we see, there's just not a whole lot of pure bats in the Mariners system to rely upon. So it would be really nice if a bat first guy, the Mariner's pick with a premium pick turns out to be, you know, a pretty good hitter up and down the Miners. And he's off to a pretty good start there in High A this year, so he's he's got to keep an eye on again. A top ten prospect in the m system and a guy who really he just hits. 01:03:07 Speaker 2: Nine to twenty ops through twenty games. I think the Mariners will take it. And again, this was a college bat. He'll be able to develop a little bit faster than the high school guys. But when we were talking about Cole Young, who, by the way, he's also just continuing to hit little side note we've talked about, We're not sure how much longer it's going to be that he stays in Modesto. He may be too good for the league. They'll bring him up to Everett. Now, it's only been twenty games for a Locklear this season in Everett, but don't be shocked if by June, sometime in the month of June, he's up in Arkansas, because again, college bat, he is polished. He is destroying the ball in Everett right now, and he may just hit his way to the majors if he can stay on a fast track here. I mean, Pete Alonso's a decent comp but I guess I look at both him and Hogan Windish as kind of ty France guys where their corner infielders. I guess Wendis plays a little bit of second base, but that first have some pop. I mean, it's exciting. I mean, it's exciting to have some bats in the system. And Locklear may move his way up pretty fast if he continues to swing it. 01:04:07 Speaker 1: And I think what people are a little bit more high on with say a Locklear than a ty Franz is his power. I think they really believe he can hit for a decent amount of power up and down the mine or something that you know, ty Franz got some decent pop, but he's you know, not Pete Alonzo. So that's the thing there. So that's something to look out. Foreigner's good to see him really get it yesterday with a couple home runs. 01:04:28 Speaker 2: He'll be a guy to keep looking at for sure, because second round pick, really good bat. We'll see what he does the rest of the year. It may not be the last time we talk about him either, the way he's playing. Okay, my guy Brian wu who by the way, just got named Mariner's Minor League Pitcher of the Month here in the month of April. That's the guy I'm highlighting this week because he turned in a really good start his last time out. Five innings pitched, one hit, no runs, no walks, eight strikeouts. In his last start. The guy here at so far in the month of April, and so far here during the season, one fifty nine ERA in four starts, seventeen innings, one five to nine ERA. He's killing it right now. Mariner's number six overall prospect. He's dominating in double A so far. 01:05:14 Speaker 1: Twenty seven strikeouts in seventeen innings. We talk about like sealing with these pitchers. Bryce Miller is going to start. When you're listening to this, he would have already started yesterday. And he's the top one hundred prospect. He's the top pitching prospect in the Mariners system. The guy we keep hearing about from a lot of people, like we have a friend who works in the organization and Jerry Depoto and you know, people writing about it on Twitter, is this guy Brian wu In terms of stuff and the ability to eventually pitch at the big league level, He's that guy. I mean, he is going to pitch in the big league. See, got kind of a slow start to his Mariner's career. He was hurt coming out of college and kind of got brought along last year. But now he's off to a full start this year. He's healthy and he is really pitching well. They might just leave him in Arkansas all year. But if they don't need him, they probably just leave him in Arkansas all year and let him dominate and then worry about bring him up to the big leagues this year because there's a couple guys ahead of him in the system who they would probably bring up in a starter role or even in the bullpen as well. This dude's got big league stuff and he's really showed it throughout his minor league career so far. 01:06:21 Speaker 2: The Mariners may have gotten some real value on him when they drafted him, too, because they drafted him in the sixth round back in twenty twenty one, because he had Tommy John surgery and he's recovered from it now and he looks great. But I wonder where he goes in that draft if he's healthy. I'm guessing the injury knocked him down at least a little bit. The Mariners may have bought everything that he was selling, said, you know what, we'll wait out the injury. Tommy John surgery is awesome these days. Guys almost always recover, and we may get some real value on him and see what we've got going forward. And they've done that. I mean, there's been teams calling and asking for Brian Wu in trades over the last year. That's how much other people, That's how much other organization are starting to think of him. 01:07:02 Speaker 1: What's kind of odd. Wow, this is the first time I'm looking at Brian Wu's college stats. You know, his junior year e Ra. Like this is in terms of like the Mariners looking at