Episode 478: Why Haven't The Mariners Hired A Manager Yet?

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number 478 of the Marine Layer podcast, releasing it a little late on a Monday afternoon because we're waiting for the Mariners to hire their manager. And they haven't yet. We'll go over the reasons why we think that hasn't happened yet and a couple other housekeeping things. 00:00:15 Speaker 2: Reminder to you guys, just before we get going, make sure you go hit subscribe on YouTube if you're watching these podcasts. If you're listening to these podcasts, please go leave a five-star review when you rate and review this episode and this podcast. It helps a ton if you do. You can also check everything out over at our website, which is marinelayerpod.com. All of our podcast merch is there, which we'd love you to go and get. And then you can find us all across social media at marinelayerpod. 00:00:38 Speaker 1: Let's get it rolling. And you're welcome to this episode of the Marine Ladder Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording here on Monday afternoon, November 2nd. Lyle and I purposely delayed the release of this episode, anticipating the Mariners would hire a manager today. As of 4.24 p.m., Lyle, no dice. 00:01:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, not great. Not a great call on our part to try and wait it out, assuming it was going to be a Monday midday announcement. And no announcements. 00:01:23 Speaker 1: Well, at least there's more to talk about now, because we didn't have much to talk about yesterday, and at least there's a few other things that happened, given that the offseason officially started about two hours ago. 00:01:33 Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and now qualifying offers are being given out, and the Mariners made a few transactional moves today, and there will be some things with Cole Young winning his gold glove to talk about, which is awesome, but again, everybody's waiting around for the manager to get hired, and I think we figured it was going to be here by today, like you figured by Monday, you'd have their guy and they'd make the announcement, but no, we're, we're still waiting. We're still waiting. 00:01:57 Speaker 1: I mean, the timeline we have, right. Is that Joe Espada and Jason Kanzler were in Seattle for interviews in person to talk to management, to talk to ownership, to talk to players and whoever else is relevant to the conversation, like here physically in Seattle last week. And that they were the finalists. I don't know. No one officially ruled anyone else out. 00:02:24 Speaker 2: Right. 00:02:24 Speaker 1: Like they said, most likely those two are the final two they're going to be choosing from, but didn't close the door on whether or not they could potentially interview somebody else. 00:02:34 Speaker 2: I don't know. 00:02:34 Speaker 1: But those those guys were in town last week. And then, you know, here we are probably three business days later without a decision, without at least something that's been leaked. Right. 00:02:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's still a chance they're interviewing other people, and we'll get into that. I don't think, I mean, they have ruled out some candidates. I remember they said Brandon Hyde interviewed, but no longer moved forward in the process, so I'm assuming that means the Mariners just weren't interested in him. So there's people they've obviously ruled out, since they're down to their finalists, but I guess they haven't ruled out interviewing additional people, which is what is yet to be seen, and part of what's running through my head as the Mariners still haven't hired anybody yet. 00:03:20 Speaker 1: So there are like, there are three reasons. I, if you want like the brief synopsis of this breakdown, I put a social post out about this on Saturday. Cause I think Lyle and I also expected on Friday that we would have a manager hire as well, but that didn't end up happening on Fridays. We're sitting around waiting for something to happen. Thank goodness, Lyle, they didn't do it on, on Halloween. That would have been a, that would have been a, a bit of a chaotic schedule to try and figure out that the Mariners are like, Oh, surprise. Even though you mean just like, you mean just like releasing a podcast on a Saturday? I mean, I was busy. So like it would have been, it would have been, it would have been harder, but not impossible because we were for the people. So like the Astros hired their GM, I think on Saturday. Oh, right. 00:04:07 Speaker 2: And now they're going to get moving with their manager search. And it seemed like they wanted to hire their GM before they got going with the manager search. So yeah. 00:04:14 Speaker 1: Before we break down any of these reasons, I just want to point out to people that none of the three openings have been filled yet. This isn't a situation where the Mariners are the last team to hire a manager and no one is choosing them. We haven't reached that scenario yet. Now, the other two teams also need to hire... I mean, do the Angels need to hire a GM? The Astros did, and they hired one this week. 00:04:41 Speaker 2: I don't know if it's technically just going to be Mosaic or if they're going to hire someone else. I don't think they've made that clear. 