Episode 453: The Mariners Season Is Most Likely Over: What Now?

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number 453 of the Marine Layer podcast. The Mariners lose the series to the Sacramento A's. We'll react to that and to Michael Arroyo getting promoted to the big league roster. 00:00:11 Speaker 2: Reminder to you guys, before we start this podcast, just do us a big favor. Make sure to download these episodes and please go review five stars when you leave that five-star review and when you rate and review on wherever you listen to your podcast. Go hit subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. You can also find all of our stuff at our website, which is marinelayerpod.com. There's merch. There's Patreon. All our episodes are there. It's the whole one-stop shop. Again, marinelayerpod.com. And then find us all across social media. We're posting content every day at marinelayerpod. Let's get it rolling. 00:00:40 Speaker 1: Let's get it rolling. And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording here on Sunday afternoon, September 6th, before the final game of the series against the A's due to scheduling conflicts later in the day. But you know what? We watched the first three games of this series. I honestly don't even need to watch this final game of the series against the A's. 00:01:17 Speaker 2: Lyle, let me just say this. Season's over. 00:01:24 Speaker 1: The season is actually over now. 00:01:27 Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, I know we're recording a game early. TJ has a wedding to go to on Sunday night. But it doesn't matter if the Mariners win 20 to nothing here on Sunday. If they do, great. There's nothing about the topics of this podcast that are going to change. You know what? With the way the first three games have gone, why don't I just prepare myself an ode to the 2026 Mariners? How about that? Oh, really? Okay. 00:01:51 Speaker 1: Go for it. 00:01:53 Speaker 3: I will remember you. Will you remember me? 00:02:05 Speaker 2: Don't let your. 00:02:07 Speaker 3: Life pass you by. 00:02:12 Speaker 2: And weep not. 00:02:13 Speaker 3: For the memories. 00:02:18 Speaker 2: Yep. That's about all we got left to say. Give it up for Lyle. 00:02:23 Speaker 1: Woo! 00:02:25 Speaker 2: Bringing out the pipes on a Sunday afternoon. And they've earned it, too. 00:02:31 Speaker 1: So you said you will remember this team. What will they be remembered as? 00:02:37 Speaker 2: The team that had absolutely no sense of accountability or focus and had the most disappointing season in the history of the franchise and the worst American League West of all time and an awful American League and where you were expected to go to the World Series. 00:02:52 Speaker 1: Hard to believe this team had the second best World Series odds in baseball at the beginning of the year. And as of recording, they sit here 11 games out of under 500 and seven games out of first place in the division. On Wednesday's episode, or sorry, Friday's episode, we said this team had one more loss to the A's remaining this year. And then the season would be over. So they lost the opener. Then we recorded and said if they lose another game the rest of this season to the A's, It's over. Well, wow, they one-upped us. They lost two more games to the A's in between recording. 00:03:30 Speaker 2: Dude. And now here we are. 00:03:31 Speaker 1: And not only did they lose, they just lost in typical 2026 Mariners fashion. And I honestly think it's fitting that we're recording this after Saturday's game in which they let Jeffrey Springs... In his league low, 6.3 ERA. And I think before the game, 2-14 pitching record. Shut the Mariners out over seven innings. Well, two hits. He throws two pitches. A 91-mile-an-hour fastball and an 80-mile-an-hour changeup. And the Mariners backs up against the wall, lay down, and fell flat. 00:04:14 Speaker 2: I mean, he's coming off a start where he gave up seven earned in four and two-thirds against Baltimore. Then he went four and two-thirds before that with four earned runs against the Twins. And, dude, I mean, his ERA month by month, once you get past those first few starts he made in April, horrendous. But, oh, no, it doesn't matter. Mariner C, guy throwing baseball with left hand, it's over. And it was over on Saturday night. He shut them out. He absolutely carved them up, diced them apart, everything. 00:04:44 Speaker 1: I'm just going to be transparent with our listeners right now. If you're coming to this podcast looking for optimism that this team still has any sort of chance this year, you're in the wrong place. Because I honestly think it's over. 00:04:59 Speaker 2: What person is still, I'm sorry. 00:05:01 Speaker 1: You know there are still people. 00:05:06 Speaker 2: Now, like now after this weekend, there's still people who are like they have a chance. Come on. Yes. No, there's not. No, there's not. There are always people out there. Listen, I love all our listeners. I love all Mariners fans. Everybody can fan in whatever way they want to be a fan. We don't tell people how to do so. We've always said that. But if I'm taking my best guess here, come on. There are not still people looking for optimism for this season, for 2026. No, there's not. 00:05:33 Speaker 1: I mean, you read our comments this week. 00:05:35 Speaker 2: There are. That was three whole days ago. Then this A's series happened. 00:05:40 Speaker 1: I'm going to check our comments on this episode on Monday and see what the people think. 00:05:44 Speaker 2: By the way, the only reason is we're sitting here on Sunday late morning recording and they're not eight games out is because the Diamondbacks came back late in Saturday's game. The Mariners could easily be eight back and 11 unders were sitting here today. Not that seven back versus eight back at this point in the year really ever means that much, but I'm just saying. 00:06:04 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:06:07 Speaker 1: But there will be no sort of optimism on this podcast for the rest of the season. Not regarding the 2026 season. 