stuff and saying, hey, we can do something with this. I mean, Eira's not everything. He had a six to eleven eras junior year at cal Poly. Again, you're not like now pitching the SEC pitching cal Poly. And you know they saw enough there in Brian Wu, despite being hurt to draft him and really develop him and bring him along, and man, it is really showing and I'm excited to watch him. It's it's hard to keep up with all these minor league guys. There's a lot of baseball going along going on while they play, but every time you see the highlights pop up and this dude is just got some nasty stuff, and I think it's something for a lot of Mariner fans to look forward to as the season goes along. So that's our lookdown on the farm. One guy that stands out each week down in the Mariners minor league system. Let's get to our MLB wrap around. First up on the MLB wrap Around. Didn't realize this was being played last weekend, but part of the MLB World Tour. The Padres and Giants played the first ever games in Mexico City, and it was an offensive what's the right word to use, offensive explosion, offensive shit show like it was. Saturday's game especially, was absolutely insane between the two teams provided some very very entertaining baseball. 01:08:36 Speaker 2: There were eleven home runs hit in that first game. Twenty seven runs and eleven homers were hitting that game. You think coors Field's a hitters park with the elevation. Playing that in Mexico City makes coors Field look like T Mobile Park. I mean, this was ridiculous. The balls were flying across the turf and on the dirt. They're leaving the ballpark every time it gets into the air. This was crazy, Like I've never seen anything like that. 01:09:04 Speaker 1: I was having a bunch of Hey, the how fun would it be though to have a team play there? I mean they would break every offensive record they would right, they would have to. Any competent roster would break or would get near a record at least. 01:09:21 Speaker 2: Oh, they'd absolutely break every offensive record. And there's been light rumors before about what a team ever be put in Mexico City. Let me tell you what if that ever happens. Take go onto every pitcher's Baseball Reference tab. If you're Major League Baseball and you're listening to this, you put a team in Mexico City, go on to every pitcher's Baseball Reference tab and just delete the ERA column. Just just take it right out and replace it with XCRA because you're wasting your time looking at a player's r in that ballpark. There's no reason to look at it because it's gonna be your ace is gonna have an ERA that starts with five. 01:09:56 Speaker 1: It's unfortunate they would never get a to sign there were you think it's hard to get a picture to Colorado, I promise you after watching Saturday, there will never There would never be a pitcher that signs there. Not You would need to overpay by one hundred million dollars to get someone to essentially do career sacrifice to go pitch there. 01:10:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's never happening. I don't know if they'd ever put a team in Mexico City or not. But in terms of an ace pitcher going there, no way again unless they think they have a chance to sign another contract after that and they know that, Hey, just look at my XCRA. Forget them about my ERA. Do not look at my normal earned run average. Just look at XCRA, which takes ballpark factor into account. For those who don't know XCRA. Uh yeah, this game was crazy and the whole weekend was crazy with these two games, because you know what I mean. We talk about we like offense in baseball. This was offense in Game one more than anything showed it. 01:10:55 Speaker 1: I will say, if they do put a team down there, I would I want to go watch a game there. I'm I want to go. Like I consider myself a bit of a traveler, I'm trying to go to travel to more places, and Mexico City is one of those spots. I mean, first of all, it is enormous. I believe it is the largest city in North America with twenty two million people in the metro population. So if you're wondering if it could support a baseball team, yeah, I would, I think instantly become market number one market. 01:11:22 Speaker 2: It would be. 01:11:23 Speaker 1: It would be a top ten mark. It would be a top ten baseball market right off the bat, right away in terms of economy, size and everything if you put a team there, so it would be really intriguing. And then the food and the passion the fans have I think would would be really intriguing for there as well. Well, before we get to our next point, I have some stats from that game one. They also played Game two. Padres won both the games against the Giants down there. The Padres and Giants. In the sixteen to eleven Game one, which the Padres won, they each hit back to back home runs twice. First time that's ever happened. So both teams hit back to back home runs twice each lineup, which is insanity. The teams combined for eleven home runs, which is too shy the record. Those eleven home runs were hit by ten different players, which tied the record for most distinct players to hit a home run in a game. Nelson Cruz became the second oldest player since nineteen hundred with a five hit game. Shout out Nelly, the oldest was Could you guess who the oldest would be? 01:12:32 Speaker 2: Is it Julio Franco? 