00:04:47 Speaker 1: Well, he might be like, he might be in charge, but they still might hire someone else underneath him. 00:04:53 Speaker 2: Right. 00:04:53 Speaker 1: To fill out the rest of that front office. Cause they were also in sort of this front office transition period. So at the very least, the angels and Astros have not hired managers and you, you're not, you know, falling behind. Like here, here's like, The Seahawks comparison when they hired Mike McDonald, like a lot of other teams had hired head coaches at that point. And the Seahawks were like, okay, like pieces are falling off the board. Are you going to make a hire? But the reason they did do that is because they always had it circled. They wanted to talk to a certain guy and that was the guy they ended up hiring. Right? Yeah. 00:05:29 Speaker 2: The Mariners aren't in exactly that spot, but. You would hope they have people in mind. Maybe somebody's been offered the job and they're just waiting to take it or they're waiting to confirm that they're going to take it. 00:05:40 Speaker 1: Right. Okay, let's go over those scenarios. But first, I just want to mention that Lyle and I are both aware of the reaction for the comparison we made when we appeared on King 5 last week, and it did not come across well. And that is on us. We understand that when we don't provide proper discretion for the things we say, it leaves things open to interpretations and biases and microaggressions that we're not trying to make people associate with us because that's not what we mean. And that's not how we intend things to come across. So I just want to say like, we are aware of that and we are aware of where we misstepped and that we will do everything in our power in the future to make sure that all of our points have the proper discretion going forward. So for all of you that might've seen that, I hope this helps in a little bit of an understanding. 00:06:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, and just for people that... We talk about the Mariners needing to be accountable all the time. Just people in general need to be accountable. We can be accountable. We're not perfect. Obviously, again, as two people who really, really care about just being inclusive and everybody feeling welcome. I hope it's coming through in my voice. Those are two things we truly care about and truly stand for. So hopefully... This helps provide some clarity that, yeah, we know we need to just further provide context if we're going to make a comparison. We understand that. 00:07:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's get to these three reasons why the Mariners still have not hired a manager yet. Again, I talked about this on social. If you want a quicker version, head to our Instagram or a TikTok. Let's start off with number one, that the Mariners have not made a decision on their manager yet. So what would that look like if they haven't? 00:07:39 Speaker 2: Say that one more time. 00:07:41 Speaker 1: So if the Mariners haven't made a decision on their manager yet, like what scenario is playing out right now? 00:07:49 Speaker 2: There's a couple of different ones. You highlighted this, but I'll start with one. And it's one that we haven't talked about yet a ton, which is the Mariners aren't done interviewing people yet. And if the Mariners aren't done interviewing people yet, that likely means they're talking to candidates from Tampa and from Milwaukee and Two teams who they could not talk to until their seasons were over. And now that they're over, is there a possibility that they're looking at some of those candidates? Yeah, I'm sure there is. 00:08:16 Speaker 1: Yeah. Who that exactly is, Lyle and I honestly have no idea who that could be. I joked that if the Mariners were waiting to talk to Daniel Vogelbeck, well... I'm not sure when they would have talked to him given that he was just blasted during the Milwaukee Brewers parade on Friday. And I would imagine he probably would have been a little hungover on Saturday. So I'm not really sure when they would have had time to talk to him if he was the guy they were going to talk to. The Brewers don't also like officially have a bench coach. So narrowing down who, if it was going to be on the Brewers they could talk to, we weren't really that sure. On the Rays' side, I mean, we've mentioned this name before. It probably would be Rodney Linares, their bench coach. But otherwise, like, there's been no official reporting of those names out there. I don't think any of the, I really don't think any of the beat writers have thrown either of those two names out there in any sort of serious manner during the search. 00:09:24 Speaker 2: No, you haven't really heard their names. I've heard the names thrown out there in general, but there hasn't been any serious traction toward them getting interviewed or getting further along in the process. And part of that could be because the Rays just went all the way to the World Series and there wasn't a chance to interview guys from those teams, but... There also just hasn't been a ton of reporting that those are names that the Mariners were really interested in. They could be. They also could not be. It just hasn't really been public. The Mariners have been pretty tight lipped about this whole process. 