Episode 4: Profiling FA SS Dansby Swanson, Mariners Sign Trevor Gott, And Aaron Judge Meets With San Francisco

00:00:00 Speaker 1: On episode number four of The Marine Layer Podcast with TJ. Matthewson and Lyle Goldstein. On today's pod, the Mariners make a signing. They've signed former Brewers reliever Trevor Gott. We'll take a look into that. There's also some Michael Conforto rumors floating around. The Mariners will dive into that a little bit. We'll take a look at our free agent profile of the week, it's Dansby Swanson this time out, we'll take a look at the former Braves shortstop. We'll take a look around baseball with the MLB wrap around, and then we'll close out the show with speak your Mind. With that, Let's get rolling and we welcome you into this week's episode of the Marine Layer Podcast. TJ. Matthewson and Lyle Goldstein. Dog, good to see you. 00:01:00 Speaker 2: Good to see you too. I've been waiting five days to tell you this. Not only did I devour cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, we actually made extra. 00:01:10 Speaker 1: That is disgusting. I did have one bite of cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving one? What did I have it? On? Trying to think, Oh, so my dad who's cooking. I think he puts he has some bread and he puts butter and cranberry sauce on it, hands it to you, is like, Okay, here's our appetizer for today. I was like, oh cool, just sitting there on the couch, think we're watching the Cowboys game or out in the middle of the afternoon before we eat. I take one bite. That was the only bite of cranberry sauce. I took the entire evening, and I gotta say I'm a lot happier off because of it. My tastebuds think me, I don't know how you do it. 00:01:48 Speaker 2: Huh, shameful. You're missing out. 00:01:51 Speaker 1: Your taste buds are shameful. That is where I'm going to settle on with this. This not so much a shameful As we dive into the baseball of this episode. Finally, Lyle, the stove is I guess maybe turned on one burner. It's on the lowest setting possible. With winter meetings about a week away from right now, the Mariners signed former Brewers reliever Trevor got to a one year contract, a thirty year old who spent the last season with Milwaukee. A four to one four ERA something to look at. I guess with the Mariners with this signing on sort of a by low expect high with Trevor Gott. 00:02:34 Speaker 2: Hey, hot stoves, hot burner's turned on and we're getting going right. 00:02:40 Speaker 1: I can't complain, I can't. It will heat up next week, which I'm very excited about. 00:02:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, once the winter meetings kick in, things will really start to get going, which we need because free agency is moving slower than ever this year. But for Trevor Gott it's a reliever. The Mariners seem to have a pretty good track record with righty relievers. Numbers have been pretty average in his career for the most part. Last year they were fairly average ERA ERA plus they were all right around that average range. But I'm gonna guess the Mariners see something with them, because usually Depoto has a pretty good idea of what he likes in these righty relievers. 00:03:20 Speaker 1: There's one gaping hole in the Mariner's bullpen this upcoming season with Eric Swanson getting traded for taoscar Hernandez. I'm not so certain that Trevor gott is the guy to replace Eric Swanson in that bullpen. But if there's a couple things that Trevor Gott does pretty well. After taking a peek at his numbers, his quality of contact against is pretty good. It's about two sixty eight his ex wOBA, which is how we measure quality of contact. Uh, that's a fangrafs right baseball savant set. Regardless, it measures quality of contact low. Do you know who else had a two sixty eight expected weighted on base average this year as a pitcher? 00:04:02 Speaker 2: Man, if I got this right, you should put me right in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Just name any pitcher that had a two sixty eight XLOBA against them. Let's see. 00:04:11 Speaker 1: Uh, he knew unanimously won the National League Say Young Award. 00:04:16 Speaker 2: Oh well, then then you gave it away. 00:04:18 Speaker 1: Sandy al Contra, Yeah, Sandy al Contra also had one. I was very surprised to see that, But that was the number he put up this year. His expected SATs were pretty good. I'd imagine a lot of that come from a new cutter he throws this year. He threw it up. He was his most thrown pitch this year thirty percent of the time, jumping up from eight percent in twenty twenty. So maybe that's something the Mariners like. A new pitch in the bullpen. There's not really a guy in the bullpen who throws a pitch like that, So that raised my eyebrow a little bit. 00:04:50 Speaker 2: Are the Mariners all of a sudden trying to become a cutter throwing ball club because Trevor Gatt seems to have one and they signed him. We've seen videos of Matt Brash learning a cutter this offseason. I don't know, it seems like a pitch they might want some of their guys to start implementing. 00:05:04 Speaker 1: There's some famous relievers who have thrown cutters before, so why not I was the tribe. 00:05:11 Speaker 2: I would say so. 00:05:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. The thing I would think about with Gott he is very good against righty's, which Eric Swanson was also very good against righty's. But what we talked about a lot was Eric Swanson was very good against lefties as well, got not as quite as good against lefties. He allowed lefties to slug forty five against him last year, But against righty's he was a pretty elite reliever. I mean the quality of contact two fifty four x wOBA against righty's. That was a top fifteen mark in baseball. Against just righty's, it's pretty good. 00:05:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really good again. I mean, this is what Jerry Depoto and his crew seem to do best. These righty relievers that throw around ninety to ninety three miles an hour, who maybe on paper don't have the world's greatest projectibles. They value in these guys and turn them into critical pieces. I mean, never anything more potent than when Paul Sewald got called up. In fact, the same day Jared Kalnick and Loger