01:12:34 Speaker 4: No? 01:12:36 Speaker 2: Is it Edgar no, Ahi, who is it? 01:12:40 Speaker 1: Just think of hits? 01:12:42 Speaker 2: Oh is it Pete Rose? Yeah, Okay, there we go. 01:12:46 Speaker 1: Xander Bogarts became the third player to homer in four different country slash territories. He has now homered in Mexico, Canada, the US, and England, joining Tony Clark and Michael Brantley. Both of them homered in Puerto Rico and instead of Mexico. So that's something to think of. Here's now where we're gonna get into some really insane elevation stats. I don't know if you had any comments in those first points there before we get into these. 01:13:13 Speaker 2: Just sounds like a lot of offense to me and a lot of broken records. I mean, my god, like you said, this team would absolutely break offensive records every year if a team was in Mexico City. 01:13:23 Speaker 1: Just wait till you hear these stats, and then you're gonna after that you hear these, you're like, yeah, the home run derby should be here every single year. Brandon Crawford hit a ball four hundred and eighty two feet, the longest home run in the stack cast era for the Giants, and that was one of the first home runs of the game by the way, seven players hit a ball four hundred and forty plus feet That is the most in the sing a single game in the stack Cast era. In the very first game that they played in this stadium, they broke a record for most four hundred and forty foot home runs. The teams had four four hundred and fifty plus foot home runs, which was also the most in the same game in the Stackcaster and then Lyyle last but not least, This is not official because I'm just going off the numbers I saw on Twitter, But I believe these numbers are correct. Can you guess the over under totals for the two games. 01:14:13 Speaker 2: For home runs? 01:14:14 Speaker 3: No? 01:14:14 Speaker 1: For total runs? 01:14:16 Speaker 4: Oh? 01:14:16 Speaker 2: Okay, I think I saw what the run total over under was in the first game. Let's see for the two total games. I will go with twenty two and a half. 01:14:28 Speaker 1: No, just like guess Game one in game two? 01:14:31 Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, So I think Game one was right around twelve or thirteen and a half runs for the over under and it was higher. 01:14:40 Speaker 3: Oh it was? 01:14:40 Speaker 2: Was it fifteen and a half? 01:14:41 Speaker 1: It was fifteen and a half. By the way, the normal overunder is about on the high end is about eight. Yeah, eight or nine, so you could tell right away. Vegas is like, yeah, we're not taking any chances, and they still hit the over by twelve runs, which is insanity. Up and now do you remember what the over under os was for Sunday after they saw that? 01:15:06 Speaker 2: No, this is the one I didn't see, so so tell me. 01:15:09 Speaker 1: Twenty and a half. Oh my god, I think it's it makes the game more entertaining if you put it down there. We're talk about baseball, right, and the fact that every team has their own unique park with unique climate and circumstances, and the ball carries different and the field's different, the shape of the field's different, the turfs different, et cetera. All these different factors, which makes me think, hey, if teams used to play in the Polo Grounds in the old Yankee Stadium, they should actually be able to play in Mexico City because that it would just make it so much more fun. 01:15:45 Speaker 2: The Polo Grounds is so weird though, because it's what like two sixty down each line and then it's like five hundred feet to dead center. I mean, talk about it. Talk about an obscure ballpark. I mean, who put that together back in the day. 01:16:00 Speaker 1: I don't know. But it worked out pretty well. It's a fun part to play in an MB the show. 01:16:06 Speaker 2: Yeah it is okay. Second storyline of the week unfortunate unfortunate news out of the Bronx. Aaron Judge hits the il. He's got a slight hip injury happened while sliding, so he has a minor hip strain and this TJ is yet another Yankees injury and maybe the most impactful one of all. 01:16:27 Speaker 1: Could not argue that, like, is there a more true value? We talk about most valuable players and you'd probably think show hey, but in terms of who's actually most valuable to his team and to his roster and to his offense, I think Aaron Judge has to be number one. He signed a nine year, three hundred and sixty million dollar deal in the offseason, and their outfield lyle without him is maybe the worst group of position players in baseball. You have John Carlos Stanton, who's been pretty good this year, but he's only played thirteen games. He's been shockingly hurt a good chunk of the time. Franchie Cordero, who was optioned down to the minor least because he was so bad. Aaron Hicks who I saw Yankee fans on Twitter called the worst player in baseball by the way when he got put in, uh Mariner's legend. Jake Bowers and then Harrison Vader. Do you trust that