00:10:00 Speaker 1: And if it wasn't someone on the Brewers or Rays that the Mariners are waiting to hear from, and maybe it's just the fact that they're still deciding between their two candidates, I feel like that would be an issue. I find that to be the least likely scenario. But if for some reason, The Mariners had those two candidates in Jason Kanzler and Joe Espada in town last week, had their interviews, and here on Monday still haven't made a decision on who it is. I feel like that would be a little problematic. Yeah, I would say for sure. 00:10:31 Speaker 2: And that goes along with the fact that you know that they were interested in Tori Lovello, stayed in Arizona, were interested in Rocco Baldelli, withdrew his name from the search. interested in Steven Vogt, but the Mariners decided not to pursue a trade or really pursue acquiring Vogt in one way or another. And I'm sure the Mariners would have been interested in Alex Cora if he was available, but Alex Cora doesn't seem to be taking a job anywhere in this cycle of manager searches. So that is four names, to be fair, that probably ranked ahead of their two finalists. You can't know for sure, but feels like there's a decent chance those four guys all would have ranked ahead. And they're not going to be the managers. So then you get further and further down the list and you say, yeah, it's possible that they weren't blown away by either candidate in their interview process. It's just who they were the most impressed with of their search. And they became the finalists. Again, you can't know that for sure. You can't not know that for sure. But you just see the tea leaves and you see all these people take themselves out of the running for the Mariners job. And you do wonder, you do wonder, it's like, oh, did the Mariners, Did the Mariners lose out on their plan A and then their plan B and then their plan C and they're really going down their list here? I mean, I think it's fair to ask. I don't think we can definitively say, but I think it's fair to ask. 00:11:45 Speaker 1: I will say at this stage, if you're going to decide on something, it does take a little bit longer to corral all the feedback you're looking for because the interviews when they came here in person weren't just to talk to Justin and Jerry. It was to talk to Mariners owners, It was to talk to Mariners players. It was to talk to whatever relevant support staff around the Mariners that this manager is going to have to work with on a day-to-day basis. So it's going to take Jerry and Justin time to sit there and have a conversation with all these guys and eventually come to a decision on who they're going to hire. But you would think here by Monday that decision would be made. To my next point, Lyle, maybe they have, and to point number two in this, maybe the Mariners have decided, but the candidate hasn't made a decision on whether or not they're going to accept the offer yet. 00:12:42 Speaker 2: I think that one's very likely. Maybe the Mariners came to their decision of who they wanted on Friday afternoon. And on Friday afternoon, they offered one of these two candidates the job. They told them, hey, think about it over the weekend and let us know by, let's call it here on Monday. And if that's the case, maybe as we're sitting here recording, one of their candidates has gotten back to them and said, hey, I'm in. I'd like to take the job. And then they'll announce it on Tuesday. Totally possible. Again, can't know for sure. But of the scenarios we're laying out here, that one definitely feels possible that Espada and Kanzler are the finalists and they're just waiting for a final yes. 00:13:23 Speaker 1: It is a little surprising to me why they wouldn't like. why we wouldn't have known or wouldn't have leaked by the time the offseason officially started. If, let's say, if we're presented with that scenario, that you have the entire weekend to make the decision, I would say, like, if I'm Jerry, by the time the offseason officially starts at 2 o'clock Pacific and 5 o'clock Eastern, I want to know a yes or a no. Because the clock's ticking on essentially exactly one month before Of the offseason to go, right? And you want to give yourself as much time possible with your manager. 00:14:00 Speaker 2: Well, and maybe they do know by 2 p.m. Pacific time here on Monday. They just haven't made it public until, let's say, they'll do it tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning. They could already know. But, you know, I mean, anybody, anybody that's gone through a job interview process knows how this sort of thing goes. And anybody that's obviously had a job when you get offered a job, you know how it usually goes. Could you just say yes on the spot? I'm in. Let's do it. Of course. But I'd say more often than not, how it goes when you get offered a job is you'll get offered a job and you'll say, hey, let me take a day or two to think about it. Talk to my family, talk to some people around me and I'll get back to you. And usually the employer says, yeah, just let us know in the next. 48 hours, 72 hours, whatever it might be. I'm guessing this isn't that different. 00:14:45 Speaker 1: Does it concern you someone didn't say yes right away? 00:14:50 Speaker 2: I mean, does anybody say yes to these jobs right away? I mean, look, at face value. 