00:06:14 Speaker 2: It's over. Unless we are talking about individual performances. We're going to get to Michael Arroyo here in a bit. If he starts to hit the ball well, there will be very positive talk about him. If Laz plays well in the final month of the season, there will be plenty of talk about him. But overall. 00:06:29 Speaker 1: I mean, Cal has been playing well the last handful of weeks. His offense looks like it is back in a healthier and more stable space. All of those things can 100% be true. But the team as a whole... in its biggest stretch of the season, where everyone is talking about, okay, the easy stretch is here. You've at least put yourself in position to go on a run with the soft, soft part of the schedule and let the Mariners just take care of business. They'll be totally fine. 00:06:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, no. 00:06:58 Speaker 1: I don't think, well, I think we all, again, just underestimated the ability of this team to just put up a goose egg against a team that you didn't think it was possible to put up a goose egg against in the worst team in baseball in the A's. but the Mariners might actually now be the worst team in baseball. 00:07:16 Speaker 2: I mean, when you're losing... Do we have proof otherwise? Over the last few weeks, Divish tweeted it, the only teams with worse records than them are the A's, Angels, and Rockies, and the way they've played against said teams, like the A's. I mean, what much... I mean, how much more can you say? What happened on Saturday night is truly... what was the nail in the coffin for the season. We can get to what happened after the game here in a minute, but during the game, what do you even say? A lifeless offensive performance. You were getting blanked by a guy with an ERA over six. Again, you had Weston Wilson in the starting lineup for games that are crucial down the stretch in September, who, again, Weston Wilson continues to be one of the worst players in Major League Baseball and is still on the roster here in September. 00:08:03 Speaker 1: Well, because Brennan Donovan is.... 00:08:06 Speaker 2: Well, dude, at this point, are they just going to shut Donovan down for the year? Is there a point to him coming back? 00:08:11 Speaker 1: I mean, probably not. You don't want to mess around with the concussion. So yeah, no, I honestly, why not? Why, why bring her back? That's a great question. Yeah. 00:08:20 Speaker 2: And, and to continue to pile onto this TJ, where is Taylor Ward's OPS plus now as a Mariner? 00:08:28 Speaker 1: Oh, it's, is it negative now? 00:08:30 Speaker 2: It is negative one, negative one. Hey, that was that was the trade deadline acquisition they all needed to put this team over the top. 00:08:43 Speaker 1: This this is how, you know, people always say the universe has a way of like balancing things out. Like if if there's like a bunch of bad, like if there's a bunch of bad things that happen to you in your life, like eventually something will balance out for the most part. This is like, it's like the opposite for the Mariners. Now, like the Mariners have like this magical genie in a bottle season with a 60 homer catcher that's never been done before. And the best trade deadline in Mariners franchise history last year, where they got Gino and Josh Naylor. And then they turn around this year and have their worst collective season as a franchise top to bottom. And then they have their worst trade deadline as well, where you couldn't, you didn't think that like Taylor Ward was going to blow your socks off, given that he hadn't been hitting home runs and Lyle at it. said, I mean, he's been 100 OPS plus bat the last four months, the last three months, so just don't expect him to light the world on fire, and I'm not buying into this. But even Lyle couldn't have expected that. Taylor Ward was going to be significantly worse than Rob Refsnyder as a Seattle Mariner. So what goes around comes around, Lyle, and all of the great things now, it seems like the Mariners did last year, on so many different fronts it just gets like totally reversed this. 00:10:00 Speaker 2: Year crashing back to earth an avalanche collapsing. 00:10:06 Speaker 1: What a great way to celebrate 50 seasons. 00:10:09 Speaker 2: By the way Not that Taylor Ward was supposed to just be a platoon hitter, but this does just speak volumes to the three rules TJ put out a few weeks ago for the Mariners moving forward. And one of them is no more right-handed platoon bats ever again. Nope, never. Yeah, no. 00:10:28 Speaker 1: No more trading for them at the deadline or signing them in the offseason. Get a right-handed bat who just plays every day. No more platoons. You know, maybe if... I get the opportunity. I can present my rule book to someone who might actually have an impact on the decisions. Maybe one day. 00:10:47 Speaker 2: Well, is that day coming soon? Because I would sit here and say, how does change not get made on an off day and an action day like this Monday after your most embarrassing series of the entire season? But they've proven time and time again that they have no interest in making change at any point during the year. 00:11:08 Speaker 1: Someone might come to you and say, well, change probably doesn't matter at this point. It's just done. So there's no point in doing it now because the season's already over. Like if you were going to make a change, it would have happened a while ago. 00:11:24 Speaker 2: And they had so many chances to do it and they never did it. So yeah, I guess at this point, they'll just wait it out. 00:11:29 Speaker 1: But so now all the Mariners can do the rest of the season is doing what all the other bad teams do. You sit all of your veterans and you let your young guys play. every opportunity. I know Cole Young's getting some well-earned days off because he's been just a workhorse for him all season long, playing in essentially every single game until very recently. But you give him every opportunity possible. You give Michael Arroyo every opportunity possible. You give Lazaro Montes every opportunity possible. You give Kate Anderson every opportunity possible. I know they're probably not going to do it now, But why not give Ryan Sloan every opportunity possible, too, if you feel like he could be ready for the big leagues? But you know why they're not going to do that? Because they don't ever want to risk the fact of him getting, A, rushed in his development, or B, not allowed to pitch next year if they miss any sort of spring training or games. 