outfield? There doesn't seem to be a lot of run production from that group without him. 01:17:26 Speaker 2: You're leaving out one little minor detail here, so I'll add it for you. Harrison Vader is also hurt. 01:17:33 Speaker 1: So sorry I missed that. 01:17:36 Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't even know who's playing the outfield for him at this point. We've seen years where injuries just pile up and pile up and pile up for the Yankees, and it's happening already this year in April. I mean, you don't have Judge, you don't have Stanton, you don't have Bader. I actually think, like with judging Bader together, I actually think that's a fine outfield. Not I guess combo. That'd be two of the outfield. I think those two are fine. But they're both hurt. Carlos Rodon is not throwing a pitch. Luis Severino shocker is hurt. Jonathan Lewisaga, their top setup guy, is hurt, who has nasty stuff by the way. I mean again, it's it's we're recording this on May first, and the entire team's injured. 01:18:19 Speaker 1: This was the worry when Judge signed that contract. How is a guy of his size of six foot seven, two hundred and seventy five pounds goin age because we don't see guys like that a play b age well, I mean, Stanton is the guy on his own team as example a one of signing that long term contract and being unable to stay healthy because there's just so much you have to worry about in terms of playing every day and and your bones and you just you're carrying around more weight and that really can deteriorate over time and get guys hurt. And as simple as a guy just sliding into second base and you don't know, and a hip can be something that like, you know, that's something Aaron Judge uses while he runs, while he swings, while he slides, while he walks down the stairs of the clubhouse. I mean, they're all these different things that Aaron Judges to use his hit for. And if he can't ever get healthy, and if it lingers all season, you're gonna have to wonder how much that might dampen his offensive performance and coincidentally lower the ceiling of the Yankees, who last year without him missed the playoffs, probably because they're pretty mediocre outside of him. Last year, there's plenty of numbers that I didn't write down that pretty much back that up. And this year is pretty much the same. 01:19:35 Speaker 2: That Ale East is going to be interesting because if the Yankees aren't healthy, we'll see what the Red Sox do long term. I don't buy that roster for the course of one hundred and sixty two games. The Orioles, same thing, we'll see. And I know they were a nice story last year. Do they sustain this all year with their rotation like the Al East? At least through the first month. They've got all these teams over five hundred. But there's also reason to believe that some of these guys might start to tail off, and you'll see Tampa and Toronto kind of in the foreground and leading that charge in the top two slots of the division. Yeah, it is unfortunate for the Yankees because again they have a good roster on paper, but so many of these guys don't stay healthy. I think they have a good roster on paper, especially after adding Rodn like here, like remember. 01:20:18 Speaker 1: With Rodin and Judge healthy, sure, like good, good, good. But I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, so what do the Yankees do better than? Like, I guess the healthy Yankees have a better rotation than Tampa. Maybe probably, let's say probably. 01:20:35 Speaker 2: I don't even know about that. Well, I guess I guess Jeffrey Springs got hurt, so that's an injury to Tampa got hurt. 01:20:39 Speaker 1: Rasmussen's kind of struggled in the last couple of weeks as well, so that kind of kind of weeds it out. And Glass now still still working back to be healthy as well. But I don't know the Blue Jays rotation is. I mean, we we watch Kevin Gosman on Saturday, and well, I don't think a hurt Rodin and as good as Garrett Cole's been could match up with that plus whatever else the Blue Jays a have to offer. 01:21:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we'll see how much the Yankees tailspan, if they can tread water with all these injuries, or if it really just kind of gets out of control form. I don't know which way it's going to because it's a lot of injuries right now. 01:21:16 Speaker 1: Thankfully for them, they have plenty of time to write the ship and get everyone healthy. As we mentioned, it's only May first, so let's try not to overreact to too many things that happened in the first month of the season. Our third storyline from our mob wrap round is well, are we shocked that show Heyo Tani set some sort of record or almost set another sort of record. He almost last week became the first player to hit for the cycle in a game that he pitched in. He was about ten feet short of doing that incredible feat in some just continue to do things we've never seen before. 