00:14:54 Speaker 1: Great question. 00:14:55 Speaker 2: At face value, yes, because again, it already seems like the Mariners have lost out on some candidates that they were more interested in than those guys. And I think that's where my concern more lies than the definitive yes on the spot. I think I'm more concerned with seeing Lovello and Baldelli and not going after vote and Cora not wanting any job as more of the concern. And for anybody that says, okay, Alex Cora wasn't going to take a job anywhere in this cycle, yeah, correct. But if Alex Cora thought the Mariners was such a destination job, then he would have been open to at least being interviewed. But clearly Cora does not think this is some over-the-moon type job because he didn't even put his name into the search. So I think that concerns me more than one of these candidates not saying yes right on the spot. Again, I think I'd just compare it to any job interview. When I got the job to broadcast minor league baseball for one season and I got offered the job, I was ecstatic about it because that was the entry-level job in sports media that I'd really been working for at that point because I thought I wanted to broadcast games. But even as excited as I was to be offered that job on the spot, I still said, can I have a day or two just to talk about it with some people? And then I'll get back to you. Even though in my head, I knew like, yeah, I'm going to take that job. I think that's pretty common that people just want to take their time. Don't make an emotional decision one way or another and just get some additional perspective from people around them that they care about. 00:16:24 Speaker 1: Yeah. Not to rush into anything, especially a job as important as this one and one that would require moving and it requires a lot of other a big time commitment and a lot of travel. Like there are a lot of questions around that. So yeah, maybe it does take a few days for the candidate to say yes to this job interview. Right. That all being said, I'm very surprised. We still haven't heard anything by now because if this was, if this was a normal off season, they could take like two more weeks in November before announcing who their manager is going to be. And I like, while we might be impatient and waiting on news, uh, It might not really even matter that much because the offseason doesn't really get going under any normal circumstance until the winter meetings when things really ramp up and agents are getting in front of executives to get stuff done. I guess I could say the GM meetings, which I believe are next week or the week after. The GM meetings, I'd say, is when the offseason really does start. But again, that's not for a couple of weeks. So if they wanted to wait until then, that's fine, whatever. This offseason is going to go from here Monday, November 2nd at 5 o'clock Eastern until 1159 p.m. Eastern on December 1st. Right. 00:17:41 Speaker 2: And I was just going to give some additional context to what you talked about with the winter meetings. You usually don't see a lot of significant free agent signings until the winter meetings. Now, the offseason will get going in the month of November most years, but it's usually trades. The difference with trades is Players don't get a say in where they're going to play when trades happen. So you don't necessarily have to have a manager in place on the spot when a trade is made. It is pretty important that you have a manager in place when courting and attempting to sign a free agent because the free agent is going to want to know the manager they're playing for. Likelihood is the manager is in some of these meetings with the free agent. So it's a little different in other years where, to your point, yeah, they could take till the middle of November if they wanted, but they cannot do that this year. 00:18:28 Speaker 1: No. So if you want Seya, if you want Ian Happ, like that Mariners are going to need to sign a manager first. So he's in on that kind of discussion. So, yeah, the three points are the Mariners haven't decided yet. The candidate hasn't decided yet, or they just haven't announced it yet. Maybe we will have another podcast out. less than 24 hours after this one comes out reacting to the Mariners having a new, new manager. And this is all for not, which I honestly feel like is increasingly likely every day that goes on forward. I think it just more and more likely they're going to hire someone. Yeah. Why they haven't yet. 00:19:02 Speaker 2: I don't know. Same. 00:19:03 Speaker 1: Like I wish I had an answer. I think we wish we could just get on with this off season. Like otherwise, like I think Lyle and I have a really fun, like trade idea proposal off of some of the other rumors that have come out this week. But yeah, Again, none of it really matters until the Mariners hire a manager because that is their top priority as an organization right now, what they're spending the most energy on. And we have to reflect that as well. 00:19:28 Speaker 2: There was some reporting today that the Mariners feel like a team on a short list of other teams that could really make a splash this offseason, a big splash. And if a manager still isn't hired before Wednesday, that'll probably be the topic of Wednesday's episode is what could a splash look like? How aggressive will they get? But if a manager is higher, we're going to talk about a manager and then we'll save that topic for a couple episodes from now. 00:19:53 Speaker 1: Right. So off season has started though. 