and Gilbert were called up in twenty twenty one, Seawald was called up with him. He tweets out Mariners are bringing up all their young spriye prospects today as he's sitting here in his load to mid thirties just trying to find a big league job. And well, that season he was the best of all three of those guys. So maybe Trevor Gott can be another guy like that. You never know. 00:06:32 Speaker 1: I was reading the Lookout Landing breakdown of this signing, and there's some actually some similarities in the delivery between Got and Seawald, which I think are intriguing. Right, Maybe there's some similarities there from a mechanical standpoint that Jerry Depoto and company really like and It's not just the cutter he throws. I mean he has a fastball that reaches ninety five miles an hour. The cutters around ninety one also adds in a sinker curve and in a occasional change up as well. That's a pretty good arsenal for a righty reliever, and I think there really is a lot to work with there, which I think is what the Mariners are aiming for in this signing, something to sort of mold in a low leverage situation. As you probably have your high leverage guys for next year, as long as you know you might go sign one more and Got who knows. As we've seen the development could get into that spot. But for a low leverage guy, you're banking on some upside here and I see it. I absolutely see it. 00:07:32 Speaker 2: Casey Sadler, Paul Sewald, Eric Swanson, Penn Murphy, all right handers that have been successful in this bullpen. Could Trevor Got be the next guy? It's possible, and I'm guessing they signed him with the intention of doing so, so we'll see how he progresses once the season gets going. So Trevor Gott's on the roster, a guy that is not yet on the roster, but is certainly familiar with the Pacific Northwest. Michael CONFORDO. He's popped up in Mariner's rumors this week. He missed all of twine with a shoulder injury, but he's looking to sign with the ball club this year. Guy that's been a really good offensive player most of his career and a guy that's from Redmond, Washington Mariners are on his list. Do we like this fit assuming he's going on going after a short prove it deal. 00:08:19 Speaker 1: I like the fit. If he's your third best outfielder, I like it. So if we look back to his twenty twenty one season two thirty two three forty four, three point eighty four slash line a one oh six WRC plus was worth one and a half fangrafts wins, He's about an average just slightly above average defender in a corner outfield spot, which is what the Mariners would want. Right now, they have one corner outfield spot absolutely lockdown. They have center field locked down for the next twenty years. Maybe not twenty years, but you get the point. But the other spot is Jared Kelnick, who is unproven for a full season at the major league level right now, and you would prefer that spot if you're not going to sign one of these free agent shortstops, to also be an above average bat, and that's what Michael Confordo gives you. He's got a career WRC plus of one twenty four in his last four full seasons, has had a walk rate of above twelve percent, things Jerry Depoto loves when he's looking at a hitter. 00:09:25 Speaker 2: Those are all positives. Again, this guy has been a plus bat all of his career, even in twenty twenty one, which most people would consider a down year for him because his ops plus was right at league average of one hundred. Final two months of the year he started to turn it around. So he had a bad first half in twenty twenty one, and then he figured it out and returned to his usual form. Here's where I stand, though, and this is why I'm a little bit hands off with the Confordo deal. Again. He is likely going to look for a one year contract to try and prove it and then hit free agency and get more money after the twenty twenty three season. If you have Michael Confordo and Tioscar Hernandez on this roster two really good bats, but then all of a sudden they're both free agents at the end of the year. Do you want to go back to the drawing board again just one season from now and have to find new outfielders in back to back seasons. That doesn't seem like the world's greatest process. 00:10:21 Speaker 1: So if you're saying Lyle, if you were saying, yes, they should sign Brandonimo, it's like, Okay, well, yes, I agree with you, because I think Brandonimo in a multi year deal would be a better deal than Michael Confordo if we're talking about a solidified spot. But what I would like most about this is you can form it like this. You can put Michael Confordo and Tioscar Hernandez in the corners. You can put one of them at DH and put a better athlete in Jared Kellnick out in the outfield and let him play almost every single day. Because something that we haven't even mentioned with this is that the Mariners also need a DH. They need better dhs than they had last year. Dhs were awful. They were among the three worst positions on the team. So if you can have one of these corner outfielders in that DH spot, even if it's on a one year deal, rotating through and playing matchups or however they decide to do it. I think that has value in of its own. 00:11:18 Speaker 2: Look, Michael Canfordo the player I really like. I think he'd be a great addition to the roster. I think he improved the offense. He actually plays above average defense for the most part, in the corner outfield spots like you mentioned. I would just feel better about it. If they could get him to agree to even a two year deal compared to a one year. 00:11:37 Speaker 1: Deal, that'd be interesting. You'd probably have to overpay for that, you would What would you be comfortable giving him off his injury? You know, we don't know how healthy he is to be honest, I mean they're going to do medicals on him, but how is that you know, shoulder surgery he had going to affect him. I don't know. Is he a different player where we would have to see. I don't think the Mariners would give him two years. I think if Brandon Nimo signs and is off the market in Michael Conforto is your last maybe good option there. I think you just have to bite the bullet and do a one year deal, you'd have to. 00:12:14 Speaker 2: If Nimo's still on the market when you sign Confordo. So with this, are you suggesting that they could sign Conforto and still either go after Neimo or bring back Mitch Hannigher Or do you think if they signed Confordo they're done in the outfield? 