01:21:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, but here's his consolation prize. While he didn't become the first player ever to hit for the cycle in the same game that he started on the mound, instead he becomes the first player to strike out eight batters and also hit for a single, double and triple in the same game since Dave Damforth of the Saint Louis Browns on August twenty fifth of nineteen twenty three. So if you're looking for a Tungsten Armo Doyle stat this week, there it is for you. 01:22:25 Speaker 1: The only problem is I think the Angels won that game. Yeah, that he did so the tungsten thing only truly works when the Angels lose. And by the way, Shohy did set some more history, I believe yesterday on Sunday where he hit the highest recorded home run in baseball history in the statcast era, at least, he hit a ball one hundred and sixty two feet in the air against the Brewers. It hung in the air for seven seconds before it clanged over the centerfield fence. 01:22:58 Speaker 2: I am genuinely cure is to meet the scouts that called him a high school hitter when he came over to the show. If you didn't think that he was gonna be like this, okay, I mean it's it's hard for Japanese players to come over here and the transition can be a lot on them because the play level is not the same. But a high school hitter? What are you watching? 01:23:21 Speaker 1: With his chromey start last week? Lyle his era and again when he also had three hits in Maine history was the stat again? Eight strikeouts and then a single double in a triple Yeah that was the record? 01:23:34 Speaker 3: Yeah? 01:23:35 Speaker 1: Okay, So in a start where he gave up five runs in a fourth inning and really blew up his ra all the way to one point eight five. Just just tragic. Oh and we have some and what that bad inning? His batting average against also went all the way up to one oh two, I mean, just absurd. One last thing here, he has an eight ninety seven OPS now as a batter, and he has allowed a four forty five OPS as a pitcher. 01:24:09 Speaker 2: You talk about players having walk years, I mean what Matt Chapman's doing for the Blue Jays right now is a walk year, to say the least, in an elite walk year. AKA, have an amazing year before you hit free agency and get big money. Now, Showay is gonna get huge, colossal, unprecedented money no matter what. But is it possible that he's having his walk year right now too? And yes, he is in the final year of his deal, but having the type of walk year that sets him up for even more of a payday than he was already gonna get. 01:24:40 Speaker 1: I don't know how much more we can raise that bar, though the bar was already six hundred million dollars. Yeah, if he has a great year this year, would it like instantly say oh, because of this year, he's gonna get seven hundred million. 01:24:53 Speaker 4: Now? 01:24:54 Speaker 2: Maybe not, And maybe teams can only pay so much. Although I'm sure whatever his contract's going to be will be record break but it is pretty crazy that. You know, sometimes players can drop off a little bit when there's pressure in their contract year to play well, and he might end up having the best season of his career. It's not for sure, but through a month that looks like it's possible. 01:25:14 Speaker 1: The best season of his career over the fact one where he was an MVP and the one last year where he was both a top ten hitter or in a top ten pitcher, it's pretty Uh, that's pretty absurd, Okay, So then let's end with this question. Then would this be a moment? Would this be the greatest three year stretch of players ever had? And I'm including Barry Bonds. 01:25:39 Speaker 2: I think it has to be right. I would be interested to compare the wars of the three years of Barry Bond. Well, which three years of Barry Bonds are you taking? Because somehow, somehow OH one's getting cut out or OH four is getting cut out, but whatever, let's let's just say like oh one, oh two, and four of Barry Bonds to kind of make shifted here, and then these three years of Otani. I would be very interested to compare the wars and see how they match up, because I'm with you the fact he's doing it from the mound and at the plate. It probably is the best three year stretch ever. 01:26:10 Speaker 1: You could pick a three year stretch of Babe Ruth two. You could even throw in the one where he the one year he did pinch it hit, which was nineteen nineteen, I believe nineteen nineteen or nineteen eighteen. One of those two years. You could pick Ted Williams. You could pick Willie Mays. I mean, we could, you know, we could have the dis debate. If we really do run out of content, maybe we could spend some time doing the greatest three year stretches. But it's it's really something to think about because nobody, I mean nobody has done it at the level show Heyo Tani has done it for three seasons, not at this level, not against this kind of competition, and not at the height that he is doing it right now. It is simply incredible, and it's going to be simply incredible. Somehow the Angels still managed to miss the playoffs all three of those years. 