00:12:22 Speaker 2: And they're not going to want to start a service clock either. No, no, they're not. 00:12:25 Speaker 1: Not in a season like this. It would be, yeah, it would be malpractice at this point. Because playoffs are out of the question right now. So you're not bringing anyone up right now to try and help you win more games. In fact, it's probably better if the Mariners just keep losing from here on out to get a better lottery odds for a draft pick. That's just where they're at. And no longer, the best case scenario for the future of this franchise is winning games this year going to do that. I don't think it does that. That's loser talk right there. But I'm That's fine. The season's done. 00:13:02 Speaker 2: It's over. And as we always say, we are losers. We can have loser talk. 00:13:07 Speaker 1: Correct. 00:13:08 Speaker 2: Yeah. So I don't think the Mariners, like not, not even, I don't think the Mariners are not going to start tanking games, but you're right. The outcome of games being losses at this point, whatever, like it's fine. I mean, if your young players strap together some wins and it's on the back of their efforts, you know, if Kate Anderson throws six strong innings and Michael Arroyo and Laz drive in four combined runs and they find ways to win games like that, then yes, that will be helpful for these guys' development and the future of the team come next year. But you're too far out of it to climb your way back into it now. 00:13:45 Speaker 1: I totally agree. So, That's the point of the season we're at. I don't have any real optimism or any sort of positivity to share on this episode. I'm going to be completely honest. The last three games, whatever 1% shred that was left of us trying to spin something for this team this year, it's done. I'm done. Yeah. 00:14:11 Speaker 2: They are done. The season is over. 00:14:13 Speaker 1: They are done. 00:14:14 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:14:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:14:15 Speaker 2: So. 00:14:16 Speaker 1: I like good draft picks. Last time they picked high, worked out pretty well for them. 00:14:21 Speaker 2: Do we want to talk about what ensued after Saturday night's game? Because again, they played terribly on Friday, lost, played terribly on Saturday, lost, and then you had extracurriculars ensue on Saturday after the game. 00:14:32 Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. Before that, though, let's pause here for an ad. 00:14:38 Speaker 2: Let's compare two players. They're making similar contracts, but you have to pick one guy to be in your lineup. Player one hit 300. He had an 840 OPS and a 141 WRC +. 41% better than the league average. Player two hit 185. He had a 563 OPS and a 63 WRC +. So who would you pick? The clear answer is player A, right? Because Player A is 2025 Dominic Canzone and Player B is 2022 Abraham Toro. Well, you can apply that same logic to our friends over at Davis Law Group, who offer better service with even better results. 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That's dlgseattle.com slash baseball. 00:16:04 Speaker 1: So after Saturday's game in which they lost in embarrassing fashion and let Jeffrey Springs throw the seven shutout innings against them, and the offense was totally lifeless again against the worst pitching staff in baseball, wouldn't you assume that after the fact, someone would come out and say, well, this performance is unacceptable? 00:16:23 Speaker 2: Well, George Kirby said that. He said we got to get our heads out of our asses. So Kirby said it when he talked to the media postgame. Dan had his media session postgame, which ensued of him saying absolutely nothing and trying to just get off every subject of any somewhat pressing question he was asked about. But then, Teej... When the media was done with those guys, they were planning to go back into the clubhouse and talk to some players. 00:16:46 Speaker 1: And the players weren't there. Adam Jew tweets out that no Mariners hitters were available for post-game interviews. All had hustled out of the clubhouse before reporters were allowed in. 00:16:58 Speaker 3: Hmm. 00:17:01 Speaker 2: Hmm. 00:17:02 Speaker 1: So the answer to that question is no, no one came out and talked about how bad the offense was. 00:17:12 Speaker 2: Dude, of all the position players on this team, aside from Cal Raleigh, has a single one of them taken a lick of accountability all year? The two guys on the team I think about taking true accountability, Cal, and then if you want to look to the pitchers, Brian Wu. I guess Kirby had some quotes yesterday that were like, yeah, we're not playing well. I guess some of the pitchers, since they have to talk after their start days to the media, They'll have some quotes, but of the position players who don't go up to the podium and talk every day after the game, aside from Cal, have you heard a single position player take a lick of accountability for the season that's gone down? 00:17:49 Speaker 1: Not a satisfactory amount of accountability. Like, I will tell you that Julio's last major media session talking about the team and his gaffes did not feature much accountability at all when he's talking about being distracted in the outfield. That didn't have any accountability. Josh Naylor, your third highest paid player, never talks at all when he was, by the way, dogging out a ground ball in the seventh inning for a double play where you can hear the tone in Aaron Goldsmith's voice as Naylor gets thrown at first is like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. I'm not trying to put words into Goldie's mouth. I'm just going to guess what he was thinking in that moment. 