00:12:27 Speaker 1: No, I think Nimo should be your top priority. If you're actually looking to get a really, really good outfielder. If you want the best, go get Brandon Nimo. We're not messing around with that. But let's say Nimo's off the market and you really think that you need to add a corner outfielder, and you'd be comfortable giving a one year deal out. I would be very happy with Michael Confordo in that spot. I'd also be very happy with Mitch Haniger in that spot, but it doesn't sound like he will be. There's nothing, sort of no momentum towards Mitch returning to Seattle at this moment. 00:13:02 Speaker 2: There's not with Mitch. But to be fair, the Mariners keep everything pretty internal and don't usually leak sources, so it could happen tomorrow with no previous information, just out of the blue. 00:13:11 Speaker 1: But so again and I'd be very happy about it if that was the case. 00:13:17 Speaker 2: So if they signed Conflorido, just to be clear, you don't think Nimo's going to be on their radar anymore. 00:13:24 Speaker 1: No, But again I said Nimo should go be first because I think Nimo would be a perfect table setter for this team. We're gonna later on down the line break down the profile of branded Nimo in a little more in depth than we are right now. But if Nimo is not on the market, he's not there, then I would be fine with Michael Confordo. But first I would go after the best talent you possibly can because you have money to spend. So there there, you know, a whole bunch of different ways to go with this, and that's what makes this so interesting. And you know, well, we might spend more time talking about how Jared Keelnick works to all this as well, But I think it would be a good option because they need bats and Michael Conforto is absolutely a bat. Speaking of bats, let's get into our free agent preview of this week. Our in depth free agent preview opposed to the more brief look at the Mariners. Checking in at Michael Conforto this week, we'll take a look at the former Atlanta Braves shortstop Dan spy Swanson, coming off a career year hitting two seventy seven three point twenty nine, a one sixteen WRC plus and one of the best defenders in all of baseball? Lyle, how does he fit on this roster? 00:14:39 Speaker 2: Do you want to start with the positives or the negatives here? Oh? 00:14:43 Speaker 1: I'm always a big positives first guy. 00:14:46 Speaker 2: Yes, you are okay. He had a great season in twenty twenty two. It was the best season of his career. Like you mentioned, is f War when you look at Fangrafts was over six. It was six point three. His Baseball Reference War was just under six at five point seven. And you mentioned his defense. This guy, by outs above average was the second best defender in all of baseball. He only trailed Jonathan Scope. This was a career year, not just offensively, but defensively for him as well. So for what he did in twenty twenty two, this was a guy that was great on both sides of the ball. 00:15:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the thing that was I think curious about his defense. Baseball Savant loves his defense. That the outs above average for his entire career if we just go back at five years here, ninety second percentile seventieth, ninety ninth, seventy eighth, one hundredth this year, I mean a top thirty percent defender at the very minimum, if not the best in baseball, at the most difficult defensive position in baseball. And then I looked at fangrafts and they weren't as big of a fan with his defense, which I thought was curious. If we just go with his defensive runs backwards lyile nine negative seven nine, negative two nine, negative four and two, which raised an eyebrow, seems like I'm gonna have to do some film study on Dansby. Swanson's defense. 00:16:18 Speaker 2: Almost sounds like JP Crawford because I saw the same thing where he was elite one year, and then the next year metrics wise, he did not grade well at all. 00:16:28 Speaker 1: And I guess we'll have to see and that's not defense isn't something that necessarily gets better as you age. And another curious thing about his defense, he's his arm strength rated by Baseball SAT not very good at that shortstop spot. He is in the bottom fifteen percent of baseball in terms of throwing the ball across the diamond. Which I thought was interesting for someone who grades that well as a defender. But that speaks to good, good fundamentals and good being in the right place position as well. Let's take a look at his bat a high average this year, not the biggest slugger in the world for forty seven slugging percentage, a bit down from his past years, but regardless when he wants to, he does hit the ball well. Twenty five home runs this season for Dansby Swanson. You know, as in terms of shortstop power, Lyle, I would think that's pretty good. Not quite the Carlos Korea power or the maybe the upside power of Trey Turner, but there's some good stuff there when he makes contact. 00:17:36 Speaker 2: His power has just gone up over time. This guy's hit fifty two home runs in the last two years. You said he had twenty five this year for a guy that doesn't a first look profile as a guy that looks like he'd have a lot of power, but he's really developed into that over the last couple of seasons, and he's really developed as a player over time. So his power's gone up. His hard hit rates continued to go up over time, which is usually a positive. That you like to see if you're a club, you rank pretty well in that category this year. He's also always on the field, I mean, for as basic of a number in stat as you want. He's missed only two games in the last two years, So you have to like that that he seems to take pretty good care of his body. 00:18:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw that stat too. And playing shortstop most importantly, not like you're playing first base or or dhing or playing a corner outfield spot for all those times you know, you're playing like the captain on the field for all but two games over the course of two seasons. Is the most impressive thing I think I saw with Dan Sby Swanson. He's also got good speed as well, good on the bass pads. But now we can get into some more things I'm concerned about with Dan Sby Swanson as we look at sort of his profile as a player. He swings at a lot of pitches, and his contact rate is really not as good as you would like it for sort of the contact profile if you're just looking at I got into these stats last week with Trey Turner about swinging at pitches inside and outside the zone. He's at about league average in both of those spots. The problem is he makes contact less than league average, at about five percent less, and for a guy who's aging and bats slowing down, that leads to some more strikeouts. And you look on here, his walk rate goes down, his whiff rate goes up as the years go along. So just a thing to look at with Danzby Swanson is it's just not something that seems quite as sustainable in that product. 