01:26:58 Speaker 2: Oh my money's on that they're going to It's just who they are at this point. It's who they are. Okay, let's get to our favorite segment, Russell Wilson umpire of the week. Who do we have this week? TJ? 01:27:14 Speaker 1: We have Alfonso Marquez. He we did not mention him while talking about the Mexico City Series. He was behind the plate for Game one of that series, the sixteen to eleven Padres win. Alfonso Marquez throughout the course of the game missed twenty three calls. Now'll give him a break. He did see over two hundred and thirty pitches in that game. There was a lot of pitches thrown in that game, as you could imagine, but he missed twenty three of them and had a remarkable seventy eight percent called strike accuracy. And also in terms of total runs impacted in the game, he impacted nearly three and a half runs because of his calls in this game, the fifth highest mark in this season. 01:28:02 Speaker 2: We talked about being seven percent below league average. Last week was terrible. He was ten percent below league average, this week's winner being Alfonso Marquez league average eighty eight percent. In terms of called strike accuracy, he was at seventy eight percent. I mean, we're gonna do one of these every week, and I don't know how much else I can provide other than it's going to get to be such a tired narrative that we're still going to just find a way to complain about every week that how do these umpires not ever face repercussions for ruining games? But they never do? 01:28:36 Speaker 4: Do they? 01:28:37 Speaker 1: What I'm asking to my brothers at the umpires Union, please make a stupid ejection that we can talk about next week. Because as much as I love railing on a good ball strike system and the guys behind the plate, you know, I think I like spicing it up a little bit. I need somebody to really take control of a game and put themselves on camera and be like, hey mamam on TV, I just threw the manager at a game for something stupid. I think that would be more entertaining. 01:29:04 Speaker 2: I'm ready for it. 01:29:07 Speaker 1: Okay, let's wrap it up with speak your mind. 01:29:10 Speaker 4: Speak your mind. Spot. That would be unwise. 01:29:17 Speaker 1: What is necessary is never unwise. Okay, Low what's on your mind this week? 01:29:25 Speaker 3: Who? 01:29:25 Speaker 2: There's a decent amount on my mind? I mean, do we want to save a little Seahawks draft recap and cracking series recap here. 01:29:32 Speaker 1: For the end, I was gonna say you did, Tate. I was gonna mention the Seahawks, so you can you can say whatever you need to say. Well, we can wrap up with. 01:29:38 Speaker 2: That, Okay. I guess my one other thing on my Speak your Mind docket this week was I guess you have to put in a little more effort these days on my end to kind of go see some of my friends in person. And I'm talking about the friends that are still around here in the Seattle area, just because honestly, with a lot of the time that this podcast takes up, and I'm not complaining about it in any way. If anything, I've enjoyed it beyond belief, like we've talked about, But because it takes up some time sometimes that now carves more time out of my schedule and I don't have as much time to go, you know, hang out with some friends or even on the weekends sometimes we're doing stuff with this podcast, which is totally fine because like I said, I mean, we get to cover the game sometimes now, which is amazing, and go be there in person. But it's still nice to see your friends sometimes too. So now I realize Okay, I got to carve out some certain days here throughout the weeks, months, whatever, to you know, at least make sure I'm I'm still seeing all the friends I want to see, because you know, everybody has to have a work life balance to some extent. And not that I'm saying this podcast takes up every minute of every day, but with everything that we do in our lives of piles up, sometimes it can be easy to let your social let go. So you know, this weekend, I saw a bunch of my friends I haven't seen in a few weeks, and it was nice to see them. 01:30:51 Speaker 1: Did you just describe adulting? 01:30:54 Speaker 2: I guess, so, I know, weird, So that sounded like I know, I mean, I guess I guess that's what it is. I mean, And I shouldn't act like they're just hanging around all day either. They're busy too with schedules and lives. So yeah, it is kind of adulting. And it feels weird that we're the age we're talking about that, but I guess it's the truth here. So that's that's my one little speak your mind nonsports topic. 01:31:16 Speaker 1: Of the week. I think you can rejoice for this part of adulting, the fact that neither of us are bald, because that is also a true side of adulting and growing up and becoming an adult is when you lose all your hair. But as you can see, Loud, I think are doing pretty good in that department. So thank you mom and dad for making sure the right genes, the right geams shook out for us to make sure that. So it's like, it's balding, it's retirement, it's having to go to doctor because your back hurts. But I think we've we've managed to not have to worry too much about about many of those, So it's a good thing that we sort of that out. Yeah, my speaker mind this week was about the Seahawks, so I guess we could just get into that. It's like, it's so it's it's kind of weird and refreshing lyle at two years in a row. Now they have