00:18:32 Speaker 2: I mean, again, if you listen to the call of the double play, for good reason, he sounded like absolutely flabbergasted. 00:18:43 Speaker 1: He said, oh, the A's will get one, and then, oh, wait, nope, never mind, they'll get two. Yes. 00:18:48 Speaker 2: And again, we're not going to put words into Goldie's mouth, but if that's what he was thinking, I can't blame him because that's what everybody was thinking. 00:18:57 Speaker 1: And I'm not also not going to put words into Adam June's mouth, but... Adam's not going to just fire off tweets, essentially calling out Mariners players, unless he really thinks it's an issue, in my opinion. Knowing Adam and knowing how beat writers operate and keep a level of professionalism, because they have to cover these guys every single day. Therefore, they can't just take shots at them behind their back and expect to do their job well and get information. But the fact Adam says all hitters had hustled, hustled out of the clubhouse before reporters were allowed in, I think speaks volumes. The way Adam frames that tweet is that he, it seems like he is feeling that the players were dodging interviews, which I get. it's frustrating they'd probably rather say nothing than just say we suck for the thousandth time this season but you know what like there's a lot of highly paid veterans on this team and leaders of this team where someone needs to step up to the plate as the season has essentially ended and just say like I got to apologize. Like we're just, we're not good enough. Like, and we need to do everything possible to fix this in the future. Like you can start talking big picture. If it has to be Cal again, great. Cal can sit down there in the clubhouse and he can say, I think we all need to look in the mirror and reflect how we're going to not let this happen in the future. Because what we are currently doing is just not good enough. It is, it is unacceptable offensively, but instead, They're all gone. 00:20:42 Speaker 2: And then, yeah. And you know what? I don't really care if Cal's gone after the game because Cal is always the one to step up and talk. That is what leaders do. And Cal deserves a lot of credit for that. He has talked even in a season where it has been a season from hell for the guy. Even though, by the way, if you want to look toward the lens of positivity here for a second, Cal may actually end the season with an OPS plus and a WRC plus above 100 and 25 homers. For as bad as the first four months have gone, all of a sudden, maybe Cal's going to end his season with something to stand on, which would be nice for Cal. And I obviously would help him build on something for next year. 00:21:21 Speaker 1: But here's a question for you, dog. Who finishes the season with a higher WRC plus Cal Raleigh or Julio Rodriguez? 00:21:27 Speaker 2: Well, their OPSs are now within about 20 points of each other. 00:21:31 Speaker 1: Julio's at a 101 WRC plus. 00:21:35 Speaker 2: And Cal, I was looking at OPS plus for Cal. He's at about 94. 00:21:39 Speaker 1: Cal is at, Cal's currently at a 98 WRC plus on the season. Yeah. 00:21:47 Speaker 2: I have a Julio stat here in a minute, but as we're still talking about this post-game non-press conference debacle and the players rushing out of the clubhouse, again, I'm not going to get on Cal if, okay, he wasn't there on Saturday to talk. Cal always talks. Where is everybody else? Where is Naylor? Where's Randy? Where's Julio? Seriously. Like, Naylor really never talks. Like, ever. Have you, like, Naylor's done a couple of the walk-off interviews when they win this year. Dude, you're the team's $ 92. 5 million first baseman. You are a major reason the offense has not lived up to par this year, and you never hear from the guy. And by the way, for anybody. 00:22:32 Speaker 1: And he had the biggest gaffe of the game in the double play, where he knows... that in theory, if you're accountable, you would answer the question on why you weren't at first base on a play where you should not have been doubled off. 00:22:47 Speaker 2: Correct. 00:22:48 Speaker 1: My bad. My bad. I misjudged the play. 00:22:51 Speaker 2: By the way, do not, if you're listening to this and say to yourselves, whoa, why don't the beat reporters get in there and talk to Naylor? Believe me, guys, these beat reporters work really hard and they do their jobs really well. I promise you they have tried. And if you're not hearing from Naylor essentially all year, that's probably a Naylor thing. That's not a media is lacking effort to try to get him to talk. They do their jobs very well, all of them. That is a Josh Naylor thing. 00:23:25 Speaker 1: The way you talk to these players, just to peek behind the curtains, there's a couple of different opportunities. You either talk to them on the field, which isn't usually the beat writer route because like the clubhouse is, probably a better place to have a little bit more of a honest conversation with a player, especially if you want to do it off the record. The clubhouse is usually a better place for it, but reporters are only allowed in the clubhouse an hour for one hour pregame. And then whenever they open the clubhouse post game, but the way the post game works is that reporters will go from press box to interview room to hear from Dan and And then hear from usually the starting pitcher or whoever else is going to talk. And then they're allowed to go in the clubhouse and talk to whoever they didn't get. But you know, there's what, 30 minutes between the end of the game and when they can actually get into that clubhouse post-game? And if the players aren't there, then you can't talk to them. And I don't think Josh Naylor's handing his number out to