00:19:43 Speaker 2: And Trey Turner seemed to sustain it better than he has, because we talked about it last week. You just mentioned it a minute ago. Turner would swing at a lot of strike or at a lot of pitches outside the zone. He's a little bit of a free swinger, but he seemed to manage it better and make up for it at times better than Swanson has outside of this year. Yeah, and for a Mariners team that's very big on dominating the zone and drawing walks, it's not always Dansby's forte. He swings it all. He's a free swinger. He swings at a lot of pitches. Guys like Ayu Hannio Suarez strike out, but he also walks a lot, so he makes up for it as time goes on. I don't know how much Dansby would really do that along with the fact that he already doesn't walk a whole ton. 00:20:30 Speaker 1: And there's a couple other things, not even just his walkerate. Not that he doesn't walk a ton, and he walks at about seven percent, which is below league average, but I think there's also some numbers about this past season which makes me a little more nervous about him in a little more prone to regression. We brought it, We've brought up batting average on balls and play before, but his bab at this past season was pretty high. It was at three forty eight babbit this past season, and that's the highest out of any non shortened, non COVID shortened season of his career. His other highest was a three hundred babbit in twenty nineteen. Well, that raised my eyebrow too, So you know, it seems to it if you look at his Fangrafts page. I think it had a big part in inflating his stats a little bit, especially his average. I know we don't talk about average as much, but he hit about two forty last year and was a below average player and with sort of the same peripherials had a better season this year. 00:21:39 Speaker 2: It's a huge concern. Again, the two best offensive seasons he's had in his career are totally spiked by good luck, because when you have a high batting average on balls and play, that means you are very, very lucky throughout the course of the season, because batting average on balls and play isn't sustainable for any player, not just Dansby Swanson. And in both twenty twenty and twenty twenty two his BABBIT was very high, and that's a little concerning, along with the fact that he's a guy that already swings and misses a decent amount. 00:22:12 Speaker 1: So I have I wrote down the numbers here Lyle, just to give a little bit of perspective this year last year, how similar sort of hits rates were that would profile success, and yet his results were completely different last year. Essentially a league average player ninety nine WRC plus had a worse walk rate in twenty twenty two, had a worse k rate in twenty twenty two. He hit the ball on a line drive slightly better one percent better, had a ground ball rate about the same thirty nine percent last year forty percent this year, you know, equal about hard hit rate, etc. There was a lot of things the same. But he was a one to sixteen WRC plus player this year, and we're saying, well, he had one of the best seasons of his career, but he had about the same rates last year in a lot of these categories and he was below average. 00:23:05 Speaker 2: So I've got it. 00:23:07 Speaker 1: Baseball is a fickle game. It is a It is a fickle game. 00:23:11 Speaker 2: I've got a stat to throw out at you. 00:23:13 Speaker 1: Oh, I love stats. 00:23:16 Speaker 2: You just talked about his WRC plus, and I'll throw his ops plus into this too, because he put up a one to fifteen ops plus this year, which was the best mark of his career. It's surpassed twenty twenty, which is one eleven, which, by the way, isn't that high above league average. Fifteen percent above league average is considered good. It's not great, not for a guy that's expected to be paid like Carlos Korea and Trey Turner are. So check this out. His ops plus was one fifteen. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:23:45 Speaker 2: Dylan Moore's my guy demo. By the way, if you listen to this podcast, you'll learn over time two guys. I'll always go to bat four on this pod. Dylan Moore, Jarret Keelnick Dylan Moore put up a one twenty two ops plus. Meanwhile Sam Haggerty one fifteen, so smaller sample size for both More and Haggerty, but same rate or better than what Danzby Swanson did. Offensively, I don't know. I don't know if I want to pay twenty five twenty six million dollars a year to a guy that offensively isn't much better on paper than those. 