picked like in order, like they've picked who they should have picked in the first round and not traded back. 01:32:10 Speaker 2: Like very refreshing, very refreshing. And look, I don't think we were sitting here last week or even minutes before they made the pick thinking they were gonna go take Devin Witherspoon, I think everybody had their mindset on Jalen Carter. I think everybody had been set on that for weeks. And look, all I'll say is this, And I saw a couple tweets about this, and I think it's true. Jalen Carter may end up being very, very good. We don't know, but if the Seahawks had such a glaring need a defensive tackle, an interior defensive line. Some people call Jalen Carter the best prospect in the draft, and the Seahawks still passed on them. I feel like that kind of says a lot. And maybe there was some real reason for why they let him go because they had a visit with them, They got to meet with them. Pete and John have taken guys that have needed coaching up and in the past and maybe had some character issues coming into the draft, but it's worked out for them in the past. This is not a guy they chose to put that investment into, So maybe there's a reason for that. And you know what, Devin Witherspoon, if that guy pans out, combined with Tarik Wollen, you know, good luck to opposing receivers. 01:33:15 Speaker 1: They could have the best cornerback duo in football and Devin Witherspoon. I didn't realize he's like not that big, but that dude puts the hammer down on guys. It's he's gonna be awesome to watch. And he the stat was last year in press coverage last year he allowed one yard, one total yard, which is gonna be great. And they're the one thing we know Pete can coach up and it's those defensive backs. So he's gonna slide over, he's gonna play opposite Tarik and he's gonna do an awesome job. I don't think I don't think Jalen Carter was on their board. I think they just took him off, to be honest. That's that's the only explanation for it, and that he probably wasn't the only team that happened too, right. I mean, the Eagles got kind of lucky that he was sitting there at ten and they can kind of afford it. Aid They have Jordan Davis, who was probably amongst the you know, by the way, a former Georgia defensive tackle they're on their own defensive line who was probably a bit of a mentor to Jalen Carter when they were both there at Georgia and he goes now right back into the same defensive line as him, and that kind of works out a little bit. You have a guy there who's who's helped him out through college and helped him grow up, and you can help him grow up in the NFL regardless. And then JSN back to the Seahawks. JSN at twenty one of my favorite picks. Oh, it's awesome. They really needed a third receiver and they got the number one wide receiver on almost everyone's big board. They're at twenty and he's gonna fit ride in in the slot, and people forget when JSN last played Jackson Smith and Jigbo played in twenty twenty one for Ohio State. He arguably outplayed two first rounders, Chris o'lave and Garrett Wilson. 01:34:51 Speaker 2: Seahawks needed a third option for a long time, and they've tried with guys in the past, but all of a sudden, you got a chance to have three legit weapons in your receiving core. I mean, I will continue to harp on it until the day he retires, and probably days and weeks and years after he retires. Tyler Lockett is the most underrated and underappreciated receiver in all of football. He will never get the respect he deserves. You got that guy, You've got DK Metcalf, he does get the respect he deserves. And now you've got Jackson Smith and Jig But to go with him. I mean, you're talking about three guys that could have this offense exploding. I can't wait to watch it. 01:35:28 Speaker 1: In the last game, Jackson Smith and Jackson Smith and Jig but was not injured. He had three hundred and forty seven yards. Three hundred and forty seven against Yu who was a great against Yeah, okay, to be honest, half the time he was being defended by a running back who was playing corner for Utah. Do you remember that part? But three hundred and forty seven is still a pretty insane amount. Wow, I need to get your opinion on one thing. I think we'll talk a little bit of crack and hockey before we wrap this up. Your instant reaction action when Zach Charmonayt goes off the board at fifty two. 01:36:02 Speaker 2: Oh, my head just dropped down. 01:36:06 Speaker 3: On the knees. 01:36:07 Speaker 2: I think I said, fucking of course, dude, is what I said. 01:36:13 Speaker 1: Like I loves his running backs. 01:36:16 Speaker 2: So they they had a really good draft for the most part, and they made a lot of logical picks. But that is just the most pe Carroll thing ever to take. 01:36:26 Speaker 1: He couldn't resist. He couldn't resist. 01:36:28 Speaker 2: What was your reaction, Yeah, it was. 01:36:31 Speaker 1: It was pretty much the same thing now seeing the rest of their draft. They did fill out some of their other needs, and I think they they just didn't try and reach on anyone too much in this draft. We wanted them to get the center out of Minnesota whose name, first name is John I can't remember his, uh his last name, but they. 01:36:48 Speaker 2: Got none, John Michael Schmidt. 