reporters. Hey, hit me up if you have any questions. No, I don't think that's, I don't think he's doing that. 00:24:32 Speaker 2: And let me follow up on something with that too, because the hour in the clubhouse that the beat reporters get every day to go talk to the players is from, let's call it roughly 2 to 3 p.m. for a 6.40 or 7 o'clock game. That's roughly usually when it's open. But you also can't just go track these guys down anywhere and everywhere. You get to be like right at the front entrance of the clubhouse where it opens and you can see a lot of the players' lockers. But for example, if a player's In the weight room, you can't just go track them down and talk to them. If they're in the training room, you can't just go track them down and talk to them. If they're eating, you can't just go track them down and talk to them. If they're in the middle of a conversation with a bunch of their other teammates, you can't just go track them down and talk to them. They basically have to be sitting at their locker, not doing a lot, almost making themselves available for media to come up and talk to them. They know if they're just sitting at their locker on their phone not doing much, they're probably leaving themselves available for somebody to come up and talk to them. If Josh Naylor doesn't want to talk to the media, believe me, there are plenty of ways that he can avoid it when the media is allowed inside the clubhouse, whether it's he gets to the ballpark a little bit later or he's in the weight room at that time or he's in the training room at that time or he's eating at that time or he's in a meeting at that time. Believe me, there's ways you can dodge it. And the fact you haven't heard from the guy all year Speaks volumes to that. I mean, you can put... You could put Randy in the same bucket if you want, because, again, you never hear from Randy either. The reason I won't get on Randy as much is he's been your best bat all year. Number two, there's obviously... There is a language barrier there, so if Randy's going to talk, he needs a translator to do the interview with him. But three... Randy is not the problem with this team offensively. Randy's had his own problems this year, whether it's off the field with Cal or it's in the field or it's the lack of effort at points, which is why I still think it's crazy. I haven't heard much from him all year, but I can't put as much on him and say you should be available to talk when you've been the best hitter all year and you've been a major reason this team's had any level of offense. Naylor, though, I got nothing for you, man. 00:26:43 Speaker 1: That's fair, but it's not like People get everything they want from Randy as well, even when he does fuck up. 00:26:50 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Like when he dogged that ball in Tampa this year, he essentially said, I have to look out and do what's best for me, not the team, about why he jogged after that ball. 00:26:59 Speaker 1: At least he was being honest. 00:27:01 Speaker 2: That's true. But yes, you don't hear from Randy a lot either. But Naylor, you really don't hear from. And I would bet you, I would bet you. Let me just say this to the people listening to who might say, oh, well, these beat reporters should try harder. We just outlined why it's not as easy as you might think. But also, I would bet you they are also not exactly happy-go-lucky with the inability to talk to Josh Naylor. Like, I can imagine it probably drives them pretty crazy. 00:27:34 Speaker 1: I don't think it's an accident. that Adam Jude is calling out players for not being in the clubhouse after the game, and then specifically adding in after that a Dan Wilson quote about Josh Naylor. 00:27:48 Speaker 2: No. 00:27:48 Speaker 1: I don't think so. Which, by the way, like, even if Dan never saw Josh Naylor specifically running, which, by the way, Naylor ran right in front of him, and you can see the result of the play as well after that. Like, as a manager, you just gotta, like, how hard is it to just say, I feel Josh should have beaten that ball out to first base? 00:28:12 Speaker 2: You could say that, or you can say, yeah, we saw it, that's something we'll talk about internally. Great. That's all you need to say. Like, but as usual, Dan's like, well, I didn't see it. Dude, I don't care if you didn't see it. You're the manager. Somebody saw it, and somebody in your dugout at some point in between that play and when you sat down at the podium to answer questions either talked to you about it, showed you the video, etc. There was no way you didn't know about it in time for that presser. As usual, he is dodging every half-tough question he's ever asked. 00:28:48 Speaker 1: And then, you know, as a theme with most of his press conferences, he'll try and be like, yep, we just gotta be ready and Now we just got to be ready to play the next day. We can't, can't dwell on the moment too much. Well, the problem is like tomorrow now doesn't matter. 00:29:02 Speaker 2: No. 00:29:03 Speaker 1: So like today's game on Sunday, it doesn't really matter anymore. 00:29:07 Speaker 2: No, it was essentially over on Friday when they lost and had already lost two in a row to the A's. But the real nail in the coffin was Saturday, just between the way they lost and then everything that ensued here post game with players just refusing to talk. 00:29:25 Speaker 1: Last thing before we talk about, like, the slightest bit of positivity with Michael Arroyo coming up to close out this podcast. Softie has been— I thought he's been spot on with a lot of his comments that he's been tweeting out on Twitter. I mean, he's been— around the ringer. He's grew up here. He's been a Mariner fan his entire life. So he gets all of the highs and lows of this. But I think this tweet really hit home to me this weekend that he tweeted out yesterday, I think at the end of the game. He says, this is honestly the most disgusting Mariners season I can remember. There's been worse teams for sure, but the Mariners themselves put eight players from this team on their own top 50 list. They literally told us they thought this was one of the most talented teams they've ever had. 00:30:11 Speaker 4: Just an absolute massive miss. Never thought about it that way. That is a lot of players on a greatest of all time list. Although Teejit fits in with the rest of the 50, a bunch of players who. 00:30:24 Speaker 2: Have never won anything. 