00:24:18 Speaker 1: Two MLB trade rumors perdicts a seven year, one hundred and fifty four million dollar contract with Dansby that would be projected the smallest contract of the four short stops, and looking at his profile combined with his age, I think I would agree that's probably about right. I think odds are he's going to be back with the Atlanta Braves, but you never know, obviously, you really do never know how the market will shake out. What's really interesting, though, I really did enjoy diving into Dan sbying sort of peeling back the layers a little bit on the kind of player he is former number one overall pick. And speaking of Dan, this happened literally just before we hit record Lyle, I don't know if you saw this the man that he was traded for from Arizona to Atlanta just signed with the Dodgers, Shelby Miller. So I thought that was pretty ironic, with a little bit of a throwback with the original trade that sent Dansby Swanson, the former number one overall pick of the Diamondbacks, to Atlanta for Shelby Miller. And knowing some Diamondbacks fans, they man that one, that one stung a little bit. 00:25:32 Speaker 2: Oh it's things, And Shelby Miller hasn't thrown many innings since what twenties? Since then, I mean the last five seasons, he's barely been on the field, So I mean the Dodgers are just buying low on him, but we'll see where he ends up. Again, there's a lot to like about Dansby. There's also a fair share of concerns, and I think there's a reason he probably profiles for the lowest contract of the four big shortstops. But we'll see where he lands, because we know the hot stove's gonna get hot as the weeks go on here, and he is certainly right in that mix. Let's transition into our MLB wrap around here. Our first topic, TJ I'd say a pretty big topic because it concerns maybe the biggest name in this free agent class. Aaron Judge took a meeting with his hometown San Francisco Giants. He was caught on video pretty shortly after getting into the Bay Area, spotted in northern California. Video and viral. Giants players have been talking him up on social media, trying to recruit him, and he's considering their offer and what they have to say. Do we think this happens? 00:26:48 Speaker 1: I think after the Yankees, this is the best fit for Aaron Judge. He's from Lynden, California, which is about an hour and a half away from the Bay Area in San Francisco. It's little under one hundred miles away near Stockton. That's where he grew up. He went to Fresno State. He's a California guy through and through. So in the end, I mean, you think about New York, It's like, well, he could want legacy in New York, but if he really wants to be home and be around family, the Giants are where he's going to want to be. They will absolutely pay him. They only have twenty four million dollars or sorry, twenty million dollars on the books for the twenty twenty four season. That's it, just twenty million dollars they can afford the projected contract of him, which back to MLB trade rumors, predicts eight years, three hundred and thirty two million dollars for Aaron Judge. He would be the second highest paid player on average of all time. 00:27:49 Speaker 2: That's ridiculous. He's worth it, but that's just such a crazy contract. The Giants, like you said, they have the resources to give it out. The only thing I'm thinking about if I'm Aaron Judge is the Yankees seem to be in a much better position to win than the Giants, because the Giants won over one hundred games in twenty twenty one, where every single player on that team overperformed to expectation and they all regrets to the mean. In twenty twenty two, the team went five hundred. I don't think they're an Aaron Judge away from being a World Series contender. 00:28:21 Speaker 1: Now. 00:28:21 Speaker 2: Money talks, and maybe that isn't the biggest deal in the world to Aaron Judge, but it's just something to think about that they're probably gonna need to do some additional adding in order to get themselves into real world Series contention. 00:28:35 Speaker 1: And at but lyle adding a guy who just had one of the best offensive seasons of all time eight three eleven four to twenty five six eighty six slash line two oh seven WRC plus sixty two home runs, which is an American League record. That is a massive impact on a lineup, no matter which roster you add it to. Not as good of a hitting in vironment there at Oracle Park on the Bay of San Francisco, But nonetheless he would be handsomely paid. And in the end, it is going to come down to money. I heard this point made while I was doing the research on this from some New York sports talk radio about what Aaron Judge really wants. Does he want his legacy, Does he want that ninety nine in maybe in Monument Park. Does he want his ninety nine up in the on the wall of Yankee Stadium next to all the other all time greats. Or does he want the big paycheck and be close at a home That's the big question to be asked here. 00:29:36 Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not saying don't pay him. If the Giants have the chance to get Aaron Judge, you'd do it. I'm just saying that can't be the only move they make, because that would be a better version of the Rocky signing Chris Bryant, so to speak, because that one piece just isn't going to change the direction of their franchise. It can certainly turn it, it just can't change it. They're going to need more guys than that. 00:29:58 Speaker 3: Well. 00:29:58 Speaker 1: They're also pretty good at drafting and developed too, so I think, as you know, FOREI anxiety the President of Baseball operation goes. I think they will develop a little bit better. They need quite a lot, but again, they have the resources, they have the front office, they have the as we like, analytical mindset to sort of progress forward and develop some guys and have a good all around roster. Yeah. And while by the way, not only are other Giants recruiting Aaron Judge, Steph Curry, Chris Mollen and E. Forty also were recruited to pitch to Aaron Judge as well. So I think that'll work out. 00:30:38 Speaker 2: I was gonna ask if you saw that Steph Curry was recruiting them along with all those other Giants players. 00:30:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, I did a little bit. It makes sense. Why, I mean, why not? Why not that's about as slam dunk as you could do. I don't know why you wouldn't Why you wouldn't do that? 00:30:58 Speaker 2: Is e forty about to make sequel for Bang Bang Niner Gang only the sequence one to Aaron Judge, Like make an Aaron Judge walk up song for him if he comes to San Francisco. 