00:19:57 Speaker 2: Everybody, right. 00:19:58 Speaker 1: There's a trade. They could technically make a trade right now. 00:20:01 Speaker 2: Right. 00:20:01 Speaker 1: A couple other housekeeping things to go over. Let's start out with the qualifying offers. So Randy Rosarena has officially been offered his qualifying offer by the Mariners. The qualifying offer this year is for a one-year deal for $ 23. 05 million. A very, very healthy amount. It's essentially like the average of the top 50 contracts, AV, I want to say. Roughly that. 50, 20, I forget the number. But it is the average of the top amount of contracts, and that's what it comes out to this year. If Randy accepts that, then he comes back to the Mariners on that one-year deal for $ 23 million. If he rejects it and he gets over $ 50 million in free agency, then the Mariners will get a compensation pick after the first round of next year's draft. I'm guessing, Lyle, the Mariners are offering this to Randy Rosarena so he can reject it and get more money on the open market. If I were to guess, Randy's going to get a higher AAV than that and more years. 00:21:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, the projection was about $ 25 million. The qualifying offer would be $ 23 million. So we'll see what he ends up getting on the open market. But yes, the big factor here is Randy Orozarena is going to get paid. And he knows, and Scott Boris knows, that they can get a lot more money than just a one-year deal. So they will most likely reject the offer. They will test free agency. There's a likelihood that... There could be a contract in front of them that could be close to $ 100 million, depending on what teams are willing to offer. And if that's the case, then I think they know that they're not going to take a one-year deal. And the Mariners know that they're probably going to get a draft pick from that. And then that way it benefits the Mariners if Randy decides to go somewhere else. 00:21:49 Speaker 1: Taking the qualifying offer can be tricky because there are players who have taken it in the past. And if you take one, I believe you can be offered the qualifying offer again the following year. And you're always going to have that attached to you. So if you sign a multi-year deal, that's the easiest way to avoid having any sort of drag behind you that this qualifying offer has. Because what the team signing Randy Rosarena is going to have to do, in case you were not aware of this, is that you lose a draft pick now when you sign Randy. And that draft pick essentially goes to the Mariners instead of you keeping that draft pick. So if you constantly have a qualifying offer attached to you, then you're always going to have the fear from the team signing you that they're going to lose a draft pick by signing you to their team, which is I think why a lot of players don't like taking these one-year deals, even for a lot of money. Right. 00:22:43 Speaker 2: But ultimately, the lost draft pick doesn't usually end up being the end-all, be-all factor for signing a free agent because most of these free agents these days have the qualifying offers attached to them, and they still sign huge deals. 00:22:55 Speaker 1: Yeah. If it's like the Red Sox, I don't think they're going to be that worried. I don't think. If you're in win-now mode, you won't be that worried. If you're the Marlins, maybe it's a little bit different, especially when your budget's not that big. We're not expecting Randy to pick that up, and we're not expecting the Mariners to offer Randy a contract that he would say yes to in free agency. Right. 00:23:20 Speaker 2: I think that's what most people... believe at this point, right? That likelihood is he will get more money somewhere else. Do you think the Mariners make him an offer? They might make him an offer, but probably not one that Scott Boris and Randy Rosarena will say yes to. Because again, if the contract he ends up getting is anything like the projection, then I think you're going to see another team not name the Mariners pay up that money, whether it's the Mets, whether it's the Red Sox, somebody like that. 00:23:53 Speaker 1: If it's four years for $ 100 million, then I don't think the Mariners are going to offer him a contract. I'd be curious to know what number they'd even think about offering him, or if they would just decide not to offer him a contract, which also I don't think would surprise me. 00:24:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. 00:24:12 Speaker 1: The other bit of news coming out from the big league roster is that Cole Young wins the gold glove at second base. Congrats to Cole Young. There's a bit of a conundrum on the case of Cole Young, who I think deserved to win that award based on what we watched this season, like a very clear, shining star on defense amongst not a great defensive group. Cole Young excelled this year a lot in defensive runs saved. He was top 10 in the entire league, tied with P. Crow Armstrong, of all people, in defensive runs saved. Alex above average didn't like it as didn't like him as much. And there was like a very clear discretion between the two, but it seemed like the voters really emphasize defensive run saved this season. 