00:30:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. 00:30:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So par for the course, I guess. But yeah, what Softie's saying is exactly what I've been saying since about July. This is the worst season in the history of the Seattle Mariners. Not by record, not by overall win percentage. But by where the expectations were, how far short you've fallen, what the American League West looks like, what the American League looks like, all of it combined with what you did last year, it is far and away the worst season in the history of the franchise. I will stamp that 100 out of 100 times until another season proves me otherwise. 00:31:07 Speaker 1: Let's talk about Michael Arroyo for a minute. He gets promoted here on Sunday. He will probably, I hope, be in the lineup for every game the rest of the season. Whether he's struggling or whether he's performing well, I don't think he has anything left to lose at this point. Being in the lineup, he's at second base here today on Sunday. Like, we outlined it when Laz came up. He's probably a better fit on this roster than Laz is as a left-handed hitting outfielder. Laz hit better in AAA. So now we're going to get to see the balance of, I guess, our... excitement during the year on his production and whether or not he actually had a chance to impact this team going forward. It does benefit his development a lot, I think, to be up at the big league level and learning against some of these pitchers, especially the essential minor league pitching staff he's going to be facing the rest of the season. 00:31:59 Speaker 2: Sure. Why not, right? Again, you're facing the Angels, the Rockies, the A's again. It's not that different than what he was going to see in the PCL. 00:32:10 Speaker 1: The Astros, too, also have a shitty pitching staff. So he's going to get plenty of opportunity to hit. I would keep him in the lineup every single day. If JP needs a day off, I'm keeping Michael Arroyo in the lineup over him. If Josh Naylor needs a day off, I'm putting him at first base. I would prioritize playing Michael Arroyo and Laz Montes over a lot of these vets almost every single day. 00:32:33 Speaker 2: I mean, we don't need to see any more Weston Wilson at all. There should not be a game where Weston Wilson's in the lineup and Arroyo and Laz aren't for a reason that isn't injury-related. Like, at all. I don't think we need to see any more Taylor Ward either. Honestly, the Mariners could just waive him if they wanted. They probably won't because, again, they've taken no serious action all season, but they could. 00:32:57 Speaker 1: Or you could finally put Naylor on the IL for his wrists. 00:33:01 Speaker 2: And just end his season here, yeah. 00:33:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, you could do that. You've gotten to that point of the season... Where you, if you are serious about developing for 2027, then you need to find every single way possible to get your young guys in the lineup every single day and disregard everything else. Now, this would have been an opportunity for Colt Emerson. Eddie talked about his injury, but nope. Right. 00:33:24 Speaker 2: It's funny. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were saying how we refuse to hear the word 2027. We're not going to listen to it. Well, unfortunately, now they're in a spot where it is going to become about 2027 because you've pushed yourself so far out of it. And you're in a position now where, yes, prioritize for the future and play these young guys as much as you can in the final month. 00:33:43 Speaker 1: Let me amend that. We can talk about 2027. The people in charge of the franchise cannot. 00:33:49 Speaker 2: Correct. 00:33:50 Speaker 1: Because what needs to happen first is there needs to be answers for this season. 00:33:54 Speaker 2: Yes. Correct. And we are still waiting to get one. We're still waiting to get an answer on Game 7 and why Bazzardo was in that fucking game over Munoz. Nobody's answered that. Nope. Ever. Nope. I am happy for Michael Arroyo if you want the glass half full version of this again and a little bit of positivity. Has it been perfect for him in Tacoma? 00:34:18 Speaker 3: No. 00:34:18 Speaker 2: I mean, he's had about a 109 WRC plus with the Rainiers, which is a little bit above average. It's not lighting the world on fire. But to be fair, the profile suggests that he should translate to the big leagues okay. He walks a bit. He hasn't walked a ton this year. It's about 8%. But his strikeout rate continues to stay low. Made a lot of contact. He continues to get on base a lot. So I'm excited to see how this translates for him. The question is just going to be, again, can the bat translate to the big leagues? And the biggest question is, can he find a position? We know his defense is not clean. It is not graded well in the minors. But can it just be head above water in the big leagues? And at a couple different positions, can it be head above water defense? So you can have the opportunity to play as bad on the regular. 