00:31:08 Speaker 1: I think that would be good. I think that's what they should do. I agree, I absolutely think that's what they should do. Yeah. Well, this is the time of year for teams to get better. The Giants are looking to get better, and we can transition down south. Something that really just stabbed me in the heart when we saw this yesterday. The Houston Astros have signed former All Star and former twenty twenty al MVP Jose Abreu to a three year, fifty eight and a half million dollar contract for the next again three seasons. Lyle, this hurts me because it's almost too good of a fit with the Astros. Almost too good. 00:31:51 Speaker 2: One of the Astros' weakest spots on their World Series roster was first base. This team won one hundred and six games last year. Yuli Gurriel put up a war of negative oz point three, so he actually lost this team games last year. He's now off the roster and they immediately replace him with a guy who's won an MVP, is an offensive catalyst, and put up four and a half wins last year. So the roster is not going to be exactly the same in twenty three as it was in twenty two. But if you simply just take Guriel out and put Jose abray You in, it'll add four and a half wins because his war his war was four point two last year. Guriel's was negative oh point three, So that would add four and a half wins to this team. It's just ridiculous, And like you said, it's a seamless fit. Because they needed a first baseman, they got one of the best guys. 00:32:43 Speaker 1: So now that lineup, however, you're going to sort it out. Altuve, Payna, Alvarez, Bregman, Tucker a Bray You I mean, just you know, the Mariners make a move to get significantly better and they trade for Tasko Hernandez, and then the Astros say, okay, we'll do the exact same thing at a position that we desperately need it. Jose Abrau coming off a really good season. You mentioned the four point two wins above replacement. He really changed his approach this year. He went for more of an average and walk approach this year than a power approach. A career low nine fifteen sorry home runs, three oh four, three seventy eight, four forty six slash line in a one thirty seven WRC plus and one of the best hitting ballparks for right hand hitters in baseball. I mean, how do they do it? 00:33:34 Speaker 2: That guy is gonna take such advantage of the Crawford boxes day in and day out. I mean, for a guy that hit fifteen home runs in Chicago now to go see him play in Houston, man, And part of me wonders if they're gonna go after Wilson Contreras to this offseason because this is a team that usually does not spend a ton of money. Their payroll isn't terrible, but it's not through the rooms either. Then by terrible, I mean it's not insanely low. They still have more room to spend. And catcher is another weak spot. I mean, are they gonna go get one of the best catchers in baseball too? 00:34:12 Speaker 1: That wouldn't surprise me. That really wouldn't surprise me. The thing about the Astros roster. It's really it's so home grown. And that's the Mariners are trying to morph themselves after the Astros more so than moreph themselves off a team that builds on free agency. But it doesn't mean you can't sign players, right, And that's exactly what they're gonna do, and it'll I'm gonna be still frustrated if we're gonna be sitting here on this podcast talk about Wilson Contrere's and Jose Bray you being Houston Astros, because if the Marritors are gonna close the gap, that also requires the Astros getting worse, not them getting better, which this fit is them getting them getting worse, sorry, them getting better unfortunately. And yeah, the thing, maybe the most annoying thing lyle is he's not even gonna have to hit for much power to hit home runs in that park. You mentioned the Crawford boxes. You don't need to be a power hitter to hit into those Crawford boxes, you don't. You just need to hit a fly ball. That's it. Flyballs, some backspin and O'll take care of itself exactly. 00:35:15 Speaker 2: Again, the reason we bring up the Wilson Contreras trade or Wilson Contrera's potential free agent signing is because they almost traded for them at the deadline back in July. Fell through, but it almost happens, So it makes me think there's probably interest there. And this week we hear they have interest in Brandon Nemo too, So Jeff Passing tweeted, the Astros are inevitable. I describe playing them all season like trying to take down Thanos, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. As we transition into our final MLB wrap around topic, from a team that continues to develop their roster and build their organization at a positive rate and a rate that just continues to get better and better, team that maybe he doesn't do it as well, the Pittsburgh Pirates, they do make him move this offseason. They go and sign Carlos Santana, former Mariner, one year deal a little over six million dollars, So they spent something. 00:36:15 Speaker 1: When I saw this signing, I didn't think much of it. I good for Carlos, right, He's gonna get seven million dollars. He's the most shifted on player in baseball last year. He's gonna play in a pretty good hitters Park, very nice setting, and his offense I would imagine will come up with the shift being gone and him being affected a lot by the shift. But then I'm just scrolling Twitter and I see this tweet saying in quote, this is the largest amount of guaranteed money the Pirates have handed out in free agency since twenty sixteen, six point seven million dollars. What almost fell on the floor. It's Jason. The last contract they gave out that was that large was two years, eleven million dollars to Daniel Hudson before the twenty seventeen season. Like wow, I didn't think like it was possible for teams to continue being this cheap nowadays, but man, oh Man, six point seven million dollars is the largest, the largest. 00:37:28 Speaker 2: Let's call this team what they are. They're the Oakland Days with a nice stadium. 