00:24:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, it did. Which, in that case, that's awesome for Cole Young, because he was top 10 in the league in defensive runs saved. He, I believe, led all second basemen in defensive runs saved, then won the award. Now, if you use some of the other metrics, Chase Mydroth ranked better than him in outs above average and in fielding run value, which essentially signals that Mydroth had better range at second base than Cole Young did. But Cole Young actually saved more runs. Than my job did is what that stat says. And we look, Cole Young absolutely deserved to be a finalist. And like you, I think he deserved to win the award. Defensive metrics are still new and they're not perfect. So it's hard to have one definitive defensive stat that clears all because it's just not the easiest thing in the world to measure defense. But for what Cole Young did, I think it's certain that he was a very, very good defender at second base. and had a serious case to win the gold glove, and I'm really, really happy that he did. Because for a team that really played some awful defense for the majority of the year, Cole Young was the one bright spot on that defense, and he's rewarded for it. 00:26:04 Speaker 1: And Cole's the story of someone who, when he came up, was not a polished defender at second base, and put in the work necessary to become the best defender on that infield. Which you would hope now, with people seeing that example for a bit, will put in that same work to be better defenders across the board next year. And I don't know, Lyle, maybe perhaps there's an expectation set of being a better defensive team up and down the coaching staff, you would think. 00:26:30 Speaker 2: You would hope. You can only hope. But seriously, credit to Cole. He really worked hard at his defense. Like he really put in the time and effort to improving it this year after what was an up and down rookie season defensively. But man, he really took a step forward in a big way. at a position that the Mariners have had a lot of different people play over the last 10 years or so since Robbie left. But they've got their second baseman. Barring anything unforeseen, like a blockbuster trade that would include Cole Young, the Mariners have their second baseman for a good while. And Cole Young's a very good second baseman. He plays good defense, he has some pop, and he's still got room to improve even further with the bat. He's got a good approach, like... In a perfect world, Cole Young's your nine-hitter, and he's a very good nine-hitter that plays quality defense and, by war, is a top 10 second baseman every year. 00:27:23 Speaker 1: Or if the Mariners trade Brian Wu for Cattell Marte. Oh, boy. Hey, maybe last offseason. We talked about it last offseason. But we've now had a full season since. Absolutely not. 00:27:39 Speaker 2: Well, I don't think we ever... Said Brian Wu for Cattell Marte. 00:27:43 Speaker 1: No, we did not. But, I mean, we were talking about trading Cole Young. Yeah. 00:27:48 Speaker 2: And I saw the guys on Foul Territory talking about today. I think at this point a Cattell Marte trade is a lot easier said than done because I just don't know how many teams are going to want to take on his money and just trade for him, period, at this point. 00:28:05 Speaker 1: Deal with him. And you have to convince Cattell Marte to say yes to a trade. Right. He's got 10 and 5 rights. Right. Exactly. Which we were talking about last offseason. It's like, if you want to trade for him, now is the time to trade for him. I think everyone did their homework on Cattell Marte last offseason and rightfully did not trade for him. Right. 00:28:26 Speaker 2: Or at least not what the Diamondbacks were asking for. 00:28:29 Speaker 1: No, I mean, if you were to give up no prospects for Cattell Marte, would you manage his personality within a clubhouse? Probably. But if you had to give up a gold glove second baseman with a positive ops plus at age 22 and that's probably a pretty hard thing to ask of right yeah great. 00:28:49 Speaker 2: Anything i mean i guess the only other thing in mariners in mariners land in terms of news is they made one waiver claim and otherwise outrighted a bunch of players off the 60 or not outrighted but took a bunch of players off the 60 day il and just technically put them in triple a tacoma for the time being i don't know if that's. 00:29:06 Speaker 1: Really news but well there's news on one name while. 00:29:11 Speaker 2: Who is? 00:29:13 Speaker 1: Weston Wilson's back in AAA. Yeah. 00:29:17 Speaker 2: Is he going to get a locker at spring training? Like, is he still going to be in this organization when spring training starts? 00:29:25 Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's a guarantee he's in, like, big league camp. He doesn't have to be at big league camp. I guess maybe at the beginning. Most guys are at big league camp at the beginning. 