00:35:08 Speaker 1: And I'm going to want to see if he could consistently hit for power. I don't know if we'll see that in three weeks, but power has been the question as he's moved up the minors. He's been able to solve that because even this year at AA, he slugged in a very hard slugging park down in Arkansas. Of course, he slugged in the PCL. Everyone could slug in the PCL. Can he do that at the big league level as well? He's going to hit for a high enough average to actually get on base like You highlighted the walk rate. The walk rates are average to slightly below average this year, but he's still getting on base 35% of the time in the minor leagues, which is very good. Is he going to be able to have the power to really bring the value of that OPS and that WRC Plus up? We might not see that, though, until maybe May or June of next year if he makes the opening day roster next year and he's playing along every day and he's still getting his feet under him. But I think that's the big question for me. Overall, for Michael Arroyo, just... Getting reps. The results in the final three weeks of the season to me don't really matter that much. 00:36:11 Speaker 2: For him and Laz both, just get the playing time, get the at-bats, get the innings in the field, and take it to next season, where then your performance really is going to matter for a team that you would hope can actually put a winning product on the field. 00:36:24 Speaker 1: Also, I'm going to amend something we said about Laz. We said when he came up, he should not be hitting against lefties. He should be playing against every single lefty now. 00:36:32 Speaker 2: Well, now I don't care because, again, the season's over. Sorry, I shouldn't say I don't care. I should say now I want to see Laz play every day because, yes, since this season has gone completely down the drain, play the young guys and let Laz play every day. Yes, get him exposed against left-handed pitching. Let him see big league lefties regularly because at some point you don't want him to be a platoon bat. In a perfect world, he wouldn't be a platoon bat. So, yeah, let him hit lefties. 00:37:00 Speaker 1: The reason he wasn't playing on Saturday, I think he was still banged up from when he ran into the wall on Friday. Otherwise, I mean, Jeffrey Springs is the kind of left-handed pitcher you want him to hit against. 91-mile-an-hour fastball with no breaking balls, really? Like, that's who you want him to face. But you know what? Again, he will get plenty of mediocre left-handed pitching to face the rest of the season. 00:37:24 Speaker 2: I've got... A couple quick nuggets here before we wrap up. There's a couple things we didn't get to that I want to hit on. Speaking of Laz, again, if you want one more piece of positivity, it was really fun for the two of us to get to see him at the park on Friday. For as miserable as this team has been all year, Laz could not have been happier, cheerier, excited to be there. And, like, he stops with every person and gives them a hug. Like, he was talking to Rick Riz. He gave Riz a big hug on Friday. You know, he's... he's moving around conversing with all these different people. I mean, we had our back to last, we didn't even see him walk out, but he came right over to us and he wants to give us a hug. And, and he asked about us, like everything good with you guys, how are you guys doing? And he, and we asked about him obviously. And he's just talking about, Oh, you know, he's so thrilled and he's so happy to be here. And like, you know, family's good, everything. So for as much shit that has gone down with this team this year, it is very nice to have one beacon of positivity. And that is, Laz is a very, very easy guy to root for. 00:38:29 Speaker 1: He's got a lot of young Julio in him. 00:38:32 Speaker 2: Energy. 00:38:33 Speaker 1: If, if you haven't seen Laz like in person and seen the sort of personality from him, like at spring training specifically, cause that's when you would get to see it as a fan. It is a lot of young Julio energy and you really hope he just doesn't lose it. Cause it's, it's, it's great. The team could use a lot of it. Not that it's going to make much impact this year, but, It is nice to have a breath of fresh air personality-wise in that clubhouse. 00:39:00 Speaker 2: Can I give you one different comp since you used Julio? 00:39:03 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. 00:39:05 Speaker 2: He doesn't have the maturity of this player yet because he's only 21 years old, but there's a little bit of Geno that I see in Laz. 00:39:11 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:39:12 Speaker 2: Like, just personality-wise. Like, again, he's just in such a good mood all the time. Which is very nice. 00:39:19 Speaker 1: I can see that. We'll see how the personality evolves as he goes along and keeps playing. Right. 00:39:24 Speaker 2: But I hope he doesn't lose it. And again, we want Laz to be great. It would be the greatest thing ever if Laz is just a star. on this team. The reason we've talked about some of the negatives with him is just we have to give people the full picture of who he is as a player. And unfortunately, again, there's some people out there that will call him the next Babe Ruth. And that's just not fair to him. Again, he's going to have to make more contact in the zone. He's got to cut down on the strikeouts a bit. But we are rooting for him to do so every step of the way and rooting for him to just be an absolute monster in the big leagues for the Mariners because that would be the greatest thing. Laz is the man. A couple other notes. For Michael Arroyo on his call-up, it was Patrick Wisdom that ended up getting taken off the roster. And it reminded me that on Friday, we didn't talk about this earlier, but on Friday with their season essentially hanging in the balance, we got another carpenter meter moment where Dan Wilson decides to take Brock Rodden out of the game in the ninth against the lefty and Hogan Harris to pinch hit Patrick Wisdom. Not that Brock Rodden's lit the world on fire either, but he is a switch hitter. And Patrick Wisdom struck out. 00:40:31 Speaker 1: If you want the context of the Mariners season with that move, The Mariners pinch hit the seventh worst player of the season by F4 for the third worst player of the Mariners season by F4. Yeah. 00:40:45 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:40:46 Speaker 1: So bad. 00:40:47 Speaker 2: Bad. Not good. I said I was going to give a Julio stat, and I didn't give it until now. I will say this. Julio's WRC Plus against lefties in the second half entering this season has been... one 35, 2022 through 2025. That is what he did against lefties in the second half, which is again, where the absolute meat of his offense should come from. Cause he thrives in the second half and he hits lefties better than righties 2022 to 2025. He had a one 35 WRC plus against lefties in the second half this year against lefties in the second half, 27. 