00:37:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is That's spot on. 00:37:40 Speaker 2: They're the Oakland A's with a nice stadium. It doesn't get talked about enough because the A's are just poster boys in terms of cheap franchises in baseball. Parents do not spend any money, and they've had so many good players on their roster throughout the last six or seven years. They had Garrett Cole gave them away had Yeah, I mean they had Brian Reynolds, another guy they're talking about trading away. They had Andrew McCutcheon, didn't re sign him, Like they don't keep any of their guys. 00:38:11 Speaker 1: Tywne Glass now Austin Meadows all by the way, Shane Bawse, like, we could keep going, We could keep going. It's it's just so sad. It is so I feel bad for Pirates fans. I get good signing. Congratulations, it's a good signing, but just to know that you're you know, the ownership will probably not spend anything more than that to make your roster better for a team that's you know, rebuilding, but could also use some complimentary pieces around their young core, and they won't do it. It's crazy, like teams get what sixty seventy million dollars of revenue share at least, if not more, I don't know the exact number, but they get a pretty good chunk of revenue sharing from the big market teams. The Yankees give a lot of money, the Red Sox, the Cubs, the Mariners have a great TV deal. I'm sure they have to give quite a bit of their revenue sharing away as well. But then there are teams who just don't spend what they get, and it's really it's unfortunate. It is unfortunate. Feel bad for Pirates fans, But I think you'll enjoy Carlos Santana, good clubhouse guy, and I think we'll hit pretty well this year with the new rules in place. Let's transition away from baseball. It's time to speak your mind. 00:39:36 Speaker 3: Speak your mind. Spok that would be unwise. What is necessary is never unwise. 00:39:47 Speaker 1: Up first for me on speak your mind again, usually not baseball related subjects. This is not baseball related, just sort of whatever we feel like talking about. And I don't even see this sub until today, Lyle. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's divorce has been finalized, and this number really blew my mind away. Kanye is gonna have to pay two hundred thousand dollars a month in child support. So my message here is to decide carefully who you decide to marry, because it could be expensive if you don't. Two hundred thousand dollars a month, and that's. 00:40:27 Speaker 2: How much is that for him these days? Because obviously the guy's made a ton of money throughout his career, But how much does he still have? Like, is his net worth still pretty high? 00:40:39 Speaker 1: Because like a like yeasy is at least officially with Adidas done, no other shoe company would go. He lost what a billion dollars off his valuation in a span of a week. So yeah, I don't know. I hope he's got a lot tied up in real estate now, that's for sure, is man? Oh man? I don't know how much of his liquid is left. That was really a crazy number that I saw. I don't know if that's like the official number. I just saw that scrolling on Twitter, but it sounds about right. For a relationship of that magnitude and that much wealth combined between the two folks, that was pretty crazy. 00:41:21 Speaker 2: That is nuts. Again, that's money that I certainly don't have, let's put it that way. 00:41:27 Speaker 1: Correct, correct, But you also don't have children, so you don't have to worry about that. 00:41:31 Speaker 2: Well, that's true my speak my mind. I only have one this week. It sounds like you have a couple. More so, now that Thanksgiving's over, we've transitioned to I guess what we would call the Christmas season and the winter holiday season. I don't usually do that much for it. The one thing I usually do is watch the Home Alone movies because one I loved him growing up, and two they're always on TV. I'm sitting there watching them this weekend because they were on and I just if I see him on TV, I'm usually gonna sit and probably watch most of it through. I love the movies. Harry and Marv are the two worst villains of all time. Have you ever watched these movies? 00:42:11 Speaker 1: I think I've watched the original Home Alone more than the others. 00:42:15 Speaker 2: Okay, so two is honestly my favorite, which may be a hot take, but I just think it's that much more ridiculous, and the pranks are that much more out of this world that I guess. I just think it's hilarious. So the premise in this movie is the two bad guys. It's the same bad guys from the first movie. They escape prison, find their way to New York. They're trying to rob a toy store so then they can take a bunch of cash and just fly to a foreign country and get off the grid. Basically. And Kevin, who's the main character, he's like this ten year old kid. He catches them, and he's trying to stop him from doing so, and he sets up a bunch of traps obviously at this house, but he catches them at this toy store it's like blocks and blocks away and gets them to chase him all the way back to where we set up all these traps. And I just can't under I know, it's a movie, right, and I'm way over analyzing, like a PG movie that's supposed to be like a feel good Christmas story, But I just sit there watching these guys run around New York City at like one o'clock in the morning on Christmas Eve doing everything they can to get payback on this ten year old kid. And I'm thinking to myself, why don't you just get on the plane and fly away like you said you were going to do, because they collected a bunch of money and instead of just going to the airport, they spend hours trying to chase around this kid and they end up again having it blow up in their face. So, I mean, I love the movie, but they are the worst and probably dumbest villains of all time. 00:43:48 Speaker 1: Do you watch any Thanksgiving specific movies? 00:43:52 Speaker 2: Not really. We used to watch the Charlie Brown Special a lot. We haven't done that in a couple of years. Though. 00:43:57 Speaker 1: Plane Streets and Automobiles is an all time classic every single Thanksgiving. It's it's very quotable, So I recommend that less no silly villains than that one. Just some just some hardy chuckles. You know. I'll have to go back and watch the original. Uh, the original Diehard I haven't seen. I haven't seen it in a while. Maybe that'll be a this Christmas thing. Okay, I have two more. Again, I probably over prepare for these things, but there's some things that I really just need to comment on or need to just get your reaction to. I know we've both been following the World Cup. I totally forgot how just absolutely batshit some of these press conferences are with especially the one between the United States in Iran before the US one earlier today one nil against Iran to advanced to the knockout round. But I saw some of these questions that the United States had to feeld from some of these reports. I'm just gonna read this one to you. One of the Iranian reporters asked US coach Greg Burhalter, quote, sport is something that should bring nations closer together. And you're a sportsperson. Pause, why is it that you should not ask your government to take its military fleet away from the Persian Golf. I was like, whoa, Okay. It's like Greg's like, yeah, okay, Joe, I think we need to move. We need to move, the need to move the two aircraft carriers away from the Persian Golf and move them farther out into the ocean. Like it just some just crazy questions that are asked in that in that press conference. 