00:29:33 Speaker 2: Again, like, I said this at points last year, too. at the end of last season. I'm sure he's a nice dude, Weston Wilson. I'm sure he is. Unfortunately, on the baseball field, he just did not have one redeeming trait all year in all the games he played. Like, he didn't hit. He was an awful fielder. He didn't run well. He didn't hit lefties. He struck out a ton. I... I guess it's just depth, but I think a lot of things would have to go wrong for him to get playing time again next year. I'm not totally convinced he's still in the organization by the time spring training starts, but yeah. 00:30:14 Speaker 1: The goal is to build up enough depth where he is not an option, even when you do have injuries. Right. And you don't reach a scenario where he's the guy coming up to hit lefties. 00:30:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess if he's just on the Rainiers all year, okay. 00:30:29 Speaker 1: Patrick Wisdom was worse than Weston Wilson last year, and he's a great player in AAA. Right. 00:30:39 Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess we'll see. Otherwise, it's just other names that you'd expect. Like Logan Evans technically gets put off the 60-day IL for now, because I think you have to take players off the 60-day IL during the offseason, and you just put them in in AAA Tacoma, technically. But they'll re-add those guys once the season starts or leave guys off if they're healthy once the season starts. 00:31:03 Speaker 1: Yeah. There's nothing surprising on guys going down. For a guy who I think ended the season on the big league roster, like Josh Simpson, was on waivers and went down to Tacoma. 00:31:15 Speaker 2: But. 00:31:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, otherwise it's just nothing that interesting. If you want like a TLDR on Isaac Mattson, who I would imagine will be competing for a bullpen spot next season in spring training, his profile's kind of interesting. Well, I guess first off on the dude himself, earned rave reviews from our friends at Bucko Banner, also part of the Just Baseball podcast network. They could not talk higher of this guy as a person. So that's a good thing. In terms of the pitch profile, his season in 2026 wasn't great for him. He had an ERA of 5.35 and an XERA of over 6. Not good. The season before, he threw more innings. He had an ERA of 2.45 and an XERA of 3.31. He's essentially fastball only. It doesn't have the most velocity in the world, but he throws it. like between 70 to 80% of the time with above average spin. And that leads to about an above average strikeout rate and about an average walk rate. So if you were to come to Seattle, like you would just expect to see a lot of, a lot of fastballs from him. 00:32:27 Speaker 2: And maybe the Mariners try to develop a second pitch where he has something else to truly offer in the bullpen. Yeah. The, the long story short on Mattson is 2025. He was very good. 2026, he just wasn't getting outs. But there's things under the hood that actually suggest that maybe he was a bit unlucky last year. Like, his fit from 25 and 26 are about the same. Now, you actually have to go get outs, and him finding ways to get outs and limit base runners and limit free passes is going to be important, and potentially developing another pitch would be important. But, yeah, like, I wouldn't look at this as the Mariners locking down somebody in their bullpen for 2027. But it's just another name to have in camp that if he performs and he really jumps off the page, yeah, it's a chance to add somebody to the end of that bullpen who maybe has some upside to contribute something. 00:33:21 Speaker 1: In 2025, if you want a positive, so he threw his fastball 78.5% of the time in 2025. He generated an 8-run value on the pitch with a batting average below 200, a slugging percentage below 300. uh, striking out 25% of outers and getting a 23% whiff rate with his fastball for a fastball. That's not thrown above, uh, 95 miles an hour. That's, that's pretty good. That's some pretty good life. We're able to generate on that pitch and get some swing and miss. You probably want to try and find a way to recreate that value and that effectiveness with that pitch. Wow. Introducing more, uh, more pitches. In the Mariners' perspective, they probably might want him to throw a sinker more as well if he's going to throw fastballs this much. Right. 00:34:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be. But he had a 2-4-5 ERA in 2025. He has had a good season in the big leagues, so we'll see what the Mariners can do with him. Yeah, I mean, they make waiver claims like this. A lot of them don't work out, and those are more the stories you don't hear as much about. but there's something to do. Gabe Spire, they just simply claimed off waivers from the Royals after the 2022 season. That worked out. So Mattson could be Gabe Spire. He could also just be somebody you don't hear much of once the season starts. That is to be determined. But he has things to like, and if he's half as good a dude as our friends at Bucko Banner say that he is, one, I hope to meet him at some point, and two, I'm rooting for him. 00:34:50 Speaker 1: How funny is it to think of that, like, Gabe Spire probably got, like, the same... brief little conversation on this podcast, like four years ago, just like, Oh, Oh, they, they, they