01:36:51 Speaker 1: Okay, that's what I thought. Okay, cool, So they didn't get him that he seemed like a logical pick there. But then they got the center for Michigan, whose name I actually cannot pronounce. But I was seeing that, like the value for drafting him in the for driving him in the fifth round, was better than drafting John Michael Schmid's in the second round, which I thought was interesting. And what's the what's the award for best center in the country. I forget what it was called, but I mean. 01:37:20 Speaker 2: It's it he want? 01:37:21 Speaker 4: Is it? 01:37:21 Speaker 2: The Mackie Award or am I getting that wrong? 01:37:24 Speaker 1: I can't remember, but he like he won it, so and they and they got him there in the fifth round, which is nice. So they addressed and need an interior. They got some guys along the defensive line. That's you know, the defensive line is probably still an issue. I mean, even if you drafted Jalen Carter was probably still an issue. But they they addressed needs, they got good value out of their players, and hey, they drafted another running back in the seventh round too, Kenny McIntosh. 01:37:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, again, we'll see what happens with charmone. But you know what, I'm going to try to not let that ruin the entire draft because you said it at the time up here that it feels like this was two drafts in a row where they simply took the best players available and guys that could really reshape this roster and continue to help them build and win, which they've got a chance to do now. So overall, pretty good draft. 01:38:14 Speaker 1: Let's give a little and as we thank Russell Wilson for his service every week on this podcast with his do a segment named completely after him. Pete Carroll and Company finally can put a bow tie on that trade with Russell Wilson using those final draft picks that picked for that pick for Devin Witherspoon was that was that Rouss pick and so it was the second round pick with with Derek Hall from Auburn. So they use those picks wisely. And uh, it is as you meant, it really helped retool this roster. 01:38:48 Speaker 2: It has. And let's give a quick shout out to the krack in here before we wrap it up, because they just took down the reigning world champs in seven games in the first round. I know hockey upsets do happen, but the fact that made it happen, that's pretty cool. 01:39:03 Speaker 1: It's nerve wracking, man. This playoff hockey is just a different animal. And you can see, I mean we watched the we we also earlier in the day the Bruins, who had the best record in hockey history, the most points, the most wins of any NHL team ever, lose on their home ice in overtime to Florida, and that that it just shows you that, like the Stanley Cup playoffs, you like you throw everything out, you just gotta go win your playing every other day and you're gonna you gotta go out there and you gotta win on on opponent size. You gotta go win on your home ice. It's tight. The defense is uh, the defense is a lot tighter. You're seeing the top lines a lot more. It's intense, and man, they they capitalized when they needed to and they were able to hang on there at the end. It looked like the Avalanche tied it up there in the third period, but they were off sides and the crack And hung on. But I think for the last fourteen minutes there and held them out of the goal. And shout out to Philip Grubauer. Guy, Uh, you know, I'm not not the biggest hockey watch, but I'm watching not great. He played awesome. He was amazing in that game and really held down the fort. And now it's the Stars and the Kraken. They will have played yesterday when you hear this. They play on Tuesday night, so that's gonna be exciting. The Cracking are in the second round, and hey, one series down in the playoffs and franchise history and one series win. 01:40:20 Speaker 2: It's not a bad start. Seattle sports are thriving these days, hopefully here now the Mariners will start to follow suit and pick up as May and the months go on, because we know they've got the talent to do it and the other teams they made Seattle Sports pretty fun to watch over these last couple months here, so hopefully it just continues. All right. I think that just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast. You guys know what to do. You want to listen to the full podcast, you can get it on Apple, Spotify, Google and Amazon. If you want to watch us on video, which you should because by the way, we've got a new YouTube background. It's awesome. We talked about it last week. You can watch the full video podcast on YouTube on social media Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts at Marine Layer Pod. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, subscribe to Apple and Spotify, leave us a review, and tell your friends about us too. We've had a blast doing this so far, and hopefully you guys have liked listening so for TJ. Matthewson, this is Lyle Goldsteine. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you next week.