00:41:28 Speaker 1: There's not a one. It's just 27. 00:41:31 Speaker 2: Oh no, it's 27. It's essentially if you took 2024 Aaron Judge and turned him into a 95 WRC plus hitter the year later. That's what Julio's done against lefties in the second half. 00:41:45 Speaker 1: That's not very good. 00:41:46 Speaker 2: No, I'd call that a problem. 00:41:50 Speaker 1: What? How is it that the Mariners- The two guys in your lineup who should be two of the best hitters against lefties all season long. I guess, well, maybe you could do three with Cal because he's had such a bad year until like the last few weeks have all just been not good. Like even Julio, like in the, the like, I think Randy's the good example. Like Randy, this season against lefties actually hasn't been amazing at He's not been one of their best hitters against lefties. He's been way more actually productive against righties this year than he has been against lefties. But then Julio. 00:42:32 Speaker 2: Has a 27? In the second half against lefties, yep. 00:42:36 Speaker 1: On brand for this baseball team. 00:42:38 Speaker 2: It's unfathomable and unexplainable, and that would summarize the 2026 Mariners. 00:42:44 Speaker 1: Do you remember what we talked about at the beginning of this season? We talked about how this team could have a problem against left-handed pitching this year. But also, like, the justification for them being able to manage it is that you are going to have Cal Raleigh, who in 2025 had an OPS over 1,000 against lefties, and then Julio for his career has mashed lefties. So you're like, all right, I mean, and then you have Randy. You're like, Randy and then Rob Riff Snyder. And you're like, okay, with those four, I mean, those four should be dynamic enough against lefties that, like, they should be able to offset some of the struggles that your left-handed hitters have against that group. Instead, it's just been a catastrophic disaster. 00:43:27 Speaker 2: Well, and you can even throw a couple names, you can even throw a couple other names in because we said, JP isn't amazing against lefties, but he's fine. Josh Naylor isn't amazing against lefties, but he's fine. We said the problems would often come from Donovan, Raley, Canzone, players like that. Well, Dom Canzone's actually hit lefties. It's everybody else that has completely regressed to a point where they were never supposed to be. And that's how the Mariners are one of the worst teams in baseball against left-handed pitching. 00:43:57 Speaker 1: The Mariners this offseason need a full franchise autopsy from top to bottom. Whether or not they're actually going to do it is still to be determined. But offensively, defensively, pitching-wise, top to bottom autopsy. Yeah. I don't know how else you could respond to this season for anything besides that. 00:44:19 Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, again, coaches, front office, everything, top to bottom. 00:44:22 Speaker 1: Philosophies, messaging, planning, game planning, everything, full audit, top to bottom. Yes. 00:44:32 Speaker 2: And final thing, the Mariners were so bad this weekend that apparently they pissed off 6-9. 00:44:35 Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. 00:44:42 Speaker 2: Oh, dude, I forgot. 00:44:43 Speaker 1: I had honestly forgotten about six nine until that thing popped up on Saturday. And I was like, no way. I mean, obviously he must have been gambling on him. Of course, he must have had some money on them and was trashing on him. 00:44:57 Speaker 2: But yeah, let me be very clear here. I said it in the reaction we put on social media. I'll say it here. 6ix9ine, really, really bad dude. Don't get it wrong. Really, really horrendous human being. And he's also an awful rapper, but an even worse human being. But apparently he must have had some stupid wager placed on a September Mariners A's game with two teams combined about 40 games under 500 for God knows what reason he's placing bets on this game. And he's in the Mariners Instagram comments in the middle of the game, like screaming that they're not taking Logan Gilbert out of the game because they're going to lose. And everybody's like, oh, so you have money on this game. But everybody's like, why in the world is this moron in the Mariners Instagram comments in September? 00:45:43 Speaker 1: Maybe he should have watched the Mariners closer this year and he would have understood the scope of the 2026 M's. 00:45:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, something tells me he didn't do his homework on that bet. 00:45:53 Speaker 1: I'm going to think he and a lot of the, I'm going to say he did not not do that. 00:46:01 Speaker 2: No, I would agree. All right, that just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to listen to the full-form podcast, you can do so wherever you get your audio pods. Go download these episodes if you're listening. Make sure to rate and review. Please leave a five stars if you leave a review. It helps a ton. You can go hit subscribe on YouTube, which also helps significantly. If you're watching the podcast, you can find us on our website, marinelayerpod.com, which has everything there for you guys, whether it's merch that you want to purchase or Patreon that you want to get involved with or find any of our episodes. They're all there at our website. It's marinelayerpod.com. And then find us on social media, too. We're on all platforms. We're posting content every day at marinelayerpod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.