claim this dude. Yeah. 00:35:02 Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I don't even know. I mean, maybe we could go all the way back and see if we talked about him for a minute or not, but yeah, that's probably true. We probably were like, Oh, okay. They just claimed some lefty from Kansas city. And then he ended up being like maybe the most vital piece of their bullpen combined over the last four years, aside from Andres Munoz. Yeah. 00:35:21 Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah. That is fun to think about. Also, dog, next week, four years. That'll be a pretty fun accomplishment. I think it's November 10th was our first one. Oh, you're going with the exact date. I mean, we started so late in 2022. I usually just call the end of the calendar year the year. That's what I usually do. I mean, it'll be a four-year total window from the start of November to the end of the season. 00:35:49 Speaker 2: That's true. I usually just bookend November. Like the end of December is the end of the year. So yes, that is the technical date. You're right. From the first time we published an episode. But I usually just think of the end of the year as the year because we started so late in 2022. Yeah. 00:36:04 Speaker 1: Fun times. 00:36:05 Speaker 2: Well, now we wait. Hopefully the next time we hit record, the Mariners have a manager. I can't guarantee it, but we can hope. 00:36:13 Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I hope we, you know, I hope there is going to be, we will record another podcast on Tuesday reacting to the next Mariners manager. And then now everyone fully understands like this next month is going to be a sprint to the off season. Like we're hoping the Mariners pack their entire off season into this month and that we reach December 1st at midnight. And we're not sitting here saying, man, there's still gaping holes on this team, which I know is going to happen, but one can hope that we reached that point. It's like, all right, I feel very good about the Mariners off season and Where, if they're going to resume and go straight to spring training, that they don't have these glaring holes on their roster. 00:36:55 Speaker 2: Correct. And you know what? I'll spend 60 seconds on this here, too, for a minute. Go claim Jake Myers. I know that sounds crazy to be banging the drum for a fourth outfielder, but the Astros let him go today. They put him on waivers. That is the exact type of fourth outfielder I think the Mariners need. He is a very good athlete. He is great defensively. He's a right-handed bat. He doesn't like the world on fire with his bat, but you'd be putting him on the roster because he's a really good athlete who plays really, really quality defense in the outfield. If you go sign somebody like him or claim somebody like him, then how I talk, you remember how I talked about the Mariners needs Edmundo Sosa and Mauricio Dubon? 00:37:34 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:37:34 Speaker 2: Well, in theory they do. because those guys are actually free agents. But if you go claim Jake Myers for what I'm guessing would be the league minimum, then you probably only need one of those guys. And then you've got a much better bench with guys that can play a lot more roles and, and in spots that can help them. Like Jake Myers would be a great addition. I hope they go claim them. 00:37:54 Speaker 1: Well, or simply you need someone to replace Victor Robles now. Oh, his option. Right. That, that fourth outfielder spot is now open. And, Based on what we watched last season, you would want someone who can play quality defense. And if you need a selling point on Jake Myers, he was 96th percentile on outs above average in 2025. In 2024, he was 97th percentile. In 2023, he was 93rd percentile. So yeah, if you want someone to come in here and when you put him in the outfield, he's going to make every single play you want. 00:38:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that'd be good. 00:38:28 Speaker 1: Him. 00:38:28 Speaker 2: He's not a great hitter, but he is a great defender. And he's good enough on the base pads. He's not Chandler Simpson fast, but he can run well. So they need more guys like that. 00:38:40 Speaker 1: The goal is you're not signing him that you get to July and all of a sudden Jake Myers has to play every single day for you. The hope is that Jake Myers does not have to play every single day all season. And that he is in there to do what he does best. 00:38:52 Speaker 2: Right. 2026, he was mostly injured. So his numbers from last year aren't great because he was banged up most of the year. But yes, they could really use somebody like that. I hope they go and go and get him. Okay. 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. Make sure to download these episodes if you're listening. Go rate and review. Please leave a five stars. It helps a ton. You can also hit subscribe on YouTube, which really helps the channel. If you're watching the podcast, you can find everything at our website, which is marine layer pod.com all of our podcast merch episodes patreon it's all over there and then check us out on social media at marine layer pod that's tj i'm lyle as always we thank you guys for tuning in we'll talk to you soon Thank you.