00:45:44 Speaker 2: I was gonna say, Greg Burhalter should have just responded and said, yeah, man, let me just make a call here real quick, because I can make that happen. Like what. 00:45:55 Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's not the only subject that came off. They asked Tyler Adams about out, you know, racism in the United States and stuff like that. I mean, it's just some of the questions that are asked. You think the New York media asked some tough questions. When you go play a game in New York, or you play sports and your hear Yankee euro met et cetera, go play in the World Cup, that's really gonna get everyone riled up. If you want to ask a tough question. Okay, last thing this came up yesterday, which I actually wasn't even gonna include until maybe two minutes before this podcast started. I was scrolling on Twitter, saw it and said, oh yeah, this is going in Lyle. Deshaun Kaiser was a Green Bay packer in twenty eighteen. I'm gonna quiz you. What was the first thing Aaron Rodgers asked Deshaun Kaiser about. 00:46:49 Speaker 2: I can't remember. I don't know if I saw this yet or not. 00:46:53 Speaker 1: Okay, Deshaun Kaiser walks into the walks into the quarterback room and some pretense here, Aaron Rodgers, if you don't need to look that hard to see how he thinks. He's a very He's a free thinker, to say the least. Deshaun Kaiser walks into the quarterback room, sits down. Aaron walks up to him. I think he has a look on his face. DeShawn thinks he did something wrong. And the words out of Aaron Rodgers' mouth the first words in the quarterback room ready to go over tape? Do you believe? In nine to eleven? First thing? And I saw that I saw Kaiser go on that podcast and talk about it, and where I'm sitting there watching that, like, wow, it's you know, Aaron sometimes will give up these things on his own, but then to hear the secondhand perspective of it is pretty crazy to have a teammate that you've never met before just walk up to you and ask you that. Because I thought that was that's pretty insane. Nice job. 00:48:00 Speaker 2: I haven't seen this yet. So what was the next question to Aaron? Ask him do you drink water made out of clay? And if not, you're fired. 00:48:09 Speaker 1: I don't remember if he said that, but he said, just make sure to, you know, do some thorough research on nine to eleven. There's some differing opinions on what happened. It's like, okay, Aaron, thank you, yep, yep, thank you. I'll get right to that. I'll do it before my film study. Here's what that man is. He's an odd ball. He is an audible well. 00:48:32 Speaker 2: And it's so interesting because this didn't really start till about this time last year, I want to say, maybe a little bit before, Like he didn't go totally off the rails with all his takes till I would say a little over a year ago. For most of his career. He didn't say anything that crazy, but all of a sudden, I guess he's kind of gotten too his fuck it phase of his career and said, yeah, I mean, I'm just gonna say whatever I'm feeling in his mind. 00:49:02 Speaker 1: Yeah he is. He would be great for this segment. Oh god, we could do a whole episode on that and that would be hilarious. What his immunized comment was the one that really set it off. I think that's when it all went into a tailspin and in his personal life got shed in a little bit more of a public life. I think maybe we should have looked into this just maybe a little bit more. When you hear the story that he doesn't talk to any of his family anymore, not a single person, not his mom, not his dad, not his brother, he does not talk to any of them, and you think, hmm, like straight up, just now, I'm never seeing you again. Maybe that should have raised an eyebrow. And then you hear him open his mouth and you're like, yeah, kind of makes sense. Now, kind of makes sense. Imagine Thanksgiving at their table, could you imagine? 00:49:57 Speaker 2: No, I mean, it would be like the Michael Scott. It would be like the Michael Scott and Toby scene in the office where Michael Scott is just giving Toby the deaths there for twenty seconds straight. 00:50:09 Speaker 1: He picks up the bowl of cranberry sauce and he's like, where did these cranberries come from? Are there are there chips in here? 00:50:21 Speaker 2: Are there? 00:50:22 Speaker 1: Are there? Are there micro chips? Is the government gonna something like that? I don't know that. I would pay money to be a fly on the wall at one of their final thanksgivings that they had together before he blocked them. All that would have been. That would have been unbelievable. And Thanksgiving is contentious enough when people do all get along, but let alone when you have Aaron Rodgers out here asking if you believe in nine to eleven? So just uh things to consider there with with Aaron Rodgers, go ahead. 00:50:54 Speaker 2: Credit to you for being a social media savant and being active because I hadn't seen that yet, but you were on it. 00:51:00 Speaker 1: I don't know how you didn't see that former Notre Dame quarterback, one of your favorites. 00:51:03 Speaker 2: I know, I know. All right, Well now I'm gonna have. 00:51:05 Speaker 1: To go watch Okay, Well, it won't take that much research to go find but it's uh, it's pretty eye opening to watch on that when he spoke, so that I'll do it for this episode of The Marine Layer Podcast. You can find this podcast on all of your podcasts listening platforms. You can find us on YouTube as well, short form content on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube shorts as well. Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram for all updates and such with this podcast. For Lyle Goltzki, I'm TJ. Matthewson. We'll talk to you next week on The Marine Layer Podcast